Latest from these Pacific Northwest doomdronedirge crushers, and it's another fantastically epic sprawl of tranced out blackness in the form of two sidelong jams, PLUS a 'reinterpretation' of the A side by Author And Punisher included with the digital download - more on that in a second.
While these guys are most definitely heavy, historically they've tempered their churning creep and abstract black ambient drift, with something much more melodic and psychedelic, never moreso than here, the A side beginning with a simple plodding, ritualistic drumbeat, which is soon joined by some dreamy sitar like buzz, swirling swaths of chordal drone, and some effected chantlike vox. Imagine a more mellow Sunroof" mixed with a little Om-ish dirgery, and then spaced out into something much more prismatic and dreamy. It's not until about half way through that things get truly doomy, the residual synthy swirls and woozy melodies remain, but in the place of that slow tribal plod, the drums have become a caveman pound, the guitars too, now corrosive and crumbling, the whole song shifting into full on doom dirge mode, but everything swathed in a hazy sun dappled dreaminess, that makes everything sound less heavy, and more hypnotic, sans the vokills, this could be some lost instrumental Nadja jam. It also reminds us of recent aQ slowcore doom faves Bell Witch.
The B side offers up a similar variation, working with the same sonic palette, but this time beginning with a softly pulsing dronescape, all distant rumbles, buried melodies, murky textures, slow soft swells of chordal thrum, which gradually gives way to a lumbering slowcore dirge, but more washed out and weary, that heavy, clean guitar chords are hung over the simple drums, the harsh vox buried way back in the mix, the result a sort of woozy, buzzy ballad, those clean vocals resurfacing again, making the whole thing sound more gloomy and gothy than metal, a sort of gloomdirge dreaminess, which here blossoms into something epic and majestic, soaring melodies, all the sounds building and building to a post rock style denouement, but again, still retaining all of the darkness of the group's doom core. The last few minutes finds the heavy guitars peeled back, and the drums dropping out, leaving just a gorgeous stretch of blissed out psych-drone drift, melodic, melancholy, and surprisingly lovely.
The accompanying download includes the songs proper of course, but also a bonus track, a reworking from Author And Punisher, who employs his arsenal of homebuilt noise makers, to at least initially, make the sound even more abstract, a sea of roiling rumbles beneath the simple drum plod, and creepy cinematic main melody, before adding some serious industrial pummel, and robotic pound to the second half, as well as a corrosive layer of crumbling buzz, culminating in an epic outro, that whips all the sounds up into a dense, tense, emotionally charged, and sonically punishing finale.
Super swank silkscreened packaging, metallic silver and grey on matte cardstock sleeves, with a download coupon obviously as well.
Yes! One of our favorite beatnik exotica records sees the light of day again in a really nice reissue of this 1960 lp. Eden Ahbez was a unique American figure, a back-to-nature hippie mystic in the 1940's long before popular culture even knew what a hippie was. Ahbez wandered back and forth across the country on foot before landing in LA and hanging in a tight circle of raw food enthusiasts and other colorful off-the-grid characters. He often wrote poetry and played the flute and one fortuitous day in 1948, he left a song at the studio for Nat King Cole called "Nature Boy" and it surprisingly became a number one song and an international hit, covered by Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, George Benson and even later by Alex Chilton and Big Star! For a brief moment, the song made Ahbez a pop culture curiosity with magazine interviews and invitations to perform that were politely declined. Using royalties from that song, Ahbez was able to take care of his family and record music and write poetry, the results being this sole lp, Eden's Island. Against a backdrop of flutes, bongos, marimabas and bird calls, Ahbez intones poetic verse about seeking spirituality in natural paradises with the rhythms of the ocean and surf, giving a more meaningful heft to the Martin Denny type of Tiki Room exotica. Its peaceful vibe of removing oneself from the daily hassles and pressures of society towards the spiritual isolation of island life was easily a touchstone of the hippie movement even though it sounds a bit novel nowadays. Still the music with female background singers, island atmospheres and relaxing poetic delivery manages to beguile and transport even the most world-weary listener. An exotica record clearly in a league of its own.
On the last list, we reviewed the first collaboration between Russian composer / pianist Batagov and the mysterious XMZ, which resulted in a strange sort of post-classical Batagov, with swirling atmospheres, dense drones, and perhaps strangest of all beats, Batagov's ethereal, dreamlike pianoscapes transformed into something much more rhythmic and electronic and 'modern'. For their second collaboration Batagov augments his usual piano with one that has been prepared, as is evidenced in the picture on the back cover, which features a shot of the strings inside the piano, augmented by screws, dowels, quarters and allen wrenches, with Batagov not just playing that prepared piano, but also the strings inside, adding plucks and scrapes, haunting pizzicato melodies, and all manner of percussive textures.
The mood this time around is much more somber, and soundtracky, XMZ adding thick swirls of rumble and whir, of lush chordal thrum, and slow shifting shimmer, drifting clouds of soft-noise blurred into washed put prismatic smears, over which Batagov unfurls stately, melancholic melodies here, creepy atonal plinks and plonks there. The first few tracks are hushed dark drifts, moody and murky, Batagov's melodies floating weightless amidst streaks of grey and woozy burbling whirs and hums, the result is darkly dream, and mysteriously meditative, it's not really until the fourth track that the sun begins to shine through, that track unfurling like a Philip Glass / Oval mash up, the backdrop a murky swirl over which Batagov flits elegantly. But those moments of light are fleeting, as the mood darkens almost immediately after, Batagov and XMZ weaving a hazy dirge, tense and minor key and quite dramatic, which is only magnified on the follow up, which seems to blur and bleed and ooze into something much more abstract, and nearly terrifying, a could-be score for some lost arty seventies giallo, sinister and smoldering.
The last few tracks mix it up a bit, slipping from Caretaker like haunted ballroom shimmer, to something surprisingly almost flamenco sounding, the first beats we've heard so far, a shuffling skitter, underpinned by a house music like pulse, if Batagov was playing synths instead of pianos, it could almost be some strange sort of Umberto / Zombi retro-soundtrack thing, but instead, it's much more moody and measured. And finally, the two finish off with another Caretaker-ish bit of ghostly drift, the prepared piano sounding almost zither like, the piano proper unfurling gorgeous dreamy melodies, all swathed in a softly swirling cloud of gauze-y ambience.
Another winner from Batagov, and yet another sonic side to this aQ beloved modern classical master...
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Pentagram fans, Trouble fans, The Obsessed fans, Black Sabbath fans, lend us your ears!! Underground old school occult metallers Bedemon are back, which is a minor miracle, considering that their main songwriter died over ten years ago�
We weren't expecting this to be as good as it is. But it's pretty great. Now, we all loved the other Bedemon cd we reviewed back in 2005, Child Of Darkness, the one that consisted of vintage lo-fi old demo / practice space recordings that this band did back in the '70s, 'cause as you may know, Bedemon was formed in '73 as a solo side project by then-Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer - but Bedemon never released an album during Palmer's lifetime (he was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 2002). Those Child Of Darkness tracks had Pentagram vocalist Bobby Liebling on the mic, so they really sounded like long lost Pentagram songs, really good ones. And of course we thought that that posthumous collection was all we were ever going to hear from Bedemon, for obvious reasons. But then we heard that this was coming out, an album of hitherto unreleased Bedemon songs that Randy Palmer had been working on before he died, those recordings at last completed by the surviving members of the band, consisting of fellow former original Pentagram member Geof O'Keefe (drums/guitars), and Mike Matthews (bass), both of whom were on those basement Bedemon demos from the '70s, plus 'new' vocalist Crag Junghandel, replacing Liebling - and doing a good job of it, bringing a dramatic intensity to the role, kind of a Dio to Liebling's Ozzy if you will.
Hearing this, you can tell why these guys felt that they HAD to finish this album, in tribute to the true doom songwriting talent of their friend Palmer, whose songs are super Sabbathy for sure (some of this is very "Electric Funeral") but also have their own sinister vibe, one that's strangely funky at times too, even on a lumbering tune like 9+ minute "Godless", that one also an example of how some of the tracks are pretty long, sprawling and psychedelically jammy, with wild guitar soloing and some gloomy organ. The vibe here is dark and doomy, but also rockin', some passages replete with handclaps and cowbell. The atmosphere, the riffs, all of this is definitely what any Bedemon/Pentagram fan could wish for, much much better recorded than Child Of Darkness of course but still raw and powerful, and clearly still rooted in the '70s.
Rest In Peace, Randy Palmer, and keep on rockin' wherever you are.
Currently a faculty member in the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, John Bischoff has been composing music with computers and electronics since the mid 70s, and has always focused his compositions towards malleable forms that best suit live performances. Within this context, Bischoff seeks to position the construction of sound far beyond the common perception of synthetic music as a mere simulation of the intrinsic sounds of traditional instruments. Instead, Bischoff qualifies his work as the realization of a "reflective intention," where he determines sonic structure not only through the predetermined elements which go into a piece, but also through the active process of listening to the music as it happens and responding accordingly. During the '70s when programming involved crude systems of binary code, Bischoff's vision of the possibilities for computer-based composition fused to performative agency seemed implausible; yet in hindsight, his artistic imperatives were incredibly prescient of contemporary tools such as the nearly omnipotent audio synthesis language Max/MSP, which has been at the core of Bischoff's recent work. An aptly named set of compositions, Aperture opens the possibility for multiple readings through a series of diverse techniques ranging from additive synthesis to FM synthesis to sampled-based processes. Each of the pieces on the album was recorded in real-time with no overdubs. Aperture introduces itself with clusters of samples that sprawl with the deliberate pacing of Morton Feldman's later period, yet Bischoff renders what might be recognizable citations of a piano or percussion as pointillist condensations of digitized pixels and precise plastic details. Over the course of the following pieces, Bischoff unleashes coarse streams of electrons which flange and pulse within the caustic firestorm of divergent timestretching, giving the impression that Bischoff is quite literally tearing the fabric of sound. Bischoff also offers a collaboration with Kenneth Atchley and complements the oversaturated physical noise of Atchley's water fountain sculptures with short digital articulations that ride on the top of Atchley's dense textures.
This is Bischoff's first recording in quite sometime, and has been well worth the wait!
As much as we love the manic bass and drum craziness of Lightning Bolt, for whatever reason, we had never reviewed any records by Black Pus, Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale's solo project. It's not that we didn't like it, it was just that to our ears it sounded a lot like Lightning Bolt, and maybe, like a slightly sloppier, noisier version, missing the other Brian in Lightning Bolt's insanely dexterous bass playing. But ultimately, the formula was the same, Chippendale bashing away an insane rhythm, accompanied by all manner of home brewed noise and his microphone-mask distorto-vox. And while this new one is essentially the same, it's also maybe our favorite one yet, and the closest we think Chippendale has come to capturing the manic energy and weirdly warped songcraft of Black Pus on record.
Imagine a more melodic, slightly slower, less crazed and chaotic Lightning Bolt, and you might be getting close, although to be fair, it's really not all that less manic or even that much slower, but what it is, is Chippendale making a glorious rhythmic racket, and somehow making that racket into sort-of-songs. The opener could actually be a Lightning Bolt song, but with the bass replaced by thick swaths of low end buzz, synths maybe? or some sort of noise generator (or heck, it could still be bass), but instead of insane melodies, it's just a heaving wall of sound, churning and roiling, while Chippendale continues to bash away on the drums, an insane flurry of wild, octopoidal chaos, his vocals a weird Jello Biafra like croon, wreathed in distortion and buried in the mix. There's an actual chorus of sorts, that some noiseniks could get stuck in their head, and stick around for the insane effects flecked glitched out drum solo finale. Phew. Totally exhausting to listen to, still mind boggling how someone can play this. But really, it's the second track, "Fly On The Wall", that's gonna win you over, a dense, roiling slab of post punk via Lightning Bolt's noise rock crush, deep dramatic vox, a throbbing pulsing chordal bass throb, the vibe is reminiscent of recent aQ Record Of The Weekers Pinkish Black, a sort of gothic metallic crush, but here it's droned out and trancey, gothic and post punky, but all driven by an insane relentless drum churn, and the amazing vocals. We're reminded of Lubricated Goat or some other Aussie post punk combo, but rendered as something more primal and frenzied. We've listened to this song about a hundred times, there's even a cool psychedelic melodic noise freakout midway through, draped over that blown out bass throb, so good.
And while nothing else quite reaches the same sonic heights, most of the record comes darn close. "1000 Years" unfurls a rock drum rhythm, or about as close as Chippendale comes, then in swoops the bass, distorted and blown out, a belching low end beast, while over the top, Chippendale tries on a different voice, this one high and reedy and keening, the song laced with damaged electronics and all sorts of fractured effects, Chippendale processing the drums, the bass and his vocals, the result dizzying, exhausting and seriously psychedelic.
And so it goes, like the LB mothership, each Black Pus is essentially one or two parts, driven by some seriously insane relentless drum damage, the bass or synth or whatever that is laying down thick swaths of buzz and howl, and over the top, the vocals soar, spit through a distorted megaphone, or mouth-held-mic, distorted and blown out and a bit garbled. In some songs those elements coalesce into surprisingly catchy ditties, in others, they remain a wild exercise in noise rock endurance, often landing somewhere right between the two. The results are extremely satisfying, occasionally headbangable, once in a while sing-along-able too, but always a furious, blown out barrage of wild rhythmic sound that is some of the coolest stuff we've heard from Brian Chippendale, and should hold everybody over until the next Lightning Bolt record, or at least until there's another new collection of Black Pus jams!
And while they last, which won't be long, both the lp and the cd versions come with a super limited Brian Chippendale 11"x11" comic/print. And be warned, if you're a cd person, you'll have to upgrade shipping to lp price, unless you want us to fold up the print (which you don't!).
We had never heard this Italian black metal band before, but based on the first few minutes of opener "All'ignato" we were expecting this to be a sort of Alcest / Amesoeurs kind of thing, indie jangle and minor key melancholia wreathed in back buzz, and hell, we're all for that, and when the heavy guitars kick in on that first track, we're in heaven, chugging, soaring, blissed out buzz, the melodies mournful, the vibe darkly depressive, the sound like a way heavier Katatonia, all that was left was to hear the vocals, and we were most definitely expecting a sort of deep dramatic croon, but these guys had other ideas, suddenly exploding into some epic, furious, blasting black buzz, frenzied and frantic, insectoid riffing over insane drumming, but that mournful minor key vibe dragged along for the ride, the combo super potent, hellish and heavy, grim and black, but still majestic and epic and emotional. The vocals a gruff demonic bellow, the overall effect classic second wave black metal, the production thick and bombastic, the arrangements almost symphonic, a bit proggy, with the songs slipping from classic metal gallop, to lumbering almost-doom, to fierce lightning speed blasts and back again.
All the songs here are super varied, mixing a dark melodicism, with some serious grim black energy, the occasional keyboard adding dramatic chordal swirls, drifting beneath acoustic guitars, folky interludes giving way to pounding dirge-y buzzing melancholia, in turn giving way to spaced out loping clean guitar post metal meander, all chiming melodies, and woozy basslines, but the sound always seems to return to some variation of a furious blast black buzz, the band striking a delicate balance between its two sonic sides, ending up with a pretty potent combo, one that is definitely black and buzzy enough for the grim hordes, but with just enough melody and emotion to keep it from being just another cookie cutter black metal record. And we find ourselves digging it more and more with every listen.
Burnt Up On Re-Entry is the latest from UK one man band Matthew Sweet (not THAT one), and the first we've heard from him in a while, and like the self titled record we reviewed on the list ages ago, Burnt Up is another sprawling, brooding epic, equal parts sinister folk, psychedelic ambience, and experimental electronics, the electronics playing a much bigger part than we remember. In fact the opener manages to lay out a whole new template for Boduf Songs (new to us at least), Sweet's husky, whispery vocals, over skeletal steel string buzz, simple programmed drum machines, little bits of glitch and hum, and some seriously dense distorted guitar chug, the sound exploding into what sounds like a full band, epic and lush, and downright heavy, with a wild psychedelic final stretch with tangled shards of wah guitar swirling around a weird almost calypso rhythm. The rest of the record unfolds similarly, pulsing synths, reverberating chimes, minimal rhythmic skitter, strummed minor key chords, a pulsating almost kosmische folk at times, again occasionally blossoming into driving post rock or krautrock style grooves, more chugging metallic guitars, the record laced with some fantastically psychedelic noise interludes, rumbling, corrosive thrum beneath streaks of high end skree midway through, and a closing coda, that's all haunting ambience, with strange disembodied voices, and underwater electronics. But in between, Sweet conjures up a strange sonic world, one that seems torn between minimal psychedelic folks, and lush expansive apocalyptic heaviness, the finest moments when he's able to merge the two, but there are some equally compelling tracks that fall on one side or the other, like the gorgeous haunting balladic creep of "Song To Keep Me Still", the whole track wreathed in a hazy halo of alien electronics, or the pulsing, outer space drift of "Vermin, Rend Thy Garments", or the slow burn psychedelia of "Everyone Will Let You Down In The End", replete with some weird metallic bell-like percussion, and some seriously heavy final movement riffage, and from there on out, it's a dizzying sprawl of ghostly electronics, woozy washed out psychedelic drift, swirling abstract electronic skitter, shuffling twang flecked desert drone space rock, hushed bedroom folk (again wreathed in a soft swirl of insectoid electronics), and finally, the aforementioned ambient outro.
Gorgeous stuff for sure, but also mysterious, and at times a little sonically confounding, at least for the unadventurous, but for the rest of you, repeated listens offer much in the way of sonic revelation, and will eventually let you lose yourself in Boduf Songs' increasingly mysterious soundworld.
We just got a few copies of this kinda-hard-to-find cd reissue of a much harder to find (only 200 copies pressed!) 1972 lp by a hard rock band from Florida who are kinda legendary for their song "Dead Meat", a over-15-minute opus of proto-doom metal, which appears here as the album closer. Combining sub-Cooper schlock horror stage theatrics and sub-Sabbath riffage, "Dead Meat" was
Another blast of bong ripping Satan worshipping stoner sludge doom, from just one of our many favorite bong-bands (Bongzilla, Belzebong, etc.), and like Great Barrier Reefer and Satan Worshipping Doom before it, Bongripper once again, crank it up and smoke us out with a sprawling sidelong epic, that starts off surprisingly atmospheric, weird voices, sheets of undulating feedback, swirls of hiss and static, and electronic glitch, eventually joined by some super distorted bass buzz, and finally, after about three minutes, the 'Rippers unleash a churning juggernaut of downtuned riffery, and wild tribal drumming, which seems poised to explode into some sort of frenzied freakout, but instead, lumbers into full on doom creep, a tarpit trudge, that's laced with wild tangled of revved up mathiness, which at least at one point explodes into what sounds like a full on death/black metal blast. But fear not, 'cuz even then, the sound seems to melt and ooze into its original shape, a sludgey Sabbathy swing, and so it goes, the song unwinding in an instru-metal bongsmoke stupor, continuously seeming to battle between slow and low, fierce and frenzied, with the black hole gravity of the bands doom dirgery prevailing.
Bongripper are matched up here with Hate, who are the perfect balance for BR's serious sludge, with short sharp blasts of thrashing, grinding metallic power violence, frantic riffing, frenzied blasts, shrieked glass gargling vokills, some seriously bombastic punk-metal chaos, that over the course of close to eight minutes, dips into AmRep style noise rock, chugging old school metal mastery, tangled mathy almost tech metal freakouts, culminating in the 4 minute closer, that is a serious slab of ferocious dirge metal density, the guitars blown out and crumbling beneath the weight of all that distortion, the vokills sick and throat shredding, a definitely Today Is The Day vibe for sure, which has us really wanting to hear more more more from these guys!
Includes a digital download code as well!
A few lists back, we reviewed a cd from this German 'techno-kraut' duo, who as we mentioned in that review, we first heard remixing Conrad Schnitzler. That disc gathered togther two of B&G's recent 12"s, and was a perfect introduction to their strange string laden, motorik electronica, hypnotic and tranced out electro-kraut minimalism, that deftly fused techno, and dark hypno-jazz, pop ambience, and all sorts of disparate elements.
Clouds is something else altogether, but equally appealing. No beats to be found here, the vibe is about as far removed from krautrock as can be, or dark jazz, or any of the other sonic elements that made up those 12"s. Instead, Clouds finds the duo creating super abstract modern twenty first century classical minimalism, and experimental ambience. The opener reminds us of WIlliam Basinski, or maybe Philip Jeck, a gorgeous fragment of swoonsome melancholic symphonic strings, is manipulated into a hazy dreamscape of washed out loops, of blurred melodies, simple and cyclical, repetitive and gloriously hypnotic, the sound doesn't really change at all until about 5 minutes in, when haunting operatic female vocals join the strings, making it sound all the more dramatic and cinematic. And it's only briefly, soon, the voices fade, blurred into the background, and it's another gorgeous stretch of swirling strings.
The second track is similarly arranged, but much more percussive, a plucked guitar, a symphonic stab, those two elements spread out over an expanse of near silence, super dynamic, heavily reverbed, it's a strange, and strangely rhythmic composition, this track especially smacking of some super abstract Jeck experiment, two turntables set up in a huge empty room, one spinning a single orchestral burst, the other that guitar pluck, the speed constantly shifting, very weird, and very mesmerizing stuff.
"Secret Bells" is not bells at all, but instead, dark languorous piano, drifting in a sea of rumble and buzz, flecked with what sounds like mysterious field recordings, static and crackle, it's very hazy and dreamlike, a warm swirl of otherworldly chamber music.
The record finishes off with the three part, 14+ minute title suite, and begins as stately piano, wreathed in natural reverb, soon joined by woodwinds, the sound growing blurrier, and more dissonant, building to a strangely atonal crescendo, before easing back into the more tranquil drift of the opening, and so it goes back and forth, lush and hushed and delicate, dark and brooding and almost bombastic, before blossoming into the second movement, which is more driving and discordant, horns, piano, buzzing strings, locked into stuttering rhythms, darkly dramatic, and very cinematic, again very dynamic, and very hypnotic, before finally finishing off with a stretch of long tones, a more mournful dirge, the horns moaning, the strings keening, the vibe almost like some ancient court music, majestic and melancholy, finishing off with a final flurry of tangled melodies.
Quite cool, and yet so entirely unlike anything we were expecting from these two, which might be why we're digging it so much!
FYI there's an lp version too, with download code, but we only were able to get a few, not really enough to list, but you can ask...
Full length number three from this mysterious SF black metal horde (who are rumored to share a drummer with SF true metal legends Slough Feg), and their grim blackened buzz meets nineties style post rock hybrid seems to still be in full effect, but this time around they've managed to more seamlessly integrate the two sides of their sonic personality. Where on past records, the schism between clean guitar post rock lope and blasting blackened buzz was pretty distinct, the transitions more abrupt, here, the band seem much more comfortable switching from sound to sound, the best moments being when the blackness bleeds over into the post rock, and vice versa, and that change is all over III, the band unfurling epic blasts of buzzing blackened post rock epicness, and infusing their grim buzz with rhythmic mesmer, and strange haunting spoken word, it definitely makes for a more fully formed and full realized sound.
And on past records, it also took the group a while for the black metal element to assert itself, the group spending much of their time in post rock / math rock territory, but here, the opening track explodes immediately into some frenzied mathy blackened buzz, the sound immediately displaying the above mentioned hybridization, sure there's frenzied riffing and blasting beats, but the sound is soaring and melodic, and the drumming is not just a blast beat, it's wild and insanely chaotic, some of the most amazing drumming we've heard in a while, and that too is all over the record. But all that said, the band still do love to bring it down, and sprawl out into moody minimalism, just check out the gorgeous "Cells", with its spare slowcore guitar, and martial snare, all beneath more spoken word, the melodies chiming, the Slint comparisons more than apt in cases like this, but these guys do it so well, and the band are never that far off from exploding into some frenzied and mathy blackness, those parts making this probably the most black metal sounding of any of the BDN records. But having said that, the heaviness is shot through with loads of melody, and reminds us more of stuff like Fell Voices and Sleepwalker and Deafheaven and Cold Body Radiation and the like, soaring, melodic, buzzy post black metal, that manages to be catchy and sort of pretty but still buzzy and brutal and heavy. And pretty goddamn great.
We should also mention the lyrics, which are amazing, not at all lyric-like, more like short flash fiction, just check out the lyrics to "The Arborist":
"You have disregarded the advice of your friends and entered an accord with the Arborist. He brings you to his special garden at the center of which is a circle of trees. Next to each tree is a sort of well that is meant to receive a person. You will be placed in one of these holes with only your head above the earth. For several weeks you will engage in intense mediation on your novel existence. However, you will eventually grow anxious and restless. Others will come and take their places in the holes near you. You will find it easy to befriend them, but as the months pass you will begin to bicker and experience jealousy. At length, the affinity you feel for your tree becomes something which you cannot express and you will form a union which excludes all others. Soon after, young roots will find you and brush against your most tender places."
Wow. So nuts. We were convinced there was no way that was what he was actually singing, and when we listened close we couldn't discern enough from the raspy vokills, but then suddenly the song shifted, and the vocals changed to a cleaner, spoken word style, and lo and behold, those were in fact the actual lyrics. And all the tracks are like that. Genius!
Don't let the jaunty little Lawrence Welk ditty that opens Obey lull you into any sort of peaceful state, you'd best be prepared for the hateful murderous mayhem that Obey has in store for you. Then again, that's probably precisely what the Brainbombs had in mind. A gentle voice luring you into a dark alley, a shiny trinket distracting you while the burlap sack goes over your head and you're dragged kicking and screaming into the woods, a sweet piece of candy draws you just close enough so you can be knocked unconscious, tied up, and stuffed in the trunk. Those of you familiar with the brutal musical world of Brainbombs will know exactly what we're going on about. The rest of you, be very very careful. They traffic in a sludgey, jazzy garage rock scuzz stomp, repeated riffs, simple pounding drums, a lurching leering fuzzed out psychedelic dirge underpinning tales of murder and mayhem, murder and rape, death and dismemberment. This is probably their most overtly harsh record. Mostly because unlike the rest of their releases you can actually hear what these Swedes are singing about. All delivered in a sort of fey, heavily accented English. As if the song titles weren't enough,"Kill Them All", "Die You Fuck", "Anal Desire", "Lipstick On My Dick", "Fuckmeat", the lyrics are misogynistic, misanthropic and just plain messed up. The sound is like Melvins meets Whitehouse filtered through the fuzzy garage stomp of the Stooges but with a maniacally repetitive looped quality, that cranks up the tension, while the vocalist slowly unravels and gets meaner and meaner, more and more insane. And let's not forget the occasional warbly warped trumpet (!). What can we say? We love Brainbombs.
We've never listed this one before, as it has been seemingly out of print for ages. Thankfully a distributor managed to scrape up a bunch, but we can't be sure how long we'll have these.
Released in 1979, the same year as The Ann Steel Record we raved about awhile back, Roberto Cacciapaglia's second release, Sei Note In Logica, exists in an entirely different sonic universe, one closer to his minimal classical leanings. While The Ann Steel Record was a retro-future pop album, Sei Note In Logica is an avant-garde systems composition for voices, orchestra and computer, that takes a six note melodic phrase and runs it through every possible musical combination with a choir of female vocalists (including the processed spoken voice of Ann Steel!) and the instrumentation of marimbas. strings and woodwinds and computer-based electronics. Its emphasis on repetition and rhythm puts Cacciapaglia rightfully in a more well known circle of minimalist composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley and is a beautifully epic piece of economic means. Recorded in two parts, this vinyl reissue includes a cd of the vinyl recording plus a bonus version of the acoustic version of the piece with the ensemble without the computer derived enhancements and Ann Steel vocal. It's great to see this on vinyl, but don't hesitate as these great deluxe reissues have a way of disappearing fast! Highly Recommended!
We were only able to get ten of these and odds are we won't be able to get more, so we'll keep this brief. Needless to say, you might want to grab one of these before they're gone, cuz the A side Finds Cantu-Ledesma unfurling a gorgeous slab of Lovesliescrushing style prismatic dreampop shimmer, skeletal rhythms suspended in crystalline fields of bleary sundappled rainbow synth swaddled guitartroniks, thick swaths of chordal thrum, whirls lazily over a warm billowy background of keening melodies and abstract ethereal ambience. Distorted and dreamily blown out, noisy, but a sort of gauzy soft focus noisiness that makes it sound like the sounds are melting into deliriously colorful fractals before your very ears. Some heady sonic confection for sure, and miles removed from the minimal contemplation of many of Cantu-Ledesma's other releases.
The flipside merges the two, the more subdued ambience of earlier works with the above mentioned blissed out 4AD blur/blear/bliss, the resulting track is a dark, Twin Peaks like drift, all lush soft swirls, fractured dubbed out rhythms, hazy sonic smears, all druggy and droney, a lovely lysergic comedown from the A side's more effervescent sonic swirl.
EXTREMELY LIMITED!!! These are very likely the only copies we'll ever get, includes a printed insert, and comes housed in a swank, thick, full color sleeve.
In the interest of total transparency, the person writing this review was never that much of a Sonic Youth fan. They didn't freak out over Daydream Nation, their favorite SY record is Goo, although they also dig the debut ep, they're partial to Thurston Moore's vocals, and can barely stand Kim Gordon's, and the one time they saw Sonic Youth, like, they fell asleep. So this person had no expectations at all, and in fact, threw this on not even knowing it was Sonic Youth related, and dug it, A LOT. And while lots of folks here were hoping this new Thurston Moore band would sound like his recent solo outings, the weird thing is that it actually sounds like a great Sonic Youth record, according to the aQ SY experts, who also suggest that if the person writing this review likes this record so much, it might be worth their while to check out some old SY jams. Duly noted.
But on to the record at hand, Chelsea Light Moving is indeed Thurston Moore, here teamed up with John Moloney from Sunburned Hand Of The Man, longtime Moore collaborator Samara Lubelski and Keith Wood aka Hush Arbors, who manage to whip up a seriously Sonic Youthy squall, there's plenty of old school SST style stomp, brooding post punk jangle, opener "heavenmetal" almost sounds like Pavement by way of Sonic Youth, a broody bit of moody jangle, echo drenched vocals, rubbery basslines and shimmery guitar filigree. But it's on "Sleeping Where I Fall" where it gets really good, CLM doing their best Dinosaur Jr, from Moore's uncanny J Mascis like croon, to the wild fuzzed out guitars, the bridge is total classic Sonic Youth for sure, but when the song explodes into mega psych jam, it's like the second coming of You're Living All Over Me! And the rest of the record is nearly as good, "Alighted" a super distorted almost metallic creep, a drowsy dirge, with wild loose drumming, and some serious full on noise freakouts, or lip, which is crazy poppy, with some super fierce blown out guitar shreddery, not to mention more Pavement-y jangle. "Groovy & Linda" is another distorted dirge, this one constantly splintering into tripped out math rock breakdowns, or wild squalls of guitarnoise, while "Burroughs" is CLM doing their best eighties SST hardcore, but sans distortion, which gives it a weird, but really cool vibe, not to mention some more tangled psychedelic freakout. And so it goes, surprisingly almost all killer no filler, although there's one spoken word jam that we usually skip, but it depends on your tolerance for that sort of thing, cuz that track is bookended by the propulsive distorto singalong of "Empires Of Time" on one side, and the brooding slow build burner "Frank O'Hara Hit" on the other.
So yeah, according to the SY fans around here, this might be a better Sonic Youth record than the last few proper SY releases, and for those of you who generally give SY a pass, this is definitely worth checking out. It might be the gateway to some old SY classics, who knows. If not, it's a still a new favorite around here...
Certainly one of the best thing we've heard to date from the hip electronica label NNA Tapes, and it comes from Anthony Child, better known under his techno moniker Surgeon, as well as for his brutalist British Murder Boys collaboration with Karl O'Connor. Sadly, we've not carried much in the way of the Surgeon catalog, but his variation on techno structuralism is informed by an industrial tension that balances force, control, and rhythm without much melody to get in the way of his graceful yet claustrophobic trax, many of which are on par with the likes of Plastikman and Wolfgang Voigt's first album as Gas. On very rare occasions, Child records under his own name, under the auspices of eschewing the techno underpinnings in favor of tonal abstractions. That's what we've got here on The Space Between People And Things, which opens with a Spartan, if highly squelchy step sequence that rotates between white hot slabs of accelerated white noise. He follows this with an elegant oceanic piece that alternates between several shortwave radioteletype frequencies, which produce the skittering electronic patterns in the delivery of encoded data from radio-linked terminals. It's an outmoded means of communication for sure, but one that you still hear on shortwave today mostly from the US Coast Guard and some governmental organizations. It's still a very eerie sound, with plenty of paranoid X-files overtones, all of which Child happily mines on this album. The second side of the album could actually be something that he might have produced for Surgeon, but with the heavy beats entirely removed. Here's an arpeggiated ambient swath of analog electronics that have all of the deep-space cosmology you'd get from Tangerine Dream's Alpha Centauri or those Eno & Cluster records. There is a bit more of a cybernetic sheen to Child's production than the prog-synth smoothness of his predecessors; and he pushes this toward the end of side two with some sharply rendered swells of sinewave oscillations which follow a similar oceanic patterning from the shortwave work on side one. This would be one for fans of Daphne Oram, Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith, and BJ Nilsen. Recommended for sure!
Solo single #2 from Al Cisneros, mastermind of tranced out psych-doom outfit OM, and former bassist for late great stoner sludgelords Sleep, who has never been shy about his love of dub, that dub-love influencing the sound of OM more and more with every record. But these self released 7"s seem to be a showcase for Cisneros to experiment with making proper, classic sounding old school dub, and it sounds as good as you might think.
The A side here is a loping, looped sprawl of hypno-dub mesmer, that sounds more like Muslimgauze or African Head Charge (much like the OM dub remix 12"s reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). The melodies are woozy, Eastern tinged, the beat is a motorik, almost industrial sounding shuffle, the bassline languid and liquid, the A side here almost sounds like a single measure looped for the whole of the side, totally tranced out and circular, in fact it almost sounds like old classic Circle slowed away down, that same sort of head nodding murky groove. The flipside begins with a bit of ambient drift, but soon locks into a similar groove, the sound reminding us also of minimal techno / heroin house, but way more murky and hazy, clouds of swirling ambience shift slowly above that main loop that could go on forever, and for the length of these two sides nearly does.
Like the first single, absolutely recommended, and also like that single, VERY limited...
ULTRA limited repress of this long out of print aQ favorite, remastered, and with a slightly different sequence, pressed on heavy white vinyl, and hand numbered (only 200 copies!!!). Here's our review from when we first listed this way back in 2009...
One of two favorite dubstep discs of the year (2009) so far, the first full length from mysterious atmospheric dubstep soundscaper Clubroot.
We know nothing about this guy, other than he takes that dubbed out skitter we love so much and sets it in expansive fields of swirling ambience, creeped out dronescapes and all manner of super evocative and gorgeously textural soundworlds. Where as most dubstep is super spare and stripped down, skeletal even, the sound here is lush and sprawling. Thick layers of synths whir and shimmer and buzz, deep swells throbbing and pulsing, everything hazy and gauzy and washed out, every song some sort of otherworldy dreamscape, shot through with some super bad ass bit of pounding churning dubstep stutter. The massive basslines and fluctuating synth buzz that usually adds texture to typical dubstep, here just becomes another element in Clubroot's mysterious mist shrouded sonic landscape.
The cover features a lonely tree, set atop a rocky outcropping, the sky dense with clouds, the picture all misty and hauntingly lonely seeming, which perfectly reflects the mood of the music here. Strip away the beats, and you'd still be left with an incredible bit of blackened new age swirl, of abstract kosmiche krautdrone, but add the beats, and these sounds become something entirely other. This is definitely not dancemusic, this is mind expansion music. Late night, lights off, starting at the stars drifting off, other dimension, spaced out, dream dub music.
Clubroot taps into the same darkside as Burial, and Kode9, and the more atmospheric beatmakers, but where those guys pull back before the fog grows to thick, Clubroot pushes forward, traveling through the dark forest, into some forbidden zone, some land lost in time, lost from time, a massive emptiness, as beautiful as it is lonely and ominous, and this is the soundtrack to that lost world. So intense and haunting and unlike any other dubstep, or electronic music even, that we've heard before. The rare sort of record that lets even the most jaded and heard-it-all listener get totally, and fantastically lost.
And if you need more than our effusive gushing praise, look no further than Fenriz, 1/2 of legendary black metal duo Darkthrone, a long time lover of techno and electronic music, who has this to say about Clubroot:
"This is the sort of soaring dubstep I'd never expect to come out of the US! I just transferred the adorable "Embryo" track to my MP3 player FAVES 09 list, as I am going tenting and swimming in a forest lake tomorrow with some connoiceur-friends [sic]. It's sleek and not nasty, the melodic kind and not the grimy. But wait a minute, it seems like the newest tracks are on first, as the last songs drift into some de-tranced balearic style, even with vocals stabs and 90s synths! Blimey."
And if you can't trust Fenriz on matters of dubstep, then who can you trust? WAY recommended. And quite possibly dubstep record of 2009, and we're guessing many years to follow!
We had a little bit of trouble making sense of this seemingly unlikely collaboration, at least conceptually, between legendary krautrocker Roedelius and Lloyd Cole. Yeah, THAT Lloyd Cole, as in '& The Commotions'. Apparently, Roedelius was a fan of Cole's music, and remixed one of his records, which he presented to Cole as a gift. Cole was so impressed, he suggested the two work on a proper record together, and voila, Selected Studies Volume 1 was the result. The sound definitely ends up landing closer to Roedelius than Cole, at least the Cole we remember - there are no vocals, the sound is blissy, playful, melodious, and sort of krautrocky definitely New Age-y. The opener "Pastoral" is just that, all percolating melodies, swirling shimmering ambience, soft swaths of chordal thrum, and chiming prismatic tones, dreamily glitchy, with a definite music box / lullaby vibe. Some tracks though are darker, and slightly more brooding, like "Selbstportrait-Reich", which wraps theremin-like minor key melodies around a looped, slo-mo Reichian backdrop, subtly tense, and a little cinematic, with a teensy bit of a futuristic / sci-fi vibe, but ultimately still quite lovely and ambient. "Wandelbar" adds some grit to a an amorphous swirl of droned out sound, the feel sort of Expo 70, all dark and kosmische, while "Still Life With Kannyu" sculpts tinkling pianos and blurts of analog synth into something washed out and tranquil that ends up not all that far removed from classic Eno ambience.
And so it goes, a sprawling selection of dreamlike electronic experiments, ethereal ambient shimmer and spaced out soft focus psychedelic drift, most definitely rhythmic at times, always lush and textural, swirly and serene, hushed and haunting here and there, peppered with occasional bits of slightly sinister darkness, but tending toward a blissed out kosmische New Age dreaminess, albeit with at least one blast of surprisingly rambunctious, analog synth driven space aged grooviness. All in all, pretty cool stuff, and a surprising (at least to us) new side to Mr. Lloyd Cole!
Hole cow, fans of legendary NZ noise rockers the Dead C, here's some serious holy grail shit! Four lost tracks, from the Eusa Kills lp sessions, just recently discovered, according to the sticker on the record, "in a dusty corner of their archives". And while we'd like to take that literally, imagining some old box of tapes, hidden in a crawlspace beneath one of the band members' old abandoned houses, we imagine it's not nearly as romantic, but it hardly matters, cuz the first track here is worth the price of admission alone, a fantastically murky dirge, a sort of blurred psych pop crawl, that not only recalls the Dead C at their poppies, but also some of our favorite moments from Gate, Michael Morley from the Dead C's long running solo project. Dense swirls of crumbling distortion, weird almost programmed sounding hand-clap beats, drawled vocals, super poppy, but a sort of melting, decaying bastard pop, at times it almost sounds like Neil Young & Crazy Horse at 16rpm, or classic Dinosaur Jr doused in cough syrup and thorazine. So great. How this track remained unreleased, and presumably unheard, until now boggles the mind. The rest of the Dead C jams hold up nearly as well, the sound slipping from free form / free rock freakout, noisy and chaotic, to a wild squall of heavy tape-damaged distortion, wreathed in sheets of feedback, to a final almost krautrock sounding jam, weirdly groovy and motorik, clouds of garbled FX swirling around a murky main riff and a simple spaced out beat, and pelted by shards of psychedelic guitar damage throughout.
The archival tracks here are paired up with a couple new tracks from Rangda, no particular connection, other than the fact that both are guitar / guitar / drums trios, and Rangda no doubt exists in a continuum the Dead C helped create. Rangda is Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance, Sir Richard Bishop of the Sun City Girls, and underground/avant drummer for hire Chris Corsano, and while there are some similarities to the Dead C tracks on the A side, here Rangda traffic in something much more melodic, and hauntingly brooding, channeling a sort of dusky, twang flecked cinematic deserty drift, a nearly side long track unfurls a heady field of psychedelic smolder, spidery melodies, loose skittery percussion, slow shifting chordal swells, slowly building to full on freakout mode, culminating in some serious free jazz drum splatter and wildly tangled dueling guitars. The Rangda side finishes off with a brief coda, again sorta soundtracky and twangy, super muscly and busy drumming, beneath clouds of lustrous guitar shimmer. Awesome stuff from both bands for sure, but that first Dead C jam is tough to beat...
Two alumni from the rotating cast of characters who've graced the stage with Nurse With Wound and irr. app. (ext.) comprise this Bay Area duo with the kraut-inspired name Die Propylgruppe, starring the willfully enigmatic R.K. Faulhaber and aQuarius' own rusting artist Jim Haynes. Over the years, Faulhaber has been near to completing album after album, only to never quite get them finished, including one that's long been slated for release on United Dairies; but will probably languish unheard except for a few leaked snippets and hand-burned discs passed out at his rare solo performances. He's one of those brilliant artists who gets far too distracted with new ideas and new forms so that the unfinished just continues to pile up. One of those many ideas that he has is a theoretical concept of 'texture music' defining a cross-section of non-populist and experimental forms that cuts across the 20th century of Xenakis, Boulez, the Hafler Trio, Conrad Schnitzler, etc. Again, a few of these ideas have been actually released, but many remain in an ephemeral headspace. So, we probably have Haynes to thank for actually getting the release of Die Propylgruppe underway; and there better damn well be more coming! He quipped that the two were striving to make an Omit record, and ended up somewhere totally other, through the sounds of analog machinery running amok and wrangled into mechanoid loops and hypnotic patterns, interwoven with arcing drones that align with the nebula peering psychedelia of Schnitzler's Black Album crossed with the industrial-era primitivism of early :zoviet*france: (think Gris or Mohnomische). But by the end of the 20 minute piece, the two maniacally transform themselves into merchants of the danse macabre with an atonal step sequenced synth locked onto suitably wobbling drum machine and strangely groaning electro-acoustic loops. Frankensteinan electronics at its best, and would not be out of place on PAN or Spectrum Spools. Limited to 100 copies in lovely packaging with handcrafted wood artwork!
The latest from Dirty Beaches is not at all like past releases, which trafficked in a sort of grimy lo-fi RnB, since here there are no vocals, so that haunting Elvis-y croon is absent, and really, the whole dark twang slomo-soul thing has been replaced with a dreamy, ethereal, swirling liquid shimmer, which makes sense once you realize this is not in fact a new album, but is instead a soundtrack, for a film about an indoor waterpark in a mall in Canada, and Dirty Beaches does manage to conjure up the vibe of glimmering reflective sun dappled water, the music almost sounding as if it was recorded beneath the surface, a sort of blurred Oval like dreaminess, the instrumentation just oscillators, mellotrons, chamberlins, strings and processed electric guitar, all smeared into lovely swaths of hushed minimal drift.
The opener is almost New Agey, sounding a bit kosmische, but sunshiney and softly swirly, one can almost imagine floating on the open water, ears underwater, gazing at the blue sky above. The second track, titled appropriately "Floating Underwater Watching Waves", gets a little bit noisier, the sound gritty and low fidelity, with noisy swells swirling over murky melodies, and a sonar like high end pulse, haunting and hypnotic.
The rest of this brief soundtrack is separated into shorter sonic vignettes, lush orchestral drones, twang flecked, hazy slowcore dirges, swirling solo guitar thrum, echo drenched tangles of deep pools of reverb, chiming, cinematic melancholia, replete with faux woodwinds, and finally, a reprise of the opening track, that seems to let the listener, gradually disappear into the (not so) deep blue mystery of this tranquil pool in a strange Canadian waterpark. Lovely!
Record number three from these 'shitgaze' noise poppers, and like the last two, it's another collection of fantastically fractured jangle pop, but this time around, their sound seems to have maybe moved beyond the shitgaze classification (that they share with Times New Viking and Psychedelic Horseshit among others), with what might be their most polished record yet. BUT, it's really all relative, and as if to demonstrate that fact, a dreamy Brian Eno beholden pop gem like opener "Space Academy", with its warm fuzzy guitars, crooned dramatic vocals, shuffling motorik rhythm, and dreamy sun dappled jangle, will suddenly splinter into a twisted squall of atonal psych guitar tangle, or woozy detuned stumble, proving that no matter how good these guys get, that will always be a huge part of their sound, a sort of ramshackle, on-the-verge-of-collapse chaos that seems to be ever present, but which suits them big time. And they've found the perfect home for this new record on Woodsist, their sound janglier and fuzzier and hookier than ever, sounding a bit like the Woods drug addled older brothers, taking that group's warm classic twang flecked jangle, and dipping it in LSD and rolling it around in some grit and grime.
While most of the tracks stick to what could be considered the Eat Skull weirdo pop formula, they have never shied away from doing whatever the fuck they want, like "How Do You Know When To Say Goodnite?" here, which sounds a bit like Eat Skull via Sun Araw, the vibe al prismatic and dubbed out, skittery and electronic, swirling and sunshiney, the Eno vibe still present, due in no small part to the vocals, but also the weirdly kitchen sink sounding lo-fi pop alchemy going on, hazy and lysergic, and definitely dementedly dreamy.
And so it goes, the band up for anything, be it warped jangle pop one second, dirgey garage-doom drama (holy shit, "Stupid Moon" is a creeping moody stunner), ethereal cosmic synthscapery or fuzzy, reverb drenched garage rock, all held together by a pop streak a mile wide, and a surprisingly deft hand at pop songsmithery, that they seem to have dedicated their entire career to subverting, and thankfully for us, have been failing brilliantly!
Includes a download code.
The return of this Northwestern one man black metal horde brings us yet another collection of soaring, majestic, symphonic transcendental blackness, that like on past records reminds us almost more of old school power metal than typical grim black metal buzz, the record divided into three lengthy epics, those proper tracks separated by three interludes (structured much like their 2007 debut Kali) and each of those proper tracks a sprawling, instrumental metal majesty that few other bands can touch. Sonically a bit reminiscent of Krallice, but way more melodic, in fact, those Mick Barr solo guitar records, where he's basically doing these epic arrangements of black metal shred, if that stuff was transformed into proper black metal, it might just sound like Eldrig. But melody is huge in Eldrig's world, hence the power metal comparisons, and listening to this new one, we're even hearing other stuff, more post rock and post metal, the melodic component even more pronounced than before, and beyond the usual soaring epic metal, there are moments, like at the end of opening "Urd", where the sounds is somehow pushed even further, blossoming into something impossibly lush, almost choral sounding, layer upon layer, multiple melodies, woven into something emotional and passionate, that in some weird way almost sounds like a blackened Arvo Part. Symphonic and cinematic and so goddamn good.
The interludes this time around are pretty strange, all three a sort of gypsy folk, the main melody played on a jaw harp, there seem to be mandolins too, the sound of crackling fire surrounding the jaunty jam, in a weird way, it's upbeat vibe is not that far removed from the metal songs proper here, but at first blush it's pretty surprising.
The second proper song, "Verthandi", begins with epic arcs of howling high end guitar skree, filling the sky with a lush sprawl of slowburn melody, all over swirling synths, melancholic and minor key, slowly building, growing more and more dramatic, before finally bursting into a pounding blast, those guitar trills soaring and epic, while the drums pound away in a frenzy, the whole thing ratcheting up the tension, until finally, the song breaks into an old school metal gallop, but those guitars continue to soar in fast picked high end streaks, the sound occasionally bursting into impossibly frenzied freakouts, rife with emotional energy, the sort of vibe that is lacking from even the most intense traditional black metal, but here, Eldrig conjures up a dense cloud of raw sonic emotion, and sends it swirling into a wild buzz drenched squall, that is tense and intense and utterly epic.
Finally, the fifteen minute closer wastes no time, just lurches right into it, as if it was taking up right where "Verthandi" left off, all furious drum pound, soaring guitar trills, wild soaring melodies, but this time, there's a whole second layer of strange ethereal keyboards draped over the top, adding a sort of prismatic psychedelic feel to the proceedings, the soundtrack to storming Valhalla, or some sort of epic battle, this the ultimate cinematic blackness, evoking deep emotion, conjuring up images of wide open expanses, massive oceans, alien ice fields, crumbling planets. Eldrig should be scoring avant sci-fi flicks or bleak apocalyptic art films, rare is the black metal record that pushes past the rote black buzz and manages to move into a higher realm. But Eldrig's Urlagarne most definitely does...
Ultra limited cassette from Ensemble Economique, aka Brian Pyle, 1/2 of Humboldt avant abstractionists Starving Weirdos and RV Paintings. We've long loved the SW's sprawling rhythmic dronescapery, and on his own, Pyle explores similar sonic territory, but Pyle's approach sans partners seems to be more dense and dark, caustic and abrasive, the rhythmic element balancing the atmospheric elements, like here on the title track, which spreads out over all of the first side. A thick, swirling low end thrum oozes and undulates, it's a hazy blurred rumble, over which Pyle layers heaving shards of crunch, thick throbs, deep bell-like tones, rhythmic machine gun stutters, all of which pile up and overlap, creating a soft cacophony of clatter and crunch, chug and churn, a strangely haunting, and sorta noisy, almost industrial creepscape, that sounds like some weird hybrid of Wolf Eyes, Philip Jeck and Umberto performed by some strange robotic minimalist chamber ensemble. A swirling, heady, and darkly psychedelic barrage of loops and rhythms, layers and textures, mesmerizing and intense.
The flipside is another permutation of Pyle's abstract beat laden drones, another thick swirling morass of sitar-like buzz and sci-fi synth squelch, this time the beats buried, little flurries of stutter and shuffle, squalls of glitchy tangle, more coloring the proceedings than driving them. The last track is a tense soundtracky stretch of layered buzz, haunting melody, a sprawl of pulsing high end over deep ominous rumbles, like the music from the scariest moment in some lost Italian giallo, stretched out into minutes instead of seconds, all tension, no release, brooding and intense, haunting and mesmerizing, fantastic stuff.
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES! We only have a handful direct from Mr. Pyle himself when he was in town, and it's very likely that these are the last copies we'll be able to get...
Ensemble Pearl is a new psychedelic supergroup of sorts, featuring SUNNO))) guitarist Stephen O'Malley, Boris basher Atsuo, legendary Japanese psychedelic axeman Michio Kurihara, and William Herzog (guitarist for Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter) along with a handful of guests including violinist extraordinare Eyvind Kang. This unlikely collective have whipped up a heady brew of smoldering slow motion doom psych lumber and blackened kosmische drift, all murky and muddy, wasted and washed out, the core sound a smoldering, twang flecked tarpit trudge, a little bit Earth, a little bit Barn Owl, a little bit former Record Of The Weekers Torlesse Super Group - the same sort of windswept, apocalyptic, desert drone dirge, only this time, imbued with a pulsing psychedelic cosmic energy, a ferocity and intensity that seems to lurk just below the surface, as if barely restrained, a glowing black heart beating within Ensemble Pearl's bleak, bleary, blackly blissful exterior.
The sounds here are dense and dark, and yet simultaneously free and abstract, a trudging rhythmic plod, offering the only real structure, the sounds only tenuously moored to the surface, as if all it would take is a subtle shift in the solar winds, for the whole thing to drift heavenward, which it does at several points, the sound then seeming to blur into a more spaced out version of modern minimal dronemusic, almost like a more blackened, demonic Tangerine Dream, or a seriously sinister Phill Niblock, a hazy, softly churning kosmische thrum, lush and layered, pulsing and rich with chordal coloration and slow shifting overtones, laced with all manner of mysterious tonal shifts, like the soundtrack to some super abstract sci-fi art film, those stretches of droned out buzz could be the music of the cosmos, the streaks and contrails in the night sky translated into sound, a haunting, serene sonic stasis, that still somehow seems to be in perpetual motion, tranquil, slow swirling clouds of sonic debris, imbued with a warm glow of divine dreaminess.
But those sounds invariably coalesce into the dark dirgery that defines Ensemble Pearl's soundworld, the record bookended by to slowburn epics, the closer maybe our favorite, an epic sprawl of smolder and shimmer, a dreamy sonic death march, the guitars doused in reverb, the drums subtly dubbed out, the whole thing a woozy weary wander, a skeletal slo-mo lope through softly undulating swirls of smokey chordal shimmer, and heaving hushed drones, wreathed, like the opener, in fragmented shards of blurry ambience, spidery melodic tangles, the soaring sheets of keening high end here muted and smeared into distant glimmers, the occasional howl of feedback, or soft squalls of achingly keening high end guitarnoise, disappearing into fields of dubdrone blur, before returning to the motorik dirge creep that churns ever onward, gradually disappearing into a hushed field of atmospheric black buzz, warm and darkly billowing.
Fans of minimal drone smolder and abstract cosmic psychedelic space-doom drift will be in heaven.
Entrelacs is the sporadically operational collaboration between longtime aQ fave eco-dronologist Michael Northam and phonographer Yannick Dauby, as Northam is perpetually wandering back and forth between North America and Europe, and with Dauby residing in Taiwan. These recordings actually date back to 2003, made "along a fallen tree in Courbet, Oregon and [at] a conversation with found objects in Paris." The Entrelacs project begins with the collection of found objects, continues through the manifestation of tactile sounds from those objects aided by some use of digital manipulation, and concludes when the objects are returned from where they were found. This lends itself well to the discovery of previously unknown sounds in new regions, especially when these two would perform live. On their website, they site an impressive array of atypical sound making devices that would give Matmos more than a few good ideas for their electro-acoustic madness. Amplified chimney sweeps, bowed escargot, obsidian shards, dried chardons, and needles piercing leaves are just a few of the more interesting ones. We're very curious to know where those bowed snails are in the mix! Underleaf unfurls slowly through a slow crunching of organic materials occasionally jolted with the sharp tinkling of what must be those obsidian fragments. Aggregated masses of those textures blossom throughout the 49 minute track in blurry drones that settle in the background of those tactile sounds, eventually giving way to a bowed metal chorale near the 30 minute mark that has all the right Organum / Andrew Chalk references. Very lovely and very limited stock on this one!
Another gem from Dark Entries, here's the reissue of the debut ep from the Southern French trio Fall Of Saigon, which featured a young Pascal Comelade, who developed into quite the avant-garde composer in the late '80s continuing strong to this day. A notable collaboration of his was in the Bel Canto Orchestra with aQ favorite Pierre Bastien; but here with Fall Of Saigon, he's working with the chanteuse Florence Berthon and guitarist Thierry Den. Their Spartan songs strut, waltz, and seductively sway along to the steady metronome pulse of a cheap drum machine with plaintive organ and electronic melodies, a smattering of judiciously plucked guitar notes, and Florence's sedate vocals. The band cites both This Heat and The Velvet Underground as influence, with the former inspiring their name; but through their sound, they've earned more than a few comparisons to Young Marble Giants with a couple of tracks that look forward to the hypnotic organ-drum workouts of Fabulous Diamonds, and they certainly deserved every one of those comparisons, as these six songs really make the most of the tiniest of sounds without ever sounding effete or unfinished. Post-punk minimalism of this nature is deceptively hard to pull off, and Fall Of Saigon do it marvelously. This is a very loud cut at 45 rpm, mastered again as with all of the Dark Entries productions by George Horn; and it gets a big thumbs up!
These oddly monikered psychedelic electro kraut synth wranglers return, after the super awesome Mango Sunrise record we reviewed a little while back, which was equal parts classic Klaus Schulze, synth-kraut worshippers and aQ faves Bitchin Bajas, and of course John Carpenter and Goblin. But on this new 12"s FP take those sounds and focus more on their dancier side, still weaving lush tapestries of layered synths, and electro skitter, which were definitely all over Mango Sunrise, but here that sort of retro cinematic futurism is given a dancefloor makeover, the end result being a sound closer to, say, Majeure than Zombi, that sort of Italo-disco style soundtrackery, fused to Food Pyramid's undeniable krautrock leanings.
The opener, had the beat been removed, would be a pulsating groover, but with the house-y beat, and the reverb drenched megaphone vox, this sounds like some weirdo dance party, noisy, a little post punky, but most definitely groovy, funky and tranced out. The second track adds a whole mess of murk, positioning the sound more toward the James Ferraro side of the sonic spectrum, a sort of old VHS tape vibe, but then when the thick buzzing synth comes in, it could almost be Daft Punk or something, albeit a much more raw and underground version.
The flipside offers up two similar jams, the first a super driving groove, with super distorted, crumblingly distorted guitars over what almost sounds like a calypso beat fused to a house music pound, again, sans beats, this would be some blissed out ultra distorted guitarnoise psychedelia, so imagine that sort of sound anchored by a churning looped groove. The closer is more sparse and skeletal, cheesy eighties synth pads over blurry synth drifts, the background almost sounding like ABC or Spandau Ballet, but then female vocals drift in, and the song becomes a glimmering late night downtempo driftscape, that sounds like a more post punk 4AD given a modern krautdrone synth wave makeover, the whole thing hazy and gauzy and dreamily druggy.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Housed in a cool, full color DJ style 12" sleeve, and includes a digital download as well.
Moon Glyph is back with a new tape from aQ pal Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards, Thuja, Art Museums, Blithe Sons and Horrid Red). And this outfit's second release seems to be all about the nostalgia of freeway driving in Southern California and listening to tapes while gliding through a maze of freeways in the cool desert air. Half of aQ's staff probably can relate to that as many of us are transplants from the southern half of the state and while the reality of being stuck in traffic is no fantasy, some of us do miss driving the long freeways and canyons at night listening to our favorite tapes. With songs like "Irvine", "Orange Circle" "Sepulveda" and "Garden Grove", FWY! channel a motorik New Order vibe in extended instrumental synth jams that are both bright and moody with a languid romantic groove that's hard to resist. A real road trip!
Oh Googoosh! We were pretty thrilled when this came in as we've been anticipating a collection of her recordings ever since many of us first heard her mind blowing track "Talagh" on that great Pomegranates compilation of Persian pop, psych, and funk from the '60s and '70s. Luckily, Iranian singer Googoosh was no one hit wonder, as this collection shows that pretty much every song she made during this era (1970-'75) is totally awe-inspiring. Like the perfect cross between the explosive psychedelia of Selda and the introspective folk of Pari Zangeneh. Her voice reels you in and the music's alluring and dynamic swirling melodies leave you in the throes of serious sonic pleasure.
Much like Turkey's Selda, Googoosh's music had such a brave and fiery political stance to it as well. Sadly much of her music was banned by the Iranian government by the end of the 1970s, and many of her records were literally burned and destroyed. Luckily, from what copies did remain, Andy Votel worked his Finders Keepers magic and has compiled an amazing collection of one of the greatest voices to come out of Iran (and anywhere else for that matter)!
Huzzah! Here's another vinyl-only dose of the wigged out freakery whipped up by French guitarist Gregory Raimo, aka GR, whom you might also know as chief gunslinger in the psychpunk gonzo combo Gunslingers (the other 2/3's of which operate separately as well, in the form of AQ fave occult metal-kraut unit Aluk Todolo). Gregory's latest solo blast is an escaped inmate from the Mexican Summer sanitarium, an agitated record full of slashing buzz-fuzz geetar tangle, distorted ranting vox, and clattery drum skitter-scatter, bashed out in frenzied yet hypnotic fashion, the kind of psychedelic greasy sizzle that would make unsuspecting square's heads explode. It's raw, one-man band sounding stuff for sure, mostly on the electric extreme, but GR does for a moment get into folkier realms with the acoustic strum and echoing Gallic vox of "Hymn Of Pan" closing side one, based on the Shelley poem.
On the cover it mentions you'll hear "Guitar Hoodoo", "Liquid Bass" and "Spiral Drums" but it could just has easily have said, "Spiral Guitar" and "Hoodoo Drums", the bass liquid all the way though. Definitely something for fans of Michael Yonkers (with whom GR has previously collaborated, if you liked their super limited out of print lp The High Speed Recording Complex you'll like this), also maybe Bill Orcutt/Harry Pussy, The Fall, ESP-Disk influenced freejazzrockn'roll, and really all kinds of primitive krauty splatter and staggering art-punk damage.
Limited to 750 copies, includes mp3 download card.
All the metalheads around here love stoner rock, and stoner metal, from Kyuss to Sons Of Otis, Mystick Krewe Of Clearlight to Mammoth Volume, Roachpowder to Raging Slab, Church Of Misery to Elder, and of course Black Sabbath, who aren't technically stoner rock, but who sort of created the template, and then there's Monster Magnet, Natas, Electric Wizard, we could go on, but you get the drift. And we'd always been super partial to Swedish stoners Dozer, who seemingly hung it up in 2008 after five killer full lengths. So we were pretty psyched when we got this record in, from a band called Greenleaf, which features a bunch of guys from Dozer, and we were surprised to discover that Greenleaf have been active since 2000, concurrently with Dozer for almost a decade! And yet, this is the first we've heard from 'em. This is their third full length, and is produced by the guy from VAKA, whose piano driven post rock / stoner doom record Kappa Delta Phi record was a big favorite around here, but that definitely gives Nest Of Vipers some serious heft, which helps balance out the EXTREME poppiness. The band also includes members of Lowrider, Truckfighters, and features a handful of guest appearances from members of Opeth and Spiritual Beggars among others.
Allan jokes that when we mention Queens Of The Stone Age in a review, it tends to scare people off, and we sell way fewer copies than we would otherwise, but it's just unavoidable sometimes, and hell, QOTSA in the early days was only one step removed from the mighty Kyuss anyway, and the opening track here "Jack Staff" is kind of a dead ringer for QOTSA, especially the crazy catchy, super poppy chorus, with its soaring Josh Homme like vox, heck it even goes beyond QOTSA into full on commercial heavy rock, but fuck it, it sounds killer, the guitar tone is thick and deserty, the main riff is crunchy and fuzzy, the overall vibe is swaggery and snarly, the song seesawing between extreme stoner crush and total heavy pop.
Nothing else on the record is so overtly poppy, but lots of parts come seriously close, all the songs here definitely displaying a serious pop edge to them, no matter how heavy or stonery the jam is. But let's not overplay the poppiness, cuz some of the jams here are seriously fierce, fuzzy, and blown out and HEAVY. Another Swedish band whose influence can be felt throughout are the Hellacopters, which again, as far as we're concerned is not a bad thing at all. And Kiss, lots of these tracks are obviously beholden to those masters of hooky heaviness. There's some organ that pops up too on a few tracks, which definitely gives the proceedings a bit of a psychedelic vibe, but overall this is just a seriously kick ass, seriously catchy collection of fuzzed out hook heavy stoner rock radness. And if your collection features lots of records on Meteor City, Small Stone, Tee Pee, Leaf Hound, Rise Above, Elektrohasch and the rest, then Nest Of Vipers will definitely feel right at home...
Finally available again on vinyl! Thrust is the 1974 follow-up to Headhunters. Deep, deep keyboard-heavy funk with grooves to ride 'til dawn. So far ahead of its time it ain't even funny; you will be amazed. On 180 gram vinyl. Heavy!
Most folks are probably more familiar with Mathew Kvohst McNerney as a member of avant post black metallers Code, or Dodheimsgard offshoot DHG, but in Hexvessel, MKMcN explores a different sonic path altogether, a sort of ritualist psychedelic folk, that has more in common with groups like Woven Hand and Comus and other modern freak folkers than any of the bands in his more metal pedigree.
The coolest part about Hexvessel is McNerney's distinctive vocals. For us, the best part of Code were McNerney's clean vocals, especially set amidst churning black buzz, or Interpol like metallized gloom, so to hear those same vocals draped over sun dappled acoustic guitars and fluttering flutes, is pretty spectacular, and reveals that in many ways, his talents were wasted screeching and shrieking over black buzz.
The tracks are dark and haunting, minimal and dreamily druggy, hazy and washed out, warm and woozy and psychedelic, conjuring that seventies acid folk vibe, buzzing metallic drones swirling around lush finger picked steel string Appalachia, the vocals crooned one second ominously whispered the next, the core sound of the group augmented by a fantastic array of musical instruments including mandolin, banjo, bandoneon, upright bass, gongs, harmonium, dulcimer, zither, psaltery, bells and more, the songs alternately ominous and sinister, hushed and dreamlike, sometimes set amidst the sound of a summer glade, all bird calls and whispering wind, other times wreathed in strange occultic ambience, the lyrics mysterious and cryptic, the delivery, passionate and urgent, a gorgeously timeless collection of old timey ballads, haunting laments, foresty folk dirges, and various other permutations of Hexvessel's mystical dark folke.
Most definitely for fans of all strains of folk: psychedelic, apocalyptic, doom, freak and otherwise, as well as fellow folk brethren like Woven Hand, Comus, Sixteen Horsepower, Burial Hex, Espers, Six Organs Of Admittance, Timesbold, Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, etc.
Super striking packaging, all metallic gold ink on full color matte finish, inside an equally striking booklet filled with haunting images, lyrics, liner notes and original artwork by Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizarre.
New age. Pretty much the ultimate diss when you want to put down someone's musical taste. Or harsh on some band, or record. Tough to think of a more purely musical putdown. Sellout? Maybe. Poser? Definitely, but not necessarily musical. But New Age. Oof. Moms and Grandmas listen to new age. Yanni ferchrissakes! And with all the ambient music we love so much here at AQ, we're extra conscious of negative New Age connotations, cuz it's always a fine line between shimmery droney dreaminess and whooshy New Age schmaltz. But c'mon, trust us, trust the folks at EM Records, and take our word that if you're only ever gonna buy one unabashed actual New Age album (and Andee hasn't already forced you to get some George Winston or Kitaro), then this should absolutely be the one.
Iasos was born in Greece and moved to America when he was 4, began playing piano at 8, then flute at 10. In the late sixties, he began to hear a 'new' music in his head and moved to California to try and realize this "heavenly music". And finally in 1975, he did it! Iasos 'invented' new age music with the release of 1975's Inter-Dimensional Music Through IASOS, which has now been reissued by the fine folks at EM, and has stood the test of time pretty darn well.
It's all here, tinkling piano, swooshing synthesizers, running water sounds, bird calls, maudlin melodies, fluttering flutes, crickets chirping, lots of nature sounds, thunderstorms, strange sound effects, gentle keening drones, whirling sonic washes and sweet swirls of soft focus sound. Even the song titles: "The Bubble Massage", "Rainbow Canyon", "Crystal Petals", "Clouds Prayer", Libra Sunrise." Yep, this is definitely New Age, there's no two ways about it, but if you can look past that 'stigma', this record is actually quite beautiful. And mysterious. And delicately lovely. It has lots of elements that plenty of AQ faves share, strange production, lots of fuzzy airy drones, plenty of insect sounds, bird calls, all wrapped into sweet expanses of dreamy sound. In fact if we listed this as some super limited cd-r on some upstart microlabel in Tasmania, and it had some murky forest photo on the cover, we'd sell tons, and no one would be the wiser. It's easy to forget that the modern crop of drifting ambient experimentalists owe quite a bit to new age pioneers. And let's not forget about all the pretty cool bands who either WERE new age, became new age, or incorporated elements of new age into their sound: Popol Vuh, Ashra, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Deuter, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Vangelis.
But Inter-Dimensional Music, regardless of pedigree, or genre classification, is just a dang good record. A little cheesy in places maybe but so what, hasn't stopped us from listening to this practically every day!!
Like all EM releases, the packaging is amazing. But the Iasos has a truly striking cover, even by the already impossibly high EM Records standards. Metallic gold embossed printing on glossy white paper. the cover image a man's torso, emerging from a cloud, arm upraised holding a flute, which is being struck by lightning. Some of you may recognize the image as it was stolen for a record cover many years back by Canadian noiserock guitarmy Superconductor. And of course there's also gold and white obi, as well as a massive booklet full of liner notes (all in Japanese, sorry) and loads of photos. As with all EM releases, SO RECOMMENDED!!!!
What?! A somewhat sort of sensible Alan Bishop recording? We had thought the amazing Baroque Primitiva from 2011 might have been the most polite thing the former Sun City Girl had ever released; but his latest project under the moniker Invisible Hands might just take the cake, as this one can be downright lovely, not too far from Giant Sand or Calexico weirdly enough. Nope, there's none of the misogyny or misanthropy which Bishop routinely tosses into his lyrics for the Sun City Girls or as Alvarius B, and most definitely nothing as rude and wild and over the top as his Uncle Jim pseudonym; and that may have to do with the company he's keeping. The Invisible Hands ensemble is comprised of members of the Egyptian rock band Eskenderella; and they recorded this album in the summer of 2011 after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak and the upheaval that spread throughout Northern Africa. Perhaps, the timing was such that it would be unwise to record an album with the sorts of provocative subjects that Bishop is generally known for; but then again, it might have been equally improper to have recorded an album that might have been offensive to an Egyptian sensibility. To Bishop, it might be one thing to offend his politically correct audience in America and another thing to offend his hosts in Egypt, 'cause that would be rude. Eh. Or hell, maybe we're just getting a glimpse of a lesser seen sonic side to this musical misanthrope...
Either way, the album's arrangements are lovely and spacious, mostly driven by acoustic guitar with plenty of those Morricone nods common to the Bishop songbook, but there's some more aggressive turns with the theatrical gravity of Tom Waits and a few incendiary psychedelic moments that had us wondering aloud "Hey, when is somebody gonna reissue Torch Of The Mystics?" In fact, one of the songs here "Black Weather Shoes" is a pretty radical reinterpretation of an old Sun City Girls track from their record Grotto Of Miracles. We've been told that there's an Arabic version of these recordings under the Arabic name El Ayadi El Khafeyya, but that's only being sold in the Middle East. Major bummer, dude! That would be a very cool thing to hear, although this is cool as it is. Let's petition the White House and force them to comment on an Alan Bishop record!
Here's another collaboration between the surrealistically minded irr. app. (ext.) and the enigmatic At Jennie Richie, as we were recently blown away by the cassette from those two projects. And that shouldn't be a big surprise, given that irr. app. (ext.)'s work has long been championed around these parts. Lest there be any confusion, this is *NOT* the same material as found on that cassette, nor is anything reprised from that cassette either (well, at least to our ears). In fact, the first side - "Night Wearing Feathers" - was originally a 3" cd-r from 2006; and as you could probably guess, that's long been out of print. This track begins with a squeak and sigh only to snap into simple skittered rhythms that succumb to a radiant drone build from and / or occluded by various mechanical vibrations that poke through the glassy mesmerism. It's not out of step from the brilliant trilogy of Wilhelm Reich related recordings irr. app. (ext.) embarked upon around that same time period (e.g. Ozeanische Gefuhle, Cosmic Superimposition, Kreiselwelle). The B side - "Sunshine Bus Rider" - was composed six years later in 2012 and is a far angrier, more gnarled composition, with a buzzing guitar (or maybe a detuned sitar?) slowly blooming at the onset like some of the more recent OM recordings with fucked collage noise, nervous slices of diabolical laughter, and clattering found objects all getting jostled around in the true spirit of Nurse With Wound's sonic Dada. Both tracks are mind-fuckers for sure, and we mean that as the highest of compliments! Limited to 234 copies.
The Snowbringer Cult was a double cd originally released way back in 2008 on the Students of Decay label, and was the first proper cd release from French bedroom drone-psych-folk epic from Natural Snow Buildings, the boy/girl duo of Mehdi Amaziane and Solange Gularte, that double cd included a NSB full length, as well as an album from each of their solo projects, those being Isengrind and Twinsistermoon. That double cd is finally available again, but has also been reissued on vinyl for the first time, with each of the three parts being released separately as its own record.
Natural Snow Buildings have been a band since WAY back in 1999, toiling quietly WAY underground, and over the course of the last decade plus, have only really released a handful of records, and in the first 6 or 7 years, they only managed 4 cd-r's and two tapes, the total number of copies of all 6 of those releases hovering at about 250. That's insane! At the time we couldn't help wonder how a band with such a small catalog, that has reached so few ears, could generate so much fanboy freakout?! But that's precisely what happened. And thankfully, and perhaps surprisingly, in the case of NSB, and the two solo offshoots, the hype does not seem unwarranted. The freaking out more than merited. The music of Amaziane and Gularte is definitely something special, much more than the usual generic fx laden droned out abstract cd-r floor-core that seems to be constantly flooding the scene, this duo write actual songs, and create gorgeous soundscapes, they mix raga-like psych with fluttery folk, deep drones with pristine pop, weaving it all together into something spectacular.
The Isengrind record begins with some deep dark ambience, huge shimmering streaks of ominous sound, like an orchestra tuning up in a cave, drawn out into warm washes of dronelike sound, processed choral vocals, and wheezing accordions. That intro gives way to a buzzing Eastern style raga, lots of percussion, shakers, bells, hand drums, buried beneath a shimmery smear of thick coruscating buzz, a sea of sitars, with Solange's vocals soaring ghostlike over the top. The next track is a dark folky drift, a simple melody, fluttering flute, more abstract percussion, definitely reminiscent of Avarus and other Finnish forest folk, but somehow more ethereal, and genuinely folky. The rest of the Isengrind tracks drift from spectre like folk, simple strums soaked in reverb and wrapped around ethereal vocals, to more raga jams, Indian style buzz filtered through a fractured folk sensibility, to haunting cinematic ambience, abstract soundscapes rife with streaks of feedback and wheezing chordal whir, disembodied strum, mysterious vocals and sporadic percussion, tribal, primal, primitive and raw, but still dreamlike and lovely.
As we commented in our review of the now out of print Laurie Bird cd-r from French bedroom drone-psych-folk duo Natural Snow Buildings, it always surprises us how bands with nothing but a MySpace page and a cd-r or two, can generate so much hype and excitement. It seems to be a common occurrence these days, with some bands even getting real live major label record deals purely on the strength of the handful of tracks on their MySpace page.
To be fair to Natural Snow Buildings, they have been a band since 1999, toiling quietly WAY underground, and over the course of the last 9 years, have only released 4 cd-r's and two tapes, the total number of copies of all 6 releases hovering at about 250. That's insane! How does a band with such a small catalog, that has reached so few ears, possibly generate so much fanboy freakout?! But that's precisely what happened. But thankfully, and perhaps surprisingly, in this case, the hype does not seem unwarranted. The freaking out more than merited. The music of Natural Snow Buildings is definitely something special, much more than the usual generic fx laden droned out abstract cd-r floor-core that seems to be flooding the scene, this boy girl duo write songs, and create gorgeous soundscapes, they mix raga-like psyche with fluttery folk, deep drones with pristine pop, weaving it all together into something spectacular.
So here we have the very first proper cd release (others on the way, reissues of several of their various way-too limited cd-r's) from Natural Snow Buildings, bundled with an extra disc, featuring a whole record from both NSB members' solo projects, Twinsistermoon, whose last disc we reviewed recently, and Isengrind, the project of Solange, the female half of NSB.
Isengrind's half of disc one begins with some deep dark ambience, huge shimmering streaks of ominous sound, like an orchestra tuning up in a cave, drawn out into warm washes of dronelike sound, processed choral vocals, and wheezing accordions. That intro gives way to a buzzing Eastern style raga, lots of percussion, shakers, bells, hand drums, buried beneath a shimmery smear of thick coruscating buzz, a sea of sitars, with Solange's vocals soaring ghostlike over the top. The next track is a dark folky drift, a simple melody, fluttering flute, more abstract percussion, definitely reminiscent of Avarus and other Finnish forest folk, but somehow more ethereal, and genuinely folky. The rest of the Isengrind tracks drift from spectre like folk, simple strums soaked in reverb and wrapped around ethereal vocals, to more raga jams, Indian style buzz filtered through a fractured folk sensibility, to haunting cinematic ambience, abstract soundscapes rife with streaks of feedback and wheezing chordal whir, disembodied strum, mysterious vocals and sporadic percussion, tribal, primal, primitive and raw, but still dreamlike and lovely.
Mehdi begins his side of the disc, with a sound that perfectly compliments Solange's (and make it obvious why the two work so well together in NSB), long drawn out glimmering high end tones, draped over a dark minor key folky strum, and simple percussion, while Mehdi's feminine sounding falsetto soars over the top, all infused with some sort of freaky folky Wickerman vibe. Gorgeous and haunting. That track is followed up by a short chunk of perfect dreamfolk, simple folky strum, and Mehdi's crystal clear vocals, ringing out, pure and impossibly high, if you didn't know better you might think this was some rare track by some lost seventies female folkie.
And so it goes, tracks weaving back and forth, from warm washed out blissy dreamy dronescapes, to simple stripped down folk, often the two sounds drifting into each other, cross pollinating, the folk songs short and seemingly serving to separate the longer sprawling expanses of drone and shimmer, the two sounds dramatically different, but somehow complimenting one another perfectly.
So what happens when the two join forces, becoming Natural Snow Buildings? It would be way too easy to say that the sum equaled the parts, that if you took the sound of the two halves of the first disc, it would equal the whole of the second. There is certainly �some- truth to that, but it's not math, it's magic. Alchemy, musical sorcery, these are sounds not numbers, and thus are governed by forces far more magical and mysterious than physics or science. The two together join spirits, their natures become entwined, they draw from one another, each offering the other part of their soul, rendered in music. The results are truly divine. An assemblage of sounds, deftly woven into expansive shapes and hushed mystery, landscapes of drone and shimmer, of cinematic wonder and dark introspection. Some tracks are super abstract, layered near static drifts, longform movements that sonically evoke other lands, other times, the past long forgotten, the future not yet experienced, other tracks are wheezing sun dappled Appalachia, but turned inside out, the chords and notes seemingly drawn inward, toward the speakers, the vocals breathless and mournful, all laid atop a thick swirl of distorted riffage, other tracks are fragmented folk, all murky blurred piano, backwards guitars, heartsick melodies, wrapped in a thick gauzy production, smeared into snapshots glimpsed through eyes brimming with tears. Other tracks are space rock writ small, minimal dirges, drone jams, chanted vocals, strange stuttery percussion, and glorious buzzing guitars, culminating in the final track, which begins much like the others, all hazy and dreamlike, vocals ethereal, guitars spare and skeletal, until unexpectedly the band lock into some serious droned out space rock. A serious dark and druggy looped riff, a la Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, Loop, anchored by a simple pounding thudrock rhythm, driving intensely through swirling clouds of FX and warm whirring ambience, a seriously dense, propulsive krautjam, that just so happens to hide a soft drifting pop shimmer underneath, and while the track rocks with a surprising intensity, it's precisely what's underneath that turns the jam into something resplendent.
Gorgeous packaging, a fancy 4 panel gatefold digisleeve, with super striking original artwork and liner notes all drawn by Solange.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
Dark Morse is a super limited cassette from the brilliant Belgian drone-songstress Felicia Atkinson aka Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier, a moniker snatched from Nico's Desertshore album. Her synth, reverb, and vocal concoctions earn her favorable comparisons to Motion Sickness Of Time Travel and Grouper; but she's continuing to delve into deeper waters away from any psychedelic inclinations and toward a darkly psychological sentiment. Dark Morse is based on the Don Delillo collection of short stories The Angel Esmeralda, whose thematic arcs and intertwining narratives bristle with rape, murder, and surreal miracles popping up on highway billboards. Atkinson's condensation of Delillo's work adheres to a suitably sinister atmosphere. Shadowy, occluded sounds of ghost-clattering rhythms, narcoleptic vocals, and ill-tempered drone-melodies sprawl across the 38 minutes as shape-shifting amalgams that come in and out of existence through an ectoplasmic ambience. The witchiness of it all makes us think that this wouldn't be too far out of place alongside the Demdike Stare associates / affiliates of Anworth Kirk, Slant Azymuth, Suum Cuique, and David Orphan. While 200 copies may seem like a beefy production run for a cassette, this is too good to be sitting around for long.
Pretty killer match up between two aQ faves, Justin Broadrick's (Godflesh, Jesu, etc) new electronic outfit JK Flesh, and long running experimental noise/power electronics combo Prurient. The JK Flesh tracks here are about the darkest and fiercest we've heard from Broadrick, opening with a thick corrosive buzz, droned out and dense, before exploding into a dense churning industrial dirge, which soon blossoms into some old school jungle, and thus flits back and forth between chugging, metallic, almost Godflesh like crush to still bleak, but more beat-y drum n' bass stutter.
The other tracks follow suit, laying a groundwork of beats and rhythms, and then dousing them with noisy, psychedelic sound, a loping breakbeat is looped over a dark background of industrial clatter and buzzing synth squelch. Creepy gothy electro roils ominously, the lumbering machinelike grooves sounding not unlike classic Skinny Puppy, albeit a bit revved up and dirtied up.
Prurient, aka Dom Fernow (Cold Cave, Ash Pool, Cold Cave, etc.) counters with whirring drones, mysterious disembodied voices, all reverbed and processed, and set adrift through fields of soft noise thrum, buried feedback, and heavy crumbling sheets of distortion, even some synthy cold-wave style pulsations, haunting and murky and muddy, at super rhythmic at times, reminding us of some of Fernow's other recent projects, Vatican Shadow, Silent Servant and Christian Cosmos. The final track though is the perfect blend of noise and dreamlike ambience, a Caretaker / Tim Hecker style gauzy drift, a swirling sprawl of ethereal ambience, haunting reverbed piano melodies, floating in glorious expanses of dep hum and slow shifting thrum, and beneath it all a constantly roiling sea of jagged, but muted and muddied feedback, all smeared into a hazy bleary eared, but still subtly corrosive, dronescape.
Pressed on ultra thick vinyl, and packaged in heavy, old school Stoughton style tip on sleeves.
This may be only the second release from one man band Jute Gyte that we've reviewed, but it's at least his TWENTIETH in about 6 or 7 years, and thankfully it seems that his prolific nature has done nothing to dull his creativity, or the power of his sound, a dense, dizzying microtonal black metal, that spends much of it's time locked in spiraling, frenzied swirls of frenetic buzz, the sounds slippery, slithery and shimmery, those moments the closest any modern black metal band has come to creating something truly transcendental, the fact that those blasts of epic ur-drone black-buzz majesty are surrounded by all manner of woozy, warped, atonal black-prog, and lumbering almost doomic grim churn, only serves to make those moments that much more intense. And the strange sound, that microtonal tuning, gives the music a serious bent quality, everything just slightly off, and a little twisted. The sound at first seems almost out of tune, but the more you listen, the more those strange intervals begin to make sense, and wow does it add a definite alien tension to the proceedings, the vocals too, a hysterical shriek, and when all of the various twisted elements come together, it's some sort of demonic black musical magic, that is tough to beat, and honestly even tougher to describe. Those transcendental moments almost sound like a symphony of super distorted fretless guitars, the sound slipping fluidly between the chords and notes making everything super tripped out and most definitely psychedelic, and that tuning and the tension it produces, makes every song super dramatic, ratcheting up the tension, with no release, and no resolve, just building and building, the intensity of Jute Gyte's black energy of the charts. Then there's the whole avant/experimental angle, that gives the music to non-fans of black metal, check out the opener to "Night Is The Collaborator Of Torturers", it's so twisted, the notes so weird, and the arrangements so fucked, it almost makes your eyes water, and the drums too follow suit, abstract and stumbling, the vocals come in, and voila, it's some sort of avant prog, no distortion, no manic riffing, just spidery melty melodies, tangled off kilter drumming, the whole thing seemingly on the verge of total collapse. But then "Romanticism Is Ultimately Fatal", launches directly into another one of those flurries of majestic black buzz and warped detuned melody, and then somehow, even though the sound is fully cranked, they somehow push it even further, and it's the sort of sound that could make your head explode.
This stuff is incredible, and we're guessing if you're like us, you'll get an earful of this, and then have to track down the other 19 releases. Fans of Mick Barr's mutant strain of black metal will be in heaven, as will anyone into warped, outsider blackness. Packaged in a dvd case, with full color cover and color printed insert with (amazing) lyrics.
We had never heard of artist Jeff Keen before, but by now, we know to just trust the curatorial, crate digging brilliance of Johnny Trunk and his ever expanding series of sonic wonders released via his Trunk label. This collection of unearthed soundtrack recordings from comics obsessed UK outsider artist Keen is no exception. Keen, a painter, sculptor, filmmaker, and more, created a whole series of films, for which he also recorded the soundtracks, using whatever he had on hand, field recordings from his local arcade, an old Atari, primitive delay machines, radios, tape loops, old synthesizers, as well as an arsenal of homemade instruments of his own invention, made from old dolls and toys and all manner of salvaged detritus. That's not to mention his own voice, speaking a language he invented, and delivered as if spoken by various characters he created. These soundtracks were all discovered after his death, a box of cassettes containing some of the coolest craziest sounds you'll ever hear.
From wild plunderponic jumbles of tangled voices woven into constantly shifting textures, and weird dizzying rhythmic arrangements, cool glitched out soundscapes, all FX drenched bleeps and bloops laid over buzzing strings and weird sonic blurts, blasts of super psychedelic noise, dubbed out into hypnotic pulsations, or whipped up into wild speaker destroying squalls, woozy loops peppered with all sorts of random sonic fragments, voices, sound effects, plenty of short wave interference, EVP like static and hum, twisted Speak & Spell style vocal garble, and lots of droney noisiness, caustic and chaotic one second, weirdly mesmerizing the next, some stretches that sound like old industrial music or power electronics, and others that sound like modern minimalism, or some lost Dada artifact, mysterious recordings reminiscent of an alien Kurt Schwitters.
Super cool, and super strange. Extensive liner notes and essays, as well as lots of photos!
Latest clutch of epic psychedelic doom heaviness from these Swedes, four sprawling tracks that shift easily from chugging, churning riffiness, to soaring, super melodic heaviness, the sound epic, the production massive, The roots of their sound obviously reach back to Neurosis and Isis, and beyond to classic old school doom, but with the clean vocal choruses, the majestic melodies, makes much of this have an almost Soundgarden / Alice In Chains vibe, which is not a bad thing at all, just means that for every sprawl of roiling, downtuned dirgery, there's some serious hookage and a chorus most non-doom bands would kill for. And sure, the vocals often slip into death metal growls and glass gargling rasps, on "Tamed Brute" in fact, the sound slows to a crushing creep, maybe the heaviest point on the record, the sort of tarpit sludge groove that we can't resist, but on the title track, there's lots more melody, even some cool stretches of cool loping post rock, with chiming melodies, tribal drumming, squalls of feedback, and again, those soaring vox, makes for something super psychedelic and sorta trance-y. And the main riff, while definitely doomy, is also a killer, especially when the two guitar harmonize, totally epic, and then when the stomp boxes are stomped, and the song proper kicks in, it's a crusher for sure.
The second half of the record finds the band doing more of that heavy/poppy mix and match, with some almost Agents Of Oblivion style slithery swagger, wedded to some seriously chugging doom, and more grinding chug. The last track is a slow burn, slow build epic, the first half all spaced out and ethereal, softly psychedelic, shuffling drums under spidery distorted melodies, and fuzzed out bass rumble, it's not until about halfway through that things kick off, and again, we're getting a huge AoO vibe, which we love! Surprisingly soulful and emotional doom-ed heaviness, that slips once again into some tripped out psych-doom drift, before building to a finale that's like a more doomy Godspeed, all swirling distorted shoegaze guitar, detuned metallic chug, tribal drum bombast, all gradually fading into a haze of gauze-y distortion, and blissed out psychedelic shimmer.
A lot of the soundtracks we review, are for movies we haven't actually seen. In some ways that's sort of liberating, at least from a purely musical standpoint, hearing the sounds solely for what they are, instead of having those sounds inexorably linked to specific images. And in a lot of cases, we have discovered some incredible films via their soundtracks, and not the more common other way around. We got this soundtrack to this 1981 French horror/thriller (directed by Polish director Andrzej Zulawski, and scored by his longtime collaborator Andrzej Korzynski, also Polish, but more on that in a second) in a few months ago, and instantly, become totally obsessed, spinning it multiple times a day, inevitably folks in the store would ask what it was, because it's so goddamn good. And creepy, and twisted, and pretty much the perfect score, but for what, we weren't sure, as we had not seen the movie. And while are obsession proves that you needn't see the movie to love this, once we actually DID see the movie, we flipped for that too, wondering how the hell we could have missed out on it all these years. It's literally one of the weirdest, most fucked up films EVER. And the soundtrack we had become so familiar with over the last several months, finally viewed in the contest of the film, made both even more bizarre and amazing.
So the film itself, banned until 1991, and at the time classified as a "Video Nasty", stars an American, Sam Neil, who becomes convinced his wife, Isabelle Adjani, is cheating on him, which she is. Neil hires a private investigator, eventually meets the lover, and the lover's mother, but there's so much more to the story, there's a crazily neglected child in the mix, some truly twisted parenting, and SPOILER ALERT!!!! Some sort of super gross oozing monster that lives in an abandoned building that Adjani is in love with, or is at least having sex with? There's tons of screaming and hitting and fighting, and one of thee most dramatic freakouts EVER, with Adjani losing her mind in a tunnel, and ending up spewing and oozing all sorts of weird fluids, there's a particularly psychedelic denouement as well, lots of crazy scenery chewing, the whole thing is utterly and unabashedly over the top. Even right after seeing it, we weren't sure what the fuck just happened. But we did know, we loved the movie, and suddenly, loved the soundtrack EVEN MORE.
Korzynski's soundtrack is a series of short cues, most less than a minute, that find the composer experimenting with synthesizers, drum machines, primitive electronics. It's actually quite progressive, and in places is reminiscent of Carpenter or Goblin, especially in the movie's 'theme'. Check out the opening track "The Night The Screaming Stops", and it will be stick in your head forever, the tense strings, the pulsing rhythmic throb, the mysterious percussion, the swirling synth, and the creepy sci-fi sound effects, not to mention the melody. It's so haunting and creepy, but in the film, it's over the most innocuous sequence, and it's that juxtaposition that makes it so effectively chilling. Seriously if this soundtrack was 2 minutes long, and consisted of that first track, we'd still want a copy!
But dig in, there's plenty more, haunting swoonsome strings, drifting over a lilting organ melody, dreamy and drifty, but so subtly ominous, there's some full on synth prog, again revisiting that opening melody, but with more heft, as the soundtrack unwinds, there's lots of percussion, shakers, little flurries of synth shimmer, deep drones, the orchestral theme is particularly stirring, a refrain of the opening credit sequence, but so much more creepy and hauntingly stately. There are also lots of brief blasts of synthy psychedelia, appropriately titled things like "Detective's Desserts" or "Bloody Embrace", and part of the reason these cues are so short, is that much of the movie is sans incidental music, so the cues come in to accentuate certain events, the sonic equivalent of jump-scares, but super effective, and they add a whole other level of surreal psychedelia to the proceedings, very 'Euro' for sure. The series of "Kreuzberg" variations are particularly freaky, sinister and mysterious, grim ambience and super tense orchestral weirdness. Oh did we mention "The Man With The Pink Socks"? Another perplexing plot point, and one that here gets the bookending closing sequence, revisiting "Meeting With A Pink Tie". Adding some extra wah guitar, and both revisiting that opening theme.
Listen to the sound samples and see if you can resist. But really why bother? You won't be sorry. Even removed from the movie, this score is fantastic, psychedelic, orchestral, proggy, tripped out and bizarre, and no doubt will have you headed to the video store to experience the baffling brilliance of the film, once your sated on the equally baffling and brilliant score.
Like all B-Music / Finders Keepers releases, includes a huge booklet with lots of liner notes and tons of rare photos.
That pesky 'dimensional bleedthrough' thing has happened once again, with the buzzing, super-teched out sounds of whatever weird astral plane wherein Krallice dwell making it all the way to our humble ears here on Earth, causing much headbanging and more mindboggling. Yes, indeed it's the fourth album of epick black metal shreddness from this NYC unit, which features the inhuman guitar chops of both Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Octis, Ocrilim, Oldest, Crom-Tech, etc.) and Colin Marston (Dysrhythmia, Behold�The Arctopus, Infidel?/Castro!, etc.).
Once again, if you want blasting majesty and grim complexity� you got it!! Just press play and give yourself up to the numbing force of these intense exercises in extremity, an hour's worth of Krallice's controlling chaos.
All we can say is, for this precise (and it is precise) style of black metal - music that's as difficult to play as most black metal logos are to read - at this point Krallice have nothing left to prove. And very little competition.
We've currently got the digipack cd version, self-released by the band this time rather than on Profound Lore like the three previous (on account of how PL's release schedule was a bit backed up), with the double vinyl version on Gilead Media on the way to us next week.
It's been ages since we've heard from psychedelic space drifters Landing, and we DEFINITELY don't remember them sounding like this. The swirling spaciness is still present, as is the group's dreamlike electronic psychedelia, but here, it's delivered in a much different form, one that's more sort of new wave electro synth pop! Yup, sequencers, drum machines, ethereal female vox, The first track might have you thinking you're listening to some new record on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, which if you're a fan of either, snag this right now. Crystalline guitars wound around loping rhythmic skitter, and low slung bass thrum, chiming and dreamy, the song more than just retro leaning electro-pop, at one point the guitars and vocals drop out, revealing the tripped out psychedelic electronic experimentation that lurks below/within, which the band has deftly crafted into something incredibly poppy and blissed out, equal parts 4AD, M83, and the new wave of, er, new wave. In fact the whole A side is made up of this sort of swirling prismatic kraut-pop, looped and mesmeric, trance-y and super hypnotic, the sounds pulsing and shimmering, loads of echo and reverb, the last track on the A side is all cool loping downer electro pop, crooned male vox, over a driving, but still laid back, twinkling harmonics, reverby jangle, a total throwback, but with a modern, more experimental sheen.
It's on the B-side that we get a little taste of the Landing of old, a sprawling epic that sounds like it could/should have been on Kranky, all blurred drifts and murky melodies, bass thrum and synthy swirl, but some of the group's new elements are still present, a fractured, minimal glitchy rhythm, some of the sounds blown out, and glowing with a muted intensity, before being smeared into the softly undulating backdrop, over this slo-mo groove, drifts flurries of tangled synth, mysterious percussive fragments. About halfway through, the song seems to blossom into some swirling electronic dream pop, the female vocals rejoining, before as quickly as the sound changes, it changes once again, and spends the rest of the side's 8 minutes gradually unwinding and unfurling, a heady dreampop psych-drift headtrip that definitely proves that the whipper snappers these days, trafficking in similar sounds, have NOTHING on their sonic elders. Dreamy, droney, poppy, psychedelic, electronic perfection!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Includes a download coupon as well.
This is the first we've heard from this local synth pop combo, who manage to mix the lilting indie jangle of that Slumberland Records sound with old school classic eighties new wave into a sweet electro pop confection. Programmed drums, buzzing crackling synths, ethereal female vocals, occasional boy/girl harmonies, all sort of hazy and softly psychedelic. The sound is alternately crunchy and fuzzy and surprisingly aggressive, and wistful and dreamily shimmery. The A side title track is the A side for a reason, hooky as hell, and the sort of song former aQ staffer Irwin would claim would be just the thing to get your body moving. While the B side takes the same elements and crafts something a bit broodier, and almost ballad, that creeps and drifts darkly, but is peppered with bursts of wild squelching synths, and is laced with chiming melodies, reminding us a bit of Stereolab, and like minded retro-poppers. The included download adds another track, which fuses some seriously gristly rhythms, to acoustic guitars, and some wild, noisy synth splatter, but weaves it all into a driving electro-synth jam that's got some heft to it, while still managing to be dreamy and divinely poppy!
