Listening to this obscure eighties chunk of electro pop new wave, you'd never guess this outfit hailed from Columbus, Ohio (and in fact the liner notes describe Near Paris as being the only synth pop band in Columbus, which is perhaps not all that surprising), sounding instead like they must hail from someplace like Sheffield in the UK. The fine folks at Medical Records have once again rescued a fantastic artifact of dark synth pop. The release compiles the group's only 12" alongside a handful of tracks from various cassettes and demos. And it's fantastic stuff, dark and moody and poppy, the sort of sound that most of the new Sacred Bones / Captured Tracks band are shooting for - just check out the opener "Visions", all handclap beats, pulsing synth bass, flurries of cascading synth melodies, robotic programmed rhythms, reverbed guitar shimmer, deep dramatic male vox tangled up with equally dramatic female vocals, there's a very Human League vibe, which definitely is a good comparison, as is Section 25, who the group occasionally played with. And there's lots of guitar, unlike many of the electro-pop and synth-pop groups of the era. On tracks like "Why Baby", Near Paris lace their moody synthscapes with chiming harmonics, some cool distorted spidery leads, heck there's even harmonica! At times the vibe is almost more eighties LA gloom pop, than UK synth pop, it's not hard to imagine Near Paris playing at the Scream in LA with a group like Red Temple Spirits, that same sort of gothiness infuses much of NP's sound, the reverby guitars and swirling moody atmospherics, but at its core, this is pulsing synthy new wave pop, flecked with just enough dark brooding energy to give it an edge over many similar sounding bands at the time. And some of the tracks here are SO catchy, it's a wonder Near Paris didn't find more success, "Visions" is a gloomy gem, that given the right exposure could have made these guys huge. We're guessing being the only synth pop band in Columbus Ohio might have been part of the problem.
LIMITED TO 650 COPIES!!! Pressed on 180 gram oxblood colored vinyl, and includes an insert with photos and liner notes.
Not sure what to say about this legendary Afrobeat outfit that we haven't already. We first discovered Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou via the amazing African Scream Contest compilation, and ever since, we've become a bit obsessed, playing the first two collections to death! This long in the works THIRD collection, gathers up still more recordings from these aQ faves, culled like the other collections from nearly 500 recordings, the tracks here have never been issued outside of Africa, and like those past installments, display one of the funkiest bands around, recorded mostly for small labels, and often with just one mic in the living room of friends' homes, but the sound, and the songs, so catchy, and groovy and funky, wild funky-drummer drumming, killer horns, whirring organs, emotional vocals, the sound big time beholden to James Brown, and often displaying the Latin music influence on West African music at the time as well. Fuzzed out and funky, most definitely psychedelic, groovy as all get out, infectious and irresistible, any one who dug the first two comps (and/or loved African Scream Contest), this one's a no brainer. So great! And like all Analog Africa releases, gorgeously packaged, the cd in a digipak, with a huge booklet, featuring lyrics to all the songs, tons of photos, the digipak and the book housed in a heavy slipcover!
All the doom (and ultra doooooooOOOOOoooooom) lovers here at aQ agree, idiosyncratic Spanish outfit Orthodox is one of our faves, and have been pretty much ever since their 2006 debut, Gran Poder. Over their several albums since, they've pushed the doom envelope in various extreme and extremely strange directions, indulging all sorts of influences, but even when their predilection for sometimes avant-garde, proggy, jazzy, acoustic weirdness takes over, and they start sounding like a cross between Yob and Six Organs Of Admittance playing free jazz, they still ruled - and ultimately remained rooted in old school doom metal too, with a powerful, crushing, heavier-than-thou RIFF always lurking around even the most confusional of corners of their freaky ceremonial sounding compositions.
We hope you're as big of fans of Orthodox as we are, 'cause we're excited to have this new, double cd rare tracks collection from 'em. Of course it's all over the place, from covers of Venom and Sabbath to full on improv sessions, and it's all pretty killer. There's cuts from 7"s and compilations and early cassette demos, plus the bonus tracks from the Southern Lord vinyl edition of Gran Poder (those covers), and several previously unreleased songs as well, all remastered. Obviously for fans first and foremost, but heck if you started your Orthodox experience here you'd be well equipped (and we expect, eager) to delve into the rest of their catalog.
Things start off with mantric, OM-ish "Matse Avatar", the A side of a 7" originally released on the Doomentia label. Great lyrics, you can read 'em in the booklet - one line mentions an "old lady mermaid" who "sings like Geddy Lee". The B side comes next, then their version of Venom's "Genocide", an appropriately aggro and off the rails, bass heavy black metal blast. That's followed by the other cover, wherein Orthodox take one of the first, if not thee first, doom songs ever, "Black Sabbath", and come close to making it their own, being ultra fuzzed out & fucked with, and also seriously psychotic in the vocal dep't.; we'd thought we'd heard that song, and covers of that song, way too many times, but we're willing to spin this Orthodox version again and again. Weirdly, it somehow reminds us of Japanese underground '80s prog act YBO2, if that means anything to you or yours. Then there's the 18+ minute "Heritage", taken from the Four Burials 4-way split, a beautiful and haunting example of psychedelic slowcore "headphone doom", as we described it in our review of that disc. The three previously unreleased tracks are particularly interesting as well, one's from a collaboration with a flamenco dancer - but for sure isn't flamenco music, with its explosive distortion detonations and skittery soundscapes. The other two are intense noisy improvs, and the rather enlightening track-by-track commentary in the cd booklet from the band members reveals that they were inspired by Black Flag and Japanese psych like Mainliner and Keiji Haino, yup, we might have guessed. John Coltrane and, uh-huh, Rush are other influences mentioned here and there. In fact, one of the improvs is titled "Japan Rush", ok!!
Disc two is all lengthy tracks from live rehearsals, originally released on demo tapes, definitely raw but with tons of atmosphere, two of 'em being the first Orthodox recordings ever from back in 2005, demonstrating that they dwelled in "the void" from the very beginning, cult stuff for sure, and HEAVY - listen to these early versions of songs from their debut studio album and get even deeper into their eccentric, unhinged doooooom vibe. The demo track from Sentencia, "Ascension", shows how much changed in a couple years, the band even more eccentric, their doom harder to define.
All in all, essential to anyone who really appreciates Orthodox, and well worth checking out if you're into adventurous doom in general, from Cathedral to SUNNO))), Khanate to Boris, OM to Los Natas� (We're not sure if Rush fans will dig, but they could give it a try too.)
We loved the most recent record on Paradigms from these Boston psychedelic drifters, a haunting collection of abstract dronefolk and electronic flecked ambient drift. But for whatever reason, we never got enough copies to list, which is a shame, cuz it's definitely something aQ dronefans would dig. But hopefully, we'll make up for it a bit with this new one, a single track lp called Destroyers Of The Moon, which is a gloriously epic landscape of cinematic swirls, of dusky twang, of thick analog synth thrum, sweeping strings, subtly psychedelic effects, super dark and brooding, haunting and cinematic, the music is a lush layered sprawl of long tones, of disembodied chamber music, and of ominous dronefolk doominess. The vocals are a raspy whisper, giving the movements with vocals the feel of one of the Neurosis acoustic side projects, but when the vocals fade, the sound blossoms into something more abstract, draping smoldering folky twang over heaving rumbles and swells, the vibe is a little bit Barn Owl, a little bit later Earth, some slow build Godspeed going on too, especially with the strings, and while it's not a single album long track proper, it is essentially a linked set of songs, an epic songsuite of spectral, minimalist doom folk chamber psych dreaminess.
But it's not all hushed and dreamlike, thick swaths of fuzz guitar roll in, adding some shadowy heft, and transforming the sound into something a bit more droned out and almost metallic, but never fully loosing itself from the swirling psychedelic spaciness and creeping downer folk that is the core of Owlfood's sound. There's one stretch of soft, rumbling noise, droned out and mesmerizing, that gradually coalesces into some clanging jangly chords, bursting into some noisy effects heavy strum, the vocals follow suit, even more heavily effected, it's super dramatic and tripped out, and might just be the best part of the record, tense and intense, super tripped out, but still anchored by those Morricone-esque guitar melodies, building to a seriously freaked out sonic squall, one we almost wish could have been sustained for the rest of the record, but instead, the song shifts back into doomfolk mode, and the rest of the record, drifts darkly, from strummed, sinister mesmer, to string flecked folk-drone shimmer, finishing with a bit of swirling string psychedelia.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!! Includes a digital download as well!
Originally released as a super limited (and super pricey) cassette earlier this year, Das Tor is the latest blast of swirling near psychedelic black buzz grimnity from Swiss one band band Paysage D'Hiver, aka Wintherr, who also happens to be a member of Darkspace, a group whose grim black buzz is set somewhere in deep space, as opposed to the mysterious icy forests that seem to be the source of the Paysage demos and adorn most of the demo's covers. And while we're on the subject, it does seem kind of silly to keep referring to every Paysage record so far (ten since 1998) as a 'demo', seeing as we're not really expecting any of these demos to suddenly surface, re-recorded and super polished as a proper 'album'. Plus demos are just way more kvlt and underground�
The sound on Das Tor, which comes six years after the last release, 2007's Einsamkeit, definitely sounds like maybe months have past, not years, a continuation of past records, the songs remain sprawling majestic epics, most begin with the sound of wind, softly swirling synths, the bulk of the tracks made up of tranced out, droned out blasts of icy buzz, the riffs blurred into sweeping swaths of thrum, swaddled in soaring shimmering synths, the drums blasting away, a tangled rhythmic skeleton buried in the mix, the vokills a demonic rasp that bleeds into the surrounding guitar buzz, listening to it in the store, it sounds like thick billows of blown out blurry noise, but strap some headphones on and details begin to emerge, textures and melodies, dynamics, in some places those dynamics are super dramatic. On opener "Offenbarung", the whole first half is all bleary, smeary droned out buzz, when suddenly, the song blossoms into something super melodic, and droney and doomy, a second guitar swooping in, laying down a creepy dirgey riff, wreathed in haunting melodies, the drums slowed down to a death march pound, the effect is stunning and super intense, this woozy, creepy crawl continues for several minutes, the sound blissing out to just a single guitar, before the sound explodes again into a furious blizzardy blast, beneath which, melodies and textures roil and churn, and then suddenly, the black buzz is peeled back, revealing more of that whipping wind, mysterious whispered voices, what sounds like some arctic field recordings, ghostly and abstract, which seems to explode right back into some churning doomy crush, only to bliss out again into a soft focus drift of ethereal atmospheric synth swirl and haunting cinematic ambience.
The rest of the tracks - all epic, the shortest clocking in at 14:20 - follow a similar pattern, a brooding slow burn intro, often a lumbering, lurching doom, exploding into full on furious winter blast bliss out, synths swirling throughout, the songs dissipating in clouds of wind and icy ambience, the tracks laced with long stretches of smoldering droned out black buzz mesmer, wrapped in fields of gauzy synth, the melodies mournful and melancholic, the record finishing with an extended stretch of hushed kosmische synthscapery, again, swaddled in wintery winds and a grim foresty ambience. And while sonically, it's very reminiscent of past PdH record, it's surprisingly lush and not lo-fi, blown out and buzzy, but also super lush and layered and gorgeously mesmerizing. Total tranced out black metal bliss for sure. And like the other 'demos', Das Tor comes housed in an oversized A5 sized 8 panel fold out book style digipak, the whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed in blank ink on the black sleeve.
We have a bunch of these, but once they sell out, might take a while to get more from overseas, so grab one quick before they're gone, or be prepared to wait patiently for a restock!
Pharmakon is the nom de guerre for death-industrialist Margaret Chardiet, who has catapulted out of nowhere into the spotlight thanks to this high profile release on Sacred Bones. There's no way that Pitchfork would touch a Sudden Infant album of fucked-up, Dada noise or some of that infernal terror of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer. What the hell would they do with Caroliner, for fuck's sake? But Pharmkon's first proper album of blood-curdled screams, dehumanized martial rhythms, and blistered noise did get a rather glowing (if off the mark) review from Pitchfork. The thing is that Abandon is a pretty damn good record, and it would only be nice if the media outlets that claim to have the fingers on the pulse of musical culture would dig just a little deeper beyond Wolf Eyes, Prurient, and now Pharmakon to showcase just what is festering in the noise underworld. Of course, that's never going to happen. Avid readers of this aQuarius recOrds newsletter will certainly know that even what we manage to get in is just the tip of the iceberg. But here stands Pharmakon's Abandon. Dragging chains and muffled whispers scrape through the elongated scream of the opening salvo of Abandon. Her vocals have the demonic rage of William Bennett's throatripping, although Chardiet is not one to enunciate her poetry with the clarity of Bennett. When she switches to a Diamanda Galas deep vibrato moan on "Pitted" to match the flatline death-throe drone and slow, metal bashed rhythms, Chardiet gets at what all of those solo Jarboe records *should* sound like, with those harrowing vocalizations accompanied by a lumbering crawl akin to those channelled by Brighter Death Now. "Crawling On Bruised Knees" could be a lost SPK track circa Information Overload Unit, perfectly encapsulating the sound of industrial dread and horror circa 1981. Like we said, this is a pretty damn good album. The cd has a 27 minute bonus track!!
Five years in the making, Illusion Is a Natural Condition brings together two of the finest noise artists the world has ever witnessed. Sure, Merzbow and Hijokaidan can hit you with their molten sounds of psychedelic excess; but San Francisco's Randy Yau and Switzerland's Dave Phillips achieve their tempestous recordings through a violent dichotomy between silence and sound. This sharp contrast effectively puts you on edge throughout the listening experience, as you never know when the next attack is going to arrive. In any given track, Yau and Phillips pack together recordings of their gutteral screams and dribbling gurgles of one of the actionists shoving something down his throat that just doesn't belong there. Occasionally, the sound of flies circle around the sickened vocalizations, as if investigating a hospital patient with a sucking chest wound. Pigs squeal. Demons roar. All of these sounds are compressed into track rarely longer than a minute, punctured by extended silences and ruptured by terse blasts of motorized noise and absurdly rendered ultra-violence that would bring joy (or is that pain?) to die-hard Wolf Eyes' fans. Recommended noise for those with a very strong stomach.
"Hello! Hello? HELLO!" Bellows one John Lydon as if tapping on a microphone to check if it's on. Here, the former Sex Pistol began his career as the frontman and only constant in Public Image Limited, whose first two (and arguably, three) albums remain some of the most adventurous post-punk records ever produced. The reasons for the Sex Pistols demise were numerous and often contradictory depending on who's misremembered history you might want to consider, but Lydon (no longer Johnny Rotten) cited Sid Vicious' musical ineptitude on the bass as one such reason. That said, he pinned his hope for Public Image Limited's success on recruiting his old friend John Wardle to learn how to play the bass as they went. This gambit actually proved quite successful, as Wardle was a quick study, easily adapting basslines from dub and krautrock and christening himself with the stage name Jah Wobble. His deep and dubby basslines overlaid with Lydon's caterwauling vocals and squalid rants laid the foundation for the quintessential PiL sound, fleshed out by the spidery guitar of Keith Levene, whom Lydon nicked from The Clash. The first of countless PiL drummers was Jim Walker, who only appeared on this first album. PiL slowly introduces the more adventurous sounds over the course of the album, launching first into the incendiary bass-driven punk single "Public Image" which was a song that Lydon penned back with the Pistols. But through the uber-Spartan tracks in "Fodderstompf" and "Religion," PiL's trajectory towards death-disco and dub-punk was set. The full scope of Public Image Limited wouldn't be evident until the second album Metal Box, but so many of those ideas of dub techniques, atonal vocals, studio tricknology, and cross-pollination of styles are found on First Issue, which makes this an essential purchase.
Light In The Attic states that this edition is actually the first American version of this album, with all of the other editions hailing from overseas. The first disc is the proper album in its entirety, with the second disc sporting the rare b-side "Cowboy Song" and an hour-long BBC interview.
Iceland's synth-punk outfit Q4U issued their one and only album Q1 back in 1982, and now those recordings (along with a bunch of tracks from the same period) get a glorious makeover courtesy of the premiere, minimal wave reissue label Dark Entries. Inspired by the British punk scene, Q4U adopted an aggressively propulsive rhythm section and maniacally jagged guitars all fronted by the snarled vocals of Elinborg Halldorsdottir. She was definitely listening to her Siouxsie & The Banshees and X-Ray Spex records, slanting towards the detached gothic monotone that would also develop out of the under appreciated X Mal Deutschland. Had Hallsdordottir sung in English and not Icelandic, the band might have developed a much broader audience, but she was committed to speak to the political inequities of Iceland in her own language. While the band originally began as an archetypal punk four-piece, the drums were abandoned by the time they recorded Q1 in favor of a drum machine (christened Elisabeth II) and plenty of synths. These icy synth melodies and motorik rhythms were much better suited to the Teutonic belting from Halldorsdottir. The 'deluxe edition' of Q1 does feature a bunch of the tracks that featured their original drummer, with the band caught in a spirited if sloppy punk furor. By the time, the electronics entered the mix, Q4U was a sharpened, synth-punk machine. It's a shame the band called it quits by the end of 1983, but at least we have this lost gem! Highly recommended!
Back in 2004, this underground Australian epic metal band put out a pretty cool self-released cd, called Choose The Dark. But it seemed nobody really knew or cared about them, back then. Nearly ten years later, probably nobody still does, these guys aren't exactly on the radar of anyone not super geeked out about cult, epic, true doom metal. Yet somehow, for this, their long-awaited (?) second album, they scored a deal with big time US metal label Metal Blade! Well good for them. Perhaps pacts with the devil do pay off. Or the time was just right. Who knows? Not that they don't deserve it - this is a pretty rad album for those into, like we said, cult, epic, true doom metal, which would include quite a few aQ customers!
This disc, which includes a couple songs from their debut (redone?), totals twelve tracks, full of fuzzy, rollicking riffage in ye olde heavy metal mode, solos shredding, the production definitely NOT slick or high-budget, in fact, it's kinda weird and lo-fi but works for this, for us. Key to Raven Black Night's peculiar sort of magic is their singer, "The White Knight", who belts it out superbly, his ballsy and slightly bizarre vocals wailing in the upper register, kinda reminding us of Bruce Dickinson, or Ian Gillan circa Sabbath's Born Again - not a bad thing!! Messiah from Candlemass would be another good comparison, probably even a better one. Raven Black Night do kinda sound like a weird hybrid of Candlemass and Manilla Road - again, not a bad thing.
One bad thing, though, is that they chose to do a cover of infamous Black Sabbath piano ballad "Changes" for some reason. That's a song that even a lot of hardcore Sabbath fans loathe, so it's pretty nervy of RBN to cover it, we'll give 'em that, but even if you like the song they don't do much with it. (If you wanna hear a good cover of "Changes", go check out the ultra-heavy interpretation Fudge Tunnel did years ago.) So be warned about that, and it's not the only slow and ballady-song here, they do a few originals along those lines as well, but we like those a lot better, they're more "Planet Caravan" than "Changes", spacey and sorta psychedelic.
RBN are at their best though when boisterously galloping along like riders of doom, The White Knight's battle cries ringing forth, on slaying tracks like "Fire In Your Eyes" and "Morbid Gladiator". All in all, they manage to be both rockin' and doomy and just have damn cool weird epic heavy metal vibe to 'em. Glad they didn't give up after that first album so long ago, but kept working diligently on their arcane sorcery in a secret tower somewhere so we'd get to hear this eccentric second strike!
The latest from these longtime aQ psychedelic heavy faves finds the group's shift to the Hands In The Dark label accompanied by a crazy stylistic sonic shift as well, sounding almost exactly like what you might imagine a Robedoor record would / should sound like on a label that is more geared toward twisted electronics and beat driven weirdness. The opening track begins with a sort of crunk style programmed almost hip hop sounding beat, then introduces thick, densely buzzing swaths of low end, almost like super low end dubstep wobbles, then in swoop streaks of swirling almost symphonic synths. The sound heavy, but more textured and dense than properly psychedelic, and while there does seem to be some guitars that creep in here and there, they mostly add some tripped out psychedelic effects or buzzing textures, cuz for the most part, at least for the bulk of the song it's a strange electro-psych synth-hop trip out, that gradually grows more noisy and freaked out by the song's end with some distorted vocals, and some actual guitar buzz, all of which eventually explode into a super distorted squall for the last minute or two. Holy shit, so cool, easily the weirdest, coolest thing we've heard from these guys for sure.
And while we were sort of expecting that opener to be a sort of anomaly, the rest of the record is just as weirdly warped and electronic. With a title like "Blasted Orb", track two seems like it should be some Les Rallizes style blow out, but instead, it's all skittering electronic rhythms, bleating horn like melodies, woozy shimmery textures, layered loops, dense crumbling textures, psychedelic certainly still but more a sort of beat heavy electro-psych.
"Flannel Shroud" is all electronic pulsations, heaving orchestral synth blurts, super processed, reverbed vox, a twisted mix of psychedelic garage rock, and electro synthscapery, but it works, heady and hypnotic and freaky and far out, with some Eastern style sitar sounding melodies, the end of the track cranking up the tempo, where the usual Hawkwind style blowout would go, but instead, it's a weird sort of electro-kraut psych out, with wild tangled electronic leads over programmed beats, and still more crumblingly distorted textures. And finally, "Concrete Brother" is a sort of electro-garage sci-fi creep, slithery and plodding, the drums pulsing and distorted, with thick synth (guitar?) buzz, yowled reverbed vox, keening high end melodies, weird industrial clatter, like some sort of modern avant take on the grim electronic swagger of Suicide, but heavily psychedelicized, droney, and dirgey and drowsily hypnotic. So goddamn great!
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!! Already sold out at the label, so these are very likely our last copies!!! Includes a download code too!
For folks who musically came of age in the nineties, there are a handful of bands that defined out tastes, bands we obsessed over, bands that even to this day, are spoken of in hushed tones, a musical pantheon who not only created some of our favorite records EVER, but also seemed to spawn a legion of later/future bands, started by those self same fans. We're talking Slint of course, Codeine, Bitch Magnet, but then there's Rodan, another Louisville band (same as Slint) that seemed poised for greatness, but who left us with only one record, just six songs, but holy shit, those six songs, that one record is a fucking mind blower, a heavy, noisy, melodic math rock stunner that to this day few bands have come close to matching, in terms of intensity, originality, and pure math/post/noise rock radness. And while the various members would go on to play in other great bands, June Of 44, the Rachel's, Shipping News, Sonora Pine, none of those bands captured the same sonic magic as Rodan. Readers of the aQ list who don't have Rodan's record Rusty, do yourself a favor, and drop everything, and track it down NOW. You will not be sorry. For those of you like us, who have played that record to death for the last 20 years, well, this record is for you.
There were rumblings a while back of a new Rodan record, or perhaps an unearthed second album, which had most of us FREAKING OUT. Ends up what it was, was a collection of singles and compilation tracks, and Rodan's Peel Sessions, so not a new record, or a lost record, but hell, we're not complaining one bit. This collection opens with what might actually be one of our favorite Rodan song ever, their track from, the Simple Machines way way split with Tsunami, Unrest and Superchunk, and it's the perfect Rodan song, with it's super mathy, tense and dense, opening, all stop start heaviness, crazy shifting time signatures, continually morphing arrangement, then BAM, the song explodes into an impossibly catchy almost jangly pop, that sounds a bit like a noisier mathier Sebadoh, albeit all instrumental, finally returning to that churning mathy intro. Worth it JUST for that track. But there's so much more. Their How The Winter Was Passed 7" from 1993, which was released right before Rusty, and is a bit more aggressive, howled vox, wild mathy tangles, some VERY Slinty spoken word broodery, then there's their track from the Half Cocked soundtrack, their track from another killer split with Rocket From The Crypt, Pitchblende and Walleye, another one of our Rodan faves, churning and proggy, heavy and noisy, crunchy guitars, spidery melodies, wild intricate drumming, more Slinty spoken word, and some cool trippy psychedelic vocal harmonies, and there's a killer track from some comp even us obsessive Rodan fans never managed to track down, which finds Tara Jane O'Neil handling the vocals, over another Rodan classic, lurching from mathy tangle, to lilting lope and back again.
And if that weren't enough, the real reason for fans to snag this is the Peel Sessions, three tracks, never before released as far as we can tell, from the same era as Rusty, and sonically, it's more Rodan radness, darkly melodic, heavy and mathy and super melodic."Sangre" is all aching minor key moodiness, wrapped in prickly mathy crunch, "Big Things, Small Things", is quirky and tangly, a slow build, super dense/tense math workout that's like prog for the indie post rock set, the sound dizzying and intricate, but never losing site of the song, never ditching the melody, the sort of impossible hookiness that Rodan seemed to conjure up effortlessly. And finally, there's the almost 11 minute long "Before The Train", which needless to say, RULES, tons of parts, all woven together into an incredible, epic sonic sprawl, some ridiculous drumming, some stuttery start stop mathiness, some dreamy driftiness, a practically perfect collection of everything we loved, and still love about Rodan!
On top of tall that, both the cd AND the lp also include a bonus download of ten unreleased live tracks!!! So absolutely and utterly recommended!!!
RIP Jason Noble.
As we mentioned in our review of Rudimentary Peni's recent Death Church, RP are maybe one of our favorite death rock outfits ever, and we were psyched to discover that their whole catalog is getting reissued, on vinyl, and apparently again on cd. We raved about Death Church a little while back, the group's 1983 debut, but now we leap all the way to the end, at least the end of the first era to the oddly named Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric, the group's final full length from 1995, a concept record conceived of while singer/guitarist Nick Blinko was in a mental hospital, the title, and the concept based on Blinko's delusions of being the titular pope. And while all the RP records are pretty twisted, this one definitely feels like the most warped, not just the music, which is often weirdly carnivalesque (check out opener "Pogo Pope", with its woozy riff, and mush mouthed nonsense vocalizing), but there's also a loop of Blinko muttering something in Latin (we think) which starts off the record, and plays continuously throughout, so you can hear it between songs, during all the quiet parts, and even during lots of the more rocking sections. It adds a pretty weird almost psychedelic vibe to the already twisted proceedings. And while that first that track sets the bar pretty high, it doesn't get any less weird. The core sound remains similar to past records, low slung bass, jagged slashing guitars, wild chaotic drumming, and of course Blinko's distinctive vocals, even more unhinged here than usual, the songs too, some definitely look back to past records, but a lot are bouncier, and more repetitive sounding, and the vocals follow suit, often repeating the same phrase over and over, or holding notes for ages, droning out in some weird ritualistic incantation.
That said, for all its weirdness, maybe BECAUSE of it, Pope Adrian still rules, and remains an all time favorite, as does everything in RP's catalog, all of which will eventually be getting reissued again. Fuck yeah!
Another colorful issue of this right-on magazine from the UK all about cool psych/folk/pop/garage music (both vintage & retro)... This issue has "flower-punks" The Seeds on the cover, and also: Kim Fowley, Francoise Hardy, Marsupilami, The Third Power, Sandie Shaw, You Am I, White Fence, and plenty more. Tons of reviews, lots of informative sidebars, etc. etc.
Here's something else that would have been been perfect for last weeks' Christian-music-themed in-between list, a lost-in-time '80s Xian psychfolk gem now dug up and reissued on vinyl by the folks at Numero Group. Deep Night (nice title!) is deep all right, the inspired work of a musically-inclined priest from somewhere in Illinois and a few local musicians he recruited, conjuring a desolate burned out California vibe, like something hippie out of Laurel Canyon in the '70s - despite being from the Midwest a decade later. And don't worry, it comes across as more universally spiritual and mystical than outright preachy.
We like this for the 12-string guitarwork in particular, and of course the sincere, heartfelt, outsidery, trippy vibe. There's some kind of flange or phaser effect on the guitar that gives it a very psychedelic feel! As for the vocals, well, they could draw comparisons to Bob Dylan and Norman Greenbaum.
Apparently this was "recorded during a single pre-dawn marathon, and mixed live-to tape in an isolated chapel", and it sure sounds like it.
As we've mentioned in our reviews of the last clutch of Skullflower releases, Matthew Bower's long running industrial/noise/power electronics/experimental guitar/drone outfit seems to be gradually growing blacker and blacker, with Bower's love of black metal transforming Skullflower's distortion drenched skree into some sort of avant black buzz. Now that blackness has manifested in a series of splits with 'actual' black metal bands, a forthcoming split with local one man band Mastery, and this one, with weirdo experimental Norwegian blackened doomlords Utarm, whose twisted Apocryphal Stories on Handmade Birds was a huge hit around here, and whose fractured and fucked up take on black buzz seems especially appropriate alongside Skullflower's own idiosyncratic noisemaking. That said, the SF tracks here might be the prettiest stuff we've heard from them/him in a while, the opener super melodic, ultra textural, distorted and crumbly, multiple layers buzz and undulate, buried melodies are looped and tangled into soft squalls of lushly textured crunch, and warped cascades of soft focus noise, even at ten minutes, it's the sort of dense, swirling psychedelia, that we could get lost in for a whole record. The second track, again, on the surface, a wild, noisy, washed out dronescape, but the crackling buzz and fractured FX seem to be draped over something much lovelier, a droned out thrum, a smoldering landscape of minor key shimmer, it's a heady concoction, a sort of pretty ambience in blacknoise clothing, but the prettiness seems to be the victor, infusing the caustic noisiness with a warm melodic glow, and again, we would have happily dug a whole record long version. So we were expecting the final track to be explosive and buzzy, but instead, it's even prettier, gentle guitar strum, pulsing electronics, a sky full of psychedelic squiggles, the pulsing building and intensifying throughout, eventually becoming the dominant presence, but even then, the sound is more moody and haunting than anything, the guitars doused in woozy effects, the overall sound almost jazzy, albeit some sort of black noise power electronics devil jazz.
Utarm keep the weird quotient pretty high with their two tracks, the first, a massive near 18 minute epic, all squiggly synths, and weird processed falsetto vocals, distorted spidery guitar melodies, almost like some sort of demonic lullaby, warped and damaged, until about 5 minutes in when an avalanche of crumblingly distorted downtuned riffage comes crashing in, the sound a black ooze, a sort of SUNNO))) like dirge, but wreathed in howled FX drenched vokills and wild squalls of high end guitar noise, super psychedelic drone-dirge weirdness that KILLS, and so it goes, for the duration of the track, a blown out, heady, heavy psychedelic noise dirge dronescape, that's weirdly hypnotic and melodic, while being darkly corrosive and caustic, some serious black beauty for sure, finally exploding into a closing burst of melody infused blacknoise howl.
The closer, clocking in at a conservative 10 minutes, starts out sounding like it could be Skullflower, noisy swirly and psychedelic, until the sound splinters into a weird sort of industrial creep, all processed vocal samples, churning dirgey basslines, anguished wails, heaving swell of crumbling low end, what sounds like dense collages samples, almost symphonic, all blurred into a wild but weirdly pretty din/skree, super tripped out, free form WTF psychedelic noisy weirdness.
Killer stuff from both groups and obviously WAY recommended!
First we've heard from this Oakland outfit, whose sound is a glorious, throbbing, crumbling, super distorted droned out world of grinding, glitched out synths, and heaving blurred heaviness, two tracks of ritualistic psychedelic drone-noise, that manages to blunt the sharp edges, and create something almost kosmische sounding, like Skullflower style ur-drone crush fused to glimmering synthy shimmer, dense walls of sound, crumble and warble, sprawling into oozing expanses of blackened rumble, underpinned by gristly buzz and softly pulsing shimmer, the B side blissing out into some hazy, dreamlike soft-noise thrum, shot through with lilting melodies, the whole thing swaddled in undulating sheets of looped buzz and soft swirls of heavenly chordal thrum, the whole thing building to a huge finale of softly swirling dream-noise.
The tape also includes a download coupon, that in addition to the two songs proper, tacks on a bonus 10 minute track, a lush, deep listening, cavernous chunk of droning, dreamy driftiness, lush and all enveloping minimal slow burn bliss out.
LIMITED TO 66 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered, already sold out at the label, so the few copies we have is all we're gonna get. The packaging is super over the top too, the tapes dubbed onto old school vintage reel to reel looking cassettes, housed in three color hand screen printed J-cards, and blue or pink dayglo cases.
This is a special pre-order for two different versions of the latest release from one of our favorite labels, Brazil's Essence Music, who in the past have brought us amazing records from Boris, Circle Acid Mothers Temple, Aidan Baker, Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, Atomine Elektrine, Merzbow, Drakh, Rapoon, Wolfskin and more. This latest comes from Tokyo psychedelic drifters and longtime aQ faves Suishou No Fune, who are teamed up here with local psyche rockers Numinous Eye, aka Mason Jones (Subarachnoid Space) and Mike Shoun (The Oh Sees), whose recent Clockwork Moon lp we raved about recently on the aQ list.
And this is not a split, no this is both bands together, we imagine in some dark dimly lit space, in the middle of the night, no words exchanged, just a gradual opening up, everyone slowly losing themselves in a sonic trance, and letting the music carry them off, cuz that's what this sounds like, woozy and washed out, laid back and lysergic, the rhythm section simple and shuffling, motorik and darkly propulsive, while the multiple guitars weave tangled melodies, and smear strange shadowy streaks of ambience and atmosphere. Chordal swells pulse of deep rumbles, wound around the unwavering rhythm, while above, the sky is filled with prismatic streaks, aching, lilting melodies, soaring, drifting, ethereal and ghostlike one minute fierce and fiery the next. There are vocals too, wordless croons, that slip into strange falsettos and then back again, a sort of monklike chanting, that becomes almost operatic, there's harmonica too! On the more abstract nearly 30 minute second track, the drums skitter loosely beneath streaks of melodies and shards of disembodied guitar skree, little bits of twang, and distant reverby textures, while the harmonica wheezes and whispers, that track occasionally coalescing into a sort of almost-krautrock, but more often than not, simply dissipating into loose clouds of drifting sound, free form psychedelic exploration, lush and textured, but super open and abstract, the various guitars holding things together with their aching melodic explorations.
"The Rainbow Dissolving In The Ocean" channels a little Haino, in the wailed vocals, over moaning, keening guitar buzz, peppered with flurries of drum skitter and cymbal shimmer, all blurred and smeared into heaving dreamlike billows, eventually building to a wild multi-guitar, psych-noise tangle, swirls of echo and reverb, thick thrumming bass, and swirling percussive shimmers, all wrapped in a prickly field of distorted guitar swirl. And finally, closer "Space Cruising", locks things down rhythmically, the drums and bass, laying down a languorous, sinewy slither, wreathed in shimmery guitar strum, and again, surrounded by constantly shifting streaks of psychedelia, twangs, rumbles, whirs, melodic squiggles, slow smoldering chord progressions, eventually the whole thing builds again to one final blowout, aching vocals, blown out guitars, wild drum pound, the sound noisy and heavy, but still strangely lilting and lovely, definitely channeling the spirit of Les Rallizes Denudes, as does much of the record!
There are two versions of the record, a super deluxe boxset version, with extra music in addition to the extravagant packaging, and this one, the standard version, which is nearly as limited as the deluxe box, only 170 copies made, and each comes in a handmade and hand painted tip-on style mini lp sleeve with a printed Japanese obi, every one totally unique, we're only gonna order as many copies as we actually get orders for, so if you want one, and you probably do, you should definitely order it now. We'll have them in a few weeks and can send them off then.
Holy crap is this mind blowing stuff, everything ever recorded by this group of super obscure, early nineties sci-fi death metal weirdos from Missouri, who offer up the sort of bizarre, murky, mathy death metal, we can't ever seem to get enough of. Sprawling, churning, chugging epics, that lurch from doomy death march trudge to stumbling barreling blasts, often devolving into near psychedelic creeps, replete with strange chanted clean vocals, the drums muted and muffled, a furious pulsing pound throughout,comparisons could certainly get made to other sonically similar death metal outfits of the time, but in a way, it seems like death metal doesn't get a fair shake around aQ. It seems to us, that lots of folks who are obsessed with black metal, and doom metal, would fall in love with death metal too, if just introduced to the RIGHT records, or the RIGHT bands, specifically, the weirder, more warped strains of death metal, and it doesn't get much weirder or more warped than Timeghoul, who obviously found inspiration in classic old school death metal, but in crafting their own take, managed to transform the usual guttural grinding heaviness into something almost avant garde. Sure there's the sci-fi aspect, the themes, the lyrics, the imagery, all of which is super cool, but other bands have definitely dabbled in similar imagery, the magic is that somehow these guys conjured up that same sort of arcane experimental sci-fi weirdness with the music too!
Sure the usual death metal tropes are present, furious downtuned riffing, grunted cookie monster vocals, furious blast beats, but the songs are super complex, and not just that, but convoluted as well, blasts stumbling to a near halt, only to stutter weirdly and then careen off in a wildly metallic gallop, or to sort of bliss out completely and shift to a slo-mo creep, and just as often locking into pure tranced out blasting death metal mesmer. And it's not just the structure, or the sound, it's the timbre, murky and muffled, weirdly reverby and echoey, the vocals too, not your typical DM grunt, much more monstrous and weirdly melodic, and when the clean vocals come in, definitely something you rarely here in death metal. There's also some weird almost sing songy grooves, some stretches that sounds like Cannibal Corpse sea shanties, all woozy and bouncy, swaddled in wild tangled shred-heavy leads, we're reminded a bit of the super tripped out early Esoteric records, only if they played death metal instead of doom. Similarly warped outsider sonic thinking it seems.
This collection combines the group's two demos, with a second disc of rehearsals, live tracks, and their very first ever 4 track recordings. The first disc is non stop weirdo sci-fi death metal freak out radness, the second demo dramatically different than the first, trading much of the murk in for a sound that manages to be even more dizzying and demented, SUPER progged out and seriously next level. And while the actual sound is closer to their death metal compatriots, the song structures, arrangements, clean vocals, weird psychedelic stretches, all remain to make sure this is not your normal run of the mill death metal.
So all you death metal phobes, open your mind, you'll likely be rewarded by some seriously twisted and crushing heaviness. We'd recommend Timeghoul along with groups like diSEMBOWELMENT and Gorguts' Obscura as some sort of outsider death metal primer. Fucking RULING!
Worth it for the first disc alone. The bonus tracks are even weirder and more fucked up, due in part to the varying levels of sound quality, the 4 track recordings are murky and muddy, blurry and buzzy, with some super cool blown out effects, and some of the songs, SO good, too bad they never got recorded properly, but they're almost perfect in this form. The live tracks are near Merzbowian in their speaker shredding intensity, and weirdly, the rehearsals sound almost as good as the demos proper. And the crazy thing is, as much as we love the first disc, and we do, a LOT, we find ourselves listening to the second disc even more, fucked up and totally bafflingly brilliant! Includes extensive liner notes, lyrics, the original demo covers, and killer new cover art by metal artist Mark Riddick.
To dedicated readers of the New Arrival list, there can be no doubt that goth and industrial sounds from the eighties are back in a huge way. But rather than riding the nostalgia train, most of the groups we love who are mining this sound and putting their own spin on it, adding unique elements to distinguish a sense of honest and progressive devotion from a mere genre exercise. Case in point is this debut tape from Austin-based heavy gloomers, Troller. Coming out of the same fervent scene that was birthed from the ashes of Silver Pines: Pure X, Survive, Sleep Over, and Thousand Foot Whale Claw (for a good overview of this scene, check out the Brain Club Vol. #000001 LP compilation), Troller mine classic death rock, but slow it down with a heavy shoe-gazing doominess. You can tell the female singer has a voice as big as Zola Jesus, or Siouxie, but what we like most about it is that she restrains her delivery from overwrought passion up front in the mix, instead letting it moulder at times in a dour misanthropic mire with the chilly synths and the booming plod of the drum machine patterns. In between each proper song is an untitled instrumental that shows the band's knack for sculpting dark ambient soundscapes that are alien, pensive and luridly bleak.
To check it out: http://troller.bandcamp.com/releases
The band dropped these off while on tour, so we have about ten. We probably can get more, but be prepared to wait for a restock until the band return home.
I know we went on about the Butthole Surfers when we reviewed the first volume in Sublime Frequencies' Thai Country Groove From Isan series. Hard not to, considering that most of us were first exposed to Thai music via the Buttholes, and their only slightly altered version of a classic Thai track. Minus some audio fuckery, the track was presented in its almost unaltered original form. And everyone we know loved that track, as much or more than the rest of the disc. At the time, none of the folks we knew really had any idea where to find more music like that.�
Years later, the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequency label, launched a totally kick ass series of compilations, gathering amazing and mysterious music from all over Asia, one of which focused on Molam Thai music, and while it didn't include THAT track, most of the tracks did sound quite similar, some even weirder and wilder... It ended up being one of our favorite discs in the ever expanding Sublime Frequencies sonic universe... until now!
Volume two is simply more of the same, but more is what we wanted, every track a gem, some weird and wacked, some achingly beautiful, all awesome.�
Quick background, Molam is the music that came from rural areas of Thailand and Laos, dueling female and male vocals, mouth organ, but as folks moved to the city, the music was modernized, incorporating the Western style rock band lineup, adding psychedelic fuzz guitar, electronic organ, and all manner of effects. The results are of course strange and wondrous, quirky, funky and super rocking, the guitars twang and buzz, strange little curlicues of melody, over relentless, propulsive grooves, the drums, simple and motorik, over the top, keyboards drift, and guitars occasionally explode into wild overdriven leads, before settling back into their strange convoluted melodic framework, horns moan and bleat, disco wah guitars drift over reggae like rhythms, but the vocals, wow! Much like in the first volume, it's the vocals that make it, they all seem to be singing variations of the vocal line in the Butthole Surfers' "Kuntz", that particularly sing songy lilt, sometimes spoken, other times wailed, always introducing their own melodies to the already melodically complex musical backdrop... so so so so good! Can't wait for volume three! (and while you're at it, check out the amazing�Ghost Of Isan: Thailand's Psychedelic Ghost Festival dvd, rife with breathtaking imagery, and more remarkable Molam sounds...)
The Pharaway Sounds label has released several in a series of compilations devoted to groovy Persian music from the '70s - "funk, psychedelia and pop from the Iranian pre-revolution generation" as the subtitle here has it. We've stocked 'em all as they came out, but this latest is the first we've gotten around to reviewing. We absolutely had to, after hearing the first track, "Helelyos" by Zia Atabi, with its weirdass scat vocals, impatient horn stabs, and seriously funky percussive beats. Damn. Just check out the sound clip and see if you're not sold too. There's lots of other treats on here, pop hits in Iran back in the day, from a variety of performers & songwriters, many of whom live in Los Angeles now; names include Farrokhzad, Shohreh, Shamaizadeh, Nooshafarin, Azita, Shahrokh, Beti, Sattar, Soli & Neli, Afshin, Maziar, and the aforementioned Zia. Sweeping disco strings and zany synthesizers, electric guitars and santurs, flutes and frame drums are all part of the East meets West melange that characterizes this delightful, dancey & romantic music.
Includes extensive liner notes in the cd booklet which give some background history about how this happenin' scene/music industry was swept away by coming of Khomeini. Additionally, info about each song/artist is provided, along with colorful graphics from some of the original record sleeves featuring many of the pretty ladies and mustachioed guys who sang these songs. Now, to work backwards through the other volumes - if this one's so good the others must be pretty cool too.
No this is not a Loverboy tribute album, though that might be cool... to absolutely no one! No, what we have here is a finely curated collection of rare 78 rpm tunes from obscure little known players, that investigates the fringes of commercial vernacular music. Odd instrumentation including singing saws, raucous Irish drinking songs, fiddle dances, children's tunes, charmingly off-kilter vocals highlight a quality of down-home music that is far from the norm of what most folks expect from American old time music. While maybe not quite as unhinged or bizarre as we usually like our "outsider" music to be, this is still wonderful old timey stuff, a thoroughly researched and highly listenable collection put together by expert Frank Fairfield, one of the most prominent modern practitioners of old time music working today.
Killer new split from Matthew Bower and Samantha Davies of Skullflower in their Voltiegeurs guise, which this time is not that far removed from the Skullflower mothership, in fact, a glancing listen, one would most certainly be forgiven for assuming it was a Skullflower jam proper, a dense field of pulsing, pulsating blackened psychedelic drone-noise, a sprawl of layered guitars, buried melodies, shifting textures, gristled and crumbling, but blurred into something almost tranquil and meditative, a heavy drone-guitar blowout, smoothed out into what ultimately sounds like a more washed out blissed out Skullflower which is not a bad thing at all.
The flipside comes from UK knuckledraggers Dark Bargain, who deliver a serious sonic wallop in the form of some blown out, ultra distorted noise rock crush, dirgey and in the red, a Brainbombs sort of death march churn, rife with buried melodies, and some subtle hookiness, but overall, it's more a bludgeoning sonic anvil to the skull, which will most certainly hit the spot for fans of BB, Rusted Shut, Violent Students, Drunkdriver and the like.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
We were pretty blown away by the last White Fence record, a sprawling double album spread out over two lps (or one cd), which found one man band WF aka Tim Presley, spitting out a dizzying barrage of fractured jangle pop and warped garage rock, an already massive collection of songs, supposedly culled from more than 80 written for the record, which only confirmed what we sort of already knew, that White Fence was maybe the weirdest and most idiosyncratic outfit in the SF garage rock scene, which is full of genius weirdos (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, etc.). On this new one though, Presley manages to both get even weirder, AND dip into much more traditional songsmithery. It's almost as if instead of working on songs in his garage, Presley assembled a rickety old time machine, which he used to travel back to the sixties, which is definitely where this record seems to find most of its sonic inspiration, but it's almost as if that rickety time machine only barely made it back, jumbling up all of Presley's perfect sixties garage pop songs in the process, so all the lilting melodies, fuzzy, strummy dreaminess, spidery psychedelic leads, hazy crooned vox, swirling acoustic guitars, came through the portal just a little bit fucked up, sounds that seem to melt before your ears, weird blurts of damaged effects, sounds swooping backwards, drums doused in delay, fuzz guitar cranked and jammed WAY above the mix. The mixes all over the place, raw and brittle one second, lush and lovely the next, drums loud, guitars howling, melodies muted and muddy, vocals barely there in the background, then cooing in your ear. In a way, it almost reminds us of Faxed Head, the way their caveman metal was defined by the recording, the tape drop outs, the weird varispeed pitch changes, everything woozy and crumbling and falling apart. Which is basically how Cyclops Reap sounds, BUT, all of that weirdness and fucked up damage, can barely disguise the sheer pop brilliance on display here. Total retro jangle pop garage fuzz genius. Total sixties hippie hookiness, hazy power pop shimmer, swaggery blooze garage stomp, all tangled into some of THEE best and catchiest pop songs EVER. Minus all the damage, this could have easily been some lost sixties artifact unearthed and reissued, in fact, the whole time machine thing above, could easily be swapped out for someone ACTUALLY discovering Cyclops Reap in an old dusty, moldy box, in the basement of some SF flat, the tapes warped and mildewy, that damaged translating into some of the more psychedelic sonics here.
Needless to say, we've loved every White Fence record, and this one's no different, in fact it's fast becoming our new favorite. And as hard as Presley seems to be trying to obscure his perfect jangly fuzz pop masterpieces, that sonic obfuscation only serves to make them that much more warped and wonderful.
Note: the vinyl version already sold out but is soon to be repressed, we're told.
For some reason, this 7" and the vinyl version of the most recent full length from local garage rock one man band White Fence, were both practically impossible to keep in stock. We did eventually list and review the WF Cyclops Reap full length, and now we finally have enough of these, the pre album 7" to list. And while it may seem backwards, WF fans are still probably gonna want the single, cuz 2 of the three tracks are exclusive to this 7". The A side "Pink Gorilla" is the first single from the Cyclops Reap album, and it's easy to see why it was picked, a super warped chunk of ultra psychedelic scuzzed out fuzz rock, with blown out guitar gristle wrapped around swirling jangle and breezy vocals, like some classic sixties pop gem, worked over by some modern garage rock mad scientist, which it essentially is.
The other two tracks are more of the same, but unlike "Pink Gorilla", for some reason were NOT included on Cyclops Reap proper, which hearing these tracks now, it's hard to figure out why. "Fragility" is a gorgeous chunk of hushed, moody, softly psychedelic buzz and strum, that's warm and billowy, lush and dreamily jangly, wreathed in whirring organs and tangled and fried guitar melodies, all blurred into a hazy chunk of washed out sixties garage pop bliss, albeit with some weird blurts of guitar glitch and weird whirling atmospheres. And on top of that there's the second B side, the track "Cyclops Reap", which weirdly is NOT on the Cyclops Reap record at all.
White Fence fans should nab one of these before they disappear AGAIN.
The latest from this local psychedelic / experimental / drone / noise collective (featuring members of psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs) comes in the form of an old school VHS tape, no cd, no download code, just that super familiar big square shaped tape, so all you cutting edge, latest gadget having, iPod/iPad toting digi-nerds, unless you have a dusty VCR tucked away in your pad, you're shit out of luck, which would be a shame, cuz this 35 minute slow burn psych-noise epic is a doozy. It captures these guys live on the radio, at KZSU, for their annual Day Of Noise, and while it's most definitely noisy, it's not necessarily 'noise'. It's a thick morass of synthy squelch, of churning droned out rumbles, of long tones tangled into knotty sprawls of feedback drenched undulations, buried beneath are strange staticky rhythms, fractured and free form, there's lots of space too, long stretches of hushed shimmer, of super abstract drift, with distant moans, and keening melodies, of sputtering machine sounds, eventually smoothing out into a weird muted murk, a sea of chordal swells and blackened shimmer, eventually splintering into some seriously caustic crunch, shards of feedback, blurts of white noise static, but draped over a creepy detuned melody, giving the whole thing a sort of lumbering, druggy vibe, that melody nearly obliterated by squeaky balloon melodies, and spaced out synth pulsations.
The track settles into dark brooding drifts throughout, at one point, a long stretch midsong, sounding almost like a field recording of some deep swamp or bayou, the insects represented by fluttering FX, and glitchy sonic fragments, haunting and mysterious, a creeping sonic fog, that is soon joined by woozy synth melodies and sheets of gristly static, disappearing in clouds of malfunctioning interference, weird Conet Project like sputter, smears of shortwave fuzz that almost coalesce into some weird almost-rhythm, before a final squall of psychedelic heaviness, gives way to a slowly unwinding, creepy, crumbling coda.
The accompanying visuals are pretty freaky as well, super blown out, oversaturated super 8 images of jellyfish, bizarre film snippets, tripped out static, swirling psychedelic patterns, blinking seizure inducing flashing lights, groovy textures, old couples dancing, some shots of the band performing live spliced in here and there, glowing orbs, UFO's, uncalibrated video, goofy video loops, horror movies, fountains of blood, birds at birdfeeders, haircuts, hippy home movies, primitive video effects, pink clad people freaking out and screaming hysterically, women being hypnotized, old guys playing the harp, dive bombing seabirds, smoking evil fountains, squirrels, exotic fish, glowing faces, warriors, all of these images flitting one to the next, like it's a recording of someone's seriously fucked up subconsciousness, but it works surprisingly well with the accompanying sounds!
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! (And psst, actually, somewhere in the packaging is actually hidden a dvd-r version of the VHS, so you out there sans VCRs, it's your lucky day!)...
Latest from these aQ fave dreampoppers, and while on past records these guys have flirted with new wave, they haven't gone for it full bore until now. And we're digging it. The opener might be the only exception, a gorgeous short, sharp blast of prismatic fuzz drenched, piano laced, distorto pop, hooks galore, sweet crooned vocals, swirling strings, cool synth melodies, a little bit of an M83 vibe, but more sun dappled and dreamy, with some crunch too, and yeah, a little bit of new wave, the sound is more like something you'd hear on Merge or Slumberland. But then "Ocean Repeating (Big-Eyed Girl)" gets all angular, and super new wavey, reminding us a bit of The Fixx (!), but much more fuzzy and poppy, more swirling synths, angular melodies, handclap rhythms, and a main hook that will get lodged in your head like crazy. "On Guyot" might be our favorite track here though. A weirdly spaced out sort of psychedelic kosmische kraut-groove, all simple motorik rhythm, swirling processed vocals, and shimming, glimmering synths, super spacey and dreamy, thick swaths of synth drone laced with buried melodies and slow shifting textures, wish it went on for way more than its six minutes.
The rest of the record returns to WN's woozy jangly new wave, from crunchy, fuzzy propulsive synth pop, to caffeinated synth soaked garage pop, to tripped out, angular new wave grooviness, replete with processed horns and all manner of keyboard blurt, until the final track, another more abstract drifter, this one all hazy and washed out, bleary and blurry and dreamlike, a twang flecked drift, drenched in echo and reverb, a soft focus finale, that finishes the record on a surprisingly dreamy melancholic note.
Housed in a eye popping, full color slipcase.
Heck yeah, NZ's The Dead C is on the cover! "On the road in Europe, they tell David Keenan why Bruce Russell's amp sound is better than sex." Can't wait to read that. Also this ish, a Primer on Don Cherry, Global Ear: Kowloon, an Epiphany involving the Boredoms, an Invisible Jukebox with Pangaea, an interview with Dubplates & Mastering wiz Rashad Becker, and plenty more including the usual slew of reviews.
Battle Of The Peak is the crushing epic debut release from this Tolkien-esque psychedelic prog-doom noiserock from Portland, whose debut is in fact fucking amazing, not just sonically, but visually as well, more on the over the top ridiculous packaging in a second, cuz musically, it's hard to imagine an aQ metalhead who wouldn't freak out over there guys, epic, sprawling 15+ minute songs, classic metal riffing, big pounding drums, yowled bellowed vocals, the whole thing straddling the lines between classic metal, doom, noise rock, and black metal buzz, which makes sense as the mastermind of Zirakzagil is also the man behind two Northern BM bands of note, whose most recent records were both reviewed on the aQ list not too long ago, but Zirakzagil is a whole different beats, the band unfurling long stretches of tranced out riffing, surprisingly melodic, super dynamic, lurching stop/starts, some seriously soaring leads, at times it sounds a bit like the Fucking Champs, slowed down and stretched out into some psychedelic noise rock doom, at other times it's full on metallic prog, intricate, tangled arrangements slow builds, dense, and intense, the drumming super wild and chaotic, the songs will chug and churn, before slipping into some super melodic passage, and some of the leads, super emotive old school classic shreddery, and while there are vocals, bellowed bearded noise rock howls, most of the record is instrumental, the instruments doing all the heavy lifting, whether it's heaving swells of churning riffage on opener "The Birth Of The White Wizard", the woozy psychedelic shuffle of "Durin's Bane", or the weird mathy psychedelic breakdown near the end of "The Endless Stair", which ends up sounding like a more metal, and more mathed out Don Caballero!
This rules! And it's DEFINITELY not black metal, heck it's really not even that doomy, it IS sludgey, heavy, mathy, proggy and totally epic!
And speaking of epic, the packaging is ultra epic, and NERDY! The title and the cover art are of course beholden to Lord Of The Rings (where would metal be without Tolkien?), but then that stuff is designed into a faux Nintendo game cartridge, the fonts, the label log, the layout, the oversized clamshell case, it looks just like a Nintendo game, and open it up, and the liner notes are deftly worked into the game's instructions, even including a picture of the game controller, adorned with the Zirakzagil logo! Includes a patch and a sticker too. And of curse, EXTREMELY LIMITED! ONLY 98 COPIES, and we have about a dozen...
