Finally, the older earlier records from our favorite Transylvanian black metallers are getting their due, some super swank deluxe reissues packed with extras. For the longest time, we carried the cd box, which we got direct from the band in Romania, which contained Negura Bunget's first three albums and an ep. Lots of long time aQ list readers no doubt have that box, as it's some of the most essential black metal we've ever heard. But for years now, we've been unable to get those boxes back in, and now we know why. Lupus Lounge has decided to re-issue all of those records, with extra tracks, and in the case of a couple of them, extra discs containing whole extra alternate mixes of the records proper. Also, the new versions are now housed in super nice multi panel full color digipaks.
We have all four (one of the original three, was split back up into its original two separate parts) in stock, in very limited quantities, have a look at the 'in stock, not yet reviewed' section, if you want to go nuts and get all of them (and why wouldn't you?!) but for now, we're gonna list/review From Transylvanian Forest first, and get to those other ones later. And this is as good a place to start as any. An ep from 2000, which was in fact a remixed and remastered version of a demo by PRE Negura Bunget outfit Wiccan Reed, before they changed their name, but already, their unique sound was fully formed.
For those new to Negura Bunget, here's how we described the band on more recent releases: Dark, ambient rumbles evoke the spirits of the forest before the music kicks in sounding a bit like Don Cab, with spastic drums, way up in the mix while grainy guitars saw wildly away. Eventually BIGGER riffs come tumbling down like a black metal avalanche and the whole thing becomes a swirling, bloodied whirlpool of octopus-armed drumming, possessed keyboards and buzzing mosquito riffs. Occasionally the metallic fury abates allowing gently strummed acoustic guitars and field recordings to weave simple melodic soundscapes in the lulls. While there are moments of black metal familiarity here and there, there's just so much strangeness, even just in the way instruments sound or how they play certain parts. Some seriously twisted, rhythmically bizarre, completely damaged, grandiose and melancholy black metal supposedly inspired by 'Romanian mysticism'.
On From Transylvanian Forest, and all of these older records in fact, the sound isn't quite as polished and fully realized as on the newer records, it's actually a lot rougher and simplistic, but perhaps because of that, it's also a whole lot weirder, grim and creepy but damaged and freaked out. Keyboards play a much bigger part, huge swaths of buzzing melody laid over the thrashing metallic onslaught. Probably the most interesting aspect is how much Negura Bunget sometimes sounded like SF black metal legends Weakling. Whether it's the agonisingly wailed vocals, or the epic droning riffage, you know that sounding even remotely like Weakling is a REALLY good thing.
WAY WAY recommended. As are all four of the reissues!
We've been meaning to review something by this Canadian atmospheric/ambient black metal horde for ages, but there records have been surprisingly difficult to get in numbers enough to review and list. But finally we got enough of this one, not brand new, but a reissue of an ep from 2009, with a single from the same year tacked on, four tracks, 42:23 in all, of some of the best, tranced out black ambience and buzzing blackness we've heard. Check out the first track, the slow building "Loudon" which sounds like an even blacker more lush Locrian, beginning with a recording of some preacher, condemning a witch to burn at the stake, all over a deep rumbling whir, the sound blossoming into a thick lush drone, all woozy warped tolling bells, swirling synths, mysterious reverbed percussion, and finally a guitar, the slowly erupts into a caustic roiling buzz, a thick crumbling distorted swell over a hunting Jeck like loop, which gives way to near silence, and recordings of what sounds like running water, beneath an acoustic guitar, the vibe sort of Comus-y, but even more harrowing and haunting, finally finishing off with another strange sample, which leads directly into the epic "Rituel Incantatoir Du Grimoire Du Sorcier", which erupts immediately into a fierce frenzied black buzz, the drums so fast they sound almost like a drone, the guitars blurred and frantic, the arrangement cyclical, weirdly looped with a little stutter, making the song swing hypnotically, and then the song explodes into an almost-waltz, epic and majestic and melodic, the blazing double kick returning, now accompanying the waltz like main riff, the sound seeming to grow ever grander, only to bliss out part way through, the guitars smeared into a lush layered sprawl, over which another mysterious sampled voice surfaces, and then it's back to the loping buzz, finishing off in a squall of synth soaked black doom churn.
The final track of the ep is all ambient, a haunting liturgical drift, all chanted voices blurred into woozy drones, delicate piano melodies, subtly manipulated sounds, almost like tape experiments, hazy and washed out and totally mesmerizingly hypnotic. Which leads directly into the single track, the even more epic 18+ minute "Thanatonaut", which spends its first 5 minutes droning ominously, swirling winds, the sound of workers toiling in the dungeons, then finally, the guitars come in, massive and heavy and huge, unfurling creeping chugging doom, an ominous creep, with more swirling synths, and some impossibly gurgly demonic vokills, the song a sonic death march, subtly psychedelic, wreathed in ambient shimmer and atmospheric swirl, a gorgeously abject slab of blackened doom, which trudges resolutely to the very end. So fucking great. While very little of this release is in fact black metal, black energy oozes from every note, and will no doubt convince the uninitiated, that Neige Et Noirceur could very well be their new favorite band.
Record number two from this grim one man nekronoise black metal horde from Australia. We raved about the first one, Into The No-Man's Sphere Of The Ancient Days, a few lists back, but we're led to believe that a handful of you may have not made it past the first paragraph, the intro, the hook. If that was you, well, you should be regretting it now, and when you finish reading this review, listening to the sound samples, and most likely buying one of these, go back to the No-Man's review, skip the beginning and jump right in and read the whole thing. And everything will be right.
The point of that intro, and that review, and to a certain extent this one too, was that adding noise is not always as simple as just, well, adding noise. Mixing to genres, even if they're related, just as often leads to something messy and pointless, as it does to some genius fusion. And there is definitely plenty of noisy black metal, but much of it is either thick noise over shitty metal, or just metal, with the noise an afterthought. One must have a serious handle on both THE NOISE and THE RIFF to make it work. And if you hadn't figured it out by now, Nekrosov is most definitely a master of both the noise and the riff, and manages to fuse the two into something blackly transcendent.
That said however, the opening one two punch here are a bit misleading, in that the noise and the riff are kept well separate, the first, an ominous glitched out landscape of bleak minimal buzz and drone, hiss and crackle, almost like a black metal Philip Jeck, and the second track, the furious buzzing blasting "Mountain Ash" sounds amazing, only noisy in as much as black metal is inherently noisy, super well produced, the riffs HUGE and heavy, the drums lightning fast, erupting in squalls of impossible blasts, the vocals grim and harsh, the melodies soaring, even some hooks buried beneath the buzz.
The next track however finds Nekrosov returning to more familiar blacknoise ground. Deep swirling waves of static buzz, the vocals stretched into sheets of abstract whir, churning and roiling, beneath melodies lurk and struggle to surface, held under by the buzzing blackness. It's almost like some black metal song was frozen, a single moment played over and over stretched into some sort of infinite loop, but it's not a loop as it slowly grows and sprawls and spreads out into something expansive. It's almost ambient, and strangely soothing in its droniness, without losing any of its grim buzz or black mystery.
The next few tracks veer back and forth between, blown out soundscapes of samples and percussion, blurred into a windswept buzz, what sounds like ghostlike vocals underneath processed sounds of whipping winds and the click clack of a railroad, to noise drenched old school raw black metal crush, to slow burning deep ambience, to full on classic eighties style riffing, the old masters rendered in new shades of black and buzz, finally culminating in the twenty minute closer, which begins as some bleak, post industrial Wolf Eyes-an dronescape, all haunting whirs, and strange clanks and clunks, distant moans, bits of percussion and mysterious samples, building to a wall of white hot blackened buzz, sheathed in streaks of feedback and pulled apart riffs, this is the sort of shit that would put most cd-r dronescapers to shame, but it's not over yet, the wall of noise slowly takes shape, riffs emerge from the murk, drums explode from beneath the veil of hiss, the track barreling along churning wildly, riffing and blasting, but gradually sinking ever deeper into a morass of gorgeous textured noise, crackle and buzz and hiss, blown out and super distorted, eventually swallowing the blackness whole, leaving just a brief glimpse of the black buzz, before blinking out.
Fucking AWESOME! Absolutely essential. As is the first disc, if you haven't gone back and re-checked that one out already.
Killer handmade packaging too. The cd housed in a printed fold over black and white cardstock sleeve, that sleeve, housed in an oversized sealed envelope, hand painted black and red and silver, very abstract, and super striking. And as you might have guessed. ULTRA LIMITED!!! But the special print handmade versions are limited to 100 copies and we have the very last copies. Once these are gone, you'll get the normal version. Same music, mostly the same packaging, just minus the painted outer sleeve...
We just got in a handful of these super limited cd-rs from Australia's Nekrasov, the project of one Bob Nekrasov (no, really), formerly of Melbourne based doomsters Whitehorse, and current purveyor of abject post-industrial blackness. Tramp And Void is, as we like to say in the business, a real motherfucker. This ep is just teeming with filth and despair, the sounds within melding noisy as hell blackened ambience with super heavy black METAL. The first song is an awesome slab of crumbling electronics abuse with hateful vocals gurgling about in the slowly rumbling chaos, very cool and somewhat reminiscent of that Cities Last Broadcast cd we reviewed a while back. But when track two kicks in, it's like being launched out of an abandoned high rise and into a waiting hurricane. The sound is like a more traditionally metal WOLD meeting up with Australia's psychedelic doom/grind lords diSEMBOWELMENT. In a dog fight. Or something. Pretty intense stuff, regardless, the non-stop double kick drum gives you the impression that you ain't coming out of this one alive. Track 3 sounds like the last day of existence, with windy electronics dominating as Mr. Nekrasov spews out anguished, hateful musings until everything is overwhelmed by electronic skree. Following another vignette of slowly moving ambience, Tramp And Void concludes with an ultra depressive, mid-tempo dirge, the relentless kick drums once again letting you know there is nowhere to hide. The piece is brutal but melancholy, not to mention quite beautiful, and one of those perfect songs to end a record as you assume the fetal position and wonder what horrors await. Though brief, this ep is an intense and demanding piece of work, refusing to confine itself to any one genre in particular. That said, forward thinking metalheads will be scrambling to get their grimey hands on this one.
Again, this thing is insanely limited, not sure how many were made, but you're gonna want to act fast. Comes packaged in an awesome black and red mini-poster with an image of a forest dwelling black winged angel staring right into your soul.
So, apparently Australia is more than just adorable animals and funny accents. No, many bands from Australia are simply scary as shit! And what better way to throw yourself headfirst into the maelstrom than with this KILLER 3 way split, featuring some of the island continent's most depressive and unsettling blackened exports?
The Haunting Resonance is, as the liner notes briefly explain, a conceptual album "regarding the matter of ghosts, spirits, and phantoms" and what role, if any, they would play if the earth was wiped clean of all humanity. Pretty upbeat stuff, huh? And while it is impossible to discern just what is being sung, the music more than ably conveys this dark subject matter.
Nekrasov, whose awesome Tramp And Void ep is reviewed elsewhere on this list, inaugurates the affair with "That Which Hunts...", a burly juggernaut of a song combining Wolf Eyes-styled electronic terrorism with esoteric black metal. This song is like a continuously swirling black hole, constantly turning on and devouring itself. The song shifts, without a moments notice, from creepy, slow moving ambience to full on black metal fury, with gothy keyboards smeared across the landscape. The end result is like the soundtrack to dying alone in the wilderness, where instead of finding some source of divine strength, you simply realize that this is it. The last half of this psychedelically informed piece is a haunting, droney loop with all kinds of high end to make you nice and uncomfortable. Its repetition is its unsuspecting source of power, and before long, you are lulled into a trance where you are powerless to do anything but adjust your body to the ominous rhythms of your dying breaths.
The middle part of the trilogy is represented by Moon, who follow a similar approach to merging black metal atmospheres with more contemplative noise elements. "Forgotten Spirits" drones about as labored pulses carry the piece to a more metal (but still really weird and avant-garde) second half. While not quite as furious as Nekrasov, Moon's contribution is equally creepy and unsettling, with what may or may not be a human voice howling incessantly until the song just stops.
Bringing The Haunting Resonance to its grim conclusion is Nekros Manteia with the song "The Final Ghost". Slow, focused drums hold the foundation while delayed guitars float amongst rumbling drones. Stylistically, it makes sense when you realize the song features guitar work from Bonnie Mercer of Grey Daturas. Both bands follow a psychedelic approach that manages to sound both expansive and concentrated within its own realm of noise. Eventually, the band locks into a crusty, doom laden groove before switching to a sparse, post-rock dirge with weird, croaking vocals.
While not exactly the feel good hit of the summer, The Haunting Resonance is a worthwhile listen in its own right, and sure to appeal to those willing to explore the darker realms of noise and the more insular, lonely aspects of outsider black metal. Recommended. And apparently quite limited as well. We got a bunch of these, not sure we can get more when we run out...
It's always been hard being a woman in a male dominated scene, but it must be doubly hard when you're driven to explore and expand and alienate the dance floor the way Riz Maslen is. But the scene's loss is our gain. This double cd (disc two is a cd-rom movie
We love Fenriz. Not just cuz he's the drummer from legendary black metal duo Darkthrone, but cuz he's a funny, super opinionated, black metal mouthpiece, whose musical knowledge, especially when it comes to metal, but well beyond, are above reproach, and his related rants are hilarious. There's a reason they've been reissuing all the Darkthrone records with a second disc featuring Fenriz's 'director's commentary'. There's a reason he was the focus of the recent black metal documentary Until The Light Takes Us. And if you have the DVD, and there's a reason one of the bonus features is Fenriz in a classroom, with a bunch of blackboards, schooling the rest of us on the history/roots/development of black metal. But as we've discovered over the years, and as the above would attest to, Fenriz is not your normal black metaller. For one, he has a thing for techno, and electronic music as a whole, not to mention a bunch of other seriously non-metallic musics, one of which is spaced out kosmische synth music, a la Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Jean Michel Jarre.
Which resulted in a band mysteriously named Neptune Towers (aka Fenriz and only Fenriz), and a pair of records (with a third that was unreleased) woven together by some overarching sci-fi concept. Sure, by now, synth projects, well, everybody's got one, but in 1994, to have some underground black metal icon release a synth record, well, it was a bit shocking. But what was even more shocking, was how goddamn good they were. Listening to this stuff again now, if the circumstances were a bit different, Fenriz could have essentially been Expo 70 or Zombi neary two decades ago! Sure lots of metalheads probably have this or want it, but all the kids today into the whole retro Goblin / Carpenter kosmische synth axis, will be blown away to discover this slab of brooding, epic, droned out, synthscapery.
Caravans To Empire Algol is part one of Fenriz's Algol mythology, and is self described as "Deep Space Alien Astral Synth", which is pretty much right on the money. The cover featuring a red hued cloud of stars, some mysterious corner of the galaxy, the liner notes simply read: "Escape The Earth. Unlike many synthesizer/space releases, this album has no vocals or drums. This is purposefully in order to enable the listeners to keep 'both feet off the ground.' Vocals and drums are particularly earthbound instruments that would eclipse the mission of this disc. Escape the earth." The original liner notes further suggest that the record "will only reach their optimal goal when heard alone. NOT FOR COLLECTIVE LISTENING." And finally, "Only effectively listenable on large black stereos. Deep space awaits. Neptune Towers supports extinction of all organic life forms. NO TAKEOFF. NO LIFE." And while that may have been a bit tongue in cheek, the sounds here seem to back up those boisterous claims, unfurling a seriously chilling sprawl of isolationist drift, like the soundtrack for some planetarium light show, but an old crumbling planetarium, tucked away in the woods, seemingly abandoned, except for these strange sounds emanating, and instead of stars projected on the ceiling, the building has crumbled, leaving the listener to stare directly into the blackness of deep space.
Two epic tracks, the title track clocking in at 24:35, and its sonic sequel, the 12:39 "The Arrival At Empire Algol" closing out this first installment of our sonic journey. Thick sitar like buzz, droned out, and drifting above a hissing swirl of shimmer that seems to float from speaker to speaker, the sound occasionally building into something more distorted and crumbling, almost like SUNNO))) or some sort of black noise combo, but blurred and billowing, haunting and ominous, the sounds rough and raw, heavily textured, primitive and lo-fi, but somehow transcending their genesis and blossoming into something truly cosmic, a pulsing krautrock style synth throb just beneath the surface.
The vibe is murky and minimal, but also trancey and psychedelic, a serious slab of home brewed kosmische, akin to some kid building a time machine in his bedroom, it's like Fenriz tinkered with his crappy old synth, until it opened a portal to some other dimension, to the far reaches of the universe, and these are the transmissions that came pouring out. And while lots of synth music borders on the new agey, there's nothing wimpy about this, this is synth music that rattles your skull and loosens your bowels, it really does evoke some sort of otherworld, some journey into the unknowable, conjuring up not just the mysterious of the unknown, but the harrowing journey to get there.
About nine minutes in, the clouds part a bit, letting shards of prismatic melody shine through, giving the proceedings a celestial vibe, but soon it settles back into something much more haunting and ominous, long tones, unravelling over a softly swirling sea of tangled melodic murk, yet it remains still weirdly majestic, until the almost bombastic final minutes, dirgey, and distorted, but a groovy bassline that seems to lurk just below the surface throughout, which is what gives this a subtly krautrock feel, and that near the end is panned hard and swings from speaker to speaker, while the synths grind away, slipping back into the sitar like buzz of the opening few minutes.
The second track is much more minimal, the buzz pushed into the background, a low level insectoid hum draped over the glimmering sonic starfield, the feel here even more raw and primitive, a mad scientist concoction, the buried melodies, and delicate textures doused in lots of noise and hiss, and strange sonic artifacts, intentional or otherwise, most likely the limitations of the original synth/4-track set up, but those limitations become as much a part of the sound as anything else, all smeared into a washed out haze, rife with strange barely there melodies, keening feedback, buried percussive thumps, and layers of thick undulating low end whir, all of which eventually devolves into a blurry sprawl of flanged rumbles and melodic moans, all sprawled into an endless series of blackened swells, laced with strange little bits of electronic filigree, sent into the ether like some doomed sonic transmission.
So incredible. ANYONE who digs all the dark synth kosmische cinematic soundscaping that is going on today, will flip for this. Especially if you have a large black stereo to play it on. Comes with updated artwork, swank slipcover, and new liner notes from Fenriz, explaining the genesis of Neptune Towers, and exactly what happened to the lost third part of the Algol trilogy.
Back in October, we wanted to make the reissue of Caravans To Empire Algol, the first album of blackened kosmische drone-synth drift from Neptune Towers our Record Of The Week, in fact we wanted to make both that AND this, a sort of dual ROTW. Both were records many of us here have loved for YEARS, so we were super excited for the chance to share them with all of you. Sadly, we were never able to get enough copies of that first one at the time to make it a proper ROTW, but we did manage to get a enough of the THIS one, so finally, Neptune Towers achieves aQ Record Of The Week status!! (And making it even more ROTW-worthy, this one, unlike the reissue of Caravans, includes previously unreleased bonus tracks from the never released third installment in the trilogy!)
Neptune Towers was in fact the alter ego of hilariously and hyper opinionated black metal mouthpiece Fenriz, one half of black metal legends Darkthrone, which is initially how we discovered Neptune Towers, Caravans To Empire Algol being the first in a planned high concept trilogy. But the music of Neptune Towers was about as far removed from the black buzz of Darkthrone as can be, instead, Fenriz in his NT guise trafficked in blissed out, kosmische, psychedelic synthscapery a la Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze, which considering the current onslaught of retro-synth outifts, proves Fenriz quite prescient back in the day. And thus, for ANYONE into all the modern day practitioners of sci-fi synthwave psychedelia. Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, Cloudland Canyon, M. Geddes Gengras, Gatekeeper, Xander Harris, Roll The Dice, Bitchin Bajas, etc., Neptune Towers is definitely worth checking out. But be warned, it's of a much darker strain than a lot of that stuff, gritty and low fidelity, but still impossibly spacious and epic. Black billows of spectral synth swirl around grinding cascades of low end buzz, everything swaddled in clouds of sci-fi squiggle and driven by dense echo drenched pulsations.
Like Caravans, the record is divided into two epic halves, the two lengthy tracks that make up Transmissions seeming to ooze from the darkest reaches of the galaxy, spectral sonic artifacts captured by arcane machinery in some abandoned bunker, the music pouring forth from the old dusty speakers, captured on those giant spinning tape reels, played back to a room full of baffled scientists, given this fleeting glimpse into some other world, in some far away galaxy, darkly cinematic, gritty and grimy, very rough around the edges, lush layers of grislty squelch, that suddenly explode into dizzying swirls of prismatic shimmer, all glistening and glimmering and downright new agey, before being sucked back down into the roiling blackened space-synth morass, only to emerge seconds later, transformed into a weirdly motorik pulsing groove, which again, soon dissipates leaving just shadows and ghostly melodic traces.
The sound throughout is in constant, glorious flux, hazy cosmic percolations, fractured, fragmented rhythms, swirling shimmering melodies, long droned out sprawls pocked with lazer beam blorp and space-sonar pings, the sound most definitely drifting into Goblin / John Carpenter terriroty here and there, with haunting little melodic refrains, that resurface, like the theme from some imaginary seventies sci-fi art film, or the perfect music for some blackened planetarium show.
This reissue tacks on four bonus tracks, excerpts from the aborted third part of the trilogy, 1994's Space Lab, four short sonic fragments that continue on right from where Transmissions fades out, continuing further into the reaches of the cosmos, lush, chordal swirs, arpeggiated melodies, all drifting through wide open expanses of deep black thrum, drifting somnambulently from swoonsome softly shimmering blackened cosmic-drone, to blissfully brooding synth-psych mesmer.
Comes in a swank slipcase too!
The first song on this new record from longtime aQ faves the New Pornographers is SO good. It's easily their best song since their breakout hit "Letter To An Occupant", it instantly evokes the classic Brill Building of the title, the powerhouse hit factory from the sixties, and positions the Pornographers as real Brill Bruisers, whipping up a track like the title track here effortlessly, lush, bombastic, almost symphonic, hooky as hell, with amazing vocals, melodies, plenty of ooohhh's and aahhhh's, even some synths, it's just shy of 3 minutes, but it really is one of those songs most pop bands spend their whole lives striving toward. When we first discovered the New Pornographers, they were a revelation, born of one of our favorite pop bands ever, Zumpano (c'mon Sub Pop, time's ripe for a Zumpano reissue!!!), The NP's took Zumpano's orchestral bombast and polished it up a bit, adding Neko Case to the equation and striking gold. Over the years, the NPs made their way squarely into the mainstream, and while we have always been tempted to write them off as mom rock or dad rock or NPR rock, every time we dig into a new record, we're reminded that these guys and gals are kind of pop geniuses. And this new one drives that point home big time. If you can make it past the opener, which to be honest, took us about 20 plays, there's lots more pop goodness to be found. The sound instantly recognizable as the New Pornographers, but with plenty of modern tweaks, more synths, a lush production, but ultimately, just some fantastic sounds, expertly crafted, music, vocals, sound, it's all wound into gorgeously hook heavy ebullient pop music, that sounds totally timeless, making the title even more appropriate. And while to varying degrees we love all the tracks here, other super favorites include "War On The East Coast", which is a bit darker and synthier, but with one of the records best, and most bombastic hooks, then there's "Backstairs" which almost sounds like some old Zumpano B-side, or "Fantasy Fools" which might have been our favorite track here if it weren't for that opener, heck, just get over whatever guilty pleasure / "these guys are all over NPR" reservations you might have, and dig into what might be one of the best pop records of the year. You won't be sorry. And please write a letter to Sub Pop and let's get this Zumpano reissue campaign going!!
We were joking a couple days ago about Phill Niblock, or it could of been Tony Conrad (Or Angus Maclise or any of those folks) about how great it must be having over the course of your entire 30 or 40 year career to have played only 4 or 5 notes. Obviously it's not as simple as that. Niblock is one of the few modern composers that can hold your attention for an hour or more with the judicious use of a single note. Like Reich and Riley, Niblock harnesses the natural properties of sound letting the sound do much of the work, shifting slowly, beating intermittantly, always shimmering and occasionally throbbing as notes nestle close to each other, sometimes sliding into place perfectly, other times finding a strange resistance and audibly working to fit in, resulting in all these subtle shifts. This is glacial and static, warm and thick and totally mesmerising. Touch Food also seems, to me at least, to be Niblock's most melodically complex set of pieces. The melodies here manage to be fairly prominent, even though they are stretched to their limit and obfuscated by the thick wash of sound. This is heady, heavy stuff. Heavy enough in fact that all you dirge-istsâ who are into Earth and Sunn 0))) and stuff like that may find that Niblock is your gateway drug, opening up the door to Maclise, Flynt, Cale and beyond. And of course, fans of modern drone, Sunroof!, Birchville Cat Motel, Skullflower, Vibracathedral Orchestra should definitely pick this up! His best record since Four Full Flutes!
MPEG Download: "Sweet Potato" [/audio/niblocksweetpotato.mp3]
Seems like Sacred Bones can do no wrong. The last year they've given us records from Gary War, Blank Dogs, Zola Jesus, Cultural Decay, 13th Chime, Moon Duo, Carl Simmons, and Vermillion Sands, and now Nice Face, aka Ian Magee, who definitely fits right in with the current movement of lo-fi garage pop weirdness, a la Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Blank Dogs, etc, but Nice Face is a much more twisted affair. Not sure how we missed out on this guy until now, this is in fact a collection of previously released jams, originally released on three different labels, including two on Sacred Bones, hardly matters, what matters is we have em now, and they have been totally kicking our asses.
Falling somewhere between former aQ Record Of The Weekers Night Control AND former aQ Record Of The Weekers Blank Dogs, it seemed sort of inevitable that we would fall in love with Nice Face as well, short sharp blasts of crunchy, synth laced, home brewed, cold wave flecked garage pop, super catchy, but plenty twisted, and beyond the more contemporary influences, we hear plenty of classic power pop, old new wave, old school punk rock, all tweaked and twisted into this right here. We could go song by song and describe every one, they all rule, but we'll just pick out a few of our favorites which should definitely give you a feel for the weirdo damaged pop world of Nice Face.
"Decipher" is a haunting synth heavy instrumental, with a KILLER hook, the whole track swirly and subtly warped, that sounds like one of the best songs Blank Dogs never released. "I Want Your Damage" is a spacey pop gem, with super delayed vocals, and a Tesltars main melody, lots of effects, weird synth melodies, imagine if Joe Meek were alive today, this is the sort of thing he'd be whipping up in his apartment home studio. "A Minor Altercation" is classic eighties power pop and sounds like it was yanked right off one of those Yellow Pills comps, "A Gaping Gash" is like a lo-fi reimagining of that Depeche Mode / Gary Numan collaboration that never really happened. "Beater" is a blasting garage rock blow out, that does Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall one better, with fuzzy synths, another killer hook, gothy and new wave-y, not to mention the retarded, freaked out synth solo WAY up in the mix. "Had To Let You Know" is another total eighties new wave jam, minor key and mysterious, super reverbed and groovy, sounds almost like the Stooges filtered through Joy Division and Gary Numan. And on and on it goes. How does this guy do it. Every song is insanely catchy, but totally different than the one that came before it, and even though the songs are all over the map, and this is a collection of tracks from different releases, it totally flows, and plays perfectly, like somehow, it was meant to be what it is, a single perfect fucked up outsider pop record. So rad.
We all love Morricone's western soundtracks. Fistful Of Dollars, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, For A Few Dollars More. They are all so evocative and gorgeous, able to stand comfortably on their own removed from the films they are so inexorably linked to, which can't be said for most soundtracks. Don't know a whole lot about Bruno Nicolai, but either he owes a huge debt to Morricone, or Morricone has a secret influence....100,000 Dollari Per Ringo has all the sights and sounds and smells (well the sounds at least) we've come to expect from an Italian western soundtrack, soaring strings, lonely harmonica, whistles and gently strummed guitars, bellowing almost-operatic male vocals. But there's just something about this particular collection that moves me in a way no other Italian soundtrack has, Morricone or otherwise. I don't know about you, but I rarely listen to a whole soundtrack all the way through there are usually specific parts or songs that I want to hear. But with 100,00 Dollari, it flows so perfectly I end up listening to the whole thing all the time, sometimes forgetting what I'm listening to, and having to check, because it doesn't always sound like an 'Italian Western'. Which is part of what makes it so great. Vocal tracks, sleepy, dusky instrumentals, and roaring, bombastic epics all balanced and sequenced erfectly. It helps that the opening track, Ringo Come To Fight, is one of the greatest 'cowboy vocal songs' EVER with gorgeous sorrowful vocals and a gorgeous arrangement. And track two, Sfida Eroica, is THE most kick ass song ever. Seriously. Makes me want to leap out the window and join the shootout in progress across the street in the saloon, rescue my lady from the jail, leap on my horse and ride into the desert, not before I retrieve the sack of gold, my trusty sidekick and my dog Ringo. It's like the soundtrack equivalent of a song that makes you HAVE TO air guitar or air drum. And the rest of the soundtrack kicks holy ass as well. Morricone fans obviously need this, but there's stuff on here that would appeal to fans of Godspeed, Calexico, Lanterna and dreamy, twangy rock in general. Give it a try.
A few months ago, a mysterious disc showed up in the mail. Or more accurately, discs. Four cd-r albums of fucked up fractured outsider pop. No information anywhere on the discs, or the packaging, other than the words Crystal Shards. Which seemed pretty perfect. That's exactly what that stuff sounded like. Jagged and fragmented and crystalline and shimmery and totally bizarre and beautiful. So of course, as is our way, we become a little obsessed, and decided we had to track more down, so we could share these sounds with the aQ faithful�
But searches for Crystal Shards revealed almost nothing, and the label was sold out, and there were at that time no plans to make more Crystal Shards. SO we hd all but given up, until the label got in touch, and mentioned plans to release a proper cd, collecting various tracks from the Crystal Shards cd-r's, and we were thrilled, anxiously waiting its arrival, knowing that it would have to be a Record Of The Week.
And so here it is, but strangely enough, the band is no longer called Crystal Shards. In fact, there is no mention anywhere of Crystal Shards, instead, the band (actually, the man) is now called Night Control, and this disc, Death Control, collects some of our favorite Shards from those previous discs, and weaves them into a perfectly imperfect album of minimal murkiness, moody shimmer and lo-fi pop, generously dappled with effects and feedback and distortion, hooks and jangle buried in buzz and hiss. Woozy, dizzy, druggy, tripped out, and catchy as fuck. Think Ariel Pink, Gary War, John Maus, Ty Segall, Wavves, Blank Dogs, Kurt Vile, Night Control definitely fits pretty comfortably amongst those lo-fi fractured pop denizens, but definitely brings his own vibe to the party, offering up something folkier and prettier, more classically poppy, even Beatles-esque at times, but still plenty murky and freaked out and fucked up, and deliriously off kilter. We also hear some Grifters in there as well, which is never a bad thing.
Where as a lot of those other bands seem willfully obscure, the weirdness in Night Control's music seems more like a natural byproduct. As if the creation of these hauntingly perfect little pop fragments, invariably resulted in the sonic cast offs that litter the record, be they sheets of gauzy buzz, or jagged slivers of feedback, the songs at their very core, are pure pop, but that core is protected by layer after layer of noise and hiss and shimmer. Yet unlike many artists who make their pop 'weird' by adding random crap on top, or record on the shittiest equipment possible, the two sides of Night Control's sound, the jangly pop, and the lo-fi buzz, seem to meld into something totally new, a sound that couldn't exist with both those elements. The guitars jangle and strum, but often explode into blow out leads, or super crunchy textures, the bas burbles below the surface, but it too can sometimes crumble into a cloud of swirling buzz, the drums are simple and spare, but hold the whole thing together, along with the lilting vocals, always wreathed in reverb and delay. Every song here is a gem. And every song manages to reference classic pop, while filtering it through the new fractured noisepop style. Sebadoh covering Tom Petty, Cheap Trick as envisioned by Strapping Fieldhands, or imagine the Beatles or Kinks, if they were growing up today, and released handmade cd-r's. There may be noise and distortion and grit and buzz and hiss, but this stuff is way too poppy to really appeal to the noiseniks, instead this takes the sort of lo-fi pop of early Pavement records and Shrimper cassettes, and re-imagines it as some sort of alternate reality top 40, not like the bizarre alien FM radio of Ariel Pink, but something much more earnest and heartfelt. Total sad boy, late night mix tape nirvana for sure.
Hard to pick favorites, as this is a sort of greatest hits, culled from a catalog that as far as we're concerned is ALL hits, but two of our favorites are "Two Hard", with its lilting jangle, rubbery underwater bass, and some incendiary lead guitars, weaving lush sun dappled textures over a sort of repetitive post rocky drift, and "No Making", a woozy, drifty torch song, the bass driving the song, the whole thing warped and warbly, the tape speed subtly shifting throughout, causing the whole song to subtly shift and twist and making it feel like your speakers are melting, and as if that weren't enough, then there's an awesome soaring bridge / chorus, with some incredible lush guitar harmonies that could go on forever (and you'll wish they would).
Hopefully some of the other Crystal Shards stuff will surface in one form or another, but for now, there's plenty here to get lost in, a fantastic and phantasmagorical document of blissed out hallucinatory outsider noise pop. ESSENTIAL!
The origin myth of Night Control is almost as fascinating as their music, it was explained in great detail in our review of the first Night Control record from a while back, but in a nutshell, Night Control was at one time called Crystal Shards, and that band released a whole mess of super limited cd-r's, all amazing and tripped out and weirdly poppy, but before we could get our hands on any of those cd-r's, the band resurfaced with a new name, Night Control, and a new record, Death Control, which cherry picked all the best songs from those impossible to find cd-r's and voila, and all time aQ favorite, twisted, fractured outsider lo-fi pop, that managed to infuse hook filled classic sounding pop music, with all manner of rhythmic aberrations and sonic inconsistencies, transforming NC's music into something truly original and transcendent.
So here we have what could be considered to be the first proper NEW Night Control record, and thankfully, all of the weirdness is fully intact, and the songwriting has seemingly grown by leaps and bounds, without sacrificing a bit of fuckedupness. So, just like Death Control was, it's gotta be a Record Of The Week! Night Control's sound is still firmly positioned amongst the current crop of warped lysergic lo-fi popsters: Ariel Pink, Gary War, John Maus, Ty Segall, Wavves, Blank Dogs, Kurt Vile, etc., but there's just something about Night Control, that makes this music different. And special. Not better necessarily, although in some ways it definitely is, but just special, the songs are ramshackly, but fully formed, catchy as all get out, but laced with all manner of clatter, and squealing feedback, the vocals are generally buried, so sometimes the melody is more suggested than anything, but somehow all the woozy warped parts fall (im)perfectly into place, and yet again, Night Control has created a songsuite, that is at once warm and familiar, but also alien and abstract.
There's no denying the fact that these songs are tighter, and more rocking, and it definitely sounds more like a real band, than a bedroom project, the opener "CS" is heartbreakingly good, warm and woozy and lush, drum machine, loping piano driven melody, big rich guitars, and a main vocal line that is so dreamy and melancholic and definitely harkens back to classic sixties pop a la The Zombies, but the record immediately changes gears, and "There's A Chance" begins as a stumbling chaotic lurching kitchen sink pop workout, very New Zealand sounding actually, the drums are distorted and tangled, the vocals are processed and all wrapped up with streaks of high end and feedback, all under a blown out haze, making the song's poppiness all the more subtle. "Take Apart" is super rocking, with actual burly guitar riffing, pounding drums, even some squirrely almost-leads, but it's interspersed with some wheezing atonal organ, some detuned guitar squiggle, some surprisingly active rubbery basslines, and the whole thing is wrapped in a cloud of hiss and crumbling distortion. It's like a Joe Meek track gone haywire.
And so it goes, the whole record veers from perfect pop to deconstructed lo-fi pop flecked weirdness, drums get blown out, vocals slip way up in the mix in a reverbed Lou Reed like sung spoken croon, guitars warble, chords jangle, rhythms are flipped backwards, fragments of songs are looped and layered, some tracks skip and skitter, you can hear someone push the stop button on the tape player, the 'ka-chunk' becoming part of the song, vocals pile on top of one another creating big lush, dense harmonies, long stretches of barely there sound drift and shimmer, like a pop song muted and melted into shimmery sonic strings, new wave collides with new age, classic rock stumbles into power pop, drum machine driven skitter explodes into druggy garage rock, hazy riffs coalesce into crystalline space rock, and on and on and on. The final track might just be the most beautiful, a nearly 8 minute stretch of processed guitars, all delicately intertwined, looped and layered, melodies and overtones surfacing and then fading into the background, notes pulse and throb, creating sort-of-rhythms, a little pop ambience, a little abstract Appalachia, warm and lush, the perfect rainy day dreamdrift, and a fitting way to finish off this perfectly imperfect record. One of our new favorites for sure.
The return of Nightbringer! One of the best USBM bands going, hailing from the frosty, wintry climes of Colorado, whose last release (or at least the last one we got) was an insanely kick ass split with Temple Of Not (a sort of drone-y Nightbringer side project), a record that most of the black metal folks we know consider a masterpiece. Ourselves included. So there were seriously high expectations for this, their first full length. We can safely say, even after only a few listens, this will WAY surpass expectations and will likely be topping a lot of year end lists, a total contender for black metal record of the year.
There is a cd version that we'll be getting eventually, but this vinyl version is SO much cooler. First off, it comes in a killer box, but more importantly, it contains nearly 30 minutes more music! So odds are the troo grim black metalheads are gonna want one of these super limited boxes. The rest of you can wait a couple weeks for the cd.
Nightbringer's sounds is a dense swirling blackness, spaced out and subtly psychedelic, incredibly thick and textured, a bizarre hybrid of Darkspace and Deathspell Omega, but also plenty of old school raw black metal, long stretches of lurching doom, the sounds are not necessarily unfamiliar, but it's how they're employed. The guitars are the strangest of all, slipping from classic buzzing riffage, to sweeping majestic epic chords, to super strange ultra fast trills, almost like a tremolo, something we've heard very few BM bands do, it's really haunting and otherworldly, and adds to the sort of blackness of space vibe, and offers a cool counterpoint, the main riff lumbering along, the drums a chaotic slowed down plod, but then that strange guitar part unfurling these rapid fires runs, that almost sound like drones, long drawn out tones, making the whole thing so haunting and tense, in fact for a black metal record, much of Death And The Black Work is spent not playing fast at all (minus that awesome weird guitar part), the band is almost more like some alien blackened doom, that occasionally erupts into a thunderous blast, before slipping back into their buzzing black sprawl. But when they do get fast, it's fucking manic, frenzied, gloriously fucked up and feral, a buzzing blurred onslaught, that has few equals. We could go on and on but fuck it, this is IT. This is black metal supremacy. Mysterious and otherworldly, furious and blackly epic, total grim and frostbitten outer space brilliance. And yeah, this just might be black metal record of the year after all.
LIMITED of course. And fair warning, ALL the boxes have some sort of very light cosmetic damage, actually damage might be too dramatic, they all have light scuffs on the edges, or seem a bit worn in places, but that just make them seem even more like some lost sacred scroll, some ancient book of the dead, discovered beneath the ruins of a church, and minus those slight imperfections, these boxes are precious black jewels, emanating a timeless malevolence, that will no doubt feel right at home on that candle lit skull laden black altar you keep all your records on at home.
They're from Finland. They're called Nightsatan. Their record is called Midnight Laser Warrior and features on its cover some helmeted ghoul with a knife, and a sawblade, and a bullet belt, and tons of spikes and studs on the leather jacket that barely obscures his rotting zombie flesh. They have song titles like "Four Eyed Cyclops", "Death Chess 2000", "Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)". The record was mastered by two members of aQ faves Finnish hypnorockers Circle. We saw a YouTube clip of Nightsatan performing, where a certain member of the crowd got so worked up he decided to sing along, that person was none other than Albert Witchfinder of the mighty Reverend Bizarre (and The Puritan, among others). Their drummer is credited with player "Laserdrums". And most importantly, they play "LAZERMETAL". Which is in fact, not metal at all, nor even "NWOFHM", instead it's some sort of crazy, futuristic, electro prog, like Goblin or John Carpenter, or any of the current crop of Carpenter worshipping retro futurists (Majeure, Umberto, Zombi, Blizaro) but filtered through some ELP, or Yes, or even more obscure prog faves like Il Balleto Di Bronzo or the New Trolls. Sure the sound is synthy, and retro and electro and will no doubt appeal to those folks, but it's also twisted and proggy and FINNISH, which makes this something else entirely.
The cool thing about these guys, ONE of the cool things, is that they're a proper band, this isn't just a studio project, assembled at a desk with a computer, no these guys are a BAND, and there's tons of footage of them playing live, and most notably, they have a DRUMMER, who plays drums, electronic drums sure, but they give the sound a sweaty, urgent, human element missing from lots of similar stuff, not to mention, these songs are epic and complex and again PROGGY.
Opener "Four Eyed Cyclops" begins with a bit of Tangerine Dreamy synthiness, accompanied by some growled cookie monster vox, but it doesn't take long for the track to get going, with some awesome syncopated rumming, locked tight with the synths, then another buzzing bit of low end synth swoops in, and while it's not metal, we can definitely feel the same sort of power and energy and intensity. All the synths drop out, leaving just the buzzing low end one to unfurl a serious slithery riff, the drums come back in, and it's like some weird electronic electro-doom, the metal vibe, more in the vibe than the sound, but it's definitely weird and heavy and electronic, with lots of bent notes wound into electro leads. Awesome.
"Death Chess 2000" starts off with more buzzing low end synth riffage, some "Iron Man" style kick drum, before slipping into another bit of electro-doom, only to have everything suddenly speed up, and transform into a car chase Autobahn soundtrack that returns briefly to that opening electro doom, before stripping down to just minimal synth and a skeletal rhythm, and more of those weird raspy vox, finishing off in a blaze of swirl and buzz.
"Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)" might be the proggiest of the bunch, another swirly Logan's Run sounding intro, all arpeggiated melodies underpinned by thick wheezing synth buzz, while the snare drum drives the rhythm, before blossoming into a hazy, futuristic soundscape (which more than one customer mistook for the Tron soundtrack! If only!), that warbles woozily, and eventually switches tempo and becomes the perfect score for some lost eighties VHS tape horror movie futuristic dystopian city montage. Throughout, the song offers up some strange detours, intense super dynamic stop/starts, with pounding drums, and some gorgeous woozy video game soundtrack balladry (which again has us thinking how much better these guys would have been for scoring Tron).
"Ninja Apocalypse" is creepy, and haunting, with the sound of fake rainfall, deep bass swells, and a main keyboard melody that would most definitely not be out of place in a Halloween or Friday The 13th movie, but like all the songs, the track continually shifts and transforms, minimal and hauntingly creepy one second, supper progged out and propulsive the next, soaring and majestic the next, and druggy and psychedelic the next. "Steel Diamond Part 4" (parts 1 and 2 are on the 7" reviewed elsewhere on this list, not sure where part 3 is though), is another electro prog workout, that features a super soundtracky main melody wreathed in layer after layer of synth buzz, the drums dense and intricate, the sound swirling and shimmering, evoking images of alien planets, of crashed starships, of subterranean lairs, of strange creatures chained up and walking into the depths, of the blackness of space, which leads right into the final track "Stars, Our Destination", which takes that space synth sci-fi sound even further out, pulsing and throbbing, the melodies tangled and intricate, hypnotic and totally mesmerizing, the sound dramatic and emotional and epic, and so totally cinematic, every track in fact here plays out like the music to some climactic scene from some lost eighties sci-fi adventure epic, with "Stars, Our Destination" being the perfect culmination, the drums less rhythmic, and more dynamic, pounding alongside the synths, the vocals more breathy exhalations, soon joined by thick rubbery low end pulses, everything growing more and more intense before fading into a swirling drift of warbly synths, swirling FX and whispered urgent voices. There's a short hidden track, another sort of Halloween gone electro synthwave, with a pulsing house-y beat, creepy raspy vocals, and a main melody that sounds like it had to be created for some horror movie, tense and intense, this final coda brooding and moody, but also propulsive and weirdly motorik, the perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock finish to a pretty much perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock record!
And all this talk of soundtrack and cinema is not just us, the artwork on the back cover, which features a modular synth, with the various patch bays altered to read as song titles, also includes various inputs for things like "Doom & Gloom", "Heavy Pounding" and maybe most tellingly "Extra Giallo". So good. Easily our favorite of this new batch of synthy soundtracky sci-fi sounds. There is vinyl, but it's not out yet, a few weeks still. And if you dig this, be sure and grab one of those 7"s too!!
If you found your way here without reading about and most likely buying the full length Nightsatan record, best to take a second and go check out that review, we get WAY more in depth there about the band and their fantastic futuristic sounds. And if you already added the cd to your cart, and just need MORE, then heck, skip the rest of this, and throw one of these in your cart too.
But for those who need to know more. Nightsatan are from Finland, and play "Lazermetal" which is in fact less metal, and more futuristic soundtracky sci-fi synth wave prog.
"Steel Diamond" parts 1 and 2 make up the bulk of the 7" (part 4 is on the full length, no idea where part 3 is), and is a sprawling synthscape of fat, fuzz drenches electro future prog, swirling synths, propulsive electronic drums, sweeping arrangements, epic swells, the bass buzzy and blown out, all wound into some sort of electronic krautspacefunk soundtrack. There are some breakdowns and interludes that are so thick and heavy, the bass SO buzzy, that it almost does sound metal.
The second part of the "Steel Diamond" quadrilogy offers up a plodding super dramatic space opera lazer prog workout, wild tangles of synth leads, evoking the final march up to the castle, the final battle, knights versus aliens, the vibe is definitely doomy, but synth-doom, building to a wild proggy break, that gets all electro-metallic before slipping right back into that spaced out synthy futurism.
The other track here, "Space Revenger" (awesome title!), is a pounding Teutonic bit of synthy electro prog metal, but with all the metal guitars replaced by MORE SYNTHS, epic and dramatic and intense and cinematic, with some surprisingly crushing parts that remind us a bit of MIDI metal (those cheesy electronic versions of classic metal sounds, YouTube it) but cranked WAAAAAY UP!
The cover art here is cool too, the band in metal T's and studded wristbands, huge black shades, obscured by red lights, looking very metal, with a shiny silver sticker that says "Finland's No#1 Nightsatan - File Under LAZERMETAL", while the back boasts two different legends, one reads "No guitars played on this record", the other "DEATH TO FALSE LASERMETAL". Fuck Yeah. Pressed on LAZER-RED vinyl too...
It's hard to not love a band that sounds like some unholy spawn of Deathspell Omega and SUNNO))), a blackened ritualistic blend of furious black metal and epic doomdrone, and while that combination in and of itself is not outrageously novel, since lots of BM record incorporate ambience and drones, it's all in the execution, and Nihill have managed to spin a sinister black web of sound that while familiar in some ways, is truly unlike anything we've heard before.
The first in a supposedly already completed trilogy of albums, Krach is a droning black beast, that begins with a short intro, a barely there bit of dark ambience, before exploding into�blasting chaotic, almost industrial black metal, so intense and blown out it basically ceases being black metal and becomes some droning buzzing black noisescape, the relentless blast beats the only thing holding everything together, huge swaths of ugly buzz and furious tangled black riffing. About part�way through the brutality abates, leaving a fuzzy free floating tangle of�strange voices, and circusy guitar melodies, whirring drones and abstract ambience, before a black blast shatters the tranquility and we're sucked right back down into Nihill's fuzzed out hellish sonic abyss.
The rest of the record is primarily the epic, three part, 42 minute�Gnosis song suite. Each movement a cinematic slab of black doomdronedrift,�huge ultra distorted swells of chordal crunch, over�haunting plodding percussion that sounds like it was recorded in some massive underground cathedral, these�glacial sonic shifts lumber beastlike through sprawling black hole soundscapes, the various layers and drones shifting from hateful industrial pummel to gorgeous ambient shimmer and back again. Imagine a more druggy SUNNO))) but with actual percussion, some demonic propulsion driving this epic's 16 rpm engine. The trilogy is broken up by another burst of DSO style blackened chaos, a completely deranged off kilter sonic assault, but the last two movements follow, one right after the other, finishing off the record with a nearly half hour of glacial, suffocating, brutal black drift.�
Any one remotely into any of the following bands absolutely NEEDS this: SUNNO))), Deathspell Omega, Moss, Khanate, Bunkur, S.V.E.S.T., Trollmann, Tenhornedbeast, Monument Of Urns, Marzuraan, Black Boned Angel... we could go on and on and on. A new deathdoomdronedrift favorite, with the added bonus of some seriously buzzing blackness.�
And we're already dying for the rest of the trilogy....
We've long been fans of this mysterious NY outfit, whose past records found these guys brewing up a dizzying concoction of warped electro wave, haunting witch house-y minimalist creep, fuzzed out shoegazey ambience, and home brewed big beat crunch, all blurred and smeared into something way more abstract and psychedelic that its constituent parts. But here on their third and most recent, the band dial things way back, and craft a dark, gorgeous slab of introspective, electronic soundscapery, opening the proceedings with thick swaths of gristled, pixelated Tim Hecker like sonic haze. All washed out and dreamy and woozily lysergic, perfectly leading into a stunning Marissa Nadler cover, the already dark original transformed into an even darker lament, all swirling churns of mumblecore drift, heaving swells of black blurred fuzz, over skeletal rhythms, and moaned barely there vox, smeared and subtly processed, a plaintive whispery croon becomes a lush landscape of layered drones drifting dreamily and druggily, a ghostly and spectral electro-ambient threnody, that builds to a near squall of roiling riffs and tangled black melodies, the result still somehow warm and soft and utterly trancelike.
Elsewhere, the group unfurl smoldering cinematic soundscapes, strange slivers of shadowy sound, moaning fragmented melodies, all over a haunting heartbeat like pulse, a sort of slo-mo electronica, laced with strange hummed/sung vocals that remind us a bit of country weirdos the Reveries, who sing with cell phone speakers in their mouths, the same effect here, a wordless warble that ebbs and flows, slipping from near insectoid buzz to deep softly dramatic, barely there croon, and back again, all over slow swooping backwards guitars, and disembodied fragments of guitar melody.
Some tracks, like "Eisenbahnstrasse, January 1st 1946" shed some of the darkness, and blossom into dreamily prismatic swirls, all tinkling chimes, clean guitar jangle, soft psychedelic shimmer, all interwoven with random samples and brief blurts of FX heavy skree, but the sound always seems to drift back into the darkness.
As the record progresses, heavy machine like industrial beat, lumber through fields of clang and clatter and thump, all constructed into a dense driving blast of junkyard groove, the whole thing swaddled in a distant buzz, and slowly building swells of layered static drones, a sort of ultra minimal hypno-hop, like something you migh have heard on an old DHR record, or on one of those Electric Ladyland comps alongside Techno Animal, Spectre and the like. Eventually, the sound slows to a crawl, still beat heavy, but this time a tar pit drag, a lurching, looped lumber, all downtuned thrum, and disembodied voices, and some buried shuffling skitter.
"Sun Shatterer" is a heady sprawl of minimal gloom pop, minor key guitars, chiming through a cloud of woozy sonic warble, weird clipped whispers, tense strings, keening high end tones, what sounds like Hermann Nitsch like brass, which resolve into soft whorls of crumbling distortion and lush waves of fuzzed out feedback, before unexpectedly exploding into something much more in keeping with their old sound, big beats, a sort of post industrial electro wave downer dirge, with clean, dramatic new wave vocals, big melodies, buzzing synths, but all still wreathed in the weird droned out sounds that started the track off, like a noiser, more abstact Interpol maybe...
After a couple brief tracks of creepy, psychedelic ambience, the 30 second "Campfire Ashes" way too short, sounding like it could have blossomed into some dark Demdike Stare style epic, which thankfully is in a way what happens, as that track leads directly into the closer, a nearly nine minute sprawl called "Hymn Division". that lays down a simple pulsing beat, over which Nihiti lay thick swaths of black buzz, dense swirls of ribcage rattling low end reverberations, and finally deep, dramatic minor key melodies, that infuse the song with serious pathos, it's not hard to imagine this as the sound track to the denouement of some twisted, modern, avant indie film, a dizzying expanse of moving, emotional, electronic minimalism, but here drifting towrd maximalism, the tones expanding and exploding in slow motion, the melodies, bright, and eventually blinding, the tones strecthed way out, tense and intense, the coda a sort of Hecker / Nadja dreamdronedrift, but more soft focus here, heady and heavenly.
Another awesome electronic oddity from the fine folks at Hospital Productions, this one the work of a duo called Ninos Du Brasil, who, true to their moniker, traffic in a strain of Brazilian music - but a warped, experimental version, the likes of which you've likely not heard before. Brazilian carnival music is definitely a reference point but so too is Southeast Asian gamelan music, as well as various strains of techno and electro, we hear shades of fellow modern experimental techno-technician Cut Hands for sure, and heck, they even have a song called "Sepultura", which is apparently in fact an homage of sorts to that Brazilian metal band, and their later records on which they did in fact incorporate traditional Brazilian percussion into their music. Weird stuff, but sonically, it all meshes into something super mesmerizing and hypnotic, and something not altogether removed from some of the other Hospital releases, like Vatican Shadow, Ron Morelli, Christian Cosmos, Silent Servant, etc.
After a brief bit of straight up Brazilian percussion over a bed of birdsong, the record quickly slips into some murky house, all deep muted pulsations, over which, wild percussion comes tumbling, and then also some synth bass, and martial snares, the result is a strange hybrid of Brazilian funk, drum corps and avant minimal house music, with the Brazilian percussion WAY up in the mix, and driving the sound. The song is also peppered with plenty of FX and subtle dub-isms, and once they lock in, barring some subtle fluctuations, it's totally looped and tranced out and endlessly mesmeric.
The more minimal tracks, like "Legios De Cupins", definitely sound right at home on Hospital, again, murky and a little bit muddy, strangely sequenced arpeggiations, the Brazilian influence much more subtle, but still groovy and darkly funky, with occasional bursts of more traditional percussion, the coolest bits are when they all blur and bleed into some fantastically heady hybrid. The "Sepultura" track, perhaps predictably, is the fiercest, the drums and percussion, blown out and super distorted, sounding very much like a Brazilian marching band, we could easily have listened to a whole album of this, but it soon slips back into something more traditional sounding, "Miragem" sounding like Brazilian street music, underpinned by some super subtle techno filigree, before blossoming into maybe the most 'party' sounding of the bunch, with distorted call and response vocals, more wild percussion, all anchored by a four on the flour techno pulse, before finally finishing off with the gorgeous sprawling "Novos Misterios", a low slung, downtempo creeper, sounding a bit like a Brazilian Tom Waits, all steep drum melodies, wreathed in record crackles and warm swaths of tape hiss, the rhythms here laid back and subtle, woozy and weary, and the perfect comedown, at least until the final few minutes, when the sound quickly builds to a noisy, psychedelic, heavy house, stutter rhythm / droned out finale!
Really, what needs to be said about Nirvana's Bleach? Nothing probably. But also everything. Most of the folks here probably rank Bleach as their favorite Nirvana record, and some of us might even include Bleach in our best of all time list as well (c'mon, we know you keep one too, even if it's just in your head). And listening to this again today, it's shocking out great it sounds, not at all dated, better than 90 percent of the music coming out today, and it cost like $600 to record. EVERY song here is a goddamn classic, equal parts punk rock, pop, sludge, grunge, '60s garage, everything perfect, the vocals raspy and raw, the drumming killer, the guitar parts weird and wonderful, thick and heavy and grimy and so utterly catchy. Half the bands around today wouldn't even exist if it weren't for this record, hell, the musical landscape would be WAY different if it weren't for Nirvana, sure we grew up listening to Bleach, but we can only imagine discovering this record today, it would blow your fucking mind. How could a band on their first time out create a record that would basically reinvent rock for a new generation. Odds are most folks probably have this, and some of you are probably big ol' Nirvana geeks like us and will need to buy it again, for the improved sound, the killer packaging, the bonus live show tacked on the end, but if for some crazy reason you've yet to hear this, drop everything, don't buy another record until you take this one home and immerse yourself in its utter rock genius. Listen to the sound samples, and either be reminded how good this record is, or discover your new favorite band and let your life be changed, the way ours were when we first heard this 20 years ago.
The bonus tracks are from a live show recorded in Portland back in 1990, and it sounds amazing. Admittedly, Nirvana live were a dodgy proposition, or at least Kurt was, often singing weirdly or not at all, fucking up songs on purpose, or sometimes not on purpose, but this set is wicked tight, and loud and heavy, the vocals are pretty much perfect, they do some killer covers, some rad non-Bleach songs, and a few songs that would show up on future record, but it's cool to hear with this lineup, live all rough and ragged. And yeah, the new packaging is pretty badass too, no new liner notes but tons of photos and flyers and stuff, the perfect companion to the Live At Reading set which was also just released, and which we'll probably review on the next list.
Nirvana were always a pretty iffy proposition live. Always sloppy and chaotic, sometimes inspiringly so, other times not so much. It wasn't always clear whether it was a drug thing, or a disdain for playing live, or being sick of the music business, but for all of the perfect pop and classic heaviness to be found on their records, live, things often devolved into total mayhem, often gloriously so. Fucking up songs, destroying drum kits, mixing in random covers, letting songs just sort of stumble to a halt, or more famously, changing the lyrics, singing in a deep baritone and hamming it up when forced to lipsync on TV, or not playing the hit the TV people were expecting, instead playing one of the super noisy thrashers. All part of what made Nirvana so cool, and so fun to watch. We had the records if we wanted to hear those songs, we'd much rather see the trainwreck that often occurred live.
This show, for all it's fucked-up-ness and weird goings on, was anything BUT a trainwreck. Widely considered to be one of the best live recordings of the band, hearing this again, all polished up definitely drives that point home. Lots of stuff from both Bleach and Nevermind, the band sound incredible, the recording does too, and even Kurt's vocals are pretty together, the crowd goes apeshit between songs, and rightfully so, witnessing a band totally hitting their stride, and for a band prone to falling apart live, just utterly destroying.
For folks who don't necessarily watch music videos, the cd should be plenty, but we'd have to recommend getting the dvd too, as there was some crazy shit going on (Kurt being rolled on stage in a wheelchair wearing a hospital gown), hilarious between song banter, some equipment destruction and other stuff worth seeing, that was edited out of the recording for the proper release.
Essential for Nirvana fans, and if you need some convincing as to the merits of Nirvana, check out some of the other reviews elsewhere on the aQ website, and we'll do our very best to convince you that Nirvana were indeed one of the best bands EVER.
Been trying to figure out what to write about this for a while now. Every time I sit down to write it, I feel like I'm trying to write a euology for an old friend. Which should speak volumes. We knew this was coming. And man, were we excited. And it is not a disappointment in any way. If anything, it's more than we could have hoped for. See, everyone loves Nirvana. Everyone. Those of you who say you don't are just trying to be c'ool'. Sort of like the people who talk about how the Beatles suck. The Beatles did not suck. They wrote more perfect pop songs than any band in the history of rock and roll. Nirvana also don't suck. And are also responsible for some of the best songs ever. It's not cool to pretend you don't like Nirvana. Not at all. In fact, it's unbelievably UNCOOL. Why deny yourself some of the most important, visceral music of the last 15 years? Because it gets played on MTV? Because jocks blast "Smells Like Teen Spirit" after the big game? Nope, sorry. Not good enough.
Nirvana were one of those bands we could all love. Heavy enough to appeal to headbangers, raucous enough to still be punk, but equipped with a pop sense unrivalled, and thus able to whip out the most beautifu pop song in the world without a second thought -- usually sandwiched between two swirling snarling blasts of stage destroying chaotic rrroooaaaar. But that's part of what was so charming about Nirvana. Even when they were huge, they acted like you or me. Stupid jokes, smashing guitars, unlikely covers, ripped jeans and t-shirts and greasy long hair. It was like your pal or your older brother was snatched out of your suburban hellhole of a life and made a rock star. And how could you not love that (once you got over wishing it was you)? Which also goes to why it was such a blow when Kurt Cobain died. I literally cried. At the time I remember thinking "Why the fuck am I crying." I mean, it's not like he was a friend of mine or something. But he was something special. To me. To everyone I know. And Nirvana was something special. Our generation's Beatles? Maybe. But definitely the most important band of the nineties. Responsible for reshaping popular music, killing off hair metal, and giving us music that would be the soundtrack to our lives: breakups, mixtapes, road trips, broken hearts, life and death, fucking and fighting. Sounds like hyperbole but it's really not. This band was and is really important to me, and millions of other folks. Which is pretty remarkable. After the death of Cobain, and after getting over the sheer sadness and loss, one could not help but think about all the amazing music and the songs that would now never be written. Callous maybe, but the music is what made us love him/them. Their recent greatest hits disc offered us the unreleased "You Know You're Right", which was at the time the greatest thing we could've heard, a song as good as any of their others, seemingly pulled from the ether. And now we have this. A collection of what is supposedly everything. or at least everything worth releasing. And it is absolutely fantastic. I literally got all teary listeing to this, and the DVD had me all choked up as well. Can't remember the last time a record did that to me.
So, what's on it? If you're like me, it hardly matters. Just knowing that it's stuffed to the gills with rare and unreleased Nirvana songs and I'm sold. If you need more than that, here goes. Don't sell back your greatest hits though, "You Know You're Right" only appears here as a solo acoustic recording from 1994. This version may not rock as hard, but it is a lot more intense and personal. The box is basically in chronological order, so disc one is definitely gonna hit the spot for those of us (like Allan) who loved Bleach the best. Demos and acoustic tracks and live on the radio, this is all Holy Grail sort of stuff. Live versions of Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and "Moby Dick" done in suitably ramshackle chaotic Nirvana style. Live versions and demos of tracks that would show up on Bleach. But by far the most exciting tracks are the unreleased songs. "White Lace And Strange", "Help Me I'm Hungry", "Mrs. Butterworth", "Grey Goose", "Token Eastern Song" and more. Disc two has less unreleased tracks but lots of alternate versions of tracks from future records, as well as loads of b-sides (their split with the Jesus Lizard, maybe one of the best Nirvana songs ever) and covers (Wipers!) and a big ol' chunk of solo acoustic versions of classic tracks that sound even more intense and harrowing performed sans band. Disc three brings us close to the end. A handful of demos and more solo acoustic versions of songs you already know and love. Highlights include the track "Sappy" which was a secret track on a benefit compliation and was originally titled "Verse Chorus Verse" and is another of their best curiously relegated to being hidden uncredited at the end of a random comp ("Train In Vain" anyone?). Also "Marigold", the only Nirvana song sung by Dave Grohl, an obscure b-side, that hints at Grohl's Foo Fighter future. A sweet and jangly Vaselines cover and more. The set ends with a solo acoustic version of "All Apologies" and if you hadn't gotten all emotional yet, this one will definitely do it to you.
The DVD is pretty amazing as well and adds to the whole feeling of Kurt being an old friend who passed away. Mostly home movies, the first chunk is a party / rehearsal in Krist's mom's house and features the band rocking out in a panelled, carpeted basement, while various rockers sit around drinking beer. Cute and sad, and funny and sort of remarkable how amazing they were as a band even so early on. The rest of the DVD is made up of various tracks filmed live in various locations, from small clubs to huge arenas. Lots of hilarious onstage banter, lots of drum kit destroying, and lots of powerfully off kilter versions of all of the best Nirvana songs.
Beautifully packaged in an oversized hardcover book, on the front an embossed metal plate featuring the band in their Sunday best, as if they were at a funeral. Or a wake. Because as sad as this is, and as much as this makes us miss someone we felt we knew as well as our best friend, and a band who meant more to us than almost any in our memory, under the circumstances, we couldn't be happier.
In the ongoing uncovering of recordings from Hermann Nitsch's actionist orchestrations, the Huntertmark Gallery in Cologne, Germany has released 7.Sinfonie from the massive Nitsch archives. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no information to be found as
Hermann Nitsch might just rank as one of our favorite modern composers, his pieces being huge atonal drone works for orchestras, accompanied by bloody 'aktions', with performers dressed all in white, or nude, faux crucifixions and gallons and gallons of bovine blood. It's precisely the disturbing dramatic elements of Nitsch's aktions that have kept him from ever performing in the US.
A few of his here have gotten pretty obsessed with Nitsch, his recordings always super limited and notoriously difficult to track down, one aQuarian (we're looking at you Andee!) even owns several of boxsets containing complete aktions, which result in upwards of 50 cds.
Like his live aktions, every release is a spectacle, Die Geburt Des Dionysos Christos is no different. Released by the always amazing Vinyl On Demand label, which means outrageous and over the top packaging, this time, it's a gorgeous silk screened and hand stained wooden box, with a hinged top, inside, three lps, each in a deluxe printed sleeve, also a massive gorgeously printed booklet, thick textured paper, metallic inks, the whole nine yards. It would be worth it even if the lps were blank and it was just the object. But thankfully, there is music, but unlike the grand scale aktions, the recordings here are much more intimate. Minimal drone organ recordings, some captured live in a cathedral, others recorded on the organ at his private castle (!) in Austria.
We only got two, probably can't get more. Fans of extreme and mysterious sounds will be blown away, it looks amazing, sounds fantastic, it even smells great, the box and the ink and the printed sleeves, so recommended. And so worth the hefty price tag.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Oh shit. It appears that the Cortical Foundation will be reissuing the complete Hermann Nitsch's "Harmoniumwerk," which totals 40 volumes. Released four volumes at a time, this looks like it may end up being 10 double cds! While Hermann Nitsch is known mostly as the Vienna Aktionist who specialized in perfomances of ritualized bloodletting, his musical accompaniments to his performances have often revealed an incredibly developed aesthetic of dynamic dissonance balanced against subtle droning passages. The "Harmoniumwerk" series stands out from all of the Nitsch recordings, as not being made in conjunction with his performative productions. Nitsch describes this work, "In 1968, I got a harmonium as a wedding present from my wife. From then on, I sat at the harmonium and played almost exclusively long notes that never wanted to end. I tried to listen into the infinite structure of the stars, into the unimaginable spaces searching for sound. The joy of beautiful colors, of (almost intoxicating) combinations of sound was most important but at the same time it was carried by the almost presumptuous task to conjure, to sing of, and measure the extent of cosmic space. The course of the stars were to be put to sound."
The Hermann Nitsch "Harmoniumwerk" certainly rivals (and often surpasses) the magnificient tonal quality of such '60s drone suprematists as Charlemagne Palestine and LaMonte Young.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
First actual, non cd-r, cd release from this mysterious one man ambient doomy un-black metal band. Like all of the EEE and related bands, Njiqahdda are tough to describe, black metal is the source and the root of their sound, but what is done to that sound, how it is twisted and processed and effected, the arrangement, the production, the recording, are all as important to the sound as the sound itself.
Like the last Njiqahdda record, this one is all about repetition, the riffs and parts looped over and over, the drums locked into rhythms that often stretch the length of the song barely wavering. But like that record, the sound here is fantastic, alien - sure there's the requisite buzz and blast, the distortion and growled guttural vox, but they are twisted into truly strange shapes. The guitar, the main riff, is blurred and murky, turned into a throbbing pulsing drone as much as an actual riff, occasionally stripped down to an almost indie rock like jangle. The drums, programmed and machinelike, offer up a framework for the various elements to hang on, the vocals too are heavily effected, a blown out howl, that sometimes transforms into what sounds like radio interference. And like most tracks, there is always one element that makes everything else seem downright normal, here it's the cymbals, which stutter and hiccup, like they're super processed, or perhaps they're just recorded so hot, that they cause the tape heads to malfunction, either way, it sounds amazing, and sort of like some blackened Chain Reaction record. So for half of the first track's 16 minutes, these elements loop and shift sucking the listener in, mesmerizing with its trancelike groove. At which point the track pauses, before relaunching, this time with thick streaks of distorted melody, and soaring sort-of-leads, blown out Nadja-like majesty, before the distortion and buzz is pulled back, revealing the murky strummy underbelly of the song, leaving just drums and jangly guitar, and a layer of distorted hiss, peppered with weird percussive throbs and dropouts, which only add to the track's weirdness.
And so goes the rest of the record. Loooooong tracks. The riffing so hot and blown out and in the red, that the various distortions and crumbling tape hiss, add a whole other element to the sound. The drums buried in the mix, the cymbals acidic and hissy, sometimes washing out all the sounds around it, other times bathing the main riff in a shower of sizzle, the guitars white hot, slipping from blinding and effulgent to blackened and falling to pieces, what sounds like keyboards, smeared streaks of buzz and drone, deep fuzzy bass, harsh vokills, all the various elements going through various stages of distortion and decomposition, doused in effects and processing, recorded in such a way, that they often don't sound like guitars, or drums, or vocals at all. Each song a series of blackened riffy drones, long stretches of clean shimmer, of lilting jangle, of stumbling dizzying abstraction, even longer stretches of looped mesmerizing buzz, but always run through with lilting melodies, buried hooks, subtly catchy, blissed out and black. A record as much about riffs and beats as it is about sound and timbre, texture and mood, a dreamy blissy blackened dronescape of buzz, blur, loop rhythm and ambience, twisting its unblackness into something haunting and hypnotic and unforgettable.
It's been a while since we've listed any UNblack metal, the twisted Christian variant of the more traditionally heathen black strain of metal that we hold so near and dear to our black withered hearts. But as longtime readers of the aQ list no doubt know by now, we LOVE unblack metal, not necessarily for the message (we don't love black metal for its message either), but instead, the sound of unblack metal is so far out, so far removed from the tired tropes of BM, not sure if it's divine inspiration, or just the particular group of unblack metallers we tend to be drawn to, but it seems like the unblack tends to be weirder and more warped than the black in most cases, and thus, we've found ourselves looking to the UNdark side for that which our musical soul yearns for.
This latest slab of abstract experimental UNblackness, comes courtesy of aQ faves Njiqahdda, which just so happens to be the work of the man behind a bunch of other aQ unblack faves including Light Shall Prevail, Agathothodion, Glaciial and others. Which already meant this was gonna be some seriously experimental, evocative buzzing brilliance. Which it is, we're happy to report, but much has changed, the sound here is much prettier, much more stripped down, with less of an emphasis on buzz and blast, and more on mood and texture, ambience and emotion.
The epic 15 minute opener, is all jangly clean guitar, and wild drumming, at least in the beginning, the song soon explodes into something much more black, but after the initial burst, it sort of smoothes out, and instead of being crushing and punishing, it's hypnotic and mesmerizing, there are still harsh vocals, but the buzz is smoothed out, and the melody is lilting and melancholic, not hard to imagine this song could be stripped down to a gorgeous hazy drone, without losing to much of it's actual form and structure. The follow up skips the buzz entirely, and offers up a bit of dreamy, slightly gothic indie jangle, a sort of sweetly minor key post rock, wrapped in a light haze of shimmery ambience.
The next two tracks look back to the opener, both lengthy drone drenched black metal jams, with that muted buzz, tangled guitar harmonies, and super catchy melodies, both, even at their heaviest, manage to remain poppy and melodic, that blend, and the push and pull between light and dark, is what makes those tracks so emotional and powerful.
The closing track is an extended dronescape of whirling haze, shimmering high end, and deep cavernous rumbles, it almost sounds like a field recording set to music, one can almost visualize, the epic forests, the moon reflecting off the water, the glimmer of starlight on the frost covered branches, quite beautiful, and a fitting finish to a strangely beautiful batch of buzzing washed out unblack post metal.
Okay, c'mon, the band is called No Balls, it's one of the guys from the mother fucking Brainbombs, and he's doing some sort of damaged lo-fi super distorted, doomy, looped, hypnotic, lo-fi metallic krautpunk. What more do you need to know?!
All of the basic BB elements are present, except maybe the trumpet, or the vocals. Which means two blasts of all instrumental hypnofuzz dirgery. The A side is all downtuned and fuzzed out and Sabbathy and way doomy, with a killer main riff, the whole thing simple and stripped down and plodding, but with some awesome (and awesomely freaked out) strangled stumbling angular guitar counterpoint, some serious Black Flagged, Greg Ginn-ed six string super distorto gnarl. Noisy and chaotic and fragmented, while that main riff just goes gloriously on and on and on and on...
The B side offers up another locked and looped riff, this time lumbering along beneath a super distorted wall of crumbling sound, the rhythm motorik and sort of abstract, while over the top ANOTHER guitar, dense and downtuned unfurls a buzz drenched slow motion minor key melody, while very much like the A side, that original riff pounds away unwaveringly.
So awesome. Bummer that it's so limited, only 187 copies, we got almost a quarter of those, but they're already flying. Simple orange and blue hand numbered silkscreened covers, on thick orange vinyl with hand stamped labels.
What?! Aquarius picked a No Doubt release as a Record Of The Week? And it's a best-of type thing? What gives?
We're sure that's what a lot of you out there are thinking. Others, maybe, already are aware of what most 14-year old girls know -- No Doubt actually are pretty great. Some songs of theirs anyway. Heck, even some of my 34 year old friends into psych-folk and minimal electronic improv and black metal or whatnot will admit that No Doubt have some good songs. Which of course you'll find here, this being a singles collection after all! But it's the non-believers to whom this review is dedicated, those of you know don't know Gwen Stefani from ____________ [insert name of tennis pro or microorganism or something], and/or think that a 'best of' No Doubt is a concept not unlike a serious book devoted to the wit and wisdom of George W. Bush. So that's why we're recommending this brand new greatest hits type disc for you all. See, we're not trying to make you buy an actual No Doubt album, with all the filler that such top 40 products usually contain -- I don't have one of those either. But, after being around for like 17 years, they've got enough great singles to make one hell of an album, and this is it right here. You get the goodies from their last elpee Rock Steady (the irresistable "Hey Baby" produced by reggae legends Sly And Robbie, featuring the amazing Bounty Killer toasting over the break! and the just as catchy "Hella Good" produced by Nellee Hooper), plus of course their anthem "Just A Girl" from their star-making 1995 album Tragic Kingdom, Andee's favorite No Doubt song "Spiderwebs" with it's loping almost ballady verse and bouncing rollicking double time chorus, and their latest hit "It's My Life" (a Talk Talk cover! but re-done with fuzzed out bassbin rattling low end synth lines that make the song sound even better). And more, 15 tracks in all, many of them #1 hits. And for good reason. These songs fucking rule. If you can get past the aversion we all have to MTV fodder and Entertainment Weekly gossip and focus on just the music, No Doubt are pretty kick ass. So, even if you never thought you'd own a No Doubt album, or even an album by *any* band with a ska-punk background, just stop pretending and admit you like 'em and get this. You'll feel better (we did). And yes, there's the total teen heartache emotional button-pushing and an abundance of sleek candy apple pouts, but beneath the high gloss finish they've retained plenty of personality and a will of their own to make some damn infectious, well-crafted, smartly detailed pop songs. At the root of it all though, one of the best things about them is that they still burst with youthful exuberance, and this is more than evident in each of these singles. So c'mon, stop being snotty, you know you were secretly psyched when "Hey Baby" would come on in the supermarket, And if you were alone in the car, you know you cranked up "Hella Good" and sang along until the dude in the next car caught you. Oh. You didn't? Well you should! We do!
These days noise pop bands are a dime a dozen. And we could count the number of shoegaze bands popping up on one hand, if that hand had about thousands fingers, and to be fair, it's a sound we love, and so in many cases, we can be less than discerning, we just love hearing those thick coruscating guitars, the soaring melodies, the lush walls of sound, spaced out and dreamy and fuzzy and buzzy and blissy. So what is it exactly that makes a band stand out from the pack? Songs, sure, you can't be a pop band of any stripe without songs. But it's more than that. Something ineffable. Songs sure, and the sound, of course, but just as importantly there are a handful of intangibles that all have to fall into place perfectly. Or at least perfectly IMperfectly. And more often than not, it's not something that can be created consciously. All a band can really do, is to follow their hearts, create the sound they hear in their heads, and try their best to realize that sound, to render that sound in all the glorious shades and colors and textures it needs to become more than just music, to transcend and become something magical, something special.
And that happens more than one might think, or expect, enough monkeys with typewriters as the saying goes, or in this case enough punk rock kids with guitars and a 4 track. Most recently it was the amazing record by Bay Area outfit Weekend, whose record captured everything we love about this sound, and now there's this, the debut full length from female fronted shoegaze noisepoppers No Joy, which moniker be damned, is about the most gloriously joyful record we've heard in ages.
In some ways, No Joy's Ghost Blonde is the perfect compliment to that Weekend record, a distinctly feminine variation of the same formula, the overall sound is more dreampoppy and hazy, the vocals ethereal and ephemeral and is the perfect counterpoint to the bands thick wall of sound, infusing clean guitar jangle, a distinctly nineties indie rock vibe, all wound into a pretty perfect chunk of pure pop JOY.
If you're anything like us, it should only take about the first 60 seconds of album opener "Mediumship" thick crunchy jangle guitar wrapped in a field of wild tangled feedback, the vocals drifty and pretty, and then when the song kicks in, we're totally transported, crunchy, fuzzy, hooky, heavy, shoegazey-y, plenty of ooooh's and aaaaah's, the sort of song you never want to end, and that you'll find yourself playing over and over and over. Which pretty much applies to every track here.
There are definitely some broodier moments, and some abstract psychedelic ambient drift, even some slightly atonal Sonic Youth inspired guitar tangle, but those elements are smoothly woven into the group's hazy, softly noisy, girl groupish, crunchy, jangly shoegazey dream pop bliss.
Definite contender for pop record of the year, and a record which will no doubt send lots of folks scrambling to redo their prematurely finished year end lists! Rightfully so!
Brand new ep from these aQ beloved noise pop shoegazers, and we have to say, we were thrown for a loop at first, as the first 90 seconds of opener "Last Boss" was stripped down and minimal, low slung bass throb, clipped drum skitter, ethereal vox, a new sound, but one we were sort of digging, but then at about a minute in, there's a weird stutter step and in swoop the guitars, and suddenly we're back in No Joy's blown out, distorted drenched dreaminess, those angelic vocals soaring over the top, practically perfect. "Starchild Is Dead" offers up more of the same, slowing things down to something a bit more dirgey, the guitars even more distorted, crumbling through the speakers, and buried beneath that crumble, soaring arcs of melancholic melody, and after a weird drum break, the vocals drift in, the song immediately transformed into some heavy, heavy shoegaze, that could, and should go on forever. Closer "Second Spine" is another stripped down sprawl of minimal jangle pop, this time, the shoegaze is more implied, the wall of guitars never arrives, instead, the rhythms skitter, the guitars shimmer and drift, and multiple vocals are woven into utterly dreamlike harmonies. We love this band so much, and three songs is definitely not enough, especially, when all told, they add up to about 11 minutes, but it's a pretty fantastic 11 minutes, that will have to hold us over until the impending full length, that we can only hope is coming soon...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered, includes a download code too!
The label goes on and on about how this latest No Neck Blues Band record is a watershed moment, a defining release in their oeuvre, a new sound, a clarity of vision never heard before on past releases, but we have to say we simply don't agree. At this point NNCK are in a privileged position, one they most assuredly earned, a position of power for sure. They just do what they do, theirs a sound that borrows from many sources, but that is distilled into something utterly unique, so yeah, they do what they do, but they do it better than ANYONE else. Period. Maybe that's what the label was actually trying to say before they got bogged down in artspeak. Regardless, this is another fantastic NNCK missive, one that sprawls across lots of genres and sounds, but manages to stay together by force of will and the innate talent of the players who have been honing their craft in this setting, with these players for nearly 15 years. And it shows.
The record begins like the rock band equivalent of an orchestra tuning up, guitars twang and detune, percussion clanks and thumps, everything drifts aimlessly, but as the track progresses, the various pieces seem to slowly flow together, a female voices surfaces, and croons over the settling chaos beneath, eventually leaving the chaos to sort itself out, a bit like a more serene forest folk combo, accordions wheeze (or is that a harmonica), guitars shimmer and squiggle, the drummer offers up washes of cymbals and eventually a slow simple stripped down groove, and without even realizing it, the whole mood and sound has shifted, and we're in some twangy meandering moody krautrock slowjam, that builds gradually to a seriously psychedelic crescendo, before the next track explodes with a flurry of skronky horns and maniacal vocalizing (a la Yoko), and woozy slide guitar, that track eventually builds to a strange sort of jazz metal blowout, pounding drums, growled demonic vocals, the slide still slithering all over and those Yoko like vocals still going crazy, definitely the toughest track on the disc. But maybe the most interesting.
The rest of the disc slips seamlessly from slow burning outrock sprawl, to propulsive space rock groove, to super minimal scrape and thunk, to wah wah guitar drenched soft pop balladry, to glimmering abstract free jazz freakout, to super tripped out psych rock weirdness, to gorgeous swirling soft focus dronemusic, but the thing is, within those various sounds, NNCK, twist everything all up, adding all kinds of sonic detritus, haunting noises, mysterious rumbles, ghostly voices, droning buzz, swirling ambience, adding extra layers, uncomfortable harmonies, taking perfectly pretty melodies and pulling them apart, in lesser hands, the whole structure would crumble, but NNCK possess only greater hands, perfect to hold it all together, and shape and stretch and form those sounds into something distinctly and utterly No Neck.
We've noticed that in lots of our reviews we make reference to the No Neck Blues Band. Assuming, of course, everyone would know exactly what we were talking about. But then we discovered that we had only really reviewed two of their previous records, one with only a single sentence! Certainly, it seems, not enough to warrant so many comparisons. What neglect for a band to whom we constantly refer! But this dearth of reviews is mostly due to the scarcity and limited nature of most of their releases. Currently, there is only one double cd available, a reissue of a release from a few years back as well as a sort-of-bootleg lp. And now this new vinyl package.
For us at AQ, the name No Neck Blues Band has become synonymous with the sort of stumbling/free/improv/space/psych/drum-circle/hippy/tribal free jams that we love so much (Avarus, Kemialliset Ystevat, Anaksimandros, Thuja, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Jackie O Motherfucker, etc.). NNBB is a loose collective of hippies, shamans, musicians and hangers on that seem to be able to effortlessly conjure up wild, free and totally mesmerising jams reminiscent of the ESP Records roster, the thudding primitve, dirge-psych of German Oak, and the spaced out psychedelic krautrock of Amon Duul. In the past we described their sound as "loose & stumbling, trippy neo-kraut, free 'sort-of-jazz' improvised jams, drunken drones and hypnotic hums" and that sound hasn't changed too much. If anything it's gotten a little poppier, albeit in the loosest sense of the term, and a little more structured. But it's still some of the best transcendental, tribal, droning, rhythmic, hypnotic free sort-of-rock we've ever heard. NNBB have never been ones to skimp on packaging and this time around is no different: a thick slab of vinyl housed in a gorgeous, cloth bound lp sleeve (like an old hardcover book) with embossed text and pasted-on image on the cover. Also comes with a bonus 7" from a 'related' group called Mount Analog, although to my eras, the two songs on the 7" fit perfectly with the sounds on the lp. Also comes with two pages of NNBB rants. Curious and typically indecipherable.
A bit price-y for sure, but as with all NBBB releases, it's limited, will soon be out of print, and considering how little of their stuff is readily available, fans of all of the above mentioned bands as well as folks into all things tribal/hippy/pschedelic will be kicking themselves if they miss out.
It's been a surprisingly prolific and action packed few months for the otherwise NOT-prolific and as-underground-as-can-be No Neck Blues Band. Good for us. And them too I guess. First was the super elaborate and expensive Ever Borneo lp/7" we listed a few weeks back as well as a super limited live lp and the reissue of one of their old double cds. This week brings a reissue of their out of print Revenant cd and this here brand new full length. Phew. Must have run out of weed or something. What else could explain such productivity?! No Neck Blues Band, for those just tuning in, are a loose collective of East Coast noisemakers (whose members also do time in AQ faves Sunburned Hand Of The Man as well as AQ not-faves Suntanama) who are the ultimate in hippy-psych-trance-free-drone-folk. Taking liberally from classic Krautrock, seventies folk, free jazz, and noise rock, NNBB have a knack for turning all of these disparate elements into smooth and cohesive, rhythmic and hypnotic, and totally fucking gorgeous free-jams. This new record may just be their best yet. Dreamy and drone-y and completely mesmerising. Washed out tones stretch out over rickety frameworks of hand drums and simple percussion, bells and chimes, while guitars tentatively weave their way through the murk, leaving trails of wispy melody and shimmery thrum. Propulsive rhythms struggle under a dense fog of thick chords and moaning synthesizers while delicately strummed guitars flit from note to note, weaving a lush and soul soothing soundscape. Hippy tendencies are downplayed throughout, resulting in a way more cohesive, way more 'musical' offering than No Neck's usual hippy-trance-caveman-freakouts (which I love, don't get me wrong). Fans of classic and modern krautrock, Finnish psych-folk (Avarus, Kemialliset, etc.), Jewelled Antler, and all things drone and clatter should buy this NOW.
MPEG Download: "Witch" [/audio/noneckwitch.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Witch" [/audio/noneckwitch.m3u]
MPEG Download: "Open That Grass Can" [/audio/noneckopen.mp3]
It came as a bit of a surprise to realise that we've never listed the No Neck Blues Band before, especially considering how often we reference them in reviews, whenever we're trying to describe some sort of stumbling and stoned, improvised hippie tribal
Yup, that is a nod to Model 500's classic "NO UFO's" - one of the few techno trax from the mid '80s that can legitimately qualify as being timeless. The project that has taken this name is authored by Vancouver's electronica wunderkind Konrad Jandavs, who's caught in not one, but two parallel timewarps - one fixated on the kraut / motorik oscillations of Harmonia, Neu!, and Conrad Schnitzler and the other on a lo-fi adaptation of the avant-electronica circa 1993 especially Autechre and Main. All of which are great sonic signposts on their own; but thrust together in a mottled collage, the results are kaleidoscopically discombobulating. The cheap drum machine marching beneath an expository synthdrone noodle akin to J.D. Emmanuel on "Evidence / Century Park" leads into the acid reflux of "Vertigo (K. Alexi)" seeking the same influences that spawned Aphex and Autechre. The hypno-riff from Jandavs' guitar on "00/00/2010" with scrabbled electronic drone and oscillation is structurally identical to what Robert Hampson was going for on his awesome Main album Hydra-Calm (now, there's an album in need of a reissue!). For all of its genre-hopping bricolage, Soft Coast is a very self-assured album and one that fits rather nicely amidst the retro-garde agenda promoted by John Elliott's Spectrum Spools imprint.
After years of desperately tracking down bootlegs, of ordering low quality cd-r's on eBay, of watching grainy YouTube clips and lamenting the ridiculous dearth of proper recordings, we're so happy that Bear Family has finally stepped up to give this country shoulda-been-superstar his due. But before we get into it, and before all you country haters skip to the next review, give the samples below a listen, specifically "Psycho", which gives this collection its title, easily one of the best country songs EVER. Certainly the most twisted and misanthropic. The story of the song's singer, singing to his mama, about how he killed his ex, her new beau, the dog, their son, the little girl next door (with a wrench by the way!), the song culminating in the realization that the singer was singing the whole time to his dead mother, who we can only assume he also killed. WTF?? But beyond being creepy and a little bit demented, it's also a gorgeous song, the guitar playing understated and perfect, the vocals heartfelt and dramatic, the song laced with all manner of little sonic filigree, it's hard for us to envision a more perfect country song. Sure there were plenty of murder ballads before, but this one takes the cake. But then there's the follow up, "Dolores", which finds the singer crooning to his wife, suggesting that she stay in the house, because there's a killer wandering the streets murdering women, and apparently Dolores is just the sort of woman he preys on, and again, at the end of the song, the singer is called to identify the body, not realizing that he killed his wife, and ending with him chastising his deceased wife, if only she had stayed inside. Crazy stuff, even now, but back in the day, this stuff was even more shocking. And while the majority of Eddie Noack's music wasn't nearly so demented, those two songs, "Psycho" especially, ended up being the songs he was mostly remembered for.
Which is a shame too, cuz he could have / should have been a country superstar, he wrote hits for Hank Snow (whose Omni reissue we reviewed a while back), all sorts of big country names recorded his songs, Lefty Frizell, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, his songs are AMAZING, and heck, he didn't even actually write "Psycho", but his is most definitely THEE definitive version, sadly, like many of the country greats, Noack's story is a sad one, and one that is explored in great detail in the liner notes (like all Bear Family reissues, the booklet is massive, like reading a mini book!), besides the usual hard luck story of general bad luck, constantly being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and success so close he could taste it, constantly just outside his grasp, there was of course problems with alcohol, which eventually led to him drinking himself to death, not to mention that BOTH his fourth wife and his mother committed suicide by shooting themselves in the heart. Wow, heavy stuff. And yet, he persevered, working in the song-poem industry (can you imagine having had Eddie Noack turn your poem into a song?!?!), eventually recording tons of tracks for a succession of tiny labels, and amongst those in the know, becoming a country / honky tonk icon. There is another Bear Family collection released recently, that focuses on his early tracks (which we can order for you if you like, it's a triple cd so it's kinda extra pricey), but this is the one that collects our favorite songs, the ones he recorded for K-Ark and Allstar in the mid to late sixties, and which of course include both "Psycho" and "Dolores". Yet as much as we love those songs, and those two tracks are ABSOLUTELY worth the price of admission alone, there's so much other great stuff here. Folks who collect Omni reissues, this easily could have been one of the best Omni reissues, in fact, we meant to email Omni, and try to get them to do a Noack compilation, cuz again, this is some of the best country music EVER. Besides "Psycho" and "Dolores", there's "Invisible Stripes" which is a fantastic song, but was the B-side to "Psycho" and thus got a little overshadowed. There's "Barbara Joy" which is another gem, and another track with morbid lyrics, sung, we can only assume from a man on death row, accused of rape, asking his mistress to admit that she was a willing participant in their tryst, to save him from death. Wow. But on the surface, it's pure classic country. And so it goes, the Johnny Cash like "Cotton Mill", the mournful ballad "The End Of The Line", plus lots of drinking songs of course, "Sleeping Like A Baby (With A Bottle In My Mouth)", "Beer Drinkin' Blues", not to mention some early tracks that feature Noack's song poem work, and even the songs the liner notes admit to not being so good, are in fact pretty great. But really, come for the "Psycho", the "Dolores", the "Barbara Joy", and stay for the rest. We were SO excited that there was finally a proper Eddie Noack collection, and we've been listening to nothing but. And even if country's not your thing, know that over the years, "Psycho" has been covered by all sorts of folks, including Elvis Costello and the Cramps! Noack's songs (and his cover of "Psycho" especially) almost transcending genre, classic twisted songsmithery, that has made some of these songs obsessions of ours for years!
The Bear Family packaging is fantastic, housed in a full color digipak, with a huge booklet affixed to the inside, tons of rare photos, interviews, lyrics, and creepy new artwork by artist Reinhard Kleist, on the cover, and inside, illustrating both "Psycho" and "Dolores". So totally and utterly recommended. Reissue of the year hands down!!!
Oh, and if you're a vinyl only type, well, this just on cd, but we do also have a tiny, tiny handful of the Eddie Noack 7" single that Bear Family put out along with this, featuring "Psycho" on the A side and "Dolores" on the flip, just FYI.
If our review of Noctum's 2010 debut The Seance boiled down to saying this Swedish band's '70s-sounding Sabbath/Pentagram worship was definitely highly recommended to all Witchcraft fans ('cause it sounded a heck of a lot like aQ faves Witchcraft), then this time around, with their new album Final Sacrifice, we must recommend 'em to all fans of their new labelmates, In Solitude. 'Cause Noctum have added a BIG dose of Mercyful Fate to their sonic equation - which means, rather than Witchcraft, they now remind us more of In Solitude, or even Ghost. A lot of it has to do with the vocals, with their newfound wailing King Diamond-ish affectations (including the high falsetto, and horror story lyrics), which don't sound nearly as much like Magnus from Witchcraft as they used to. Instead, yeah, he sounds something like the guys from Ghost and In Solitude. There's also a Mercyful Fate riff or two hinted at in these songs for sure.
We don't want to accuse 'em of following trends, but have to admit it looks a little suspicious. In Solitude and Ghost, both displaying big Mercyful Fate influences, are of course two of Sweden's currently hippest/hottest hard rock exports right now, right? But it could just be a coincidence. And in any case, what does it matter? Nobody was accusing Noctum of being all that original in the first place. What's important, is, will you dig the tunes? And you will, if you like this sort of retro riffy occult metal action, a la In Solitude of course. Plus, Noctum DO still have plenty of the '70s/Sabbath/Witchcraft thing going on too, in fact, one song is progged out enough to feature flute, and it ends up being a pretty cool combo, Black Sabbath meets Mercyful Fate (or Witchcraft meets In Solitude), nothing wrong with that!! Also if you found the latest In Solitude to be "not metal enough" for you, this won't have that problem, they don't (yet) do the goth-rock thing. But they do mix in some possible other inspirations - there's a rollicking-ness to some of this that makes us think they've been listening to Southern/boogie rock like the Allman Brothers, Ram Jam or Pat Travers (!), and heck, any band that can make us reference both King Diamond and Ram Jam, we approve!
When the Siltbreeze label isn't digging up archival rarities from the golden age of New Zealand underground rock, they're still delivering plenty of modern day murk, including this dark and dingy gem from Johnny Noise, a member of Mexican garage dirge weirdos Los Llamarada (who we've somehow never reviewed on the aQ list before). His solo joint The Day Is Coming is a glorious sprawl of creeping sonic ooze, fuzzy primitive guitar gristle, motorik, robotic rhythms, a sort of slowed down psych rock, melting before your very ears into something sludgey and druggy, while Johnny's wasted croon drifts above in a cloud of hazy reverb and crumbling FX, sounding a bit like Suicide or Chrome by way of some sweaty, poorly ventilated dive bar, total DIY what-the-fuck drug-dirge, garage-punk, alien-psych weirdness of the highest order. Lots of the tracks unwind like freaky alternate universe karaoke blooze, others are dense tangles of experimental avant garage wooziness, and still others sound like homemade mad scientist caveman psych, bedroom-brewed, drug fueled, lo-fi, droned out and dementedly damaged. Fucked up and confusionally fantastic. WAY recommended for fans of weirdo outsider avant psychedelia, and twisted, experimental garage rock damage.
Includes a download code as well!
It's a little difficult to consider Noisegate a metal band. Although their live persona, which features lots of slow motion headbanging while they hold down various keys on their samplers, clearly gives reason to peg them as metallers, a careful
After their caustic debut, "The Towers are Burning" (also on tUMULt), a record that explored an especially pummeling and punishing kind of ambience, Oakland based audio terrorists Noisegate abandoned the violent and corrosive clamor that peppered their first full length, and instead, created a dark and barren dronescape of ominous, slowly shifting deep resonance. Whirring and thunderous low end rumble underpins shimmering textures of glistening darkness and hazy tonal reverberations, grey and austere. "Suspended Animation" is a breathtaking arrangement of hum and buzz and chime. Stark and spatial, warm and mesmeric; feedback, voices, guitars, and bells are dismantled, reduced to tones and timbre, flowing like a murmering black river; bubbling up from a lost spring. A maudlin elegy, hypnotic and somber, funereal yet effulgent.
Reminiscient of the isolationist experiments and drone investigations of Lustmord, Organum, Zoviet France, Andrew Chalk, and Jonathan Coleclough.
So here's the deal. Nothing is heavy enough for you. Nothing is fast or furious enough. Hardcore techno, drill and bass, none of those offer up the beats you need, none of that stuff kicks your ass. And grindcore, no matter how heavy or fucked up or insane, is just not brutal enough. Sound about right?
Have you been loving the Drumcorps shit, did you go nuts for that Drum:Machinegun comp? A damaged and delirious hybrid of metal and spastic blown out beats what you're craving? Well have we got the thing for you.
Japanese duo Noism. Two dudes, a guitar and a drum machine. And all hyperbole aside, this is probably the most fucked up, furious and frenzied grindmetaltechnowhatthefuck you will ever hear. Imagine Drumcorps remixing Orthrelm, but then the results tossed in a computer, chopped up and spit out double time. Or along those same lines, take your favorite grind records and spastic drill and bass 12"s, throw those in that same computer, smash them to bits (and bytes) and then compress them all into 21 minutes of face melting tech(no) metal fury. There are no songs really, well there are, but they, super convoluted fucked up alien 'songs', no 'arrangements' (see: songs). Just lighting speed riffing, squiggly guitars all over the place, blasting 300+ bpm beats that stutter and skip and skitter, all tangled up into a blurred grinding metallic beat heavy onslaught, it sort of sounds like free jazz played by a malfunctioning drummachine and a robot guitarist set on shred. Like if you had some computer that was meant to emulate the music of any performer, and you entered Masayuki, Takayanagi and Mick Barr and Venetian Snares, and it overloaded the program and cause the mainframe to fail, but somehow it still spit out a result, it might sound a little like this, Which Is, as far as our iron ears are concerned, a very very good thing. Recommended, if you think you can handle it...
Imagine the Charlie Daniels Band jammin' with Emperor. Or rather, playing at the same time in adjoining practice rooms -- out in the forest. The ancient forests of the Ukraine, to be precise. That's where Nokturnal Mortum hail from. This is their third album. You may remember the big fuss we made over the amazing Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra disc last year? Well, Mr. Varggoth is the main guy in this band Nokturnal Mortum. With "NeChrist", he and his comrades have created a unique sound, one that combines a raw, roaring black metal attack with the pipes and fiddles and "yee-haws" of folk/country music, Ukrainian style. And, to make us AQ-ers enjoy this EVEN MORE, all of a sudden all the music will stop and the middle part of a track will be occupied by the croaking of frogs! And you know we like frogs and the noises they make. Similarily, the final song on the disc is preceded by 78 short (3 sec.) tracks of twittering birdsounds and forest ambience. Therefore, if you play the disc in "shuffle" mode, you get lots of cut-up bird calls mixed with the occasional actual fantastic Nokturnal Mortum song! The unanimous AQ black metal pick of this lunar month!! Brilliant. Yee-haw! (Recommended.)
There's very few comparisons to listening to Nokturnal Mortum. The Charlie Daniels Band jammin' with Emperor? Bizarre black metal hoedown? Some sort of line dancing campfire jamboree gone horribly horribly wrong? The unholy spawn of the grimmest black metal and a hauntingly festive medieval gypsy folk? Okay, so maybe there are more than a few comparisons, but they all tend to center around NM's unlikely country-gypsy-folk / black metal hybrid. Precisely what makes them so completely and bizarrely brilliant. This Ukranian horde unleash the ghost hounds and the battle commences with the sounds of galloping horses, strange battle horns, the strangled cries of wounded beasts, the clatter of steel on chain mail, sounds that continue throughout the entire record. It's almost like a field recording of some epic medieval battle, a mad dash through corpse strewn villages, with occasional bursts of black metal buzz from some random corpsepainted ghouls playing in the smoking rubble of a burnt and blackened tavern, or from within a copse of twisted trees, the metal soon drifts into the background as you head deeper into the forest, are farther out upon the battlefield. Nokturnal Mortum's particular take on black metal tends toward the buzzing midtempo gallop and lope, thick and gnarled and fuzzed out, a la Burzum, Graveland, Woodtemple, etc. But more often than not, these black bursts twist into unlikely shapes, blackened metallic jigs, strangely festive and rollicking but still razor sharp and dense with guitar buzz and ripping riffs, jubilant (yet still slightly ominous) gypsy stomps, but laced with spiky guitars and blasting drums. Most noticeable this time around are the extensive ambient interludes, swooshy, starlit night twinkle and shimmer, lush wooshes over tinkly melodies, almost new age-y at moments, but it's not long before you are felled once again by a sharp slab of utter blackness, or a rollicking jubilant mace to the temple, all part of the curious journey through Nokturnal Mortum's bizarrely blackened world.
While they last we have the super deluxe oversized hardcover book version (limited to 1000 copies), once we run out of those you'll get the regular jewel case version (which also happens to be cheaper!).
Elsewhere on this list you'll find our two favorite Nomeansno records, Wrong and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, both Records Of The Week, as they were destined to be, considering lots of us here consider those to be ALL time favorites, which makes it even weirder that some of those very same people had never even HEARD of Mama, also newly reissued.
Mama turns out to be the very first recordings from the brothers Wright, before they added a guitar player, total proggy mathy poppy rhythm section genius, even back then, in 1982! If you think Nomeansno sound weird by early nineties punk rock standards, imagine a band like that in Canada in the early eighties, playing local clubs or bars, people must have been very very confused. Cuz even in these early recordings, the band is pretty much fully formed, pulsing sinewy basslines, mathy complex drumming, and the same sort of strange sung spoken vocals, the same snarky vocals, but back then there was also a bunch of keyboards, which added another strange vibe to their sound. And the funk element was way more in play, a few tracks are definitely flat out funky, but even then, the band twist it all up into something unique, although nothing here is really punk rock exactly. It's a cool glimpse into the sounds and songs that would eventually get transformed into the post punk math prog juggernaut that NMN would eventually become.
We weren't sure what to think at first, but the more we listen to this, the more we're digging it. Tripped out, stripped down, sort of new wave. At least one of the tracks does get pretty fierce, and sounds like it could maybe be a demo for a track from the first record, "No Rest For The Wicked", fast and furious, buzzy, a little bit heavy, the bass already a force to be reckoned with, but then the track after sounds like some twisted cruise ship lounge band whatthefuck. Definitely confusing, but that's part of their charm.
The four bonus tracks are from a 7" that preceded the release of Mama, and feature guitar finally, as well as sax on one song, and an early version of "Forget Your Life" which would later show up in a different version on The Day Everything Became Nothing, but this is the raw, original lo-fi version, and again, it sounds surprisingly true to the final version, except for some wonky keyboards, that we almost wish they had included in the new version.
Cool stuff for sure, but definitely only for fans, mere dabblers should first pick up Wrong and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, but trust us, you shan't remain dabblers for long.
When reviewing a record you've had and treasured and loved for years, or decades, the pressure to do it justice is immense, so much so, that it seems almost impossible. But once in a while you gotta try. So here we go. Two of the MOST essential punk rock / post punk records ever, recently remastered and reissued, which gives us the opportunity to not only gush about records that have been on constant rotation since we were in our early twenties, records that totally changed the way we listened to music, but to also hopefully turn on the few folks who may have missed out, or who may not have even been alive when these records came out.
Nomeansno, from Canada, most folks know the name, but not everyone has actually heard these guys, but almost every single person we know who has, was never the same. The sound is super rhythmic and mathy, punk rock, but totally proggy as well, the focal point is on the bass and drums, manned by two brothers, Rob and John Wright, one of, if not THEE, tightest rhythm sections ever, the bass lines thick and throbbing and distorted, the drums chaotic but so tight and precise, the guitar, handled by a member who always remained unnamed - "Someone (but we're not sure who)" credited with "other things" on one record, or "none of your fucking business" on another - which is ironic cuz the guitar playing besides being BAD ASS was also so integral to the sound, they were a punk rock band after all. And the vocals, super high in the mix, dramatic, howled, crooned and yelped, melodic but raw and rough, sometimes sort of spoken, but always sharp tongued, spewing some of the best and funniest and intense lyrics. And as always, none of that would mean shit if the songs weren't great, and these songs are GREAT, so hooky and heavy and weird, a testament to these guys is that even the most obtuse tangled whatthefuck jam will stay lodged in your head forever.
Then there's the funky aspect, which we had planned to discuss at length, but listening to this again, the funkiness is implied, subtle, based entirely on the fact that almost all the songs are bass driven, and some are weirdly stripped down to just bass and drums and vocals, but this is not bullshit funky, this is elements of funk used the way they were meant to be, mixed into a churning, super complex, angular, jagged set of songs that manage to be both heavy and crushing and confusionally complex while still being poppy and hook filled and so goddamn catchy.
We tried to pick just one of these reissues to focus on, but eventually could only get it down to two, so both seemed like ideal candidates for Record Of The Week, especially considering that at least half of the folks here freaked the fuck out when we got these back in. We'll talk about each separately, but we have to suggest just buying both, you won't regret it, they're equally classic and timeless and heavy and catchy and far out and freaking awesome!
The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed is a compilation of sorts, collecting the album Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed from 1988 and The Day Everything Became Nothing 12" from that same year, but for most of us, these two have always been bundled together so The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed plays like one long, surprisingly cohesive record. And right out of the gate it's a killer, with the manic bass heavy groove of "The Day Everything Became Nothing", with crunchy guitar and over the top vocals, and a dense super tangled arrangement, and seconds after hearing it for the first time, we knew these guys were gonna be our new favorite band, and other punk rock bands were gonna have to step it up a notch. We could seriously go track by track, it's been long enough now that every single track here is seared into our brains, the kind of record where even the spaces between songs are part of the flow of the album, but we can definitely pick out a few highlights.
"Dark Ages" might just be one of our favorite songs ever, from its super mathy freaked out intro, to the loping hooky bass groove, the minimal guitar flourishes, the killer chorus, the super weird drum part, it's like some insane progged out punk rock opera crammed down into 5 minutes, just listen to the sound sample, if you're not smitten after this one, we might just have to give up on you! "And That's Sad" is a looping super complex rhythmic workout, with some cool, moody minor key breaks, that all gradually build right back up to the frenetic freakout that opened the track. If you slowed down "Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed", it would probably sound like Harvey Milk, a super spare, sludge-y stop start work out, that sounds like no other band at the time, or hell even now. "Victory" is a brooding drift of low slung bass, and muted tribal drumming, but as with all NMN, these long passages are separated by unbearably catchy choruses and here too, some tangled mathiness, that never seems showy or flashy or unreasonably complex, it's how these songs needed to sound, every part, no matter how weird or superfluous seeming, is perfectly places, and a few listens in no one could disagree. "Teresa, Give Me That Knife" is about as punk as these guys get, furious, frenetic, blasting drums, frantic guitars, with an insanely technical chorus, and a haunting creeped out prechorus, that is just as catchy as any other part of the track. And then there's "Real Love", most folks' favorite, a weird sort of heavy punk rock doom ballad, big crunchy guitars, long sprawling breakdowns, some crushing drumming, the chorus a lumbering almost waltz, with dramatic howled vox, which switch to a spoken croon in the 'verses', finishing off with a massive blown out super heavy sprawling outro, and again, the song, as unlikely as it maybe sounds on the surface, or with a glancing listen, is impossibly catchy, and somehow having heard it maybe hundreds of times, we're still not anywhere close to being sick of it.
Easily an all time, lifetime, desert island top 10 favorite for sure. And thus, just about as recommended as a record can be!
When reviewing a record you've had and treasured and loved for years, or decades, the pressure to do it justice is immense, so much so, that it seems almost impossible. But once in a while you gotta try. So here we go. Two of the MOST essential punk rock / post punk records ever, recently remastered and reissued, which gives us the opportunity to not only gush about records that have been on constant rotation since we were in our early twenties, records that totally changed the way we listened to music, but to also hopefully turn on the few folks who may have missed out, or who may not have even been alive when these records came out.
Nomeansno, from Canada, most folks know the name, but not everyone has actually heard these guys, but almost every single person we know who has, was never the same. The sound is super rhythmic and mathy, punk rock, but totally proggy as well, the focal point is on the bass and drums, manned by two brothers, Rob and John Wright, one of, if not THEE, tightest rhythm sections ever, the bass lines thick and throbbing and distorted, the drums chaotic but so tight and precise, the guitar, handled by a member who always remained unnamed - "Someone (but we're not sure who)" credited with "other things" on one record, or "none of your fucking business" on another - which is ironic cuz the guitar playing besides being BAD ASS was also so integral to the sound, they were a punk rock band after all. And the vocals, super high in the mix, dramatic, howled, crooned and yelped, melodic but raw and rough, sometimes sort of spoken, but always sharp tongued, spewing some of the best and funniest and intense lyrics. And as always, none of that would mean shit if the songs weren't great, and these songs are GREAT, so hooky and heavy and weird, a testament to these guys is that even the most obtuse tangled whatthefuck jam will stay lodged in your head forever.
Then there's the funky aspect, which we had planned to discuss at length, but listening to this again, the funkiness is implied, subtle, based entirely on the fact that almost all the songs are bass driven, and some are weirdly stripped down to just bass and drums and vocals, but this is not bullshit funky, this is elements of funk used the way they were meant to be, mixed into a churning, super complex, angular, jagged set of songs that manage to be both heavy and crushing and confusionally complex while still being poppy and hook filled and so goddamn catchy.
We tried to pick just one of these reissues to focus on, but eventually could only get it down to two, so both seemed like ideal candidates for Record Of The Week, especially considering that at least half of the folks here freaked the fuck out when we got these back in. We'll talk about each separately, but we have to suggest just buying both, you won't regret it, they're equally classic and timeless and heavy and catchy and far out and freaking awesome!
Wrong, from 1989, was the follow up to the life changing Small Parts album and The Day Everything 12" from the year before, and guess what, it too was life changing, managing to take the sounds and songs from the records before and make them heavier, more complex, more intense. The opener "It's Catching Up" is just so heavy and intense and brutal, the bass about as thick and distorted as it can get and still nail the flurry of rapid fire notes, the drums are devastating, not sure why this guy wasn't a drum god to all the aspiring drummers out there (although he was to Andee, who did get his autograph way back in the day), the guitars sharp and jagged, all wrapped around an insanely catchy hook, and somehow they manage to make it sound punk as fuck at the same time. "The Tower" might be our favorite here (amongst a record full of favorites), with its dirgey Black Flag vibe, more impossibly thick and distorted bass, and a weird staccato chorus, with one of the strangest and most anguished vocal parts ever, but so hooky, which leads right into a killer tangle of head spinning mathiness. Another favorite (like we said, they ALL rule), is "Rags And Bones", with easily one of the best bass lines ever, and some tangled complex drumming to go with it, some bizarre lyrics and a total pure pop chorus, of course doused in distortion and punked up a bit. "Brainless Wonder" is impossibly dense and heavy, like a skipping Black Flag record, before it slips into something a bit more groovy. "Two Lips, Two Lungs And One Tongue" is a short sharp blast of weird vocal / instrumental tangle, with the band locked into the repeated titular phrase. And then there's "All Lies" which is sort of the "Real Love" of Wrong, an epic punk rock prog rock sort-of-ballad, long sprawling moody breakdowns set between dense tribal math rock workouts, moving and emotional and dramatic, all building slowly to a killer super catchy stop start chorus.
Phew, we're just about gushed out. If you can't tell, we love this record A LOT, and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, both are easily all time favorites, desert island discs for you list making nerds, essential listening for anyone into punk rock, post punk, pop punk, heaviness, hookiness, great music... as we were listening to this again, Allan asked me why bands weren't good anymore, and I couldn't really think of an answer. Absolutely and totally and utterly recommended.
This remastered reissued has two bonus tracks from a 7" released by Mr Wrong, aka NMN bassist Rob Wright, which sound a whole lot like the record proper!
This is easily one of the best new metal-core bands we've heard. We had a split cd of theirs a while back, but three songs wasn't nearly enough to realise what these guys were truly capable of. Certainly worthy heirs to the Coalesce/Converge/Deadguy throne. Super heavy and well produced. They actually kind of sound like a heavy metal Jesus Lizard. Distorted bass with lots of
