We've been diggin' some killer late '70s, early '80s French punk rock lately, or "paink" as the as the recent compilation of that name has it, discovering some new obscure faves from the scene we hadn't known of before, bands to file alongside Soggy and Metal Urbain in the realm of Stooges-y, snotty, sometimes synth-laced underground French-speaking rawk from the new wave era. Here's a good example, reissued for the first time on cd (and also on vinyl too, backordered at the moment - but the the cd has 4 previously unreleased bonus tracks anyway).
C.O.M.A., aka Clinik Organik Musak Anatomik (great name, whatever it means exactly!), originally unleashed this way weird and super rare full-length, their only album, in 1979. It's some intense & experimental, minimal wave synth punk, manifested with shamboblic precision, their odd "musak" loaded with blurting synthesizer, noisy guitar, mechanical drumbeats, distorted disembodied vocals (often a gravelly croak), and electronic FX galore. Some tracks are more abstract, like the soundscapey segue of "Consequences", consisting of about 50 percent feedback, while others, like "Demain", are more groove-oriented, dark and dancey new wave numbers, still loaded with synth strangeness, to which we can totally imagine stylish French punks doing some kind of robo-pogo.
Yup, it's a diverse disc, wherein a moody, sparse piano piece like "Coma" could be followed by the hard-charging mechano-aggro beatdown of "Assaut", complete with wiggly wild guitar/synth solo.
The sporadic mad scientist's laboratory bleep bloop of "La Valse A Mutant" kinda has a Francophone "Hardcore Devo" vibe, and definitely Devo were an inspiration on this groop, along with the likes of Kraftwerk, Wire, and The Residents. Think Devo meets Metal Urbain, you're on the right track. Great stuff. C.O.M.A. didn't appear on that Paink comp, we don't know why, they shoulda been, though maybe just a bit weirder than the others. Fans of stuff on Medical and Dark Entries ought to check it out...
Members of German avant-jazz outfit Bretzel Killing Machine take their interest in horror films/music a step further by forming this two-man experimental BLACK METAL band! Yes, B.K.M. leader (and solo electronics artist) Bjoern Eichstaedt has finally delivered his his long-promised (threatened?) Caacrinolas project. Keyboardist/vocalist Bjoern, together with guitarist/bassist
It's definitely something for fans of Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Abruptum, Nokturnal Mortum, Potentiam, and similar avant-ambient-black-metal trips. Excellent! We look forward to their next recording, which we're told is already underway, entitled "Satan et les légions fantastiques tourmentant le Crucifié"...
Ok, let's start adding 'em up. This band gets point for their name, first off. 'Cadaver In Drag' is both disturbing and humorous enough to be worth a nervous chuckle (it's even funnier if you imagine that they know something about the Swedish death metal band Cadaver that we don't know). And their knack for names extends to album and song titles too, especially that of track two, "Fuck This Place". Could be an anthem for folks sick of living in, say, Kentucky (from whence Cadaver In Drag hail). Plus, they get points for this being released on the Animal Disguise label, run by one of the guys from Mammal, whose recent album was an Aquarius Record Of The Week, last week. That certainly piques our interest. And also then there's more points for this being picked, before it was even released, as an Album Of The Month (October 2007) by pagan pope Julian Cope on his Head Heritage website, which puts 'em in league with such past heavy AQ faves as Harvey Milk, Orthodox, Om, Death Comes Along, Vincent Black Shadow, The Heads, SUNNO))), and others. As always, we recommend reading his reviews.
So, before we even heard this, Cadaver In Drag had already run up the score pretty high in their favor. And now that it's here, and blasting on our stereo, the verdict is: hella more points!! For being a totally fucked, mesmeric mash of doooomic sludge metal and shrill psychedelic noise rock... part Khanate, part Wolf Eyes (or Mammal), and, as Julian Cope sez, part Les Rallizes Denudes. Nasty, noisy, nauseous. Early on in both the first two of this disc's three tracks, some angsty, wretched screams carry on about something or other, but those are quickly forgotten as Cadaver In Drag concentrate on their plodding, powerful instrumental raison d'etre: monomaniacal repetitive riff-bashing, each track an extended, distorted, metallic, trebly throb, crashing and clanging, staying more or less the same for up to 19 minutes in the case of the first and longest cut, the aptly titled "Walking Through The Gates Of Hell". However, subtle, simple shifts in sound do occur, almost as if they're playing their own destroyed dub versions of these compositions. It's like Skullflower covering Super Roots 3 (or 5) by the Boredoms, if you can imagine that sort of sickeningly hypnotic hybrid. Or Eyehategod and Hair Police (a member of whom contributes synths here) locked in a minimal march to death, freaking out with as few chords as possible, but plenty of FX. Or Cavity vs. Harry Pussy... Yowza. And it must be said that Cadaver In Drag does mellow the fuck out for the almost melodic, calm-in-comparison album closer "Secession '61". Nice. Points for that too.
This Italian metal band is hard to figure out: visually, they look kinda Marilyn Manson-eque with big boots, devil-locks and black vinyl trenchcoats. So we expected some sort of vampire industrial goth thing, maybe with female vocals...well it's got female
Woah. Only previously available in the form of expensive Japanese imports, this is the first time we've been able to stock and list this amazing album, and we've wanted to for a long time. It's one that anyone into weird heavy '70s psych / prog, particularly of the Japanese variety, should add to their collections posthaste. Seriously. You perhaps have heard of J.A. Caesar (variously, J.A. Seazer, J.A. Ceaser), a Tokyo based playwright and composer, responsible for many wild, psychedelic theatrical productions that we can only imagine were utterly mindblowing to witness, judging by their soundtracks. This disc, reissuing a 1973 record, contains the highlights of his dramatic score for a 5-hour play called Kokkyou Junreika, here about 54 minutes of music. And it's an intense 54 minutes, this album being the best, and heaviest, J.A. Caesar release we've heard, with ceremonial-sounding Buddhist chant and fuzzed out guitars and doomy organ and heavy riffs and moody female vocals out the wazoo. Wow. Magical Power Mako meets Magma would be one good (if potentially puzzling) description. Or perhaps imagine Flower Travellin' Band participating in a freaked out rock opera / ritual, with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance. For krautrockier comparisons, Amon Duul II and Necronomicon are obvious ones, and should suffice as an excellent recommendation. Another would be that this album was highly rated by Julian Cope in his Japrocksampler book (ranking at number 5 of his top 50). This reissue says it's remastered, and is limited and numbered to boot, packaged in a gatefold sleeve.
By the way, one of the tracks here was later covered by druggy doomsters Solar Anus, you can hear it on their tUMULt double disc, Skull Alcoholic...
What a fucking nut. Two discs of Cage reading, calmly and without expression, cut-up non-sensical passages from Henry David Thoreau's journals, live in Milan, 1977. The audience reaction is, however, quite expressive! Over the two discs the outcry builds: clapping, jeering, stomping, shrieking. Eventually the recording is more of the noise-making audience's near-riot than of Cage's performance, which is certainly in keeping with the man's philosophy of "music". Amazing and absurd. What a fucking nut!
After the big This Heat boxset bombshell dropped last year, and made everybody fall in love with that seminal, '70s experimental UK prog-punk band all over again, we expect that there's even more folks now who'll be stoked that this collection of This Heat drummer Charles Hayward's quite excellent '80s output with his band Camberwell Now has been reissued, in a brand new deluxe digipack format. That's right, if you want more This Heatishness beyond the Out Of Cold Storage boxset, you want this!
Recorded circa 1982-1985, the fifteen songs compiled here (from Camberwell Now's three vinyl releases plus a cassette comp track) are pretty darn essential for any fan of This Heat, featuring as they do one of the most important components of the This Heat sound, Hayward's signature drumming style. You'll know it when you hear it. His thin, fragile vocals and poetic, politically-charged lyrics are also a significant part of the picture, with the other members of Camberwell Now also making significant contributions to their sound, which incorporated tapes, field recordings, autoharp, ethnic instruments, kazoo, keyboards, etc. A potent mix of energetic rhythms and dreary melodies. For fans of This Heat (obviously), though this is less hard-hitting and more song-based than some of their work. Fans of '80s Robert Fripp may also feel at home with portions of this. But it also occurs to us that there are some recent artists that seem to share something (just something) with Camberwell Now, like Dean Roberts and, perhaps especially, Richard Youngs.
Not only is this new edition cheaper than the one we had before, it's in nicer packaging, with extra notes and photos and artwork, and has also been remastered by the band. Yay!
We're always talking about "modern day krautrock" bands - Circle, Hills, The Oscillation, Cloudland Canyon, 3 Leafs, Mugstar, Von Himmel, the list goes on and on - but Berlin's mostly-instrumental Camera, a band known for impromptu shows in public spaces, has a better claim than most to the "modern day krautrock" tag, 'cause of course they are actually from Germany! Not only that, but they've previously played/collaborated with members of Neu! and Harmonia, among others. Funnily enough, though, the press material for this highly anticipated 2nd album of theirs tries to claim that "Camera are not seeking to emulate the sound of older Krautrock bands" - that any sonic similarities to those bands from the '70s are merely coincidental, the result of a shared methodology of music making, we're to suppose. And then it says "You can still call it Krautrock, if you must." Guess what? We must! It is, and really good, too.
Remember I Was Carbon Dioxide (strange title, that) naturally kicks off with a motorik beat, opener "From The Outside" gradually adding shimmering tendrils of synthesizer to what the drummer is laying down, building up to something both lovely and well-muscled. The next track, "Parhelion", takes a similar, uber-hypnotic approach, much more moody though, spaced out and plodding - "slo-mo-motorik" we'd call it. The hissing synth swoosh and echo-effected guitar with which this is layered makes for a thing of beauty, the use of distortion reminding us of some early Salvatore stuff, to cite another "modern day krautrock" fave of ours. That track could lumber forever onwards and we'd be ok with it, but eventually it does come to an end, and the next one, "Synchron", ups the tempo, lightens the mood, more melodic and sunshiney, but the thumping beat is still motorik, and gnarly noises do arise from the shoegazing guitars. Real nice - how they can suggest that Neu! and Harmonia and early Kraftwerk aren't being consciously "emulated" here is crazy! Next, the skree-laden, garage-kraut attack of "Roehre" features guest saxophone doing some free jazz damage to its HEAVY, propulsive stomp.
There's eight more tracks on this album, each in possession of its own special charms. And while many of these tracks mesmerize with their motorik beats (the rhythm just grabs a hold of you and you can't resist it!!), it's not all purely that, and a track like "Ozymandias" works its magic through eerie, droning textures of psychedelic moodiness, shimmering sounds from guitar and keys, the drumming taking a backseat, its skitter just another texture. Most of the tracks bring both rhythm and texture together, in potent aural doses of moody, druggy, majestic krautrock ritual. Fantastic stuff.
Available on cd or vinyl, the latter of which comes with a cd of itself.
A perfect krautrock album.
Can's second with Japan-born singer Damo Suzuki.
Brilliant!
The um, most crucial canon of Can, by which we mean the krautrockers' first four albums, Monster Movie, Soundtracks, Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago, have once again been reissued in beautifully remastered vinyl. How do they sound? Well, we've just had a customer who is a sound engineer trade in all his previous reissues of these lps which currently fetch high prices on the interwebs, saying, "You just can't beat the new technology", so there you go! Though keep in mind the sound samples are from the older reviews.
Soundtracks! These are tracks from various indie films scored by the group in 1970. Features the 14 minute, psych guitar-heavy "Mother Sky" and the beautiful Malcolm Mooney-sung jazz-lounge piece "She Brings The Rain", both all-time favorites of most Can fans. Let us just say that if you don't own this already, here's a good chance to buy, not only this reissue, but a whole bunch of the best early Can on lp.
Oooh. Nice new vinyl reissues of several classic Can albums have just been released. 1971's "Tago Mago" double album was their third full-length release, and their first with expatriate Japanese singer Damo Suzuki (who they discovered busking on the street
PS If you like Circle and you don't have this record, get it!!
Nice!! One of our favorite Can, nay krautrock, nay any-kind-of albums ever (that is if you don't ask Andee, who for some insane reason doesn't like Can at all), given a fancy 40th Anniversary reissue! What's so fancy about it you ask? Well, first the packaging, it's in a nice gatefold miniature lp style sleeve, with the original art of the German lp edition that came out back in 1971 (yay, 1971!). That's nestled inside a cardboard wallet-like folder which bears the cover from Tago Mago's UK release in 1972, a movie still of singer Damo and drummer Jaki on stage, in action, dramatically lit. For some reason they made big deal about this alternate cover being used on this reissue, it's cool to have it but we're happy the original art is also present and accounted for on that gatefold sleeve. Also inside the folder, a thick booklet with vintage photos and plenty o' detailed liner notes, including some by the guy from Primal Scream.
More importantly though, what makes this so special is that it includes a whole extra disc, a previously unreleased, 48 minute live performance from 1972! They do "Mushroom" and "Halleluwah" from Tago Mago, as well as "Spoon" from that year's equally amazing Ege Bamyasi, that song here stretched out to almost a half hour in length! Any true Can fan will want this just for the live disc, even though you probably already have one or more remastered versions of Tago Mago proper. But yeah, with the live set and the nice packaging, this is definitely worth getting, it's an upgrade all right.
For those of you who aren't big Can fans already, this would be a fine place to begin your love affair with this amazing band (c'mon, Andee!). Here's what we wrote about Tago Mago when it was last reissued:
1971's Tago Mago double album was Can's third full-length release, and their first with expatriate Japanese singer Damo Suzuki (whom they discovered busking on the street outside a club). It's truly a sprawling masterpiece of krautrock. Witness the weird noise/drone stuff on the 17 minute "Aumgn", or the totally hypnotic rhythmic psych groove of the equally side-long "Halleluwah". Again, we probably don't have to say much more, you already have this, right? But if Can's new to you, we'd recommend this (as well as Monster Movie and Ege Bamyasi and Soundtracks) as among their best efforts. PS: If you like Circle and you don't have this record, get it!!
They certainly aren't, y'know, lowering expectations with a title like that (unless you were looking for twee indie pop or something else non-metallic). And if anyone could call a record Death Magic Doom it's Candlemass bassist/mastermind Leif Edling and his not-so-merry band of spooky Swedes (and one Texan). Last list we highlighted The Devil You Know, the magnificent reunion album of Ronnie James Dio and Black Sabbath under the Heaven & Hell name, and mentioned in our review that we didn't think any other attempts at epic doom this year could compete. However, a decent runner up has to be this latest slab of heaviosity from Swedish doom veterans Candlemass! They offer up their tenth studio album, also their second full-length with vocalist Robert Lowe (of Texas doomsters Solitude Aeturnus), who has already proved himself to be the best (and maybe only) choice to replace Candlemass's iconic '80s singer Messiah Marcolin at the mic. If you liked Lowe's 2007 Candlemass debut King Of The Grey Islands, you'll like this one too!
More classic soaring vocals, chugging guitars, Sabbathy riffs, depressive atmosphere, frantic soloing... this is heavy, heavy (but melodic) metal! The album starts off fairly uptempo with the storming "If I Ever Die"... but if that's too fast for you, you'll be relieved to be crushed by the lumbering next track, "Hammer Of Doom" in all its bell-tolling glory. It's as if the first track saw the second one coming and just wanted to hurry up and get the heck out of the way. Other faves here include "The Bleeding Baroness" (with a catchy refrain that's a bit bizarre to have stuck in your head), and "House Of 1000 Voices" (the album's longest track at 7:50, and thus most epic epic). We should also mention "Demon Of The Deep" which is a song about a sea monster. Somehow Lowe's dramatic, fist-clenched vocals combine with the subject matter to transcend from the ridiculous to, if not the sublime, at least the quite doomfully entertaining!
In some ways, this review is superfluous. I mean, what doomfan isn't gonna want a record called Death Magic Doom by freakin' Candlemass in their collection??
NB. this version includes "Lucifer Rising" as a bonus track.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"This album is dedicated to the greatest band of all time -- Black Sabbath." So it says, quite rightly, in the liner notes of this release. This is the second effort by the reformed (not reunited) Candlemass, the Swedish metal legends who in the '80s almost single-handedly established the genre of "Epic Doom Metal."
The *new* Candlemass, tho, harkens back earlier in time, wallowing fully in the early '70s heaviness of the gods Sabbath. Gone are the high pitched operatic vocals of their old singer, gone are the shred guitar leads of their old axe-slinger (not that there was anything wrong with those things...) Instead, the band's massive riffs are supported by dirgy, Ozzy-like vox and spacy, psychedelic electronic effects. There's even sounds of rain and bells to complete the Sabbath homage. The abstract song titles ("Arx/Ng 891", "Cyclo-F") and sometimes mysterious atmospheres make this its own record though, kind of a timeless art-doom for the nineties.
While there ARE lots of amazing reissues of all sorts of old records -- psychedelic, rock, folk, jazz, reggae, metal, etc. -- coming out all the time (and hopefully you've read about a bunch of 'em here, we do our best to keep up), it's also become evident to us that the vast majority of reissued obscurities were, well, obscure for a reason, and it's hard to understand WHY someone would choose to reissue 'em. But then there's reissues like this one, that make us wonder, why hadn't we ever heard of this band before? Why weren't they HUGE? Well maybe Miguel Cantilo Y Grupo were famous in their native Argentina, they should have been, we certainly can't imagine that there were all that many bands of this quality releasing records in that country back then (this dates from 1975). At any rate, we're pretty excited to learn about 'em now thanks to this reissue. An eclectic psychedelic progressive rock album, with songs ranging from acoustic mellow melodicism to heavy hard rockin' bombast, this is something that we'd rank with a few other '70s reissues that have become big favorites 'round here -- if you loved the Eduardo Bort from Spain, or the more-recently reviewed Tarkus from Peru, you'll want this too for sure! It's got strong songs, a charming heavy-duty hippy vibe (check out the cover art), exotic appeal (all songs sung in Spanish, very emotively), and is definitely Classic Rock worthy (reminding us of Led Zep, Budgie, and even Aerosmith at their most mystical, magical a la "Kings and Queens"). Miguel's vocals are a bit Bolan-esque as well. But what puts it over the top for us is the killer blend of exquisite prettiness and sudden, frantic rock n' roll action, a lot looser and rawer than some other progressives of the era. Very dynamic and surprising. It's weird in all the right places. It's always neat to discover cool stuff like this out of the blue, proving that there definitely are unknown reissues worth taking a chance on... Nicely packaged in a slim colorful cardboard digipacky thing, with the cd itself in a sleeve with the lyrics printed on it.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
While Captain Beyond's 1972 debut was all about proggy proto-metal riffery, the group's quite different but equally classic 1973 follow-up, Sufficiently Breathless, is much less hard-edged, much more Malibu-mellow. Smoother, and spaced out. Indeed you could call it space rock, what with song titles/subjects like "Drifting In Space", "Starglow Energy" and "Distant Sun". It's a definitely trippy album, to match the very bizarre cover painting. But there's some riffage here all right too, with a bunch of the tracks, even including "Drifting In Space", having a rollicking, groovy energy to 'em. "Evil Men" kinda reminds us of Blue Oyster Cult, and also it - and a lot of the record - has a jazzy feel, with Latin percussion, a la Santana.
Our favorite track is probably the majestic and uplifting "Starglow Energy", a somewhat Floydian, New Agey hippie hypnotic bliss out. It's been a long time (since 1973, perhaps!) that an artist could do a song with a title like "Starglow Energy" and sound so sincere about it. Nope, they don't make 'em like this anymore.
So, compared to Captain Beyond's debut, the super stoned and sorta Santana-styled Sufficently Breathless isn't so much astral proto-metal, than, uh, maybe what we could call yacht-psych (?), but we still love it!
This isn't really a new cd, just an old favorite that we thought we'd list for the first time 'cause the name sometimes comes up in our reviews of present day heavy psych/stoner rock bands: LA's legendary Captain Beyond. This cd reissues their classic 1972
When Yo La Tengo went to rock school in their video for "Sugarcube", they were instructed that their third album must follow the ELP Rule -- it must be double live! Well the Cardigans, in their recent matriculation into rock school, have followed a different rule for their third album -- the Radiohead Rule -- that if a band is in danger of being written off as a one-hit-wonder, they must make a third album of dark yet sugar-coated pop gems. Hence, OK Computer and now, for the Cardigans, Gran Turismo.
OK, it is unfair to compare this album to OK Computer, but the Cardigans have realized their best album of bittersweet pop songs. (Sadly, however, there are no Black Sabbath covers on this album.) An Aquarius pop fave.
aQ Hits is a new collection from beloved SF psychedelic space rock minimalists Carlton Melton, and is our second annual official aQuarius recOrds Record Store Day release. Last year's was a live disc called Black Valleys, a document of a killer aQuarius instore by NY psych rockers White Hills, and that one sold out in a flash. This year's looks to do the same - if you like White Hills, you like Carlton Melton, right?!
It's a super limited (just 300 copies) compact disc, collecting a handful of rare, and now out of print vinyl tracks, from various singles and split lps from the last couple years, including one super extended version.
Let's run through the various tracks... "Bottle Of Heat [Extended Version]", is, as you can probably tell from the title, the aforementioned alternate cut, which takes "Bottle Of Heat", originally released on the 2011 Agitated Records 12" comp I'm So Convoluted!, and offers up the unedited full-sprawl recording, stretching out to more than 19 minutes, thick smoldering clouds of soft focus psychedelia, drifting and blissed out, free form and abstract, a meandering epic of lush chordal swell and shimmery FX drenched swirl, all over a shuffling hypnotic and motorik kraut-psych beat. "Handling Snakes" is the A side from the group's Valley King 7" single, and is a jolt of heavy hypno-blues a la Wooden Shjips, but in the hands of Carlton Melton, somehow even heavier with wailing riffs and pummeling drums.
The next two tracks are from Carlton Melton's split 12" with Empty Shapes, originally released on Mid-To-Late Records in 2010: "Call and Response" is an epic (and originally nearly side-loooong) blowout, beginning with a heavy rumble of monolithic sludge eventually progressing into a slow wave of burnt-out blues riffage a la early Comets on Fire, that churns and steeps into a gnarly brew of molten fuzz. While "Purer", is more cosmic and dreamy, built on a layer of percolating synth drones that give way to a more uplifting space rock jam trajectory, total heart-of-the-sun zoner blissout.
And finally, the last two tracks are from CM's split 12" with Qumran Orphics, also originally released on Mid-To-Late Records, that one in the beginning of 2011. "March Of The Cicadas" is a glorious ten minute slab of psychedelic heaviness, that sounds exactly like the title implies, a slowmotion dirge over martial rhythms with buzzing electronic hisses and stratospheric guitar leads. And things finish off with "Murder Ridge", a noirish Bardo Pond-like spiral of burning sonic embers and sustained decay, a gorgeous hazy stretch of blurred lysergic drift, the perfect final movement, psych-drone comedown.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the artwork is printed on metallic silver cardstock, everything housed in a slim dvd style case, only available here!
All right, we'll admit that we were a bit doubtful about this at first, just from reading the hypesheet/liner notes, which claim, in part, that this is one of the "last great Kraut secrets" and because of its discovery, "the history of Krautrock has to be rewritten". And we're still not entirely sure if the person who wrote that was actually joking or not. But, while this is definitely not some undiscovered classic on the order of a Can, Faust or Neu! (or even the more obscure likes of Siloah, Kalacakra, Necronomicon, etc.) it IS pretty cool. And weird. Especially weird. Imagine Reynols or Yahowha 13 gone lounge, trying to entertain a bunch of jet-setters at some hip, swinging '60s party... It's called Fantastic Party after all and that's what it was meant as, a party record! Some cheesy German record label in 1970 put this together, presumably paying (with drugs?) a bunch of studio musicians to create a one-off psychedelic exploitation album by a nonexistent "band". A dime a dozen back then, maybe, but these guys really really went for it. It is pretty darn tripped out. Groovy but really off kilter and demented. Maybe we'd compare it to the children's songbook funk of Stark Reality, if you've heard the reissue of that. Or some totally dosed jazz combo doing porno music. Good times. Yup, it's got stinging fuzz guitar solos, flute warbling, hiccuping percussion, damaged "singing", bizarro titles... this has LSD written all over it. If you went to this "fantastic party" you'd know that Peter Fonda would be there for sure. And go-go dancers with dayglo body paint. And Timothy Leary, and midgets, and people who look like extras from a Terry Southern penned movie too.
A track from this appeared on the Kraut! Demons! Kraut compilation from a few years back, and if you have that, well rest assured, the entirety of this album is of the same high quality of fucked-upedness. So, true krautrock classic or not, we're glad it's been reissued, we're digging it! We only have to wonder, why did the reissuers hate the original cover so much that they felt the need to provide a new, totally ugly one?? Fortunately the LP's real (and actually quite rad, despite what they thought) cover is reproduced on the tray card, featuring a bevy of good-looking, polyester-clad partygoers truly having a FANTASTIC time.
Death Waltz alert! John Carpenter alert! Awesome soundtrack alert! Death Waltz finally gets to this Carpenter soundtrack, at last. And they've put it out on compact disc (in stock and being reviewed now) as well as of course on vinyl, which we're told should be here next week possibly. Heck they even did a cassette version, sadly much too limited for us to get.
Assault On Precinct 13, a low budget action thriller from 1976, is one of our favorite Carpenter flicks - and film scores. Like so many soundtracks, this mainly consists of variations on a theme - a pretty damn cool theme, though, simple and effective. You'll probably remember it as soon as you hear it... dah dah de dah dah dum dum duh de dum, sorta sounds like it could have been used as the triumphant theme for some Rocky-like boxing movie, except that it's way too sinister for that. Just a few fat distorted synth notes, over a drum machine driven rhythm. The whole soundtrack is drum machine driven, sometimes nothing BUT drum machine, very atmospheric and "old school", sounding like Schoolly D ought to be rapping over it. Which totally fits in with the "urban jungle" race-riot paranoia of this suspenseful, violent movie, which as you may remember is about an enraged street gang attacking an isolated police station in the ghetto of South Central LA. The plot and vibe were inspired by George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, as well as the western Rio Bravo.
Composer/performer Carpenter crafted a taut and minimal synth based score (recorded in just 3 days) that has come to be regarded as a classic. Among the memorable sonic elements found on it are a melodic electric piano motif, and, of course, an ice cream truck jingle, also laid over the usual creepy drum machine tick tick bip bap, for the crucial, shocking scene early in the film involving said ice cream truck.
The Death Waltz edition of this previously hard-to-find soundtrack is remastered, boasts excellent new artwork as per DW tradition, and comes with plentiful liner notes in the swank digipack.
Now that Death Waltz has done this, clearly the next one up has GOT to be the soundtrack to Walter Hill's The Warriors, are we all agreed? Let's hope!
Why are we making a soundtrack for a movie from 1983 starring Kurt Russell (who hams it up in a piratical eye-patch) our Record Of The Week, this week? Well, we've got a few reasons... first off, the music is awesome and we love it (good reason right there). Secondly, this cd has been out of print and hard to find for several years now, going for silly sums on eBay, sought after by soundtrack collectors and electronic music fans. When we heard that Silva Screen was finally going to reissue it, we started thinking Record Of The Week thoughts immediately... and now, after some further delay, here it is at last!
While director John Carpenter is known for making quite a few classic films in the B-grade horror and sci-fi thriller genres (Halloween, The Thing, Assault On Precinct 13, The Fog, They Live etc.), it's perhaps not as well known that he personally composed the soundtrack music to many of his movies, starting with his first flick Dark Star back in 1974. Working out of a home studio with what was technically advanced equipment at the time (machines which would now be considered awesomely vintage), he composed electronic music soundtracks that some might say are even better than the movies themselves. Certainly they're worthy to stand on their own, anyway (just like Goblin's soundtracks for Argento's films). Carpenter's compositions have influenced other musicians, and not just soundtrack writers. Anyone who loved the Zombi album we recommended last year needs to have some John Carpenter in their collection for sure!
And we recommend Escape From New York as being one of his best. Somehow it combines a lot of stuff that we figure a lot of you like: suspenseful Goblinesque darkness, droning old school synths, kitchy Disco Not Disco style NYC '80s groove... Loaded with claustrophobic nervous tension, these tracks make use of taut, minimalistic, hypnotically repetitive rhythms that make us imagine an Electro version of AQ faves Circle. The atmosphere is further enhanced by the inclusion of sound fx from the film and snippets of dialogue -- the tough guy banter of Kurt Russell's wiseass anti-hero "Snake" Plissken is priceless, especially due to Russell's constipated Clint Eastwood delivery.
Set in a dystopian, wartorn then-future of 1997, Escape From New York sends "Snake" into the maximum security prison that the island of Manhattan has become to rescue (at pain of death) the President of the United States, who is being held captive there by the city's "inmates" after Air Force One made a particularily poor choice of a place to crash-land! The film also stars the likes of Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Donald Pleasence, and Isaac Hayes, all of 'em capable of chewing the scenery right along with Russell. You definitely don't need to have seen Escape From New York to get a kick out of this soundtrack, but the movie is an enjoyable '80s action thriller worthy of its cult status and listening to this will probably get you to go rent it.
Carpenter composed and performed the score in association with sound designer Alan Howarth, whose home studio (stocked with an ARP Quadra, an ARP Avatar with 16 step sequencer, a Prophet 5 programmable analog synthesizer, and a Linn LM-1 drum machine) was used for the recording. Howarth was further responsible for remixing and remastering the album for the release of this "expanded edition" which first appeared in 2000. It includes several cues originally meant for scenes deleted from the theatrical release of the film, and runs to over 57 minutes in length. 'Bout time it was back in circulation!
This is not new, but we only just discovered this head spinning slab of totally demented fifties style (recorded in the sixties) rockabilly genius (or madness!) thanks to our pal Brian Turner at WFMU. And holy crap are we kicking ourselves for missing this. You'd never know from the cover, featuring Carter in a zebra striped jacket mugging with his guitar behind big colored letters, what freakiness lurks inside. And freaky it is. Not all of it. There are of course some straight up old school garage rockabilly jams, but some of the songs are soooooo far out, Carter was a bit like a rockabilly Joe Meek, always after new sounds, on the hunt for new equipment, anything to realize the twisted sounds in his head. He also reminds us of Michael Yonkers!
Take for example the cover of Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" which opens up this collection, a totally twisted off kilter take on the original, with way more aggressive vocals, some weird high end tones over almost the whole thing, and a completely over the top insanely psychedelic guitar freakout (made by grinding the neck of the guitar against a mic stand) right in the middle, which was meant to sound like an actual jailhouse riot going on. As if that weren't enough, besides the usual rock instruments, Carter gathered up various friends and family members to contribute ukulele, accordion, and clarinet, played by a neighbor's 12 year old daughter!! But that's only the tip of the iceberg, the second track is a super rocking garage jam that sounds like early MC5, but then the third "I Got A Girl" is all buzzy garage stomp, with super raw vocals, and a weird looped female "ahhh" that repeats non stop throughout the entire song. Weird? Oh yeah, and it only gets weirder. "Rebel Woman" is a super heavy organ driven Screamin' Jay Hawkins style workout, and then there's the killer cover of "Fever", a classic jam for sure, but made a little bit more creepy with Carter's occasional croak, and his yelped vox throughout, as well as a droney looped sounding main guitar part. "Run Rabbit Run" is a lurching weirdo bit of gloomy garage pop, with growled vox, an amazing main guitar riff, that sounds almost metal at times, some awesome tribal drumming, and a weirdly innocent sounding female chorus.
But "Midnight Sun" might just be our favorite, after a spoken intro, the main guitar riff seems to slow down, the guitar creating a woozy dizzying seasick loop, the vocals dramatically crooned, some warm warbly organ, and a hook to die for, we've been listening to this track EVERY DAY. But heck, we end up playing this whole disc over and over and over. A perfect mix of outsider experimentation, classic rockabilly garage rock jamming, sixties psychedelia, and that Joe Meek like kitchen sink inventiveness, plus, it's SUPER rocking, suprisingly heavy, killer stuff for sure.
Lots of liner notes and tons of pix too. WAY RECOMMENDED.
Awesome collection of stuff by this '70s funk master.
Ok, raise your hands, everybody into Electric Wizard and Moss and Sleep and Reverend Bizarre and Om and, uh, Solar Anus, do you all have a copy of Cathedral's 1990 debut album Forest Of Equilibrium in your doom collection?? If not, total doom-foul. You must rectify that immediately, we decree. And now's the time, 'cause Earache has just reissued this all-time doom classic with not only an entire out of print ep tacked on as bonus tracks, but also with an extra dvd disc featuring a 40 minute documentary shot in 2009, about the band's early daze... which means folks who DO already have the original might want to consider the upgrade.
Now, as we've said before, British band Cathedral's debut was one of the saddest, heaviest slabs of doom ever heard, magically melding slowed-down Sabbath riffage, depressed prog-folk flutes, and ex-Napalm Death throat Lee Dorrian's gravelly vocals. It belongs in any doom metal top 20, maybe top 10, we would argue. And the band never made a better record, though the four song Soul Sacrifice ep that immediately followed this was also pretty fine (and that's what's included here as bonus tracks!).
From the morose, molasses-slow strains of album's opening, the acoustic guitar and flute intro entitled "Picture Of Beauty And Innocence" that leads into the majestically crushing "Commiserating The Celebration", the unique quality of Forest Of Equilibrium's take on classic, epic doom metal is evident. Early Cathedral's gruff gothic exhalations and chugging downtuned doomic riffs is something quite special to behold, preferably sitting on a pillow or lying prone on the floor, perhaps wreathed in pot smoke, directly in front of a very loud set of speakers. There's something warm-blanket soothing about it, the utter sobbing misery expressed somehow comforting.
These guys never made a secret of their heavy progressive, proto metal, psychedelic '70s influences (proudly listing obscure bands known only to bearded record collectors and aging hippies in their cd booklets' thanks lists at great length) but unlike Witchcraft, for instance, Cathedral didn't attempt to emulate those bands exactly, rather they incorporated certain elements of '70s prog (like the occasional flute!) into their much heavier-than-thou Sabbath/Candlemass derived sludge metal, going to an epic extreme (at the time) hitherto unmatched of sheer glacial-paced melancholia. Remember, frontman Lee Dorrian's former band Napalm Death was one of the FASTEST bands ever, so his next band Cathedral had to be the SLOWEST, the equivalent of grindcore at 16rpm. With of course ultra-long songs (the first track clocking in at over 11 minutes). The Soul Sacrifice ep did see the band speeding up a bit, and Lee letting loose with a few Ozzy-derived "All right!" exclamations, which led eventually to the slightly too much tongue in cheek let's boogie '70s kitsch stoner rock that characterized the middle period of their long career. But never fear, that came later, Forest Of Equilibrium is deadly serious, utterly doomed and despairing. And oh so beautiful.
For those who have the original, some further notes on the extra stuff included here:
Soul Sacrifice ep includes an extended version of the title track, also on Forest, plus three others: "Autumn Twilight", "Frozen Rapture", and "Golden Blood (Flooding)", all of which could have fit in perfectly well on the album itself style-wise, though the production is a bit different sounding.
Then, the bonus dvd documentary about the formation of the band and the making of Forest Of Equilibrium is going to be quite interesting to fans. It even includes an interview with the artist responsible for all of Cathedral's fantastical cover art, and concludes with the music video for the track "Ebony Tears".
These leading British doom eccentrics doom it up in their usual unique style on this, their eighth long-player. The Garden Of Unearthly Delights sees Cathedral happily (yup, happy doom!) doing just what they want, secure in the knowledge that they've reached a stage in their career where they have fans who love 'em for just being themselves. In other words, their '70s prog obessions are waaaay to the fore here, resulting in the disc's grand finale, a tricky five-hour opus (well, not quite that long, it's more like half an hour) called "The Garden". And we must say they do a better job of it this time than they did some years ago on the equally epic ep-track "Voyage Of The Homeless Sapien". Back then they bit off a bit more than they could chew, now they're up to the task. It helps having a guest female singer with a sweet voice to duet with Lee Dorrian's characteristic gravelly gargle. There's about a million parts to it, bits echoing Led Zeppelin at one moment, Magma at another, etc. etc.
But besides that utter progfest, there's plenty of other crushing tracks here to provide Cathedral fans with more in the way of straightforward Sabbathy rifforama (and other surprises), just like you'd expect from these guys. We also have to mention the hidden bonus track on which Lee runs down a list of all their favorite obscure '70s prog/kraut/psych bands, while the band does some heavy vamping behind him! Blast Furnace, Cosmic Dealer, Irish Coffee, Supersister, Icecross, Paternoster, Nosferatu, Hairy Chapter, and a bunch more all get name-checked. Gotta love that.
Sorry, we don't have the import digipack anymore with the scratch-and-sniff apple smelling cd, just the regular jewel case edition.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Three-way split release, the second in this intentionally odd series on Toyo Records. SoCal grindsters Cattle Decaptitation start it off, followed by Nebraska spazzcore freaks Armatron. Finally, the disc is anchored with the approx. 20-minute long "Il Ritorno" from our very own Andee's new post- A Minor Forest band, here dubbed Ticwar 1 (making their first recorded appearance). After the fast/fun assaults of Cattle Decap. and Armatron, the Ticwar track seems (even more) glacially slow and immense. Their lengthy "Il Ritorno" composition touches upon lovely post-rock guitar strum, before lumbering into massive Sabbath / Monster Magnet inspired stoner rock riffing, the groove disrupted by Lesser-style digital glitch fuckery. Eventually it winds down into a gorgeous drone-coda. Experimental stoner rock? Post-metal? Can't wait to hear more (Andee? nudge, nudge). So, quite recommended.
Wooooohoooooyeaaaaaaahhhhhhh! This Canadian, old school (yet "Young And Hungry") metal trio of Jason Decay (bass/vocals), Ian Chains (guitar) and Steel Rider (drums), unleash their debut full length! The sticker on the front of this actually says "for fans of Dokken, Queensryche and Diamond Head". Wow, that's a bold move, putting Dokken on there. Diamond Head is currently considered cool of course but Dokken and Queensryche might fall into the too much information category for many of today's black/death/doom/thrash metallers. Of course, one can assume they must be referring to early Dokken and really early Queensryche, which is all right as far as we're concerned. While Cauldron celebrates a certain sort of '80s cheese - the cheesecake album cover ferinstance - it's heavy metal, not poofy hair metal. (The band pictures confirm that these guys don't use hairspray, though it does look like they are familiar with the use of conditioner.) Nor is it an ironic pisstake, though we would hope that nobody would spell night "nite" in their album title without tongue slightly in cheek!
Cauldron's inspirations certainly come from the galloping NWOBHM stuff (Angel Witch!), their U.S. progeny Metallica circa Kill 'Em All, as well as the better/grittier side of Sunset Strip glam a la Ratt and W.A.S.P., and arena Ozzy circa The Ultimate Sin, so this disc has got a refreshing, unabashed pop sheen and sensibility, but there's no ballads, nothing like that. Their quick riffing songs�about such subjects as being "Bound To The Stake" (presumably after a "Witch Trial" though that's the not the order in which they appear on the album) or "Chained Up In Chains" (the best redundant title ever, and also the song they contributed to Earache's Heavy Metal Killers comp reviewed here a couple lists back) are more like fist in the air metal, that's both melodic and ballsy, a killer combo of speedy slayage and catchy choruses. Another good song title is "Fermenting Enchantress"! They've got self-aware wit and style enough to appeal to the indie-hipster-metal crowd (a la Early Man, Dead Child, The Sword) whilst maintaining true metal cred, which also derives from the band's previous, doomier incarnation as Goat Horn. And, indeed, they do have some hard rockin' hair metal cred too, since, in keeping with the chains theme, they wrap up this album with a cover of a song called "Chains Around Heaven" originally by LA glam also-rans Black 'N Blue circa 1984. (Andee is so STOKED.) Any unfounded doubts that Cauldron aren't the real deal dissipate with that irony-proof move. We just wonder why they didn't cover Dokken's "Unchain The Night" too... maybe 'cause they don't actually sound like Dokken anyway.
What's left to say? Buy this, and turn it up LOUD! Soon you'll have lyrics like "chained up in chains, in the moonlight" stuck in your banging head, and be lovin' it!
While they last, we have the deluxe slipcased edition of this, which comes with an extra bonus disc containing two songs, taken from Cauldron's out of print indie ep Into The Cauldron. One of which, "Restless", might be our favorite song of theirs, so lucky for you it's on here.
Not one but TWO repeat Record Of The Week honorees, elsewhere, the latest from French alchemical post rockers Aluk Todolo, and this, the latest from Cave, whose recent instore performance totally blew us away. It says a lot about a band that can put together a totally improvised set, with limited gear and various members changing up instruments, and still sound better and tighter and catchier and more rocking than most bands playing their own songs on their proper gear NOT in a record store.
Born from the space drone psych outfit Warhammer 48K, these guys left Missouri, ended up in Chicago, added a whole bunch of new members and became Cave, a kick ass spaced out kraut-drone hypno rock collective, equal parts Circle, Can, Lightning Bolt, Wooden Shjips, and Hawkwind, but so much more. Their first record, Hunt Like Devil, was a glorious cacophony of circular riffage, frenetic drumming, woozy basslines, wild synths, and killer hooks, groovy, hypnotic, space-y, and while this record is more of the same, it's somehow transcends, taking everything we loved about the first record, and making it, well, MORE. We'd have probably loved it even if it was Hunt Like Devil part 2, but thankfully, Psychic Summer finds the band exploring some new territory, but dragging that old sound with them.
The opener begins with just a stripped down guitar, and some subtly noodly synth, before exploding in a sun dappled burst of super distorted, in-the-red psychedelia, before shifting again into a muted sunshiney krautrock groove, laced with some cool synths, and electronic filigree. The song locks into the groove and slowly builds to a triumphant climax, eventually slowing down to a sort of chiming jangly groove, which leads right into "Made In Malaysia" which might be the jam of the disc. Stuttering synths, stop start dynamics, chugging guitars, which gives way to a wild woozy twisted riffy bridge, with shouted vocals, and warble bended guitar notes, and an irresistable staccato groove, first just the synth, but then the drums, motorik and relentless, live it's not hard to imagine this track being stretched into a whole set. A single song, so hooky and loopy and mesmerizing. But it's Cave, so two seconds later, they're locked into a different kind of groove, a tribal rhythm, warm organ chords, underneath blooping effects, buried vocals, it's almost danceable, definitely groovy, like they just took one measure from some classic old school dance track and looped it into some space aged kraut disco space jam.
The other three tracks are just as mesmerizing, the muted space-y throb of "High, I Am", wrapped in a slithery bit of warped synthage, to the dense drum heavy "Requiem For John Sex", with some grinding mathy guitar and a bit of indie jangle all wound up in the tracks summery drift, before a wild super sped up free for all psych out finish, and "Machines And Muscles", which was originally released on the now out of print Butthash single, this seems to be a slightly different version, and is definitely another of the record's highlights, total hynorock bliss, little bits of keyboard pepper the stuttery rhythm, the main riff staying solid and unwavering, while all around it various other sounds swoop and shimmer, a Circle-like guitar groove, shuffling drums, very tribal and looped sounding, suspended in a field of space streakings, warm organ whir and smears of soft effects in the background, that main riff stays LOCKED in, until it begins to get a bit more tripped out, a little distorted, more effects, the synths skitter and stutter, and then finally, the song fades out in a blinding kaleidoscopic burst of warm sunshine-y synth.
And that's really the magic of Cave, we're all so partial to the dark and doomy, the buzzy and droney, that it's so exciting for a record to sound so heavy and tripped out and hypnotic, but at the same time so sunshiney, so Summery, so FUN. These guys totally rule, this record is fantastic, and if you can believe it, live they might be even better.
Boston metalcore band Cave In was once described as being a mixture of Slayer and Radiohead. And usually the Radiohead part was just 'cause of some weird proggy electronic leanings, but the Slayer tag was the more accurate one. But now, with "Jupiter", they've gone and morphed themselves into a pop band. Seriously. And they're damn good at it. Amazingly, they still tour with the likes of Neurosis and Dillinger Escape Plan, playing their new, art-pop material exclusively! And the kids like it! Ornate, lengthy songs complete with falsetto vocals, and amazingly catchy melodies. Previously, we've enthused over Muse and Justin Clayton, as Radiohead clone bands par excellance, but this might just take the cake. But unlike the Radiohead clones, Cave-In don't seem so much like they're copying Radiohead, more like they're contemporaries, albeit way heavier and way more rocking. We're just so blown away by this band's transformation and metal-forged skill at creating this stuff. Perfect proggy pop, mixed with healthy doses of Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Yes, etc. Fans of the old Cave In might be a bit disoriented, but give it a chance. Heavy doesn't always mean distorted guitars and satanic growling.
So recommended.
We hope you've seen Werner Herzog's 3-D documentary film about the incredible 30,000 year old paintings in an equally incredible cave in France, for which is is the soundtrack. If you haven't, well, you should rent it! But it's really too bad if you don't see it in 3-D, unlike a lot of other 3-D movies. For Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, the 3-D isn't so much a gimmick (though Herzog of course has a sense of humor about it) than an important aesthetic choice, rendering the otherworldly, rarely visited underground setting all the more wondrous - and real. Furthermore, the prehistoric paintings that are the subject of the documentary were of course not rendered on flat canvases, but on irregular, rocky, curving cavern walls, and the 3-D helps to capture the sense of movement that the surfaces help give to the ancient artwork. Amazing, magical movie all around, and when we saw it, we certainly noticed the beautiful soundtrack music, thinking, wow, this could almost be something on the Miasmah label, alongside the cinematic soundscapes of Kreng or Jacaszek.
Some time later, we discovered that the soundtrack had been released on cd by the European contemporary jazz and classical label Winter & Winter, known for their unique, fancy packaging as well as the musical quality of their releases (one we always stock is their lovely recording of Teodoro Anzellotti's accordion transcriptions of Satie). So, we ordered this in, and have been meaning to review it ever since, but the thing is, it keeps selling out in the store before we get to list it, without a review on our site or tag or anything - people who saw the Herzog's film, just know how gorgeous the soundtrack music is (though in the context of the movie, it's almost trying too hard, and considering that the visuals are so breathtaking!).
This week, we managed to get enough extra copies in to finally list it for you. Composed by cellist Ernst Reijseger, a Dutch jazz musician, it's a magnificent, moody modern classical score that conveys the same spiritual sense of wonderment the cave and its contents evoke. With graceful and somber strings, droning church organ, some calm piano, and haunting choirs, it's music that's both delicate and weighty at once. Somehow both grand, and intimate. There are passages of liturgical sounding singing, wordless angelic ahhh ahhh ahhhs of male and female voices raised in harmony; also the recurring spiraling motif of Reijseger's sawing, sublime cello solos, set amidst ambient shimmer... Recorded almost entirely in a church in Holland, this music indeed sounds as if emanating from a large, enclosed, and holy space. And it certainly works apart from the film, as we said, it's nice to have it on its own to appreciate, without the 3-D distractions of Herzog's albino alligators (whoops, sorry, that's a spoiler if you haven't yet seen the film). Seriously, so nice.
They just don't make bands like Florida's Cavity anymore. Or I guess maybe they do, but now they just make 5 or six bands out of the ingredients that made up Cavity back in the day. Not to sound like an old man, but these days most bands have 'A SOUND' and they stick to it. Cavity on the other hand were pretty tough to pigeonhole. Sure they were heavy. And they were metal. But also punk. Sorta grindy too. They tended toward the sludge-y end of the sonic spectrum, but in the middle of some sub Sabbath dirge they'd explode into a furious thrashing grind only to immediately slow back down to some impossibly glacial Khanate like crawl, complete with tortured shrieks, and buzzing droneguitar.
This record, originally recorded way back in 1997, sounds as fresh as it did a decade ago. Someone joked recently that super hyped duo No Age were punk rock for people who had never heard punk rock before. Which is not entirely fair to No Age as they are an awesome band, but there is some truth to the fact that lots of bands these days borrow pretty heavily from the past, without a lot of fans realizing it. No Age are kick ass and wild and fun, but they're not necessarily reinventing the wheel. That's also true with a lot of heavy bands these days. If Cavity were bunch of kids and Laid Insignificant was a super limited cd-r, or a one sided etched 12", labels would be lined up around the block to put something out by these guys, kids would be losing their shit. But just because this record is ten years old is no reason they still shouldn't. This is epic mindblowing heaviness. Furious and freaked out, sweaty and brutal and visceral. Elsewhere on this list Allan talks about Vincent Black Shadow in terms of sheer blown out sweat soaked pure rock and roll power. The same could be said about these guys, just leaning a little more toward the extreme side of the sonic spectrum. Back in the day, no band could touch Cavity live OR on record, and listening to them again, it seems like nothing has changed. The guitars are massive, the riffs incredible, heavy and melodic and thick as shit, the drums HUGE and pummeling, the songs super catchy, even when they're all tangled into buzzing blasts, or sprawled out in huge black oozing pools, the hooks remain intact. And vocalist Rene Barge has the wickedest raspy howl this side of Eyehategod. About as EMO as that kind of voice can get. Which also keeps these songs from turning into wanky riff fests. These are SONGS, dark and dense, complex and hypnotic, groovy and crushing, utterly headbangable for sure, certain to fill a pit in the blink of an eye, but at the same time, musical enough to be serious headphone bliss for the hard and heavy.
Not sure what else to say. These guys ruled. And still rule. This just proves it all over again.
There was a time where all you had to do was add umlauts to every vowel (heck how about a few consonants too?) to make your band name more evil. More mysterious. For glam rockers it simply meant changing s's to z's, BOYZ, TOYZ, NOYZE... oh and changing i's to y's, and double o's always helped... Bad Noose. But recently, there have been several examples of grim black and doom metal bands adding an extra 'i' for no apparent reason. When it was just French black metallers Mutiilation, we thought, okay, they're just French and little bit strange, or maybe it was a typo but they thought it was cool. We can dig that. But now with Minnesotan funereal doom lords Celestiial jumping on the double 'i' bandwagon, we're beginning to think something is going on. Something sinister. Er... siiniister we mean.
Anyway, we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for more of the evil double 'i' but in the meantime, Celestiial has more than just the 2 i's going for them. They also have a gaggle of o's. that's right. Celestiial are definitely one of those bands who have earned the multiple o'd doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. They're in the tradition of bands like Skepticism, Thergothon, Disembowelment, Evoken, Winter and more modern practitioners of the ultradoom like Catacombs, Esoteric and the like, but Celestiial are no ordinary doom band, sure their songs are lengthy and glacial, guitars are nothing but black smears in a starless sky, the plodding drums are dropped reverently amidst a bleak and barren sonic landscape. Vocals growl and gurgle and float weightless like some dark wind. Celestiial's doom is even more spacey and blissed out than any of their influences. The guitars are thick and dense and tuned impossibly low, but they sound soft, like someone shaking out a huge black blanket and letting it settle over you, blocking out all light. The programmed drums are so dense with reverb, and the cymbals seem to sizzle endlessly, the percussion just turns into a wash of hiss and whir, that adds a strange fuzzy glow to the already murky and blissy sound. The other thing you can't help but notice, is the sound of nature, everywhere, in every song, crickets, wind blowing through the trees, frogs, whippoorwills, thunder, rain falling on leaves. You know how Skepticism sounds like it was recorded in a forest? This is like that too but it's not metaphorical, it really has forest sounds. It's almost like their is some black doom funeral procession, trudging through the forest, lit only by torchlight, the creatures of the night, gathered just outside the circle of fire. So intense and strangely serene, especially for a 'doom metal' record.
And the thing is it's not just for effect. Celestiial are from Minnesota and are quite possibly the first reflective, isolationist, naturist doom band ever. From the band's website: "Celestiial was created to mirror mysticism in nature. Its heart lies not in its medium but in its dreams. It is a reflection of astral light shown upon the earth--sinking into its soil--waiting and dreaming. It wishes to be the pulse of woodlands and water. Nothing more? Understand that funeral doom isn't always slow for the sake of being slow. It is slower than the beat of the human heart. Its pulse is dead. The pulse of CELESTIIAL aims at being completely parallel to continual motion in everything of this earth. From the seasonal changes to representations of myth."
Woah. But if you really listen, Celestiial's slow motion doom does sound perfectly at home amidst the sounds of nature. Like some living breathing shadowy doomic creature living among the insects and wild birds, lurking in tree tops and curled up upon soft piles of wet leaves. It's almost like a doom metal version of recent record of the week Osmose, by Ariel Kalma, but instead of synths and rainforests, it's doom and dark forests. And as if to further tie the music to the land, and the peoples of the land, Celestiial incorporate an unlikely selection of traditional instruments into their slow motion dirges, such as Celtic harp and Native American flutes.
All of that, strange instrumentation, nature sounds, the two i's, combine to make this wonderfully weird, hauntingly mysterious and quite possibly one of the dreamiest and most blissed out doom records ever!
We listed a fairly expensive vinyl reissue of this not too long ago, but just managed to track down some copies of the double compact disc version too, for those of you who would prefer that format...
One of our most popular Records Of The Week of recent vintage was the double cd by ambitious UK ensemble the Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere, and in our review of that we mentioned this, an unjustly obscure classic from the early '70s, a joyous symphonic jazz prog outpouring from another HUGE ensemble, that the UOA reminded us of just a bit - it probably was one of their inspirations, in fact. Centipede was a robust 50-piece orchestra, lead by composer Keith Tippett, featuring a host of rock and jazz musicians from the Canterbury scene (Robert Wyatt wrote the original liner notes), including members of King Crimson, Soft Machine, and Nucleus. Heroically recorded & produced by King Crimson's Robert "Bob" Fripp, Septober Energy was originally released in 1971 (yep), and has now been reissued by Klimt in a gatefold sleeve on double vinyl, that barely contains this sprawling, vibrant masterpiece, which morphs continually through jazz and prog and 20th century avant classical idioms, incorporating droning wordless vocal choirs, violin and cello scrape and skitter, crazed crescendos of jabbering kecak-like chant, delicate piano passages, masses of trumpets, saxes, and trombones, and more... Imagine William Sheller's Lux Aeterna album with a whole bunch of Albert Aylers on board, maybe, especially with Centipede's dynamic shifts from driftingly pleasant melodic horn passages to total free jazz freakout to righteous, swinging "hairy funk" grooves. Moments might possibly get too "fusiony" for some folks, but not for us though.
Fripp was supposed to play guitar, but instead he was too busy with his recording duties, so the fat fuzz riffery that occasionally appears comes courtesy of Brian Godding of Blossom Toes (who, even more germane to this music, later on played with Magma!). There's also lyrics by (and singing from) Tippett's then-wife Julie, who now actually often collaborates with UOA's Martin Archer, see.
Fantastico! Here's an obscure Spanish psych rock reissue that we're so glad that Shadoks finally got their hands on. Get ready for some of the weirdest, most badass fuzzed out garage psych rockin' you have ever heard. Cerebrum, from Madrid, released just two 7" singles on Barcelona's progressive Dimension label, both in 1970. Soon after, they broke up, and never made a full-length album. So then, what's this? Shadoks, in cooperation with original Cerebrum guitarist Javier Esteve, have unearthed a bunch of previously unreleased early Cerebrum recordings by the band, five live-in-the-studio demos from 1969, presented here along with the four cuts from their 45s (one of 'em, title track "Eagle Death", heard for the first time in its full 6 minute 18 second glory, the original single track having been an edit).
That extended version of "Eagle Death", which opens the disc, is pretty wild, on par with Japanese craziness of the era like Food Brain or Brush!?, a schizophrenic garage rave-up of fuzz guitar explosions, distorted underwater-sounding vocals, manic harp blowin' and sudden tempo changes. Every element seemingly going off in its own direction, then slipping back together to sync up with urgent rhythmic umph. And, before it's over, into the midst of all this mayhem some nice classical piano melody weirdly drifts in from someplace else! With the harmonica, this track makes us think of some warped version of something by the Yardbirds or the Count Five - maybe even a track off of Count Five's totally fictional, totally grungy Carburetor Dung album, as imagined by Lester Bangs. Yep, it's gotta be one of the most wacked out psych singles cuts ever� until you hear the NEXT one on here, its B side, the awesomely titled "Read A Book", which juxtaposes some even gnarlier fuzz guitar soloing, with such gentle heartfelt vocals. The songs from their other 45 are equally killer - the percolating, high energy "Times Door" hits hard, and then its flip, "It's So Hard!" could kinda been Cerebrum's take on the sort of thing Cream was doing back then, yer basic blues rock jamming� but� it's just so SICK. Guitarist Esteve never lets up on the stinging fuzz action, delivering the distortion with demented glee.
Those four singles tracks - which could be aQ faves Los Dug Dugs on a bad, bad trip - are reason enough to get this, essential in and of themselves, but the other, previously unreleased material is woozy cool too. Those earlier tracks add swirling, whirling organ (played by one "Perry") to the mix, and are a bit more murky, and maybe also more good-time rollicking and rollin', than the sharper-edged Cerebrum of the singles. Most of 'em are covers, including versions of songs by Moby Grape, Bo Diddley, and Canned Heat - the endless boogie of "One Kind Favor" by the latter is probably our fave among those.
This reish comes complete with detailed liner notes and vintage photos, its truly a labor of love, and recommended to anyone into garage psych at its most, uh, extreme. aQ customers who bought Blue Phantom last time probably will be the ones who'll want this too.
We don't do this often, but sometimes, the easiest thing is just to link to a YouTube video. Especially 'cause it's what got us interested in tracking down this reissue in the first place! Made us kind of obsessed, actually. You'll see/hear why if you go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgGK4qBTwpw&ob=av2n, and check out the psychedelic video version of this album's title track. (For those who just want a quick idea, take a look at the album cover operating room scene, that's in the vid, complete with people dressed up in disturbing animal masks, a Rolls Royce driving through the desert, naked ladies in the jungle, and, well, just watch it...)
So, Jean-Marc Cerrone was/is a French dance music producer and badass drummer (elsewhere on YouTube you can see him live in concert, kicking out the massive drum solos). The more disco-savvy among us here had heard of him, he's up there with Giorgio Moroder in the Euro-Disco pantheon. And Supernature, from 1977, his 3rd album, is the jam. A disco-PROG masterpiece. The title track starts things off, the one that crazy video's for, and dominates, being almost ten minutes long in its album version. An epic. No ordinary club fare here, on the surface maybe, but the disco diva vocals (lyrics by Lene Lovich!) are about some dystopian sci-fi scenario wherein twisted science is turning men into monstrous beasts (which explains - sort of - some of the video's surreal imagery), these mutants rising up against their masters. Hauntingly, she sings lines like "how can I explain, things are different today, darkness all around, and no one makes a sound..." Woah, downer disco. It's pretty dark, and weird, and the thump thump thump of the music gets that way too, with some fat synth bass riffing at about the six minute mark that brings this into imaginary Magma doing disco territory, almost. Cerrone sure puts his state of the art ARP Odyssey Mk III to good use here. The track ends with hint of 2001's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", that's how epic this is. The rest of the side maintains the mood, "Supernature" segueing seamlessly into Cerrone's solo spot "Sweet Drums", his insistent beats heavily effected and spaced out, and that's followed by the more blissfully eerie electronics of "In The Smoke", which could be from a Goblin soundtrack.
Side two (tracks 4-6 on this cd), is the brighter side... More typical fusion-funked Euro-Disco anthems, all three songs with "Love" in the title ("Give Me Love", "Love Is Here", "Love Is The Answer"), great stuff though, top-knotch! Lush, lively dancefloor fodder for sure.
So, recommended to fans of Zombi, Goblin, Moroder, and the recently departed Donna Summer. This import reish, in one of those rounded-corner "Super Jewel Boxes", comes with extensively detailed liner notes in the cd booklet, illustrated in full color.
We've always wanted to list something by Italian occult doom metal master Paul Chain (ex-Death S.S.), he's a true underground legend in the realms of magickal violet-hued heaviness and improvised downer psychedelia. We've referenced him in several reviews, when discussing the likes of Blizaro, Black Hole, and Tony Tears, but never before have we had any of Paul Chain's own stuff available to list - until now. A whole bunch of his rare '80s and '90s albums have just been reissued on the Minotauro label, and so we finally get to review 'em, starting with this sought-after classic, 1995's Alkahest. Out of print for years, it now makes a welcome return on both cd (in a miniature lp-style gatefold sleeve, with obi) and limited edition double gatefold vinyl.
Alkahest is a good entry way into the master's extensive discography, as it possesses much of his unique, weird vibe while not being nearly as experimental and abstract as some of his other albums. Instead, Alkahest functions as a solid, spooky slab of traditional doom metal, offering up plenty of plodding, heavier-than-thou riffage that any fan of Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus or Cathedral ought to happily bow down to. We mention retired UK doom gods Cathedral in particular 'cause their frontman, Lee Dorrian, who's a HUGE Paul Chain fan, happens to sing on about half of this album (a thrill of a lifetime for him), Dorrian's gruffer guest vocals quite a contrast to Paul Chain's own strange, haunted, higher register croon, and not just because there's actual lyrics to the songs Dorrian sings, while Paul Chain's vocals are, as is his wont, all purely phonetic, not in any language at all (see what we mean by him being experimental?). Dorrian's gravely gargle mellows out a bit for the mournful ballad "Lake Without Water", quite lovely with medieval lute and acoustic guitar, sort of in the vein of Sabbath's "Solitude"...
Overall, Alkahest is brimming with doomed, despairing, druggy atmosphere, the Sabbathic riffs and psychedelic soloing supported by strains of doleful church organ and hints of synth, an Italian prog/soundtrack influence definitely present. Really an excellent album all doom hounds (especially those into early Cathedral) should have in their collection! And in a way, strangely uplifting for something so hopelessly dark and doomy.
Ok, next up, Detaching From Satan by Paul Chain's Violet Theatre...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
San Francisco's Champs (or C4AM95 as they prefer to be called for silly legal reasons) are an amazing two guitars and drums no bass, sometimes three guitars no drums, very rarely any vocals, trio that on this their debut album crank out over seventy minutes of catchy, complex, mostly instrumental metal in indie/math-rock clothing. Kind of like the indie-prog of Don Caballero or Breadwinner, with touches of Trans Am (the bombast and occasional "techno electronica" interlude) ...and healthy helpings of Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Metallica, Carcass, Motley Crue, Priest, etc. I could go on. Mesmerizing live, they're on tour now but will be back soon so I hope y'all went to their shows. For what it's worth, there's a former member of Nation of Ulysses in their ranks. Rec-o-f'n-mended.
Finally got enough of these to list. It's something you're gonna DEFINITELY want to have if you're into the whole '60s/'70s Swedish psychedelic scene, Sweden's "krautrock" bands if you will. Y'know, if you like Parson Sound, Trad Gras Och Stenar, International Harvester, Arbete Och Fritid, Algarnas Tradgard, Kebnekajse, and all the other often interrelated outfits that we've been lucky enough to find reissued on cd in recent years. You can add this to that list, a brilliant collection of loping, rollicking, freaky hippie jams from the drums/sitar and guitar duo of Edmund "Charlie" Franzen and Esdor Jensen, and friends. They got their start together in 1969, and performed at the first of the free festivals in the summer of 1970 that are now an part of Swedish counterculture hippie history. They definitely must have fit right in that time and place, judging by this cd's awesome mixture of Eastern-inspired raga rock, Swedish folk troubadour music, Dylanesque ballads, and HEAVY guitar power trio acid rock.
These tracks, recorded in 1970 and '71, have languished in obscurity, mostly unreleased for the past 30-some-odd years, several of them originally meant for an abandoned album release back in the day. A few, like "Wolfs Mouth Song" (here given its original title of "Fuck The Cops"!) were released on vinyl as singles and so forth. But you were probably never gonna run across one of those rarities... so it's great to have this all on cd! And Mellotronen has presented this in a nice digipack. Isn't that a great cover shot, of Charlie's back as he beats his drum kit at one of those hippie festivals?? It would good for a Levi's ad (you can see the tag on his jeans) if they were that hip. The 32 page booklet provides plenty of photos, a history of the band, and detailed track-by-track commentary on these recordings. There's also a discography complete with full-color reproductions of album covers and single sleeves. Very very nicely done.
Whenever we hear some pounding death metal, or blasting thrash metal, sometimes even some grim black metal, the one thing that occasionally wears on us is the non-singing vocals, whether they be gurgling cookie monster vocals, or hysterical hellish shrieks, or demonic grunts, we sometimes can't help but wonder how much cooler the band would sound with an ACTUAL singer.
So the other night we heard this blasting thrashing heaviness, which sounded pretty damn good, somewhere right between classic Maiden styled power metal, and something much more thrashy and aggressive and extreme, and then the vocals came in and we were knocked out, totally soaring classic clean metal vocals, actual singing, like Maiden or Judas Priest, which is a particularly apt comparison as the vocalist in question turned out to be none other than Tim 'Ripper' Owens, who did once front Priest, but is now fronting the awesomely titled Charred Walls Of The Damned, definitely his best gig in ages.
But there's more weirdness to the story of CWOTD... Drummer Richard Christy, who has played in a million bands, including Iced Earth, Incantation, Death, Control Denied, and the pitbull fronted death metal band Caninus(!), had pretty much given up music for comedy, and eventually ended up on the Howard Stern show, where he's become infamous for some seriously fucked up and funny prank calls. Not sure why he decided to start playing again, but he gathered a pretty stellar lineup, with Ripper Owens, bassist Steve Di Giorgio (Sadus, Death, Iced Earth, Testament, Autopsy) and guitarist Jason Suecof (Capharnaum, Evince, and umm, Crotch Duster), and the record these guys have come up with rules. That is if you're into classic metal, Dio, Maiden, Priest, imagine that sort of band, but supercharged, a little heavier, a little faster, with more insane technical shredding, but still super catchy, with epic riffing, blasting drums, that classic eighties metal sound, but updated, although only a little. We're particularly reminded of more modern power metallers like Blind Guardian, or especially Lost Horizon.
Charred Walls Of The Damned is quickly turning into a new favorite, we've never really lost our love for this stuff, and hopefully you haven't either, check out the sound samples, should only take a few seconds for you to figure out if this is for you. Majestic, dramatic, hooky, and super heavy. And thus, absolutely recommended.
Includes a bonus dvd featuring a documentary about the making of the record (which we haven't had a chance to watch yet)...
Utterly intense and interesting, weird and sinisterly, secretly melodic death metal from this heretofore unhearalded (by us, anyway) band, from Chicago by way of Mexico. Kinda avant-garde in an un-selfconscious sense, reminding us a bit of that amazing Enslaved record from earlier this year. ("Procession To the Infraworld" is also from earlier this year but we only got turned on to it recently, and now must you be too). In comparision to that really quite psychedelic and meta-metallic Enslaved album, The Chasm is certainly more firmly rooted in your usual death metal brutality (as per vocalist/guitarist Daniel Corchado previous work with America's most doomy and deathly death metal outfit, Incantation), but The Chasm's grinding is tinged with a baroque, otherworldy flavor. A great death metal record, and you won't hear that from me (Allan) very often!
Odd to think that this is only the second solo recording for San Francisco's exceptional sound artist Loren Chasse after his numerous outings with id battery, Thuja, and The Knit Separates. "Exfolia Motors" is a collection of four different works, whose sections are mixed up and interspersed along the continuum of the disc... as if each of these sections have been broken from their original narratives and been rearranged in a more poetic fashion. "Exfolia Motors" presents a beautiful crystallization of droning sound with origins in various bells and gongs, the dynamic pulsations of an amplified strobe light, field recordings from rural Pennsylvania, and the crackling details of paper, rocks, and cloth. Chasse accentuates his source materials with a soft-focus haziness that recalls the tonal purity of Andrew Chalk and Jonathan Coleclough. Rather than extended drone floats, Chasse prefers to situate small events in which he gently smears his subtle sound recordings across stark white silences. Goddamn beautiful.
While certain labels (Meme, Trente Oiseaux) were a bit too slow and missed out on releasing this, we're certain that this wouldn't have had such amazing artwork (each cover is a different hand rubbing from a rough piece of wood... as opposed to the stark non-existent design work of either outfit) if Chasse hadn't put it out through his own imprint Unique Ancient Tavern. Recommended!
Oval, Disc, Autechre... Lots of folks like that digital glitch stuff -- we do too -- but how 'bout some analog 'glitch'? Good old fashioned record crackle! AQ friend and fave sound artist Loren Chasse's new solo release, his first for Anomalous, totally delves into the realm of crackle, from records and beyond. For details, we may as well quote directly from the label's press release (since our own Allan wrote it!):
"The work of sonic artist/investigator Loren Chasse (solo, Thuja, id Battery, and various manifestations of the 'Jewelled Antler collective') usually involves the documentation and manipulation of minute sound events (rubbings, scrapings, clickings) involving found objects and natural phenomena, emphasizing unexpected perspectives and connections. Even when performing in the psychedelic improv outfit Thuja, his 'instruments' primarily consist of contact mics, a mixer, some rocks and twigs, and his imagination. Loren's processed field recordings are fragile and full of strange beauty and feeling.
"Hedge of Nerves is dedicated to a friend of Loren's who dearly loves the sound of record crackle as it mingles with the music from a record's grooves. He also enjoys the sound of record crackle alone, as when an LP cycles on its run-out groove. Compact disc reissues of early 20th century ethnic music 78s, or Portishead, or Philip Jeck: if it's got that crackle, he likes it! So, this friend asked Loren to make him a recording of vinyl surface noise only, one that he could DJ with, mixing with non-crackly musical sources, to create virtual scratchy records. For this reason, the idea was to avoid any obvious looping, but to make a continuous, unbroken and organic field of crackle. Thus inspired, however, the project soon turned into more than that, as Loren decided that it was more interesting to emulate the sound and texture of record crackle using other sources. The resulting cd indeed begins by utilizing sounds from a scratchy old 78 rpm disc (one recorded by Loren's grandfather in the 1930s at NBC Radio) but also explores more 'elemental' crackling sounds derived from fire and wind and water, from rustling branches, waves, and sand. Hedge of Nerves is dynamic, moving from loud crinkly-crackly storming sound-swarms to the sounds of a wilderness quietly bristling. It's a mesmerizing expanse of hiss and drone, buzz and click, with hints of melody (from his grandfather's 78). The originating idea of surface noise is ever-present, but upon closer examination that 'surface' proves quite deep, something within which the listener will become submerged, blissful and fascinated. Hedge of Nerves is a masterpiece -- just ask Loren's grateful crackle-loving friend, who files it with the best of Philip Jeck, Jonathan Coleclough, M. Behrens, Troum, and other masters of detailed drone constructions."
As you might have guessed, that friend of Loren's is of course our own Allan...and he really does love this disc!! (And he did manage to use an advance version of this to DJ with at the Beyond The Pale festival last year -- it goes really well with Bo Hansson, actually.) Even if you're usually wary of some avantgarde academic "experimental" sterility, try this out anyway, it's warm and organic and inviting in a way many glitchy, noisy things are not, like a bonfire on a desolate, foggy sea-shore.
This unlikely freak-funk treasure from Chubby Checker has at long last been properly reissued, fully legit we're now told for the first time. You might recall it under the self-explanatory title Chubby Checker Goes Psychedelic, which is what it was called when we first listed an earlier edition some years back. Here's what we said about it then, which still applies:
When you think deep, soulful, psychedelic tinged rock the first name that probably does NOT come to mind is Chubby Checker. But guess what, he did in fact brew up a totally potent batch of funky psych rock burners that somehow slipped completely under the radar.
Apparently Chubby was living in Holland in 1971 when he hooked up with some eccentric and unknown hippie rockers who all seemed to be smoking some seriously good stuff and together they recorded this batch of seriously scorching tracks! Forget everything you know about Chubby Checker. This is not "The Twist", or the golden-oldies or a novelty comeback with the Fat Boys in the '80s. This is an impassioned psychedelic rock killer with deep grooves and a super emotional and intense vocal delivery from Chubby. Every time we play this in the store someone thinks it's some rare Hendrix track or an unreleased Arthur Lee gem or some amazing group like Black Merda finally being resurrected. In fact just about all of these songs could have appeared on any of the recent spate of psych reissue comps that we have fallen so in love with (Nuggets, Cherrystones), and actually we were given our first sneak peak into this secret world of Chubby Checker a few years back on the great collection Mr. Toytown Presents Vol. 2: Nightmares at Toby's Shop. We never thought we'd finally hear the whole disc, heck, we didn't even think there -was- a whole disc. Turns out there was, first presented to us as Chubby Checker Goes Psychedelic though it was originally released back in the day on some budget labels variously under the titles New Revelation and Chequered.
There are some seriously mind blowing songs here. Songs that aren't just cool cause it's neat and weird and interesting that they are actually being sung by Chubby Checker, but songs that stand on their own two feet and grab your and shake you and sound so damn good! What's also so cool about this recording is that 9 of the 11 songs were actually written by Chubby, so it's not like some hip producer just grabbed a bunch of great songs and slapped Chubby's name and voice on them. He shows such an amazing range, from scorching stingers ("Love Tunnel") to druggy cookers ("Stoned In The Bathroom", yeah!) to darkly solemn tales ("He Died"). What an absolute surprise of a record! We haven't been able to stop playing it since it arrived to AQ. We're completely addicted! And we think you will be too.
Includes liner notes explaining a bit more about how the heck this happened, and the cd has a bonus track!
When you think deep soulful psychedelic tinged rock the first name that probably does NOT come to mind is Chubby Checker. But guess what, he did in fact brew up a totally potent batch of psych rock burners that somehow slipped completely under the radar.
Apparently Chubby was living in Holland in 1971 when he hooked up with some eccentric and unknown hippie rockers who all seemed to be smoking some seriously good stuff and together they recorded this batch of seriously scorching tracks! Forget everything you know about Chubby Checker. This is not "The Twist", or the golden-oldies or a novelty come-back with the Fat Boys in the '80s. This is impassioned psychedelic rock killer with deep grooves and a super emotional and intense vocal delivery from Chubby. Every time we play this in the store someone thinks it's some rare Hendrix track or an unreleased Arthur Lee gem or some amazing group like Black Merda finally being resurrected. In fact just about all of these songs could have appeared on any of the recent spate of psych reissue comps that we have fallen so in love with (Nuggets, Cherrystones), and actually we were given our first sneak peak into this secret world of Chubby Checker a few years back on the great collection Mr. Toytown Presents Vol. 2: Nightmares at Toby's Shop. We never thought we'd finally hear the whole disc, heck, we didn't even think there -was- a whole disc. Turns out there was, now on cd as Goes Psychedelic though it was originally released on some budget labels variously under the titles New Revelation and Chequered.
There are some mind blowing songs here. Songs that aren't just cool cause it's neat and weird and interesting that they are actually being sung by Chubby Checker but songs that stand on their own two feet and grab your and shake you and sound so damn good! What's also so cool about this recording is that 9 of the 11 songs were actually written by Chubby, so it's not like some hip producer just grabbed a bunch of great songs and slapped his name and voice on them. He shows such an amazing range, from scorching stingers ("Love Tunnel") to druggy cookers ("Stoned In The Bathroom") to darkly solemn tales ("He Died"). What an absolute surprise of a record! We haven't been able to stop playing it since it arrived to AQ. We're completely addicted! And we think you will be too.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
French duo of acoustic (but not quiet!) guitar and drums that play in an instrumental 'post-rock' vein -- a shorthand description would be to call them a cross between Don Caballero and Gastr del Sol (but better!). Complex, dynamic, and full of that delicate post-rock beauty...although we can't figure out why bands like this, with musicians this good, don't play metal instead. On the same label that brought us the last two Ruins releases.
Maybe it's the Slint reunion (just ask Andee or Elliott about how awesome that show was!!) or those for-now-aborted Bastro releases we were waiting for, but we've been kinda been feeling the post-rock 'round here lately. So this disc by French instrumental post-rock outfit Chevreuil showed up at just the right time. They remind us of a comforting Don Caballero, a slightly scatterbrained Circle, or a more warm n' relaxed version of AQ faves Feuhler. And the use of synth brings in comparisons to local boys Crime In Choir too. First released in 2003 by the French label Ruminance (the same folks who brought us the last Cheval de Frise when it was an import), now slightly updated and released domestically by Sick Room, Chateauvallon consists of eleven instrumental post-rock jams that just do us right. We especially like how their hypnotic grooves and repetitive riffery are allowed some wobbly breathing room...they're far from sloppy but seem to get intentionally off-kilter and fucked-up sounding, like a dizzy Discipline (King Crimson), while paradoxically remaining tight as an Albini-recorded drum (which some of the drums on here are, in fact). Even math rock, sometimes 2 + 2 = 5 can work, it seems. These derailments and double-exposures that they work into their songs serve to increase the pleasurable tensions that are always a post-rock calling-card...as is the mixture of mellow and pretty with the sudden on-rush of the hard and metallic which Chevreuil also expertly employ herein.
So, if you've got a soft spot for the post-rock, or want to try some on for size, this is our latest fave in the field for sure!
Yay, 'tis time for another delightful dose of Jewelled Antler goodness... these dusty gems aren't strewn about the twiggy forest floor as much as they used to be (back in the day of Jewelled Antler's prolific cd-r production), so it's with even greater pleasure that we regard this latest from Jewelled Antler potentate Loren Chasse (Of, Ov, Thuja, Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, The Knit Separates, etc.) and his compatriot, and Berlin-based expatriate, Jason Honea (The Shitty Listener, Teenage Panzerkorps, Chord Fort, The Knit Separates, Franciscan Hobbies).
The usual hazy Jewelled Antler soundworld of abstruse natural field-recordings, fragmented folky melodies, and the textural droning of acoustic instruments (and non-instruments) is utterly entered into here, with the gentle, lullaby-like vocals of Mr. Honea softly taking you by the hand to wander in wonderment through it all. The music glistens and shimmers and sighs like the soughing sound of wind in the trees, and Honea's voice does too... it's some sort of lo-fi, fairytale indie-rock, though not very rock - the angular outset of the track "A Loved Thing/Gull's Blood" being the most raucous, rock-like thing here, almost Swell Maps-ish, reminding us, as much of this does, of likeminded New Zealanders Pumice... mostly though, while replete with much buzzing noise and sudden shiftings, this certainly on the dreamier and driftier side of things! Imagine Martyn Bates magically transported into the musical context of a Charles Burchfield landscape painting, perhaps... yet with this duo's "weird dude energy" keeping things interesting and unexpected (for instance, "A Poem In One Song" features indistinct background groanings that we recognize as Loren being silly).
Jason's intimate, close-miced vocals provide distorted textures of their own to go with the rather abstract music-making, always melodic and soothing even if you never bother to puzzle out the imagery of his improvised, stream-of-conciousness lyrics, some of which probably have to do with his new experience of fatherhood!
There's a sweet sixteen audio tracks here, plus four MPG4 video clips as a bonus! A few guests drop in to join Chasse and Honea on some of the songs, including Rob Reger (Thuja), former AQer Christine Boepple (Ov, Skygreen Leopards, Whysp), and Mark Williams (Mirza, Father Beard). Meanwhile, the videos take you out in the field with the Child Readers, each one a perfect visual analog to the accompanying music (four non-album tracks), full of natural scenery and more of that "weird dude energy", Jewelled Antler style. For these alone this is probably a must-buy for any Jewelled Antler fan or follower - if it wasn't already - since this fourth Child Readers disc (after 2 cd-rs on JA and a cd on Mallard Lake, all seemingly years and years ago) is perhaps our new favorite. Sometimes it's hard for us to express how much we like these records, 'cause we're friends with these guys and we feel weird gushing to much, but this IS fantastic. So glad the Child Readers are still up to their (un)usual hijinks. Recommended!!
Hearing this being played in the store, when they didn't know what it was, on several occasions aQ staffers have thought we were listening to some 20th century avant-classical piece, like by some obscure Eastern European atonal academic composer or something, what with its uber-spooky swells of ominous shimmering string drone and sudden attacks of clattering orchestral percussion. Even if you guess it's a soundtrack, it seems like it must be from some cult classic arty Italian suspense film from the '80s.
Well it is from the '80s, and it is from a cult classic, but it's not Italian. The dramatic crescendos and atmospheric interludes you'll hear on this are from tracks with titles like "Batteries Included" and "Chucky Kills The Doctor". Because of course this is the soundtrack to Child's Play (1988), the first film in the "Chucky" series of horror movies about a kid's toy, a doll that's been sorcerously possessed by the soul of a serial killer, turning it into an animated, not-that-cute-anymore, pint-sized knife wielding maniac. Whose subsequent reign of terror is accompanied by an appropriately sinister score - full of creepy rumbling, stabbing shards of sound, electronic-sounding treatments, and echoing rhythmic passages, and featuring a suitably eerie, melodic main theme. Who knew the Child's Play soundtrack was this good? And, even better, this limited edition & now discontinued La-La-Land release - which we have for a special sale price while they last - includes 3 bonus tracks, including one that wasn't used in the film itself but is practically worth the price of admission here, "The Chucky Song".
As with most horror flicks, there's an element of humor to Child's Play - how could there not be? But as we recall, this first Chucky film was actually pretty scary. And the soundtrack sure is. What humor you get on this disc comes at the very end, via the "The Chucky Song", featuring jaunty synths, drum machine beats, a children's chorus of playground Double Dutch style jump rope rhymes, and Chucky himself (voiced by '70s outlaw biker blues rock singer Simon Stokes!) singing and rapping about just how bad he is. The track is bizarre and silly and we can't help playing it over and over. Even though this novelty number is completely at odds with the stark, scary vibe of the actual soundtrack (which is why it probably was left out of the movie!) we love it. The rest of the disc, though, makes for good late night listening, but we'd recommend locking your doors... Any fan of John Carpenter, etc. style stuff ought to love this - in fact, we'd suggest that the Death Waltz label ought to look into getting their hands on this to do a deluxe vinyl version one of these days, it would be perfect for them!
First encountered this NYC trio opening for The Sword and Slough Feg on tour out here last year. And it was an excellent match, if you like either of those bands, there's a good chance you'll dig Children too. Featuring ex-members of Early Man and S.T.R.E.E.T.S., these hipster longhairs have got some of that currently cool psychedelic indie ironic image stuff happening (they claim they play "peace metal" ferinstance, and probably wear more American Apparel than black leather)... but then when you press play, blam, the headbanging is ON. With abundant energy, galloping beats, raging riffs, rapidfire thrash technology, and a weensy bit of left field (for metal) artsiness! Plus, most crucially, plenty of Champsy guitar harmonies - and like the Fucking Champs, there's no bass, just two guitars and drums. Though, the band these kids remind us the most of is their labelmates SF's Saviours, with similarly badass blazing leads and gruff, not-so-melodic singing/screaming.
Yeah, there's some SWEET guitar action here, from the one mellow quasi-classical instrumental "H.T.H.A.T.E.O.T.W." to the extended dual guitar widdly-ness that makes the epic (nearly 10 minute) album-ender "Time Is The Living" so magnificent. Actually, these guys love to stretch out jamming on their axes all over this disc, with the likes of "Nuclear Bummer" over 7 minutes long, and opener "Advanced Mind Control" clocking in at 9:41. Inveterate air guitarists will wish they were even longer. Heck we'll take our ripping, indulgent metal where we can get it. If it's a so-called "hipster" metal band on Kemado, that's just fine if they shred like these guys do! We like their style.
