Damn. Bevis Frond fan or not, you've gotta be impressed with Bevis's Nick Saloman's new career as the curator of kick-ass comps for the Psychic Circle label. We've already highlighted one of 'em recently, the On The Brink collection of instrumental swingin' psych groovers. Also reviewed this list: the fine British popsike comp Fairytales Can Come True. But this one might just be our favorite so far, seeing as how we're all into the early proto-metal HEAVINESS thing. "Heavy Psych And Power Fuzz From The USA 68-72" is the mouth-watering subtitle here. Sounds right up our alley, and it is.
Saloman must have a heckuva record collection. Taking a look at this disc's track list, we only recognized a few of the twenty bands/songs: Thunder & Roses, The Power Of Zeus, Banchee, Road, Fields... that's about it. And we figured if the unknown others were half as good as we knew those to be, we were in for a treat. Well such is the case, for the most part!! Saloman has dug up some beauts, plenty of ultra-rare, fuzzed-out examples of greasy garage muscle, freaky hairy funk, and Purple Hazey proto-metal riff rockin' from all over the US of A that are making our day in a big way. It starts off strong (and stays that way) with the wailing acid rock guitar and equally wailing vocals of "Penetration" by Detroit outfit Third Power. Next up, this comp takes its name from the contribution by Philly's Thunder & Roses, a very Cream-y track that was later covered by Nirvana (whose punked-out version was a worthy tribute). We also hear from Detroit's The Power Of Zeus, with their stone classic "It Couldn't Be Me" that hiphop headz might recognize as having been sampled on an Obie Trice track. LA's Road, featuring former Hendrix bassist Noel Redding, sound very Captain Beyond on their "Spaceship Earth". And then there's the Zeppish "Steel Dog Man" by a Boston outfit saddled with the unfortunate name Brother Fox And The Tar Baby (can't see 'em hitting the stadiums with that handle). In fact, names might be what held a bunch of these bands back, like The Lemonade Charade and The Yellow Payges, ferinstance. Hardly indicative of the long haired biker badassitude and Hendrix/Steppenwolf/Yardbirds worship found here in abundance. This comp also proves that said badassitude can coexist with some groovy horns on occasion, no problem.
For the record, here's the names of the other bands appearing here that we don't have room to discuss individually: The Hook, Blue Mountain Eagle, Genesis, The Illinois Speed Press, Eden's Children, T.I.M.E., Underbeat, The Uniques, and The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump! And yes, the cd booklet includes notes from NS on each track. Oh and for those heavy psych devotees keeping up / keeping score, you might want to know, is this as good as that excellent Psychedelic Minds Vol. 1 comp from last year on World In Sound? Yes, yes indeed.
Psychedelic Swedish obscurity n' awesomeness from the late '60s and early-to-mid '70s, yeah!! 18 rare tracks from 18 long-forgotten (but oh-so-good) bands are compiled on this, the third volume in a series that has yet to peak. Basically if you like fuzz groovers and wild freakbeat rockers, you've come to the right place. Likewise, from bluesy stomp to folky harmonies, vol. III has it covered. Melancholic psych-pop too -- check out the underground 1969 sounds of "Love Love Love" by a band appropriately named Drugs! Some of the '70s tracks verge on proto-metal, especially Bjorn Famne's "Vampire" (1975) which the liner notes rightly suggest sound like "the missing link between Led Zeppelin and the Jesus And Mary Chain", and Zane's garage-punk Sabbathy "Step Aside" (1976). Others tend towards manic progginess (the Ga Runt Show's big production "Bara Skrot" from '67 for instance). And all are pretty great! Here's the full list of bands, besides the ones mentioned above, for what it's worth: Scorpion, Uppat Vaggarna, Match, Red White & Blues, Fruit, Candle, Harambee, East-West, New Creation, Atlantic Ocean, The Junk's And the Angels, After Life, and Contact.
With interesting liner notes on each track, and cool, old-school collage-style psychedelic graphics incorporating original 45 sleeve artwork, we can only applaud the packaging job that the Dolores label has done on this comp (and previous volumes). Likewise we applaud the selection of music, it's like having an insane Swedish '60s record collector DJ'ing his most valued, mind-blowing, impossible-to-find psych treasures for you for a full hour...which is basically what this is, actually!
It's hard to argue with this one. Indeed, we're gonna do quite the opposite and make it a Record Of The Week! This collection, the third in the World Psychedelic Classics series on Luaka Bop (David Byrne's "world music" label), after an Os Mutantes collection and that incredible Shuggie Otis album, is further subtitled: "The Funky, Fuzzy Sounds Of West Africa". Stress on the funk we thinks. Yup, authentic '70s West African funk with a 'delic bent. Really really hard stuff not to like.
The dozen tracks here have got it all: Afro-centric chants, polyrhythmic percussion, James Brown style raspy yelps, wicked organ workouts, and even hard wah-wah acid fuzz jams (Ofo & The Black Company's bad-ass "Allah Wakbarr" is about the last word in that department, though we'd like to hear more). Though some come closer to the compilers' stated concept than others, all the tracks are winners, from the moody, marimba-based soundtrack theme of Manu Dibango's "Ceddo End Title" to the Cuban stylings of No. 1 de No. 1's "Guajira Van" to the percolating political space-funk of William Onyeabor's "Better Change Your Mind". And Alison simply says that "Ifa" by Tunji Oyelana and the Benders is her favorite. Probably because it sets itself apart from the other tracks by utilizing a more scrappy electronic sound to back its stripped-down politically-bent Afro-pop-style lyricism.
All the tracks come from the decade of the '70s, and the bands that recorded them hail from the West African countries of Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Benin, and Nigeria (but only two tracks overlap with the now-out-of-print 3cd Nigeria 70 compilation). And we think the compliers did a damn fine job, though it seems any survey of West African psych shoulda included a track by Blo, the closest thing to Cream the continent produced as far as we know. Ah well... we can hope for a second volume someday perhaps. Meanwhile, anyone who digs James Brown, Fela, Funkadelic, Orchestra Baobab, or more recent AQ reviewees Konono No. 1 and Black Merda, for instance, will certainly find that love IS a real thing when it comes to how you're gonna feel about this compilation!!
The liner notes go on about the psychedelic aspect of these bands, and while this stuff is definitely far out and groovy it's way more James Brown than brown acid. Mention of Haight-Ashbury seems a stretch, and the music of these bands has got as much or more to do with their motherland than, say, the generally more Western-derived psych we've heard from Thailand, Cambodia, or Turkey on various other comps we've carried. Then again, when you look at rock music influencing African music, you've got a full-circle phenomenon to examine. And when we reviewed the (currently unavailable) Love Peace & Poetry: African Psychedelic Music compiliation some months back, the stuff on this new comp is exactly what we felt was missing and should have been included.
In any case, proper psych or not, and with or without much fuzz, this is definitely FUNKY.
The attractive cd booklet includes notes on each track/artist, complete with color album sleeve art where available. Nicely done. Furthermore, this is an "enhanced cd", allowing those with the appropriate computer technology to witness a video of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey's track "Minsato Le, Mi Dayhome".
From the same label that released the three volumes (so far) of the wonderful "Love, Peace, & Poetry" international '60s psych compilation series, comes this new collection focusing on, uh, abnormal country music of the psychedelic era? Or as the label
Allan's been wanting to review this for while, it's not new or anything (it came out in 2003 and the music on it is much older than that) but he got a copy a few months ago and just fell in love with it... Rather surprising to him, really, since this is a compilation of soft rock tunes! "20 Junkshop Soft Rock Singles from 1970-1974" to be precise. In the same series with the ever-popular Velvet Tinmine glam rock comp, this disc takes a look at a different aspect of the UK '70s pop scene. The realm of the sensitive singer-songwriter. If you're not British (and of a certain age?) chances are you've probably never heard any of these singles before. Some were one hit wonders, some from folks with lengthy careers... but none of 'em probably got much play, if any at all, this side of the pond. Though, they maybe could've. I mean, the twenty tracks collected here kinda *sound* like '70s hits by the likes of Elton John, CSNY, or Billy Joel in his piano man days, without actually being songs that you've heard 1000 times already.
You've heard of Tim Rose and Leo Sayer, perhaps. And Neil MacArthur turns out to be an commercially ill-advised alias for Colin Blunstone from the Zombies. But Laurie Styvers? Ewan Stephens? Ray Fenwick? The Startedt Brothers? Curtiss Maldoon? Clifford T. Ward? Not ringing a lot of bells. Maybe if we read more Mojo mag. But all of 'em, one-offs or not, are making me nostaglic for an UK radio childhood I never had. Loads of lush mini-epics arranged for strings and piano and voices both gentle and strong... melancholic and nostalgic themselves. From the haunting, majestic "El Doomo" by obscure Roger Daltrey produced classic rockers Ellis to the very Don Maclean -esque "Chinese Restaurant" by the Startedt Brothers to the Bob Dylan stylings of Ewan Stephens, everything on here is pretty darn enjoyable if you're in the mood -- and mood is what this certainly sets. Thoroughly annnotated, and nicely presented with a '70s graphic flair inspired by a UK pop magzine of the era called Zigzag -- hence the title as well!
Yo, people!! One word: NECKS!!! Whoops, we could have easily overlooked this, a soundtrack to some foreign film we'd never heard of, but thankfully we did happen to notice the artists involved (which, to make sure YOU don't miss this, we've noted above). One of our all time faves, Australian drone-jazz trio The Necks, happens to appear here, track one "Transparent Roads" is theirs, the title track, and it's over 28 minutes long! So, right there, your money's worth, the rest of the disc could be considered a bonus. And a very worthy bonus, considering it includes diverse contributions from a bunch of interestin' artists in their own right, namely David Grubbs, Mira Calix, Mute Socialite, and O-Type. Quite a varied, even unlikely group, we're curious how they all happened to be invited to make music for this project, which was an Italian art film apparently about a bus trip through the Brazilian countryside, a "cinevoyage" visiting both the land and people. The film's director, Augusto Contento, certainly avoided using the obvious - Brazilian music - though a few of the tracks here do give a nod to such, Mute Socalite's song for instance titled "Samba Outlaw".
First, though, The Necks. Their track is, as any fan might guess, glorious. It's a quite Alice Coltrane-ish sounding Necks set, glittering cosmic jazz hypnosis. If you've heard The Necks, you won't be surprised - though the instrumental textures of "Transparent Roads" differ somewhat from their most recent album Silverwater. Skittering drums, repeating, brief piano melodies, and what sounds more like an electric guitar than their usual stand-up bass, all locked into impossibly precise yet organic sounding pulsations, surging, cyclic, building building building. With subtle complexities, incredible control, The Necks are truly masters of their art. Hard to imagine that they use the entirety of his piece on the soundtrack, that would be a bus trip through otherworldly realms, leaving Brazil, however beautiful and fascinating, far behind. Whew!!
A tough act to follow. After that, what? David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, Bastro) is up next, his ten and a half minute solo electric guitar track "To Know A Veil" acting as a palate cleanser, sparse with simple clangorous chords ringing out, abstract scrabbling filling the spaces, or not, drones forming in both memory and reality, it's pretty powerful, like a no wave SUNNO))) perhaps. So that plus The Necks, and good grief, this is worth buying twice, already.
Then Warp's Mira Calix contributes "I Carry You In My Heart", a moody pitter patter percussion piece, over twelve minutes long, quite nice (it kinda goes with another release on this particular week's list, the Fairlights Mallets And Bamboo mix of '80s Japanese avant-bliss). That's followed by the Bay Area's own avant-weirdos Mute Socialite, who really begin to echo or suggest some sort of Tropicalia vibe, however abstract. Their rather groovy "Samba Outlaw" (5:23) turns this disc into the sort of dance party to which you'd invite the Sun City Girls... Another good one. And then finally, there's former MX-80'ers O-Type (featuring guitarist Bruce Anderson) offering up an amazing 23 minute finale to the soundtrack, "Shadowgram" giving The Necks a run for their money in fact, in terms of making repetitive, mesmeric music that actually reminds us a lot of Circle (a tropical Circle?), with shuffling rhythms and nervous textures that makes you wonder just where this Brazilian bus ride is going to end up, or if you want to find out.
So, buy this for The Necks for sure, but stay for the rest and you will be extra pleased. Again, we've never seen the movie and are quite curious, just to see how it could live up to its own soundtrack, which rules!!! More Italians should make movies in Brazil and have soundtracks commissioned for release on German label Staubgold, based on how well this turned out...
"Join the team as they uncover the secret of the three-hundred year old Spanish mummy, solve the riddles of the scary old woman, help Gert-Jan face his fear of water, and try to save the city's pets in an adventure of endless twists and turns, laughs and rock n' roll!"
When I was younger (no seriously, much younger) I liked to read books about kids who started their own detective agencies, Encyclopedia Brown, The Three Investigators, that sort of thing. Indeed I tried to set myself up as a detective too (I had a fingerprint kit and a magnifying glass and even a deerstalker hat) but sadly if unsurprisingly had trouble finding clients with crimes to solve, unlike my fictional counterparts. So I was immediately taken with this new Fire Inc. release, the booklet of which contains Episode Four of "The Secret Of The Haunted Spanish Galleon", a mystery story featuring those precocious kids turned detectives turned rock n' rollers, The Vacuum Boys. Very cleverly presented, with appropriate artwork and graphics. In reality, The Vacuum Boys aren't kids, mystery-solvers, or a rock band. They're Heimir Bjorgulfsson (of Stilluppsteypa), Girt-Jan Prins (MIMEO, solo electronics), Guy Amitai, and Dan Armstrong (Central 87), and deal in electronic clicks and cuts, not clues, and certainly not rock n' roll. Sure there's guitars on here, and drums (Girt IS a real drummer we know, and Dan does guitar and electronics improv), but there's a lot of computer processing involved as well -- and maybe a Hoover. Recorded live at Prins' studio in Rotterdam February 2002, it's a noisy (but pleasantly so), chopped-up glitch-fest of crackle, distortion, whoosh, and bleep, sounding more akin to Merzbow than the Monkees.
Of the current spate of experimental electronic releases, this one is not only pretty great but definitely gets points for being packaged in such an imaginative and thankfully not over-intellectualized way. Go Vacuum Boys! We look forward to their next adventure!
Oooh. Nice one, this. If you dig psychedelic dronemusic, heavy on the guitar, that is, 'cause it's the 2nd album on the ever-reliable Utech label from this droney duo from China, one half of which is none other than freeform electric guitarist & sculptor-of-feedback Li Jianhong, whose solo album on Japanese psych label PSF, Classic Of the Mountains And Seas, we made a Record Of The Week a few years back. The other half of the band is laptopper Vavabond, and together they create a dark and disturbing, yet sometimes somewhat soothing symphony of cosmic sci-fi space drone (VagusNerve are kind of big into UFOs and flying saucers), full of strange sounds. Layers of Jianhong's whale call guitar and swarms of other unidentifiable electronic drones (from keening high end to bassy lows) are ofttimes joined by weird wordless vocals, druggy mumbles, the guttural moans of some human creature. This devolved baby-babble is however buried beneath the burbling electronic FX and quasi-melodic guitar wail. What sound like distant air raid sirens rise and fall, as abstract alien transmissions from across the galaxy shower down over the three loooong tracks here, "The Memory Of Light", "The Exiled Life", and "Go Back To The Sirius" - as in, this is sirius tripping balls music!! To be played LOUD, if you dare. These aren't airy ambient drones. It's all quite dense and physical and maybe even frightening, with Jianhong's amp burning blackest on that third track, at times coming close to Keiji Haino in an echoing realm of insane video game zips and zaps.
Recommended drones for sure, a no-brainer if you trust us, or Utech, or are already a VagusNerve and/or Li Jianhong fan. Comes in a nice Utech-designed fold-up sleeve, with cool art appropriate to the dark spacey sounds on the disc.
We've mentioned these doomy Virginia retro rockers on our list once before, not long ago on account of their quite appropriate split 7" with Bible Of The Devil (featuring the Valkyrie track "False Dreams", also found here), and now we're happy to have their new, sophomore album Man Of Two Visions in stock to list. The band now includes one of the dudes from AQ faves Baroness on guitar, by the way. And Baroness fans might dig like this, though it ain't remotely metalcore or postrock. You gotta be into the old school, melodic heavy metal side of Baroness to ride with Valkyrie! Obvious influences on 'em assuredly include both Witchfinder General and Thin Lizzy, plus the closer to home inspiration of Pentagram and that whole, ol' Maryland doom scene. We're also hearing some Southern stoner rock a la Down and Corrosion Of Conformity (circa Blind or Deliverance). The mood's mainly slow and somber, though they manage to also rock out and let loose with the guitars n' gallop, NWOBHM style. So it's doomy, but not necessarily depressing, with nice harmonies and all.
Pretty darn decent effort overall, even if we're not so sure about the mellow instrumental (with keyboards?) "The Green Highlander". Maybe just one instrumental would have sufficed, and we'd pick the album's other one, "The Gorge", a gentle piece for acoustic guitar. And the cover art isn't entirely impressive either. But heck that hardly effects our enjoyment of the (mostly) heavy grooves from this classy, serious band!
Yay! Three classic albums by one of our favorite '70s prog rock bands just got reissued, with bonus tracks and remastering and vast new liner notes and all that good stuff, with more reissues to come. So we thought we'd list the two that we'd reviewed previously, and then maybe next time we can write up the other one we've got as well. Back when we first reviewed these, we did it 'cause we knew that lots of AQ customers had been digging our Italian prog recommendations (like Osanna) and buying tons of Magma reissues and of course always loving the good ol' Krautrock, and we figured that such customers are just the types who'd probably like VDGG too.
As you may know, several folks here are pretty big into the '70s prog thing (despite having been but little kids back then) and one band we really all agree on is the mighty Van Der Graaf Generator from the UK. They're definitely a bit out of the ordinary. He To He... was the group's third album, from 1970. It's a great example of their bombastic, dark power and unique instrumental formula. Saxophone (with "devices"), Hammond organ, and tympani are the sort of thing that dominates VDGG's sound, along with the crucial component of Peter Hammill's dramatic, declamatory vocals of course. He's had his own successful solo career running in parallel with Van Der Graaf from the band's very earliest days, and clearly he's a cult figure, a frontman that some will love and some will hate. His wide-ranging voice courses like blood through the flesh of this album's five epic conceptual tracks (the shortest song here is over 6 minutes, the longest more than 12), tracks that must have elicited many a "heavy, man" comment at the time. The heaviest might be opener "Killer", the sad saga of, yes, the lonely killer whale. Other songs, like "House With No Door", are more gentle and melodic, yet still quite gloomy and bleak. Please don't mistake our use of the term "heavy" here -- although Hammill's voice will sometimes rise into a metallic shriek, the Generator have more in common with jazz than heavy metal, being way more Soft Machine than Machine Head (Deep Purple).
The bonus tracks are but two in number but one of 'em is over fifteen minutes long, the previously unreleased "Squid 1 / Squid 2 / Octopus", an early VDGG concert staple recorded live in the studio.
"Pawn Hearts" was Van Der Graaf's fourth album, originally released in 1971. Like its immediate predecessor "He To He Who..." it's certainly one of their classics, equally as epic, emotive, and extravagant. These guys were outrageous musicians, ambitious lyricists, and definite prog rock nutters who made music so outre and intense at the time that it should appeal to weirdos today just as much as it did back in the early 1970s.
The side-long, ten-part "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is one of those prog rock suites that belongs in the pantheon alongside "Karn Evil #9" and "Supper's Ready" and "Gates Of Delerium" for sure. Next to King Crimson (whose Robert Fripp contributes some guitar work on both of these albums), VDGG is the darkest, weirdest, most "outside" commercially-popular '70s prog rock band we can think of from the UK. A worthy contemporary to the likes of Magma, Amon Duul II and Goblin from the Continent.
All right, more VDGG to come on future lists...and then maybe we'll move on to Yes, Caravan and ELP!
MPEG Download: "Lemmings (Including Cog)" [/audio/vdgglemmings.mp3]
Real nice, these new Van Der Graaf Generator reissues are. We're glad they they've now got US distribution, though we'd have happily paid $30 for the import versions (Andee and Allan both did for some of 'em, actually, oops). All the prog fans here are stoked, 'specially since VDGG are one of our top prog faves. We've already listed the reissues of Pawn Hearts and H To He Who Am The Only One, and we'll try to get to them all, one by one... so here's VDGG's second album, from 1969 (following their debut Aerosol Grey Machine, not a part of this reissue series though there is a cd we do stock), maybe the first that really displayed their signature sound in a fully formed fashion. That sound: bombastic, epic, emotional, complex, slightly jazzy, eccentric. And probably an acquired taste. Partly because VDGG's instrumentation isn't the standard guitar/bass/drums -- they've got saxophone and keyboards, mainly, alongside the drums. Plus their most distinctive sonic feature, Peter Hammill's exceedingly dramatic, dominating vocals! Love 'em or hate 'em vocals, we'd venture to guess. His voice is perfect, though, for the sweeping grandeur of VDGG's music, which can be quite gentle (as on this album's most pop hit, speaking loosely, "Refugees"), and at other times so much darker, heavier, and more hectic (as on "White Hammer" wherein Hammill sings about the Inquisition). All this power and passion is reflected in Hammill's intelligent, questioning, quasi-mystical lyrics, and is furthermore augmented by the suggestion of church and worship brought in by the use of the electric organ.
Yes indeed, VDGG is very weird and very much it's own thing... there's definite connections to the likes of King Crimson and Genesis, and '60s psychedelia, but ultimately nothing else sounds quite like these guys. The Least We Can Do, which features a surreal depiction of an actual Van Der Graaf generator on its cover, is a fine starting point and/or an essential part of their discography for fans building a VDGG collection. This reissue, in addition to being digitally remastered and boasting extensive liner notes in the cd booklet, also features two bonus tracks, the single version of "Refugees" and its non-album B-side, "Boat Of Millions Of Years". Recently we came across an old print advertisement for this single, the tag line of which was: "Some of today's violence is innocence defending itself... some of today's music is Van Der Graaf Generator."
Renaissance music? Field recordings? Palindromes? A photo of sex toys on the back of the cd booklet? Creative Dutch composer and lute player Jozef van Wissem both mystifies and delights us with this original and unusual album of avant-garde lute music. He has a background in the Renaissance lute, which he applies here by taking historical lute pieces and rewriting them as mirror-image palindromes, that sound the same played either forwards or backwards (hence the mirror of the title). Further distancing the material from his early sources, van Wissem adds electronics and computer-processed (again, mirror-image flipped) field recordings of ambient airport sounds (in homage to Brian Eno, perhaps). One track also features a guest playing "palindrome percussion". The sex toys, we're still not sure about though. This combination of classical lute plucking and the ambient airfield recordings reveals a wealth of placid beauty... it's minimal and melancholic music that recalls the trance-inducing work of avant-acoustic guitarists like late period John Fahey and just-intonation guitarist Rod Poole. We're also reminded of the likes of Giuseppe Ielasi and Tetuzi Akiyama (the latter with whom van Wissem has recorded an improv duet, reviewed here a few months ago). So very pretty -and- intriguing, both sparse and detailed, van Wissem's conceptual compositions thwart traditional idioms without abandoning the tranquil beauty for which the Renaissance lute is known... Recommended. If you're gonna own just one avant-garde lute and electronics album, this is it!!
We always knew that famed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch had good taste in music, judging by the soundtracks to his movies, but we were only vaguely aware of his extracurricular musical activities. In fact it was with some surprise that we recently encountered him on record, as a guest guitarist in a cameo appearance on the latest 12" by avant-punks Fucked Up! Meanwhile, AQ fave experimental Renaissance lutist, Jozef Van Wissem (who, yes, is also the ONLY experimental lutist we know, though if there were others he'd probably still be our favorite, after his rocked out performance at a memorable aQ instore awhile back) has collaborated in the past with a variety of interesting personages - Gary Lucas, Smegma, James Blackshaw. And now, Jim Jarmusch! Who actually played on a track on Van Wissem's previous album, The Joy That Never Ends, one we stocked and listed on our website but somehow never managed to get around to reviewing, which we should have 'cause really everything we've heard by Van Wissem has been excellent and that one is no exception... Anyway, we'll try to make up for that lapse by reviewing this new one, his full-on duo disc with Jarmusch. And it's a beaut.
Slowly and steadily, Van Wissem plucks prettily at the strings of his instrument, while Jarmusch's electric guitar hovers gently in the background, an ambient wash. As the disc goes on, though, Jarmusch becomes more assertive, accompanying Van Wissem like a ghostly, twanging echo, until eventually the cyclical note patterns chiming from Van Wissem's lute are almost fully enveloped by Jarmusch's doleful dense guitar distortion, approaching Ulaan Khol or Urthona levels of softly droning bliss. His past association with Neil Young (Dead Man) definitely makes sense...
The disc as a whole, at all points in the Van Wissem/Jarmusch duet, is meandering, melancholic, mesmeric... The final track, "He Is Hanging By His Shiny Arms, His Heart An Open Wound With Love", is perhaps the loveliest, and happiest, all-acoustic, brought to a close with a brief spoken supplication from Jarmusch, reciting words by St. John of the Cross.
So, another Van Wissem winner - and we'd definitely be happy to hear more electric guitar emanations from Jarmusch, how 'bout a solo album?
By the way... is it possible that Jarmusch and Van Wissem got together because both men are members of a secret society called The Sons Of Lee Marvin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sons_of_Lee_Marvin)? Jarmusch is known to be a founding member, and Van Wissem looks like he might qualify...
Here's a pretty fantastic discovery we just made (although the disc was released a few years ago). It's a seventy-minute long single track entitled "Neheh", the result of four members of French prog-weirdos Magma jamming together one night in '73. We thought this would sound like a scaled down Magma, or some sort of jazz improv session. But, instead, this neither. It's absolutely unlike the jackboot precision of Magma circa '73's "Mechanik Destructiw Kommandoh" (which was in fact recorded, like, the next day!). Although this does share the esoteric spiritual aspects of Magma, there's none of Magma's grandiose rock/jazz/Wagner fusion here. Rather, it's a late-night excursion into kosmiche avant-hippy freakout realms, starting with unearthly vocal chant/drone and moving into percussion spasms, clarinet eruptions, and organ improv. So, instead of mother-band Magma, this should be compared to Amon Duul, the Sun City Girls, the No Neck Blues Band, Yahowah 13, and (closer to home) Thuja. Beautiful and wild, totally inspired. It's strange that this went unreleased until the '90s-- maybe Vander and Co. didn't want to dilute the Magma concept with something so loose and organic and, uh, 'of the times'. Still, it's one of our absolute favorite Magma-related documents, and should even appeal to those scared off by Magma's prog/fusion chops. Recommended!! (By the way, along with this, we've restocked a bunch of Magma classics, and we definitely have 'em at the best price you'll probably find anywhere.)
Christian Vander = Magma. He's the mastermind behind the monumental music of spiritual prog/rock/jazz group Magma, one of the late twentieth century's (and now early 21st century's) obscure musical visionairies. Not, perhaps, in the godlike catagory with his hero John Coltrane, but a genius nonetheless. This double cd set is brand new on Magma's Seventh Records, but consists mostly of tracks recorded between 1972 and 1975, with a two minute piano/voice coda newly recorded this year. It's Vander solo, purely solo (live in concert), on his main instrument: the drums! Two discs's worth of epic, incredible drum soloing, yes! That might sound tedious and self-indulgent, but, if you're in the right frame of mind/soul, it's not. It's really a religious experience, as Vander turns his drum kit into a virtural orchestra for his personal spiritual celebration via percussion. Some vocals make an appearance, such as the bizarre high pitched yelps and low guttural proclamations at the start of the twenty-two minute "Korusz III" but mostly, it's drums, lots of drums...and some mysterious indeterminate noises...if there every was anybody who could coax 'feedback' out of an acoustic drum kit, I suppose Vander could... I haven't quite deciphered the French liner notes, but apparently the Korusz concept has something to do with the elements, with the cymbals symbolizing (cymbalizing?) fire, etc. There's also lots of great black & white pictures here of a seemingly-possessed Vander (who always looks a bit cave-man) behind his kit, wild hair flailing, beating the drums with abandon. In sum, true Magma fans (no, not fans--there must be a more appropriate word: followers? devotees? acolytes?) need this. Maybe not anybody else could handle it. You remember "Metallica Drummer"? Well, this is for the "Magma Drummer" in you... Amazing, exhausting, AND energizing.
Early '70s Vander solo record that is really a scaled-down Magma in disguise, doing soundtrack music for a film version of Tristan & Isolde. I really want to see the movie after hearing this music, can't imagine how they work it into the action. Very hyper stuff -- Ruins fans be aware that is is the sort of Magma that will remind you most of that band. Recommended.
Some reissues of long-lost gems arrive here with little fanfare and turn out to be great nonetheless. This one though, came our way emblazed with blurbs proclaiming its immense awesomeness quoting the likes of Jim O'Rourke, Tim Gane, Jarvis Cocker and David Holmes. And guess what? Those guys do indeed know what they're talking about! This IS pretty fantastic. Here we have an action-packed instrumental concept album whose title translates into English as The Child Killer Of The Flies, which musically narrates a simple but creepy story by Serge Gainsbourg (written *after* he heard the album, not before, and included the liner notes, explaining each track title) about the horrific revenge of flies on a child who had tortured them. This musical story-telling is by way of schizoid arrangements of tracks that range in sound from groovy pop to jazz to avant-garde tape music to fuzz guitar rock! Sounds good, eh? Good n' weird for sure.
L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches is a "Fellini-esque psychedelic symphony" originally released (but poorly distributed and relegated to general obscurity) in 1972, credited to a unknown group called Isolitudes. The man behind Insolitudes, though, was one Jean-Claude Vannier, a musician and producer from the happening '60s French pop ("Ye Ye music") scene who had scored film soundtracks and collaborated with Serge Gainsbourg, most famously providing the arrangements for Gainsbourg's highly-rated L'Histoire De Melody Nelson album (the reissue of which we wish we had in stock also, but haven't been able to get a hold of lately). This record is thereby cited as the follow-up to that one-of-a-kind conceptual classic. Itself it's pretty much one-of-a-kind too. Funky and groovy, as well as deliriously, disorientingly hallucinogenic, this will hit you with lush string arrangements one moment, sound effects of sheer terror the next... it's psych, it's prog, it's funk, it's musique concrete. There's even a chorus of car horns put to good use here! It's the freakiest 'sploitation soundtrack that never was. This reissue includes two bonus tracks from a rare 7" single entitled Point D'Interrogation, and also boasts extensive and informative (and quite laudatory) liner notes by DJ Andy Votel. Very recommended!
Last list we featured Docdail and Triangle, now here's more rare Francais Metal de Proto for y'all, this time from Les Variations! That's right, another French band from the late '60s/early '70s playing an unexpected blend of hard rockin' proto-metal, psychedelic freakiness, Moorish exotica, and groovy pop. This double disc set includes Variations' first two albums -- Nador (1970) and Take It Or Leave It (1973) -- plus 13 bonus tracks.
Nador is the primary reason to get this, as Take It Or Leave It more-or-less lives up to its title. But Nador is a seriously smokin' album, with the exception perhaps of one cheesy commercial pop tune and a detour into oldies rock n' roll territory (the Jerry Lee Lewis piano-pounding of "Mississippi Woman"). At its best though, which is most of the time, Nador is the high-energy, heavy-duty French answer to the likes of Led Zep, the Rolling Stones, and the MC5! Zut alors! Pounding stormers like "Generations" and "What A Mess Again" are gonna please anyone into long-haired, bell-bottomed riff-rock. Meanwhile, Variations mix it up with segues into mysterious Moroccan hippie-raga, as on the acoustic instrumental title track. Basically imagine Leaf Hound with some North African ancestry. We've read that Nador was the heaviest album from a French band ever when it was originally released, and we believe it.
The bonus tracks following Nador are also equally badass, with lots of wild psych guitar and headbangin' rhythm action goin' on. "Come Along" sounds pretty much *exactly* like something by local San Francisco retro-stoner power trio Genghis Khan, actually. There's also the excellent psych-pop ballad "Down The Road" as well.
Disc two's Take It Or Leave It certainly rocks and rolls too, but starts to suffer from some of the fashion faux pas the '70s were known for, shall we say. Way too much honky tonk piano this time around, and overproduced arrangements. The psych side of things is long gone. But it has got its moments though. And several of the bonus tracks found on this disc most definitely live up to the killer standards of disc one ("I Was Down" and "The Jam Factory" ferinstance). So while Nador's great by itself, we're happy to have these two discs worth of Variations! Vive la Francais Metal de Proto!!
Huh, what's this? Vee Dee? It's got black and white, 'fucked up and photocopied' looking graphics, let's put it on...wow, some unknown punk rock outfit from decades past? The first song "Flashes Of Her" could be something by Radio Birdman, or maybe even a song off of that Simply Saucer album... Now, this other track is reminding me of the Misfits. Good stuff. What's the story? Is this something outta the pages of Black To Comm fanzine? A band from one of those Bloodstains comps? Nope, these boys are from the here and now -- Chicago to be precise -- and they sure know how to make a retro-sounding (and looking) punk record that kicks ass. They obviously must have cool record collections. But of course that by itself doesn't mean when you get up on stage you're gonna kick the jams out in a manner worthy of your heroes. However, Vee Dee rise to the occasion: they are worthy. They've got the hooks and the history books, so to speak. As you listen to this, you'll hear echoes of classic '70s and '80s punk, everything from the Buzzcocks to Crime to Black Flag. Cleveland's various underground '70s heroes are doubtless another of Vee Dee's inspirations. Lyrically, they're brave enough to sing lines like "The son of Altamont / was dancing with sister Watts" and do songs about the "TV Police" and being a "Blood Zombie" and make it work. Some of the lyrics read like your stoner 11 year old brother wrote 'em but that's rock and roll poetry ain't it? Give me a catchy song called "Kaleidoscope Death Ray" any day! Allan's new rock fave, went straight into his iPod top 20...
THE BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR of music made entirely with vegetables. Well, almost entirely. This extremely healthy twelve person ensemble's raison d'etre is indeed the use of instruments constructed from vegetables... they've designed carrot flutes, celery bongos, and something called the cucumberophone! We've been fans for a long time, but some of you might not be familiar with the Vegetable Orchestra, it's been a while since their last proper album (this is their third, or fourth if you count a remix disc). Years and years ago, back in 2003 when they were more formally known as the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra ('cause that's where they're from), we made one of their early albums a Record Of The Week. That's long out of print now, so we're pretty excited that the Vegetable Orchestra has at last sprouted a new disc. Even Andee here at AQ, who is infamous for NOT liking vegetables, loves the Vegetable Orchestra (finally, a decent use for vegetables, he thinks... yeah he'll listen to vegetables, just doesn't like to eat 'em).
The VO has definitely kept perfecting their techniques and exploring new possibilities of vegetable-based sounds, this album displays a lot of variety (and not garden variety, even though it belongs in a garden). There's the tracks that sound like minimal electronica... also poppier ones, and darker, ambient soundscapery... also some thumping techno beets, er, beats, and onionoisy outbursts. In the past they've done some covers, Kraftwerk among 'em, but these 12 tracks are all homegrown tunes. Rhythmic and textural, not only is the MUSIC enjoyable, but there's the added enjoyment of the intriguing way it puts your imagination to work, trying to conceive of what possible manipulation of what possible vegetables could possibly result in these sounds??? It's amazing, there are tracks here that manage to remind us of everything from Pan Sonic to Konono No.1 to Matmos to the big salad we had for lunch yesterday. And listening to these organic, "crunchy" sounds, some of the time it would be easy to think this really belongs in our field recordings section. The rhythmic pitter patter of rattling legumes, or the snapping, rustling of celery stalks (we're guessing?) can sound like rain, or surf... other veggies mimic the sound of our faves, frogs! And the blowing of horns carved from root vegetables (again, we're making assumptions) can sound like larger mammals, or fog horns.
Some of the tracks are calm, others rambunctious, all interesting. It's groovy, and experimental. Track ten, a short one entitled "Krautrock", gets positively NOISY, loud, distorted, industrial, as if the latter-day Faust took over the vegetable instruments.
Look, going full circle here, it wouldn't matter WHAT their instruments were made of, vegetable animal or mineral, if the resulting sounds and songs weren't good. These are. Creative, curious, even kinda catchy. The nutritional benefits are just a bonus.
Now that they've got this new disc out, we really hope they come play here in the States. Would love to see 'em live. They could do a tour of farmer's markets!
Comes in a nice digipak with poster. Recommended!!! (As part of a balanced diet... c'mon, Andee!)
Last year we raved about the Insane Technical Sci-Fi Thrash Metal Mastery of this group's 2nd album, Outer Isolation. And, having subsequently seen 'em play n' slay live, we're even more convinced that Arizona's Vektor are one of thee very best metal bands currently going. Live, their music was complex yet ragin', these guys effortlessly, amazingly technical, but ready to party at the same time. Plus one of the guitarists has a tattoo on his arm that sez, 'Sci-fi or die', how cool is that?
Sadly, though, the record label Vektor was signed to, Heavy Artillery, has just folded. And so for the time being, the Outer Isolation cd is out of print, with its planned release on vinyl also in limbo. WTF? But, since Vektor has gotta be a hot property, we imagine they'll soon be signed to another label... However, for the time being, we can't get their newer album. But, we DID manage to grab a last few copies of this, their 2009 debut, for those that missed it. We didn't actually review it when it came out before, either, though we should have.
Utter next-level mind-boggling shred, that's heavy and hectic, and impossibly catchy too, like a brilliant mix of Voivod, Coroner, Destruction, and Megadeth. With their chugging rollercoaster riffs, exquisite neo-classical melodies, and outer space atmospherics, plus the vocalist's uncanny ability to switch from guttural tones to an inhuman shriek (they say in space, no one can hear you scream, but you'll hear this guy, and your dog will hear him better!), Vektor are one of the few 'retro-80s-thrash-revival' acts that we consider to be actually equal or superior to the best bands back then.
Basically, If you liked Outer Isolation, you'll like this too, in fact, how come you don't have it already?? And if you haven't yet heard any Vektor, well, check this out! But be quick, we only got like 5 copies, and then they're gone...
Six words: Insane Technical Sci-Fi Thrash Metal Mastery. (Or is that seven?) Two more: Dizzying Genius. Another two: Buy This!
We were terribly remiss in not ever reviewing this band's previous album and first proper full-length, Black Future, 'cause it was one of the very best metal releases of 2009. Unfortunately, we discovered it a bit after the fact. But we are gonna try to make up for that by heralding the release of this Arizona based band's new one, Outer Isolation, also mindbogglingly awesome. Though it's hard to review, 'cause listening to it we're either stupefied by the mental strafing we receive via their hyperspeed metallic acrobatics, or possessed to headbanging mania by their catchy quantum riff logic, neither state conducive to sitting at a keyboard and calmly typing out our thoughts...
Actually, this came out in December - and thus instantly found a spot in Allan's 2011 top ten - but our suppliers miscalculated the demand for this and under-ordered, so were weren't able to get more until now, direct from the label.
What's the deal? The thrash of the past meets dramatic advanced metal math, kinda like a tripped out Absu taken on a futuristic journey into the stark outer reaches of space. The vokills are a crazed dog whistle shriek, or nasty black metal rasp. The guitars rip out utter absurd flight of the bumblebee shred, and sometimes moody moments of lovely, classical melody. Their are many moving parts in Vektor's technically complex song structures.
Unlike a lot of their peers in the still burgeoning "retro-thrash" genre, youngsters Vektor aren't just all about simply being as nostalgically, generically retro-thrash as they can be, instead they're about utilizing their considerable talents to make cool music, following their own alien vision. Sure, they pay some homage to their '80s forebears - their logo looks like it was designed by Away from Voivod - and you could certainly compare 'em to such great '80s proggy tech-thrash acts as Coroner, Watchtower, Obliveon, and yep, Voivod. But, it's more than that, this is its own impressive forward-thinking thing. We highly recommend getting lost in space with Vektor.
FYI, a vinyl version, with different cover art, is forthcoming at some point later this year says the label. Also, you will find the Black Future cd elsewhere on our website, sans review, and it's quite recommended too, obviously. (And If you already have it, then you know what to expect on Outer Isolation!)
Godddang it's here. Finally unleashed, Allan's #1 most anticipated metal release of the year, and lots of other folkses too, it's the third opus from the almighty Vektor, sci-fi thrash masterminds with a knack for extremely addictive shred. As we've said before, of all the throwback retro-thrash bands that popped up a few years ago, these young 'uns are the most vital and creative (as well as being seriously advanced & insane in the technical musicianship department). Once again Vektor attack with epic, twisty, fierce, chaotic, and complex but hypnotically listenable compositions for fans of Voivod, Destruction, Coroner, Watchtower, and other '80s greats, but off in their own hyper-space zone that's also informed by black and death metal, so fans of Absu, Death, Gorguts and Krallice should also bow down.
Not sure what else we can say that we haven't said already in our rave reviews of the band's previous two full-length albums, other than to note that they are still pushing themselves to the edge and beyond on this 73 minute concept album (of course!) crammed with killer riffs and leads and plenty of surprising passages - like the part towards the end of opener "Charging the Void" when a heavenly backing chorus of soulful female voices comes in, incongruous but awesome amidst Vektor's usual exploding novas of guitar notes, blazing battery, and their frontman's typically blackened rasp and dogwhistle shrieks.
Terminal Redux is a wild ride of raging progressive pyrotechnics that any self-respecting metalhead couldn't help but be impressed and exhilarated by! If not, we don't know why you're even listening to metal. Believe the hype! Top ten of 2016 no doubt about it.
Retrospect, the label that put out those 3 awesome Pandemonium reissues (the '80s Alaskan rockers whose Heavy Metal Soldiers disc we made a Record Of The Week recently, the other two highlighted this list) has done a lot of other '80s metal and hard rock reissues too, many of 'em leaning towards the hair/glam/AOR side of things though. Lots and lots, it's kind of insane. Especially since, most... well... we hadn't heard of them, and probably for good reason! Atomik Cocktail? Bad Candy? Ginger Roxx? Nasty Nasty? Sidekixx? But, in scouring their catalog, we did turn up a few gems. Cubic Zirconia, perhaps, but still gems! Here's one we had to share, originally released on Epic Records in 1982, the only album ever from Detroit's Vendetta, a trio led by African-American vocalist/guitarist Niki Buzz.
Certainly it's one for all you Citay fans (sort of) - 'cause the very first song, "Night Time", goes something like this: "Night time, is the right time, in the citaaaay!" And it's damn catchy, we like how Mr. Buzz throws in a sudden little screech when he sings the word "night". Yep, totally cheesy stuff but fun fun fun. The exuberant second track is even cooler, it's called "Jet Eye Knight", and we're pretty sure that's an intentional pun (or whatever) referring to the Jedi knights from Star Wars, then a quite current pop culture reference (Return of the Jedi came out in '83). Even though the song otherwise has nothing to do with Star Wars, it's more or less nonsense. But again, good times. The other songs here follow suit, with titles like "Deadly Like A Rose", "Bite Your Lip", and "Bablyon Rocks". With powerful wailing vox, big beat '80s production, and some really rather heavy riffs & shredding leads for this sort of melodic quasi-metal stuff, this is total cruising around in the car, summertime in the citaaaay music - and we've done just that! Plus, if you're gonna listen to some '80s guilty pleasure cock rock glamminess, why not make it something super obscure like this to keep yr music nerd cred up? So you can still be all snobby with fans of Foreigner, Billy Squier, Sammy Hagar, etc.
Bottom line: we're reviewing and recommending this 'cause we can't stop listening to it, and we're not afraid to admit it!
So-called metalhead Andee says he never got into Venom 'cause they sounded too much like Bad News. But, Andee loooves Bad News. Sure, they were a joke band (Spinal Tap done by the Young Ones guys, basically) and Venom's a real band, meaning the joke's on them...but I think they had a sense of humor too. How can you not love a metal album with a song called "Aaaaaaarrghh" on it?? They knew what they were doing.
This was their third album, from 1983, and while it's got sturdy Venom compositions like "Rip Ride" and "Women, Leather And Hell", it's really essential for the plethora of bonus tracks alone, seeing as how they include two of Venom's all time best songs, "The Seven Gates Of Hell" and "Manitou" (taken from 12" vinyl eps). In addition, you get Monster Truck racing style TV adverts for the album which are of course hilarious, and a bunch of other great 12" tracks.
"Lay down your soul to the gods rock and roll!" Do it here and now, by buying the reissue of Venom's 1982 sophomore album, the timeless statement known as "Black Metal".
Super raw, heavy, and fast (for the day, anyway, back when Venom were the world's ONLY black metal band). A looser, scarier Motorhead basically. The story goes that they had to record some of these songs twice simply 'cause they got 'em RIGHT the first time... Includes faves "Countess Bathory" and the genre-defining title track, along with the Van Halen-gone-NWOBHM "Teacher's Pet", demonstrating Venom's more frivolous side. And the final track is an "At War With Satan" preview! Yes, a preview of the title track from their next album. Had (has) anyone else ever done that?
Like the other recent Venom cd reissues, the jewel case is packaged inside an embossed cardstock slipcover. The many bonus tracks include four Radio One recordings of songs from the album, some 12" versions of tracks including the classic "Die Hard", and the outtake "Hounds of Hell".
"Home taping is killing music...so is Venom" so it says on the sleeve to this much needed newly remastered reissued cd edition of the debut by British black metal pioneers Venom. This was, in fact, truth in advertising, and music today needs killing as much as it did back in 1981, so thanks to Sanctuary for this reissue. Like the other two Venom reissues we now have in stock (their second album "Black Metal" and their third "At War With Satan") this comes packaged in a jewelcase w/ cardstock slipcover, with a cd booklet full of photos and liner notes. Better yet, there's eleven bonus tracks, including demos and outtakes like "Bitch Witch" that were previously available on the long out of print "Skeletons In The Closet" anthology. As debuts go, "Welcome To Hell" was a stunner, establishing Venom as THE most extreme band of their day. They were the rawest, dirtiest, most evil of the celebrated New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) bunch, with, say Def Leppard at the opposite end of the spectrum. Today's black metal bands, even if they seem so much more serious and artistic than Venom, still owe these guys big time, however cartoonish Venom's Satanism seems now.
This defunct Ukrainian black metal band was a collaborative effort between members of Lucifugum and Nokturnal Mortum, which sounds amazing, we were of course envisioning epic, folk flecked, nature obsessed buzzing blackness, but we DIDN'T at all expect something this fucked up and far out.
The first track is not too far off the mark, a plodding, midtempo black metal almost-dirge, tribal drumming, thick downtuned riffs, dramatic synths, tons of atmosphere, the vocals an incredible demonic croak, the whole thing droney and trancelike and mesmerizing.
The second track is where it gets really strange, whooshing swaths of synth, skittery drum machine, mournful minor key guitars, acoustic guitars, and then, out of nowhere, a truly out of place techno sounding electronic pulse, making it sound almost like a black metal Goblin or something, as the track progresses, it just gets darker and denser, the vocals wrapped in twisted effects, a dizzying chunk of whatthefuck electronic blackness for sure.
"Nearby Strange Forest For Everyone Wise Forest" is another dirgey, electronic flecked bit of doom-ed blackness, with whispering vox, the sound of rainfall, deep rumbling synths and folky melodies, before finally we get to the nearly 11 minute closer, "Pure Air Of Distant Horizons", with its click bleep electronic rhythm, big slow burning distorted guitars, cheesy almost new age sounding synths, slipping from drone-y electronic black folk, to almost Renaissance Faire flutter, to swirling space-y krautrock-y drift. Wow.
Even with the pedigree, this might be a bit too far out for the troo grim hordes, but we're digging Vetche's twisted nad unique swirling new age black gypsy doom folk weirdness.
For those that haven't heard the legendary Hungarian group VHK (aka Vagtazo Halottkemek, or the Galloping Coroners) before, how the heck to describe 'em? Well, this primal psychedelic punk ensemble has been around for years (their first album came out in 1988, but they had formed as far back as the mid '70s!) and they're for sure a band equally at home in a radical '80s punk squat, or on an ancient Indo-European battlefield, or out in space among the stars. As well as at home now on Ektro / Full Contact, the eccentric label associated with our fave Finnish space rock weirdos, Circle. They have put out previous albums on Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label, and can certainly be considered one of the most significant, and definitely unique, Eastern European "punk" bands ever. Their sound is part pagan improv, part raucous gypsy-punk hoedown, part Hawkwind style blast-off. Their naturally "tribal" sound even reminded one person here, who hadn't heard 'em before, of Echo And The Bunnymen - but way more raw and wild and loose and heavy.
They've been on some sort of hiatus for quite a few years now (their last release came out in 1999), so it was a pleasant and exciting surprise to find 'em back again with this record, and at full force! The powerful, expressive voice of VHK's frontman, "Grandpierre Atilla", leads the charge, singing and screaming with passion in his native language. Yet, this album begins in a deceptively mellow mood, VHK conjuring a shamanistic campfire ritual on opening track "Handshake", at least at first, being acoustic, melodic, and in a way almost comforting. Those aspects persist, but as the album progresses, it builds and builds in intensity, always offering much compelling rhythmic drive and dark atmospheric vibes, culminating in a track, "Hun Testveriseg" ("The Hun Brotherhood"), recorded live at a festival last year called Black Noise, where we really can imagine these guys coming across as reincarnations of their ancestors, channeling their warrior spirit with electricity and amplification.
You want some "music review math"? Well, there's moments on this album that sound like the Sun City Girls jamming with Neurosis, and we'd further suggest that VHK are perfect for anyone who enjoys both Acid Mothers Temple and Rudimentary Peni.
Of course, if you already know VHK, you'll be happy they're galloping again! Old fans like us will love this. And for those who have yet to be trampled underfoot, this is a fantastic introduction to the mythology of this strange band. We realize that we we've never previously reviewed anything by VHK (we've only referenced them twice before on our site, in fact, in reviews of records by countryish space rockers U.S. Christmas and avant-folky black metallers Hollenthon). Glad we're able to rectify that now with this write-up.
Limited vinyl version available now, get 'em while you can. We also should hopefully be stocking a cd of this at some point in the future.
At long last the highly anticipated debut from VHOL is here, via Profound Lore. Highly anticipated 'cause VHOL, if you don't already know, are a "supergroup" of sorts. Actually, as far as we're concerned, in more ways than one. Firstly, VHOL (dunno if the name is supposed to be in all-caps, but it looks good to us like that) is formed by members of several other groups we like, band that might not be household names required of supergroup status, but probably ARE household names where people who read the aQ-list dwell. And on top of that, they're all amazing musicians so it's "super" that way too. VHOL consists of guitarist John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune, ex-Ludicra, ex-Slough Feg, etc.) and his former Ludicra bandmate, drummer Aesop Dekker (also of Agalloch, Worm Ouroboros, etc. - and a noted blogger too), plus on bass Sigrid Sheie, who is also in Hammers with John. And making this more than just a San Francisco scene thing, on vocals is Mike Scheidt from Portland's mighty sludge-space-doomsters YOB. With these individuals involved, it sounded pretty good on paper, and now the proof is here, it actually sounds extremely good for real as well!!
Prior to hearing this, we'd been informed that the concept behind VHOL was "psychedelic D-beat" music or something. Well... ok, sorta. Aesop's a punk drummer at heart, to begin with (remember Hickey?). And yeah, having Scheidt provide his unique soaring screaming vox, all spacey and wavery and effected, can't help but make this sound psychedelic, plus the preponderance of mindboggling guitar solo shred from Cobbett helps in that dep't too. Early reports that had VHOL being a full-on Dis-core Crust-Metal band were somewhat misleading, however. Just like Ludicra, Hammers, heck ALL their other bands, this is a hybrid of a whole bunch of different things. And ends up being its own special thing.
But if we had to say, sonically this perhaps aligns closest with John & Aesop's previous outfit, avant-black metallers Ludicra, and with the more black-metally side of Yob. There's some delving into doomy, post-rock depths at points, plus of course Scheidt's distinctive vocals. So a cross between Ludicra and Yob, perhaps. But with some of the grandiose artistry of Hammers too. And both hectic punkish attack and sheer rockin' NWOBHM-inspired old school metal moments as well. Lots of them. Which is really what makes this for us. What a combo - and it works. Both energetic and epic, with churning riffs, intricate soloing, pounding rhythmic chaos, and actual catchy songwriting too. Our knack for finding buried "pop" music in the most unlikely, ugly places is not to be thwarted here, especially ferinstance on track four, "Grace", where some very effective, very poppy hooks are hiding, amidst that track's dense ripping architecture that conjures the sci-fi spectre of old (and new!) Voivod - a connection also suggested by this disc's very Away-like cover artwork, done by Cobbett himself.
Crucially, Scheidt puts on quite a performance, varying his vocals in cleanliness, from clean-ish to unclean, layered over each other even, doing death grunts and blackened rasps and guttural screams as well as his trademark higher-pitched, but distorted wailings - even getting into almost '80s metal ballad territory on the album's closer, "Songs Set To Await Forever".
Favorite tracks are hard to single out, they're all good, but "Arising" really, really impresses - a rollicking tour de force that kinda reminds us of certain latter day Darkthrone efforts, a la some tracks on their recent The Underground Resistance. Some of the same influences at work perhaps.
All in all, VHOL lives up to expectations (whatever they were!), certainly quality-wise. And perhaps confounds some others. But definitely doesn't disappoint. In fact, we might be digging this more than some of the VHOL folks' "main" bands right now, and that's saying a lot.
French prog from the seventies can move us in just the right ways, especially if it hits that sweet spot between Kosmiche new age and sublime Euro-jazz, yet still has that individually eccentric feel that you only get from the French. Patrick Vian's sole 1976 lp Bruits et Temps Analogues, famously included on the Nurse With Wound list, is just such a record. An amalgam of Michael Rother sky gliding electronic music and a mellower take on the "Superficial Music" of Bernard Szajner, Vian packs a lot of punch into his compositions, propelled forward by the hypnotic counterpoint of sunny guitar lines, analog Moog washes, flutes and all kinds of dazzling rhythmic instrumentation, such as kinetic jazz drumming, and deep vibraphones, the latter thanks to the help of Mino Cinelu (who had played with the likes of Gong, Weather Report and Miles Davis). There's also an exotica quality at play here especially on the track, "Orenock" which feels like we're on safari on some strange desolate planet, as well as some avant-garde tendencies, such as using tape manipulations of recordings of American sporting events on the musique concrete piece, "Tricentennial Drag". Vian began his musical career in the legendary French prog /free jazz band Red Noise, but the vibe on Bruits et Temps Analogues is way more serene and groovy. It lives up to its awesome cover painting. Originally released on the Egg / Barclay label, it's about time this stellar album got reissued. Thanks Staubgold! Highest Recommendation!!
Brutal. Beautiful. Brut-iful? it's album number two from Erie, PA's heaviest hitters Village Of Dead Roads (who are one of the "Neur-Isis" crowd's best kept secrets). We dug their debut from a few years back quite a bit, and now on this sophomore release they've unleashed another advanced lesson in sludgecore sonics. Although actually this album is a bit less "experimental" than their first one, dropping the ambient sampling stuff and maybe getting a bit MORE metal, including some rather melodic metallic guitar soloing. There's lots of cool parts, every song with something interesting/artistic to offer musically. Every song also utterly destroying you with its heaviness and aggression, via punishing drums, churning riffs, and throat-shreddingly screamed vokills. Yet, they also manage to incorporate moments of melancholic moodiness inbetwixt the crushing parts, without wimping out or being too post-rock predictable. What we're trying to say, is it doesn't get boring, the way some albums in this genre do (though it may not always fit your mood, for instance if you're, like, happy, and want to remain so).
Heartily recommended to fans of other bands from that Neur-Isis axis! And anything from Eyehategod to Samothrace, Cavity to Cult Of Luna, Black Cobra to Snowblood... Not sure why they haven't become better known, they're as good or better than most, though this might be their final release anyway, not sure, apparently the Village's population is down to just the guitarist/vocalist and the drummer now, both of whom are also in a new (two-piece) band called Cotton Candy, a name which you won't be surprised to learn does NOT describe their sound at all...
There's plenty of bands playing heavy, downtuned, post-rock, post-Isis metalcore sludge these days. But there aren't too many that can make you feel as bad and sad and downright scared as Erie PA's Village Of Dead Roads (great name!) can. They've perfected a totally doomy and diseased brand of pissed off pummel, powered by leadweight guitars and hard-hitting drums, graced with moments of fragile beauty, as they do the quiet-loud thing with surety and aplomb. Whatever primal demons being exorcised (or maybe just exercised) by the band on this debut full-length seem not to interfere with their control of this carefully-crafted, crushing music. The quiet parts are infested with disturbing samples and weird effects, mood dialed all the way negative. When the guitars get cranked, and the band churns out the loping, rumbling riff-scapes, strewn with wretched, bloody-heart-torn-from-chest vocalizations and stonery leads, that mood dial simply snaps off, unable to go that low...
VoDR nod to the melancholic majesty of Souls At Zero era Neurosis and the catchy industrial dirge of prime early Godflesh, but also make us think of the likes of Conifer, Mouth Of The Architect, and maybe a mix of Karp and Katatonia! The more melodic side of VoDR even reminds us a bit of the late, great Engine Kid (one of Greg Anderson's pre-SUNNO))) bands), especially when the clean singing comes in during epic album closer "Cold New World". All those who hunger for both doomy bludgeon and post-rock finesse should pay a visit to this Village Of Dead Roads, a twilight ghost-town being bulldozered and buried on Dwelling In Doubt.
Murky drama played out on guitars, tapes, electronics, and samplers, with a heavy dose of clanky percussion to remind you of their roots, Germany's Village of Savoonga possesses an enviably original sound that owes much to their krautrock forefathers, not the ultra-structured Kraftwerk, but the loose sound experiments of Faust. Spacerock fans will find so much to like, too, but expect more than just easy ambient layers, this record climbs mountains and fords streams. Totally excellent. This is their third album, and the record we've been recommending people buy if the new Tortoise just doesn't do it for ya...
You know we like repetition here at Aquarius. We like repetition. We like it. Repetition. Whether it's the motorik pulses of Neu! and Circle, or the minimalist throb of Steve Reich and The Necks, or the crackling loops of Philip Jeck and Thomas Brinkmann, or the headnodding riffs of Om and Les Rallizes Denudes, or the blurring buzz of Wigrid and Wold... we like it! Keep it goin' and we'll keep listening. Well of course one of the many musical forms that makes good use of repetition is dance music, and although sometimes we give the impression that techno and house music "isn't our thing" that's definitely not true about all techno music. Not when it's really, really about the mesmeric repetition, and in an interesting way, like the clicks and cuts of Ryoji Ikeda or the "heroin house" of Fluxion. Or the whole Kompakt catalog of pop ambient drone and beats.
Or this new disc by critical darling Ricardo Villalobos! Which is probably getting a lot of attention because of the sheer length of the tracks on it -- there's two of 'em, clocking in at more than a half-an-hour each! The title cut, "Fizheuer Zieheuer" is truly hypnotic, based on endless, slightly altered iterations of the same happy little horn riff (sampled from a Balkan brass band?), expertly joined to echoing four-on-the-floor techno beats, slowly morphing and shifting over time -- 37 minutes! Deceptively simple, but brilliantly crafted. And yes, totally, totally mesmerizing. Allan turned on the "visualizer" function on his iTunes while playing this and we all got totally tranced-out watching the flashing lights...
This album is maybe really sort of an extreme maxi-single, as the 35 and a half minute second track "Fizbeast" is a stripped-down (minus the horns) recap of the first track -- yay, more repetition! But you might also just hit play on track one again, 'cause you're gonna want to hear that infectious Balkan horn part again and again and again. Recommended, recommended, recommended...
FYI this cd is intentionally packaged by Playhouse without a tray card in the jewel case. Either 'cause it's sort-of a single, or 'cause they feel that electronic music is so modern it doesn't need a back cover, we don't know. Just mentioning this fact so that if you mailorder it, you won't think there's something wrong with your copy...
It's a good week for rock n' roll. Uh huh, look out, Baltimore (or as they prefer, "Baltamont") psychpunk badasses Vincent Black Shadow (the REAL Vincent Black Shadow) are back! If you heard their AQ (and Julian Cope) recommended debut, you know exactly what to expect. If you're new to the VBS, well, think wretched rawk action and psychotic reaction. Simply put, this is trashy Stooges worship at its uber-distorto, heavy-ass best!!! Just take a listen... that vocalist is a streetwalking cheetah with a heart fulla napalm, am I right?! Goddamn right I am. He's backed up by reckless riffing, the guitar strangulation plenty raw and primal. You're not gonna need to be told that this is obviously meant to be played loud. It's a throbbing testament to bouncing off the walls and breaking shit (and maybe rolling in broken glass and peanut butter). Ah, life's simple pleasures. File with such outwardly bound jams-kickers as The Heads, Cope's Brain Donor band, and Boris (circa Pink). But with more of an ugly attitude. Like maybe the Pissed Jeans wrestling with Plastic Crimewave.
Nine tracks, a little over a half hour. On the short side maybe, but that still means the cops are gonna show up to tell you to turn it down (and stop stomping around, jumping off the furniture, disturbing the neighbors, etc.) long before the record's over. Which means...fuck the neighbors, fuck the cops... you're going to jail.
We can't tell you if these Aussies are the next big thing or not, but they're definitely the next potentially big thing. And before overexposure and hype and all that end up making you hate 'em, you should at least give 'em a chance. Sure, they're being positioned as The Strokes Part II (and while they do have a song or two that remind us The Strokes, as well as the 'look', they're just as much on the Hives or White Stripes tip), and we know everyone's got an opinion about The Strokes. But whether you approve of those NYC'ers or not is irrelevant here, 'cause what The Vines really sound like (to these ears) is a cross between Nirvana or Mudhoney and Redd Kross. And, hey, that's not a bad thing. No complaints here. And besides, if the commerical plastic pop music you've got to endure on the radio, at the 7-11, the barber shop, the juice bar, at the mall, wherever, is totally fun, catchy, garagey rock with actual songs and guitar jangle and fuzz, that's a lot better than boy bands or Britney Spears or nu-metal ain't it?! More power to 'em. And hey -- the singer's accent is for once authentic. (Note: it's at a "nice price" for now, but we'll be you anything that the list price will get jacked up to $18.98 in a few months when and if they do become a bonafide big thing).
Carl-Michael Eide, aka Czral, of the illustrious Ved Buens Ende is back, with a 2nd Virus album, the band which continues the eccentric, eerily dissonant, darkly psychedelic sound once unique to VBE. And being back is pretty big deal, 'cause Carl-Michael very nearly died three years ago from a 4-story fall! Thankfully, he's recovered enough to mastermind this excellent Virus disc and also participate (under his guise of Aggressor) in the making of a new Aura Noir album too (also reviewed this list).
The late great VBE actually only made one proper album (1995's Written In Waters, sadly again out of print) plus a demos disc. At the time, we compared 'em to Slint, Don Caballero and Voivod - but somehow also black metal. Taking up where VBE left off, Virus in 2003 released the even quirkier Carheart album, that added extra electronic elements and a more prominent role for the bass, leading some to cite Talking Heads (!) and The Birthday Party as further-from-black-metal influences on their sound. And there's no denying that this ISN'T your usual black metal, or maybe black metal at all. With 'jazzy' bits, deep voiced vocal speak-singing, no wave grooves, and some vaguely techno-ish drum beats. But we'd say this one sounds more like old VBE than Carheart did, maybe 'cause some of these songs were originally written for an abortive VBE reunion attempt, heavier and less "pop", the guitars "smeary-er".
Regardless, even if VBE means nothing to you (yet), this new Virus is highly recommended for adventurous metal and non-metal listeners both, who'll appreciate its sonic similarities to Ulver and Arcturus, This Heat and the Swans... can you imagine a mathrock Amesoeurs perhaps, with Garm or Gira on vocals? It's dark metallic art rock with weird atmospheres, redolent of claustophobia and vertigo. Twisting, seasick and sinuous - not for everyone at all - but utterly compelling if you've caught the Virus.
Not sure when/where/how we first found out about Visitors and their 1974 self-titled album, but for the prog lovers here at Aquarius, it was love at first sight - literally, check out that cover art! A hyperencephalic space alien standing in a glowing doorway, the open door labeled "Sesame". The back cover is pretty freaky too: the disembodied heads of members of Visitors floating in front of an atomic mushroom cloud that's exploding out of a giant egg! And, yes, the music lived up to these silly-strange images. The album's heavy opener, "Dies Irae", with backwards effects, faux-Gregorian chant, wild synth flourishes, and wailing psych guitar, among other outre ingredients, is a grand(iose) introduction to the Visitors' over-the-top prog pleasures, coming off like a hybrid of Magma and an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. The tracks that follow maintain the same majestic/eccentric momentum. Imagine our favorite, craziest '70s Italian prog (Osanna, Area, Museo Rosenbach, etc.) meeting up with groovy orchestrations of a Serge Gainsbourg or Jean-Claude Vannier album. Visitors being in fact French, hence the latter comparisons.
Both Andee and Allan acquired copies of this cd for themselves as soon as they could, and always wanted to get it for Aquarius too, but only recently did we manage to contact the label in France and were able to order a bunch of this reissue to highlight. At the same time, we also finally figured out that a lot of AQ customers might be interested in this for another, specific, reason - Visitors was an exploitation-prog project of musical mastermind Jean-Pierre Massiera, whose surreal pop productions were the subject of two recent, quite popular collections we've been selling: Psychoses: Freakoid (1963-1978) and Psychoses: Discoid (1974-1981). Visitors actually appeared on both volumes, with "Flatwoods Story" (from this album) on Freakoid and "V-i-s-i-t-o-r-s" on Discoid.
Now's your chance to hear, from start to finish, an entire cult sci-fi concept album as envisioned by Massiera, unabashed prog bombast that's often haunting yet groovy at the same time. Although, at the time of its release, Visitors was a one-off album intended a cash-in on the progressive rock fad of the early '70s, its sci-fi concept probably not meant to be taken seriously either, nowadays it seems as valid, and certainly as enjoyable, as any other of the fabulous prog excesses of its era.
The cd booklet with this reissue includes photos, and liner notes in English giving a detailed history of Massiera's career, and includes full credits for all the twenty musicians and singers who participated, left anonymous on the original release. Among them, you'll find a future member of Magma, virtuoso violinist Didier Lockwood. And we were interested to learn that the "deep vocals" that occasionally pop up on the album were by Massiera himself.
One of the aQ metallers (that would be Allan), and a friend of his, who's played in some serious SF metal bands over the years, have this thing where they often text "VOIVOD!!!" to each other, in all-caps like that, when they're stoked about something or want to express the affirmative (this stems from repeated viewings of a Voivod dvd release from a few years ago, wherein a voice shouted "VOIVOD!!!" as you selected each chapter on the menu screen). Well, if anything to arrive at aQuarius this week deserves a hearty VOIVOD!!! this is it, of course - the brand new album from the brand new version of the famed French-Canadian sci-fi thrash/prog metal masters. The band's previous two studio albums psychically existed under a rather morbid cloud, as Voivod's founding guitarist and riff master Piggy had passed away in 2005, but (somewhat remarkably) remained as their guitarist, participating posthumously via a vast catalog of guitar parts he'd recorded on his hard drive before he died. Of course all Voivod fans wanted to hear Piggy playing - even from beyond the grave - but it made those albums (2006's Katorz and 2009's Infini) seem less the work of an ongoing, active band, than bittersweet memorials, no matter how good they were (and they certainly had their moments, especially the latter one). Each of those releases seemed like part of a slow, sad goodbye.
But then, thankfully deciding that Voivod must again live, really live, the surviving Voivodians, including erstwhile bassist Blacky (who last recorded with the band on 1991's Angel Rat), recruited a new guitarist to replace the late Piggy - and they chose wisely. New guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain (ex-Martyr) already has proved, via last year's ripping live album Warriors Of Ice, that he can play their older material, and now here on the long awaited Target Earth, demonstrates he can do justice to Piggy's legacy in contributing to new Voivod songs too. We doubt any Voivod fan would not agree that Chewy fits perfectly into the Voivod mechanism, you'll see. Thus revitalized, the post-Piggy Voivod simply kills it on this new album. Alienating and energetic, full of tension and aggression, it's a collection of very Voivodian compositions, off-kilter and complex - yet catchy. Heck if it doesn't sound like it could have come out directly following their late '80s classics Dimension Hatross and Nothingface. Definitely the best thing they've done in years, making us forget the alt/pop/punk/grunge stylings of the albums they did with Jason from Metallica, though we shan't get into a debate about the merits of the industrial flavored E-Force era albums (sorry, we're already getting a bit into the weeds here for those of you who are not major Voivod fanatics).
Suffice to say, Target Earth (hmm, didn't they know that was already the title of a Screamer album?) is replete with all the Voivod-isms you desire: the heavy, herky-jerky riffs and rhythms, the confusional time changes, the delirious dissonant sci-fi post punk atmospherics, the mega-advanced drumming of Away*, the thick angular blower bass lines of Blacky, the melodic, yet gruff and ragged (moreso than ever) droning vocals of Snake� that's all here, and so are the SONGS, they're good too! And Chewy, he sure does Piggy proud. Definitely call it a comeback - so look out Vektor, your grandpappas are back, and mean business! VOIVOD!!!!
*And his cover art too, of course, here in a slightly cartoonish style (and garish color scheme) very much like the one he did for the Orthrelm/Behold The Arctopus split cd a while back�
Ok, maybe this is weird to admit, but you know how sometimes you get to thinking about your own inevitable death? And all the things you'd miss about being alive? Well, I (Allan) can remember back in 1993 having such morbid thoughts, and specifically thinking how one major bummer about being dead would be that I'd never ever get to listen to THIS particular album again. I mean, it's not like I was thinking that The Outer Limits by Canadian cult metallers Voivod was, like, a reason to live, it didn't prevent me from trying suicide or anything dramatic like that. But it was something that, when contemplating my own mortality, I knew I'd miss. Considering my endless spinning of this when it came out, maybe that's no surprise. The riffs, the lyrics, the artwork, there was a lot to obsess over here!
Now, 15 years later, it's finally been reissued. And so of course I've got to recommend it, maybe you won't like it as much as I did (and still do) but do you really want to go to your grave without ever finding out? It's the Voivod album that followed their somewhat controversial leftfield stab at college radio alt-metal Angel Rat (1991), and for this Voivod fan turned out to be exactly what I wanted to hear from them, becoming my favorite Voivod ever next to their to their previous masterpiece Nothingface (1989), putting their psych, punk, and prog influences - from Pink Floyd to Iggy Pop - together in a practically perfect package. It took the avant-thrash complexities of Nothingface and mixed 'em with the more accessible, trippy melodicism of Angel Rat, making for a polished, technically brilliant album of individually memorable songs. Can't really even pick favorites among 'em, every one of the nine tracks here is so great, from the soaring, storming opener "Fix My Heart" to the the creepy "Le Pont Noir" to the album's 17-minute epic sci-fi centerpiece "Jack Luminous" (PROG!) to the groovy dark rocker "Wrong-Way Street". They also do another great Pink Floyd cover (after Nothingface's version of "Astronomy Domine"), this time powering up "The Nile Song".
The whole album has a majestically moody, ominous, vaguely sinister vibe, especially so when you pay attention to the narrative of such songs as "The Lost Machine" (one of the heavier numbers here, which could have appeared on Nothingface for sure, as could have the punkishly frantic "We Are Not Alone"). And, at the same time, these songs are all super catchy - in a quirky Voivod way, sometimes, or just plain catchy a la classic '70s rock like Alice Cooper. The Outer Limits sees Voivod perfecting their ability to totally rock out whist remaining spacey and psychedelic, with lyrics to match, with both "Time Warp" and "Moonbeam Rider" being great examples of this. Well, I could go on and on, talk about Snake's unique, compelling vocals and Piggy's stellar guitar playing and all, but instead let's leave it at that, for old Voivod fans and curious noobs! I will mention drummer Away's artwork - he provides evocative illustrations for each song in the cd booklet. Not only are they done in a cool, retro sci-fi style, but they, like the his cover drawing, are all in 3-D. And this numbered, limited edition, digipacked, digitally remastered, gold disk (whew!) reissue does indeed come with lil' red and blue 3-D glasses with which to properly view and appreciate Away's art!
The far out French-Canadian sci-fi metal institution Voivod, legendary geniuses at both raw punkish thrash and advanced psychedelic prog, recently brought us an excellent live album, Warriors Of Ice, their first recording without the presence of late, great guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour - although of course he'd had a hand in writing the songs, all old Voivod classics. It gave us reason to look forward to their future (studio) endeavors with Piggy's replacement, Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain.
Looking in the other direction, though, we've got this blast from the ancient past, featuring their original lineup of Piggy, Snake, Blacky, and Away. Alternative Tentacles, as if to celebrate the continuing legacy of Voivod, have just done an official reissue, on cd and vinyl, of one of the band's earliest demo tapes. As the title indicates, the year was 1984. Dystopian thrash was the primal order of the day. Light years from the technical and melodic extremes that they would eventually achieve - yet of course utterly "extreme" in its own right, and definitely already imbued with Voivod's trademark strangeness.
This release consists of 15 tracks, including such destined-to-be-well-known headbangers as "Voivod", "War And Pain", "Blower", "Suck Your Bone", "Nuclear War", and "Iron Gang", amongst others you'll recognize from Voivod's first few albums. Plus, they do a couple of cool covers that indicate Voivod aligned themselves with the "black metal" bands of their day: "Evil" by Mercyful Fate, and "Buried Alive" and "Bursting Out" by Venom! Also, worth the price of admission for any Voivod fanatic, there's the otherwise unreleased (except on other demos) track "Condemned To The Gallows", very cool and very Voivod, dunno why they never recorded it for any of their albums proper.
Sonically, the production is actually not that bad, it really sounds pretty darn good for a DIY demo done so many years ago!! No complaints there. Nor with the material, needless to say, it's killer stuff, as anyone into early 'Vod would expect - though you may be at bit surprised at Snake's harsh vocal style here, much sicker and screechier than what you may be used to, interesting indeed.
We can only hope that Alt Tentacles will follow up this historically significant release with a reissue of the Voivod's debut demo, the one that preceded this, 1983's Anachronism tape, which consisted mostly of covers by the likes of Judas Priest, Motorhead, Budgie, and various NWOBHM acts... we'd love to hear that too!
The sinewy, scary sounds of The Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Rapeman? All sorta rolled into one?? Yes, that's the kind of punch that this new German trio packs. And they're not shy about it. If you have a soft spot for that style of post-HC noise-rockin' heaviness, with whipcrack rhythms, angular guitars and rubbery bass brawniness, backing up some wretchedly angsty vox, you'll get a kick out of Volt. Indeed, they'll be kicking you in that soft spot with a steel-toed boot!
The noise-rock scene that apparently inspired Volt may have peaked way back in the early '90s but these kids (along with Noxagt) are bringing it back with a vengeance. This debut album exhibits an energetic, precise, metallic attack that grabbed us as soon as we heard it, and almost didn't believe it. Then we were like, cool!
Finally!!! It's taken us years (literally) but we finally managed to track down the second record (in a quantity enough to review and list) from one of our all time favorite outsider weirdo whatthefuck metal bands, VORAK! If you're a regular reader of the list, you know how much we love the damaged and demented, the fucked up and freaked out metal, so believe us when we tell you Vorak just might be the weirdest and most fucked up EVER. When we reviewed the first Vorak years and years ago, we summed it up suggesting that Lord Vorak, the man behind one man classical nihilist black metal commando unit Vorak "either must be joking or is totally out of his mind" and record number two only furthers that sentiment.
The first record was a dizzying logic defying head spinning blur of spastic drum machines, sped up vocals, garbled metal guitar and snatches of piano, all tossed in a blender and spewed out in a confusional froth. Well if anything, record number two, Rhetoric Of The Supermen, demonstrates a little bit more song structure, but manages to sound not one whit more sane. In fact Vorak's sound is almost even weirder when applied to actual sort-of-actual-song arrangements.
But let's start from the top. Vorak. Aka Lord Vorak, a man we're led to believe must be a classically trained pianist, whose record covers are covered in metallic gold busts, flaming eagles, and barbed wire, who's partial to song titles like "Dies Irae: Kruel And Glorious Purgation Of The Untermenschen", "Synthetic Nepenthe", "Australyan Uber-Volkslieder 1", there seems to be some sort of obsession with fascism, inside the booklet, it mentions that "All aspects of this supreme music of the future production emanate from the mind of Lord Vorak entirely for his own amusement and gratification"... and heck, we haven't even gotten to the music yet.
An ultra fucked up and completely fractured assemblage of super distorted classical piano, screeching metallic buzz, damaged chipmunk vocals, stumbling chaotic drum programming, interspersed with some straight classical piano, some soaring strings, all tangled and convoluted, every track rife with new head scratching (and head banging) moments...
The record opens with some wild tangled harpsichord sounding piano, dense flurries of notes, strangely recorded, but distinctly classical, until the super distorted metal riffing takes over at the beginning of track two, laid over a series of struggling stumbling drum machine rhythms, and super high pitched vocals, sounding a bit like that girl at the beginning of Kiss's "God Of Thunder" but more maniacal... The guitar is furious, the riffing relentless, with wild squiggly leads everywhere, huge swells of string like synths, and the vocals squawking and bleating all over the place, the drums a head spinning splatter... The next track slows things down a little bit, a thick sheet of blurred distorted guitar laid over some gorgeous minor key piano, the vocals sporadic and drenched in reverb, creepy more than weird, the whole thing super emotional and dark, but still completely unhinged.
Then comes "Blood-Reich 2000", with its relentless metallic onslaught, that gives way to strange piano / helium vocals / sputtering drum machine interludes, always returning to that furious minor key riffing. Several tracks are just piano, and those are quite stunning, atonal and modern, but still melodic and emotional, also strangely recorded so the lower notes are super distorted and at times sounding like a harpsichord. And there's one long track of blown out ambience, fuzzy and blurry, and strangely cinematic, thick swaths of buzz over strings all arranged into sweeping movements. But those tracks are surrounded on all sides by mind melting flurries of manic metal and furious freaked out metallic damage.
The disc includes two bonus tracks, both solo piano, both pieces by Richard Wagner, a strangely lovely and sedate finish to a record that most definitely ranks as one of the weirdest, and absolutely one of our all time favorites.
Totally recommended. And absolutely essential for all lovers of damaged, demented, fucked up, freaked out, outsider metal weirdness.
Is it a screeching petrodactyl attacking a piano? Wagner gone mad with a drum machine?? Actually this is a Nietzsche-obsessed multi-instrumentalist manaic from Austrialia. Vorak is his one-man "black metal" band, and he's either got to be joking or he is
So totally demented, so totally retarded, Vorak's 1996 debut "Triumph Of The Will" might even edge out Benighted Leams' "Astral Tenebrion" as the most retarded black metal album ever -- which means it's so amazing you'll die. Among other things, Vorak plays fretless bass and vibraphone, but it all comes out as utterly nonsensical noise. Perhaps the only "metal" thing we've heard that's more fucked than Vorak are the mp3's by Exhumed Narcissist Paleontologist (http://www.reckankomplex.com/enp) but that's definitely a joke (being Keith "Hrvatski" Whitman's death metal band).
Why did a label even release this?? We don't know, but we're glad they did. We've been dying to share this with y'all ever since we discovered it a while ago, but only just recently managed to get a few copies of this disc, cheap. (Unbelievably, there's a second Vorak album from 1998 that's equally insane, but perhaps not surprisingly it doesn't seem that anyone we deal with stocks it!).
Ok, with their nasty-sounding name and mostly-black cover art with a festering skull on it, you might get the idea that Vulgaari are gonna be a dark and heavy band. And they are! But their brand of blown-out, brutal death-doom sludge metal is also pretty darn spacey and psychedelic too, making even more to our liking. Vuglaari recorded this, their debut album, as a duo, but have an expanded live line-up, doubtless a necessity if they were ever gonna hope to sound this heavy outside of the studio. So sheer wall-of-FUZZ heaviness is indeed a big part of their equation. But what makes their catastrophic, claustrophobic crush work for us is the way it's interspersed with spacious ambience and eerie trippiness and sometimes out-and-out BEAUTIFUL guitar not-so-gently-weeping moments. Harmonies and all that. Gorgeous harmonies. Yeah, that's a major factor contributing to the greatness of Vulgaari, they're a sludge band that's more than just about the filthy "sound" and the slowness (though they have all that checked off for sure), they've also got some melodic, very "metal" lead guitar shred going on too, which, with the occasional squealing lick, reminds us a little bit of Zakk Wylde. In the context, though, of druggy-spacey-evil atmosphere and uber-low-end chugging riffage, "bendy" riffage that's usually in super slo-mo but sometimes speeds up to bulldozing effect.
Their page on the Metal Archive site lists their lyrical concerns as: "Outer Space, Hallucinogens, Motorcycles, Death". Cool. All of that makes perfect sense with this music, even though of course it's pretty tough to decipher the content of the singer's guttural vokill exhalations. But the occasional samples used to introduce the tracks are definitely about such things. The songtitles too are suggestive ("Outride The Reaper", "Dirt From The Grave"). Recommended heaviness!
Available as compact disc, or double vinyl in gatefold sleeve, that also includes a cd of the album.
EM Records of Japan is a label from which we *always* are eager to hear more, specializing as they do in the most odd, obscure, awesome reissues EVER. Without them, we wouldn't have such a great selection of musical saw cds here at Aquarius. Or '70s New Age weirdness. Or psychedelic surf music soundtracks. Or (most recently) steel drum jazz funk!
While the steel drum jazz funk might have appealed mostly to the more eccentric crate digging DJ types, we know that THIS release is gonna really take off here. That's 'cause it's all about the DRONE. And y'all love drone we know.
Yoshi Wada is a Japanese artist who relocated to New York City in the late '60s and (just like another Japanese expatriate, Yoko Ono) got heavily involved with the conceptual art movement known as Fluxus. Doing sculpture, performance, and sound installations, he rubbed elbows with the likes of minimalist maverick LaMonte Young, studying with both him and Indian vocal guru Pandit Pran Nath. That's very evident on this album, the intriguingly titled Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile, which was originally released on vinyl in 1982 by the avant garde label India Navigation (responsible for important Dreyblatt and Niblock documents as well). Wada only made two records, of which this one is considered his most significant, not to mention rarest.
There's two long tracks here (over a half-hour each). Both are utter drooooooooooone nirvana. Track one, "Singing" (31:06), is ALL voice, Wada giving long guttural throat-bleatings (waaaaah waaaaaah ooooooooo....) that he builds into a gorgeous, rising and falling soundscape of overtones and drones. He recorded it in an empty swimming pool for extra bass and natural echoing effect... the results are serene yet joyous, somehow liturgical, suggestive of blissful monkish raptures. Wada certainly got into it, actually spending the night before this recording *sleeping* alone in the pool, and (he says) almost experiencing auditory hallucinations due to the resonant acoustics of the space.
The second track, side two of the original LP, is a continuation of the first with even MORE drone. Entitled "Bagpipe" (33:17), it adds to Wada's vocal intonations the sound of experimental homebuilt reed instruments of Wada's own devising, "adapted bagpipes with sympathy" made of plumbing tubes, powered by an air compressor. Improvising with voice and "bagpipe", this piece is much louder, denser, and grindingly trance-like than the far more delicate first track. The two instruments he used are pictured on this cd's back cover. One is called The Elephantine Crocodile, and another The Alligator. Both are Partch-like sound-making sculptural objects in their own right. They're carefully tuned to take advantage of higher octave harmonics and microtonal partials and other things that we'd need more study of music theory to understand exactly, but obviously with which Wada is fully conversant. What we do know for sure is that with his voice and unusual instruments he's conjured a deeply psychedelic and meditative dronescape that we're darn glad EM (in conjunction with another cool Japanese label, Omega Point) have seen fit to unearth and reissue!!
If you like drones, this not only a worthy historical document, but also would be a fantastic listen even if it had just been recorded yesterday. In fact, it compares interestingly to another drone release reviewed this list, Schmickler and Chisholm's Amazing Daze. But Wada achieved these drones without the aid of electronics or computers. About the only complaint we could make about it is the rather abrupt ending! We realize that it can't go on forever (as much as we'd like it to) but its sudden cessation (instead of a gradual fade out) can harsh one's mellow... though if you're like us you'll listen to this going to sleep at night and won't ever make it conscious to the end anyway.
This has been digitally remastered from the original tapes, with the two pieces restored to their original intended lengths (they'd been edited down to fit on the LP release). And as usual, it gets a fabulous EM packaging job, complete with vintage b&w photos and extensive 1982 and 2007 liner notes in both English and Japanese, written by Wada himself. This one is definitely up there in the pantheon of EM essentials, and that's saying a lot.
We have to thank Japan's EM Records - actually, we've been doing that a lot lately - but this time we have to thank 'em for turning us on to the celestial soundworlds of dronologist Yoshi Wada. If you've read our reviews of EM's two previous Wada reissues, you know he's a Japanese sculptor/composer who made his way to New York City in the late '60s, delving into the Fluxus conceptual art movement and hanging out with folks like pioneering minimalist LaMonte Young. In 1982, Wada issued an LP entitled Lament For The Rise And Fall Of Elephantine Crocodile, featuring his voice and homebuilt instruments. When it was reissued on EM last year, we were bowled over by its unique deep drone soundings. EM's second Wada reissue, The Appointed Cloud, from 1987, was equally amazing.
Happily, there's more Wada releases in the vaults than we'd thought. Now EM has brought out a cd version this one, Off The Wall, which was originally released on vinyl in 1985 by the German free improv label FMP. Dubbed a "majestic minimalist monsterpiece" by EM, it consists of two long tracks (over twenty minutes each), a part one and part two of the same performance, which features the bagpipe blowing of Yoshi Wada and colleague Wayne Hankin, along with the "adapted organ" (pipe organ put together by Wada) played by Marilyn Bogerd, and the percussion of Andreas Schmidt-Neri.
EM have also added a bonus cut - this third (and even longer than either of the others, at 27:14) track, "Die Konsonanten Pfeifen", was recorded in Berlin in 1983 and originally issued as a cassette. Again, Wada and Hankin play the bagpipes, this time accompanied by percussion (tympani, tam tam, and cymbal) from one Kevin Newhoff, which kicks in, with a hiccup, near about the halfway point, providing steady, ominous pulsations that bring to mind some of the portentous mood of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra".
Bagpipes, that's right, this is bagpipe music. But it doesn't sound much like Scotland's The Black Watch. Maybe if the Royal Highland Regiment were marching to 20th century avant-classical. Keening endlessly, the twin bagpipes of Wada and Hankin weave exotic-sounding tones and overtones together in slowly shifting, shimmering patterns, that seem to keep one step head of your sensory apparatus, so that you realize there's something new going on in the piece only after you've been hearing it already for a few moments. The effect of these modulations is quite mesmeric, almost meditative, New Age with an edge, like Phill Niblock meets Terry Riley, taken to a Far Eastern extreme. The multiple instrumental voices blend into one total drone, yet upon examination each has its own wending and winding part to play. The usual repetition of "minimalist" music isn't so mechanically evident here, Wada's drones floating high into the expanses of space, combining with the rumbling earth-bound drums to achieve a sort of ceremonial aspect and dramatic impact.
Yes, thank you EM! This is packaged in the usual excellent EM fashion, in a tri-fold sleeve with original liner notes in both English and Japanese translation, also b&w photographs, and a full-color reproduction of the original graphic score for "Off The Wall".
