Killer blast of garage pop surf scuzz from this Stockton California combo, that had us immediately thinking of another surf garage group we flipped over a while back, Mrs. Magician, but SW take that same sound, strip it way down, and add some fuzzy, wasted shoegaze to the proceedings, just check out opener "Freeway", which sounds like it should have been on Slumberland, lo-fi, fuzzed out, simple propulsive drumming, over spidery melodies, and some ethereal vocals that give the vibe a serious girlgroup feel. Follow up "She's Not Right" injects some Beat Happening style minimalism, with boy/girl harmonies sung by two boys, the intertwining high/low vox wrapped around some dirgey, reverb soaked riffage, and more primitive drumming. And that's pretty much how Black Eyed Kids plays out, the sound shifting from stripped down, lo-fi crunch, to lush, swirling fuzz pop. Tracks like "Reality's A Bitch" combine the two into jangle pop gems that pile on the warm swaths of distortion, multiple vocals, buzzing distorto-melodies, even some buried samples and sound effects,. There are moments that are obviously home brewed mad scientist tinkering, the band gleefully indulging in weirdo 4-track dub experiments at one point, but it somehow fits perfectly with the rest of these woozy surf pop and garage rock jams, the second half of the record heavy on 'hits', "Sun Coma" sounding a bit like Jeff The Brotherhood, a crazy catchy burst of distorto-pop radness, or the sprawling slo-mo closer "Therapy", which sound like Thee Oh Sees at 16 rpm. Fans of the current crop of garage pop should flip for these guys, file next to Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees, The Intelligence, Mrs. Magician, Sultan Bathery, Herzog, etc...
As you may have heard, Allan here just had a baby! And thus, our last in-between list's special theme was "baby music" - a bunch of suggestions by friends who are parents, of music that they liked to play for their newborns and infants. But, what has Allan really been playing for his little girl? Well, um, actually she's been hearing a lot of the things Allan has been working on reviewing for aQuarius. Fortunately for her, one of 'em was this disc, by German electronic experimentalist Gunter Schlienz, his first full-length cd after quite a few obscure cassette and cd-r releases over the past four or five years.
And it's totally baby-approved and appropriate, these delicate, otherworldly ambient instrumentals full of light and shade and (occasionally eerie) blissfulness, with titles like "Immaculate", "Numb", "Lament", "Shimmer", and, oddly enough, "Janitor".
Schlienz's modular synth and field recordings create Cluster-y swells of sound, moving in gentle waves adorned with simple sweet melodies and darker drones. A few of his friends, including Norm Chambers (aka Panabrite, also the guy who actually made the Science Of The Sea album by "Jurgen Muller" we liked so much) appear as guests on here as well, adding strings, piano, etc.
We're not really sure if Allan's baby likes this a lot or not (hard to tell, as yet), but HE sure does. Consider Contemplation to be a lovely, peaceful set of abstract electronic lullabies for adults, and possibly their children too! Limited to 300 copies, btw.
After having spent the last year kicking out the heavy psych jams with his power trio Fuzz, Ty Segall returns with a new solo single, which somehow manages to fuse the dirgey retro rock of Fuzz, with the glam pop of his last few solo records, the A side is a stunner, anchored by some thick fuzzed out bass churn, and eventually some fierce riffage, Segall tempers that urgent rock crunch with some ethereal steel string strum, and heavenly falsetto vox, for a gloriously catchy, and strangely heavy chunk of psychedelic glam pop that is as good as anything on the last full length, and definitely has us hankering for more. As does the B side, which dips back into the woozy, wasted glam-folk of Sleeper, with Segall channeling Marc Bolan and T-Rex into a lazy, acoustic groover, laid back, a little wasted, dreamy vocals over softly swaggery acoustic guitars, all sun dappled and dreamy. So good.
Seems only logical that local songsmith Dylan Shearer would end up on Castle Face, the record label run By John Dwyer from Thee Oh Sees, even though Shearer's music is markedly different than most of the fuzzy, jangly garage punk/pop that is CF's bread and butter. But Shearer is a master songsmith, his music darkly psychedelic, broody and hypnotic, from the very first few seconds of opener "Time To Go", deep vocals, and laid back piano, shuffling percussion, all blurred into a hazy, softly psychedelic baroque pop reminiscent of Cardinal, the Moles, the Elephant Six bands, even going as far back as Van Dyke Parks, early Bee Gees, lush and lovely, grandiose, and timeless. The whole rest of the record follows suit, a stunningly mature songsuite, that really does sound out of time. And really, this is actually the record that should be getting all the hype that's being heaped on that Mac Demarco record, they both seem to be drawing inspiration from the same sonic gene pool, but while both most definitely count the Kinks and the Beatles and the Zombies as influences, Demarco's music ends up sounding more like a Jack Johnson / Jimmy Buffet style easy listening classic rock, while Shearer's most definitely positions itself in that selfsame pantheon, crafting moody, lovely chamber pop, and haunting softly psychedelic balladry, that taps into a classic strain of modern pop music, adding a few modern flourishes here and there, but ultimately, Garagearray sounds like some long lost classic from the vaults, some rediscovered and recently reissued lost holy grail of vintage psychedelic pop. Maybe too mellow and laid back for some of the Castle Face diehards, but for the rest of us, a stone cold modern / retro pop-psych classic.
Issue 2 of this 'zine dedicated to punk, pop goodness from both now and then. Editor/publisher Gus Bernadicou and likeminded friends have packed this ish with 88 pages of interviews and other features, including chats with Dave Davies of the Kinks, John Doe of X (tagline for that piece: "The Hardest Man to Google"), The Mutants, aQ faves Jaill, Cherie Currie of The Runaways, Tommy James from The Shondells, and more� including an article about new wave weirdo Klaus Nomi, guide to '90s power pop gems, and a whole section of various VIP's "desert island discs".
First full length from these Swedish metalheads, after a 7" we reviewed a few lists back that kicked our asses, and like that 7" Tellusian, featuring members of late great grinders Crowpath, while still plenty grindy, are way more melodic metal, and it totally suits them. The songs heavy and furious and fast, but crazy catchy, epically hooky.
A long time ago, we reviewed a grind comp, and on it, a seriously sick grind band did a cover of an old track by pop punks Propaghandi, a it was the best, an impossible fix of incredible poppiness, and frantic heaviness, and we remarked, how come bands don't just SOUND like that, it's only when a band is doing a cover of another band, but that's the first thing we thought of when we heard these guys, and this record especially, it's exactly THAT, a super heavy grind metal band, not at all afraid of melody, who manage to merge those two elements seamlessly, without taking away from either. Check out opener "Rivalry", a sub two minute blast of everything that makes these guys so great, frenzied lightning fast riffing, impossibly chaotic mathed out drumming, loads of metallic chug, but killer harmonized guitars, crazy catchy melodies, a little churning downtuned doom, and heck even an extremely brief bit of (very) surprising almost funk bass, literally a second or two, before it's right back into the chug and churn. And it continues like that, dizzyingly flitting from tangled math metal, to churning metallic grind, to soaring melodic epicry, and usually some killer mix of all of those. But for a metal/grind band, the melodies and arrangements are pretty goddamn stunning, and the sound not as grind or metal as you might expect, instead, almost like a metallized noise rock band, or a super heavy, slightly grindy math rock band, so much so, that with a slight tweak, even with a proper clean singer, it would be a whole different kind of band, but as it is, Tellusian deliver some seriously addictive, and ultra catchy pop flecked, melodic grind metal, that KILLS, and that we've been listening to pretty much nonstop since we got this in. WAY recommended!
Triptykon. Twilight. Annihilator (yes, of "Alison Hell" fame). Pilgrim. Behemoth. Coffinworm. Autopsy. And plenty more extreme/metal sounds! (Including some -actual- sounds, via the free sampler cd stuck to the cover.)
The mighty Sublime Frequencies label keeps the impossibly cool comps coming, this their second collection of music from Algeria. The first focused on a very specific musical form from the region called Rai, whereas this new one is all about folk and pop music from the same era, and while on the surface it may seem more 'mainstream', it's still fantastically quirky, funky, groovy, and exotic, and all over the sonic map.
The seventies were a surprisingly good time for music in Algeria, 45's in particular, which was remarkable considering the socialist government at the time, and the legions of cops, and bureaucrats, and censors no doubt hell bent on suppressing any sort of social movement, and yet, music flourished, certainly a response to 'the man', who perhaps let these hippies have their music, assuming it might relieve some of the social tension of the time. Regardless, the 'hairies' embraced this sound, and were digging these very American influenced sounds, fuzzed out garage rock, groovy exotica, plenty of buzzing sitars, warbly organs, twangy surf guitar, wild percussion, male and female vox, some tracks sound literally straight out of the USA, others are fantastic hybrids of Western music and more traditional local sounds, but all the music included here is lively and powerful and personal and imbued with an energy that went well beyond just music and sound. And sure some of the jams are schmaltzy, almost easy listening, but even then, listening to those tracks, dressing wild and growing your hair our, was still extremely subversive and a serious rebellion, especially considering most of this music was officially suppressed. Like all Sublime Frequencies comps, so fantastic, and leaves us hankering for more more more!
And packaged as always, sublimely (ahem), in a heavy full color gatefold sleeve, with a super striking black and white portrait of an Algerian couple in their best rock and roll finery on the front, and inside, plenty of rare photos, liner notes and notes on each song and performer.
Ok, so originally we were going to review the bizarre "Necro-Demonic dungeon crawl" fantasy boardgame that this cassette is the audio companion to, along with listing the tape, but we already sold out of the few copies of the game we had (yep, we know some nerds!). Maybe we'll get more, we'd like to, definitely let us know if YOU are interested. We haven't had a chance to actually play the game yet ourselves, but boy does it look cool, with creepy black & white & gray art by Fort Thunder comic book artist Mat Brinkman. In the game, each player takes on the role of an evil Necromancer, digging tunnels in an subterranean crypt and creating grotesque monsters out of ooze to fight against his rivals and their hordes, vying to become the sole master of the Darkest Pit. Pretty darn black metal, eh?
In addition to looking cool, apparently it's actually an excellent game, receiving a pretty high user score on the BoardGameGeek website (7.9 out of 10) and we're read lots of good reviews. Can't wait to play it when we find time and learn the rules. If/when we get more copies in, they sell for $84. Like we said, let us know if you'd like us to get you one! Check out the YouTube trailer for the game at www.caveevil.com - which doesn't actually show the game or anyone playing it, instead it's a short movie purporting to show what the horrific, troglodytic existence of these Necromancers is all about. Love the low-budget special effects.
Soooo, anyway, the folks who made the game also have a tape label, and this is the official Cave Evil tie-in release, with some of the same sounds heard on the soundtrack to the trailer. This 90 minute mix features tracks by 15 different underground artists: Night of Ultraviolence, Wizard333, Swordsect, Abandoned Places, Manifester, Cex, MarderIII, Muroc, Hatred, Crypt Enforcer, Whispers of Dead Gods, Tres Quatro, Mammal, OoznDmrr, and Khand, plus sound FX by filmmaker Damon Packard, who did the trailer. It's an ultimate sinister cinematic synth experience, variously featuring blackened drones, eerie dark ambience, primal percussion, majestic synth-horns, and other dungeon-worthy, DIY sonics. Cool, creepy stuff that is certainly whetting our appetites for a session of Cave Evil. Limited to 300 copies on pro-dubbed chrome plus cassette.
If this does well, we'll stock some more Rotten Shape cassettes, all of which the label has assigned a "GVR", or Game Voice Rating, on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being hardest) noting how difficult it is to speak over the music in a gaming setting. The Cave Evil Radio Mix has a GVR of 2.
More mysterious crude noise murk coming out of rural Georgia. There's virtually no information provided by esoteric noise imprint Vaald beyond a return address that lands well outside the urban city center of Atlanta; but that's not to say that everything coming from Vaald is spawned from the soil of the south. White Resin is a suitably anonymous project that captures the blank-stare, vaguely rhymthmicist, mostly rumbling churn of scabbed-over power electronics that pays homage (intentionally or otherwise) to some of the more obscure practitioners of early '80s noise construction, somewhere between the unheard-yet-valorized catalogue of Vanity Records (e.g. Tolerance, Normal Brain, Sympathy Nervous, etc.) and the doom-laden Italians who recorded at one time or another for Broken Flag (e.g. Mauthausen Orchestra, MB, Giancarlo Toniutti, etc.). Tone-generated signals amass into phase patterns, spiked with acidic grit and dislocating corrosives on the A-side, with occasional twitching detours that epileptically twist away from the linear march towards the guttural noise dirge. The B-side is a more dynamic piece as White Resin drags disembodied rhythms through a sea of gravel, where whatever vehicle of use is perpetually sinking and spinning its wheels through a quicksand morass of tiny pieces of rock that gradually overtake said vehicle and bury it in black sand. An erratic pulsar detonation of synth tones concludes the piece with plenty of overdriven distortions and super lo-fi grittiness. Ain't no wall of noise here. Limited to just 20 copies! Seriously, just 20.
Ben Frost. Mike Heron doing the Invisible Jukebox. Haliu Merga. Grouper on The Dead C. Orphy Robinson. Victorian electronic music hall instruments! And more...
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...
One of our favorite Record Store Day offerings has been repressed, and is now also available on cd as well.
A Lament for Epirus compiles 78 rpm recordings of Greek violinist Alexis Zoumbas, and it's a stunningly melancholy collection of solo recordings (though some tracks are accompanied by cymbalon and bowed bass) that showcase the joys and grief of life in the mountainous region of Northwestern Greece where Zoumbas hails from. Reminding us of those funerary violin cd-rs we had awhile back ago, Zoumbas of course is the real deal, and you can feel every beautiful ache in each note he conjures. Fantastic stuff!
