This is a reissue of one of those deep "in-the-know" records that we're perplexed that we had somehow never heard of before now, especially given its pedigree. It seems to be one of those weird anomaly recordings that when it's not acting as a "proto" example of genres that now exist today (dub-step and minimal techno), it works as a bridge between genres we never imagined being connected before (new age and industrial music, minimalist composition and new wave, minimal synth and ethno-folk music). It's a rare six-degrees-of-separation record that bafflingly connects Suicide to John Fahey, and it's utterly gorgeous to boot.
Craig Leon may not be a well-known name to most, but he was the producer or co-producer behind many of the bands of our youth including Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Suicide, The Weirdos, DMZ, The Zero's. The Bangles and 45 Grave. But he's also a classically trained composer and orchestrator who has worked with Lucio Pavoratti, Sir James Galway and The London Symphony Orchestra. Nommos was the first album of his own material, originally released in 1981 on John Fahey's Takoma label and there really is just nothing quite like it.
With evocative titles like "Donkeys Bearing Cups", "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife" and "She Wears A Hemispherical Skull Cap", Leon uses minimal synthesis to explore repetitive rhythm and texture in hypnotic trance inducing compositions. The opener, "Ring With Three Concentric Circles" explores a kraut-y kosmiche sound employing cosmic synth washes over skeletal mechanical rhythms, but it's the second track, "Donkeys Bearing Cups" that prognosticates many of the production tropes of modern dubstep and minimal techno, the shuffling almost dance-y mechanized rhythms, as well as the squelched siren noise that opens it. Many of the tracks could be paired down backing tracks for Suicide songs, minus Alan Vega's vocals and Martin Rev's knack for propulsion. Instead Leon seems to dwell on the nuance of his robotic rhythms, tweaking the reverb and decay in bass pulses and cymbal clangs, but encasing them in a beautiful floating stasis.
The longest track at nearly 12 minutes, "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife", seems to have the least going on. It's plodding hiccupping rhythm stretching for minutes before we notice a woman's voice almost operatically singing way off in the background. Her voice almost feels like another synthetic texture in the composition and we at first had to turn the volume down to see if we were hearing things, but it's just another impeccable detail that Leon is carefully layering and weaving into seemingly bare-bone compositions making us ever conscious of the meditative nature of the work. This is definitely a producer's record, and an incredible one at that! If you are a fan of modern techno composers like Vladislav Delay, Andy Stott, Demdike Stare, anything on the Dead-Cert label, or even outlier composers like Moondog, Julius Eastman or Barton Smith, this is essential!
Download card included!
We have to say, that lots of the time, when a band is touted as being some lost heavy psych or proto-metal classic, it often eventually turns out to sound sonically more like blues rock or bar rock, with merely HINTS of that psychedelic heaviness that lured us in, in the first place. Such is most definitely NOT the case with obscure French psychedelic rockers Les Goths, who within one track, establish themselves as a serious sonic juggernaut, obviously beholden to Hendrix and Cream and Blue Cheer, and yeah, with hints of sixties blues rock, but with a tendency for wild super distorted guitar playing and wicked bombastic drumming and dramatic vox, not to mention a raw, in-the-red production which only enhances the band's fierce sound. Some of us were definitely reminded of sixties Swedish psych trio Baby Grandmothers, and anyone who bought their now out of print reissue on Subliminal Sounds (and that was a whole lot of you!) is for sure gonna want this. Check out the first song and see if you're not totally sold, a four minute non-stop blast of buzz drenched riffage and effects soaked garage psych pound, the guitars thick and distorted, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vox too, everything reverbed and echoey and a little blown out, some wild psychedelic leads, a total lost classic garage psych classic for sure. We've probably listened to this track a hundred times since we first got this in, it's the sort of track that would steal the show on any vintage psych comp, in fact it's the sort of track that would inspire someone to CREATE an obscure psych comp. The song gets more and more distorted and druggy as it goes, we dare say worth the price of admission alone. But once you get over being obsessed with that track (if you ever do), there's lots more here to dig into.
Tracks like "I Remember" are bluesy groovers, displaying the band's love of groups like the Animals, but even here, the sound is a little twisted, the arrangements a bit off kilter, with a little bit of that girl group vibe, cool soaring harmony vocals, with some super intense about-to-crack lead vox, all hazy and dreamy, and then the band slip right back into something a bit heavier and more propulsive like "Out Of The Sun" with its low slung bass groove, wild tangled guitars and chaotic super busy drumming, the whole thing sort of sun baked and druggy, with some cool churning chuggy riffage surfacing throughout.
The rest of the record offers up more of the same, long stretches of brooding bluesiness, groovy psychedelic shuffles, and pounding garage-y stomps, in equal measure, always with some killer guitar work and easily some of the best drumming we've heard, which had us wishing there was a way to nominate Les Goths drummer Bruno Frascone as should have/could have been drum legend. Consider him so nominated! One of our favorite new garage / psych reissues for sure!
Like with all Shadoks releases, plenty of rare photos, lyrics and liner notes.
Putain de merde!! '70s French noisy garage punk rock insanity here, courtesy of France's Born Bad label who know their shit (they brought us some early '60s French rock insanity not too long ago from Les Blousons Noirs, remember). We've been wanting to review this for a while too, finally got a few imports in on both cd and vinyl. It's an offical compilation of most what remains of the recorded legacy of these cult '77 era punks, named after psychiatrist and drug addiction treatment specialist Claude Olivenstein. They were worthy contemporaries of the great Metal Urbain, sounding totally killed by death. The 13 tracks here range from their killer singles to even rawer and wigger demos to live material, some of it previously unissued, rescued from dusty old cassette tapes and so forth. Like their countrymen and early '70s forefathers Rotomagus, they never made a full-length album - or rather, this is it, 30+ years later!
Savage, slashing stuff, the vocals en francias delivered with a snotty sneer, the rhythms chugging and cooking like rock 'n' roll should, guitar jangle mixing it up with some wild lashings of noisy fuzz and distortion. Crazy. Like certain other obscure '70s French faves we can think of (Angelface, Soggy) there's plenty of Stooges-y shake appeal here. Also, if Metal Urbain was in fact the French answer to the Sex Pistols, these guys were ready to back 'em up in a pinch. They also have a cute little doo-wop thing going too with the ironically sunshiney "La Nuit Tragique", while the groovy twang of "Olivenstein Je T'ai Dans Les Veines" (performed here live) reminds us of both Radio Birdman and The Stranglers. Oui oui, recommended! (Compact disc version comes enhanced with a QuickTime video of Les Olivensteins performing "Euthanasie" on TV.)
Reissue of one of our favorite indie rock records ever. Les Savy Fav don't really get their due, but back in the day, these guys were just about the most freaked out, chaotic noise-pop proposition going. An insane vocalist who spent as much time in the crowd, or dragging his mic into the parking lot as he did on stage. And a hyper kinetic band of dissonant, angular axemen and a seriously spastic drummer backing him up. This disc, their debut from 1999, finally gets the remastering/repackaging/reissuing it so deserves. A gloriously energetic blend of the Pixies and the Archers Of Loaf, but with loads of extra snotty swagger, plenty of metallic crunch, and a fistful of hooks most pop band's would kill for. And some of the best indie rock vocals ever, sometimes getting locked into long stretches of looped yelps, or wildman stream of consciousness ranting, all delivered in a distorted scrachy garage rock howl.
Worth it alone for the third track, a wholesale rip off of Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", that instantly recognizable melody, but all twisted up into a chugging, propulsive chaotic slab of fuzzy pounding perfect pop throb. An all time mix tape staple for sure. But the rest of the record kicks just as much ass. Like the record the Pixies would have made if they were twenty something art school nerds from Rhode Island dosed on Red Bull and Robitussen. Fuck yeah!
Pssst: new record coming in 2007!
With an artist as prolific as Jason Lescalleet, we're a little ashamed that we've only ever managed to list two of his releases. And both of those were fantastic. One a super limited cd-r on Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, the other a collaboration with fellow sound artist and long time AQ fave John Hudak. We'll try to remedy that, beginning with this most recent release, an epic and incredibly lovingly assembled sonic tribute to Lescalleet's father who passed away in 2005.
A lot of drone music, minimal experimental music, while sounding cool, often amazingly cool, doesn't always resonate emotionally. A lot of it is dark and mysterious, moody or melancholy, but without lyrics, and with minimal melody, it's hard to convey much emotion. A select few, those with a deft hand at sculpting sound, are able to infuse even the most minimal of musics with feeling and emotion, but lots of music is simply an assemblage of interesting sounds, which truth be told is often enough.
For The Pilgrim, Lescalleet has created an incredibly emotional and moving tribute in sound, to his father, who found a strange and surprising appreciation for his son's music. A combination of field recordings, old tape recordings and live performance, this set is both musically ambitious, and sweetly personal. A combination that in less capable hands could have turned into something maudlin and schmaltzy, instead, The Pilgrim is simply beautiful.
The picture disc features two recordings, both moving in their own way. The first is a live performance recorded shortly after the discovery that his Father's cancer was terminal. Lescalleet begins the set by reading an email from his father, where he explains how much he liked his son's music, and how it reminded him of being young and laying on the floor of the car and feeling the vibrations rumble through his body. And the sounds of bells. Both rich memories for his father. So Lescalleet performs a piece incorporating those elements, the parts of his music that so moved his father. And it is indeed lovely. Deep rumbles, subtle whirs, slowly drifting from barely there shimmer to cavernous roar, but usually hovering dreamily somewhere in between. Toward the end, the sound grows more corrosive, with subtle rhythms surfacing amidst the crackle and buzz, before winding down to silence.
The second recording is a little difficult to listen to, and is extremely intense and personal. While Lescalleet's father was in the hospital, he gave him a hand held recorder, thinking it might lift his spirits to be able to record messages and his thoughts. But his father was incapable of having long conversations, so the whole side is a recording of a hospital room, with bits of mumbled speech, footsteps, snatches of conversations in the hall, very stark and lonely sounding, the room giving the recording a strange natural reverb. Incredibly moving...
The cd is a new 70 minute piece based on those same sounds Lescalleet's father found so appealing: bells, chimes, rumbling vibrations. And it's a gorgeous piece of minimal dronemusic. Murky and bleary eyed, a slow almost funereal drift, the low end sometimes throbbing like the engine of a car, but just as often glistening in abstract smears. Part way through, more and more melody surfaces amidst the dreamy drones, before the track devolves into some serious, and very cathartic noise, crumbling, ultra distorted howls of white noise and blown out buzz, eventually fading out, leaving just the voice of Jason's daughter singing to her grandfather while he was in the hospital, an old Irish folk song. As her song ends, the record drifts off with a dark and barely audible coda of softly struck bells. So intense and poignant and absolutely gorgeous to listen to.
The packaging is divine as well, a deluxe gatefold sleeve, a rich blue on the outside, inside a painting by Lescalleet's brother of their Dad, as well as the printed out email. The lp is a picture disc, one side an old fashioned tape reel, the other a photo of Lescaleeet's Dad eating cake. Inside is a deluxe booklet, with the cd in a pouch on the inside of the cover, lots of liner notes, photos, notes on each track and the whole story of this record.
Local one man band Less (not to be confused with Lesser) spits out a caustic blend of Tool and Don Caballero and Rage Against The Machine. I can't really figure out what this guy is doing releasing his own cds, when he should be on MTV and touring with Tool or
So here it is. The new Lesser record. On Matador no less. We were all a little afraid, that not wanting to blow his big chance (it's quite a leap from Vinyl Communications to Matador), Jay Lesser was going to soften his attack, blunt his weapons, and make a 'nice' record (one the Plaid/Plone/Boards of Canada crowd could get into) which probably would be okay, but lacking the confusional chaos that we here at AQ love so much but which most people have trouble getting their heads around. Fear not. This is THE record Lesser has been trying to make for years. It all comes together just right. Gone is most of the drum 'n bass dabbling of the last record, and in its place a tangled mess of skittering beats (like a malfunctioning Autechre), funky hiccupping beats patched together from a thousand skipping cds, long stretches of ambient noise, radio interference and just completely random sound. Probably the most difficult Lesser record yet. Certainly the most difficult thing you've heard on Matador. But it's worth the work, because underneath all this mayhem and confusion are some amazing songs, catchy melodies super funky beats, hilarious (usually unrecognizable) samples, and some of the most unique amazing 'sound' you've ever heard. Imagine an Autechre / Merzbow soundclash on New Years Eve, in Central Park, and for some reason their rig is intercepting thousands of cellular phone calls / radio transmissions / crowd sounds, and then it begins to rain, and the whole thing short circuits, causing an ungodly assortment of sizzle and crackle and white noise and total mayhem. It's kind of like that, but with a few pretty parts.
I mean, any record that gets a review calling it "a detriment to humanity" (Stanford Intermission) has got to be great. Most musicians, kings, presidents, criminals and supervillains work their whole lives towards that end and still don't make it.
Hopefully this record will steal some of the Kid606 / Matmos / Blechdom / Kit Clayton thunder and put it back where it probably belonged all along.
Fucking essential.
Everyone knows Aquarius loves Lesser. I mean, Andee even has a Lesser tattoo!!! And how could you not love him. He's a musical madman/genius, turning everything he touches into some mutated, 6 headed, 3 dicked, spastic, unpredictable crazy mixed up
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
These warnings are beginning to sound like mantras: THIS IS VERY LIMITED. THIS WILL MOST LIKELY ALREADY BE OUT OF PRINT BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS. WE GOT THE LAST 50 COPIES AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET MORE!! LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED!!! But like all good mantras, it pays to heed the sage advice contained within, and in this case the advice would be pick one of these up quick like before they're gone for good. A Silhouette In Splinters is the long in the works "ambient" record from Leviathan, released on Canadian label Profound Lore, lp only, pressed on thick red vinyl and as you may have surmised EXTREMELY LIMITED. Part of what makes Leviathan records so powerful and mesmerizing is Wrest's mastery of mood and ambience, so here he gets to explore an entire album of bleak and depressive atmospheres. But this is not pure ambient music, its ambience is only obvious when compared to the dense complex sound world of other Leviathan releases. This is not static ambience, not in the least, these are actual songs, not just creepy swooshings and simple drones. Silhouette is like an entire record made up of the best black metal intros ever, but here, each one is fleshed out into actual musical narratives. Skeletal guitar figures, drift and shimmer darkly over ominous swells of mournful minor key lament. What little percussion there is, hovers ghostlike beneath a wash of blackened swirl. The entire record is wrapped in a foggy cloak of starlit skies and murky underground passages. A haunting soundtrack to misery and horror, death and dying.
We talk about 'long awaited' releases all the time, records we hear about well before their actual release date, forcing us to wait and wait and wait, but few records have been as eagerly anticipated, or generated so many emails from customers as this, the latest from SF black metal behemoth Leviathan. Especially considering the rumors circulating that this may indeed be the final recording from Wrest and his one man band, Leviathan. If it is indeed a swansong, it's hard to imagine a more fitting or more powerful farewell-and-fuck-off.
Even being a huge fan and voracious devourer of black metal, we would be hard pressed to tell lots of BM bands apart. It's the nature of the beast in some ways. But the second we threw this on, even if we hadn't known what was playing, there's no mistaking the sound of Leviathan, the guitar tone, those demonic croaked vocals, the dizzying lush black buzzscapes, the convoluted song structures, the weird mathy rhythms and the incredible riffs.
Massive Conspiracy is not a huge departure from the sound of Tentacles Of Whorror, if anything, it just takes all the elements of that record and pushes them just that much further out. The sound is a bit more dense, more epic, the drumming is amazing (especially after the switch from electronic drums to real drums) the compositions more sprawling and expansive in scope. Which is saying a lot since past Leviathan records were pretty dang epic and sprawling already.
The sheer hatred of the titles is certainly expressed in the music as well, this is some scathing, hateful furious sound.
The record begins with some strange static, hissing drone-like buzz, ominous ambience beneath it, a haunting melody, then Wrest's howl and the record explodes in a flurry of rapid fire riffing and relentless blasting, but only briefly, the song immediately switches gear into a lurching lope, then right back into the blast. The song is peppered with super dense squalls of high end buzz, streaks of ultradistorted skree, while beneath all sorts of murky melodies lurk, almost like some old 78 was left playing in the background, giving the track an incredible creepy vibe, the last half of the song wraps itself around a slithery downtuned staccato riff, a gorgeously grim dirge that pounds its way to a burst of black chaos at the finish.
The second track is all whirring synths, loping drums, and Wrest's gurgling growl, a weird skeletal ambient dirge that is soon swallowed up by keening high end guitars, crunching downtuned churn, and some super freaky almost operatic vocals, the middle of the song is all full speed freaked out intensity, before again, the song locks into a super riffy groove, much like the opener, before finishing off in another black blaze.
The rest of the record follows suit, weaving super elaborate soundscapes of black metal buzz, and moody mathy meandering, dense black ambience, and swirling low end drones, the tracks rife with parts and bridges and confusional changes, all masterfully wound up into dense convoluted blackened, that while on their own are strange enough, are also peppered will all manner of sonic weirdness, be it slippery peals of woozy, dizzying melody, garbled vocal fragments, soaring harmony guitar melodies, super obtuse dynamics,
All culminating in the final two tracks. "Vulgar Asceticism" is definitely the most fucked, and maybe most amazing song Wrest has ever recorded. Even the opening, with its muted riffing and murky bass throb, staccato riff, and weird Greg Ginn-ish scrape and grind, before the song takes off. And the main riff is super warbly, almost sounding like he's playing with a slide, the notes wavering and detuning, only to be yanked back in line, and then bent way out of tune again, the result a blurry seasick lurch, exacerbated by the dynamics, the riffs often slipping into strange start stop stutters, until the song reaches it's middle stretch, the bass and drums locked into a relentless midtempo blast, while layers of guitars, and various riffs slip and slide, waver and warble, a super dizzy expanse of funhouse mirror blackness that is as fucked up and far out as it is amazing and masterful.
The closer, "Noisome Ash Crown" is an appropriately somber end to Massive Conspiracy, maybe even Leviathan itself. The whole first half a funereal crawl, a bleak grim landscape of whirring thick black ambience, and strange squalls of processed vocals, squiggles of distorted guitar, the drums a solid framework for the drifting abyss above. A strange washed out, gauzy black ambient bridge, gives way to a crushing almost industrial dirge, the melodies majestic and sorrowful, the vocals harrowing and harsh, the drums furiously flailing before transforming into muted little tangles, the rest of the song following suit, a dark minor key outro that gives way to the same black static that started the record.
The first limited pressing comes in a red digipak, featuring some seriously twisted original artwork from Wrest on the cover. Inside lurks a 12 page full color booklet, with more freaky drawings, lyrics and no liner notes.
NB. this officially comes out on Tuesday (3/25) so we can't sell any in the store 'til then, but of course mailorder folks can go ahead and order it now, to get in the mailorder queue...
Wrest and his one-man-black-metal-band Leviathan return, with the corpses of Christians and poseurs littering the bleak landscape evoked by his sonic barrage of inhuman vokills, majestic riffing, and punishing drums. Pure misanthropic musical mayhem. Surely you remember Leviathan -- Andee put out the debut double cd Verrater on tUMULt only nine months ago, and that's been a very successful release. But Verrater was only the tip of the blackened iceberg that is Wrest/Leviathan's ability and need to make intelligent and emotional extreme rock music. Hence, this suicidal statement spawned so soon. At AQ, we fancy ourselves connoisseurs of this kind of stuff, and believe us -- this guy is good (and evil)!! What we mean is, as raw as it gets, there's some intense talent on display here. Lots of San Francisco bands have gotten hyped recently, but here's one that really deserves worship. Chaotically complex, pitilessly crafted tracks like the nine-minute long "Sardoniscorn" somehow maintain this music's one-foot-in-the-grave old school spikes n' corpsepaint directive while simultaneously getting totally arty and out there with epic, prog, avant-garde elements. Doomy drone, weird downtempo percussive interludes, atonal piano, ambient psychedelia, extreme vocal unpleasantness, lots of distortion and feedback. Yes! So it's no surprise that tUMULt and Aquarius (and our customers) weren't the only entities to appreciate the grim genius of Leviathan, as Wrest's project has now been signed to multi-album deals with two black metal specialists, Moribund in the States and Drakkar over in Europe, this album being the first fruit of that deal. We even recently discovered that none other than pagan pop star and psych/krautrock maniac Julian Cope is a big Leviathan fan, recommending Verrater on his website! So, this is another one for both black metal freaks (who will find this worthy of keeping company with your Burzum, Satyricon, Immortal, etc. records) as well as any other adventurous music-lovers unafraid of dabbling in the weird and wretched...
Those of you who live in San Francisco may have seen or even bought some of the many self released casettes by the mysterious one man black metal band called Leviathan. Or some of you may have seen Andee or Allan sporting their Leviathan shirts, or you may have even seen Wrest, the man behind Leviathan lurking around AQ...regardless, Leviathan is the latest and certainly one of the greatest of the Bay Area black metal bands (Ludicra, Sangre Amado, the godlike Weakling [also on tUMULt], etc...) who seem to exist in some sort of vacuum here while elsewhere, band after unoriginal band keep getting signed to huge labels and hyped to death even though most of them suck.
For this release Andee and Wrest went through the 13 full length Leviathan cassettes/cd-r's (as of today that number has leapt to 15!) Leviathan had recorded since 1998 to compile a good overview. But they couldn't whittle it down enough so one disc became two, with the first disc being the newer stuff, and disc two being the older, raw-er material.
Verrater is pure, primitive, cult, home recorded evil. Two discs, twenty two tracks, one hundred and forty three minutes of buzzing, howling, pummelling, black metal. Think Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal, that sort of thing, but with all sorts of weird twists and sonic surprises. Yes, Leviathan is grimmer than grim metal that the frost & forest lords of Norway should bow down to, but it's also pure expression unfettered by genre restraints, although informed and inspired by them. Like Weakling, Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Ludicra, Potentiam, Enslaved, and some other AQ-championed black metal acts, this is not just one for fans of black metal only! It's dark, weird, noisy, disturbing art embodying one man's vision that should be heard by anyone into avantgarde, experimental, psycically and physically powerful rock music. From blasting howling fury to moody ambient blackness to off kilter weirdness to droning riffery to soul crushing heaviness. What's truly remarkable is that one man, playing all the instruments himself, and recording at home, can evoke such strong emotions and invoke such musical demons. Original, evil, hateful, misanthropic, bizarre and truly black metal.
Seems like rumors regarding the end of Leviathan were greatly exaggerated. Not only is Leviathan still a going concern, but then out of nowhere pops this brand new, bad ass split, with a Greek band called Achernotas, who we knew by name but had never heard until now.
Needless to say, most aQ metalheads won't need much more prodding than the words "new Leviathan record", then there's the fact that the cd AND vinyl version of this split are both insanely limited, which means once we sell out of these, odds are we won't be able to get more, which is a huge bummer, because not only are the Leviathan tracks awesome (obviously), but we're pretty psyched on Acherontas as well.
The Leviathan tracks sound like maybe they're a bit older, perhaps before the shift from electronic drums to acoustic drums, the sound is murky, but still gnarled and chaotic and dense, the arrangements furious and frenzied, the drumming insane, and that unmistakable demonic croak. Lots of glitch and buzz, tangled atonal melodies, a heaving wall of blackened chaos, but it is Leviathan, so there's plenty of dark brooding ambience, some classic metal sounding chug, some spaced out almost doomy sounding blackness, the sound here falls somewhere right between classic Leviathan and the more twisted sonic soundscapes of Lurker Of Chalice.
The Acherontas tracks start off with haunting reverb drenched piano, creating a creepy otherworldly vibe, before the band launches into some super grim sounding black pound, the drums simple but intense, the guitars super distorted, the riffs woozy and minor key, the sound slipping easily from loping Burzumic plod, to proggy almost folky swirl, with clean guitars and strangely complex drumming, smothered in ethereal effects, the vocals especially harsh, dripping with demonic intensity, then suddenly transforming into deep haunting croon, the guitars following suit, growing more and more melodic and lovely, still all wrapped in a haze of distorted buzz, eventually fading out in a blur of minor key miserablism. Really awesome stuff. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
But for now, if you do want one of these, cd OR lp, act fast, these have been selling like crazy and we're down to about half of what we started with. The cds come in a nice digipak (although be warned, some of the edges are a little worn in shipping, nothing we can do about it, these are probably all we're gonna get), and the lp is a super striking pictured disc, that comes in a heavy sleeve with a printed 12" x 12" insert.
We only have a dozen of these. We will NEVER get more. So this is one of those first come first served deals, quick on the buzzer, don't delay or you're shit out of luck. SERIOUSLY. Four black metal bands from all over the world. One 7". One track each. Grim and evil and cult and gone before you know it. Leviathan, Ad Hominem, Funeral Winds, Eternity. In a gorgous black on black gatefold sleeve. And as it says on the back of the record: "This piece of hate is limited." Indeed...but only in number.
Managed to get just a few more of these in stock! Direct from Wrest of Leviathan. And we are told these will be the last copies ever so don't miss out AGAIN. Here's what we had to say about this split when we first got it in:
Finally a little more Leviathan to hold us over until his next forthcoming full length, Tentacles of Whorror! This time a round it's a split with European old schoolers Iuvenes who traffic in buzzy blurry black metal, Bathory style. Really simple blast beats over superdistrorted riffs and growled gutteral vocals with squiggly leads buried waaaay doooown in the mix. Droning and repetetive and very hypontic. But let's not kid ourselves, Leviathan is why we're here and Wrest does not diappoint. Grinding suffocating swarms of buzzing guitars, ultra creepy, deeply depressing ambience, completely and brilliantly fucked drumming, haunting Burzum-y keyboards, and that inhuman bowels-of-hell rasp that occasionally erupts into an utterly terrifying demonic shriek. But it's the songs, the songs are just so fucking good. So many black metal bands make all the right sounds, but can't actually write real songs. Wrest continues to explore and push the boundaries of black metal with Leviathan, exploring distinctly non-black metal sounds and ideas, but manages to stay grim and true the whole time. The songs here are punishing and crushingly dense, disturbing and evil as fuck, but days later, you'll find these riffs stuck in your head like a crown of thorns! Essential!
Most of you have yet to hear the mighty Solar Anus, Japan's masters of stumbling psychedelic doom (although thanks to tUMULt's forthcoming double cd collection of the first three SA albums, you soon will -- beware!), but in the mean time, Solar Anus mainman
8-bit, Nintendo, thrash metal. We're putting those keywords up at the start of this review to grab your attention, just in case you've never heard of Lich King before. Or even if you have, 'cause this ain't anything like the usual record by 'em. Massachusetts' zombie-lovin' Lich King are a New Wave Of Old School Thrash band, one of many these days (there's quite a glut), and they're pretty good. Although we've never felt compelled to actually review any of their albums before, some of the metalheads here do own a couple Lich King discs themselves. Even moreso than some other current retro thrash revivalists like Gama Bomb and Municipal Waste, Lich King are probably best known for their overt sense of humor. They write songs with titles like "Black Metal Sucks", "Behaver", and (they deserve an award, or at least a chuckle, for this one) "Attack Of The Wrath Of The War Of The Death Of The Strike Of The Sword Of The Blood Of The Beast". There's a tradition of fun and humor in '80s thrash metal after all (Anthrax! S.O.D.!), so their silliness makes 'em all the more authentic, especially since it doesn't stop 'em from spitting out some totally legit riffage, in the vein of Slayer and Nuclear Assault and Exodus, et. al.
With this release, for their own amusement mainly, the boys in Lich King decided to get even sillier, and recorded a bunch of their own tunes 8-bit chiptune '80s video game style!! Perhaps they were inspired by the internet-only fan band 8 Bit Mayhem's black metal covers (whose "De Mysteriis Dom Supernes" album is well worth Googling). Or maybe AQ fave Xexyz (if you liked that, you want this!). Certainly they were inspired by their own childhoods, playing Nintendo. In any case, a cool idea. With Super Retro Thrash, it's revealed just how catchy Lich King's songs really are. Stripped of vocals and guitar distortion, here it's all about the "riffs" and rhythms. And they're relentless, mind numbingly mesmerizing, we're lovin' it.
There's 9 songs here, including two unreleased as yet tunes from Lich King's next, upcoming proper album. And yes, among the "hits" they've selected, you get an 8-bit version of "Attack Of The Wrath Of The...", along with chipped-out takes on "ED-209" (their Robocop themed song), "Combat Mosh", "Toxic Zombie Onslaught", and more, including also the aforementioned "Black Metal Sucks".
The ironic thing is, not only is this the first Lich King album we've ever reviewed, we're also honestly more into it than any other of their "actual" albums, having listened to it lots more already (it's addictive!), AND surely will sell lots more of these than we would of any other Lich King release ever. We pretty sure it will be a big AQ hit like the Xexyz, or the Iron Maiden electro album. Meanwhile, it's something THEY thought only a few fans would want, it's limited to just 299 numbered copies!!! We got a bunch, but dunno if we'll be able to get (m)any more. The graphics are great, parodying an actual NES cartridge (we love the little lo-res Lich King guy depicted on there, rushing around Mario-style), photographed like it's sitting on a shaggy green carpet in someone's family room back in the '80s.
All right. Now this is what I'm talkin' about. 1971, yeah! Andee's always kidding me that I (Allan) think 1971 is the best year for rock music ever. That's not true of course ('69 and '70 and '72 were no slouches either!), but I do rate it pretty highly. There were SO MANY great records that year, among them Tago Mago, First Utterance, Nursery Cryme, Music To Eat, Satori, Master Of Reality, Funkadelic, Neu! 1, Culpeper's Orchard, Demon And Eleven Children, Love It To Death, In Search Of Space, Stormcock...ohmigod...there's so many. I don't know how I would have survived if I was of a music-buying age in 1971. But I was only two years old. It's sure would have been tough to make a top ten list if I was working at Aquarius back then!! But I'm pretty sure that this Life album (if I even woulda known about it, I wonder if Aquarius ever stocked the original import LP?) would have made that list. Seriously.
Of course, even if folks back then probably didn't appreciate it (foolishly thinking that rock was in some sorta prog-clogged doldrums) they were living in some special times. Especially special if you like the hard/heavy/acid rock like I do.
Ok, more about Life then: they were a skilled Swedish psych-prog trio that spun songs that incorporate (sometimes in the same composition) two quite different but equally excellent extremes -- they do some light n' lush, very pretty pop with piano and full orchestration. But then there's also a lotta rib-rattling dirge-rock with glacial, gargantuan guitars! The combination is epic and elegant, and puts 'em (in my book) almost in the same league as Queen and Deep Purple and Uriah Heep! A quick n' dirty description might be Cream-meets-Queen. And this was before Queen ever released an album. For '71, the heaviness is right up there. Killer songs, stellar vocals, a definite stoner spirit. I can't imagine any of AQ's customers who are real '70s proto-metal freaks not digging this album, even if you don't normally get into the poppier stuff...just 'cause its SO GOOD. And the lighter fare is integral even to the slabs of heaviosity for which you're really gonna worship this album. Yeah, it's heavy, and even when not, it's damn bombastic. In a way that makes even the tracks that are the most doomy and downer definitely also have a lively, uplifting vibe. I'm telling you, if Life were British and had made more than one album (instead of breaking up 'cause of joining the cast of the Swedish touring production of Hair!), you'd know about 'em already. I mean, they'd be '70s classic rock royalty for sure, at least as famous as, I dunno, Nazareth.
Getting back to the whole 1971 thing: in actuality, this album was originally released in 1970 with Swedish lyrics, then released with English language vocals in '71, and that version is the only one to be reissued on cd. Normally I prefer bands to sing in their native tongue, but this guy is a such a good singer, and avoids any embarrasing accent-issues, and the lyrics are pretty cool ("Once I saw a castle / made by rocks and sand / I used to touch that castle / with my magic hand"). A couple of the bonus tracks are in Swedish, too (where they suddenly sound like Dungen gone arena!).
Now I don't want to freak out and make like this is the best record EVER or anything, but it's really really good and is something that should be much better known that's for sure. So we've ordered a few to try and spread the word...
From the first few notes, we were totally sold. A wild freaked out psychedelic flute solo, why don't all bands start their records like that? Cuz we probably couldn't handle it! But it makes sense here, when you realize that Life On Earth just so happens to be dudes from Swedish psych rockers Dungen! Obviously Dungen fans are gonna want this, the sound is similar, maybe not quite as rocking, a little more laid back and hippified, groovy and space-y and definitely psychedelic, but still so so good.�
Fronted by Dungen-eer�Mattias Gustavsson, but with musical back up from other Dungen folks, and such unlikely musical bedfellows as Town & Country and Mia Doi Todd, Life On Earth is Gustavsson's musical tribute to, well, life on earth. The sheer exuberant joy of it, happiness and sunshine and love and brotherhood and wildlife and blue skies and nature and dreams and beauty and most importantly some super kick ass folky proggy psych rock bliss...
Flute is everywhere, and obviously for that we are truly thankful, but it drift and flutters amidst gorgeous and tranquil swirly folky forests of sound. Silky threads of acoustic guitar, swoonsome strings, harmony vocals, lyrics both in Swedish AND English, bongos and simple percussion, some slithery rhythmic grooves, some killer squalls of psych guitar growl, long stretches of hushed dreaminess, with cooing vocals and muted melodies and super tripped out heart-of-the-sun druggy jams, complete with slow motion riffing and reverbed outer space vocals, the whole disc is actually very Beatles-esque (albeit at their most experimental and HIGH) giving Dungen's sound even more of a sixties pop makeover.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so) the record finishes off with nearly 30 minutes of barely there lower case ambience, bits of percussion, keening high end glimmer, all drifting in wide open expanses of mumbled drones and hushed shimmer, a super longform abstract raga, that sounds like something you'd be more likely to find on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon or Pseudo Arcana than on a Dungen related record... Awesome.�
Another amazing lost gem from Trunk records, this time it's the soundtrack to a legendary (so we're told) nature show on the BBC called Life On Earth, from 30 years ago. Obviously we've never seen the show, but the music is magical. Mysterious and haunting, orchestral chamber music that sounds way too dark and haunting and serene to be designed to accompany shots of frogs and seals and tigers and bears, that is unless they're dying or wandering away sadly into the sunset. The music here, composed by Edward Williams is really quite lovely, but is so surprisingly dark, and melancholy, minor key, sad and sometimes otherworldly, almost almost like it would be better suited for an animated Tim Burton movie, but removed from the show, taken on its own, this music is indeed fantastic, yet still sounds like it must have been taken from some old horror film, or Italian giallo.
Lonely coronets, strummed harpsichords, creepy pizzicato melodies, muted hand drums and marimbas, Bernard Hemann-esque strings, fluttery flutes, ominous swells, booming kettle drums, singing violins, bells and chimes, lots of reverbs, clouds of gentle harp melodies, so gorgeous, but definitely has us wanting to see the show, to understand just how this music worked with shots of animals and plants, it makes nature seem quite ominous and malevolent indeed.
The record finishes off with what sounds like an actual clip from the show, whirring drones, distant drums, what sounds like reverbed Theremins, and a deep British voiceover (David Attenborough in fact!) discussing the disappearance of man. Wow.
Cool liner notes too, and photos, including the story of how Johnny Trunk tracked down the composer, and had to also track down Sir Attenborough himself.
Totally recommended!
For a band that counts among its lineup, members of suicidal black metallers Hypothermia, satanic black blasters Ondskapt, weirdo blackened doomsters Dimhymn, and buzzing black and rollers IXXI,
Lifelover still manage to confound, somehow creating music at once the sum of all those parts, and at the same time a sound completely cracked, totally damaged, and gleefully bizarre, to the point of seemingly alienating all but the most broadminded of listeners. But if you're like us, and were crazy obsessed with Lifelover's last two discs, Pulver and Erotik, both confusional mixes of downtuned depressive black buzz, haunting epic minor key sadcore, and a plenty of sonic whatthefuck, then Konkurs should hit the spot big time. But even if you've yet to hear Lifelover before now, you still might fight yourself ensorcelled, as have many of the less metal minded folks around here. Lifelover occupy some strange space, not quite pop, not quite black metal. The guitars are distorted, but they don't quite buzz, the melodies are grim and depressive, but more gloomy and melancholic than hateful and harsh. Fans of groups like Alcest, Amesoeurs and especially Katatonia, at least those who aren't averse to some serious weirdness, could very well discover a whole new, darker and more demented side to their musical taste, courtesy of these freaked out Swedes.
Konkurs manages to expand on the sonic universe explored over the course of the two prior discs, while taking the sound even further, better production, more diverse and expansive instrumentation, better songs, and while bizarre, not nearly as schizophrenic, with a much better flow, like a proper album, as opposed to a collection of strange songs, but it's all still laced with plenty of gorgeously gloomy melodies, awesome metallic crunch, all sorts of tortured maniacal vocals, the tracks are peppered with skittery drum machines, bizarre feedbacked melodies, plaintive piano, swoonsome crooned vocals, all wrapped around gloriously miserable and epic minor key dirges, and super catchy twisted blackened doom pop.
From the very first moment, a strange echo drenched metallic clang, the band swoops in cloaked in a warm haze of black buzz, draped over a time keeping trash can lid cymbal, the vocals anguished and tortured, the guitars woven into soaring majestic melodies, while a piano plinks out its own sad melody right alongside. It really does sound like some Katatonia B-side, but filtered through some sort of cracked black lens. And from there, the record swoons and swirls, the tracks unfurling woozily, the second track has a killer main hook, a murky piano / fuzzy guitar harmony, blurred and smeared beneath simple motorik drumming, while the track after that borrows a little groove from Norwegian Nirvana worshipping black metallers Khold, but add a whole 'nother dimension of soft focus miserablism. Every track, no matter how normal, or how fucked up, is impossibly catchy, hooks galore, but also rife with elements that in any other band would stick out like a blackened and bloodied sore thumb. Whether it's some grinding muted chunk chunk chunk guitar, a recording of some polka-like accordion music, or a shimmery stretch of detuned piano, or perhaps some ominous spoken word, a bit of folky guitar strum, recordings of waves lapping on the shore, Sunn 0)))-like slow motion black guitar buzz, or lots of piano, almost always wreathed in tons of effects making it ethereal and shimmery, those elements seem to melt into the sounds around them, and after a few listens it's almost impossible to imagine the songs without them.
Not really heavy, not really all that black, but then that doesn't seem to be at all the point when it comes to Lifelover. Instead, the sounds here are a mysterious strain of outsider pop music, infused with elements of black metal and doom and slowcore and all sorts of other things, but those remain just elements, and become harder and harder to discern within the swirling jangly grinding blasting buzzing droney drifty twisted catchy and creepy whole that is Konkurs. Brilliant. And baffling. And beautiful. And absolutely recommended.
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it's now gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool that keep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered by its murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light, with song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be a smear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpit tempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by the warm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at once epic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-r dronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort of metallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Hand folded, hand assembled, stark white sleeves, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, crazy limited to maybe 50 copies or so.
Earlier this year, we reviewed a super limited avant outsider blackened doom record called A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, by a duo called Light. Which was anything but light, in fact, it was one of the darkest and most harrowing discs we'd heard in a long time, a slow motion drone drenched funereal crawl, with a lush almost orchestrated feel that definitely reminded us of Skepticism. And if anything, record number two, the awesomely titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever is even more! More black, more doomy, more droney, more beautiful, more harsh and more bizarre.
One long hour long track, which begins with a slowly cycling piano figure, draped over a wash of reverbed tones, distant rumbles, the sound gorgeous, slightly atonal, ominous and sinister, and then there are the vocals, a nearly impossible to describe high pitched shriek, that almost sounds like someone screaming as they breathe in, a twisted strangled howl, totally at odds with the music underneath, reminding us a bit of Tomb Of..., who also paired up piano and black metal vokills, but Light seems borne more of a free noise aesthetic. Minus the vocals, the sound on Life Is Meaningless, is a sort of abstract slowcore crawl, a little post rocky, a little doomy, a bit of black ambient drift, but the vocals are just SOOOO creepy, it definitely pushes it into a whole other realm. And suddenly what could have been something darkly pretty, becomes something fucked up and grimly gorgeous.
Like the first release (which is long out of print so don't ask), the packaging is a hand folded, hand assembled, plain grey origami style sleeve, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, as well as a hand written insert, and again crazy limited to less than 50 COPIES!!
Third and final release from this depressive black doom duo, and it's a fitting epitaph to a short but brilliant streak. Three super limited cd-r's, less than 200 all told, each one overflowing with blackened misery and gorgeous harrowing sonic blackness, the first, titled A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, gave way to the second, titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, which brings us to Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, which should give you a decent impression of the overall vibe and tone of Light's distinctly UN-light sound.
Three looooooong tracks, thick caustic layers of buzzing low end drone, sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, shrieked vocals way down in the mix, funereal, glacial, miserable, not even plodding as there seems to be no drums, or if they are there, they're practically inaudible. The melodies are lilting and melancholic, there's some piano, the rumbling buzzing backdrop seems to coalesce into some sort of melody, the whole thing lurching in slow motion, grim, and dense, and miserably and mournfully lovely. Totally hypnotic .
The second track offers up more of the same, another lovely black expanse of pointillist piano, harrowing screams, and slow swells of black buzz, before finally segueing into the epic closing track, a formula similar to the first two, but somehow even slower, more abject, more ambient, so slow and spaced out and minimal, that it nearly ceases being metal or doom and is transformed into some sort of black ambient slowcore, a haunting doomic creep, that to these ears is as pretty as it is grim and harsh.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES. Gorgeous packaging, black on black, black disc, elaborately folded sleeve with a black on black printed obi, super fancy, and most likely gone before you know it...
Three out of print cd-r's from this outsider blackened doom duo, A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever and Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, all available again, now repackaged and offered together as a single triple cd-r boxset, with all new art, additional inserts, and two buttons, released on Crucial Blast sublabel Crucial Blaze. Here's what we had to say about each of the records when we first reviewed them individually:
A Million Dead Beneath The Ice:
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it's�now gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool that�keep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered by�its murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.�
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light,�with song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be a�smear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...�
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpit�tempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by the�warm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at once�epic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-r�dronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort of�metallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever:
Earlier this year, we reviewed a super limited avant outsider blackened doom record called A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, by a duo called Light. Which was anything but light, in fact, it was one of the darkest and most harrowing discs we'd heard in a long time, a�slow motion drone drenched funereal crawl, with a lush almost orchestrated feel that definitely reminded us of Skepticism. And if anything, record number two, the awesomely titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever is even more! More black, more doomy, more�droney, more beautiful, more harsh and more bizarre.�
One hour long track, which begins with a slowly cycling piano figure, draped over a wash of reverbed tones, distant rumbles, the sound gorgeous, slightly atonal, ominous and sinister, and then there are the vocals, a nearly impossible to describe high pitched�shriek, that almost sounds like someone screaming as they breathe in, a twisted strangled howl, totally at odds with the music underneath, reminding us a bit of Tomb Of..., who also paired up piano and black metal vokills, but Light seems borne more of a free noise�aesthetic. Minus the vocals, the sound on Life Is Meaningless, is a sort of abstract slowcore crawl, a little post rocky, a little doomy, a bit of black ambient drift, but the vocals are just SOOOO creepy, it definitely pushes it into a whole other realm. And suddenly what�could have been something darkly pretty, becomes something fucked up and grimly gorgeous.�
Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected:
Third and final release from this depressive black doom duo, and it's a fitting epitaph to a short but brilliant streak. Three super limited cd-r's, less than 200 all told, each one overflowing with blackened misery and gorgeous harrowing sonic blackness, the first, titled�A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, gave way to the second, titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, which brings us to Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, which should give you a decent impression of the overall vibe and tone of Light's distinctly UN-light�sound.�
Three looooooong tracks, thick caustic layers of buzzing low end drone, sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, shrieked vocals way down in the mix, funereal, glacial, miserable, not even plodding as there seems to be no drums, or if they are there, they're practically�inaudible. The melodies are lilting and melancholic, there's some piano, the rumbling buzzing backdrop seems to coalesce into some sort of melody, the whole thing lurching in slow motion, grim, and dense, and miserably and mournfully lovely. Totally hypnotic .
The second track offers up more of the same, another lovely black expanse of pointillist piano, harrowing screams, and slow swells of black buzz, before finally segueing into the epic closing track, a formula similar to the first two, but somehow even slower, more�abject, more ambient, so slow and spaced out and minimal, that it nearly ceases being metal or doom and is transformed into some sort of black ambient slowcore, a haunting doomic creep, that to these ears is as pretty as it is grim and harsh.�
This reissue is also limited, only 200 copies, each one hand numbered!
We talk about black metal all the time. Cuz, we love it. A lot. The blacker and more evil the better. Harsh and hateful, nihilistic and brutal, true evil rendered in sound!
But why exactly are the black metal hordes so angry? What exactly are they fighting against? God? The Christians? The powers of Good? Themselves? Well if we've learned anything, it's that good can not exist without evil. Dark can not exist without light, and black metal can not exist without white metal.
What?
That's right, it's time for the darkness to be pushed back a bit. It's time for that age old battle to be fought with buzzing riffs and thrashing blast beats, howled anguished vocals and rumbling low end. And at the front lines are Light Shall Prevail, masters of their own bizarre black metal buzz. That's right, it's still black metal, in fact, this white metal is more black and fucked up and awesomely weird than most of the more 'true' and 'grim' stuff we hear all the time.
Strange off kilter riffing, insanely fast blasts (either a drum machine, or an unbelievable drummer), super damaged start stop arrangements, weirdly catchy melodies, all prickly and tangled up in the fuzzy black ambience. A super heavy, but still lo-fi production. And the vocals. SO nuts, From monstrous growls, to Urfaust like croon, to shrieked howl. Such an awesome combination. Lots of midtempo chug mixed in with the buzzing blasts too. In fact just listen to the title track, probably the weirdest, catchiest black metal song EVER, with it's convoluted stop start gallop. So fucking cool.
Absolutely essential black metal listening. Even for the grim and evil amongst you. Once you hear this buzzing brilliance you won't be able to resist the power of the light. Just don't get too close, lest your black soul be cleansed and redeemed!
By now, it should be painfully obvious, that around these parts we seriously love our damaged and demented, fucked up and freaky music. The weirder the better, be it strange production, inept playing, shoddy recording, or truly inspired madness, we can't get enough strange sounds. The sad thing is that many of our favorite strange sound makers, gradually evolve, which is not always bad thing, but often means as bands get�better, as the recordings get tighter, the production more polished, the songwriting less haphazard, well, often a band begins to sound more and more like the rest of the regular bands, and less like all the things that made them so unique and special.�
Thankfully, such is not the case with king of the unblack scene, Light Shall Prevail. This is the fifth or sixth release so far from this one man Christian black metal band, and most definitely the tightest and most polished, but just as far out, fucked up, brilliant and blackened as any records past. Sure some of the older stuff benefited from insane production, turning black blasts into buzzing smears of what the fuck, or making blurred frosty riffage sound like alien house music, and on Goatcrush, he may have crafted the greatest chunk of buzzing blackness EVER, in the title track, be it black, unblack or whatever... But�Unearthen Hymns Of Revolt is another glorious step in his songwriting evolution, and a definite step up in production and we're loving it. No matter how much we dug all the fucked up weirdness in the past, at the heart of all of those tracks, every one, was an amazing riff, and a killer song. Now it's just easier to hear them.�
Three songs may seem like an ep, but these three looong tracks add up to almost thirty minutes. And as usual, every inch is packed with roiling buzzing fuzzed out blasts, insane programmed drums, bizarre super effected vocals, all tangled up into super complex and convoluted arrangements that manage to be trancelike and droney at the same time. We've gushed like crazy about LSP, the E.E.E. label, all the other unblack bands, check the AQ site for more words and sounds testifying as to the baffling brilliance of this stuff. Needless to say, if you're already a convert, you need this one too, and if you've yet to be baptized in the unblack waters of Light Shall Prevail, this is as good a place to start as any. In fact, it might be the best place to start, as these three tracks sound the most like classic grim black metal out of any of the previously released LSP stuff. But what makes it all so great, is that the weirdness, the fucked up-ness still lurks right below the surface, revealing themselves more and more on subsequent listens. Trust us, some of the best (un)black metal you'll ever hear. Check out the last few minutes of the 15+ minute closer, as the guitars begin to digitally crumble, the drums splintering into clouds of sizzle and skitter, a weird blackened meltdown, so bizarre and so fucking awesome. And how about the best (un)black metal song title ever: "Bonded By (His) Blood". Needless to say SO RECOMMENDED.�
And while you're at it, order ALL the E.E.E. stuff, not only is it all amazing, but the label recently had their headquarters broken into and burgled, losing tons of money and equipment, instruments and computers, they're amazing folks, making amazing music and could use the support!!
Back in the day, when we would scour thrift stores for weird easy listening and exotica records, albums by Enoch Light (and His Light Brigade), were at the top of the heap! The sound sitting comfortably alongside Esquivel, Les Baxter, Martin Denny and all the rest, yet somehow, Light was always our favorite. Not sure if it was the super striking minimal album art (which is how we first discovered them/him), or the fact that most of the records had titles like Persuasive Percussion or Provocative Percussion, or that, as those titles suggested, Light was big on percussion, and stereo. He was an early adopter, obsessed with the possibilities of stereo, the sound on his records careening wildly from speaker to speaker, so much so, that initially his records were not played on the radio, since radio was monaural! Every album was equal parts jazz, exotica, easy listening and weird demonstration record. The bulk of the records made up of covers of popular songs, or new versions of standards, but given super drum heavy, and very rhythmic arrangements, wildly percussive (obviously!) and playful, groovy, exotic and jazzy. In our imaginations, Enoch Light looked like the Heatmiser from those old Christmas claymation specials, wild haired, maniac bandleader, gesticulating wildly before a motley crew of musicians, effortlessly whipping up wild blasts of sixties big band jazz, and playful percussive frivolity.
This super bargain priced collection gathers up EIGHT classic Enoch Light records on 4 cds!!! You get: Persuasive Percussion Vol. 1 (1959), Persuasive Percussion Vol. 2 (1960), Persuasive Percussion Vol. 3 (1960), Provocative Percussion Vol. 1 (1960), Provocative Percussion Vol. 2 (1960), Grand Award All Stars - Percussion And Brass (1960), Stereo 35mm Vol. 1 (1961), and Stereo 35mm Vol. 2 (1961).
We'd been wanting to list this new Lightning Bolt for ages now, their first since 2009's Earthly Delights, it actually came out on vinyl last year, but sold out before we could get enough to list. Well, the vinyl remains unavailable, but we do now finally have the cd, and as you might expect, it's a doozy, Oblivion Hunter showing no signs of the group mellowing with age, in fact, there seems to be a lot of sonic experimentation going on. And folks (like us) who dug the recent Black Pus record on Thrill Jockey, Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale's solo project, will find much of Oblivion Hunter to be quite similar: murky and muddy, but poppy and weirdly hooky. Not that that doesn't describe LB in general, but really, just give opener "King Kandy" a listen, classic Lightning Bolt for sure, but in places it's SUPER melodic, and Chippendale's weirdly tuned snare, makes the drumming sound like there's all kinds of strange percussion happening, and much of the track is spent churning murkily, the drums a tribal flurry, the bass grinding malevolently, while the vocals soar over the top. Great stuff for sure, not too far removed from the sound we love, but pushing their sound enough so that the new LB is definitely different and exciting. Most of the rest of the record seems to veer a bit more into classic LB territory, although things stay pretty strange, tracks like "Oblivion Balloon" are crazy melodic and catchy, and tracks like "Fly Fucker Fly", sound almost like fuzzy garage rock sped up and super charged, while "Salamander" is a super progged out 'Bolt, frenzied and melodic, but sounding like it could almost be some classic psych/prog jam re-done, and finally, the record ends with the 13+ minute "World Wobbly Wide", which is easily the trippiest of the bunch, a sprawling psychedelic freakout, wild tangles of distorted melody, sounding almost like a raga or alien snake charmer music at times, while the drums explode wildly underneath, the second half of the track getting way more blown out, blasting, super distorted psych-noise trippiness, that reminds us just why we loved these guys so much in the first place!
What's in a name? Pretty much everything when the name is LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH. Really, fuck all these bands called Sword something or other, how can they not be completely and utterly slain by a horde with a name like LSOD!? They can't, and they shall!
We reviewed the new record by Endless Blizzard last time around, a black hole heavy platter packed with furious frenzied wintry blackened old school black metal, well, EB guitarist, Roskva, was wielding his axe in LSOD before the Endless Blizzard even began. As you might imagine, the sounds are similar, a definite nod to classic old school metal, a bit of death, a bit of thrash, raw and filthy, but still plenty mathy and complex, the drums manic, with impossible flurries of lightning fast blasts, the guitars thick and downtuned, snarling and buzzing, the vokills a guttural caterwaul, the songs veering from black thrash into pounding blackened doom to almost crusty grindy thrash. Plenty of nods to Celtic Frost and Hellhammer, as well as the Nordic BM aristocracy, with a SUPER heavy production, that manages to make the whole thing crushing and brutal, without losing any of its raw grimness. Way recommended. Especially if you dug the Endless Blizzard. Yet another horde to perhaps be considered for inclusion in the rarified ranks of the West Coast USBM elite.
First and final release from this now defunct UK trio who meld crushing slow motion doomdronesludge with haunting prog and drifting abstract ambience.
A swirling, slow moving prog-doom juggernaut. Massive downtuned riffage churns around fluttery flutes, while wheezing accordions whirl beneath angelic female vox and warm whirring organs, all wound into subtly complex expanses of slow motion heaviness and epic cinematic dronemetal...almost like a magnificent, hypothetical Boris/Bardo Pond collaboration.
Three looooooong songs, the shortest just shy of ten minutes, the longest clocking in at twenty, each a slow burning slow build, layers of drones and hushed shimmer, often taking upwards of half the song before the various elements coalesce into actual riffs, the drums kicking in and the band lurching into a massive ultradoom start / stop groove, explosions of blown out buzz giving way to long stretches of hushed whisper, only to be swallowed up again by another roiling onslaught, a heaving wall of downtuned guitars, a pounding barrage of thunderous percussion.
All the while, a simple, repeating motif, hovers above, or lurks just below the caustic grinding heaviness, floating like some sonic specter, the vocals dreamy and drifty, a subtle seventies pagan folk vibe infusing the otherwise crushing doom. The flute unfurling dreamy melancholic melodies over vast expanses of crumbling distortion, laced with glistening harmonics, and warm blurred soft focus shimmer. The drums slipping from abstract minimal crush to monstrous lumbering groove. Hypnotic, repetitive, mesmerizing, trancelike.
At once familiar, and essential listening for fans of SUNNO))), Harvey Milk, Earth, Monarch and all thing slow, low and heavy. But at the same time, strangely alien, with a subtle muted beauty lurking at the heart of LAKOM's gloriously epic crumbling black mass of sound, within each song a breathless subtlety, a deep haunting otherworldliness, transforming dense low end explorations into something much more expansive and divine. Even at its very heaviest, it still manages to sound woozy and dreamlike, haunting and pretty, and utterly breathtaking.
Cash Money releases another winner and No Limit falls farther and farther behind. Cash Money, originally an embrassing No Limit knockoff, has been spitting out hit after hit, and this one's no exception. Lil Wayne's new one 'Lights Out', is his third (fourth? Who knows? It's as hard to keep track of CM as it used to be with No Limit) and catchy as fuck, with slamming beats, amazing production and crazy flow. 'Get Off the Corner' is the best Cash Money single since 'Bling Bling'. Maybe if Master P would spend as much time working on records as he does on the stock market, and his line of clothing, and his sports management, No Limit would start to matter again.
Like we mentioned last list, we have been going Sixteen Horsepower CRAZY, with a recent archival 16HP release, two Woven Hand records (the apocalyptic, biblical side project of 16HP singer David Eugene Edwards) as well as last list's Lilium record, the side project of 16HP bassist Pascal Humbert, a dark and harrowing, instrumental, swamp folk epic, that if you haven't picked up yet, you should, 'cause it's as good as the Woven Hand records, and is mighty tough to get, so we can't be sure how long we'll have them or if we run out, how long it will take to get more. This time around, we are lucky to have tracked down record number two from Lilium, which is brand spanking new and is a slight departure from the growling, rumbling, creepy sinister-folk of their previous record. Fear not, there's still plenty of atmosphere, rickety campfire strum, and moody darkness, it's just much smoother and it's a bit more traditionally pretty. Humbert has recruited his 16HP bandmate Jean-Yves Tola for this record making this essentially 2/3 Sixteen Horsepower, so to a certain degree you have a rough idea of what this sounds like. The big change is the vocals. Or should I say the vocalists. That's right vocalists. Unlike their instrumental debut, which was sort of more 'sound' than 'song', they really flex their songwriting muscles on Short Stories and craft some gorgeously dark and melancholy pop songs, sung beautifully, and swathed in that dark hazy atmosphere we know and love so well. Maybe the nicest surprise is vocalist Kal Calhoone, a dead ringer for Cat Power's Chan Marshall, but with a little PJ Harvey swagger thrown in. And PJ Harvey is kind of an apt comparison for some of these tunes, smoldering and moody, emotional and urgent, with Calhoone's husky whisper weaving tales of sorrow and despair. 16HP's David Eugene Edwards sings on one song and since that basically makes it Sixteen Horsepower, it might just be the strongest cut on the record, as good as anything they've ever recorded as a proper band. The rest of the record follows the same brambly path, with lush, and dreamy, slightly doomy tableaus, fingerpicked guitars, shuffling percussion, wheezing accordions, rumbling cellos, organs, slippery slide guitar, raspy, drawled vocals, and heavily reverbed pianos, totally mesmerising and sweetly melodic. Very reminsicent of Black Heart Procession, Calexico, Low and American Music Club. Highly recommended as was the last Lililium. Features guests from Morphine, Deus, and the Czars.
We sure have been under the spell of all things Sixteen Horsepower lately. Especially the amazing Woven Hand records, the solo project of 16HP frontman David Eugene Edwards. But don't think for a minute that Edwards is solely responsible for the creepy, dark, backwoods ambience of 16HP and WH! To prove that point, we've finally tracked down the first release from Lilium, otherwise known as Pascal Humbert, bass player for Sixteen Horsepower. Although this has been out for a while, we were only now able to get enough copies to list, direct from Germany, hence the import price. But it's worth every penny. All you folks who went mad for the Woven Hand will be equally enamored of this delicate and gauzy, spare and mournful cinematic swampscape, equal parts deconstructed country, skeletal folk and shimmering, ominous drone. The opening track is a rickety, bluegrass crawl, sounding like the dueling banjos from Deliverance, slowed down, caked in mud and leaves, and broadcast on a warbly victrola from the bottom of a well. The rest of the record follows suit, wallowing in darkness and shadow ranging from rumbling, reverberent drones woven from slowly shifting layers of oscillating tones and warm chordal washes, to shuffling, reverb drenched, Calexico-ish desert rock twang, to fuzzed out, keyboard drenched, hypno-minimalism, to almost-indie/post rock instrumental workouts, to dangerously forboding Sixteen Horsepower-ish Southern swampfolk. The whole record is swathed in a warm, dense ambience of melancholic mystery, grim gloom and eerie unease. Anyone who bought the Woven Hand records NEEDS this for sure. And folks who love the likes of Sixteen Horsepower, Calexico, Souled American, Scott Tuma, Court And Spark, Califone, Giant Sand, Black Heart Procession, or even Morphine, will find this bleak and beautiful twang, and these deep and doleful drones, will hit the spot perfectly.
The previous full length from French fuzz pop duo The Liminanas, Crystal Anis, might be one of THEE most played records in the shop, even a year after it came out. Somehow it seems to ALWAYS be playing, and whenever someone can't think of what to listen to, that seems to be the record turned to most. And for good reason, it's a doozy. Besides being droney and jangly and hypnotic, and so crazy catchy, it also features lots of ukelele, perhaps in the only non-kitsch usage we can think of. They take the modern krautrock of outfits like Moon Duo, and meld it to the classic popsmithery of Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg. The music simple and stripped down, but super hypnotic and melodic, boy and girl vocals, with plenty of sexy spoken word, that ukelele, a weird mix of folky strum, propulsive motorik groove, fuzzy garage rock, stripped down jangle pop, all wound into perfect chunks of brooding, moody, exotic, fuzzy, jangly radness that we literally could not get enough of. So we were THRILLED to discover a brand new record, and we're happy to report, it's just as good as the earlier one. In fact, it's one of those records, that on first listen seems like it couldn't possibly live up to what came before, but a few listens in, blossoms into something special, and before you know it, you begin to think it's even better, and then a little bit later, you're SURE it is. So that's where we're at now. The sound itself is definitely more lush and well produced, the sound a bit heavier and more layered, and while the songs still don't seem quite as catchy, they're sinking their hooks in a little more with each listen, and at this point, that means it won't be long, since this is pretty much all we want to listen to. Totally recommended, and bound to be playing next time you're in the shop, which as always, is about the highest recommendation we can think of!
We've loved pretty much every single record from this fuzzy, garage-y French dream-pop combo, who fuse buzzy guitar crunch, and simple propulsive rhythmic pound, with classic sixties French pop, swirling psychedelia, and even add a little ukelele! This comp collects, as the title suggests, all the group's various singles and comp tracks (as well as a few unreleased rarities), and really if you've yet to hear the Liminanas, this is as good a place to start as any. Some of the tracks here sound like Brigitte Bardot or France Gall if they recorded for Castle Face, and were backed up by White Fence or Thee Oh Sees, others channel the druggy kraut-psych of outfits like Moon Duo, through that sixties Ye Ye Girls sound we can't seem to ever get enough of.
They do some cool covers too, a dreamily fuzzy and buzzy version of the Beach Boys' "I Know There's An Answer", they tackle Jay Reatard's "An Ugly Death", making it dirgey and breathy, and do a lo-fi, garage pop take on Darlene Love's Phil Spector penned "Christmas". The band make those songs totally their own. Perfectly fitting in with their sexy, sultry, French Garage pop originals, the vocals alternately crooned or purred, both male and female, they're almost like a fuzzier, garagier, modern day version of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, which you know is not a bad thing at all!
Robert Lippok may be better known for his throbbing pseudo post-rock / electronica excursions with Tarwater and To Rococo Rot, but here he has turned to the laptop and the minidisc to construct his first release for Raster/Noton. At first, this has all of the
We loved the Public Guilt label, who brought us so many amazing releases - from the occult rock of Aluk Todolo, to the glacial avant doom of Habsyll; from the noise-jazz of Zu, to the spaced out dronescapery of Destructo Swarmbots; from the experimental turntablism of Strotter Inst, to the alchemical folk of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, and so much more. We were bummed when Public Guilt decided to call it a day, but were super excited to discover that PG mastermind JR was back with a new label, one that maybe surprisingly is focused entirely on underground / outsider hip hop and club music, all 45rpm 7"s, and all pretty goddamn great.
The second release comes from a duo called Little Flowers, which has a seriously strange pedigree, one part former director for avant grade choreographer Merce Cunnigham, one part LA indie noise prog weirdos Upsilon Acrux, which really gives you NO clue as to what it might sound like, but then why should it, cuz even listening, it's hard to parse exactly what's going on - it's a noisy, wildly chaotic, buzzing swirl of progged out electro, with vocodered vox buried beneath thick throbbing synths, and what sounds like real acoustic drumming, and percussion, all draped in a psychedelic murk, the production super tripped out and experimental. The first side a dark, swirling collage of sound, the second more a sort of post hip hop groover, but both totally, and geniusly twisted, funky enough for the dance music crowd, but seriously freaked out and fucked up enough for everybody else. So good! And JR's new label two for two. Can't wait to hear more!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
Another installment in the convoluted and lost history of the Funerary Violin. A mysterious body of work, attributed to the equally mysterious Guild Of Funerary Violinists, all of which was lost to history until quite recently. A book has been published, and a handful of recordings were discovered, illuminating this amazing, and surprisingly, entirely fictitious movement.
We've reviewed two other unearthed recordings from this historically valuable series, one a compilation called Babcotte, Sudbury And Eaton: The English School Of Funerary Origin, the other by Wilhelm Kleinbach called The Funerary Notebooks Of Herr Gratchenfleiss. Check those reviews more a more detailed description of the Guild and its contentious history. Both were recorded before the advent of modern recording, preserved with the fuzz and whir and scratchiness of old wax cylinder recordings, gorgeous, mournful, beautiful, delicate and wistful, each a heart wrenching funereal lament, but all of it a massive hoax.
Not that it takes away from the brilliance of the music, or the incredibly detailed liner notes, if anything it makes it even more amazing. That someone could create what is essentially an entire alternate history, complete with sound.
These recordings, supposedly performed Herbert Stanley Littlejohn in 1956, were taken from a book of music discovered in a dusty corner of a church in 1954, dating back to the late 1600's! In the process of recording the pieces, Littlejohn tripped on a cat, fell down a flight of stairs and smashed his skull dying instantly. This disc collects the finished pieces from that session.
As with all the Funerary Violin releases, the liner notes are extensive, names, dates, events, the notes to this disc are particularly humorous commenting on, among other things, "the poor technical performance standard amongst guild members in what remains one of our darkest periods." And like the other discs, the music is exquisite, genuine or not, utterly lovely, the melodies are mournful and sad, the playing smooth and refined, the notes drifting dreamlike into the starry night, the recording lo-fi, but warm and shimmery. Even without the amazing backstory and fabricated history, this would still be entirely recommended!
What is it about this band that inspires such controversy? Sure, any band of short haired hipsters that decides to play black metal is bound to get some heat from the true grim hordes, but with Liturgy it's off the charts. Could be frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's diatribes on the intellectual roots of his band and music, maybe that combined with his pretty boy looks and his valley girl like diction - but hey it's all about the music, and as far as we're concerned Liturgy have definitely taken black metal and twisted it all up and made it their own. Sure we love the true grim classics, corpsepaint and raw primitive buzz, blasting necro metal, we do, and we maybe always will, but we gave up long ago on the whole 'troo' thing. If being true means only listening to one kind of music, and even then, only made by a certain approved sect of musicians, who would want that. It's a discussion that could go on for ages, and does on pretty much every metal messageboard on the web, but if you're reading this, odds are you're like us, you like cool, weird, GOOD music, and you don't care if someone thinks the music you love is 'true' or 'pure' or whatever, and odds are you don't just like black metal.
Which we think is probably a prerequisite for liking Liturgy. Because while this is most definitely black metal, all of HHH's intellectual posturing, just might not be posturing after all, cuz this stuff is WEIRD. FUCKED UP. SUPER COMPLEX. Minimal, but somehow totally maximal too. The black metal tropes are present and accounted for, super fast picking, soaring minor key melodies, insectoid buzz, frantic blast beats, howled vox, but, the arrangements, the song structure, even the sound, is far removed from Burzum and Immortal and Satyricon and Mayhem and all the rest. In the past, we've described Liturgy as sounding like a black metal Arvo Part, and that definitely still applies, it's as if these guys filter their BM through Part and Feldman and some sort of modern minimalism. The songs are rife with drones, and intricate harmonies, the rhythms complicated and convoluted, the buzz often wound up into soaring sheets of high end frenzy, the drums locked tight with the guitars, the songs often, a series of short phrases repeated over and over, very minimal and mesmerizing.
Opener "High Gold" is the perfect example, with it's soaring majestic black metallisms, arranged into seemingly brief blasts, lush high end swells, a sort of psychedelic ur-drone rendered in blasts and buzz. "True Will" is slightly more traditionally black metal, but even here, the band lock into these impossibly dense drones, where all the instruments lock onto a single high note and hold it, and keep holding it, creating so much tension, before splintering back into something more traditionally buzzy, but only slightly. The sound is ALL high end, all upper register, brittle and soaring. There did seem to be one other element in play, but on we couldn't put our finger on until
"Generation" which finds the band loosing a serious math rock onslaught, super technical, totally repetitive, the guitars churning, locking tight into these gnarled bits of crunch and chug, the drums mathy and meticulous, it's like these guys took 2 or 3 of their favorite riffs from Don Caballero songs and composed a super heavy, super minimal, almost looped sounding in places, math rock epic. It's so good. And you can hear the other element that finds it's way into the more black metal jams on the record, AND you can also observe the band's unique compositional strategy more easily in the math rock context, so when the next track begins, it's a killer mix of blasting soaring blackness, and gnarled mathiness, AND of course modern minimalism.
So yeah, the true grim corpsepainted hordes should definitely avoid this, they wouldn't enjoy it, or even get it, anyway, but for everyone else, this is some epic, majestic, and yeah, transcendental, math infused minimal black metal majesty of the highest order.
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found there way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, and unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming a contender for black metal record of the year.
The latest installment in this long overdue reissue campaign for eighties New York noise rockers Live Skull, this being their second full length, Cloud One, originally released in 1986, the last album before Thalia Zedek (Come, Uzi) would join and take over lead vocals, and like their debut, on Cloud One, Live Skull still sonically fit pretty perfectly alongside their NYC brethren (and sistren) in Swans, Sonic Youth (especially Sonic Youth) and the rest, but on Cloud One, the band made great leaps both sonically, and with their songwriting (and the matching more polished production), the new(ish) sound definitely hewing ever closer to the minor key melancholia infused angularity of SY, but mixing in long, droned out passages and slow dark blooze creeps, adding an element of brooding mesmer, and dark psychedelia. That darkness also represented by a sonic shift toward something gloomier and gothier, with many of the tracks here more reminiscent of the West Coast sound of the time, the Scream Club, and bands like Janes Addiction, Kommunity FK and the Abecedarians (especially on the live bonus tracks!). Hints too of outfits like the Wipers, the Gun Club, the Flesh Eaters, a sort of swaggery psych blues crossed with noisy experimental rock, there's still some junkyard percussion, a little Pussy Galore here and there, but the band definitely had their eyes on the musical prize, whether by design or not, Cloud One is a tightly wound, complex piece of noise/art rock, that even now sounds impossibly prescient of a sound that so many bands would go on to mine in their wake. It's actually a bit shocking that Live Skull's career trajectory wasn't more like Sonic Youth's, on this record for sure, but even more so on their 1988 swansong, Positraction, the band seemed poised for success, and an eventual move into the semi-mainstream, but for whatever reason, they remained firmly entrenched in the underground, and would only make it another couple years/records before calling it quits.
Fantastically curated reissued, with a whole mess of bonus tracks, unreleased, demos and live, as well as a massive booklet with tons of rare photos, old flyers, live shots, and extensive liner notes by the band, as well as extensive track by track notes on the extra songs as well!
The reissue campaign for these eighties NY noise rockers culminates with this, the final EP featuring the original lineup, released immediately after 1986�s Cloud One (the reissue of which was reviewed on the aQ list recently), and was the last record with the original lineup, after this record drummer James Lo would leave, and vocalist/guitarist Thalia Zedek would join, changing the sound of the band, and moving them in a new direction. A direction that was definitely hinted at here, originally a three song 12�, the band (according to the liner notes) were convinced that Pusherman was a vast improvement, even over Cloud One, which had just come out, and while it might be more polished, and a bit more honed, songwriting-wise, it sounds like the logical extension from Cloud One. �Swingtime� is all low slung swagger, the production, thick and noisy, multiple guitars wound into tense tangles, the groove a lumbering churn, the sound rife with spidery melodies and strange fragmented riffage, the vocals a deep bellowed croon, the whole thing a fierce gothic blooze, far removed from the early noise rock days for sure. �Raise The Manifestation� is more of the same, another bass driven dirge, slow and loping, moody and brooding, this time female vox to the fore, the guitars once again swirling in psychedelic squalls, all anchored by some muscly bass and drums, droney and tranced out, and to these ears, like much of Cloud One, still reminiscent of what was happening on the opposite coast, with the Scream Club, and groups like Kommunity FK, the Abecedarians, Janes Addiction and the like.
The big surprise though on Pusherman was the title track, a cover of the Curtis Mayfield classic, which at the time, seemed kinda crazy, and while much has been made of the track�s �funkiness�, it really doesn�t sound that much funkier than the Live Skull tracks proper, tribal drumming, and a woozy, slithery bassline, wreathed in all sorts of guitar noise, and some surprising percussion, the vocals sultry and bewitching, a little bit haunting, the guitars delivering all sorts of wild sonic filigree, a dense soulful noise rock dirge that positioned the song, and the group to an extent right alongside all those other doom and gloom outfits.
The original ep is fleshed out with a bunch of bonus tracks, most live, a few alternate versions, all of varying quality, but a good impression of the band at their peak, right before the band would reconfigure and embark on phase two of their career. Like the other reissues, fantastically put together, with a massive booklet, featuring extensive liner notes from the various band members, and lots of rare photos and flyers. Best part of the liner notes: when the band recalls returning to Madison, Wisconsin, only to discovery that their last visit had inspired their host�s toddlers to start a band, that band was Old Skull! (And did you know two of the three kids from Old Skull are now dead?! Crazy!)
Somehow this is exactly what we've been hankering for. A sprawling blackened songsuite, equal parts, dark ambience, dense drones, heavy electronics, buzzy lo-fi almost new wave sounding keyboards, spidery post rock guitars and soft noise. Even writing it, that seems like a pretty unworkable, or unrealistic combination, but somehow these Midwesterners make it work. Big time.
They definitely could be considered sonic brethren of bands like SUNNO))), Pussygutt, MZ412, Troum, To Blacken The Pages, Wolf Eyes, Vulture Club and the like. However, Locrian take that sound someplace all their own, creating actual SONGS, as opposed to just soundscapes or drones. And there's a definitely black metal component for sure, no matter how abstract. Guitars are everywhere, seemingly the foundation for Locrian's sound, although as often as the guitars are unfurling spidery post rocky melodies, or distant reverbed riffs, they are also smeared into warm whirling clouds, left to drift and gradually change shape, or pulled apart and allowed to crumble into jagged little shards. Noise in a big component too, often the prettiest parts are treated with a patina of grinding soft focus electronics, or groaning downtuned tones.
The record opens with a gorgeous, elegiac guitar part, simple and stripped down, like it could be a black metal intro, until the organ comes in, wheezy and warbly, giving the track a weirdly lo-fi almost industrial vibe, definitely had us wishing it was in fact more than just a two minute intro.
That is until track two, "Ghost Repeater" takes over. An epic slow motion drift, strange echoey sounds floating in a warm muted sea of buzz and drone, glitched out bits of electronics, and eventually, a very epic black metal riff, that remains off in the distance, repeated and repeated until it too simply becomes another layer of sound.
"Barren Temple Obscured By Contaminated Fogs" (another great title), begins again with some creepy spindly guitar, draped over a deep pulsing low end, before transforming into some seriously abject and WAY abstract blacknoise. Shrieked distorted vokills over that same spidery guitar, Abruptum like ambience meets warped Goblinesque synth drones, the whole track twisted and warbly, eventually the vocals dropping out, leaving the buzzing guitars and wheezing keyboards to play out a super haunting horrorscape. "Epicedium" is delicate and crystalline, noodly guitar lines looped beneath a glimmering softly throbbing drone, peppered with fragmented strums, soon the track begins to grow gradually more and more distorted, the guitars more tense and frantic, the mood so haunting and weirdly beautiful and so subtly dramatic, reminding us of a super twisted soundtrack to some lost Giallo.
The record proper ends with another awesomely titled jam: "Obsolete Elegy In Cast Concrete", tolling bells, space kraut drones, all washed out and shimmery, the bed for some seriously corrosive guitar buzz and grind, adding layer after layer of crunch and rumble, but also slipping to some seriously black chug, joined by still more harsh hellish vox, a strange combination for sure but manages to be both beautiful and brutal, until the very end, where the track shifts gears and becomes all dramatic and melodic and weirdly majestic.
The cd features a bonus track called "Greyfield Shrines", which is nearly as long as all of the other tracks combined, a sprawling slow building blackened world of sound that slithers from hushed drift, to fractured buzz, to woozy moody ambience to blown out speaker shredding crunch, absolutely epic, super cinematic, mysterious, and even at it's noisiest, still quite melodic and blackly beautiful. Most definitely a track that could have been (and we think maybe was) a record all on its own.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Cool fold over arigato-pack style sleeve, with a full color printed booklet. And for anyone going to the Matchitehew metal/noise festival in Chicago in a few weeks, you'll be able to catch these guys live.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ultra crazy limited tour only 3"cd-r from these Chicago blackened dronelords, we tried to order a ton of these, but managed to get less than a dozen. Considering it was limited to 93 copies, and most of those went on tour with the band, these are most likely the last and only copies we'll ever get.
Which is a bummer cuz this is really great. Two tracks, both the same length, the second is the exact reverse of track one - which makes this a musical palindrome. Prettier than most of the other Locrian stuff, delicate and drifty, washed out and woozy, long fuzzy layered drones, a little bit space-y, very hypnotic and trancelike, the end of the first track (and thus the beginning of the second) builds to a buzzing blown out looped sounding coda, which then follows the reverse path through the length of the second track eventually settling back down into some soft sun dappled dronebliss, before finally fading out completely. Quite lovely, even the heavy parts are more pretty than heavy. Only 10 or so of these in stock. Be quick, or be without...
LIMITED TO 93 COPIES. Housed in a mini plastic sleeve, with a cool black on black fold out insert.
Who would have thought that The Locust and Tom Waits would ever be on the same label? And that that label would be run by the guy from Bad Religion? Certainly not me. But it's true. San Diego's The Locust (the 'the' is mandatory) find their new home on Anti, part of the mighty punk rock label Epitaph, and have thankfully made the always daunting major label leap with their stupid/funny song titles, camoflage bug-boy costumes, and grinding new wave hyperblast pummel intact. Twenty three songs, averaging about 55 seconds each, all with song titles like "Identity Exchange Program Rectum Return Policy", "Earwax Halo Manufactured For The Champion In All Of Us", and "Late For A Double Date With A Pile Of Atoms In The Water Closet." The Locust are a crushing grindcore juggernaut, that somehow ended up with new wave keyboards, that bloop and bleep and fart over everything, turning what could have been run of the mill grind into a wild circus-y funhouse of splattery blast beats, riffs that slither from metal to no wave and back again in the span of seconds, and rumbling, fuzzed out synths that make the whole thing sound like Adult or Fischerspooner having the shit beat out of them by Agoraphobic Nosebleed. If only!!
Cold Mission is the debut full length from UK producer Logos, who has some connection to aQ faves Dusk & Blackdown, and traffics in a similar strain of post dubstep electronica. But unlike the cinematic ambience of D&B, Logos' sound seems to fall closer to the slow-mo soul of folks like Vessel and oOoOO, equal parts jungle, dubstep and grime, but given a druggy, drowsy makeover. Logos unfurls sprawling swirls of synthscapery wrapped around fractured beats, and gouts of rib cage rattling bass, but like much of this stuff, Cold Mission doesn't sound destined for the dancefloor, instead, the vibe is abstract and avant, more of a wasted late night chill out sort of feel, skittery rhythms drift amidst softly billowing clouds of chordal thrum, peppered with muted synth pads, and reverbed vocal fragments, many of the tracks almost sound like the intros to dubstep jams, stretched way out into proper songs, slow building and tense, as if some huge drop was just around the corner, but the drop never comes, instead, the sound just billows outward, like a time lapse film of a slowly expanding universe transformed into sound. There are also lots of field recordings woven into the mix, chirping birds, chittering insects, crickets, making the music sound strangely pastoral, even at its most sinister, it's not hard to imagine chilling out on some grassy knoll, the stars glimmering in a black sky, these sounds washing over you. The third track, "Surface Area" is where it first comes all together, weird metallic percussive clatter, peppering swirling cascades of arpeggiated synths, super kosmische and ethereal, all underpinned by thick waves of bass rumble, crickets off in the distance, total blissed out ambient dub weirdness, that might be our favorite jam here, but that's a tough call, cuz throughout, Logos conjures up all sorts of abstract trippiness, his post dubstep about as 'post' as it can get, check out "Swarming", another sprawling swath of crystalline shimmer, this one laced with minor key melodies, haunting FX, thick rumbling bass, DJ style rewinds, again, all blurred into something spacey and nearly psychedelic.
Even the more beat heavy tracks are pretty out there: "Seawolf" is all rubbery synth buzz, fragmented stutter beats, there's the cock of a shotgun in there too, as well as some video game 8-bit sound FX, the first few minutes sounding like an intro, again until you realize, there is no intro, the beat lurching and lumbering through fields of glitch and squelch and buzz. The one track featuring Dusk & Blackdown is actually the most straight ahead jam here, but that's not saying much, it's still super dubbed out and abstract, this time laced with voices, strange synth blurts, more rewinds, like most of the tracks here, never fully reaching terminal velocity, every time it sounds like the beats gonna kick in proper, the song fractures and morphs into a twisted tangle, although in the case of this track, the sound suddenly shifts into something synthy and spacey and unlike almost anything else on the record. From there on out, it's more of the same, which is to say, not the same at all. A lurching stuttery synth wreathed beatscape, bleeds directly into the gorgeously cinematic title track, all gristly glitch, swoonsome synth, and crumbling distorted bass, which leads directly into a strange bit of almost tropical sounding ambience, like the Field via the Orb via James Ferraro? Trippy, dreamy stuff for sure.
The record finishes off with a killer one two punch. First, "Wut It Do", where Logos lets his jungle freak flag fly, the closest to a proper jungle jam for sure, but even then, the song is constantly shifting, the various loops and samples, maddeningly repeated, footstep style, but ultimately, has us wondering what a slightly less abstract Logos record might sound like, pretty goddamn great we're guessing. But before we can think about that too much, the sound slips right back into the Cold Mission avant-dubstep / post jungle dreaminess, sounding a bit like a dubbed out jungle new age, all swirling synths, chirping crickets, tinkling chimes, some vocals and a little bass buzz, as well as some spaced out stuttery beats, those beats eventually dropping out, leaving the last few minutes to unwind as a super trippy, super dynamic new age / dubstep mashup!
Any band that stirs up tons of shit on the net, inspiring vitriolic tirades, definitely gets us interested, whether they can back it up sonically is another thing entirely.
Velvet Cacoon might be the best example, beginning life as a supposed Eco-Fascist black metal band, who created their dense drone-y buzz with a 'diesel harp', only later revealing that they were taking the piss. But it hardly mattered, cuz the music they made was totally transcendent, their sick sense of humor and antagonism toward the rest of the black metal scene only added to their appeal. So it should come as no surprise that Lonesummer, who share a label with Velvet Cacoon, are inspiring similarly heated reactions. In their case, it's not because of any bullshit mythmaking, it's because their sound is seriously fucked up, like nothing you've ever heard. Taking inspiration from the new wave of buzzy poppy shoegazey black metal, but twisting it all up into a noise drenched, chopped and looped. barrage of beats and riffs and damaged effects and bizarre vocals, and delicate melodies and strange samples, a dizzying jumble, that for some might be total torture, but for us, and we would guess most adventurous listeners out there, What We Were might just become a fast favorite.
Obviously if you dig bands like Alcest and Lifelover and Amesoeurs, you should for sure check this out, and while Lonesummer do share some of the same sonic elements, this is SO MUCH WEIRDER.
Best to probably just go song by song, it's too varied and all over the map to really boil it down to a single descriptor.
"The Ones Who Grab My Hand, The Lost Souls" is a crushing barrage of noise, there seems to be some metal underneath the noise, but it's so obfuscated it's more like a pulse, or another layer of static, like a more rhythmic Merzbow, but laced with some hysterical shrieking vokills, before the song fragments and begins to crumble, and gets all mathy and chaotic and industrial, while underneath, some super distorted vocal jazz surfaces, scatting female vox, skittery drums, piano and bass, but all tangled up with Lonesummer's frantic crumbling buzz, so fucked up and so weird, but super cool.
The second track is more traditionally buzzy and black, but it's all relative, 3 minutes of the same muted muddy riff, programmed drum skitter, occasional demonic growl, but all smeared with hazy soft focus melodies, the whole thing blurred into a woozy mesmer, a bit like a Pop Ambient Wold. Then there's "Long Winter Way" that fills the first half of the track with delicate chiming minor key guitar, softly swaddled in reverb and delay, only to get all bleary eyed and gauzy and soft poppy and shoegazey toward the end, sounding more like Ariel Pink or John Maus than any metal we've ever heard. Backwards drums sizzle beneath loopy flurries of notes, all swirling in a cloud of soft hushed shimmer. The rest of the record is equally disparate, from lurching crushing low, blackened and super distorted, to blasting brittle black metal, all repetitive and wrapped in still more layers of fuzz and buzz and whir, to the blown out in-the-red distorto noise bliss of the title track, to the psychedelic smoldering crumble of "We All Looked So Perfect", like a music box plugged into a million distortion pedals, to the closer, a loping, super melodic slow core depressive dirge, with lovely clean guitars, howled vokills, and a shimmery vacuum cleaner buzz wrapped around everything, simultaneously ultra melodic, warmly washed out and blissfully otherworldly.
Guaranteed to piss off purists, but so is about 90 percent of the stuff we dig, but for anyone into fucked up and freaky, baffling and bizarre blackness, this might be your new favorite band.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!! Gorgeously packaged in a full color oversized 7" style sleeve.
We've been trying to get enough copies of anything on the amazing Sylvan Screams Analog label to review and list, but previous releases were so limited, that we were only able to get a couple. And while they're just as limited, we did now manage to get a handful of the two most recent releases, this one comes from a band from right here in the Bay Area, called Longing And Silence, whose sounds is a gorgeous depressive plod, a grim slo-mo black buzz, all mournful and melancholy, the vokills a harsh demonic rasp, but minus those vocals, it's another band whose sound found be mistaken for some weird shoegaze/slowcore outfit, the sort of avant metal weirdness you might expect to find on The Flenser, but -with-those vocals, this remains firmly in the realm of depressive black metal, remaining us a bit of a more orthodox Lifelover, the same sort of loping, minor key miserablism, but with some seriously melodic bass, notable also considering how little bass is even audible in most black metal. But it makes for some cool, woozy, downtuned blackened slowcore, with some surprisingly melodic moments, that has some of these bordering on downright poppy. Long songs, mesmerizingly miserable, and gorgeously bleak. As the label suggests, definitely for fans of Burzum, Silencer, Strid and Bethlehem.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! Each one hand numbered.
The return of the always hilarious Longmont Potion Castle!!! If you're like me (Matt), you missed LPC the first time around, and are super stoked to have a disc from this side splitting and incredibly aggravating (to his victims) prank call mastermind! The most amazing thing about these calls is how long these people on the other end stay on the phone! Most of the calls consist of LPC picking fights with mall employees and local business owners, trying to sell dog bowels to a pawn shop, and requesting Orange Julius employees to feed him grapes while he's interviewed for a job. There's also a lot of fucked up editing and sample based pranks on this disc that are sometimes more creepy than they are funny, like the fucked up effected speech impediment of "Can O' B.S.". The receivers of these pranks range from confused elderly folks to aggro townie redneck dudes, all of whom get super pissed and usually end up threatening some sort of beatdown. It's interesting and hilarious to realize how many people love a good verbal tussle, and out of frustration how many people are willing to actually fight assuming the prankster "comes on down there...". LPC's delivery is totally dry and deadpan, almost stoned sounding, but the things coming out of his mouth are so completely absurd and absolutely hysterical! The best is when the delay pedal is implemented over the phone for extra confusional hilarity. LPC records are by far the most consistently funny, clever, bugged out, annoying, and ultimately excellent pranks on disc EVER!!! If you have 1-5 (compiled in a now out of print boxset), 6 certainly stands up, and for those of you have never checked LPC out, this is a great place to start! It's a bit hard to describe how great this stuff is, but it's one of a kind, So funny and super recommended!
