In reality, this was recorded live at the Great Hall of New York Hall of Science in New York, November 8th 1987. But listening to it, you could easily imagine it being part of some mysterious & portentous religious ritual, enacted high on the slopes of some vast Himalayan mountain by horn-blowing, drum-beating Tibetan monks... these monks perhaps being part of an aktion under the direction of dramatic drone artist Hermann Nitsch. Seriously. Well it's not Nitsch, it's Yoshi Wada, and there were no monks involved, but we're sure it was an impressive performance to witness in its own right. Certainly to hear, which thanks to EM Records, we all now can.
This is the sequel to EM's previous reissue, some months ago, of Yoshi Wada's first album, Lament For The Rise And Fall Of Elephantine Crocodile. While that 1982 LP may have more rare record collector cachet, and be more historically significant chronologically speaking, we have to say that this one is at least as amazing. As we explained in our review of Lament, Wada is a Japanese visual artist and sound sculptor who relocated to New York in the '60s, where he aligned himself with the Fluxus conceptual art movement and definitely got deep into dronology. (He now lives in San Francisco, and for more information on his career, check out the June '08 issue of The Wire, #292, which features an interview with Wada conducted by AQ's own Jim Haynes.)
The Appointed Cloud, a composition/sound installation "designed specifically for the acoustics of the cobalt blue cathedral of the Great Hall", utilized a massive Wada-designed soundmaking assemblage controlled by a computer interface, this unusual "pipe organ" constructed from compressed-air powered pipes, a suspended 20 foot long sheet of metal, and a steam pipe gong. In addition, Wada and the other musicians involved play timpani, tam tam, sirens, and a trio of keening bagpipes. All this in the majestic, modernistic stained-glass setting of the Great Hall.
As alluded to above, this is somewhat suggestive of Buddhist ritual, and reminds us of Nitsch's large-scale symphonics as well. Rather than give a minute by minute play by play of this piece's hour-long duration, we'd encourage you to experience it for yourself. Experience the thundering drum vibrations, the percussive rattle, the quiet gentle tones and hushed rustle that erupt into dense bagpiping drone squeals and resonating rumble... it's grand and gorgeous.
Physically this cd reish is up to EM's usual high standards, packaged in a gatefold sleeve with color photos, a reduced reproduction of the piece's graphic score, liner notes by Wada as well as the original program notes, in both English and Japanese. Soundwise, it's also up there with that first Wada disc among our favorite stuff that EM has yet released -- in other words, highly recommended!! Even moreso for those especially dronologically and/or 20th century classically inclined.
Well Dang! Why it seems we're in the midst of a full-on Porter Wagoner revival. Not only has the man just released one of the best country albums of the year (Wagonmaster, which we reviewed last list), but at the ripe old age of 80, just played to a sell-out audience at Madison Square Garden opening for The White Stripes. While for a time, he seemed to epitomize everything that was old-fashioned about Nashville, from his vintage glittering suits to his often overtly pained and sentimental delivery on many a song about love and The Lord. No truer did that image seem to be when Dolly Parton, who first debuted on Wagoner's TV show before becoming his most popular singing and song-writing partner for nearly ten years, decided to part ways for a solo career in the mid-seventies. Surely a low point in his career, but the man never went away, quietly releasing records and remaining an ambassadorial presence on the Grand Ole Opry circuit ever since.
Yet, it also looks like all that flash and kitsch so present in Wagoner's performances and recordings have inspired a hip cult following through the years after all. But not because of his more popular hits. We mentioned in the Wagonmaster review about an early seventies song that was a bit of a novelty hit, called "The Rubber Room", a dark, wrenching, reverb-soaked ode to mental illness. Well, most of his records from the mid-sixties onward had a track or two that delved similarly into the darkest of themes: revenge, murder, murder-suicide, insanity, prison, parental abuse, neglect, drinking, punishment, and redemption. The album covers similarly shared his fondness for theatricality, sometimes dressing up as a hobo, wino, prisoner, or shown walking in on his unfaithful wife. These songs weren't always his biggest hits but they had the highest Nashville production values with strings, choirs and dramatic special effects, and put together they create a bizarrely surreal patchwork of the Southern Gothic. So what better way to celebrate Porter Wagoner's big career revival with this mighty anthology put out by the awesome folks at Omni (who also brought us the Bruce Haack Electric Lucifer reissue we made record of the week, a couple lists back). Instead of focusing on charted singles and successes, this anthology compiles together 29 left-field tracks recorded between 1966 and 1977 (with the exception of only one charted single, "The Carroll County Accident") that cover all the dark themes mentioned above, many in poetical song-story form and loosely sequenced in themes.
So let's give a brief summary here of the main themes, after "The Rubber Room", there are some country-crossover songs, reminiscent in style to Lee Hazlewood and Jimmy Webb, that deal with the savage life of Native Americans outlaws ("George Leroy Chickashea", "Indian Creek"). Then, there are the achingly lonely tear-in-your-beer songs ("Lonely Comin' Down", "Lonelyville"), which then segue into the cheating songs, ("My Many Hurried Southern Trips", "Woman Hungry") then the wife-killing and wife/other man-killing songs ("First Mrs. Jones", "The Cold Hard Facts of Life" "Julie"). After that there are some tear-in-your-BOTTLE songs ("Wino", "Bottom of The Bottle") then the hobo songs ("Life Rides The Train", "My Last Two Tens"), then a prison song sung from the point of view of the prisoner's only son ("Let Me In"). Then the devastating Dolly Parton duet, "The Party" about a couple's children who die tragically while the parents were out partying. And finally a couple of songs about prayer and redemption ("Little Boy's Prayer" and "Moments of Meditation") just to give a slight semblence of hope to things. Phew! and there's so much more!
Surely not the happiest of records, but one that will still undoubtedly put a smile on your face. It's definitely one of the most well curated, intriguing and exciting country collections to be put to disc from a man who is finally getting his due. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note: The first pressing is currently out of print. We've got a bunch of these, but it may take a while to get the next batch, so please be patient if and when we run out.
We are so VERY pleased to now have these, nice vinyl reissues (for the first time ever, we're pretty sure) of the three earliest, eeriest albums from the '70s by obscure & unusual French composer Igor Wakhevitch! They're imports from a label based in Barcelona, so they're not that cheap, but they're worth it. Perhaps you remember, years and years ago, the Fractal label released a limited, now long out of print, six-cd box set of Wakhevitch's works circa 1970-1979? We all freaked over that - everyone who worked at aQ at the time bought a copy!! And it was his first three records, these ones, Logos, Docteur Faust, and Hathor, that we were most excited about. All are masterpieces of tense awe-inspiring surrealism constructed from neo-chamber music, spatial electronics, massive plodding percussion, and odd ethnic influences, and feature occasional contributions from French psych band Triangle and some other rock musicians (including Magma's famous bassist Jannick Top), making for an incredible combination of evocative modern classical composition (with choirs, etc.) and krautrockish rhythms and fuzzed guitar. While he was an early associate of Terry Riley and Soft Machine (Docteur Faust is dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Mike Rattledge), Wakhevitch's work is far more malevolent than those artists, taking on qualities that we suggest have more in common with, believe it or not, the Swans. It should not be a surprise that the Swans' Michael Gira has claimed Wakhevitch as one of his favorite musicians. And likewise no surprise that Wakhevitch appears on the infamous Nurse With Wound list. We figure that folks who enjoyed the recent reissues of the strange library music of Egisto Macchi and Alessandro Alessandroni, and the symphonic psychedelics of Jean-Claude Vannier and recent Record Of The Weeker William Sheller will find much twisted appeal in Wakhevitch's music. Also fans of the 20th century classical creepiness of the likes of Luigi Nono, Luc Ferrari, and Stockhausen and/or such out-there prog bands as Magma and Faust ought to find themselves enthused about these records too.
Wakhevitch's first album, 1970's Logos, bears the subtitle: "Rituel Sonore pour Group Pop (Triangle), Choeur mixte et Bande Magnetique" and yessir it's a "Rituel Sonore" all right. The eerie opening sets the stage for much of what is to follow, full of rumbling drone and sinister synth shimmer, accompanying otherworldly wordless vocals, like hearing some dramatic, disturbing vocal choir wailing away on a distant windswept planet. As the album progresses, to these strange sounds are added some symphonic-scale percussion (timpani and the like), and eventually, on side two, some urgent, repetitive rock freakout action occurs (that's the band Triangle), replete with heavy ominous echoing chords... It's a powerful mix of avant-classical choirs, electronic tape music, and psychedelic rock weirdness. This record was originally meant as music for a ballet - a very modern, dark and twisted one we can only imagine! Comes in a gatefold sleeve, with notes mentioning Wakhevitch's interest in the mysticism of Gurdieff among other things.
1971's Docteur Faust is equally mad. This occultic avant-classical and acid rock combination is again music for a ballet, it's a kaleidoscopic collage of psychedelic sounds, with sci-fi synths, funky heavy beats, mystic atmospheres, crazed electronics, fuzzed out riffage, tape manipulation, bizarre vocal outbursts, and so much more. Who knew ballets could be this trippy?? One of our favorite tracks in the whole Wakhevitch canon resides here, "Licorns", which in part appears to feature a whinnying horse playing a harpsichord! But that's sandwiched between many other parts equally maniacal and insane, groovy and distorted.
And then there's the even more esoteric Hathor from 1973, a Satanic opera of sorts, subtitled "Liturgie du Souffle pour la Resurrection des Morts". We don't have to tell you what that means. Another hallucinatory mixture of avant-classical moves and cosmic electronics in a majestic, ritualistic composition meant to raise the dead. Hathor lays on the thick synth drones from the get-go, with monkish vocal chants hovering over the bass-heavy whoosh. Ominous and epic! Of course Wakhevitch soon shifts sonic gears, with other psychedelic surprises in store - spoken word & screams, tinkling percussion, shuddering beats, organ melodies - but of these albums this is perhaps his space-iest and synth-iest. Also a gatefold, with insert.
All three albums are quite recommended, as uniquely powerful & deliriously demented listening experiences. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
We are so VERY pleased to now have these, nice vinyl reissues (for the first time ever, we're pretty sure) of the three earliest, eeriest albums from the '70s by obscure & unusual French composer Igor Wakhevitch! They're imports from a label based in Barcelona, so they're not that cheap, but they're worth it. Perhaps you remember, years and years ago, the Fractal label released a limited, now long out of print, six-cd box set of Wakhevitch's works circa 1970-1979? We all freaked over that - everyone who worked at aQ at the time bought a copy!! And it was his first three records, these ones, Logos, Docteur Faust, and Hathor, that we were most excited about. All are masterpieces of tense awe-inspiring surrealism constructed from neo-chamber music, spatial electronics, massive plodding percussion, and odd ethnic influences, and feature occasional contributions from French psych band Triangle and some other rock musicians (including Magma's famous bassist Jannick Top), making for an incredible combination of evocative modern classical composition (with choirs, etc.) and krautrockish rhythms and fuzzed guitar. While he was an early associate of Terry Riley and Soft Machine (Docteur Faust is dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Mike Rattledge), Wakhevitch's work is far more malevolent than those artists, taking on qualities that we suggest have more in common with, believe it or not, the Swans. It should not be a surprise that the Swans' Michael Gira has claimed Wakhevitch as one of his favorite musicians. And likewise no surprise that Wakhevitch appears on the infamous Nurse With Wound list. We figure that folks who enjoyed the recent reissues of the strange library music of Egisto Macchi and Alessandro Alessandroni, and the symphonic psychedelics of Jean-Claude Vannier and recent Record Of The Weeker William Sheller will find much twisted appeal in Wakhevitch's music. Also fans of the 20th century classical creepiness of the likes of Luigi Nono, Luc Ferrari, and Stockhausen and/or such out-there prog bands as Magma and Faust ought to find themselves enthused about these records too.
Wakhevitch's first album, 1970's Logos, bears the subtitle: "Rituel Sonore pour Group Pop (Triangle), Choeur mixte et Bande Magnetique" and yessir it's a "Rituel Sonore" all right. The eerie opening sets the stage for much of what is to follow, full of rumbling drone and sinister synth shimmer, accompanying otherworldly wordless vocals, like hearing some dramatic, disturbing vocal choir wailing away on a distant windswept planet. As the album progresses, to these strange sounds are added some symphonic-scale percussion (timpani and the like), and eventually, on side two, some urgent, repetitive rock freakout action occurs (that's the band Triangle), replete with heavy ominous echoing chords... It's a powerful mix of avant-classical choirs, electronic tape music, and psychedelic rock weirdness. This record was originally meant as music for a ballet - a very modern, dark and twisted one we can only imagine! Comes in a gatefold sleeve, with notes mentioning Wakhevitch's interest in the mysticism of Gurdieff among other things.
1971's Docteur Faust is equally mad. This occultic avant-classical and acid rock combination is again music for a ballet, it's a kaleidoscopic collage of psychedelic sounds, with sci-fi synths, funky heavy beats, mystic atmospheres, crazed electronics, fuzzed out riffage, tape manipulation, bizarre vocal outbursts, and so much more. Who knew ballets could be this trippy?? One of our favorite tracks in the whole Wakhevitch canon resides here, "Licorns", which in part appears to feature a whinnying horse playing a harpsichord! But that's sandwiched between many other parts equally maniacal and insane, groovy and distorted.
And then there's the even more esoteric Hathor from 1973, a Satanic opera of sorts, subtitled "Liturgie du Souffle pour la Resurrection des Morts". We don't have to tell you what that means. Another hallucinatory mixture of avant-classical moves and cosmic electronics in a majestic, ritualistic composition meant to raise the dead. Hathor lays on the thick synth drones from the get-go, with monkish vocal chants hovering over the bass-heavy whoosh. Ominous and epic! Of course Wakhevitch soon shifts sonic gears, with other psychedelic surprises in store - spoken word & screams, tinkling percussion, shuddering beats, organ melodies - but of these albums this is perhaps his space-iest and synth-iest. Also a gatefold, with insert.
All three albums are quite recommended, as uniquely powerful & deliriously demented listening experiences. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
We are so VERY pleased to now have these, nice vinyl reissues (for the first time ever, we're pretty sure) of the three earliest, eeriest albums from the '70s by obscure & unusual French composer Igor Wakhevitch! They're imports from a label based in Barcelona, so they're not that cheap, but they're worth it. Perhaps you remember, years and years ago, the Fractal label released a limited, now long out of print, six-cd box set of Wakhevitch's works circa 1970-1979? We all freaked over that - everyone who worked at aQ at the time bought a copy!! And it was his first three records, these ones, Logos, Docteur Faust, and Hathor, that we were most excited about. All are masterpieces of tense awe-inspiring surrealism constructed from neo-chamber music, spatial electronics, massive plodding percussion, and odd ethnic influences, and feature occasional contributions from French psych band Triangle and some other rock musicians (including Magma's famous bassist Jannick Top), making for an incredible combination of evocative modern classical composition (with choirs, etc.) and krautrockish rhythms and fuzzed guitar. While he was an early associate of Terry Riley and Soft Machine (Docteur Faust is dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Mike Rattledge), Wakhevitch's work is far more malevolent than those artists, taking on qualities that we suggest have more in common with, believe it or not, the Swans. It should not be a surprise that the Swans' Michael Gira has claimed Wakhevitch as one of his favorite musicians. And likewise no surprise that Wakhevitch appears on the infamous Nurse With Wound list. We figure that folks who enjoyed the recent reissues of the strange library music of Egisto Macchi and Alessandro Alessandroni, and the symphonic psychedelics of Jean-Claude Vannier and recent Record Of The Weeker William Sheller will find much twisted appeal in Wakhevitch's music. Also fans of the 20th century classical creepiness of the likes of Luigi Nono, Luc Ferrari, and Stockhausen and/or such out-there prog bands as Magma and Faust ought to find themselves enthused about these records too.
Wakhevitch's first album, 1970's Logos, bears the subtitle: "Rituel Sonore pour Group Pop (Triangle), Choeur mixte et Bande Magnetique" and yessir it's a "Rituel Sonore" all right. The eerie opening sets the stage for much of what is to follow, full of rumbling drone and sinister synth shimmer, accompanying otherworldly wordless vocals, like hearing some dramatic, disturbing vocal choir wailing away on a distant windswept planet. As the album progresses, to these strange sounds are added some symphonic-scale percussion (timpani and the like), and eventually, on side two, some urgent, repetitive rock freakout action occurs (that's the band Triangle), replete with heavy ominous echoing chords... It's a powerful mix of avant-classical choirs, electronic tape music, and psychedelic rock weirdness. This record was originally meant as music for a ballet - a very modern, dark and twisted one we can only imagine! Comes in a gatefold sleeve, with notes mentioning Wakhevitch's interest in the mysticism of Gurdieff among other things.
1971's Docteur Faust is equally mad. This occultic avant-classical and acid rock combination is again music for a ballet, it's a kaleidoscopic collage of psychedelic sounds, with sci-fi synths, funky heavy beats, mystic atmospheres, crazed electronics, fuzzed out riffage, tape manipulation, bizarre vocal outbursts, and so much more. Who knew ballets could be this trippy?? One of our favorite tracks in the whole Wakhevitch canon resides here, "Licorns", which in part appears to feature a whinnying horse playing a harpsichord! But that's sandwiched between many other parts equally maniacal and insane, groovy and distorted.
And then there's the even more esoteric Hathor from 1973, a Satanic opera of sorts, subtitled "Liturgie du Souffle pour la Resurrection des Morts". We don't have to tell you what that means. Another hallucinatory mixture of avant-classical moves and cosmic electronics in a majestic, ritualistic composition meant to raise the dead. Hathor lays on the thick synth drones from the get-go, with monkish vocal chants hovering over the bass-heavy whoosh. Ominous and epic! Of course Wakhevitch soon shifts sonic gears, with other psychedelic surprises in store - spoken word & screams, tinkling percussion, shuddering beats, organ melodies - but of these albums this is perhaps his space-iest and synth-iest. Also a gatefold, with insert.
All three albums are quite recommended, as uniquely powerful & deliriously demented listening experiences. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wondrous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (nee: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theater of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Although comprised mostly of covers, Walker already began to show strong songwriting skills on his first solo record, Scott, especially with "Montague Terrace (In Blue)" where he describes unsavory neighbors in his tenement flat, one as a "bloated belching figure", and another "whose thighs are full of tales to tell of nights she's known". But it's "My Death", one of three Brel covers that is the album's centerpiece. Later covered by David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, Walker's version features such hypnotic orchestration, serpentine guitar passages and swelling stabbing strings that it almost feels like we're being brought to the threshold of death on a cloud of poisonous perfume.
Overall, a fine selection of songs that show his range of performance and promise for the records to come.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 2 is one of our favorites, not that it's necessarily different from the others but the choice of songs flows perfectly together. In fact the first side of Scott 2 is pure pop vocal perfection, beginning with the Brel cover "Jackie", whose enthusiastically fast delivery is mind-boggling (Youtube this!). Then the bitter torch of "Best of Both Worlds", the Tim Hardin cover, "Black Sheep Boy", the original "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg" about a man escaping from the claustrophobia of domestic life into a tragic fantasy. "Next" is next, one of Brel's most visceral and theatrical tunes about the dehumanizing experience of a military coming of age, which is then followed by Walker's companion sequel "Girls From The Streets" told by the same character as a man resigned to a life of bitterness and depravity. Yet the centerpiece is the fantasia "Plastic Palace People", which begins side 2. A dizzying dualistic fairy tale about a boy's embrace of his youthful innocence and a girl mourning the loss of hers. This kills!
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 3 has the best cover art of the bunch. The others are pretty straight ahead portraits, but 3 is a close up of an eye with vibrantly purple eyelashes. Inside the pupil we see a melancholy Walker, which is apt, as Scott 3 is the most melancholy of the four records. The tempo is slower and apart from the Brel inspired original, "We Came Through" and the quirky acoustic tribute to Cryogenics of "30th Century Man" (featured on the soundtrack to Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic"), most of the tracks on Scott 3 are ballads to the ghosts of romance. Definitely a rainy day record, and probably not the best place to start for newbies.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 4 is definitely the most unique of the four. It's all original compositions for one thing, but also the arrangements are more upbeat, and while the orchestral elements are there, folk, rock and country elements of guitar and drums appear more than ever before. Still eccentric songwriting abounds. The opener, "The Seventh Seal", a flamenco pop tribute to the Bergman film of the same name about a medieval knight's chess game with Death is full of the pomp we love in Scott Walkers music. And while there are no Brel covers on 4, his influence can be heard on centerpiece "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)", as well as "Hero of the War". A sequel of sorts to "Plastic Palace People" on Scott 2 can be seen in "Boy Child", one of the most beautifully arranged ballads, while the strings in "The World's Strongest Man" brings tears every time. Yet, weirder still, the final three songs take a strange turn into lush country pop with slide guitar, and back-up vocals (for the first time!) that allude to the direction Walker persued unsuccessfully through the seventies. Still very Stellar!
Now here's a warehouse find that actually came from a real warehouse, instead of our closet behind the counter or the shelf near Andee's desk. We dug up a handful of these at one of our distributors, the same place we found those rare Japanese cds we've listed lately.
We have always been obsessed with Shimmy Disc. For a long stretch there, everything they put out was weird and wonderful and unlike ANYthing else we had ever heard. Bongwater, Velvet Monkeys, Dogbowl, B.A.L.L., Fred Lane, King Missile, Carney-Hild-Kramer, Spongehead, Shockabilly, Jellyfish Kiss, and long before they became household names, Shimmy Disc was introducing us to groups like the Boredoms, the Ruins, Gwar, Naked City, Ween, Damon And Naomi we could go on. Needless to say, our Shimmy loyalty was not misplaced.
One other band we discovered via Shimmy Disc, was UK psychedelic space rockers Walkingseeds, and as luck would have it, one of our local distributors had a handful of copies gathering dust in their warehouse, of the group's final, and some would argue best, record, Bad Orb, Whirling Ball. If you're a reader of Julian Cope's Head Heritage blog (and if you're not you should be!), you might remember him raving about Bad Orb, describing it thusly:
"An album of malign, choppy cosmic fuzz that Killing Joke would have died for, an album that twists American delta blues and English folk shanties into strange psychedelic vistas that far better musicians can only dream of... a relentless, cathartic, pysch-rock album that spins with malice towards its final conclusion!"
Tough to argue with that, and why would you? This is some fantastically tripped out, spacey, weirdly poppy, psychedelic fuzz garage heaviness, produced by Shimmy Disc head honcho Kramer, so instead of sounding heavy or spacey, it sounds gorgeously washed out and cosmic, otherworldly, but still raw and urgent and super rocking. Don Fleming of B.A.L.L. and at one time Dinosaur Jr. contributes some "Chinese alien guitar" on one track, which is a strange coincidence since head Walkingseed Frank Martin is an almost dead ringer for Fleming, with a similarly nasal, ragged style of vocalizing.
Equal parts Stooges, Blue Cheer, Hawkwind, Blue Oyster Cult (who they cover on another record), the Beatles (who they cover brilliantly here), vintage psychedelia, classic sixties pop, seventies classic rock, druggy space rock, crunchy, fuzzy, gritty, garagey, loose and still fucking amazing. Puts the current crop of wannabe psychedelic space rockers to shame! We figure fans of The Heads should dig.
The cd version includes three bonus tracks which are remixes of songs from the group's previous record, Upwind Of Disaster, Downwind Of Atonement, and offer up more of the same, and will most likely have you desperately searching for a copy of that one too. Good luck! Worth the hunt for sure. Unfortunately, we have a very limited number of these, especially the cds, which we most likely will NOT be able to get more of, it's long out of print, so we took all the copies our distributor had, but they do have more of the lp, and while that's 3 tracks shorter than the cd, it's also cheaper!
From a label known for supreme downer doom dirge comes this surprise debut by a group of happy, heavy, hot-rockin' throwbacks called The Want, from Jersey. Playing it in the store had amazed customers asking if this was an obscure '70s hard rock reissue. It's not just the tunage that's retro, but the production is authentic '70s sounding too. Amazing. Channelled directly from the likes of Zep, Budgie, Captain Beyond, Free... Great stuff, recommended (despite their violation of two of Allan's many pet peeves: an album title like "Greatest Hits vol. 5", and the unnecessary use of the Greek alphabet on the packaging).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Debut cd from this Boston doom metal band (which we have been waiting for ever since we reviewed their "Priestess" 12" on list #99, which we still have in stock). In a word: heavy!! Devastatingly so. Compares well to very early Cathedral and Electric Wizard in that department. Indeed, they're going on tour with the Wizard! But their heaviness is moderated with occasional quiet parts -- piano, acoustic guitar, jazz bass interludes, all nice moves giving them an original sound, enhancing the heaviness when the electric guitars crush back to the fore, while also giving "As Heaven Turns To Ash" a bit of a psychedelic, '70s cosmic vibe. Highly recommended to those in the mood for doom!
Our good customer John Botz liked the record so much that he emailed us this mini-essay about it, which we asked him if we could print since it expands nicely (and enthusiastically) upon the points made above: "Let me say up front that of all of the retro movements in recent memory, this stoner/doom metal thing has me scratching my head the most. Yes, I admit that I really enjoy some of this "new"/old stoner metal myself, esp. bands like Eternal Elysium, but as great as old Sabbath was, I think that even Ozzy, Tony, Bill, and Geezer themselves, have to shrugging a bit to the degree in which their sludgy sound has been deified at the turn of the millenium. The other thing about this "movement" that amazes me is how little resemblance a lot of this new doom bears to the original (but, then again, I guess every retro movement only resembles that which spawned it by no more than half, since anything taken out of time by a generation or more is bound to be somewhat removed from the times from whence it came), for example, the "original" retro Sabbathy tribute stoner band was Saint Vitus, which was already quite a bit slower than most vintage Sabbath. Also, many of these new doom bands use gravelly, deathmetalesque vocals (i.e. Burning Witch, who to me, suck beyond being good, if you know what I mean) which bear little resemblance to any circa 1970 vocals, let alone Ozzy's plaintive wail which, in addition to the sludgy guitars and bass heavy sound is what I associate with stoner/doom metal. All of that said, the new Warhorse is damn good, and may actually live up to most of the pre-release publicity! Warhorse's website claims that this apocalyptic doom metal includes some of the "most vicious (I originally typed "viscous," but I suppose you could say that, too) sounds ever put to vinyl...Crushing Bass with Obscenely Overdriven Guitar (yes, they capitalized those words) melted with intense psychedelic effects...bludgeoning doom mixed with soothing, trance-inducing interludes...(sounds like) death metal on quaaludes..." blah blah blah...you've heard it all before, only this album may deliver the goods better than any other that's tried to make such cocksure claims...no, really! Most of the myriad albums that try to emulate the dynamics of "Master of Reality" come off sounding weak to me, but all of the quiet "flowers and beads" interludes on this album are quite effective, and authentic-sounding, with an eastern flavor, like you really are walking into a c.1970 drug den with beads hanging in the doorway. And you gotta love titles like "Lysergic Communion." The vocals? Well, they're of the gravelly kind, but they're effectively recessed into the sound stage so that they are not obtrusive. Anyway, you guys may already know all of this stuff, but I just thought I'd let you know that this collection of doomy dirges may very well be the best I've heard in this new retro stoner/doom metal craze -- in fact (throat clear), okay, here I go (drum roll, please) giving hostages to fortune by making a hyperbolic claim: this could be the stoner/doom metal album to end all such albums."--John Botz
AT LAST, back in print. We haven't had this crucial black metal album for a couple years now, the original Drakkar version (reviewed on list #203) is out of print. But now Seaon Of Mist has licensed it for a domestic reissue WITH A BONUS TRACK - so if you missed it before, get it now! They just were through here on tour, bloody tour, and hopefully you didn't miss that either... (we did, we were working, it was a list night!). Here's what we said about this Satanic masterpiece originally:
Like Anaal Nathrakh's debut The Codex Necro, we first saw this release reviewed (and awarded Album of the Month honors) in the UK's monthly extreme metal bible Terrorizer, long before we were actually able to track down copies to sell. Our suppliers either didn't know what it was, or had already sold out of the few copies they possessed. But now, we have finally gotten a hold of a few and thought we ought to let you know... Basically, Sweden's Watain are a blazing raw blackened metal monster, thrashing and buzzing and blasting. Sinister melodies bleed from behind cracks in the band's armored exterior. We're strongly reminded of Immortal and especially Dissection, with "Where Dead Angels Lie" haunting these proceedings for sure. At first our reaction was, yeah, this IS pretty good...but then, an undefinable X-factor started to emerge, as the album progressed and Watain's sounds sunk in and we realized that this was more than just pretty good. There's a constantly complex and subtle "shifting" going on Watain's songwriting, a layering of riffs amid the band's blur of speed that just takes it to another level. It's fierce and exquisite black metal mastery on display here. Maybe it's easy to go a certain distance with the black metal thing, y'know initially all you need is the right distorted guitar sound and raspy vocals and occult lyrics, the image and the musical basics. But once those black metal "signifiers" are in place, and a certain standard of competence is achieved, the playing field is level. Going the extra league (with Satan) as Watain do here is rare and impressive. Nicely done (as is the packaging!).
PS there's a picture disc vinyl reissue supposedly coming too, but we haven't gotten ours yet... fingers crossed...
You've fallen victim to Rabid Death's Curse (2000). Casus Luciferi (2004) gripped your soul. After three years, now it's time to become Sworn To The Dark, with the return of Uppsala, Sweden's mighty "black metal milita", Watain. True underground black metal KINGS. One of the few "new" (they started in '98) bands to achieve (and deserve) the same respect lent to this Nordic scene's originators, bands like Immortal, Darkthrone, Mayhem, Emperor, and Satyricon. Watain belong in such illustrious company there's no doubt, but there's one band with which they're most closely linked: Dissection. Still hugely influenced by Dissection in their prime (this is in fact dedicated to the memory of the late Jon Nodrveidt), Watain continue to earn our amazed respect with cold fierce dark riff after riff here on this headbanging storm of an album. They've upped the ante on old school art. Notorious for their blood drenched stage show, Watain's new album brings that blood to your home, spitting from your stereo speakers in an occultic frenzy. Needless to say, recommended to all Watain worshippers... and if you aren't already into Watain, but call yourself a black metal fan, you should waste no time buying this and then bowing down, as you shall.
In our review of Boston metalcore outfit Watchmaker's previous album Kill.Fucking.Everyone, we stated that they were "THE MOST PISSED sounding band we've ever heard". Well, it doesn't appear that in the time elapsed since that album Watchmaker have been to anger management classes, or tried therapy, or fallen in love, or adopted puppies, or anything like that, as they certainly haven't gotten any happier!!! Erased From The Memory Of Man is as extreme and brutal and p.o.'d as ever. These sixteen tracks feature negative titles like "Lice Crawling Humanity", "Relentless Post Mortem Killing", "Theraputic Dirt Nap" and "Infidelity's Eyestabbing Unease"... and theres an epigraph of sorts in the cd booklet taken from Werner Herzog's film Grizzly Man, as follows: "The common denominator of the universe is not harmony -- it's chaos, hostility, and murder." This is definitely the disharmonic, chaotic, hostile, murderous soundtrack to Herzog's statement! Pounding drums, throat-ripped vox, gnarly guitars...sheer sonic armageddon on cd. Turn up as loud as you dare, and stand back!
But, pissed as they are, it's nice to know that they do have a sense of humor about it all, judging by how the band members are credited with such creative job descriptions as "yearning flame of drum turret" (drums), "vocal fucking sawblade terror" (vocals), "rick and fucking backer" (bass) and "ghetto fucking bee keeper" (?). Recommended.
Ye olde '70s prog rock treat time here, folks, particularly for those (like us) who like lots of flute in their prog! Coming to us via the excellent Guerssen label, who last list brought us William Nowik's Pan Symphony In E, this reissue of Belgian proggers Waterloo's one and only album First Battle from 1970 reveals another one-off gem from the dusty prog past that we had never heard of before but now are digging big time. This group's music is infused with the paisley psych poppiness of the likes of The Beatles and The Kinks, but also provides lots of pounding organ and flute rippage, making for a bombastic prog bounty indeed, a catchy one as well. Presumably influenced by certain of the British progressive rock outfits of the day, such as the The Nice, Jethro Tull, and Mk1 Deep Purple, this gets heavier too, sounding at times not unlike Uriah Heep, but with flute! It's got it all, really: sunny pop balladry, groovy brass rock arrangements (a la Blood Sweat & Tears), jazzy moves too (including some scat singing in the midst of 11 minute epic album closer "Diary Of An Old Man"). And plenty of flat out flashy instrumental action, guitars organ drums and FLUTE all in full force, charging forth on the battlefield of rock like triumphant prog troopers.
Fits in well with some other prog obscurities we've recommended previously... Blast Furnace comes to mind, also Supersister, Tetragon, Bachdenkel, Culpeper's Orchard, etc. Once again, we're wowed by the wonders of the reissue realm. How many more bands like this can there be??
To be sure, 'cause of how poppy this is, it might not be for those ONLY looking for the super dark or weird - though some of the lyrics ARE rather strange, like ferinstance the line "Can't you tell me where black children come from, daddy?" from the song "Black Born Children". What's that about? Also, don't expect any conceptual side-long song suites here, no this ain't Yes, in fact by prog standards only one song (the aforementioned "Diary Of An Old Man") is a double digit epic, the rest stay within the normal temporal parameters of pop single radio play, 2-3 minutes or so. But if you like the lighter (though no less tighter) side of prog, then check this out. It can only be regretted that Waterloo's First Battle was their last. Although, this reissue buffs up the original record's ten tracks with six extra bonus cuts from post-album singles and such. And, the cd booklet provides an in-depth history of the band in the liner notes, including mention of 'em jamming with members of Magma at one point!
Hard to beat this disc if you like Beatlesy psych pop from back in the day! Very recommended to all Lennon/McCartney fans. A few years ago we used to stock cd reissues of the two albums released by this early '70s Peruvian outfit, a band who evolved from '60s psych act Laghonia and who obviously worshipped the Fab Four (and their solo efforts, especially, seeing as how they cover both "Band On The Run" and "Bluebird" by McCartney's Wings). It's a bummer that those two discs have been out of print for a while, but we're happy that the Repsychled label (Tarkus, Traffic Sound, etc.) has teamed up with another fave reissue label of ours, Lion, and put out this singles collection, basically a "best of" We All Together! Of the 13 cuts here, eight seem to be included on the band's two albums, leaving five we hadn't heard before. So even if you DO already have those cds you might want this, and if you don't, it's currently the best way to get acquainted with the magic of We All Together's sweet and sad pop psych music. Pepperisms abound, with studio experimentation and backwards guitar ("Soy Timido"), and as well there's some rousing rockers ("Sally"). The use of piercing ARP synth brings to mind that equally Beatlesy Malaysian band Truck whose reissue we reviewed recently... if you liked Surprise, Surprise you'll dig this for sure! Likewise if you like the Aerovons or Badfinger (also covered here). Not that the Beatles are their only influence...both Roy Orbison and Tchaikovsky are cited in the liner notes as songwriting inspirations! The liner notes by the way, are extensive, in English and Spanish, and the cd booklet also includes lots of vintage photos.
The posthumous debut from (and, thus, swansong of) San Francisco's most cult black metal act, Weakling. Despite their local, non-forested, non-wintry origins, Weakling was a band capable of destroying the best Scandinavia has to offer (as we witnessed upon two occasions, when Weakling had the honor of opening the San Francisco shows by Norwegians Mayhem and Enslaved, and proceeded to make both bands look like punk rockers in comparison! Weakling were so much more epic and intense). All this without any of the ignorant posturing or hackneyed corpsepaint of their peers.
Ghastly, anguished vocals and bloodchilling keyboards combine with dual trebly buzzsaw guitars and inhuman trance inducing drumming to create an atmosphere of utter grinding grimness. Weakling draws upon '90s black metal in the Norwegian tradition (especially the raw and primitive likes of Darkthrone, Burzum and Immortal) and then creates uniquely fucked song structures of epic length (20 minutes per, in some cases).
And, like the best music, Weakling also transcends genre. In some ways, "Dead as Dreams" possesses elements that can be considered akin to the avant garde, experimental creations of the Swans, Skullflower, Steve Reich, or even Yoko Ono. Imagine an extensive, utterly mesmerizing Hermann Nitsch piece, composed for black metal band.
It's a suffocating soundscape of riffing and drone. Subterranean satanic art rock that equals metal. Nihilistic, depressive and never ending.
Featuring Josh from The (Fucking) Champs as well as drummer Lil' Sunshine from local death metallers Sangre Amado. And of course, John Gossard of...well, John Gossard. (And The Gault / Asunder / Iron Vegan.) Local black metal maniac/death rocker extraordinaire. Weakling is largely the result of his devotion to black metal dementia.
We are not engaging in baseless hyperbole when we say: this should be crowned black metal album of the year. Seriously. Essential.
Obscure, awesome 1971 krautrock proto-metal reissued! And they're called Weed. Need we say more? As always, we will say more, 'cause we've got to mention that the heavy electric organ bombast on this album is cranked out by none other than Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep fame, over in Germany on vacation or something. He appears here under the fairly transparent pseudonym of "Ken Lesley"! Having mentioned that, we realize we should probably review some actual Uriah Heep albums on our site one of these days, but this did just get reissued so we're writing about it now. (Sooner or later we will write up some Heep, but suffice to say that their first five albums RULE, circa '70-'73, though they go downhill pretty steeply after that. If you dig Deep Purple and haven't checked out the early Heep, you should.)
Anyway, back to Weed. Thanks to Hensley/Lesley, they DO sound a bit like Uriah Heep, especially on the killer opener "Sweet Morning Light". Despite (sarcastic?) lyrics about "sun shining bright, on everything in sight" and other seemingly positive things, the singer's depressed delivery and the downer dirginess of the heavy, groovy music creates a much darker, doomier mood! It's kinda brilliant, that contrast. Elsewhere, this album features the more mellow, melancholic acoustic balladry of "Loney Ship", one blues rocker, "Slowin' Down", and several other sorts of organ-ornate melodic kraut prog jams. It ends with another heavy highlight, the song "Weed" itself, the album's longest track at 7:14. And it's an instrumental. With a crunching, exceedingly Sabbathy main riff, or is it Led Zep? Kicks ass anyways. For the first and last tracks alone, this disc is something anyone interested in proto-doom should hear.
Also, Weed should get some sort of award as one of the earliest overt "stoner rock" bands ever, just based on their name, right? Them and Leafhound.
This is record number three for Greg Weeks, and the one that's really finally gotten our attention. His previous disc on Ba Da Bing! was a stripped down, boy-and-his-guitar folky singer-songwriter kinda record, and while he is still essentially playing folk
Chicago university professor Deena Weinstein unleashes the revised edition of her 1991 scholarly study of heavy metal!! We loved her on NPR's Anthem talkshow, playing Emperor and other metal, and discussing the differences between speed metal, thrash metal, and black metal, in an intellectual, but genuinely enthusiastic manner, unlike some of the 'ironic' poseurs featured on the same show, who shall remain nameless.
Weinstein's book is a balanced and academic look at heavy metal music, its fans, and its role in society. This new edition adds a new 'Metal in the '90s' chapter, as well as an updated list of '100 Definitive Metal Albums' that now includes Arcturus and At The Gates, In Flames and Hammerfall, etc.
Essential for all serious fans of either cultural studies or heavy metal, preferably both!
Lauded alt.country singer's second album produced by T-Bone Burnett. It's Allan's favorite of her several fine albums so far.
The third album of (alternative is it?) country-folk from singer/songwriter Gillian Welch, following up 1998's "Hell Among The Yearlings", which became a big favorite here at Aquarius (and elsewhere too of course!). Primarily focused on lonely acoustic
Super-heavy crusty metal merchants from Tempe, Arizona. Pretty intense. For fans of Dystopia, Eyehategod, that sort of thing. We like. This discography cd collects the complete works of this now defunct band: their LP, 7"s, comp tracks, unreleased songs, that sort of thing.
Even if you think you've heard enough of the new weird acid folk underground to last you for a spell, you should check out this full-length debut from Brooklyn's Mike Wexler, a singer-songwriter who (with a little help from his friends, members of Psychic Ills and The Occasion) has recorded a remarkable song-cycle in the form of Sun Wheel. It's set apart from others in this burgeoning genre by the immediately noticeable, uniquely affected nature of Wexler's voice. Ok, maybe that makes him a male Joanna Newsom... and of course Devendra Banhardt too has a distinctive manner of singing. But Wexler sounds like neither, and once you get used to his nasal exhalations, his intentionally elongated enunciations, you may find his singing to be curiously compelling, complementing the crystalline guitar picking and gentle piano motifs of his melodic, majestic prog-folk music quite well. And Wexler's vocal style is also indicative of a very personal, seemingly spiritual lyrical vision, fixated on sun, shadow, paradise, lots of lines like "Sun shadow dilating in the eye" and "Falling through the sunshine's ray in a dream of water". It's gorgeous, moody yet strangely uplifting stuff, glowing with lightbeams amidst its shadows. Something that fans of P.G. Six, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Robert Wyatt could find of eerie interest for sure.
The band's name is When, but the question really is *What?* As in, what the hell is this? Totally amazing, for one thing, but beyond that...? One thing we can say about When is that we NEVER know what to expect from 'em. On this new album, the music is a
When is the brainchild of Norwegian musician/sampler artist Lars Pedersen; he's been at it since the early '80s (after quitting a new wave/Industrial band called Holy Toy) and has released 8+ albums that have ranged from ambient soundscapes to prog rock, yet have steadily grown more and more pop. When's previous full-length release, "Psychedelic Wunderbaum", dabbled in pop sounds, if you consider Carl Stalling cartoon music meets crazed electronica "pop"! But on The Lobster Boys, Lars really lets his Beatles / Beach Boys inspiration come to the fore. His British (not Norwegian) accented singing is placed into some far-from conventional settings -- over, say, an Ethiopiques sampled loop (really!), or over crazy wild drumming most pop songs never get to feature.
Lars and several friends handle sampling, organ, guitar, bass, xylophone, drums, vocals, melodica, viola, etc... all culminating in an utterly amazing final unlisted bonus track, 15+ minutes of trancey middle eastern samples and effects that build up into a distorted storm of loud electric guitar feedback skree, noisy and yet blissfully rhythmic throughout.
Lastly, we have to say: how weird is it that we can only get this album from heavy metal distributors? Because it's on the Norwegian label Jester, which is run by Garm from (former) black metal legends Ulver, some from the metal community have noticed the record, but we worry it may go under-recognized by other intrepid listeners (except for, of course, AQ and you!) Truly, we never imagined how much we'd come to love this decidedly non-metal, fantastic band.
(And if you want to catch up on When's previous work, we also stock "PW" and the When best of/rarities double cd compilation "The Unblessed World Of When: WriterCakeBox".)
Hopefully we've already turned you on to the wonders of When, the sample-happy, electronics-enabled psych pop project of Norway's Lars Pedersen. If not, you've got some other reviews to read on our website, look 'em up! Please do! Because this new album, as with its immediate predecessors, are must haves for anyone into the more eccentric side of Beatles-influenced stuff, like Olivia Tremor Control and the Dreamies. This is super sunshiney pop with an experimental twist, or make that twistedness.
We've been into When for years and years, way back to the late '80s when When made dark prog soundscapes (beloved of Nordic black metallers). But starting with all-time AQ fave album The Lobster Boys in 2001, or maybe even a bit before that, When went all colorful and catchy and kaleidoscopic, keeping the darkness in a subconscious reserve to psychologically augment the poppiness with its opposite -- the dreaminess always has nightmare lurking at its edges... And so as we expected, Trippy Happy is all about totally brilliantly crafted surreal symphonic sound collages, with Beatlesy vocals and music box melodies, pleasant guitar strum and mysterious textures, weirdness and melancholia... and so much genius POP that we don't understand why When isn't huge. Well, When's big around here anyway!!
"So it was that three hundred electric moons cancelled the ancient green queen of loves with their blinding chalk rays..."
So concludes one of the obscure, occultic pieces of text excerpted in the cd booklet of this new disc (in this case the Futurist prose poem "Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna" by Filippo Marinetti) and is to us a suitably evocative and cryptic description of the beautiful, distorted drones conjured by White/Lichens, a collaborative project staffed by Rob Lowe (aka Lichens, who records for the Kranky label in his hometown of Chicago) and Matt Clark and Jeremy Lemos of the Chicago heavy ambient guitar duo White/Light (who have a cd on Rebis).
Lichens' previous disc The Psychic Nature Of Being on Kranky (lp version on Holy Mountain) we described as "delicate" and "crystalline", constructed mainly from electronically-treated live improv loopings of his own voice, abetted with guitar and percussion. But the scary dronescapes of White/Lichens are more dense than delicate, the added weight of Clark and Lemos' guitars "heavy-ing up" the Lichens sound. You'll hear rumbling low-end and keening highs in this most satisfying set of billowing electric drone, what distantly sounds like a Morse code transmission buried beneath the destroyed residue of 1,000 doomed violins... It's like the Vibracathedral Orchestra scoring an opium induced nightmare, or the organic decay of an claustrophobic early Kluster track exposed to alien moonlight for the past 40 years. There's five tracks here, the first and last being the longest (19 and 16 minutes apiece, approximately) with the middle three around four minutes each. At its most dense and distortion-filled, as on the final track "Bael", this could be a glitchless version of the murky Merzbowian Sheer Hellish Miasma stirred up by their pal Kevin Drumm. Or KTL's most Earth-y moments tempered by the homebrewed, gentle freeform folk-psych of a Jewelled Antler recording.
We don't doubt for an instant that if this was a limited edition cd-r from some mysterious Finnish forest dweller, or lathe cut 10" by a kid in New Zealand, we'd be assured of selling fistfuls of 'em. And therefore, since the well-respected Holy Mountain label judged this to be deserving of not-so-limited cd status, that should indicate it's even MORE worth picking up, than if there were just 50 copies made, intended solely for collectors...
We make a LOT of things "highlights" on our list, you've doubtless noticed. So, what if we separated out a special section of MEGA-highlights? We're not gonna, but if we did, this would definitely be one of this list's MEGA-highlights, indeed. Our pal Brian from WFMU turned us on to this band a while back. So we were stoked to finally see a (vinyl-only) reissue now! Why so excited? 'Cause this oddly named band from Toledo, Ohio made one of the odder, yet enjoyable heavy metal rarities we've ever heard, this their only album, originally released in 1980. Well, it's nominally "heavy metal", though at times it's a bit like Devo doing heavy metal, with geeky sci-fi new wave inflections (as on "Sector 387"). At other times, it sounds more '60s and psychedelic, in fact psychedelic enough to get a review in that Acid Archives tome we just listed. Really White Boy and The Average Rat Band ought to appeal to anyone into the stranger side of late '70s hard rock, post-punk, proto-metal, poverty grind.
It all begins with a shimmering synth "Prelude", then... "Neon Warriors"! A tumble of drums, followed by a rapidfire, flash-rockin', fuzzed out riff onslaught, kinda like a low-budget Judas Priest. Oh yeah, that's the other thing, there's an ass-ton of FUZZ on here. Probably that's how they wound up in Acid Archives. "Maybe I'm A Fool" sounds more like Motorhead... sorta... then "The Prophet Song" harks back to Hendrix... and they even do a weird, broken down acoustic blues jam instrumental called "Blue Moon" before the record's over. Both rockin', and bizarre enough, to make both the AQ and WFMU warped hit parade for sure. Heck, they were basically making NWOFHM music (a la Steel Mammoth and Krypt Axeripper) long before those Finns came up with the idea. Or, imagine early Manilla Road meets George Brigman, maybe... Also probably for fans of Zolar-X, Todd Tamanend Clark, and the Happy Dragon-Band, amongst other eccentrics. Though this IS more metal than those. Closest perhaps to the likes of Dwarr, not that there's much like Dwarr.
This reissue on Roach is limited to 400 copies, by the way.
In case you missed it on our Record Store Day "in-between list" last Friday... but these are going fast! At this rate, gone within the week, if not sooner...
Last year - or maybe it was the year before - we told ourselves, hey, Record Store Day is awesome and all, but what would make it even more awesome? Maybe if we had our OWN release for Record Store Day! Something that, then, we could make sure our devoted mailorder customers wouldn't miss out on, also something that we could be absolutely sure we'd have, utterly unique to our store, amidst the chaos and uncertainty of all the other RSD releases.
So, this year, we did it! With the help of our good friends, Brooklyn's psychedelic space rockers extraordinare, you know 'em, you love 'em, White Hills. As those of you who live here in San Francisco may remember, White Hills brought their spaced out sounds to aQuarius for a fantastic instore on October 1st, 2010. Actually, they performed under the somewhat obvious pseudonym Black Valleys ('cause the venue they were playing that same night didn't want them doing another show the same day). In any case, their "Black Valleys" set turned out to be quite a bit different than an "ordinary" White Hills performance, being a drumless, droned-out duo performance specifically tailored to our space, trying (though probably failing!) to keep the volume low enough not to disturb our neighbors... but still hypnotizing us all with their nonetheless heavy sounds. The show was recorded, and it turned out GREAT.
Over a half hour long, the first few minutes of which are filled with shimmering, pretty pulsations and subtle sonic textures, as if this was the White Hills' version of Pop Ambient. It's both mesmeric and miasmic... Eventually waves of grinding fuzz enter the scene, and this slow building sonic juggernaut of throb and drone and drift takes on more massive proportions, propelled by what we can only say are almost ghostly riffs, giving this something of an Earth 2 vibe. We could go on and on, but somehow don't think we need to, since we know what White Hills fans are like (and you're all White Hills fans, right?).
So, digging the recording, White Hills gave us the go-ahead to release it as a special limited edition cd, for Record Store Day this year. And boy are we stoked.
LIMITED TO 300 hand-numbered copies, packaged in slim, dvd-style cases, with cool Op-Art inspired cover graphics by our pal Nathan Berlinguette, printed in black on fancy silvery paper. NOT sold in stores - except for ours!
After a whole mess of crazy limited cd-r releases, this is only the 2nd proper, actual cd release from these East Coast blown out garage psych space rockers. Avid readers of the list will no doubt by now, be hip to these guys, their wall of guitar, Hawkwind meets the Stooges meets Monster Magnet meets the Heads is tough to beat, every song drenched in wild outer space FX, the drums pounding beneath an avalanche of psychedelic guitar, the vocals, shadows flitting across the molten surface of these tracks, barely audible just another layer of dense fuzz.
So how does this record stack up to the rest? We mentioned that the last release, the tour only Abstractions And Mutations, was the band's fiercest yet, but Heads On Fire might have us reassessing. Cuz this has to be exactly what it would sound like if your head was indeed on fire.
The opener is a heavy as fuck space rock romp, right out of the gate, a wall of buzzing wah wah guitar is loosed, and all you can do is hang on for the ride, it's like Spacemen 3 on speed, that same sort of billowy tripped out warm guitar buzz, but souped WAY up, supercharged, a blinding supernova of freaked out garage rock psychedelia. But the track right after that is way riffier, a serious Stooges-y stomp, plenty of guitar crunch and psychedelic squalls, but the vocals are more present, a sort of Wyndorf style lord mother fucker drawl, wrapped in reverb and draped over the jagged riffing and pounding drums.
Then there's "Don't Be Afraid", which begins with whipping wind and distant foghorns, ominous and mysterious, a phone being dialed, ringing and ringing, the band gradually coming in, a slow lope, simple tribal drums, a laid back guitar line, soft fuzzy swells of sound in the background, a lugubrious slow build, the vocals howled and spacey, reverbed and dripping with delay, the guitar getting gradually more and more jagged and distorted, until everything drops out, just wind, and muted electronics, muffled FX, the bass line creeping along steadily, bits of melody drifting by, the vocals come back in and BAM the band takes off, the guitar spitting flames, the drums falling down a mineshaft, a huge tangle of psychedelic space rock chaos, and then nothing, a weird, barely there, 5 minute outro, bits of guitar, creaking and buzzing, more wind, and finally silence.
And in case that last 30 minutes, and those last 5 in particular, had you forgetting just where you were, the band shuts things down with 4+ minutes of furious fuzz and pummeling pound, thick and corrosive, and so distorted the riffs seem to melt into each other, the vocals sung from the bottom of a well, a bit of start stop dynamics, replete with creepy giggling children, and then the perfect send off, a sky full of psychedelic fireworks, multicolored streaks of white hot guitar, a blinding ear full of sonic pyrotechnics like staring straight into the sun.
We'd been hearing good things about this band for ages. Someone we know was raving about 'em, and they also had the recommendation of Julian Cope... But we were having some difficulty tracking down the band, or a way to get their record for the store. Until an insane bit of coincidence / serendipity. In walked one Dave Weinberg, who a decade earlier had been Andee's boss at Holey Bagel in Noe Valley, across the street from the old aQuarius (back when Andee had time for two jobs). He had copies of a cd by his band, and what do you know? Dave's band just so happened to be White Hills! Wow. Thus we managed to get 30 or so copies of the second pressing of the No Game To Play cd-r (the first pressing is long out of print, as is the alternate version, which was drastically remixed, resequenced and retitled They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood and released on Cope's Fuck Off And Di cd-r label) and it's just as good as we had hoped. In a word, SPACEROCK. Or if you prefer, two words. Either way, this is some seriously tripped out swirling cosmic proggy, krautrock flecked, keyboard drenched outer outer outer space rock. Think just the jams from all the best Hawkwind songs, or the dreamiest mellowest bits of your favorite Monster Magnet tracks. Mix in some Neu! and some Faust and even some Stereolab at times and you'll just be scratching the surface of White Hills' sound. The opening track is a grungy, lowslung garagey drug addled space rock stomp, think the Stooges dropping acid until they started drifting off and began to sound more like Hawkwind, a killer hypnotic riff, a simple shuffling drum beat, mumbled vocals buried in the mix, and a swirling squall of wigged out guitars and all manner of synthesizer squiggle and swoon. It sounds quite a bit like Circle too, that riff just repeating and repeating, mantra like, a super tranced out rock that you want to go on forever. The centerpiece of the record is definitely "They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood", a near static synth swirl over a shuffling tribal rhythm, while guitars just sort of drift and float lazily amidst the whir and drone. Sounds a little bit like Brian Eno jamming with Crash Worship while somebody goes apeshit in the background on the synths. A gloriously mesmerizing hypnorock. Then a brief blast of straight up blown out, super distorted Neu! worship before the drifting ambient closer "Ulan", an abstract synthesizer soundscape that sounds like some lost Tangerine Dream jam. Blissy and totally dreamlike.
This is supposedly the final pressing, limited to 222 copies.
Psssst! White Hills fans!! Good news. We just got a few of the limited edition disc, Oddity II: Night Scene On Mill Mountain, "a collection of out-of-print and previously unreleased tracks" that was previously only available inside copies of the bands' 2011 cd Hp-1 purchased at Rough Trade shops over in England. At the time, we were bummed, why should only the Brits be able to get this quite desirable bonus goodie? Don't the White Hills love America?? Well, while they last, we now have these available to fans of the beloved Brooklyn psych band wherever you may be. Since it's supposed to slip right into the gatefold sleeve of the Hp-1 cd you (presumably) already have, these don't have much in the way of packaging, you just get a disc in a plain white sleeve. What's important, is what's on the disc, let's quote what it says here: "three Untitled Synth Experiments, the full-length alternative mix of BE YOURSELF from the Hawkwind Trilogy project, HEADS ON FIRE (outtake from the S/T LP), a recent Untitled Jam, and the full-length remix of NO GAME TO PLAY that appeared on the Fuck Off & Di release They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood. Over 50 minutes of music for your listening pleasure!"
Pleasure indeed. Heck, this would be worth it just for the 27+ minute "No Game To Play" remix, probably the track, with its mantric chug, that first got us the most into White Hills back in their cd-r daze...
We first discovered French electro-grind-metal-psych-whatthefuck duo Whourkr a year or two back when we got their debut record, Naat, which totally blew us away, it sounded like a malfunctioning metal record and a freaked out techno record, all scrambled up together, tangled up and spit out, a skittering, skipping, looped, grinding chunk of electronic metal weirdness. The vocals would howl, but then get processed and looped and would become something else altogether, the drums and guitars were so gnarled and stretched and twisted up, that the band could explode into flurries of rapidfire mathematical grind, way faster and more complex and convoluted than any human could possible play. It was a total headfuck. Like the fastest freakiest grind, made even faster and freakier, but with a little techno thrown in for good measure. Remember the Drum>MachineGun compilation, of insane drum machine driven grind? Whourkr makes that stuff sound so so tame in comparison.
We tried and tried to track down copies for the store, but never had any luck, and then we heard that Crucial Blast would be releasing the NEW Whourkr, so we waited and waited, and now it's finally here, and it's totally different than the first one (or at least how we remember the first one), way poppier and more melodic, like the band are now actually composing songs instead of throwing all the sounds in a blender to see what comes out (not that we don't dig that too!), it's way poppier, catchier, but still totally and utterly freaked out and glitchy and fucked up beyond belief.
Chugging guitars and shrieked vox are chopped and spliced into a hyperspeed deathmetal Melt Banana, all the sounds constantly shifting, the tempo changing, the rhythms colliding and hiccuping, occasionally coalescing into full on grooves, other times splintering into bursts of electronic freakouts, and there are serious hooks happening too, it doesn't seem possible that music like this could be listenable, let alone catchy, but it is. Big time. We'll be the first to admit, that the other Whourkr record was difficult listening, brutal and to many ears annoying, and yeah, the same might be said for Concrete as well, but the band are so much better now, in terms of composition and songwriting, that once you're immersed in their fucked up and freaked out soundworld, it becomes surprisingly easy to acclimate to the rapidly and constantly shifting sounds and rhythms, in order to enjoy the songs themselves. Plus the vocals seem to play a much larger role, not just howls and shrieks, there are plenty of clean vox, soaring almost operatic, low AND high, wrapped around frenzied riffing, wound up into spiralling psychedelic freakouts, or like the instruments, chopped into crazed stutterscapes.
Take the track "Santo", with its deep crooned vox and acoustic guitars, sounding almost like Circle, the electronic effects very subtle at first, before the track lurches into full on doom, the voices and guitars just slightly glitched, eventually giving way to gorgeous delicate piano, only to be obliterated by the next track "Skovsnails", a little burst of drums, and a crazy clipped main riff, it almost sounds like some insane DJ remixing Orthrelm, the song stutters and lurches and hiccups, totally frenetic and relentless. The record dips its toes into all sorts of weird sounds, loping moody electronic downtempo, albeit a little fractured, head spinning hyper grind, shot through with unlikely pop hooks, glitched out death metal, soaring slow building post rocky drama, and more Melt Banana-esque grind pop, but nothing here sounds thrown together, or hodge podge, this is a baffling collection of sounds, but one that is meticulously composed, performed and recorded, and for those in the market for something truly demented, insane, extreme and heavy, not to mention out-there, and pretty much entirely unlike anything you've ever heard before, be next to impossibly to top Whourkr. Definite contender for metal record of the year, even though calling it a metal record is selling it WAY short. Regardless, absolutely recommended.
And, for a limited time (next couple of weeks, until February 2nd 2010), we'll be selling this for a special $2 discount off the regular price, which would normally be $13.98.
A holy proto-metal relic here, folks. This is the first of two volumes (vol. 2, modestly titled Psychotic Overkill, we'll review next time) collecting the recorded output circa 1969-1972 of this heavy riffing underground UK unit, well known in the annals of hard psych fuzzarama. A classic power trio, featuring Martin Weaver (later of the Dark) on guitar, along with Bob Jefferies on bass and "Mad" Dick Smith on drums, Wicked Lady had a rep for being LOUD and causing violence. No surprise that Wicked Lady's axeman stateth in the liner notes that their fans were either partially deaf people or bikers! Or both!
Their sound was based on the basic British blues rock of the day, a la Cream, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, and so forth, with melodic vocals and a generally sad vibe, their songs sometimes relatively tame hippie popsike seeming - at first - before Weaver would unleash the hellish wah wah fuzz freakouts that whipped those poor deafened bikers into such a state.
Groovy, lumbering, loping, amped up and drugged out, Wicked Lady is the real deal, dated to us now, perhaps, but quite charming. You can't argue, ferinstance, with how after a gentle, folky beginning, the track "War Cloud" morphs from melodic to martial, a jackbooted march with wild soloing o'er top, kinda as if Trad Gras Och Stenar went (proto-)metal� such fuzz guitar jamming excess is to be found throughout, like Wicked Lady were the Earthless of their day.
The eight tracks found here (DIY recorded in the band's dingy rehearsal space, 'cuz they were about playing live, not making records, but wanted to remember how the songs went!) are all gonna be of interest to those into the likes of Randy Holden's Population II, High Tide, Stray, '70s Pentagram, Iron Claw, T2, Negative Space, and other obscure late sixties / early seventies purveyors of heavy psychedelic riff rock. This is the first time Wicked Lady's music has been legitimately released on cd (and Guerssen has pressed vinyl too, which hopefully we'll have soon), with the participation of Martin Weaver himself, who contributes liner notes, telling the whole Wicked Lady story - and he's got some stories. Though he does dispel the rumor that he broke a window and stole his first guitar - instead, apparently, he built it himself. Full lyrics are also included in the booklet.
As an earlier, bootleg edition of this on the cult Kissing Spell label put it in a back cover blurb: "60 Minutes Of Wah Wah Hell"!
Sometimes we just have to pinch ourselves to make sure we're not dreaming, and that Japan's EM Records and all the crazy stuff they somehow find and reissue is actually real! Seriously, it's hard to believe, EM dig up such obscure things that are just so AQ-perfect, so darn weird. We have whole sub-genres of stuff in stock here at the store all because of EM - steel pan funk, psychedelic surf soundtracks, singing saw music! And quite a few one-off items that pretty much represent new genres in and off themselves. Like this one, which EM almost too tamely describes as "Obscure evil psycho machine-funk from '80s Washington D.C. Psychedelic madness!".
From the moment Wicked Witch showed up in the mail, we were ensorcelled. Heck, this pretty much had us with the cover, featuring a Vice magazine Dos and/or Don'ts worthy photo of a mysterious, ridiculously bad ass lookin' African American fellow wearing shiny black leather and spikes, sporting a knife in a scabbard attached to one of his boots. He's got his hands on his hips, his eyeballs are colored in red, and we sure wouldn't want to mess with his rad dudeness. But even that strange, sinister image couldn't have prepared us for what this actually sounds like... Which is, to us, ARIEL PINK PLAYING FUNK!! It's that damaged, that lysergic, a one-man outsider take on the druggiest moments from early '70s Miles Davis and especially Funkadelic, like "Wars Of Armageddon" off of Maggot Brain ferinstance.
The first track of this anthology, "Fancy Dancer", a 7" single from 1985, drops the listener right in at the deep end, a dense miasmic phantasmagoria of percolating off-kilter grooves, funky vampings, and creepy, low-end synth buzzings and growlings, further made freakier towards the end of its 5 1/2 minutes with a dose of wild psychedelic electric guitar soloing. Damn. Don't even know if funk is the right word for this. How about "glunk"? 'Cause it's got such a melty, gooey viscosity to it. The credits tell us this appeared on a 7" single from 1985, with all instruments and vocals by Richard Simms (he's the cover star, he's Wicked Witch, and he's apparently quite a character!). Next, track two, "Erratic Behaviour", is maybe even more murky and chaotic, a mixture of echoing, babbling voices and tick-tocking drum machine, set loose amidst swirling electronics. It comes from another 7" single, circa '83, as does the similar track three, "X Rated", which adds some "sensual" guest female sex-freak vocal exhibitionism over the lashing beats, bass throbs, and general dementia. But it's at least as spooky as it is sexy...
Then, track four, "Vera's Back", suddenly shifts things into another realm, delving into Wicked Witch pre-history. Written and produced by Simms, this track was originally released in on a 12" in 1978 by a band he was in (on bass and vocals) called Paradiagm [sic]. It's twelve minute workout of shredding jazzfunk fusion, with over the top chops, a la Return To Forever, with violin and echoing vocals and proggy changes galore. It's a lot "cleaner", less distorted and drugged out than Wicked Witch's later bizarre cauldron bubblings, but still pretty crazy, some of it like Goblin on speed!
The next three tracks bring us back to the more unusual funk (or glunk?) stylings of Rick Simms solo in the '80s, with two takes (one instrumental, one vocal, though both have vocals, the latter just more n' nuttier of 'em) of a track called "Electric War", from a 1984 Wicked Witch 12", and then, for a finale, the disc comes full circle with a previously unreleased, extreme remix of "Fancy Dancer" done in '86. Again, weird, dense, DIY outsider grooviness. Yep, CHAOS: 1978-86 is aptly titled. And we're still astonished, dunno how EM does it. Who digs deeper? You couldn't make this stuff up, we know, but we're still pinching ourselves. Maybe Wax Poetics will do a feature on Wicked Witch one of these days... we can only imagine what became of Simms, perhaps institutionalized in some asylum for the Funkily Insane. In the meantime, you can pour over the photos included herein.
FYI, the above review describes the programming of the cd version, EM's lp of this has a slightly different running order and in fact some different tracks! The vinyl edition omits the "Fancy Dancer" remix and the "Electric War" vocal version. But, its "Erratic Behaviour" and "X Rated" are both remixes different from what's on the cd. And, there's a whole 'nother previously unreleased cut on the lp, "Under Your Spell", eight and half minutes long, from 1986! So we can't tell you which format to choose. Either one, or both, are highly recommended!
Right now I can almost hear the groans of the 60% of AQL readers that will think we are absolutely nuts in our enthusiasm for this recording. "First they try to convince me to buy a cd of some damn elephants banging on trash can lids and blowing on harmonicas
You know we love the fucked up black metal here at aQ. This is sooooo up our alley in that regard. DIY, lo-fi, totally outsider WTF? stuff. Makes Striborg and Abruptum and Ildjarn and the rest sound like the Tonight Show band. Twisted, raw, black primitivism, only for the true klvt worshippers of blacknoize ritualism and caveman blackbuzz.
We first encountered Wikkid - and seriously, "encounter" is the word, we know we talk about outsider this and that, but this guy is legitimately strange, we know we've met him, and really when he comes in the store, we get a little bit starstruck, you might say, more so than we would for a "real" black metal celebrity. Heck, he invented his own religion called The Black Ism (?!?), more on that later on. As we were saying, we first encountered Wikkid when he brought us a release called The Intro, and we wrote up a big review of it, but he never ending up bringing us more, so we couldn't list it even though we really wanted to - though we did get to eventually list a disc by Wikkid's ambient alter-ego Alturaz, and a Wikkid/Alturaz split too.
But now The Intro has at last been repressed (though mysteriously minus two tracks), in the form of a double cd, paired with another, new Wikkid recording entitled Chapter 1. And, on top of that, there are now also TWO MORE double cds of other Wikkid material. We suggest you get them all. You have to get them all. Particularly since they're so cheap (and by the way, we might have accidentally sold some at a higher price, if you're one of those people, please get in touch).
So, here's the review we originally wrote for The Intro disc: We were sold on this one before we heard a single note. Based entirely on the cover art. Which is essentially a crude cut and paste, black and white Xerox, of the band name, which is Wikkid by the way, on there twice, along with the title, The Intro, also in two different places, a white smudge and some sort of cut out grid, and most telling of all, a ready made description of Wikkid: 1 Man Black Metal Band, Bay Area California. At first we weren't sure if that was maybe part of the title or what. We're still not sure. But we were psyched. We had been missing home brewed DIY black metal, and this is most definitely that, primo outsider one man BM, raw and primitive, super lo-fi, abstract and trippy and seriously goddamn grim and kvlt. The guitars are sharp and angular, brittle and buzzy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, black shadowy exhalations, the drums stumbling sort-of-blast beats, the music a dense, noisy, chaotic black tangle, lurching and lumbering, collapsing into dense swirls of nearly free blackness, before the second track lurches in, a creeping slo-mo black doom, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals too, the guitars a brittle insectoid buzz that's barely audible, minus the occasional shredding squall. And so it goes, the next track ramps it back up to buzzing blast, again, lumbering and on the verge of collapse, the vokills here a garbled, grunted speaking in tongues, the guitars murky and blurry black smears, the tempo fluctuating constantly, the sound woozy and washed out, pure underground blackness, that's so underground, it's seemingly from a DIFFERENT underground than the rest of the stuff we hear.
So, we wrote all that about what's now the first disc of the The Intro/Chapter 1 2cd release. We won't delve so fully into the other Wikkids, except to say, they're equally insane and amazing. More stumbling drums, more distorted vox, more disturbing thoughts, more murky guitar drone. If you get one Wikkid, you need 'em all, they're definitely a set, all of 'em basically having that same crude cover design, slightly altered from The Intro's template in ways that almost don't even make sense. Again, sheer WTF? genius. And super duper confusing. Then, one realizes that each disc in each double cd set is really short. Really, really short. Like, five or six minutes! (And the last track on one of 'em even ends with almost a minute of silence!) All six discs probably could have fit on a single cd. (But, they ARE cheap.) And again, in part, that's kind of what's so brilliant, there's just so much WTF? to Wikkid, it's astonishing. Wikkid is almost the black metal Fastest, if you know what we mean.
Oh, to give you a little bit more of an idea about what Wikkid is all about, on his website, there's a page of "definitions", here are two particularly helpful ones:
THE BLACK ISM - A new religion of black/dark musics & money for laws & guidance. Realism, Naturalism, Shamanism, Selfism & Wikkism as core beliefs.
WIKKIDISM - Playing a wicked black metal track on repeat at highest volume until you reach "ISM".
Aha, maybe that's why these discs are so short - you're supposed to play each track on repeat, anyway!!
You know we love the fucked up black metal here at aQ. This is sooooo up our alley in that regard. DIY, lo-fi, totally outsider WTF? stuff. Makes Striborg and Abruptum and Ildjarn and the rest sound like the Tonight Show band. Twisted, raw, black primitivism, only for the true klvt worshippers of blacknoize ritualism and caveman blackbuzz.
We first encountered Wikkid - and seriously, "encounter" is the word, we know we talk about outsider this and that, but this guy is legitimately strange, we know we've met him, and really when he comes in the store, we get a little bit starstruck, you might say, more so than we would for a "real" black metal celebrity. Heck, he invented his own religion called The Black Ism (?!?), more on that later on. As we were saying, we first encountered Wikkid when he brought us a release called The Intro, and we wrote up a big review of it, but he never ending up bringing us more, so we couldn't list it even though we really wanted to - though we did get to eventually list a disc by Wikkid's ambient alter-ego Alturaz, and a Wikkid/Alturaz split too.
But now The Intro has at last been repressed (though mysteriously minus two tracks), in the form of a double cd, paired with another, new Wikkid recording entitled Chapter 1. And, on top of that, there are now also TWO MORE double cds of other Wikkid material. We suggest you get them all. You have to get them all. Particularly since they're so cheap (and by the way, we might have accidentally sold some at a higher price, if you're one of those people, please get in touch).
So, here's the review we originally wrote for The Intro disc: We were sold on this one before we heard a single note. Based entirely on the cover art. Which is essentially a crude cut and paste, black and white Xerox, of the band name, which is Wikkid by the way, on there twice, along with the title, The Intro, also in two different places, a white smudge and some sort of cut out grid, and most telling of all, a ready made description of Wikkid: 1 Man Black Metal Band, Bay Area California. At first we weren't sure if that was maybe part of the title or what. We're still not sure. But we were psyched. We had been missing home brewed DIY black metal, and this is most definitely that, primo outsider one man BM, raw and primitive, super lo-fi, abstract and trippy and seriously goddamn grim and kvlt. The guitars are sharp and angular, brittle and buzzy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, black shadowy exhalations, the drums stumbling sort-of-blast beats, the music a dense, noisy, chaotic black tangle, lurching and lumbering, collapsing into dense swirls of nearly free blackness, before the second track lurches in, a creeping slo-mo black doom, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals too, the guitars a brittle insectoid buzz that's barely audible, minus the occasional shredding squall. And so it goes, the next track ramps it back up to buzzing blast, again, lumbering and on the verge of collapse, the vokills here a garbled, grunted speaking in tongues, the guitars murky and blurry black smears, the tempo fluctuating constantly, the sound woozy and washed out, pure underground blackness, that's so underground, it's seemingly from a DIFFERENT underground than the rest of the stuff we hear.
So, we wrote all that about what's now the first disc of the The Intro/Chapter 1 2cd release. We won't delve so fully into the other Wikkids, except to say, they're equally insane and amazing. More stumbling drums, more distorted vox, more disturbing thoughts, more murky guitar drone. If you get one Wikkid, you need 'em all, they're definitely a set, all of 'em basically having that same crude cover design, slightly altered from The Intro's template in ways that almost don't even make sense. Again, sheer WTF? genius. And super duper confusing. Then, one realizes that each disc in each double cd set is really short. Really, really short. Like, five or six minutes! (And the last track on one of 'em even ends with almost a minute of silence!) All six discs probably could have fit on a single cd. (But, they ARE cheap.) And again, in part, that's kind of what's so brilliant, there's just so much WTF? to Wikkid, it's astonishing. Wikkid is almost the black metal Fastest, if you know what we mean.
Oh, to give you a little bit more of an idea about what Wikkid is all about, on his website, there's a page of "definitions", here are two particularly helpful ones:
THE BLACK ISM - A new religion of black/dark musics & money for laws & guidance. Realism, Naturalism, Shamanism, Selfism & Wikkism as core beliefs.
WIKKIDISM - Playing a wicked black metal track on repeat at highest volume until you reach "ISM".
Aha, maybe that's why these discs are so short - you're supposed to play each track on repeat, anyway!!
You know we love the fucked up black metal here at aQ. This is sooooo up our alley in that regard. DIY, lo-fi, totally outsider WTF? stuff. Makes Striborg and Abruptum and Ildjarn and the rest sound like the Tonight Show band. Twisted, raw, black primitivism, only for the true klvt worshippers of blacknoize ritualism and caveman blackbuzz.
We first encountered Wikkid - and seriously, "encounter" is the word, we know we talk about outsider this and that, but this guy is legitimately strange, we know we've met him, and really when he comes in the store, we get a little bit starstruck, you might say, more so than we would for a "real" black metal celebrity. Heck, he invented his own religion called The Black Ism (?!?), more on that later on. As we were saying, we first encountered Wikkid when he brought us a release called The Intro, and we wrote up a big review of it, but he never ending up bringing us more, so we couldn't list it even though we really wanted to - though we did get to eventually list a disc by Wikkid's ambient alter-ego Alturaz, and a Wikkid/Alturaz split too.
But now The Intro has at last been repressed (though mysteriously minus two tracks), in the form of a double cd, paired with another, new Wikkid recording entitled Chapter 1. And, on top of that, there are now also TWO MORE double cds of other Wikkid material. We suggest you get them all. You have to get them all. Particularly since they're so cheap (and by the way, we might have accidentally sold some at a higher price, if you're one of those people, please get in touch).
So, here's the review we originally wrote for The Intro disc: We were sold on this one before we heard a single note. Based entirely on the cover art. Which is essentially a crude cut and paste, black and white Xerox, of the band name, which is Wikkid by the way, on there twice, along with the title, The Intro, also in two different places, a white smudge and some sort of cut out grid, and most telling of all, a ready made description of Wikkid: 1 Man Black Metal Band, Bay Area California. At first we weren't sure if that was maybe part of the title or what. We're still not sure. But we were psyched. We had been missing home brewed DIY black metal, and this is most definitely that, primo outsider one man BM, raw and primitive, super lo-fi, abstract and trippy and seriously goddamn grim and kvlt. The guitars are sharp and angular, brittle and buzzy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, black shadowy exhalations, the drums stumbling sort-of-blast beats, the music a dense, noisy, chaotic black tangle, lurching and lumbering, collapsing into dense swirls of nearly free blackness, before the second track lurches in, a creeping slo-mo black doom, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals too, the guitars a brittle insectoid buzz that's barely audible, minus the occasional shredding squall. And so it goes, the next track ramps it back up to buzzing blast, again, lumbering and on the verge of collapse, the vokills here a garbled, grunted speaking in tongues, the guitars murky and blurry black smears, the tempo fluctuating constantly, the sound woozy and washed out, pure underground blackness, that's so underground, it's seemingly from a DIFFERENT underground than the rest of the stuff we hear.
So, we wrote all that about what's now the first disc of the The Intro/Chapter 1 2cd release. We won't delve so fully into the other Wikkids, except to say, they're equally insane and amazing. More stumbling drums, more distorted vox, more disturbing thoughts, more murky guitar drone. If you get one Wikkid, you need 'em all, they're definitely a set, all of 'em basically having that same crude cover design, slightly altered from The Intro's template in ways that almost don't even make sense. Again, sheer WTF? genius. And super duper confusing. Then, one realizes that each disc in each double cd set is really short. Really, really short. Like, five or six minutes! (And the last track on one of 'em even ends with almost a minute of silence!) All six discs probably could have fit on a single cd. (But, they ARE cheap.) And again, in part, that's kind of what's so brilliant, there's just so much WTF? to Wikkid, it's astonishing. Wikkid is almost the black metal Fastest, if you know what we mean.
Oh, to give you a little bit more of an idea about what Wikkid is all about, on his website, there's a page of "definitions", here are two particularly helpful ones:
THE BLACK ISM - A new religion of black/dark musics & money for laws & guidance. Realism, Naturalism, Shamanism, Selfism & Wikkism as core beliefs.
WIKKIDISM - Playing a wicked black metal track on repeat at highest volume until you reach "ISM".
Aha, maybe that's why these discs are so short - you're supposed to play each track on repeat, anyway!!
Sometimes Belgium's Sub Rosa label comes up with really unusual, unpredictable releases. This one's a good example. Which by the way is NOT classical music, but IS pretty wild. It's full-on, loud, noisy, partly improvised rock music, but with an extra extreme, um, "outsider" element. Sort of in the "special" tradition of The Kids Of Widney High and the Children Of Ala Costa, but much much more rockin'! We didn't bother to read the notes yet to learn all the background details, but we do know that the basic deal here is that the band is comprised of four developmentally disabled (to use a PC term) and untrained musicians, Johan Geenens, Linh Pham, Kim Verbeke, and Rudy Callant, organized by a fifth member, the ensemble's drummer and "artistic mentor" Damien Magnette, who himself is not differently-abled and has more musical schooling. He helps direct the group's activity and keeps the resulting energetic freakouts somewhat reigned and structured in with his tight rhythmic propulsion. Meanwhile, the other four (plus a couple guests) do their thing, whatever it may be, with all kinds of instruments, obviously enjoying expressing themselves. Proving that while they may be "mentally challenged", they are in fact musically challengING. It's pretty far out and in a way, glorious. There's what can only be described as crazy wailing vocals, freer than free jazz horn blats, distorted electric guitar skree, off-kilter keyboards, sampling, and krauty tribal beats... Imagine the primitive psychedelic jams of Ya Ho Wha 13 mixed with the most abstract avant garde efforts of electro-acoustic improvisers Supersilent. Definitely something for fans of Reynols, too.
A lot of it is surprisingly heavy, almost metal-brutal, but without grim intent, instead done with a spirited feeling of joyful abandon. There's also a few mellower moments too, of flute twitter and eerie wordless vocal choruses (as on track 6, which reminds us of Pocahaunted). And briefly, they come close to Maher Shalal Hash Baz style damaged "pop" territory (though we don't think MSHB has ever done any rapping, which MIGHT be what's happening on track 8). Yep, this sure beats a lot of the "normal" underground psych noise rock weirdo bands we sell here at their own game.
In various reviews here at AQ, we have described lots of music (mainly black metal) as "retarded", in a good way. Always in a good way. It probably would be uncool to say precisely that about this... but if we did, it again would be meant as a compliment, a very positive thing meaning that these are unique, primal, creative sounds not bound by boring conventions of genre or technique, played for the sheer, universal love of music-making. Not self-conciously trying to be hip or anything in particular beyond what it simply IS.
In the long wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's good to remind ourselves of the amazing musical legacy of New Orleans. So what better time than now to get this 2 disc reissue of one of the more unique and underrated funk groups of the early seventies, The Wild Magnolias. The first Mardi-Gras Indian group to get signed to a major label (they're not real Native Americans, but African-Americans partaking in a long-time tradition of street�based competition with rival tribal factions fully decked out in elaborately ornate, feathered Indian regalia), The Wild Magnolias were known for their gospel like call-and-response vocal chants over driving funk rhythms provided by The New Orleans Project led by keyboardist Willie Tee. Compiling their 1973 self-titled debut, and 1975 follow-up, They Call us Wild, the Magnolias mix up original songs sung in native-sounding patois ("Handa Wanda", "Ho Na Nae") with interesting takes on New Orleans folk standards such as "Saints" and "Shoo Fly". Includes a PDF version of a 68 page book about their impressive history. An awesome reissue of some bad-ass funk and an amazing peek into one of New Orleans most unique street traditions!
Goddamn we love this band. And goddamn they're hard to pigeonhole or review. They're the sort of band that leaves critics throwing their hands up and saying weird things like "Animal Collective playing metal", or finds us comparing 'em (on past albums) to everyone from MBV to Redd Kross to the Swans to Gaye Bykers On Acid to the freaking God Bullies...
They sound like a lot of things, but ultimately their own special Wildildlife thing - and we don't have enough hypens handy to describe all the genres they glom together into that. Yeah they're heavy and noisy and fucked up, palling around with Harvey Milk and other sludgey/doom metal types, but also have an almost glammy, "buried pop" side to 'em that's become less and less buried from record to record. This new one is perhaps their poppiest, catchiest yet, without sacrificing any of the delicious distortion, noisiness or heaviness, though.
Details, its front cover bearing appropriately demented, deliberate eyesore cover art scrawlings (the back of the sleeve is even better - a drawing of a cat in corpsepaint), is awash with spacey swirling FX, stonery druggy vocals, and sinuous grungy riffage, making for some seriously psychedelic fuzzed out noise pop that's maybe still somehow sorta metal - definitely mental though. Take some Butthole Surfers, some Dead Meadow, some '90s alt-metal (Nudeswirl, anyone?), some slowcore and shoegaze and old school Sub Pop, and you're getting close to the idea of what's going on here.
We suppose we could just mention a few highlights among this album's seven tracks, but it's tough to choose. The short-and-sweet blast of the excellent opener "Dub 1"? The majestic keyboards of "Water Underneath"? The sleazy riffage cranked out on badass rocker "Conditioner"? The tripped out, lumbering awesomeness of, uh, everything??? Yeah we love it all. You should just get this and listen to it yourself, and let it sink into you and you into it, that's our recommendation. Oh, but speaking of sinking into it, let's also mention how the second side closes out with not one but two 8+ minute hypnorock epics. There's the big roiling drums, droning keys and almost bagpipe-like guitar soloing of "Love Hums", and then the even heavier/dirgier "Edge Of The Apocalypse (Forever)", the latter with a pretty little come-down electronica bit at the end, as the song gently fades out... Nice.
We may be a bit biased of course, 'cause Wildildlife singer/guitarist Matt Rogers is an aQ alumnus, but honestly, we had no expectations, in fact we were surprised this even came out, 'cause we thought the band had basically broken up long ago, the guys living in different cities, Matt more into techno DJing than playing rock music, but here it is, and if it's their swansong it's a damn good one, but hopefully the release of this record might spur 'em to get their shit together and get back on stage and play live again 'cause they KILL and it would be great to see Matt writhing around with his guitar again (and the other guys going off too) and hear these tunes super LOUD in person.
Vinyl-only (grrrr) but it includes a download!
Warped druggy psychedelic metallic noise rock trio Wildildlife, who just so happen to features a former aQuarian amongst their ranks, always had a bit of pop in their sound, even at their most tripped out and damaged, when they were channeling Butthole Surfers and Gaye Bykers On Acid and God Bullies and Lubricated goat, their wild rhythmic blowouts were always laced with primo hooks and loads of melody, and it was that subtle poppy undercurrent, that kept them from being just another noisy rock band. But the thing was, before now, it seemed that it was mostly about the heaviness, and they were indeed heavy, sidling up alongside outfits like Harvey Milk, spitting out churning elephantine riffage and skull caving flurries of drum damage, if we had our way, we wouldn't have changed anything about Wildildlife. That is until we heard this.
It's like they're a whole different band. Not sure if it's a natural progression or if it's the influence of their new producer, Jennifer Herema of Royal Trux, but the new sound is downright GLAMMY, swaggery, and power poppy, the vocals, which used to be distorted and sped up and processed into strange chipmunk squeals, is now actual and proper singing, and as if to drive that whole glam thing home, there's sax now, and we generally HATE sax, but this is like Stooges / Hanoi Rocks sax, which means it rules, and it somehow just makes things sound even cooler.
The opening track might just be our new favorite jam, right out of the gate, it's total soaring fuzzy pop, chiming guitar melodies, warm synth swells, and then when the main riff kicks in, we're in classic Kiss territory, suddenly the picture on the back of the lp, that has the band all in white, the lens all vaselined, looking like seventies rockers Angel, makes WAY more sense. And actually, after more listens, it sounds less like Kiss, and more like Redd Kross cover Kiss, which is even better, slithery and swaggery an snotty and hooky but still heavy, but so glammy, right down to the little sexy exhalation of breath in the super short break. And somehow it seems appropriately self defeating that their catchiest and most accessible song is titled "Fuck That".
The follow up "I Want You Out" even furthers the whole Redd Kross / Kiss thing, but we're talking old Redd Kross, circa Teen Babes From Monsanto, when they were still heavy and a little dark, and way drugged out and psychedelic, "I Want You Out" is all big tribal drumming, downtuned riffs, even some handclaps, and more of those new vocals, and lots of bleating/skronking sax, that once the song gets going sounds like a glam metal version of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". Not sure what the hell happened, but we most definitely want some of what they're having.
And the rest of the record unfurls in a similar fashion, classic rock riffs, are all wound up in a glittery haze, hooks are doused in fuzz and buzz and sent spinning into the space rock ether, but the band continue to mix it up, to confuse and confound. "Sometimes" is a folk ballad, dubbed out and drenched in low end synth buzz, acoustic guitars wrapped in reverb, the result a sort of apocalyptic doom folk, glitter style, only to lurch right into "Give In To Live", another Kiss/Thin Lizzy style glamrock groover, but here underpinned by some serious double kick drumming. "Stormbringer" (possibly a Deep Purple cover?) is an epic slow build of distorted vocals, gurgling synths, big drums, but instead of launching into full on glammed out noise rock mode, they lay back, and groove out, a sort of old school Hawkwind style space rock brooder that KILLS, and should have gone on for another 6 minutes. "Shiv" is a low slung, super distorted fuzz heavy churning creep, laced with glammy filigree, and finally, "Permanent Vacation" is the ultimate send off, you can almost imagine these guys on a huge stage, lit from behind with blinding showers of pyro, the drummer standing on his seat, winding up the crowd to clap along, the vocals gnarled and twisted, the guitars chiming and soaring, but instead of launching into the song proper, these guys stretch it out, adding weird rhythmic shifts, bits of mathy weirdness, all the while building and building, totally epic and majestic, before all the sounds are stripped away, leaving a weird warped melody, and some twisted drum machine skitter.
Remember about 1000 words ago we said something about never wanting these guys to change? What the hell were we thinking, sure we might miss the sheer heaviness and drugged out crush of the old Wildildlife, but it seems like a more than fair trade for the new, glammed out, super catchy, weirdo noisepop Wildildlife. Fuck yeah.
While they last, we have the super limited version on AMAZING colored vinyl, they are mostly clear, with weird spurts of color in the middle, mine looks like a bloody egg or something, and all the lps include a download coupon for a digital copy of the record as well!
As hopefully you fondly recall, just a few weeks back, we made a double cd entitled Might Of The Planet Eater, by this eccentric Finnish outsider blackened industrial / electronica act, our freakin' Record Of The Week. 'Twas a sprawling and utterly bizarre set, part Pan Sonic, part power electronics, part (ir-)rhythmic occult ritual, apparently what happens when a Finnish black metal weirdo does DIY industrial experimentation. Weird and primitive and (to us) utterly awesome.
While we absolutely LOVE Will Over Matter, we'll readily admit they're, uh, possibly a difficult listen (but then, compared to some other things we sell, maybe not really). And fortunately a lot of you folks seemed to dig it! So, of course, we thought you'd want us to list this one too, an earlier album from Will Over Matter, also on Bestial Burst.
This disc is actually the first WOM we ever heard, preceding Might Of The Planet Eater by a couple years. What happened, is not long ago one of us came across a Will Over Matter track on the internet somewhere, got kind of obsessed, and was happy (and amused) to find that we actually already had one of their albums in stock!! That was this one, 9 To The Moon, which we'd apparently ordered from Bestial Burst a couple years ago (2009) when it came out, but never reviewed. The next time we did a Bestial Burst order, we also got the newer double cd, and, our obsession growing, decided to make it Record Of The Week. So all of you who liked that one, you want this too!
Again, outsider electronic electro-dirge, chock a block with squeaky squelchy static-y sounds, stuttering irregular rhythms, noisy glitchy distortion damage. Bloop zwoop zip zap. Buzzing electricity. Sinister analog synth. Computers gone haywire. The occasional disembodied, drugged out voice buried in the mix (heard on the plodding "No Waste Of Sorrow" and elsewhere). Yes, the blown out, black and white, lunar landscape (?) cover art is so appropriate for these alien, bleak, brutal sci-fi sounds, that are both confusional and compelling.
To recap, WOM is a one-man band, a project of Harald Mentor from equally insane AQ faves Ride For Revenge, allegedly a "black metal" act. WOM is not black metal (though Beherit did dabble in this direction once upon a time) but anyone who really appreciates Ride For Revenge, as well as anything totally fucked up, ought to enjoy it. And the esoteric themes of these songs (they ARE songs) are as out there as any black metal weirdness ever. The song titles aren't even provided, but the internet knows what they are.
While it's not a double disc like the other one we listed, there's 9 tracks, all of 'em long... with grand finale "The Burning Logic" building and building for over 8 minutes of crinkum crankum, industrial electro-dirge hypnosis. The whole thing is possibly dangerous headphone listening all right!
The awesomely titled Might Of The Planet Eater is the latest from mysterious Finnish one man band Will Over Matter, which just so happens to be the work of a fella by the name of Harald Mentor, who you might know better as the maniac behind avant outsider not-quite-black-metal weirdos Ride For Revenge. So if the low end rhythmic weirdness that is Ride For Revenge is one step removed from black metal, imagine Will Over Matter as about 5 or 6 steps past that. Not black metal at all, but more like some sort of outsider electronica.
Our obsession with Ride For Revenge stems from the fact that over the course of their career, their sound has changed to the point where they are now totally subverting and transforming the idea of black metal into something much more primal and rhythmic, forgoing the buzz and blast and replacing those obvious BM tropes with looped mesmer and tribal pound, stripping the sound down to its essence, and then slowing it down as well, sounding more to us like Aluk Todolo than Beherit. Although the mention of Beherit, another Finnish black metal institution seems particularly apt here, in that Beherit are infamous for their non-black metal output, their experimental electronics, which is precisely what Will Over Matter is. If Ride For Revenge is Mentor's twisted take on black metal, well then Will Over Matter is his skewed attempt at power electronics, or industrial music, channeling the spirit of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Whitehouse, and all the rest, but filtered through some sort of cracked and damaged blackened Finnish lens.
Will Over Matter combines the stripped down rhythmic minimalism of Ride For Revenge with experimental industrialism, melding lumbering beats to fields of spaced out static, wrapping sheets of Merzbowian noise around shuffling low end thrum and machinelike beats, adding distorted alien vox to squalls of glitched out electronics, or winding multiple streams of electronic information into strangely twisted sonic barrages.
The opening track here is a bizarre soundscape of chittery electronics, of twisted feedback and growled super distorted vocals, pelted by grinding crunch and skittering squelches, a strange array of bleeps and bloops, and buried within, a sort of almost rhythmic bit of ever shifting static, which leads directly into the next track, a droned out stretch of pulsing electronic shimmer, which manages to sound spaced out and sinister at the same time, the tone and timbre switching constantly creating, again, it's own sort of psychedelic rhythm. It's not until "Read The Signs", track number three, that the various elements coalesce into what is really the core of WoM's sound, another fluctuating field of static, of strange space-y electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, but wound around a lumbering, skeletal beat, some sort of alien krautrock, before switching gears, and becoming a weirdly propulsive throbbing electronica, but with elements of kraut/post/space rock, at it's most propulsive sounding a bit like Bastard Noise offshoot and former Record Of The Week-ers Geronimo, and at its least, like nothing you've ever heard before. The track offers up strange electronic squiggles, sinister high end buzz, all in the surface of trailing behind that motorik beat, which itself is in constant flux, cymbals popping out of the mix, processed and all dubby, while the various electronics get more and more tangled and frantic.
Then there's the sprawling 24 minute "Stone Cold Heart", a super spare and abstract stretch of blackened rhythms, and distant buzz and shimmer, that buzz, growing ever more insistent, the vocals here not so distorted, more ominous and intense, intoning some sort of ritual, over what almost sounds like a black metal Pole, minus the barrage of wildly buzzing synths, and primitive analog electronic tones.
One of our favorite tracks is the gorgeously droned out and hypnotic "Forever Nameless" that seems to inadvertently channel John Carpenter and Goblin, into something much more dark and sinister, a totally mesmerizing rhythm, wound up in a thick, corrosive buzzing low end melody, while way off in the distance, a Burzum like synth melody plays out, again reminding us of a less noisy Aluk Todolo, totally hypnotic, the vocals here are almost sung, wrapped in a weird warped distortion, the end result like some sort of doomy drone pop slowcore or something.
Throughout the remainder of these two discs, WoM stretch out strangely stiff rhythms, or pull apart robotic electro beats into weirdly metallic anti-grooves, which unwind lazily beneath hazy streaks of static, creating a series of tarpit crawls, often swallowed whole by heaving walls of electronic sound, that seem to emulate the sheer crumbling power of SUNNO))-like doomdronedirge, but are more often left to pulse, and pound, and throb, a strange alien death march, as the label describes these rituals, each ritual an "epic journey through inner knowledge, lunar madness and cosmic superpowers of satanic possession", the twisted bastard child of some dark forest, outer space ritualized mating of industrial music, black metal, power electronics and krautrock, brilliantly baffling and maddeningly mesmerizing, by now, it should be easy for you to tell if this is your cup of seriously spiked tea or not, and for most of you, we imagine it must be. Fans of Ride For Revenge, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Mammal, Bastard Noise, This Heat, spaced out ritualistic blackened electronics and fucked up Finnish weirdness, this one's for you...
Back in 2011, we made Might Of The Planet Eater, the debut from weirdo minimal blackened power electronic one man band Will Over Matter our Record Of The Week. We initially discovered WOM via the fact that the 'one man' behind that one man band, was none other than Harald Mentor, mastermind of aQ beloved Finnish rhythmic black metal minimalists Ride For Revenge, who for some crazy reason, we just realized, have never nabbed Record Of The Week honors, cuz in retrospect, any/all of their previous records were more than deserving.
As we mentioned in our reviews of the other Will Over Matter records, if you thought Ride For Revenge were weird, then prepare theyself to be blown away, baffled, confused, frustrated, thrilled, unnerved, disturbed, most likely all of the above. Will Over Matter takes the dense rhythmic churn, already sort of spaced out and abstract, and replaces the bass and drums and traditional instruments, with what sounds like a battery of cobbled together electronics, home made machines and invented instruments, it's tough not to envision Mentor as some sort of mad scientist, in his murky musical laboratory, surrounded by walls of primitive electronics, old computers, blinking lights, blown speakers, a room full of towering obelisks of obsolete technology, harnessed into something otherworldly, and improbably next level. The sounds these machines emit glitchy and gristly, jagged and hiss-drenched, in some ways the template for WOM is the same as it was for Ride For Revenge, the 'band' locked into simple, lurching, lumbering motorik grooves, the 'beat' wrapped in dense sonic swirls, thick fields of static, everything glitched out and in-the-red. A head spinning sprawl of blackened kraut-noise synth-drone power-electronic minimalism, that RULES. Which brings us to the latest missive from Mentor, which is another psychedelic minimal electro-noise WTF doozy, the vocals kept to a minimum this time, the three lengthy tracks, spaced out and droney, slow shifting layers, constantly morphing textures, pulsing and pulsating, the sounds raw and gristly, the tracks maniacally repetitive and cyclical, in a way that to our ears is total tranced out bliss, but to less adventurous ears, might be just the opposite. The lack of 'song' and 'structure', not that there was that much of either on past WoM release, but even less so here, is precisely what makes Phenomenal Highways a whole different beast, at times, it's like past WoM records stripped down to their very skeletal essence, the opening track some sort of primitive kosmische ritual, a single synth locked and looped into a seemingly endless cycle of simple pulses, weirdly warbly and super distorted, a heartbeat like pulse wreathed in filthy, crusty synth squelch, that squirms and oozes, occasionally shaped into actual melodies, but more often than not droning and buzzing hypnotically, the final few minutes, finds the sounds transformed into weird lazer blast like blurts before suddenly blinking out.
The second track is even MORE minimal, a super spare soundscape that sounds like some mysteriously manipulated alien field recording, something you might here on Editions Mego, a field of crumpled low end crackle, muted and murky, peppered with little bits of percussion, the sound a weird bit of grinding muddy noise, it's not until 7 minutes in that the sound splinters, the background smoothing out into a whirring distorted drone, while Mentor delivers some demonic sermon over the top, his voice processed and doused in distortion, before the track explodes into a field of grinding electronics, tangled melodies, swirling tones, a robotic psych-noise freakout that manages to be more listenable than it has any right to be, a head spinning psychedelic churn that blossom into a final super blown out speaker shredding blowout, before oozing into the final track, a weird shuffling sprawl of rib cage rattling low end, dense subsonic tones delivered through what sounds like slow motion helicopter rotor wash, weirdly rhythmic and mesmeric, this minimal ooze and creep soon joined by strange curlicues of melody, the deep tone gathering all sorts of acoustic crunch as it goes, and once again, about seven minutes in, a super distorted blast of fractured blown out melody surfaces, giving the whole thing a seriously psychedelic vibe, those tones totally overtaking the rest of the sound, before fading out, and returning us to the slow-swell pulsations of the first half, only to fade out into a crackly sprawl of sculpted feedback, wreathed in hiss and hum, the sound smoldering and sinister, draped over a buried barely there rhythm, some echo drenched vocals in there too, everything sort of washed out and blurry, drifting beneath sheets of feedback and fields of staticky hum, all culminating in a final freaked out psych-noise squall, that does little to disguise the haunting melodic beauty that lurks within.
As always, amazing, bizarre and bafflingly brilliant, a dizzyingly abstract, twisted industrial psychedelic drone-noise masterpiece. That is of course also extremely limited...
If ya ain't been paying close attention, you might erroneously think that our AQ collective aesthetic runs to whatever is "weird", for the simple reason that it's "weird". But you'd be wrong. Heck, there's obviously no integrity in just being anti for anti's sake. People who're into EVERYTHING weird, regardless of quality, usually are trying to prove something about themselves, it's got nothing to do with music. So, while I can totally appreciate the weirdness of this reissue of the legendary Gary Wilson album, and its first appearance on cd, I can't fully recommend it to you... because it's pretty bad. Not "so bad it's good." This is "so bad... period!" On the other hand, Neil Strauss from the NY Times thinks it's good -- he wrote that big article about Wilson that's largely responsible for the current hype and interest -- so if you actually trust Strauss or whoever, then go for it. If you trust AQ, save yer money. It sounds like a syrupy "slow jams" record made by a complete dork who's kinda bitter about some failed relationship(s). There's no pleasure to be found in listening to Wilson's pitiful attempts at songwriting and performing, no joy in knowing he feels worse than you ever did. The Langley Schools cd, with the Canadian kids singing pop hits, is a great example of rock performed by amateurs who're so earnest, super touching, and poignant... and thus the Langley Schools cd is (to *some* of the AQ staff) Good Listening. But I swear, the Gary Wilson just doesn't deliver. Did someone mash Bobby Conn through the Steely Dan filter?! Sigh. The only way to convince yourself that you like this record is to look at it ironically. And that's no way to listen to music! "Irony." Feh.
This review was written by someone who has owned the Gary Wilson record for, like, seven years. Go figure.
Marcy's alternate review:
First, be warned: every single AQ staffer but me HATES this record (you may remember the exceptionally negative review it received in our list earlier in the year). On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE it. And I know I'm not alone, because quite a few people I've played this for have also fallen head-over-heels for Gary Wilson's incredibly unique, bizarre, charming and disturbing blend of John Cage-inspired experimentalism and 70's chart pop. Almost entirely alone in his parent's basement, wrapped in magnetic tape and new-wave shades, Wilson crafted early synths, organ, tape freak-outs, funky bass and smoove beats into an impressive musical backing for his fucked-up stories of teenage lust. Puncuated by more "woo!"s and "yeah!"s than a Michael Jackson record, the lyrics display a tension between the sort of romantic naivete normally confined to 50's teensploitation films and a twisted, neurotic and dark view of love in an increasingly technological and isolating world. I not a big fan of joke records; I generally have better things to do than listen to records described as "so-bad-they're-good;" my opinion that "You Think You Really Know Me" is absolutely brilliant is as 100% sincere as Wilson's impassioned, pleading vocals. We have here a classic love-it-or-hate-it deal; my co-workers may grimace, but this record puts a huge smile on my face.
We couldn't remember why, exactly, must have read about it sometime long ago in a krautrock reference book, like the Crack In The Cosmic Egg perhaps, but we knew that as fans of early HEAVY '70s stuff - psych, prog, krautrock, proto-metal, what have you - that apparently the German band Wind's 1971 debut Seasons was one to watch out for. Well, it finally just got reissued via the Long Hair label (who have recently brought us several kraut-prog winners from Cannabis India, Mammut, and Et Cetera, amongst others) and so, already curious about it, we ordered a copy of it in...
First impression, before we even put it on, from looking at the photo on the back: damn, for a krautrock band, these guys have some seriously impressive, huge Afros!!! So, a lot of expectation/anticipation/long hair to live up to. And as it turns out, Wind don't blow it (sorry). This album is fine indeed. It hits our "heavy" buttons but also has enough melodic and groove appeal that some of the folks here at AQ who, y'know, don't spend time memorizing stuff out of krautrock reference books or obsessing about 1971 were into it too! So, we ordered some more, and here's our review...
Wind were a five piece: guitar, organ, bass, drums, the singer sometimes busting out flute (yes!) and harmonica. With the organ, they're in the "heavy progressive" mode of a lot of other early krautROCK bands, sounding as much like Deep Purple as they do Can. Both of which are cool by us, and the DO sound like both sometimes. Another once-popular krautrock band they remind us of is Birth Control (who we love, but sadly have never reviewed, relevant reissues seem scarce right now). So that means lots of thumping organ and fuzzy guitar riffs, which do indeed pound forth, especially on opener "What Do We Do Now", and later on the even heavier "Dear Little Friend", but even those songs have their shades of light as well as dark. Wind featured raw sounds and tight playing, on this record definitely conveying an impassioned feeling, in part due to the singer's often gruff, sandpapery voice, that at his toughest makes us think of Nazareth's Dan McCafferty, though at times he can be quite smooth and soulful. His harmonica blowin' on the 16 minute album-closer "Red Morningbird" gives that song an evocative Ennio Morricone / Spaghetti Western vibe, also sounding a lot like one of Can's Soundtracks tracks, and this album might be worth the price of admission alone just for that epic track. Certainly kraut-fans of Birth Control, Murphy Blend, Dies Irae, Gift, early Out Of Focus, will need to hear Wind's Seasons, and like we said it has also been catching the ears of even those here who aren't the biggest prog and proto-metal fiends.
Liner notes in German and English tell us that prior to the release of this album, the members of Wind were involved in recording an exploito-psych LP by "Corporal Gander's Fire Dog Brigade", and did an ill-fated, six-month tour of Vietnam (where there was a war going on, you may recall). But they survived all that to release this debut and another (much softer, we're told) album in '72, calling it a day not long after, having bad luck selling records despite good reviews and success on stage, having played clubs and festivals with the likes of Can, Family, East Of Eden, Pink Floyd and others.
Not Hill, Hell. The truest cult American black metal band we can think of. Windham Hell is the duo of Leland Windham and Eric Friesen, two guys, who when not scaling the glaciers near their small Washington town (where "Twin Peaks" was filmed, hence the song title "Glacier Walk In Me"!), hole up in a home studio and make unique, neo-classical black metal masterpieces. Dark, atmospheric, abyssic. Twisted obscure lyrics, cold soundscapes, and TONS of amazing lead guitar shredding from both band members. That's what really sets Windham Hell apart from their competition, why Allan's been a fan of 'em since the "Hell Is Here" demo way back in '89! An eccentric, homemade mixture of Bathory and Bach! Their third album in a decade. Recommended.
