As we mentioned in the last list, we just can't get enough Grime. We absolutely dug Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Virus Syndicate, and even M.I.A. who had a bit of grime going on. But over in the UK, grime is the shit, happening on loads of 12"s, in clubs, and on underground radio stations, but very little of it has made it over here, unfortunately, outside of a few comps. It makes perfect sense that Lady Soveriegn would be the one to follow Dizzee and M.I.A. from undergound hype to next big thing. EVERY time we play this in the store at least one person buys it, and usually half the people in the store come up to see what we're listening to. It's that catchy and funky and fucked up, and totally unlike anything else you've heard -- okay, other than M.I.A. maybe, but Lady Sovereign sounds so much more raw and gritty and weird, maybe like M.I.A.'s snotty, sexy little sister. The grooves are grime for sure, super stuttery and repetitive, with thick swaths of fuzzy synth and huge rolling basslines, but the arrangements are really damaged and complex, with plenty of start and stops, twisty and tangled, the tonguetwisting vocals careening at breakneck speed all over the place, riding a huge synth line, skipping nimbly over a spastic drum break, like a musical version of a Jackie Chan action sequence. Lady Sovereign is ducking and dodging and spitting madly over funky beats and all manner of samples. But no matter how crazy the tunes are, it's all about Lady Sov's flow. The sticker on the front of the disc describes her as "Eminem if he was an 18 year old female from South London" which makes for good copy but isn't entirely accurate. She's got a really unique voice, sometimes squeaky and feminine, but more often a bit scruffy and growly, and it's amazing how many syllables she can spit per minute, dizzying! And she can easily slip into some strange melodic vocalization for a song's chorus before slipping back into her Cockney growly snotty delivery. And her lyrics are really funny, plenty of shit talking of course, but lots of self deprecating references to her slight stature (5'1", hence the title) and her baggy clothes, and lots of other really silly randomness. Although sometimes the delivery is so rapid fire it's hard to catch anything but a word here and there. Hardly matters though, you'lll be too busy bouncing or dancing or whatever you do with these tunes blasting in the background.
Vertically Challenged may be an ep, but it's pretty long, eight tracks, 35 minutes, features a handful of remixes, one from the Beastie Boys' Adrock and one from Ghislain Poiror, and features guest vocal spots from UK grimies Shystie, Frost P., Zuz Rock.
Also includes a DVD with an interview, live footage, all the videos and other goodies.
So though an ep it's definitely all killer and no filler, unlike most hip hop records, and it definitely lays the groundwork for Lady Sovereign to blow up M.I.A. big in the not too distant future. And we're definitely psyched for that. The more GRIME the better, and we'd sure as hell rather hear Lady Sovereign on the radio and on MTV than J-Lo or Madonna or Ashlee Simpson!
Lanaya are a trio from Mali, all three members of so called griot castes, groups who pass on the traditions and musics of their culture from generation to generation, responsible for protecting the legacy of their people and allowing it to live on forever. That's quite a responsibility for a young African three piece still in their early twenties, but their music is wise beyond their years, most certainly an indication that for this generation at least, the sounds of Mali will live on, a sweetly melodic, liltingly hypnotic take on traditional Malian folk music that is at once musically complex but also soft and simple. The instrumentation consists of the kora, a 21-string luteharp (played by Djibril Diabate, who you might remember from a past aQ list, and whose gorgeous album Hawa, also on Terp, we raved about a few years back), the balafon, a sort of African xylophone a bit like a marimba, and the ngoni, a small sized 7-string African guitar.
The sound Lanaya conjure up with these instruments is truly sublime, a multilayered late evening soundscape of dense and dexterous melodies, dreamy and hypnotic, and so well crafted it's easy to forget how complex they actually are.
The background is a rich tapestry of warm muted percussion and repetive melodic figures, played so fast and so smoothly that they sort of bleed into each other, each note drifting subtly into the notes beside it, the result is a slowly shifting warm and warbly dreamlike smear, while in the foreground, each instrument takes its turn with one extended improvisation after another, sometimes drifting and meditative, but just as often nimble and lively. The perfect blend of tranced out Eastern ragas and soft focus African folk music. Sweetly swoonsome and delicately dreamy. Perfect early morning, twilit evening, rainy day, drifting off music.
So totally lovely.
This long time AQ fave is NOW ON VINYL!! When this soundtrack first came out on compact disc, we made it a Record Of The Week, that was years and years ago, the cd is long out of print, so not only will fans of this great record who would like it on vinyl be happy, but we bet there's folks who haven't encountered it before who will be blown away. So very recommended.
Here's what we wrote about it back in 2004 when we made the Blast First Petite cd reissue a Record Of The Week, for the first time:
We weren't really sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan - though it turns out the music was recorded in 1969, also not a bad year) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and languorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the movie (it was re-released on dvd in 2006 or so) and it's GREAT! Not a feel-good hit though, or a typical Western shoot 'em up, at all. The soundtrack is perfect, for this beautiful film.
180 gram vinyl pressing, limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies.
FINALLY RE-PRESSED AND BACK IN STOCK! An AQ Record Of The Week back in January, gone AWOL for some months now.
Wasn't sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and langorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the film (it was re-released on DVD not too long ago) and it's GREAT!
At first we weren't sure what to make of this band, with their awkward name, their super spare black and white artwork, their well crafted mystery, a seemingly complete lack of any sort of pertinent information, no photos, no real liner notes, no mention of individual band members. All very alluring most certainly. We had heard them described as "dreamy space rock... with a psychedelic metal twist" which definitely sounds good. And as some sort of heavy metal / new wave hybrid, which as good as -that- sounds, it most definitely seems like something that would work better in theory than in practice. In actuality, Lansing-Dreiden are neither of those, and end up being way more interesting than any of that would have led us to believe.
Lansing-Dreiden are not just a band either, no, they're a sort of arts collective: musicians, sculptors, artists, writers, film makers, replete with the requisite gallery showings, Artforum writeups, film premiers and rock shows. The lines between each of these disciplines are so blurry they might as well not exist. Their vibe, both visually and sonically is warm and washed out, a gauzy soft focus shapshot of pop culture past, the sound on The Dividing Island is both dizzyingly bizarre and dreamily overwhelming, a pastiche of all sorts of disparate pop elements, loads of instantly recognizable hooks, sweet harmony vocals, squiggly synths, horns, soft whispery crooning, bi arena rock drums, jangling guitars, huge sheets of fuzzy reverb, hand claps, cheesy electronic drums, It's almost like it's 1985 and we're watching MTV in some alternate universe. This is definitely some sort of (old) new wave, no trace of metal to be found (well mostly, more on that in a minute), no space rock really either, although there is plenty of spaced out trippiness. But even with bits of spaciness, and some space rock swirl here and there, that stuff is just window dressing for L-D's passion, which seems to be cracked eighties pop. Lansing-Dreiden is some sort of weird musical time machine, skipping lazily from 1982 to 1985 to 1989 and back again. Where Ariel Pink took seventies AM radio, and turned it into his own disheveled, cracked demented pop vision, Lansing-Dreiden instead take eighties FM radio and classic eighties MTV and gives them their own warm and warped, precious and polished spin. Imagine a hip NY art rock band channeling everything you loved and loathed about ABC, Style Council, Talk Talk, Spandau Ballet, the Fixx, Kajagoogoo, Thompson Twins, Culture Club, Fun Boy Three, Naked Eyes, Psychedelic Furs, The Call, Modern English, etc. There are some moments where the band dips its toes into the more rollicking contemporary NY new wave redux sound of bands like Interpol and the Strokes, and there are stretches of moody near ambient post rock, but for the most part this is a dead ringer for some lost eighties 'classic'. Mix tapes, John Cusack, Say Anything, Breakfast Club, it's like our teenage years revisited, albeit with a slightly more twisted and sinister bent.
There may seemingly be nary a trace of any metal on The Dividing Island, but best stick around for the final track, metallically titled "Dethroning The Optimyth", quite possibly the greatest (only) song ever to mix eighties MTV pop and crushing death metal! As much as we dig the rest of the record, we almost wish the whole record sounded like "Dethroning The Optimyth", although to be totally honest, the thought of a whole album of eighties pop death metal is almost too much to bear! Pounding double bass drumming, and chugging downtuned riffs collide with soft sweetly swoony pop, soaring synthesizers, airy breathless vocals, like laying on your bed, beneath your Kiss and Slayer posters, listening to your favorite metal record while your sister is in the next room BLASTING the soundtrack to the Breakfast Club through your thin walls. SO weird but SO COOL!
Comes in a gorgeously designed black and white cardboard sleeve that opens like a gatefold, the inside a series of alternating black and white triangles, and then the gatefold opens again with two more triangular panels, one black and and one white, all very austere and mysterious looking.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
When one of our friends told us about this little cd containing an experimental piece using the sounds of a Zamboni, we got very very excited. A Zamboni! (That's that unusual machine that resurfaces the ice in hockey rinks.) Upon hearing it, we were even more thrilled, 'cause it's an amazing 20 minute drone work! And practically everyone who works here has bought one by now...
This cute 3" cd, released through Metamkine's esteemed 'Cinema Pour L'Oreille' series of electro-acoustics and musique concrete, contains one track, "Mantra", which opens with a trio of motors starting up and emitting a gentle purr. As these engines warm up and shift through various perfunctory cycles, a wide spectrum of metallic vibrations slowly spins through the stereo field. While it would be nice to believe that these movements coincide with a Zamboni circling a really nice binaural microphone, it's more likely that Laporte exercised his artistic license with a judicious use of crossfading and stereo panning upon his field recordings. As the disc draws near its end, it sounds as if a screw or bolt is loosened by the vibrations and two pieces of metal begin a clamorous bell-ringing arrhythmia. When these motors finally are shut down, those pieces of metal still resonate for a beautifully sustained coda.
Back to the Zamboni issue: we'd been told by 'reliable' informants (Loren Chasse who heard about it from Ferarra Pan who heard it on Scot Jenerik's radio show) that the source material for Jean-Francois Laporte's "Mantra" was a Zamboni. As the liner-notes (all in French mind you) indicate that Laporte incorporated the sound of an air compressor from an ice-skating rink, it didn't rule out the possibility that indeed that air compressor could belong to a Zamboni, but it didn't actually say anything about Zambonis. (Are they even called Zambonis in France, anyway?) As you can tell, we Aquarians like the Zamboni and would really like to believe that the Zamboni was responsible for this album. Thus, we contacted the label, who merely sent us an English translation of the original liner notes, which again stated the source material to be an air compressor. Thus, we are left to ponder the quandary: is it or is it not a Zamboni?
Putting this grand existential question aside and the true origin of the source material out of sight for the moment, what's true is that Laporte has indeed sculpted one of the most compelling drone compositions that we've encountered in quite some time. For loyal readers of these lists, that's no idle comment as artists like Oragnum, Jonathan Coleclough, Mirror, John Duncan, and Francisco Lopez still rank highly for us in the pantheon of dronescapers. Not only as working model but also as a something of belief system, Jean-Francoise Laporte applies the ideals of the mantra to the urban landscape. To him, the hypnotic audio elements of refrigerators, motorcycle engines, and in this case the Zamboni / air compressor rise above their mundane properties to become something that can be meditated upon and hold transcendent properties.
A very, very nice recording, Zamboni or not. Even if you don't normally buy all the weird, droney experimental stuff we recommend, you might want to take a chance and try this out. After all, it's only 20 minutes out of your day and eight bucks. And, maybe it's a Zamboni!
Those artists, musicians, misanthropes, and just plain weirdos who not only exist musically on the fringes but have planted their entire existence on the edge have long been the greatest inspirations of Aquarius Records. For proof, you could scroll through oddball recordings that have earned the honor of Aquarius Record Of The Week. There was the Finnish sound artist Terje Isungset who crafted not just one album, but two from untreated percussive instruments entirely made of ice. Hans Edler thrilled us with his 1970s transformation from teen idol into short-circuited electronic composer. The protracted ululations of the profoundly cracked Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the Church Universal and Triumphant were as transcendent as anything that Lamonte Young had to offer, yet also had that creepy cult of personality vibe to boot. And who could forget Kathy McGinty? But one of the earliest recordings that truly made our collective jaw drop was the 3" cd from French-Canadian composer Jean-Francois Laporte called Mantra. Here was a mighty fine 20 minute composition of delicious vibrations, rattles, mechanical hum, and industrial drones that came with a particularly alluring back story: the source material to Mantra was a Zamboni -- the unusual machine only found at hockey rinks responsible for resurfacing its ice.
The one catch to Laporte's Zamboni sourced masterpiece was that we could never verify that a Zamboni was the actual source material. We heard from 'reliable sources' that Mantra is the sound of a Zamboni; and we wanted so desperately to believe that this was the case, just because the Zamboni is such an amazing and eccentric beast of industrial engineering. Before this turns into a dialectic on epistemology, we here at Aquarius discovered that we had been duped by a couple of mischievous DJs on KPFA without the knowledge or consent of Jean-Francois Laporte. It turns out that Laporte used nothing but a common air-compressor in composing Mantra. This factual unveiling should not in any way take away from the splendor of that piece. Here's what we had to say about Mantra many moons ago:
"Mantra opens with a trio of motors starting up and emitting a gentle purr. As these engines warm up and shift through various perfunctory cycles, a wide spectrum of metallic vibrations slowly spins through the stereo field. After a marvelous set of transitions between drones, there is the rattling sound as if a screw or bolt had been loosened by the vibrations, with two pieces of metal beginning a clamorous bell-ringing arrhythmia. When these motors finally are shut down, those pieces of metal still resonate for a beautifully sustained coda."
That 3" cd came out almost a decade ago, became a classic, and went out of print. Thankfully, 23five Incorporated has rescued Mantra from the dustbin by issuing the first major compendium of Laporte's work in the form of Soundmatters. While we've already sung the praises of Mantra, the remainder of Soundmatters is well worth investigating on its own. The opening track "Electro-Prana" is a pristine set of field recordings of a wind that ripped through Montreal, when the city was silenced by a winter time blackout. It's a pure, chilling sound of whistling wind overtaking the urban landscape. The next piece is the only digitally rendered composition on Soundmatters, yet Laporte brings his intuitive expressionism to a series of spiraling drones that easily rival those of your favorite minimalist (e.g. Niblock, Chalk, Hafler Trio, Xenakis, etc.). For those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing Laporte's live concerts, the third piece will certainly be familiar. He's built an instrument with a series of car horns and elongated trumpet bells attached to an air compressor with each of the valves controlled by foot pedals. This instrument can generate infinitely sustainable, blaring drones from each of the horns; and Laporte craftily layers these sounds for incredible, dynamic results. Well, for this recording, Laporte lugged this instrument into the hull of a giant cargo ship and recorded this composition using the massive reverb of that space and the results are simply jaw-dropping. Imagine the most Nordic bellow from a Wagner symphony stretched out into its melancholic, raw sound and allowed to decay in space and time. Wow!
Following this is the aforementioned Mantra; and then Soundmatters' final piece which explores a quiet, yet thoroughly rich harmonic tapestry produced by a quartet of saxophones that could be Laporte's imagined summit between Evan Parker and Morton Feldman with rasping breaths of sound breaking across a silent event horizon with the ghostly energy of subatomic particles flickering and dissolving in a cloud chamber before amassing into a delirious swarm of Tony Conrad-esque acoustic dissonance. It's all utterly magnificent and one of finest collections of 'serious' composition that we've come across.
The first album from Italy's Larsen was shrouded in mystery, literally they would have had us believe, as it (Rever) came accompanied by the unlikely story that it was recorded with the band concealed behind a screen, producer Michael Gira never actually ever laying eyes on the bandmembers, as they played in concealment and he twiddled the knobs in the studio on his side of the screen. Probably not a true story, but a good one! This new disc comes with a (somewhat) more plausible narrative: apparently Larsen, in preparing for their next record, decided to improvise, just as an exercise, around a bunch of their favorite melodies from tracks by British glitchtronica masters Autechre. In doing so, they eventually came up with their own material, tracks that weren't literally "covers" or in any way direct interpretations of Autechre songs, but were nonetheless heavily influenced and inspired by Autechre's songwriting -- again, in terms of melodies, not the glitchy science of the Autechre duo's stuttering beats. But along with Autechre, their label also cites Einsturzende Neubauten, Six Organs of Admittance, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Gira's Swans as possible influences, and those references seem equally likely to our ears, especially since Larsen's ritualistic, repetitive post-rock doesn't sound remotely like Autechre. Well wait a sec...it does...remotely. By casting such gentle "Autechre-ish" melodies in the context of such completely different instrumentation (guitar, drums, bass, harmonium, xylophone, accordion, keyboards, cello, violin...) and arrangement, Larsen's Play highlights just how melodic Autechre are, something perhaps obscured by the skittering electronic component of their own music. Autechre issues aside, Larsen sure do still sound mysterious. And Play perhaps surpasses what we thought was a pretty brilliant debut (an AQ record of the week, almost exactly three years ago). As with Rever, Play is a largely instrumental, slowly unfolding, mesmerizing, multi-part epic of both tranquility and power, anchored in hypnotic drum-grooves and bathed in delicate instrumental textures. However inspired, it's Larsen that has done the hard work here of constructing such a moody monument.
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The story of how this record came to be is almost impossible to believe, yet Michael Gira (Angels of Light / Swans) seems like a reliable enough source that it could in fact be true. Beginning sometime last year, Gira started receiving a series of arcane
The one qualm with the album is on how the record ends. It has been a longstanding belief of mine that Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" should have ended with the graceful haze of "Hyperstation" and done away with the unnecessary exclamation of "Eliminator, Jr." Similarly, Larsen ends "Rever" badly, as a beautifully repetitive groove simply cuts out, making you wonder if California is returning to the days of rolling blackouts. If only every record had one thing wrong with it instead of eighty-eleven problems, and in spite of that one misgiving, this is one of the best records we have heard in quite a while.
Uh, wow! And WTF!? That's what we thought as soon as we got a good look at these, the other day when Tyler from Ajna dropped 'em off at the store. Is this for real? This late 2011 release from the Ajna affiliated, vinyl-only cult metal reissue label Unseen Forces seems tailor made to be of immense aQuarius interest. First off, we, and many of you, are pretty into the whole Father Yod / Ya Ho Wa 13 / Source Family communal '70s psych rock thing. Pretty much everybody here at aQ owns one of those Japanese 13cd God & Hair box sets of Ya Ho Wa recordings, and we just this week hosted an instore event promoting the Source Family documentary currently screening in the SF Film Festival.
Also, several of us at aQ (and again, many of you) are keen on obscure '80s old school metal, the more outrageous and over the top, the better.
And somehow, unbelievably but awesomely, THE LAW brings those two obsessions together!!
You see, the guys in The Law were members of Source Family, followers of Father Yod. Bassist Peter Tobin and singer/lead guitarist Troy Duke at least, had played and recorded with Ya Ho Wa 13. But by the early '80s, they were transitioning from being long haired hippies to being long haired heshers! Gotta change with the times, man. Having formed a garage (more like barn, cuz they lived on a cattle ranch) band, The Law (= Love And Wisdom), in 1979, they decided to make the big step of moving from Hawaii (where the Source Family had been based since the late '70s, and Father Yod had sadly perished in his fatal hang gliding accident) back to LA, now a hotbed of heavy metal activity in the year of 1983! But they brought their interest in esoteric, psychedelic spirituality along with them, into the realm of the heavier-than-thou, glammed-up, Decline Of Western Civilization Part II, Sunset Strip scene, where they rubbed shoulders with the likes of Motley Crue. Theirs was sleazy hard rock with a mystic message, though, all right!!
Though that unusual backstory (and the picture of the band on the back of the lp, all done up in macho tight leather and studded belts) would probably have been enough to convince us to buy this, it was listening to the songs on this lp that made us decide, heck, all that AND they totally rule, in the hot rockin' department? Ok, Record Of The Week time.
These ten songs include hit single in an alternate universe "Chill The Wine", theme song "Here Comes The Law", and several with either "Baby" or "Love" in their titles, like the dirgey (mostly) ballad "Baby I'm A Mystery", the lyrics to which include the advice: "Sweet child of the fire, the only way to go is higher, higher, higher...". These songs feature plodding riffage, wailing psych guitar solos, commanding vox, low budget sound FX, and (we're just guessing here) an exploding drummer a la Spinal Tap.
Unseen Forces' ringleader Dennis Dread sez this slab of "vintage volcanic rock" is for fans of "The Rods, Oz, Blue Cheer, and Buffalo"... sure! And we'd say Dwarr, Cirth Ungol, and Iron Butterfly, too! There's paradoxically party-hardy outsidery-ness to this, The Law bringing in '60s influences (they do "Wild Thing"), astral influences, whatever, so that while it's not quite Ya Ho Wa 13 in spandex, it's sure not your usual corporate Sunset Strip LA '80s hair metal.
The power trio's sole, independently released, lp came out in 1983, and failed to become a commercial success despite (or because of) its eccentric charms, but it did eventually become a collectable rarity. This reissue probably will too!
Remastered and reissued with the cooperation of The Law's original members, also with help from Source Family historian Isis Aquarian. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and lovingly packaged. Includes liner notes and lyrics insert. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! And the label is almost out of 'em, so these may well be the last copies we'll be able to procure. But we still had to make it Record Of The Week, nonetheless. How could we not? None escape The Law!!
Maybe you had some great bands in your town years ago that were amazing but never really did anything beyond playing parties and maybe making some practice tapes, and no one from anywhere were else ever heard 'em and now they're but (drunken?) memories. I can think of a few from where I'm from, and AQ-pal Glenn Donaldson remembers some too -- one of his faves being Leaf Yard, an outfit from the underbelly of the early '90s Santa Cruz scene who made some bizarre heavy artistic fucked up rock music indeed. Glenn is one of the guys who runs the Jewelled Antler cd-r label (he's a member of Thuja, Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, The Birdtree, etc.) and Pink Skulls is his newly-formed side label for more "punk" oriented material. Part of the reason he decided to start this new imprint, though, was 'cause he became convinced that Leaf Yard's legacy needed to be rescued from oblivion, and while Pink Skulls is still a pretty obscure entity, and this is a limited run of cd-rs, we'll do our part to help him promote this document of lost Santa Cruz rock weirdness circa 1990-1995.
The stuff on this 52-minute, 18-track cd-r is drawn from Leaf Yard's live recordings and demo tapes -- of course they never released a "real" album -- and the sound can be kinda rough, but that totally doesn't detract from Leaf Yard's music 'cause what they were about was ugly, raw, noisy skronk anyway. If they were around today, they'd probably get lumped in with the current scene of art-damaged punk like Black Dice and the Lowdown, or especially, AQ faves Comets On Fire. Some of this sounds a lot like Comets On Fire (hey aren't they Santa Cruz guys too?). There's a big chaotic psychedelic element, some of this even approaches the intensity/density of Japanese garage-psych feedback overlords Fushitsusha, almost. But then there's lotsa other things going on as well: you'll hear a definite SST influence (Minutemen, Gone, Saccarhine Trust), it's sorta unhinged post-punk hardcore psych. And then there also seems to be a strange, hidden inspiration taken from death metal, with some double kick drumming and evil atmosphere. The distorted-to-hell vocals are punk, ugly, the kind your mom won't like. (They sound kinda French, weirdly enough.) Not bad for some Santa Cruz college kids, eh? This is definitely just as worthy as lots of the "legendary" name-bands that get fancy reissues folks drool over. You can really hear what it was about Leaf Yard that made such an impression on Glenn, if you share certain sensibilities that is. So we're really happy that he, working with the surviving ex-members of the band (drummer Ryan Craiker unfortunately has passed away), compiled this material on disc and packaged it in a plastic sleeve with a stapled, xerox booklet full of photos, lyrics, flyers, and, best of all, pictures of Leaf Yard's cassette tape releases, making for a superb archival release of unknown twisted scuzz for twisted scuzz fans! Limited to 50 copies, fyi.
Of all the 'electronica' labels out there, we're beginning to think Planet Mu might be our favorite, certain the most relevant. For a while Warp were unbeatable, Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Squarepusher, Plaid, Autechre, and while that stuff still rules, Warp definitely seems like old guard, whereas Planet Mu has been moving forward, pushing boundaries, even the old school artists on Planet Mu seem to be similarly progressive. So compare the Planet Mu roster to the above Warp one: Venetian Snares, Shitmat, Distance, Vex'd, Pinch, Boxcutter, Neil Landstrumm, Eero Johannes, Milanese, Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble... Planet Mu is always on the cusp of whatever new sound surfaces, the home to most of the kick ass dubstep released in the US, but still supporting it's older artists, who in turn support the label by changing and transforming and progressing. All that said, we still were totally blindsided by Legion Of Two.
With a record title like Riffs, we were already prepared for something different, and a record called Riffs on Planet Mu definitely had us intrigued, but still we would have never expected this. Imagine Neurosis doing dubstep, or some ambient doom band dabbling in electronica, or a heavier, more modern and avant Tortoise, thick sheets of distorted buzz, plenty of bleeps and bloops, that awesome hoovery dubstep bass buzz, but with REAL drums, big drums, pounding and punishing and massive, just take the opening one two punch. The first track, a sort of intro, is a swirling cloud of hiss and whir, streaks of feedback, layer upon layer of gauzy distorted thrum, peppered with bursts of big booming drums, until the song finally kicks in, and it's like Black Boned Angel or something, but a bit stripped down, and instead of downtuned riffage, it's a sea of undulating synths, and rumbling low end, and shards of melody and feedback swirling all around the pounding lumbering doomic crush. We almost wish that track was the whole of the record, but then we would have missed out on the second track, which is where we got the dubstep Neurosis thing, that's not quite accurate, but for an 'electronic' record it definitely doesn't get heavier than this, a loping drum part, over deep throbbing low end, laced with little space-y squelches, and some woodpecker clicks, as well as intense bursts of in-the-red bass fuzz, and finally some techno synths laced over the top, the sound getting thicker and thicker and heavier and heavier, eventually building to a full on glitched out effects drenched psychedelic electronic freakout, the rhythm never faltering, finishing off with a fierce almost metallic dirge. Holy shit. How did these guys end up on Planet Mu, and how the hell did they come up with this bizarre sonic hybrid?
The whole record is sort of a series of rhythmic workouts, from crushing metallic dubstep, to blissed out post rock, to mathy techno jams, to deep listening laid back grooves, but all anchored by the incredible drumming, and the sound of real drums, which is probably what makes this stuff sound so fresh and organic, live drums and electronics end up creating something dense and blown out, heavy and 'live' sounding.
"Palace (Dub)" isn't so much dub, as a tangled bit of complex looped drumming, beneath a repetitive synth line and some buzzing bass squelches, and diaphanous sheets of high end shimmer in the background, tense and dramatic and cinematic, almost like a more twisted avant mathy electronic Goblin or Zombi. "Legion Of Two", is a loping almost eighties sounding groove, with some of the buzziest heaviest synth sounds ever, and plenty of tweaked effects, and soaring faux strings, and tinkling late night glimmer. Much of the second half of the record is more laid back, soporific, almost jazzy, hence the Tortoise comparison, looped and hypnotic, the drums and bass locked into totally mesmerizing jams, while all around keyboards chime and ring out, the melodies haunting and minor key, occasionally slipping into jagged bursts of stuttery noise drenched stop start riff heavy math rock, before slipping back into the groove. The lengthy "Handling Noise" finds the band doing so just fine, crafting a long slow burning creepfest, all otherworldly swells, strange electronic sounds, creepy ambience, jazzy drum skitter, all wreathed in static and crackle and hiss, exploding in the last few minutes in a full on Nadja style shoegaze, noise rock psychdrone blow out. "It Really Does Take Time" is the most electronic of the bunch, a bit house-y, with dubbed out effects, weird loops of children's voices, haunting and trippy, but this track too finally exploding in a frenzy of tribal rhythms and wild psychedelic synths.
The record finishes off with the 10+ minute "Cast Out Your Demons", which is like a dubby space rock jam, big loping drums, sizzling space-y synths, whirling effects, but within all the blissedout stargazing mesmer, subtle bits of dubby guitar, the drums really driving the track, to a gorgeous hazy drone drenched outro, definitely reminds us of White Hills or one of those modern psych combos, but infused with some weirdly abstract space dub.
Really cool stuff, and even with the preceding lengthy review, hard to describe, or at least hard to do justice to. This record has been on repeat play since the day it showed up, in the store, at home, on the headphones, at once groovy and dark, hazy and heavy, druggy and psychedelic, electronic and metallic, a gorgeous confusional chunk of psych-dub space doom free jazz noise rock. Or something. Whatever you call it, most definitely one of our new favorites...
Solo record number two from aQ pal Jussi Lehtisalo, frontman of Finnish hypnorockers Circle, Ektro / Full Contact label head honcho, and member of too many outfits to count, a few of which would include Ektroverde, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo, Doktor Kettu, Pharaoh Overlord, Rakhim, Grumbling Fur, Krypt Axeripper, Motorspandex, Split Cranium, Steel Mammoth...
Sadly, we haven't yet managed to get Jussi's first solo lp, by all accounts a surprisingly beautiful and subdued album, but we did manage to get a bunch of these, the tape version at least (there's a vinyl version as well, which we hope to have soon too), which is also beautiful, but about as far from subdued as you can get. Both side long tracks are dense and layered, and constantly shifting. In some ways taking all the disparate sounds of Jussi's other bands, and somehow mashing them all together, into something surprisingly cohesive.
The A side, "Caterpillars", starts off sounding like some sort of abstract deserty ambient experimental doom, with churning guitars, spurts of metallic crunch, clattery bicycle spoke like percussion, woozy Morricone-esque twang and spidery minor key melodies, peppered with occasional twisted little synth trills, all beneath some monstrous growled vokills, before the song transforms into something more woozy and jazzy, a little late night bluesy, with crooned distorted vox, and thick low end rib cage rattling thrum, only to then launch into some seriously twisted buzz drenched rock pound, which initially sounds like it might explode into full on black metal, but instead, the pounding and buzzing is joined by more twisted xylophone like synth melodies, booming sub bass throbs and cool blasts of rad classic metal style harmonized leads, before once again slipping back into a spacey sort of moody, woozy slowcore, driven by frenetic high hat cymbal stutter, and trippy dubbed out snare drums, still more crooned vox, the sound dreamy and washed out, laced with strange swoonsome faux horns and glistening spaced out FX before finally returning to that strange xylophone driven metallic stomp.
The flipside is equally schizophrenic, "Here March The Cranes" begins all grinding gnarled guitars in a cloud of cymbal sizzle, which is then joined by some Circle like hypnorock bass, the guitars coalescing into little soaring squalls of majestic fast picking, multiple guitars interwoven, those guitars growing more intense, unfurling wild psychedelic leads, everything getting noisier and noisier, until finally switching gears and mellowing out, into a twisted post rock sprawl, all ethereal guitar shimmer, wild jazzy drummy, and spaced out bass blurts. Soon those growled vox come back in, and the sound turns into some strange sinister epic prog rock, swirling synthy strings, a slow build, more and more intense and tense, before splintering into a stretch of cool droned out noise rock churn, that sound gradually growing more and more spacey and serene, dreamy melodies, more of those faux horns, all manner of strange percussion and swirling FX, as the noise recedes, the sound becomes a hazy, lilting bit of psychedelic dreamdrone raga like drift. Fantastic! Easily one of the coolest weirdest things we've heard from Jussi, which is saying a lot considering his whole career has basically been nothing BUT a series of cool weird releases!! WAY recommended. And limited, limited TO JUST 100 COPIES!!! The cassette comes sealed in a stickered little bag, inside a cool cd sized box, artwork affixed to the inside and outside, and sealed shut with another sticker.
Last year we raved about a cassette (and then vinyl lp) called Interludes For Prepared Beast, the second solo release from Jussi Lehtisalo, the bassist/mastermind behind our favorite Finns, those mighty hypnorockers Circle (and many more 'NWOFHM' bands besides). Those of you who prefer compact discs over vinyl, let alone tapes, might have felt a twinge of turntable envy then, since you were missing out on an amazing album (our review concluded with: "Easily one of the coolest weirdest things we've heard from Jussi", and that's saying a lot). Thankfully, Jussi, who loves cds as much as we do, has just released Interludes For Prepared Beast on cd via his Ektro imprint - and even better, the disc also includes Jussi's first solo album, from 2010, entitled Rotta, which is also (of course) quite fantastic, and was a limited vinyl release we never even got any copies of the first time around. So even more to be thankful for, and another reason to pick this up.
We'll try to be brief about Rotta, 'cause we already wrote a lot about Interludes, as you will see. Simply put, it's gorgeous. Unlike maybe what you might expect from the man responsible for so much bombastic, heavy, progged out rock, Rotta definitely represents Jussi's softer side. Intimate and twilit, Rotta is a spacious sonic tapestry of gentle drones, cyclic guitar motifs, softly pulsating bass, and ambient field recordings interwoven with hushed, echo effected vocalizations (the words all in Finnish, we assume, so we don't know what he's on about, but it sounds deep regardless) and lovely layers of shortwave static n' hiss. The opening track "Veljeni" features some occasional harmonica twang, bringing to mind the cinematic, open spaces atmosphere of the likes of Earth circa Hex. Elsewhere, on "Aikoja Sitten", the vibe gets darker, the track lashed with stormy, sinister synthesizer sounds, before dreamily concluding with monkish vocal intonations over a bed of wavering bell-like tones and other mysterious, entrancing sound-swoosh. Fans of Circle's 'soundtrackier' side, mellowed-out albums like Miljard and Tower, will be in heaven. The "circular" sound of Circle is most certainly very present within these compositions; minimalist, mesmeric repetition being Jussi's forte of course.
So that's the first four tracks here, the Rotta portion of this disc, all indeed surprisingly beautiful and subdued, music to totally lose yourself in. Then there's the last two, over a quarter-hour each, representing side A and B of Interludes For Prepared Beast. They also beautiful in their way, but about as far from subdued as you can get. Much heavier, more "gritty" and intense. Both tracks are dense and layered, and constantly shifting. In some ways taking all the disparate sounds of Jussi's other bands (among them Circle, Ektroverde, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo, Doktor Kettu, Pharaoh Overlord, Rakhim, Krypt Axeripper, Split Cranium, Steel Mammoth, and others), and somehow mashing them all together, into something surprisingly cohesive.
The A side (track 5 here), "Caterpillars", starts off sounding like some sort of abstract deserty ambient experimental doom, with churning guitars, spurts of metallic crunch, clattery bicycle spoke like percussion, woozy Morricone-esque twang and spidery minor key melodies, peppered with occasional twisted little synth trills, all beneath some monstrous growled vokills, before the song transforms into something more woozy and jazzy, a little late night bluesy, with crooned distorted vox, and thick low end rib cage rattling thrum, only to then launch into some seriously twisted buzz drenched rock pound, which initially sounds like it might explode into full on black metal, but instead, the pounding and buzzing is joined by more twisted xylophone like synth melodies, booming sub bass throbs and cool blasts of rad classic metal style harmonized leads, before once again slipping back into a spacey sort of moody, woozy slowcore, driven by frenetic high hat cymbal stutter, and trippy dubbed out snare drums, still more crooned vox, the sound dreamy and washed out, laced with strange swoonsome faux horns and glistening spaced out FX before finally returning to that strange xylophone driven metallic stomp.
The flipside (aka track 6) is equally schizophrenic. "Here March The Cranes" begins all grinding gnarled guitars in a cloud of cymbal sizzle, which is then joined by some Circle like hypnorock bass, the guitars coalescing into little soaring squalls of majestic fast picking, multiple guitars interwoven, those guitars growing more intense, unfurling wild psychedelic leads, everything getting noisier and noisier, until finally switching gears and mellowing out, into a twisted post rock sprawl, all ethereal guitar shimmer, wild jazzy drummy, and spaced out bass blurts. Soon those growled vox come back in, and the sound turns into some strange sinister epic prog rock, swirling synthy strings, a slow build, more and more intense and tense, before splintering into a stretch of cool droned out noise rock churn, that sound gradually growing more and more spacey and serene, dreamy melodies, more of those faux horns, all manner of strange percussion and swirling FX, as the noise recedes, the sound becomes a hazy, lilting bit of psychedelic dreamdrone raga like drift. Fantastic! Easily one of the coolest weirdest things we've heard from Jussi, which is saying a lot considering his whole career has basically been nothing BUT a series of cool weird releases!!
All told, 78 minutes and 48 seconds of amazing music that probably one no single person but Jussi could possibly have come up with. Hopefully this disc won't remain Jussi's 'complete solo works' for long, we'd love a volume two someday. WAY recommended.
Once again, it's time to dig deep into the murky musical underground of the great white north, Finland in particular, home to sooooooooooo many aQ faves over the years: Circle, Aavikko, Pharaoh Overlord, Doktor Kettu, Islaja, Avarus, Circle Of Ouroborus, Dead Reptile Shrine, Cleaning Women, Fleshpress, Magyar Posse, Hanoi Rocks (!), Kemialliset Ystavat, Keuhkot, Smack, Mr. Peter Hayden, Death Trip, Worms, Nightsatan, Reverend Bizarre, Ride For Revenge, Skepticism, Tiermes, Uton, Will Over Matter, we could go on and on and on. Oh and let's not forget recent Record Of The Weekers Billy Boys, who seem like the perfect segue into THIS week's Record Of The Week from another group of Finnish oddballs, The Leo Bugariloves, who are most likely virtually unknown to all but the most obsessive Finnophiles, or Bad Vugum completists, their sound pretty warped and WTF? even by weirdo Finnish standards. The label mentions Suicide, the Residents, and krautrock, which all definitely apply, but the LB's also have a weird sort of lo-fi exotica vibe going on, fusing looped Casio rhythms, to warbly synths, primitive programmed skitter wrapped around angular detuned twang, deep growly vocals delivered in a gruff barked croon, bits of Morricone-ish melody surface throughout, but there's plenty of swagger too, some songs slip into full on glam rock Gary Glitter style big beats, all under fuzzy synthy swirls, and chiming almost rockabilly guitar crunch, others get all Stoogesy, bluesy and buzzy, and still others get sort of Gobliny, some tracks laced with woozy horn bleats, others with swoonsome faux strings, but always, the LB's transform the sounds into their own twisted home brewed outsider avant electro pop concoction, and it's one that's weirdly addictive, and unlike the willfully difficult damaged sonics of the Billy Boys, the music of the LB's is playful, and melodic, and actually pretty fun, sure it's dark and brooding and fractured and fucked up at times, but even then it's often shot through with goofy melodies, or gradually transforms into some weirdly abstract bit of stumbling carnivalesque exotica. We can't help but mention another past record of the week, local outsider one man band Fastest, there's much of the same sort of idiosyncratic cinematic electro rhythmic weirdness going on, but the LB's are Finnish too, so this definitely has that weird ineffable Finnish special something that transforms what could have been pure home recorded weirdness, into something that's kind of warped genius, the LB's peppering their difficult listening with quite a knack for melody, plenty of popsmithery lurking in these buzzing, skittering, twangy, quirky, fractured and fragmented electro pop oddities, so much so, that repeated listens reveal these tracks to be more than just oddities, more like some alternate universe pop gems, that seem to have maybe been slightly damaged in their transmission between universes, and odds are, you'll find yourself impossibly hooked, with any of these tracks liable to get lodged in your head like crazy.
The Leo Bugariloves features members of legendary Finnish punk outfits Terveet Kadet and Death Trip (whose collected works reissued on Jussi from Circle's Ektro label we reviewed and raved about recently) but this is about as far as you can get from either of those bands, sounding more like some lo-fi mad scientist concoction of Devo, Fastest, They Might Be Giants, Dirty Beaches and Felix Kubin all run through some cracked Finnish music filter, and then molded into some sort of surreal David Lynchian Las Vegas lounge act. This two disc collection gathers up all sort of vinyl only rarities, long out of print gems, as well as a ton of unreleased stuff, including a handful of live and demo tracks, those tracks in particular displaying more of the group's mesmeric and murky lo-fi krautrock vibe...
Twisted, and bizarre, and most definitely baffling, but crazy catchy, yet another batch of fantastically fucked Finnish weirdness that we can't recommend highly enough!
This is a reissue of one of those deep "in-the-know" records that we're perplexed that we had somehow never heard of before now, especially given its pedigree. It seems to be one of those weird anomaly recordings that when it's not acting as a "proto" example of genres that now exist today (dub-step and minimal techno), it works as a bridge between genres we never imagined being connected before (new age and industrial music, minimalist composition and new wave, minimal synth and ethno-folk music). It's a rare six-degrees-of-separation record that bafflingly connects Suicide to John Fahey, and it's utterly gorgeous to boot.
Craig Leon may not be a well-known name to most, but he was the producer or co-producer behind many of the bands of our youth including Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Suicide, The Weirdos, DMZ, The Zero's. The Bangles and 45 Grave. But he's also a classically trained composer and orchestrator who has worked with Lucio Pavoratti, Sir James Galway and The London Symphony Orchestra. Nommos was the first album of his own material, originally released in 1981 on John Fahey's Takoma label and there really is just nothing quite like it.
With evocative titles like "Donkeys Bearing Cups", "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife" and "She Wears A Hemispherical Skull Cap", Leon uses minimal synthesis to explore repetitive rhythm and texture in hypnotic trance inducing compositions. The opener, "Ring With Three Concentric Circles" explores a kraut-y kosmiche sound employing cosmic synth washes over skeletal mechanical rhythms, but it's the second track, "Donkeys Bearing Cups" that prognosticates many of the production tropes of modern dubstep and minimal techno, the shuffling almost dance-y mechanized rhythms, as well as the squelched siren noise that opens it. Many of the tracks could be paired down backing tracks for Suicide songs, minus Alan Vega's vocals and Martin Rev's knack for propulsion. Instead Leon seems to dwell on the nuance of his robotic rhythms, tweaking the reverb and decay in bass pulses and cymbal clangs, but encasing them in a beautiful floating stasis.
The longest track at nearly 12 minutes, "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife", seems to have the least going on. It's plodding hiccupping rhythm stretching for minutes before we notice a woman's voice almost operatically singing way off in the background. Her voice almost feels like another synthetic texture in the composition and we at first had to turn the volume down to see if we were hearing things, but it's just another impeccable detail that Leon is carefully layering and weaving into seemingly bare-bone compositions making us ever conscious of the meditative nature of the work. This is definitely a producer's record, and an incredible one at that! If you are a fan of modern techno composers like Vladislav Delay, Andy Stott, Demdike Stare, anything on the Dead-Cert label, or even outlier composers like Moondog, Julius Eastman or Barton Smith, this is essential!
Download card included!
We talk about 'long awaited' releases all the time, records we hear about well before their actual release date, forcing us to wait and wait and wait, but few records have been as eagerly anticipated, or generated so many emails from customers as this, the latest from SF black metal behemoth Leviathan. Especially considering the rumors circulating that this may indeed be the final recording from Wrest and his one man band, Leviathan. If it is indeed a swansong, it's hard to imagine a more fitting or more powerful farewell-and-fuck-off.
Even being a huge fan and voracious devourer of black metal, we would be hard pressed to tell lots of BM bands apart. It's the nature of the beast in some ways. But the second we threw this on, even if we hadn't known what was playing, there's no mistaking the sound of Leviathan, the guitar tone, those demonic croaked vocals, the dizzying lush black buzzscapes, the convoluted song structures, the weird mathy rhythms and the incredible riffs.
Massive Conspiracy is not a huge departure from the sound of Tentacles Of Whorror, if anything, it just takes all the elements of that record and pushes them just that much further out. The sound is a bit more dense, more epic, the drumming is amazing (especially after the switch from electronic drums to real drums) the compositions more sprawling and expansive in scope. Which is saying a lot since past Leviathan records were pretty dang epic and sprawling already.
The sheer hatred of the titles is certainly expressed in the music as well, this is some scathing, hateful furious sound.
The record begins with some strange static, hissing drone-like buzz, ominous ambience beneath it, a haunting melody, then Wrest's howl and the record explodes in a flurry of rapid fire riffing and relentless blasting, but only briefly, the song immediately switches gear into a lurching lope, then right back into the blast. The song is peppered with super dense squalls of high end buzz, streaks of ultradistorted skree, while beneath all sorts of murky melodies lurk, almost like some old 78 was left playing in the background, giving the track an incredible creepy vibe, the last half of the song wraps itself around a slithery downtuned staccato riff, a gorgeously grim dirge that pounds its way to a burst of black chaos at the finish.
The second track is all whirring synths, loping drums, and Wrest's gurgling growl, a weird skeletal ambient dirge that is soon swallowed up by keening high end guitars, crunching downtuned churn, and some super freaky almost operatic vocals, the middle of the song is all full speed freaked out intensity, before again, the song locks into a super riffy groove, much like the opener, before finishing off in another black blaze.
The rest of the record follows suit, weaving super elaborate soundscapes of black metal buzz, and moody mathy meandering, dense black ambience, and swirling low end drones, the tracks rife with parts and bridges and confusional changes, all masterfully wound up into dense convoluted blackened, that while on their own are strange enough, are also peppered will all manner of sonic weirdness, be it slippery peals of woozy, dizzying melody, garbled vocal fragments, soaring harmony guitar melodies, super obtuse dynamics,
All culminating in the final two tracks. "Vulgar Asceticism" is definitely the most fucked, and maybe most amazing song Wrest has ever recorded. Even the opening, with its muted riffing and murky bass throb, staccato riff, and weird Greg Ginn-ish scrape and grind, before the song takes off. And the main riff is super warbly, almost sounding like he's playing with a slide, the notes wavering and detuning, only to be yanked back in line, and then bent way out of tune again, the result a blurry seasick lurch, exacerbated by the dynamics, the riffs often slipping into strange start stop stutters, until the song reaches it's middle stretch, the bass and drums locked into a relentless midtempo blast, while layers of guitars, and various riffs slip and slide, waver and warble, a super dizzy expanse of funhouse mirror blackness that is as fucked up and far out as it is amazing and masterful.
The closer, "Noisome Ash Crown" is an appropriately somber end to Massive Conspiracy, maybe even Leviathan itself. The whole first half a funereal crawl, a bleak grim landscape of whirring thick black ambience, and strange squalls of processed vocals, squiggles of distorted guitar, the drums a solid framework for the drifting abyss above. A strange washed out, gauzy black ambient bridge, gives way to a crushing almost industrial dirge, the melodies majestic and sorrowful, the vocals harrowing and harsh, the drums furiously flailing before transforming into muted little tangles, the rest of the song following suit, a dark minor key outro that gives way to the same black static that started the record.
The first limited pressing comes in a red digipak, featuring some seriously twisted original artwork from Wrest on the cover. Inside lurks a 12 page full color booklet, with more freaky drawings, lyrics and no liner notes.
NB. this officially comes out on Tuesday (3/25) so we can't sell any in the store 'til then, but of course mailorder folks can go ahead and order it now, to get in the mailorder queue...
This actually came out last year, and we'd been wanting to review it (and confer upon it Record Of The Week status) ever since, but held off until we were able to do an order directly with the PSF label in Japan and thus get a bunch of 'em for a better price ($16.98 being not that bad for a Japanese import these days, eh?). Finally, they're here, and this is the Week it gets to be a Record Of, though really it's a timeless piece of work that we've been enjoying for a while now, as we said.
Why the high honors? Well, we know there are those of you (and of us) who love guitar, loud GUITAR. Y'know, who just bow down to sheer, untrammeled outward bound electric six string axe action. This is for YOU. Another amplifier worshipping guitar god for you, in turn, to worship, one we can readily place in that eternal electric guitar pantheon that includes among noisy others Jimi Hendrix, Randy Holden, Ax Genrich, Masayuki Takayanagi, Uli Jon Roth, Caspar Brotzmann, Keiji Haino, J. Mascis, Thurston Moore, Matthew Bower, Campbell Kneale, and, well, Li Jianhong! Perhaps you've heard of him already, after all, we've reviewed at least one of his previous solo releases (on aRCHIVE), and also his noise guitar/drums duo D!O!D!O!D! (also on PSF), and drone guitar/laptop duo VagusNerve (on Utech). This, though, definitely the best thing from him we've heard yet, and is his first solo album for PSF, where he most definitely belongs, alongside the likes of Haino, Takayanagi, and High Rise's Munehiro Narita. Though, he's not Japanese, he's Chinese and as PSF says, is "China's hottest, loudest and most psychedelic avant-noise guitarist". Dunno why you wouldn't just believe that but if you want definite proof, here it is, take a listen!
It's mindbending, utterly mesmerizing stuff, pushing into the red at all times almost, but also supremely controlled, like an elemental under command, lotsa "static" but not static, instead always moving forward into searing, cosmic white light oblivion... The disc is seventy minutes long, comprising two longer-than-side-long tracks (32:47 and 37:15), but it pretty much stops time when you're listening. Ultra droney deep distorted sheets of amped up sound, howling wah wah fuzz fuzz to the extreme, cranked to 11 (though we dare you to dial it up half that high at home), but what's got us is that he's definitely playing, we mean SOLOING, melodically, the whole time pretty much. So it's got that Earthless, endlessly jamming guitar solo vibe to it, but imagine Earthless that sounds more like Earth (the band), and it's JUST guitar too, though it sounds like more than one of 'em. Jianhong never lets it turn into unrecognizably guitar-generated skronky noise, it's not like Metal Machine Music or Solmania or Merzbow, though they're on the horizon perhaps. Even at its most abstract, when it sounds like a jet airplane engine drone or an ecstatic chorus of angelic screams, wavering and echoing, you can still picture him wielding his axe in a classic guitar hero pose, conjuring all sounds with his fingers, strings, amp, and intervening pedals.
Of the two tracks, the 1st is more active and "shreddy", 2nd is calmer, but still full of energy and motion. Both are beautiful... if you think sounds like grinding whale calls having close encounters with UFOs and swarms of bees in a hurricane can be beautiful. Pretty much a must-have for fans of such artists as Urthona, Ulaan Khol, Keiji Haino, Earth, Boris (in their Absolutego / Feedbacker / Cloud Chamber mode), Skullflower, Makoto Kawabata & Acid Mothers Temple, Neil Young (on Arc anyway), etc. Bow down!!
"Somebody needs to reissue this!" has been often uttered around aQ in reference to this 1983 gem by Lifetones, a one-off band created by Charles Bullen of This Heat. And finally, after years of praying and hoping and wishing, our wish has been granted! Our fellow music obsessives at Light In The Attic have stepped up to bring this all-time favorite the attention it so richly deserves. For A Reason is one of those rare records, that from the very first time you hear it, immediately seduces with its immediacy, uniqueness, and zoned-in sonic focus. And after that first listen, it's likely that you'll find yourself addicted, and craving more, as the record only hits harder and deeper with every listen.
It's shouldn't be a surprise to the aQ faithful that we would be raving about a This Heat related project (This Heat being a unanimous all time aQ favorite, their vinyl reissues being recent Records Of The Week here too!), we've gushed about other post This Heat music from both Charles Hayward and Gareth Williams in projects like Flaming Tunes and Camberwell Now. But really, Charles Bullen has always been the underrated/unknown/unsung part of the This Heat equation, as very little was ever written about him or his post This Heat endeavors. Just like those Hayward and Williams projects, the record Bullen made after the demise of This Heat somehow manages to transcend and creates its own distinct soundworld.
Influenced by dub, Indian rhythms and instrumentation, as well as the deep-in-the-groove elements of krautrock, Lifetones has this magical ability to sound like no one else while feeling strangely and warmly familiar. It's like the band/record we always imagined in our head, or wished existed, proof that experimentation and smart sonic vision can also be so totally enjoyable and utterly irresistible.
While this record has been a cult secret for way too long, it's undeniable that many of today's brightest altered-zone music makers have been touched greatly by these magical and mysterious sounds. We hear echoes in Sun Araw, Fabulous Diamonds, Panda Bear, Peaking Lights, Anika, Blues Control, and we can't quite put our finger on it, but there is an ineffable sonic sexiness, tension and tone that even reminds us of when we first heard Interpol's debut way back in 2002.
Imagine Public Image Ltd's Second Edition melted and warped into African Head Charge's Songs Of Praise, and then somehow dissolving into Can's Tago Mago - it's that sort of entrancing, exotic, indescribable sonic alchemy that might give you a clue of what For A Reason is all about. But really, beyond the intoxicating sound, there are the songs - each one rife with incredible hooks and profound lyrics that hit their mark and cut deep.
Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of our music nerd hearts to Light In The Attic for finally doing justice to one of our favorite records of the last 35 years!
The vinyl reissue comes in a gatefold jacket on high quality wax and both the vinyl and the cd versions come with an essay and a download card.
This is the long-awaited, highly anticipated full length release from Providence, RI's amazing bass and drums duo LIGHTNING BOLT! Imagine Tokyo drums/bass duo Ruins in their early years: way obvious prog influence and heavy as fuck, then subtract the zeuhl
Well all right! One of the most highly-anticipated releases of the past few years is finally on the shelves at AQ. Kleenex were a Swiss punk band who released one record in 1978 and were soon thereafter forced to change their name to LiLiPUT, the moniker they used for the next four years until they disbanded in 1983. For the five years of their existence, Kleenex / LiLiPUT amassed an astonishingly cohesive (considering they went through three vocalists) body of work that was championed by everyone from John Peel to Rough Trade Records, who were their label for a while. Since their demise, the legend of LiLiPUT has only grown larger and larger. At one point a brief 1993 cd reissue of their work was reportedly going on eBay for over $300! The riot grrl scene, among other punk movements, has been inpsired by and today rightfully acknowledges and champions the influence of Kleenex/LiLiPUT (heads up, fans of Le Tigre, this will kick your ass and you'll thank them and ask for more). Somehow it seems appropriate that stalwart indie-punk label Kill Rock Stars should be releasing this double cd, which contains the entirety of the band's recorded output.
But what do they sound like? Well, no fan of the Slits, Raincoats, or X-Ray Spex should be without this record for a moment longer. Yeah, it's got that much unbelievable energy, choppy melodies, and three-chord majesty... and the band was similarly female fronted (one guy was only briefly a member). The two constants in the band -- the two people who were present throughout all the incarnations of Kleenex/LiLiPUT -- were guitarist Marlene Marder and bassist Klaudia Schiff, so there's driving, relentless, yet thoughtful basslines, coupled with slash 'n burn, jumpy guitar terrorism that at times recalls the band's contemporaries in the scene, like Gang of Four, Joy Division, and Wire. The vocalists ferociously crowed and cackled mostly in sing song English, making for funny and evocative lyrics. Violin and skronkin' saxophone were occasionally used as embellishment to their already full, solid sound. Every song is unique, approachable... every song is good. Kleenex/LiLiPUT's time has come again.
Controversial as always, Brooklyn's Liturgy, the band 'troo' black metallers love to hate, is back. And it's not just purists who have found Liturgy's self-proclaimed 'transcendental black metal' (and accompanying manifesto) to be way too pretentious, arty, overly intellectual and dare we say hipsterish. And yeah, sure, Liturgy ARE intellectual and/or pretentious, but they also make some freaking amazing, weird music. So let's get all that out of the way by saying, they can call it whatever they want, just don't expect us to read the manifesto. To us, ok, maybe we wouldn't really consider them a bonafide black metal band, but the music they make wouldn't exist (probably) if there weren't such a thing as black metal. It's a part of their sound that they, well, have transcended? They're definitely their own 'thing' whatever it might be, a thing that beyond the black metal elements also incorporates math rock and academic new music and IDM electronica and other strange stuff besides. Totally up our alley in other words - although making The Ark Work an aQ Record Of The Week was also was a wee bit controversial here, 'cause we'll admit right off the bat that this isn't an easy album to sit through all at once. It's just so tripped out and CRAZY and exhausting, as you mentally process what you're hearing. But even if you can't take it all in one sitting, it's the sort of thing where we swear you'll be compelled to play individual tracks on repeat, over and over, just to get your head around 'em, and because certain parts can be so intense and mesmerizing, you want to really try to fully absorb/understand the awesomeness of them before experiencing the next draining yet uplifting track. So Record Of The Week it is, none can deny that it's an impressive piece of work and unlike anything else really. It's gonna have you going, what IS this? Very aQ-worthy, indeed.
Liturgy's bandleader, guitarist/vocalist/composer Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (whose name is only slightly less plausible than, say, Guy Mann-Dude, anyone remember that '80s metal shredder?) is one ambitious & talented dude... man... guy. Some pretentiousness may be a side effect of that, but whatever. It's not like we're paying attention to the conceptual lyrics about who knows what (though you might, they could be worthwhile). We're just busy being blown away by all the choppy stop-start arrangements; the symphonic horn parts; the insectoid guitar buzz that sounds like a Glenn Branca guitar orchestra made up of a whole bunch tiny, tiny, pygmy-like black metal guitarists; the mesmeric, trance-inducing drumming by the inhuman Greg Fox (Guardian Alien); the glitchy digital stutter that, seizure-like, grips bits of these tracks occasionally; the post-rocky, sea-saw way these tracks can build and build; the sheer proggy/mathy grandiosity of the whole thing, and all the other surprises, including, despite this music's difficulty-factor, some really beautiful, blissful parts too.
There are bagpipes, too, along with the trumpet and trombone, all played by guest musicians, but in addition there are also synthesized MIDI horns on here, the latter giving a bit of the vibe of an outsider composer realizing his epic opus with DIY bedroom recording technology. Then there are the processed vocals, also kinda melodic, but chant-like, a mantric supplication, sorta sounding like Om, but with the tape sped up perhaps or otherwise manipulated, and still quite emotive.
Yeah, we said they sure came up with something that doesn't sound like anything else, at least not anything that exists, though we can come up with some this-meets-that, hybrid of this-and-that esoteric band math equations to try to describe it, like, um, Orthrelm doing their version of Om (if Om attended the Church Universal and Triumphant), or Phantomsmasher goes to conservatory... or how 'bout this: the track "Vel Valhaal" sounds like a song by outsider epic metallers Realmbuilder, remixed by Venetian Snares, with a gamelan thrown in for good measure, mashed up with a Herman Nitsch aktion. How's that? We're trying.
If all that's not ridiculous enough, oh then there's the fact that Liturgy recently they appeared on an episode of NBC TV show The Blacklist, with freakin' Peter Fonda behind the drum kit. WTF? If haters gonna hate anyway, you might as well cash in with surreal shit like that.
You've got your whole life to listen to this Liturgy album, so don't delay, get it now! While maybe we can't say yet for sure, we think it's one we will be coming back to when some other, more acceptably 'troo black metal' albums are long forgotten.
Oh, and 'cause we told 'em we were making it a Record Of The Week, Thrill Jockey has kindly offered a special BONUS for folks who buy it from us, and only us, this week. While they last, we'll be including a download coupon with each purchase that gets you an mp3 of the crazy remix that Soft Pink Truth (Drew from Matmos) did of the track "Vitriol", which is otherwise is only available on the version of the cd released in Japan. It's not as if Liturgy isn't already insane and fucked up enough sounding, but you can imagine what SPT does to 'em.
FYI the swank gatefold double vinyl version includes a download of the full album, too, while the gatefold cd version has no need of that.
Full length number three from these black drone audio alchemists, offering up their latest sprawling epic, this one conceptually based on a JG Ballard novel about a leper colony, and the mysteriously crystallizing forest that threatens their existence. Heady stuff, but the sort of concept perfectly suited to Locrian's sprawling sonic mystery, epic and cinematic, haunting and harrowing, the music of Locrian already plays like a soundtrack, their sound evoking all manner of other worlds and alternate realities, lost civilizations and spiritual planes, underworlds and inner worlds and what lies between.
Normally a duo, here Locrian have been expanded to a trio, with an additional member contributing electronics and percussion, allowing the band to expand their sound even further, stretching out into lengthy explorations, drifting from deep buzzing drones to starry fields of glitched out electronics, swooping spacey black ambience to lumbering blackened doom, abstract post rock to churning crumbling low end dirges.
After what plays like a black metal power electronic intro, all corrosive black buzz, layered drones, distant buried melodies, howled anguished vox, and delicate tinkling chimes, the record shifts into a more tranquil blackness, the two tracks connected by those tinkling chimes, that melodic refrain, distant melodies drift beneath chant like vocals, processed guitar throb and thrum, eventually evolving into a stretch of gorgeously epic doomic plod, deep ominous vocals over keening high end melodies, subtle tribal drumming, and swirling ambience, a glacial groove that finally dissolves into a squall of white noise.
Gorgeous looped proggy guitars drift over electronic squelches, dizzying and hypnotic, multiple guitars layered into a mesmerizing harmony, eventually, another melody, and a thick crumbling distorted riff join in, drums too, and it's a fantastic bit of hypnotic chaos, laced with squealing guitars and bursts of free drum splatter.
The record unfurls an epic bit of hushed dronemusic minimalism, that also eventually erupts into some abstract rhythmic churn, looped and cyclical, all over grinding guitars and FX drenched squealing electronics, before slipping into some caustic blackened drones, abject and grim, the guitars rumbling and crumbling and super distorted, while voices wail and howl way off in the distance. Finally the record finishes with a long stretch of moody melodic doom, acoustic guitars, crooned wordless vox, swirls of psychedelic guitar, high end electronic streaks, which expand into another pounding dirge, this one strangely pretty, even the anguished vokills can't take way from the track's lilting loveliness, a hazy bit of metallic slowcore, wrapped in increasingly frantic psychguitar, before all of that fades out completely, leaving just acoustic guitar, strings and what sounds like harmonium or accordion, a darkly emotional outro, culminating in a wild tangle of frenzied freaked out strings.
But that's just the first disc. Disc two continues with a nearly 54 minute single track, all instrumental, an epic sprawling, ever shifting chunk of blackened dronemusic, that could have easily been its own record. Deep ominous pulses, give way to hazy washed out melodies, laid over that ominous low end creep, which slips into spaced out looped electronics and haunting stretches of chantlike chorales, blown out blasts of white noise psychguitar splinter into blurred expanses of soft focus static, all wrapped around buried melodies, and muted metallic riffage, huge pummeling sheets of blown out black rrrrooaar plunge directly into black hole shimmer, laced with woozy bass thrum, and finally a stretch of tinkling echo drenched ambience, a swirling cloud of tinkling guitar melodies wrapped in thick black rumbles, and creepy looped laughter.
Epic and gorgeous, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! Housed in a super swank Stoughton style cd gatefold with gorgeous grim art by aQ pal Justin Bartlett, aka Vuberkvlt.
The final two installments in the long overdue comprehensive Loop reissue campaign are finally here. World In Your Eyes, the newly expanded 12" collection, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this right here, the final proper Loop album, A Gilded Eternity.
Contemporaries of legendary drug rockers Spacemen 3, Loop took the same sonic influences but rocked a little harder, opting out of the extended soporific drifts the defined the Spacemen, (although they were perfectly capable of blissing out with the best of them) and instead creating looped, krautrock spacejams, that were downright heavy, as well as being space-y, druggy and surprisingly catchy. Guitars were fuzzed out, vocals way down in the mix, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, riffs often processed into stuttering textures and looped rhythms, the drums alternatingly motorik and skeletal, and pounding and explosive, all wreathed in a glorious otherworldly haze.
A Gilded Eternity, their final record, originally released in 1990, might just be their heaviest and most rocking yet, definitely their tightest, album opener "Vapour" has one of those riffs TO DIE FOR, the main melody is so completely catchy, the song a woozy, repetitive chunk of gloriously propulsive dronerock, less space-y than much of what came before, but definitely more rocking and relentless. the next track "Afterglow" pushes that new heaviness even further, sounding not unlike Swervedriver, big crunchy distorted guitars, pounding tribal drumming, the arrangement a lurching start stop, that slips into cool washed out breakdowns, before exploding right back into the stuttery groove. And so it goes, the band unfurling their masterwork, in a career of masterful works, "Blood" is total abstract minimal krautrock, the guitars stripped away, leaving just a super spare drum part, wrapped all up in processed vocals and swirling effects, another jam that easily could have gone on for 10 more minutes. But then just like that, the band slip back into "Breath Into Me", whipping up another killer riff, the track a looped space garage groove that rivals record opener "Vapour". The record proper ends with the nearly 10 minute "Be Here Now", the Loop version of a slow jam, beginning with some strange processed guitar, the band ease into a languorous groove that drifts druggily through soft focus clouds of lysergic buzz, brief squalls of wild wah guitar, but remaining locked and looped, the weary vocals drifting above the warm endless buzz.
A Guilded Eternity comes with a bonus disc as well, perhaps the least critical of the bonus material, considering it contains 5 demo tracks and 3 Peel Sessions, BUT, it also includes the Loop track "Shot With A Diamond", which happens to be Jim's favorite Loop track alongside "Arc-Light." This track provides the perfect sonic segue between Loop and the sounds guitarist Robert Hampson would later explore with his post Loop solo project Main, an ominous bit of electronic sample laced dronemusic, creepy and haunting and so fucking awesome. Previously only available as a 7" single, and as a bonus track on the original cassette version. Essential!
In fact, all four of these Loop reissues are absolutely required listening for anyone with even the mildest interest in sounds space-y, druggy, metallic and psychedelic!!!
When people think of spaced out, drone-y drug rock, Spacemen 3 seem to get all the love, which is of course fair, Spacemen 3 totally rule, their music is magical, especially for some of us who will probably only ever experience drug use by strapping on a pair of headphones and blasting Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To. But c'mon, let's share the love, with another group, who existed during the same time, in basically the same place, and who were sonically quite similar, yet crafted their own distinctive and incredibly iconic body of work, one that has been criminally unavailable for years now. These two reissues are the first in what will hopefully be a comprehensive reissue campaign for London space rockers Loop.
For years, Loop have been a favorite of in-the-know music nerds, whose Spacemen 3 collection is most likely rivaled by their Loop collection, and basically, to love one, is indeed to love the other. You like thick looped guitars, blown out distorted buzz, krautrocky rhythms, song structures that are simple, cyclical, repetitive, hypnotic, guitars dripping with effects, vocals drawled lazily and buried in the mix, everything hazy and washed out and bleary eyed and druggy. Wait, were we talking about Loop or Spacemen 3? Exactly. The main difference to our ears, was that Loop always seemed to rock way harder. The Spacemen would often flutter off in tripped out ambient flights of fancy, dropping the drums completely, letting the guitar pulse and throb, the vocals drifting ethereally over the top. And sure, Loop were capable of that too, but seemed to hew closer to a more driving sound, the drums much more integral to their overall vibe. The sound of Loop was equal parts krautrock and space rock, and their name was definitely referenced their sound. Loop mainman Hampson would even go on to form Main, a more tranquil guitar loop based outfit, whose obsession with texture and loops absolutely informed all of the Loop recordings. The guitars were thick, wreathed in distortion, delay, reverb, doused in effects, that not only altered their timbre, and their tone, nut also often made the guitars sound backwards, creating woozy of kilter jams that seemed to slowly and subtly shift and change shapes before our very ears. The vocals weary and washed out, the drums skeletal and simple, but all fused into totally tripped out, drugged out, kraut-infused space rock bliss.
Fade Out was record number two for Loop, and found the band making a definite move forward in terms of production and sound, and an obvious shift away fro a sound they shared with countrymen Spacemen 3. The sound on Fade Out is much heavier, and way louder, the guitars sharper and more jagged, the bass more present, the vocals way more prominent, the sound immediately less druggy and washed out and more rocking. "Black Sun" is a propulsive slab of spaced out garage-y krautrock, the guitars ringing out, the second guitar a buzzing over the top, the drums busy and powerful, the whole thing still wreathed in effects, but now the murk had been replaced with something much more effulgent, a strange burnished glow, suffusing the sound, less like laying in darkness and watching colors swirl and shimmer, and more like staring directly into the sun. "This Is Where You End" continues on in the same vein, with gruff almost growled vocals, over that distinctive looped guitar figure, with multiple guitars offering up extra melody and texture.
"Fever Knife" stands out as it slows things way down, and the guitars are muted, not quite as sharp, with plenty of squiggly fun house mirror guitar melodies intertwined with that main riff, the tempo, a head nodding soporific groove, definitely reaching back a bit to the sound of Heaven's End. But then comes "Torched" with a incendiary guitar sound so loud and in the red, it threatens to blow your speakers, dwarfing the drums and bass in the background, churning and soaring, white hot and blown out big time.
The title track is another slowed down druggy dirge, the main riff lumbering woozily along side a steady simple beat, haunting processed vocals, and chunks of extra guitar buzz, the whole thing downright doomy. The last three tracks are gorgeous squalls of druggy throb and crumbling guitar buzz, the record finishing up with a short stretch of shimmering ambient drift. SO GREAT!!
The deluxe reissue of Fade Out not only comes in a super spiffy full color mini lp style gatefold sleeve, with printed inner sleeves, it also comes with a whole bonus disc, featuring a whole mess of extra stuff, alternate mixes of three tracks on the record, an awesome demo version of "This Is Where You End", the Peel Sessions from the Fade Out era, and most exciting of all a series of Fade Out Guitar Loops, from shimmering high end buzz, to whirring smears of low end rumble, definitely hinting at Hampson's post-Loop outfit Main.
SO TOTALLY AND UTTERLY RECOMMENDED. ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL! And for recent converts to the world of druggy space rock, anyone who has been digging local droney drug rockers Wooden Shjips (and we know there are LOTS of you out there), will definitely fall in love with Loop!!
When people think of spaced out, drone-y drug rock, Spacemen 3 seem to get all the love, which is of course fair, Spacemen 3 totally rule, their music is magical, especially for some of us who will probably only ever experience drug use by strapping on a pair of headphones and blasting Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To. But c'mon, let's share the love, with another group, who existed during the same time, in basically the same place, and who were sonically quite similar, yet crafted their own distinctive and incredibly iconic body of work, one that has been criminally unavailable for years now. These two reissues are the first in what will hopefully be a comprehensive reissue campaign for London space rockers Loop.
For years, Loop have been a favorite of in-the-know music nerds, whose Spacemen 3 collection is most likely rivaled by their Loop collection, and basically, to love one, is indeed to love the other. You like thick looped guitars, blown out distorted buzz, krautrocky rhythms, song structures that are simple, cyclical, repetitive, hypnotic, guitars dripping with effects, vocals drawled lazily and buried in the mix, everything hazy and washed out and bleary eyed and druggy. Wait, were we talking about Loop or Spacemen 3? Exactly. The main difference to our ears, was that Loop always seemed to rock way harder. The Spacemen would often flutter off in tripped out ambient flights of fancy, dropping the drums completely, letting the guitar pulse and throb, the vocals drifting ethereally over the top. And sure, Loop were capable of that too, but seemed to hew closer to a more driving sound, the drums much more integral to their overall vibe. The sound of Loop was equal parts Krautrock and space rock, and their name was definitely referenced their sound. Loop mainman Hampson would even go on to form Main, a more guitar loop based outfit, whose obsession with texture and loops absolutely informed all of the Loop recordings. The guitars were thick, wreathed in distortion, delay, reverb, doused in effects, that not only altered their timbre, and their tone, nut also often made the guitars sound backwards, creating woozy of kilter jams that seemed to slowly and subtly shift and change shapes before our very ears. The vocals weary and washed out, the drums skeletal and simple, but all fused into totally tripped out, drugged out, kraut infused space rock bliss.
Heaven's End was Loop's debut, released in 1987, just a year after Spacemen 3's first record (and apparently Spacemen 3 were always quite annoyed by constantly being compared to Loop), and inadvertent or not, it's the Loop record that is the most Spacemen sounding. Lo-fi, raw and gritty. The opener "Soundhead" is surprisingly rocking, with lots of wah guitar, propulsive drumming, ethereal vocals, the song that would define the sound of Loop, but it's the second track where the record really gets going, slipping into a slow motion Stooges groove, a lurching looped riff, the vocals buried in the mix, the drums a simple pound, a main refrain that's catchy as fuck, the whole thing constantly repeated over and over and over and over, totally blissed out and trancelike. The following track slips even further out, the guitars super sharp and buzz drenched, the tempo a lugubrious crawl, the drums total barebones, swirling spaced out effects, the guitar billowing out into soft focus buzzscapes over which the rest of the instrumentation seems to hover weightless. The title track is a simple garage-y pound, with the cymbals and the guitars looped backwards (hinting at some Teenage Filmstars to come maybe?), the guitar stuttering creating incidental rhythms, very druggy and mesmeric. And so it goes, each song, a simple motif, locked in and set on repeat, the core remaining near static, looped into infinity, while all around that groove various guitars and effects and voices swirl and whirl and spin and stretch and shimmer divinely. Easily one of our all time favorite records for sure.
This deluxe reissue not only comes in a super spiffy full color mini lp style gatefold sleeve, with printed inner sleeves, it also comes with a whole bonus disc, featuring alternate mixes of two of the album tracks, as well as a killer cover of Suicide's "Rocket USA", with a cool programmed drum beat, tripped out psychedelic guitars, and hushed almost crooned vocals, and the three tracks from the Peel Sessions, included a seriously stretched out version of "Straight To Your Heart". SO AWESOME!!!
SO TOTALLY AND UTTERLY RECOMMENDED. ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL! And for recent converts to the world of druggy space rock, anyone who has been digging local droney drug rockers Wooden Shjips (and we know there are LOTS of you out there), will definitely fall in love with Loop!!
Finally!! Ever since the first two Loop records got the deluxe multidisc reissue treatment, we've been anxiously awaiting the last two, their final record A Gilded Eternity, and this one right here, many folks around here's favorite, a compilation of 12"s called World In Your Eyes. Originally released in 1987, the updated World In Your Eyes, is even better, a TRIPLE disc collection of 12"s, 7"s, bonus tracks, unreleased tracks, demos, and covers.
Seemingly always (unfairly) overshadowed by their sonic brethren the Spacemen 3, Loop managed to give the drugged out drone rock thing their own distinct spin, infusing some serious krautrock mesmer and some metallic muscle into their slow burning drones and effects drenched psychrock workouts. Slipping easily from super dreamy one riff blown out hypno rock, to in-the-red space garage pound, to hushed soft focus inner space drift, Loop were masters of modern psychedelia.
Take the 10 minute drug drift of "Burning World", with its processed guitar chug, the swirling clouds of effects, the blooping bass, the motorik drums, like the perfect mix of Can and Hawkwind. Or "Brittle Head Girl", which sounded like a spacier more tripped out Galaxie 500, its lazy drawled vocals, and woozy guitar hook, and that irresistible bassline. Or "I'll Take You There", a super fuzzed out bit of garage-y space groove, the band easily out spacing the Spacemen themselves. We could probably go track by track, every one here is a gem, and the extras! Holy shit. Where to start? Besides a plethora of demos, live tracks and the like, this collection also includes some incredible covers, A spaced out version of a Pop Group track, Neil Young's "Cinammon Girl", Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and Can's "Mother Sky (which Andee sez is better than the original, yeah we know, we know). Then there's the Arc-Lite 12" that takes up the first half of the third disc, one of our favorite Loop eps, and the track "Arc-Lite (Sonar)" is one of the best Loop jams ever, with its relentless riffing, it's strange flurries of tribal drumming, the echo drenched vox and the swooping streaks of effects, a 4 minute song that could easily have been ten times that. The song is reimagined as the "(Radar)" version, getting sort of supercharged, heavier and fleshier, less spare and skeletal and jangly than the original. There's a third version still, that gets all remixed into something less space rocky and more tripped out and dizzying. Let's not forget the ten minute "Sunburst", a sprawling bit of lysergic minimal krautdrone, woozy and druggy and slow burning. There's also the legendary live Prisma Europa Live 12", and finally, to top it all off, Loop's Godflesh cover, from their Loopflesh split 7", where each band covered the other, one of our Holy Grail 7"s, if anyone out there has one they can part with, we will be forever in your debt, and of course it's a killer, Godflesh's "Like Rats" transformed into something much spacier but no less menacing, in fact, it's most definitely the heaviest meanest slab of Loop-age ever, while still retaining plenty of that Loop-ed FX drenched shimmer. So goddamn GREAT.
These reissues have been shuffling tracks around enough to cause a little confusion, as some of the tracks on the original issue of WIYE are left off here, but are tacked on elsewhere on the other reissues, and disc 3 here seems like it could have been included on the Gilded Eternity disc as this disc highlights one of our favorite Loop tracks, the above mentioned Arc-Light, originally a 1989 single, which was lumped onto the cd edition of A Gilded Eternity which came out a year later in 1990. But who really cares, as long as it's all here, and it's ALL here, and then some. Space rock and drone rock and psychedelic rock fanatics should buy all four, one of the most supremely transcendent and kick ass bodies of work in rock. Hyperbole? We think NOT.
Killer packaging, three paper sleeves with various reproductions of the included 12"s, all housed in a slipcover, with a booklet that includes track listings credits, but sadly, not much in the way of liner notes.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
I kid you not. This is the album where Lopez goes metal. Not the recording of sheet metal resonance, not the amplified vibrations of metal molecules, not even the inactivity of two pieces of sheet metal thoughtfully sitting alone in a room with nothing to ponder but their own existential (in)audibility. The normally sedate Lopez goes metal like Emperor, Slayer, or Cradle of Filth.
If anybody has recently witnessed the cascading power of Lopez's recent live shows, then "Untitled 104" is certainly not a surprise. Of course, Lopez sets everything up with 4 minutes of his usual silence, before a tumultuous assault of sampled metal blast beats destroys any semblence of serenity. Lopez layers wave after wave of rhythmic clatter that reveals an incredible amount of textural noise. One blast beat takes the aural center stage, and you find yourself asking "Huh? Is this Cannibal Corpse? Or was that last one from Morbid Angel? I don't know." (Actually, we suspect that all the samples are from one band, but even the metal minds here at AQ haven't confidently guessed which one.) Lopez could have unwittingly devised the ultimate trivia contest for metalheads to name the sample. 35 minutes pass (35 head spinning, if not head banging minutes) and then the metal rhythms stop. Ten more minutes of silence provide the coda.
While this record is really fucking good (indeed, it's one of Jim's favorites of the year along with Reynols' "Blank Tapes"), it is also another example of the academic / art world colonization of metal. Like Matthew Barney's awe-inspiring image in "Cremaster 2" of Dave Lombardo hammering at his drum kit behind the sound of swarming bees, Lopez's "Untitled 104" effectively translates the pure masculine power of metal to an audience who may not care for the, uh, aesthetics of metal. Fortunately, it appears that Lopez and Barney do not approach metal with a snobbish irony (like Harmony Korine's reprehensible photo-enlargements of black metal album covers that sold for tens of thousands of dollars), but such appropriation nevertheless marginalizes metal as nothing more than a texture or an attitude, far from the vibrant and deviant culture that it is.
Rant aside, if this record causes one fan of Bernhard Gunter to get into Burzum, then, as far as Aquarius Records is concerned, Lopez has succeeded. Recommended.
We already loved this Mexican duo based entirely on the name, even more so when we discovered that it wasn't just a band name. Lorelle sings, plays guitar, bass and organ. The Obsolete plays drums, percussion, bass, Casiotone, organ, synth, piano guitar and also sings. Not sure if they're a proper couple, but they should be, so we're just gonna assume they are. And they do in fact make beautiful music together. A sort of psychedelic krautrock, noise pop, garage rock. In a way, they remind us of another recent fave Liminanas, but where that band channeled French pop, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete seem to be drawing their influence from something much more noisy and raw, psychedelic and dark. Sure it's jangly and poppy in places, but they lock into seriously hypnotic grooves, fans of outfits like the Moon Duo will be utterly enthralled for sure. They also have a bit of swaggery twang, reminding us at times of Crystal Stilts, and at others a little bit of Stereolab, albeit a much rougher low fidelity version.
The sound here is lush and warm, woozy and hypnotic, druggy and dreamy, tracks like "The December Riots" sound like the Dum Dum Girls slowed down to a gloriously murky crawl, slo-mo girl group bliss out, while tracks like "Art For Free", add some new wave to the group's garage pop crunch. All the songs here though at their core are jangly and catchy, Lorelle and her partner delivering them in varying states of decay, and varying states of tranced out drugginess. At their poppiest, this is the sort of thing fans of Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees and Mikal Cronin will flip over, and at their droniest and druggiest, it's a sort of lysergic dirge that should appeal equally to fans of old school drug drift mesmer a la Spacemen 3, and more modern psychedelic noise purveyors like Carlton Melton. Although really, this is just some noisy krauty fuzzy pop, and we LOVE it. A new favorite for sure!
We were pretty much sold before we'd even heard a single note from the bizarrely name Lou Champagne System, which is indeed the work of Mr. Lou Champagne, and that 'System' is actually a thing, not just a cool band name appellation, it's some sort of "guitar and hookup" invented by Lou himself which "allows him to play guitar and sound like a whole band with no tapes!" There's a picture of him on the cover too, skinny mustache, and skinny Cylon style new wave shades. Plus it's on Medical Records, who were responsible for another recent Record Of The Week, Novels For The Moons by Axxess. And if you thought that one was weird, this one is gonna blow your mind.
"The Lou Champagne System is a real time guitar synth solo act" the original liner notes go on to explain, who with the help of that aforementioned system, whipped up some of the coolest, weirdest post punk / new wave we've heard in ages. A rare private press lp from Canada, originally released in 1983 on Champagne's own label, this unearthed gem, on first listen, elicited a whole range of reactions, ranging from "this is freaking amazing?!" to "what the fuck is this?!", and in most cases it was a little bit of both, cuz while this stuff is pretty weird and a little bit goofy, it's also totally kick ass. And the fact that he played this stuff live using a whole array of pedals and switches and that system. Just check out the opener "Don't Say I'm Here", which takes crunchy almost metallic guitars, swirling analog synths, and primitive skeletal drum machines, and crams it all into some dense, claustrophobic punk wave weirdness. Ranting vocals, hysterical laughter, a bizarre back and forth dialogue between someone called "Fred" and a "Narrator", there's also some rad shredding psychedelic leads. It's the sort of retro weirdness that the current crop of outsider synth wave revivalists are channeling, but nothing compares to the sheer madness/brilliance of the original. "Broken Hearts" is a bit more poppy, the same sonic layout as "Don't Say I'm Here", but for a brief minute it sounds way more commercial like it could have been some obscure eighties hit, but then BAM, the synths get all squiggly, the vocals get even more unhinged, a woozy weirdly psychedelic synth punk freakout that is so fucked and bizarrely brilliant, there's another wild squall of guitar leads, this time sounding like some tangle of malfunctioning electronics.
The other jam here we're obsessing on is the awesomely titled "Propaganda Frustration", with its smoldering slow build synth intro, that explodes into a droned out sprawl of skeletal drum skitter and pulsing synths, and when the song proper kicks in, it's all dark and heavy and propulsive, a sort of Goblin / Carpenter sound transformed into something much more electro-pop, the vocal heavily effected and buried in the mix, a driving late night future groove that sound like those sunglasses on the cover. Then there's "Another Dimension", with a sort of faux synth horn intro, that gives way to some chugging metallic guitars, that almost sounds like Motorhead or something, until those primitive programmed drums come in, then it becomes this weirdly metallic driving synth punk, the vocals over the top and dramatic, you can almost imagine the sort of low budget cable access video that would have accompanied this jam. Oh and did we mention the insane chorus, where the drums go all wobbly and chaotic and sound like they're totally malfunctioning beneath the howled vox? So fucking nuts!
From there on out it doesn't get any less weird, in fact, if anything it continues on its warped trajectory, squiggly synths, skittery stuttery drums, strange synth melodies, the vocals unhinged and maniacal, the songs heavy and punky and fuzzy and synth and totally catchy and baffling bizarre, but we definitely have to mention the awesomely brooding closer, which is quickly becoming our favorite, sounding like some outsider synth dirge version of Blue Oyster Cult's "Veteran Of The Psychic Wars" from the Heavy Metal soundtrack, with it's haunting creep and weird field recorded honking horns and crickets, all beneath super psychedelic swirls of synth and some seriously tripped out gorgeously multi-tracked harmonized vocals, including the way too appropriate lyric "I'm like a man in a fantasy, maybe I should just get stoned..."
Totally and utterly amazing, and baffling, and so obviously absolutely recommended. Total fractured genius outsider post-punk synth wave weirdness that is threatening to become the only thing we want to listen to!
Pressed on white vinyl, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered. Includes a 12" x 12" insert with liner notes / lyrics.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Thoroughly delightful little EP wherein Low's Mimi and Alan supply the vocals and UK electronic experimentalists Springheel Jack make the instrumental accompaniment. Clearly big Low fans, Springheel Jack have respectfully kept the music quiet and sparse... just like Low would have, only with added embellishments Low usually avoids, like ominous electronic rumbles, evocative strings, serene piano. Very pretty.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Expensive split single from the UK. One of Low's best-loved but never-released songs, "David & Jude" is brief and starkly beautiful. The addition of Calvin Johnson on melodica is very nice. Leeds quintet Vibracathedral Orchestra offer up a cyclical groove of primitive percussion in a macabre carnival atmosphere. Worthy of your time.
Expensive split single from the UK. One of Low's best-loved but never-released songs, "David & Jude" is brief and starkly beautiful. The addition of Calvin Johnson on melodica is very nice. Leeds quintet Vibracathedral Orchestra offer up a cyclical
Here's another fantastic transmission from the Black Snowflake Sound studio in Sapporo, Japan, sent out by these prolific psych peddlers! The duo of Michishita Shinsuke on vocals/guitar and Takahashi Ikuro (ex-Fushitusha) on drums have crafted what sounds to us like sort of a cross between two of their recent releases, Constellation Of Tragedy on Important (the gentle, twilight ballads) and Uretakumo Nakunarutorika on Beta-Lactam (freaky, experimental WTF?). Of course, with more than a few flashes of the heavy Les Rallizes Denudes-style amped-up throb and grit we all love included as well. Starting off all slow sad and soft, this disc would be a good LSD-march for Nagisa Ni Te fans as well as those into Rallizes. Moody melody abounds. "Bisyonure No Kimi" is lovely and languid, but also blanketed with shivering guitar feedback and distortion, clouding over Michishita's gentle vocals. Meanwhile Takahashi's drumming is also an crucial contributor to the mood. His deliberate, echoing clank and plink of rhythms on "Ai No Sakebi" are especially effective, in unsettling combination with the piercing Quicksilvery lead guitar unleashed by Michishita.
At about halfway through the disc, LSD-march kicks the volume up a few notches for the lumbering, distorto-rocker "Dare Ga Hoeru". But then the very next track, "Taiyoko No Uta" is so weird and glitchy it could be by Starfuckers or US Maple - it's a good example of the abstract, experimental side of LSD-march to which we referred above, like something from Uretakumo Nakunarutorika. They do channel the Rallizes once more, though, on the disc's final and longest named track, "Kimi No Uta Wo Kiite Boku Wa Akuma Ni Natta" (7:17) a slow burner which eventually erupts into muzzy heaviness, mustering quite a bit of drama in the manner of Up-Tight or Shizuka.
That's the last song, sort of, but the disc ain't over. And just gets stranger. There's two unlisted, untitled bonus tracks yet to come, including an 8 minute cut stringing together botched takes of a song called "My Mother's Killed Me" (?), featuring all their flubs and false starts, including talkback from the increasingly frustrated (and British?) sound engineer. At one point, they have to stop 'cause someone's cell phone goes off and ruins the take. Whoops. But eventually, by the end, they get the song on tape in its entirety, and it's a nice garagey groover. We're really into the fact that they included all the screw-ups. We love stuff like that. And halfway think that's how they wanted it to sound, based on some of their other strange ideas... There's another, similar bonus track that's only 18 seconds though. More WTF? for you.
Basically, Under Milk Wood manages to incorporate everything we already loved about LSD-march, plus some other confusional stuff we didn't even know they were into that's also rad. And everyone here seems to be digging it, even if they weren't already huge LSD-march fans. The band's best yet? Maybe, certainly a good one to get!!
Still more hip hop bubbles up from the dirty south, from the underground, and spills out all over MTV and hiphop radio. Ludacris has been kicking around for a while, mix tapes etc... But last years's 'Fantasy' track blew up BIG and made Ludacris a household
So beautiful! Finally available, the debut album by local quartet Lumen, which features our esteemed co-worker (and ex-A Minor
P.S. The title of the album is from a story by Italo Calvino.
It's been a long time coming. After the tease of a 7" and a 12" ep, both tantalizingly KILLER, and a ton of incredible live shows, including a show stealing performance at the aQuarius records 40th anniversary party, comes this, the full length debut from SF psychedelic hypno drone psychedelic space rockers Lumerians, and it's just as good as we'd hoped and imagined. For those who've yet to hear these guys, have a look at this list of bands: Wooden Shjips, Hawkwind, Circle, Spacemen 3, Loop, Cave, Cloudland Canyon, The Heads, White Hills, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, 3 Leafs, Mugstar. Does that look anything like your record collection? Then odds are you've just found your new favorite band. And if there's any justice in the world, these guys will get the same sort of hype and adoration that Wooden Shjips do. Not necessarily because they sound the same, they definitely don't, but they both DO explore similar territory, spaced out buzzy, fuzzy droney psychedelic rock, but where the Shjips are minimal, Lumerians are maximal, with multiple keyboards, even a percussionist, their sound more lush and layered, similarly propulsive and driving, but maybe with more of a nod to Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind, creating super mesmerizing cyclical hypnorock epics. And these tracks are indeed epic, slow building, smoldering, hypnotic, totally trancelike but still super heavy and rocking.
Opener "Burning Mirrors" pretty much sums it up, loopy low slung bass, simple motorik drumming, crunchy super distorted fuzz guitars, and thick swaths of spacey keyboards, not to mention drawled laid back vox, all appropriately reverby and echoey, these guys traffic in the sort of sound, where every song, whether 5 minutes or nearly 10, sound like live, they could go on for 20, 30, even 40 minutes, druggy, lysergic, tripped out and psychedelic, head nodding, body moving drone rock bliss.
"Black Tusk" gets all sixties, the drums shuffly and busy, the keyboards crunchy and fuzzy, lots of percussion, the bass driving everything, swirly and psychedelic and minus the killer production, and the super distorted stuttery organ buzz could be some lost psych jam from back in the day. "XuluX" is another sprawling droned out jam, that gets seriously groovy, with all sorts of heavily effected guitars, and more crunchy organs, before blissing out into some seriously swoonsome keyboard driven psychedelic drift.
And so it goes, "Atlanta Brook" definitely conjures up the spirit of Spacemen 3, the vocals a dead ringer, the hazy warped buzz the perfect prescription, but Lumerians add their own twist, infusing it with some strange rhythmic bridges, and buzzing sitar melodies, before slipping back into a washed out almost Beatles-esque outro.
"Calalini Rises" might be the heaviest track, murky and muddy, the drums locked tight, tribal and propulsive, all the other instruments loose and chaotic, a constant sonic swirl, totally spaced out and abstract, definitely a song that could have stretched out for another couple hours. But one of our favorite jams might just have to be "Longwave" which sounds like Lumerians at the wrong speed (which we presume it must be), Neu! style, the band unfurl a droney dirgey spacerock jam, slowed to a crawl, the guitars even thicker and grungier than usual, the drums lumbering, but then the vocals come in, and they're perfectly melodic and dreamy, and drift over the undulating psychedelic murk below, culminating in a gorgeously tripped out second half, with lots of rumble and whir and buzz and drone and swirl and shimmer (but be warned vinyl folks, in order to fit the whole album on a single lp, they had to speed this song back up, shortening it quite a bit, everything is essentially the same, just the murky background music is a little less murky). So good.
Seriously. If any of the above bands are your cup of tea, try spiking that tea with some Lumerians, you won't be sorry. Easily, THEE space drone psychedelic hypno rock record of the year. Drop out, and dig in!
One of two new reissues from legendary garage rockers the Lyres, founded in the late seventies by Jeff Conolly, after the break up of the seminal punk rock outfit DMZ, and before he would go on to found the Monomen. And while sonically, the Lyres were only one of many bands doing that sort of organ-heavy sixties inspired garage rock, they were most definitely one of the groups doing it BEST, combining classic sixties Beatles-y pop, classic Yellow Pills style power pop, garage rock crunch and swaggery RnB style stomp, into something fierce and catchy, super rocking, jangly and groovy, slithery and snarly, elsewhere on this week's list you'll also find the Lyres 1984 debut On Fyre, but this one here is their 1985 follow up, Lyres Lyres, which has all the energy and catchiness of their debut, but is way more well produced, and is much heavier on the covers, most of them super obscure, so much so that we never even knew they were covers until recently. This record also features a different lineup than their debut, and finds Conolly's voice even more powerful, dramatic and soulful this time around.
Right off the bat, the band start off with the groovy soulful stomp of "Not Looking Back" with a blatant "Live For Today" organ riff that the band make their own, and transform into some serious garage soul swagger. They group quickly switch gears for the brooding ballad "She Pays The Rent", with Conolly singing his heart out, over effects laden guitar, simple stripped down drums and swirling organ, groovy and darkly soulful. Then the band tackle the oft covered "You'll Never Do It Baby" (maybe most famously by the Pretty Things), which is a crunchy, swaggery garage rock blowout that totally sounds like a Lyres original. "I Love Her Still, I Always Will" revolves around a "House Of The Rising Sun" riff, and blossoms into a cool swirling groove, all shimmery guitars and funky drumming,
And so it goes, the rest of the record a pretty even split between covers and originals, the sound fantastic throughout, the power poppiness of "No Reasons To Complain", the woozy waltzy druggy dreaminess of "The Only Thing", the churning distorted guitar driven swagger of "How Do You Know?, and the band's "You Won't Be Sad Anymore" a total power pop garage rock gem, all jangle guitar and whirring organ, and vocals that transform the lyrics into near gibberish, sounding a lot like a slowed down garage rock Dickies! The reissue also tags on four bonus tracks, which are as good as anything on the record proper.
So great, and a whole lot different than the group's debut, so much so, that lots of fans were freaked out, not understanding what happened to the raw feral garage rock energy of On Fyre, but listening to both back to back, they sound pretty perfect together, definitely different, but weirdly complimentary, it makes sense that they were reissued together, and while lots of folks will prefer one over the other, we're pretty sure if you're anything like us (and would you be reading this if you weren't?) odds are you're probably gonna want both!
If you've never heard the Lyres before, just listen to the sound sample below for "Help You Ann", we'll wait...
Odds are, if you're anything like us, that song is all it'll take to convince you how goddamn great the Lyres were. And are! Especially with the current crop of garage rock combos, it's easy to forget, that bands were doing something similar, and in some cases, WAY BETTER, more than 25 years ago. Case in point the Lyres (another case in point, the Fuzztones, who we'll no doubt gush over once there's a fancy new reissue), a garage rock outfit founded in Boston in the late seventies by Jeff "Monoman" Conolly, after the break up of the seminal punk rock outfit DMZ, and before he would go on to found the Monomen. And while sonically, the Lyres were only one of many bands doing that sort of organ-heavy sixties garage rock, they were most definitely one of the groups doing it BEST, combining classic sixties Beatles-y pop, classic Yellow Pills style power pop, garage rock crunch and swaggery RnB style stomp, into something fierce and catchy, super rocking, jangly and groovy, slithery and snarly.
On Fyre, the Lyres 1984 debut, is one of THEE sweetest slabs of garage rock EVER, there's "Help You Ann", which is obviously a stone cold classic, but opener "Don't Give It Up Now" is nearly as good, full of swirling organ, wild drumming, killer jangle guitar, Jeff Conolly's snarly soulful vocals. It's super energetic, intense, the sort of sweat soaked garage rock energy groups like Thee Oh Sees traffic in, but three decades earlier. But the sound isn't all fuzzed out jangle and pound, tracks like "I Confess" display the group's poppier side, lilting and jangly and catchy as all get out, hearing this stuff now, it's hard to believe more folks aren't totally obsessed with these guys. Then there's the "You Really Got Me" riff of "I'm Tellin' You Girl", the vocals super raspy and soulfully feral, that main hook splintering into a weird almost proggy stuttery breakdown, weird and so cool. They also do a killer version of the Kinks' "Tired Of Waiting", their version a bit more loose and ramshackle, but the song suits them, and totally sounds like it could have been a Lyres original.
This reissue tacks on a handful of tracks that were recorded at the same time but were left off the album proper (although they were included on an older reissue), and they're all pretty much just as good as the album tracks, the bluesy groove of "Never Met A Girl Like You", the propulsive punkiness of "Busy Body", and more more more (yep, three more!).
The whole record is brimming with garage rock classics, that sound as fresh today as they did nearly thirty years ago, and hopefully this reissue will turn a whole new generation of garage rockers on to one of the bands that made it possible for all the bands they love to even exist in the first place!
One of our all time ambient drone favorites, available on vinyl for a super limited time.
We love noise. Not the face melting super nova amp destroying ear shredding noise of Merzbow and Wolf Eyes, although we do dig that too. No, we're in love with -noises-, the sounds of sound, from the warm whisper of nature,�the whoosh of the wind, the roar of the surf, the chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs, to the clattery clang of industry, the roar of cars, the grind of machinery, the whir of air conditioning and and the thrum of vacuum cleaners, to the subtle sonic byproducts of sound reproduction and music making, the hiss of old cassette tapes, the warm warble of old 78's, the pops and crackle of lps, the digital glitch and fuzz of more modern musical malfunctions. On their own sure, we could listen to a symphony of frogs or the gentle hum of an air conditioner for hours, but preferably wrapped around some haunting otherworldly music, creating a glorious hybrid of subtle murky mystery.�
We've sung the praises of Philip Jeck and his creaking antique turntablescapes, the murky looped loveliness of William Basinski, the strange warm fuzzy pixelated guitarscapes of Fennesz, the dreamy electronic droneworlds of Tim Hecker, and most recently, the gorgeous post-rock dreampop haze of Swedish bedroom soundscaper Jasper TX. It's no coincidence that this record, the latest from Dutch sonic explorer (and former doom metal guitarist) Machinefabriek is on the same label as the Jasper TX. Both share a similar approach, burying gorgeous melancholy sounds beneath all manner of sonic disturbances and musical interference. After discovering the Jasper TX record, we looked a little deeper at the Lampse label and decided that we just may have found ourselves a new favorite label. Murky and pretty and fuzzy and so so so pretty. Everything we've heard so far. Instead of looking at Lampse as just the label, one can almost picture Lampse as the actual artist, and each release an epic track from some massive hours long murky muted masterpiece Each of those tracks dense with subtly varied parts and movements, each its own entity for sure, but at the same time one piece of a larger and indescribable puzzle.�
Where Jasper TX was deeply rooted in soft indie rock jangle and sleepy bedroom pop (albeit swathed in a thick cloak of blur and grit), Machinefabriek approaches the same sound from a slightly different direction, each piece a lengthy slowburn epic, brooding gradually building ambience, grandiose washes of sound, the cinematic dynamicism of Mogwai or Earth, filtered through the looped hypnosis of Basinski, pianos and guitars rendered as abstract sounds, smeared and swirled into buried minor key melodies and and slow shifting chunks of sonic mood music. Marijn is Machinefabriek's sonic travelogue of a journey through the abyss, a soundworld cloaked in fog and draped in constant darkness.��
Our first glimpse of the other side is a�gorgeous echoey world of record crackle and pop, of thick reverb and crunching creaking ambience.�
Like a beat up old record player stuck in the run out groove of an old 78, recorded at the bottom of an enormous cavern, eventually soft warm swells surface beneath the rainlike crackle, a mournful melody of delicate piano and whirring drone, the notes of the piano blown out so they distort and waver a bit like bad radio reception or some strange atmospheric interference. Some antique piano recital recorded on a wax cylinder and then broadcast from tiny blown out speakers in a huge empty warehouse, then broadcast over shortwave radio and finally heard through a battered pair of old headphones.�
The rest of the record, while not as obviously damaged (in terms of crackle and distortion and fuzz) is rife with sounds equally obscured and obfuscated, lilting lonely pianos and haunting music box melodies drift beneath some strange sonic murk, occasionally interrupted by strange crumbled digital interference and all manner of stuttery hiccuping glitch and skitter, as if some other piece of music is trying desperately to claw its way through. Eventually,�the distortion and audio damage recedes just enough to allow a simple piano motif to drift softly and subtly across a soundscape of barely there drone and hushed melody. From far off in the distance,�warm warbles and shimmering sheets of sparkling muted sound appear, glimmering softly, like the reflection of light in some undersea cavern, lit only by the glow of indirect sunlight, waves and ripples and strange patterns shiver and shimmy subtly. Then, a piano begins unfurling a funereal crawl, mournful and melancholy, before being�slowly enveloped by a digital swarm, a swirling dizzying drone, until it's almost like a blinding white wave of fuzz and hiss, but beneath it all, a sad melody still lurks, just an echo, a shadow, a warm rich whisper behind a blinding roar. The�final passage is a near 20 minute piano meditation, soft and smooth, notes drift and shimmer, simple but stately and sweetly sorrowful, nestled in a tangled bed of digital hiss, slowly swelling chordal hum and whispery keening� drones, all beneath a distant whir like some alien orchestra tuning up, the�soft cacophony building slowly into the thick wash of static and distortion slowly swallows the melody whole, until all that remains is a ghostly afterimage, a shimmery outline, a fuzzy faded memory...
It had to happen, even if only to be fair to those of us without lightning fast reflexes and supernatural senses regarding tracking down ultra limited, barely available cd-r's. Over the last 4 years or so, Machinefabriek, aka Rutger Zuydervelt, in addition to releasing several amazing 'proper' records, a cd, a 7" and maybe a few other things, has unleashed an impossible amount of self released ultra limited cd-r's, all in micro editions, 100 copies, 50 copies, some even less, and while we've done our very best to grab as many as we could of every single one, we missed a bunch! And of the ones we did get, they sold out in the blink of an eye. So here's your chance, a massive sprawling double disc collection, gathering up bits and pieces, the best tracks from an armload of releases, all sequenced and woven together, into what could very well have been actual Machinefabriek albums.
It's hard to tell exactly which cd-r's are included, and since only certain songs were selected, even those of you who nabbed every cd-r in sight, odds are there is plenty here that you haven't heard. Definitely lots of stuff we didn't recognize, and all of it, as we've come to expect, simply amazing. Long drawn out stretches of warm fuzzy ambience, muted glitchery, melancholy melodies, soft sweeping epics, wreathed in dense FX and thick swirls of shimmery whir and whirl. One of the masters of our new favorite sound, that sort of foggy buzzy dreamy drone thing we can't seem to get enough of. Fans obviously absolutely need this, and folks who were daunted by the limited nature of past releases, or just have a thing against cd-r's, this is the perfect introduction, a chance to hear what you've been missing.
And there -are- plenty of surprises. While both discs do flow beautifully, there are some strange sonic moments, the dreamy wheezy Eastern tinged post rock drift of "Oi Polloi", the ultra gristly and crackle infused glacial crawl of "Chinese Unpopular Song", the almost Merzbowian intensity of "Hieperdepiep", the THX-theme-stretched-into-gorgeous-metallic-drone of "Wintervacht", all seemingly strangely out of character for Zuydervelt, but in the bigger sonic picture that is Weleer, they sound perfect, all nestled comfortably amidst rich, thick sonic swells and smears. So great!
I know, we were just raving about that Jaylib record (Madlib and Jay Dee from Slum Village) from a few months back. I think we even pulled out the ol' hip hop record of the year championship belt thinking the contest was OVER. But here it is a matter of weeks later and Madlib is back and dang if he hasn't outdone himself again! Doesn't hurt that he decided to team up with MF Doom (Viktor Vaughn, KMD, etc) and the combo is unbeatable. Madlib is in full effect, pulling out all the sonic stops. Of course, there's fat lazy beats, throbbing basslines and groovy jazzy samples, but that ain't all! Madlib's hip hopscapes are so dense and multilayered it's almost overwhelming. Hawaiian slide guitars slip and slide over syrupy funk bass lines, clipped bouncy funk glitched out and fuzzed up, human beat box butted up to jangly wah guitar, string sections soar and James Bond horns blare in the background, warbly movie theater pipe organs over disintegrating loops of old soundtracks, chopped up calypsos, groovy acid jazz electric piano, regular funk loops cut and snipped and rearranged into stuttery spastic alien funk, fluttering flutes, percussive pounding piano low end, all the while. clips from old B movies, sound effects and found sounds careen from ear to ear in a serious display of extreme stereo panning. And that's just the music. MF Doom (formerly of the godlike KMD and about a million other nom de plumes) is all over the record too, adding his laconic, idosyncratic flow to the mix, spitting rhymes that sound lazy and off the cuff, delivered in a just-woken-up mouthful-of-marbles mumble, but are just way too clever and funny and biting to be freestyled. His smooth, raspy delivery perfectly compliments Madlib's scratchy, muffled and mysterious groovescapes. And to add to the chaos, there are loads of guest MC's (a bunch of which just happen to be MF Doom alteregos!), Viktor Vaughn, Quasimoto (rhyming in his helium/chipmunks sped-up falsetto), Wildchild, and M.E.D. Also, the cd contains possibly the best video we've ever seen, done old Marvel comics style, but so cleverly edited and so perfectly synced to the song and with all sorts of clever animations and weird special effects. It like being a kid and being able to walk right into a comic book, travelling not just through the story, but the ads for selling seeds and magazines as well. So cool! And so weird. Definitely hip hop record of the year! Barring of course any sort of Madlib / MF Doom / Jay Dee / Doseone / Jay-Z / Ludacris / Method Man supergroup match-up! In that case we'll happily reconsider our vote! But for now, BUY THIS RECORD!
It's only January but we're pretty sure we have a contender for record of the year on our hands! We're always so impressed with the rare examples of bands who have reached such heights of popularity yet still keep challenging themselves and their fans. Sadly there aren't many in that club, but folks like Yo La Tengo, PJ Harvey and Sonic Youth have helped demonstrate that even many many records deep into a career you can still make thrilling and rewarding music. With their latest, Stephen Merrit's Magnetic Fields have proven to be a full fledged member of that elite club as well.
While Magnetic Fields last album, I, found Merrit pouring it on pretty thick, this long awaited follow up (with plenty of extracurricular activity by Merrit in the meantime) finds Merrit stripping it down and finding the fun in layers, noise and yes...distortion. Many tracks feature the charming and beautiful voice of Shirley Simms, and the songs that Merrit sings find his vocals way more buried in the mix than usual. Distortion reminds us a lot of the early bedroom charm of Magnetic Fields records like Charm Of The Highway Strip and one of Merrit's many alter egos The Future Bible Heroes. We love how it sounds like they are tapping into the spirit of the New Zealand lo-fi pop underground of the '80s and even hints of the fuzzy and dreamy qualities of the heyday of Creation records. Not many people could get away with having a major label release such a non-slick and unpolished record. In fact there are moments on Distortion that sound like they could have been on some awesome cassette release from Shrimper back in the day.
Distortion is a timeless gem. While it does tip its hat to some of the most yummy and fuzzy pop of the last couple decades and boasts a wall of sound that's kind of like Phil Spector producing a twee-like Jesus & Mary Chain record, what makes the album so special is that you know it's going to sound as meaningful and alive twenty years from now as it does today. Merrit is still writing music for wry and broken hearts but he's injected new life into old pain and in doing so he's created another classic!
FINNISH INSTRUMENTAL CINEMATIC EPIC PROGROCK ALERT!!!
Okay, now that we've got your attention. When Andee was in Finland a few years back, Jussi from Circle took him to a tiny club to see a friend's band play, and the band totally destroyed, they were so epic, so massive, it was like seeing Godspeed! You Black Emperor play in a broom closet. Huge glowing swells of sound, totally memorable melodies, gorgeous arrangements, all swirled into majestic sweeping soaring emotional epics. Even back then, before the band even had a record out. Not soon after, they did in fact release a record, and we were immediately in love. The band was Magyar Posse, and that first record totally captured the majestic might of the band, while at the same time adding all sorts of sonic subtleties and even more dense layers of sound. A second record followed and somehow the band managed to sound even bigger and better. We had been hearing about a brand new record for a while, and were thrilled when a big box showed up a few days ago from Finland and inside was Random Avenger, the newest release from Magyar Posse. We were almost ready to be disappointed considering how much we dug those other records, or at least preparing ourselves to just be happy for more of the same, but if anything, the band have expanded their sound even further, coming up with epic soundscapes even more intense and epic and emotional than before.
This record, even more than the others, sounds like it just has to be a real soundtrack. Pop music is not meant to be so dense and rife with emotion, painting pictures with wordless music as vibrant as if there were in fact lyrics telling a story. The sound is very prog, intensely cinematic and while it is dark and dreamy it can also be strangely playful. Some moments, we're transported to some lost Bond film, others we find ourselves in some dusty Leone Western, while still others we're lost on some moonlit street running for our lives in a mysterious Italian giallo. The first track, "Whirlpool Of Terror And Tension" is a lush and dense, multilayered world of sound, with a strange sort of Bolero staccato rhythm, with strange scrabbly guitars, abstract sixties style female vocals, minor key guitar twangs, chimes and bells, keening guitars feedback, and simple propulsive drumming. The main riff is very Morricone, but is backed up by a thick wash of soaring strings and gorgeous glockenspiel, it's almost impossible not to close your eyes and see a cool sixties Mondrian style credit sequence for some Danger Diabolik style caper movie. That vibe definitely permeates the whole record, but each track definitely has it's own feel and distinct emotion. A handful of the tracks take Magyar's progressive post-rock into definite Goblin / Zombi territory with minor key strings, relentless rhythms, pulsing drums and new wave synths locked into angular krautrock grooves, while spacey sound effects swoop and swirl, strings soar and sing, and again we're just transported to whole new worlds, but worlds with totally kick ass soundtracks!
This is definitely still post-rock, and thus will appeal to fans of Tortoise and Godspeed and Cerberus Shoal and Cyann & Ben and Explosions In The Sky and the like but Magyar Posse have something totally their own going on. A unique sonic vision, an alternate musical universe, where a pair of headphones and a walkman transform you into a super spy or a wily seductress or a hired killer, and turns your boring neighborhood into 1960's Paris, or a dusty ghost town or a secret base in the Arctic. This is music as dense and as rich and as much of an escape as any book or any film could ever be, and music that can have such an incredible effect on the listener, is way too rare. And so very precious.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
We've really been enjoying this find from Finland: Magyar Posse have put together a really great set of sweeping, emotive post-rock instrumentals highly reminiscent of the excellent "La Planete Sauvage" (aka Fantastic Planet) soundtrack, believe it or not. Orchestral embellishments introduce the icy sounds of reverb-laden guitar and trembling electric organ. Suave drums and spooky glockenspiel melodies mix with manifestations of krautrock in the funky basslines and oscillating, moog-y synth sounds. Occasionally, plaintive vocals are subtly placed low in the mix, buried in layers of echo. And is that the haunting voice of a musical saw I hear? Why yes, it is! The whole thing builds into climactic crescendos a la Godspeed You Black Emperor. Truly splendid! Andee actually saw this band play when he was visiting over in Finland not long ago -- they hail from Pori, also the hometown of AQ-faves Circle, and we think any Circle fans ought to like the Posse. It's really majestic, beautiful stuff, and more original and a lot less wimpy than the general run of post-rock that they might get lumped in with. Recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
From the Glasgow label run by the Pastels comes the first widely-available collection of music by long-running cult Japanese folk-psych duo Maher Shalal Hash Baz. With 27 shambolic tracks, widely ranging in style, recalling everything from '80s/'90s lo-fi indie-pop like, well, the Pastels, to '60s Japanese psych a la The Jacks to the mellowest, folkiest Albert Ayler freedom jazz jams! Should appeal equally to fans of Belle & Sebastian, {k} Records, and Ghost/PSF stuff. Lovely and fragile, seemingly innocent yet seemingly ancient.
Stephen of the Pastels, who loves Maher Shalal Hash Baz so much that he started the Geographic label _specifically_ to release this collection, says:
"When you consider how rare it is that you actually hear something that is startlingly different from other music in any given year, or even in a decade (I just tried and could only think of Aphex Twin, a couple of hip-hop productions, and the lyrics of Belle & Sebastian and Silver Jews) it feels such a privilege to be working with people you consider to be actual visionaries." (And terrorists, too, if the stories in Stephen's larger article are to be believed. Let us know if you want to see it!)
In some Spinal Tapped version of mythology, the gods of rock and roll, of noise, of distortion, of turning amps up to 11 and melting faces, having once said "let there be rock!", recently must have looked down in dismay from the heavens (where they dwell in castles made of ROCK, which float on puffy clouds generated by fog machines) upon their creation and found something in today's music scene sorely lacking. Where was the primal motorpsycho fuzz feedback rock freakery they originally had commanded? Not nearly enough of it about (and heck, even too much would never be enough). So, they summoned their loyal servitor, The Bearded One, Kawabata Makoto. As lead guitarist/guru of trippy Japanese jammers Acid Mothers Temple, Kawabata has always been a devout worshipper, doing the bidding of the gods with many, many Acid Mothers shows and releases month in and month out. But now he was called upon to do something more - to resurrect the mighty MAINLINER, power trio to end all power trios, and teach a lesson in transcendental distorto-delic mayhem to all mankind. And, lo, faithful Kawabata has not failed in this holy task!
Thus, Mainliner is back, with Revelation Space. It's been over a dozen years since the last proper Mainliner release, 2001's Imaginative Plain cd on PSF, and even longer since Mainliner made their debut with the unbeatable classic Mellow Out. The lineup has changed - in fact it's important to note that this is specifically billed as Kawabata Makoto's Mainliner, 'cause originally he was just the young hotshot guitarist in the band, which was in fact founded by bassist/vocalist Nanjo Asahito of the legendary High Rise, as an almost doppelganger version of that trio so Nanjo could go out on tour when High Rise couldn't. But now, for whatever reason, Nanjo's no longer participating in the band, presumably having given Kawabata his blessing to carry on with the name and mission. Kawabe Taigen, from new wave Japanese psych band Bo Ningen, has been chosen to replace him; and in addition to holding down the rumbling bottom end, he manages to emulate Nanjo's droning otherworldy croon quite capably.
They've had several different drummers on various releases (including Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins); the drummer here, Koji Shimura, is from AMT, has played in High Rise and many other "Tokyo Flashback" acts, and appears on several previous Mainliner releases including Imaginative Plain. Thankfully, as it turns out, the "new" Mainliner is just as over-the-top and in-the-red as the old Mainliner ever was, maybe more!! They took this seriously - it's not just yet another freaky Kawabata album (as good as they always are), nope.
The opening title track drops the listener in at the deep end and then some, immediately unleashing insane blown out crumble and stutter, the guitar sounding like it's being run through an effects box labeled both Brainbombs AND Faxed Head, but then when it's wed to simple motorik drumming, and hazy, soft focus vox, the combination is strangely beautiful. Beautiful, too, the blurts of feedback shriek, the echo-drenched squalls, the chaotic drum splatter. Really, it's less about the songs, and more about the sound. If stripped of the insanely distorted guitars, this iteration of Mainliner would be a whole different, less beastly beast. And sure, white noise psych guitar freakouts were always a (big) part of Mainliner, but the sounds here seem so much more extreme, the guitarnoise utterly relentless, the whole record wreathed in a crackly field of malfunctioning guitar / damaged amp buzz skree, almost like something Editions Mego would put out, that caustic and corrosive.
But still, let's talk about the songs. The two-minute blast of "D.D.D" is like Aufgehoben doing a Stooges cover, playing through mile high Marshall stacks, and plugged into a daisy chain of dead battery stomp boxes, this time the maniacal vocals matching Kawabata's wild noise-shred with some seriously acrobatic, near falsetto wailing. Even the 'prettier' songs, like "Taitan", find Kawabata wrapping the tribal rhythms and swoonsome shimmer in wild tangled ribbons of strangled, distorto shred and stuttering, glitched out axe frenzy, so the prettiness is not just buried, but obliterated, or so it seems, until that guitarnoise is momentarily peeled back, eventually revealing the hushed mesmer still lurking just beneath the surface. "The Dispossessed" (found on the cd only) could be some classic proto-metal groover, with its busy drumming and woozy, bluesy groove, but there, the guitars seem to explode from within, a grinding blast of Hendrixian shreddery fused to Butthole Surfers style psychedelic freakery, again balanced by some truly haunting, ethereal vox.
And then there's the final track "New Sun", a 20+ minute epic, that begins with a gnarled churn of super distorted riffage, wrapped around an almost 'funky drummer' beat, those drifting spectral vocals hovering over the top, the band locked into a weird warped groove, a lurching metallic blues stomp, that about 4 minutes in slows down to a dirgey crawl, around the same time the guitars explode into some seriously heart of the sun super nova style fretboard freakery! And when they return to the main riff, the guitar is somehow even more distorted and blown out, and they cycle through the song proper one more time, before finishing off with 8 minutes of utter in-the-red cosmic guitar god freakout, with Kawabata flying high, his axe spitting sparks, the drums and bass buried beneath an avalanche of some of the freakiest, fantastically fucked up, psychedelic leads ever, building to a finale that cranks the drums to a frantic gallop, the bass thrumming fiercely, all within a swirling sonic cloud of Kawabata's amp destroying, soul searing psych-drone shred. Whew!!
The gods must be pleased. Any Mainliner fan will be too. But this is NOT just for Kawabata/AMT/Mainliner fanboys, excited though those folks should be. Nope, 'cause there's at least one aQ staffer who realized after hearing this that they NEEDED, but didn't have, all the previous Mainliner albums. You might too, and this would certainly make a good place to begin your lifetime of worship.
Not sure what the future holds for Kawabata Makoto's Mainliner, 'cause Kawabe Taigen's Bo Ningen band is based in London, where they seem to be making a name for themselves, collaborating with the Savages and such (we'll try to track down some imports by the way). But even if this is all we get out of this trio for another 12 years, it will suffice - it just might take that long for our ears to recover!!
As some of you mighty recall, the vinyl version of this was originally meant to be a Record Store Day release this year - they didn't get it pressed in time, so it was bumped back, but it's still hella limited - 500 copies for the world, either white or swamp green vinyl, released on what we're gonna call Mainliner Day. We've got about a dozen left and that's gonna be it. The good news is, though, that the compact disc version, which isn't quite so limited, contains a 9 and a half minute bonus track, the aforementioned "The Dispossessed". Other differences: the vinyl sleeve is black with gold print, while the cd comes in a white miniature lp-style sleeve likewise with gold print. And graphically, both kind of look a lot like Mellow Out, doubtless quite intentionally.
Majeure is the drumming half of electronic sci-fi prog synth duo Zombi, and explores similar territory on his 3 song debut. A measly 3 songs you say? Yeah, but 3 songs in 42 minutes! That's right, sprawling spaced out sci-fi electronic minimal kraut disco epics of the highest order. Fusing the creepy film music of Vangelis and John Carpenter with the pulsing hypnotic minimalism of Steve Reich or Philip Glass, even some propulsive motorik Can style krautrock, all woven into sprawling spaced out psychedelic futuristic retro faux film music, layered synths, looped melodies, and a killer mix of programmed rhythms and live drumming, the vibe is ominous and epic, so evocative, it's impossible not to imagine some sort of insane fight in zero gravity, jump suited androids grappling amidst a strange neon latticework, or some futuristic car chase, through dimly lit streets, a grim crumbling futureworld, where the outcome of said chase will determine the fate of humanity.
The opener, the awesomely sci-fi named "The Dresden Codex", is a total future space disco kraut jam, the first half a throbbing mesmerizing krautdronesynthscape, eventually, bass drifts in as does awesomely fuzzy bass synth, the melodies dramatic and epic, a slow build that gets more and more intense before fading out into a stripped down moody bit of synthy drift, before exploding back into action, the live drums going nuts, suddenly it sounds a bit like a way more sci-fi Trans Am too, with a little M83 fuzz thrown in for good measure. "Teleforce" is all afternoon special straight to video science fiction, with its throbbing low end synth, and simple drumming, but the sound quickly gets thicker and more dense, and all ominous and intense, thick layers of rumble and whir over that machinelike pulse, then in come soaring strings, and after a brief bit of tension building Carpenter like spaced out minimalism, a lazer battle ensues, the track churning and chugging amidst a sky full of swirling effects and lazerblast-like pyew-pyew-pyew's...
Finally, the album finishes off with the 18+ minute "Timespan", beginning with a cloud of rumbles and whirs, before the sky fills with flecks of synth and space-y FX, a haunting bit of Logan's Run ambience, before the track slips right back into some groovy eighties sci fi synth disco, and for the next 10+ minutes, we're careening though a neon lit future world, battling on dancefloors, soaring between strange obelisk like structures, dodging lazer fire, running for our lives from lumbering robots, and finally destroying the mainframe and liberating the human race, all to the strains of some of the coolest, retro sci-fi sounds since, well, since these sounds weren't really retro at all.
Making an awesome album even awesomer, the cd version (but not, sadly, the vinyl) comes with a bonus remix disc (reissuing an out of print 12"), featuring reinterpretations of the album tracks by Steve Moore (the other half of Zombi), Justin Broadrick of Jesu, and Black Strobe. Moore takes "Timespan" and roughs it up a bit, giving it a more bruised, darkened and ominous cast, still an eighties soundtrack, but this time it's some dark foreign film, death more imminent, the end of civilization a foregone conclusion, but this is the sound of a ragtag group of survivors, hurling themselves into the void, on a desperate quest to save the universe, all to the strains of a pulsing Goblin / Carpenter score. Broadrick takes "Teleforce", and does something to it, hard to say exactly what, but suddenly it sounds like a warped Moroder post rock remix 12" spinning off kilter, warbly and hypnotic, eventually blissing out, more and more minimal and skeletal and softly psychedelic, before a bad ass dubby last few minutes, thumping muted rhythms, underpinning eighties new wave synths, and clouds of M83 style haze, a fucking killer groove that would seal the deal had the deal not already been WELL sealed. And finally, Black Strobe rework "The Dresden Codex" into something much more house-y and minimal, a sort of gleaming late night futuristic drift through mysterious silvery danceclubs, and exclusive penthouse parties, everything prismatic and blurred by a space age cocktail of psychotropics, a night spent cavorting in your gleaming surrogate body, your consciousness painting the town red, while your physical form sits safely in stasis at home, this is the sound of that soul shearing, head spinning rush, as an entire night's debauchery is downloaded in a 17 minute timelapse sonic injection, a heady, hypnotic, burst of electronic color. So rad.
The double compact disc comes in a super fancy, oversized mini lp style gatefold sleeve. And the vinyl version, also gatefold packaged, includes a digital download so you can iPod it.
All right, before we go naming the debut album from San Francisco's The Makes Nice the #1 Pop Album Of The Summer Even Though It's Barely February Already, full disclosure: we do happen to know these guys. An especially good friend of ours is guitarist/vocalist Josh Smith, whom you too probably know from some other bands of his in the past -- he used to play lead guitar in the The Fucking Champs, and also was integral to the legendary SF black metal band Weakling! So after Josh quit the Champs a few years ago, you can imagine our reaction when, eventually, he told us that his next band project was gonna be a power pop, power trio -- with him singing as well as playing guitar! That's pretty far from the instrumental metal of The Champs, or the epic evil of Weakling, eh?? But damn if he didn't pull it off!
Teamed up with Aaron Burnham (of The Mothballs) on bass and vocals, and Jack Matthew (of Harold Ray Live In Concert) on drums, Josh's new band has not only only blown us away with their live shows but now present their killer debut album, the cryptically-titled Candy Wrapper And Twelve Other Songs. The thirteen tracks here run about 31 and a half minutes -- most of 'em not even hitting the 2 minute mark. But each is crammed with so much blazing pop energy in the vein of freakbeat, psych-pop heroes of yesteryear who populate compilations like the Nuggets 2 box set (they'll tell you themselves) that it's got enough head-nodding, foot-tapping hooks for an album twice its length, and could power a full on ballroom blitz to boot.
Hopping on a White Striped bandwagon? No, not at all. What sets The Makes Nice apart from a lot of the current crop of garage rock outfits is their emphasis on Beach Boys/Beatles styled vocal harmonies and sheer songcraft. Yeah, most of these songs are totally raw and rockin' and full of high energy sonics, but also carefully arranged with vocal sweetness that would do Brian Wilson proud. Furthermore, the album is woven throughout with memorable guitar solos. Peeling off licks with tasteful abandon and doses of thick fuzz, Josh's virtuosic playing really gives The Makes Nice their unique signature and vitality. Fucking Champs fans who pick this up just 'cause Josh is on it won't find any metal, but they will hear plenty o' great guitar playing -- and in fact, Josh really lets loose with more soloing here than he ever did in the Champs! So rad guitar + sweet harmonies + utter catchiness = why The Makes Nice totally rule, basically.
And they didn't got to all that work with the vocals without giving some thought to the lyrics as well, so this thing has just got about all the angles covered, top of the pops as far as we're concerned. Definitely this disc should have a lot of appeal to fans of sixties Brits like The Who, Pretty Things, Creation, and Tomorrow up through '70s, '80s, and '90s North American acts like The Raspberries, Cheap Trick, Redd Kross and Sloan! Seriously, the toughest thing about writing this is that we still have to write a bunch of other reviews before this week's New Arrivals list goes out, but from working on this, we've got pretty much this entire record stuck in our heads right now -- and we don't want to make it stop!
