There are very few contemporary jazz ensembles that get us excited, that remind us of the good ol' days, you know, Jazz Actuel, free jazz, REVOLUTIONARY JAZZ, so it should come as no surprise really, that one of the new bands that does do it for us, is made up of players from the old days, still making music as exciting, powerful and emotionally charged as ever.
Revolutionary Ensemble is Leroy Jenkins on violin, Sirone on bass, and Jerome Cooper on drums and a variety of other sound making devices, and Beyond The Boundary Of Time, captures the trio's 2005 final performance, live in Poland, recorded 2 years before Jenkins' death.
We've long been obsessed with Sirone, ever since the Chicago Art Ensemble days, one of the few players who could mesmerize and entrance us with an hour of solo bass, and he gets to do his thing here too, opening the set with 4 plus minutes of scrapes and drones and rumbles, until the song kicks in proper, and violin is such a strange non traditional jazz instrument, but Jenkins makes it sing, so melodic and haunting and mysterious, soaring over the strange rubbery basslines, and the abstract percussive skitter. The opening track gives us chills every time we hear it. The playing so lyrical and emotional, it's definitely jazz, but with elements of classical music, chamber music, intense, but also raw, and loose, and so free. Utterly beautiful. And that's just the first track.
The whole record is magical and mysterious, and sonically unique, Jenkins' violin and Sirone's bass are perfect foils, tangling and sparring, sometimes in perfect harmony, other times exploding into different directions, but the result is always the same, lush, expressive, otherworldly, some alien strain of jazz, that just seems to unfold and flower and splinter into all sorts of different shapes and sounds as the set progresses, seeing this in person must have been incredible, cuz recorded, it's pretty breathtaking.
The set ends with two lengthy improvisations, and the players go for it, the first, an endless avalanche of strange tones and layered skitter, lots of space, but also strange sonic molecules darting to and fro, the band occasionally locking into some serious droney dreaminess, but just as quickly breaking down into near chaos. The final track, lush and abstract, seriously melodic, until what sounds like some strange drum machine kicks in, and the track is transformed into some almost new wave free jazz freakout, fucking AWESOME.
Definitely one of the best performances from one of our favorite, and sadly now defunct, modern free jazz ensembles. Dedicated, as it should be, to the memory of Leroy Jenkins.
We've got some serious catching up to do. We can barely keep up with the flood of new releases, especially when there are loads of amazing microlabels putting out disc after disc after bloody brilliant disc. So it is with Antony Milton's PseudoArcana label, and this gorgeous disc from Ben Reynolds. Five tracks, 30 minutes, of ultra dense, super lush droned out bliss. Reynolds weaves massive washes of near static sound, like Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra but smoothed out and stretched out into even more blissful realms, slow flowing rivers of warm warble and thick chordal thrum. Part way through there is a brief and delicate folk interlude of fingerpicked steel string guitar and tinkling chimes, very Fahey-esque, but it quickly segues into perhaps the heaviest track on the disc, the nine minute "Howlers", another extended Ur-drone, but this time augmented by the previous track's chimes, and strange alien chirps that sound a bit like bird calls (Howlers?). Truly gorgeous stuff.
Latest missive from these mysterious dronesters. This being probably their most spare, minimal work to date. Shimmering tones and barely-there ambience. Think an even more STRIPPED DOWN Stars Of The Lid. It's that subtle and ethereal. Notes hover almost motionless like wisps of smoke frozen in midair. Super minimal, totally mesmerising, lowercase drone. You can almost feel the air suck out of your ears when the record stops. Totally obscure reference: Remember in the movie Phantasm, there was a gateway to another world, and the gateway was two vibrating metal posts (like a tuning fork) that disrupted the time space continuum creating a portal to that other world. This record kind of sounds like that gateway! Good stuff.
Finally, after a handful of shoddy reissues, bootleg compilations, and a never ending quest to track down every bit of recorded brilliance from this unsung pop genius, comes this amazing and comprehensive collection from the greatest pop singer song writer you've probably never heard of.
Some folks might be familiar with Rhodes from his time in psych pop combo The Merry-Go-Round, but it's on these 4 solo records, that Rhodes truly blossomed into something of a pop music marvel, playing almost all of the instruments himself, drums, bass, piano, guitar, writing, recording, singing, and creating some of the most timeless pop music you'll ever hear. Often called 'the one man Beatles' (in fact there's a new documentary about Rhodes with that title) due in no small part to his voice, a dead ringer for Paul McCartney's, as well as his songwriting, which definitely owes much to the Beatles and the Wings (McCartney again obviously), in fact, sometimes it's incredible how much some of these songs sound like they could have been Wings tracks, but unlike the Wings' tendency toward bombast and overkill, these songs remain sublime and simply brilliant. Besides the McCartney comparisons, there's also the Kinks, the Bee Gees, among others, you might have even heard Rhodes on the soundtrack to The Royal Tenenbaums, and he did have some moderate success, with at least one album and one single charting, but for the most part hovered just below the radar, which is criminal once you hear these songs, 4 albums, every song a practically perfect pop gem, from brooding heartfelt ballads, lush soaring chamber pop, to jangly power pop, his vocals gorgeous, the harmonies angelic, the arrangements incredible.
All four records are fantastic, but his self titled debut, from 1970, ranks up there as one of THEE absolute greatest pop records of all time. Every song could have been a hit, just listen to the sound samples below, the first 5 tracks from that record, impossibly catchy, and dreamy, and lush and so goddamn good. Especially "Long Time No See", with it's strangely morose minor key main melody, fuzzed out psych guitar, strange mix, and super dynamic arrangement, really dark, but still so catchy. As for modern musicians who owe a debt to Rhodes, we'd wager Elliott Smith was a huge fan, and if he wasn't he sure would have been, and Ted Leo is another, mostly the voices, and the knack for crafting hooks.
And while most singer songwriter music from the 70's sounds dated, ALL of these tracks sound as fresh and exciting as ever. If you've never heard Rhodes, you're in for a treat, this collection is one of those rare records, that had practically everybody here in a tizzy, and thus gets played nonstop.
Total pop perfection. Absolutely recommended and totally essential.
All hail Rhythm & Sound, our favorite German produced, blissed out murky reggae dub outfit ever. Simple and spare, dreamy and laid waaaaay back. Every track a druggy, dark and hypnotic jam. This disc gives R&S's recent See Mi Yah album the remix treatment, and who are we to argue with more looped digital dubbed out bliss?
The tracks that work best for us, are the ones that are stripped even further down, stretched farther out, and taken as far out as possible. Worth it for the Vainqueur remix alone, a looped reggae groove transformed into a fuzzy slab of 'heroin house', like some Gas dubplate being pumped out of some Jamaican sound system. So good. The opener, remixed by the Basic Channel guys, is a killer as well. Still spare and spacious, but a little more propulsive and a bit more techno. The Villalobos remix is cool too, a weird stuttery jam, with chopped up horns, falsetto vocals and bad ass toasting. The rest of the disc follows the same sort of pattern, the stripped down originals given a slight rhythmic overhaul, but with a definite dancefloor bent. Lots of techno mixes and four on the floor beats, but it works, since the originals were so sparse already and just begging to be reworked and remixed.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
So, sure, "experimental/improv/psych" bands based outta Brooklyn are probably a dime a dozen these days, so what makes the debut from this new Thrill Jockey signing worthy of glorious Record Of The Week status here at aQ? Well, for one thing, Thrill Jockey have had a pretty good track record in that area lately, with aQ fave bands like White Hills and Barn Owl, and fans of either ought to check out Rhyton. At least, we had to give it a listen, and when we did, WOW! Totally tripped out and hypnotic, stonery psych explorations embraced our ears - and we think gently tingled any mystic sixth or seventh senses we may possess. Their jamming has a fuzzed-out edge, and a definite exotic, Eastern vibe, buzzing with electric saz for one thing... as if they're not from Brooklyn, they're from Brooklynistan!
The mesmeric music of Rhyton is a mind-melting mind-meld involving three well-matched musicians, a supergroop of sorts, the trio consisting of D. Charles Speer from the No Neck Blues Band, Jimmy SeiTang of Psychic Ills, and Spencer Herbst from some bands we confess we've not heard of before. Speer is on the strings, playing electric saz, electric mandolin, and baritone guitar. SeiTang is on bass and tape delay. Herbst is on drums and percussion (and videocassettes, we read somewhere?). A good set up for playing something that's rock, but not.
Over the course of the five, mostly long, mainly instrumental tracks here, Rhyton easily convinced us to make this Record Of The Week, or maybe hypnotized us into doing so! We just couldn't say no to their repetitive, reverby bath of shuddering soundwaves, sub-bass pulsations, meandering raga-like "split stereo, dual amped" leads, and loads of oscillators, loops, n' effects.
Relatively mellow opening track "Stone Colored" eases us in, giving us a sense of, if not where Rhyton is going, at least how they're gonna get there. And, as the cliche says, the journey is the destination. That's before the 12+ minute "Pontian Grave" heavies things up even more, and the raw side of Rhyton's experimentation is revealed. And so it goes, Rhyton getting into outre modes of instrumental psychedelic possession, centerpiece "Teke" being the perhaps the most druggily dubbed-out of the album's varied transmissions...and then, on the fantastic final cut, "Shank Raids", we REALLY hear the Middle Eastern influence come to the fore. It's not just the electric saz they've been making use of, on this one the rhythms n' melodies sound straight out of the Turkish psych songbook, stately and spacey, but also gnarly, warped and distortion-damaged, almost what it would be like to Greg Ginn's Gone, or Black Flag circa The Process Of Weeding Out, attempting a Mogollar or 3 Hur-el cover, yeah! There's a whiff of Sun City Girls to this as well.
Eastern aspects aside (or not), Rhyton's unique vibrations are on roughly the same wavelength as those of such outfits as Carlton Melton, Davis Redford Triad, White Hills, Titan, Bardo Pond, etc., and thus this should appeal to quite a few of you. So we say, get it! And get it quick, as the compact disc edition, packaged in a slim handmade sleeve (abstract art glued on front, hand-stamped text on back), is ultra limited to only 200 hand-numbered copies!! We got a bunch, but that bunch is probably all we'll get. Meanwhile, the similarly-appointed vinyl version is just a bit less limited, 500 copies made, and it comes with a postcard insert and free download code.
You may not necessarily know who Emil Richards is, but you've most definitely heard him play. The list of his musical accomplishments, is nearly Zelig like, seeming to appear everywhere and on pretty much every great recording, and having played with a who's who of performers, jazz, rock, underground, mainstream, even a small sampling of his music resume will have you wondering why he isn't a household name. He played with Charles Mingus, Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, Frank Sinatra, Nelson Riddle, Doris Day, Judy Garland, he performed frequently with Harry Partch, he plays the bongos that open Lalo Schifrin's theme to Mission Impossible, he's the guy snapping his fingers on the theme music from the Addams Family, he played tuned bowls and gongs on Jerry Goldsmith's iconic soundtrack to 1968's Planet Of The Apes. He later played with Frank Zappa, George Harrison (he even traveled to India with Harrison) as well as Blondie, and hundreds of other pop artists, and played on soundtracks like Taxi Driver, The Exorcist, Shaft, Chinatown, Dirty Harry, and again, HUNDREDS more.
But for weird music obsessives, he's no doubt best known for his record New Sound Element: Stones, originally released in 1967, which was a collection of 12 songs, each named for a month, and its specific birthstone, and which is infamous for the fact that it was in fact the first commercial recording to feature the Moog Synthesizer. But beyond that, it's a crazy record, some sort of twisted electronic jazz sci-fi exotica, the main instruments being ring modulated mallet instruments (marimba, xylophone, etc.) and synth, trippy and woozy, playful and silly, but at times, seriously twisted and darkly psychedelic. We're reminded of course of Perrey And Kingsley, after all for many of us, that was our first real exposure to early Moog pop, but Richards' compositions are a lot less goofy, less melodic too, more rhythmic, with the best tracks layering wild jazz drumming, over heavily effected marimba or xylophone, the sound locked into propulsive grooves, while the tones and overtones are constantly altered to created woozy warbly melodies, that's not to say this stuff isn't on the playful side, it most definitely is, the darker passages more than balanced by goofy, super melodic workouts, but the sound seems to always slip back into something a wee bit darker, whether it's the droney, swirly shuffle of "Emerald (May)", or the driving drum heavy psychedelic trip out of "Bloodstone (March)", the wild Moog swaddled xylophone shredding of "Moonstone (June)", or the fuzzy twisted jazzfunk of "Ruby (July)".
Imagine a drum/percussion driven sixties jazz record, re-engineered by some Moog mad scientist, and you'll get an idea of what Richards concocted on Stones, which has been floating around as a bootleg for years, but this is the first official reissue. And Stones is only the beginning. While it's most definitely the reason to pick this up, Omni has also tacked on a bunch of bonus tracks, first, a handful of songs from New Time Element, also originally released in 1967, which features a selection of pop and jazz standards, presented with odd time signatures and unique percussion, the original liner notes even give the listener breakdowns of the various rhythms of each song. It's not super far out, but a fun listen, and a nice chunk of sixties jazz. The final batch of extra tracks come from Richards' 1968 release Journey To Bliss, which is probably closest to Stones in sound, dialing back the electronic element, and heavy on the rhythms, lots of marimba, xylophone and percussion, some drum solos, a bit of fuzzy jazz funk, a heady psychedelic jazz excursion for sure, fans of the recent Spiritual Jazz collections will definitely dig, the album culminating in the final 18 minute six part epic "Journey To Bliss", which features a yogi like recitation, directions for meditation and inner peace, over Eastern raga style buzz, playful percussion, and more of Richards' wild psychedelic jazz.
Like all Omni reissues, gorgeous presented, with loads of pictures and extensive liner notes!
Finnish experimental black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, might be one of our favorite groups going right now. We've raved wildly about every one of their records so far, and then there's RfR electronic offshoot Will Over Matter, who we dig just as much. And it's not surprising, Ride For Revenge don't traffic in grim black buzz, they're not sonically similar to classic Norwegian black metal, or Swedish, or French - if anything, they're much more in the tradition of all the WTF? music we love from Finland, from Circle to Keukhot, Dead Reptile Shrine to Circle Of Ouroborus, their music is murky and dirgey, mathy and rhythmic, repetitive and hypnotic, and if you thought their records proper were fucked up and far out, this new double cd of singles and comp tracks and live jams will blow your mind.
The first track alone is worth the price of admission, RfR getting all Will Over Matter, and unfurling a 21 minute electronic/black buzz hybrid, the first 6 minutes of which, is just weird squelches and bleeps and bloops, with some creepy voice intoning over the top. And when the riffing finally comes in, the song doesn't explode into metallic gallop, or burst into furious blasting, instead, that riff, just sort of buzzes in the background, while the bleeping and squelchy blooping continue, the whole thing a sort of damaged black buzz kosmische or something. And then at about 9 minutes in, another guitar (or is that a synth?) comes in, all thick and crumbling and corrosive, drums too, plodding and spare, and again, no blasting or galloping, now it's just a woozy, murky creep, still spaced out and cosmic, but now buzzy and blurry lumbering, and then vocals come in, raspy and sinister, over a bed of what is essentially blackened power electronics, the vocals mutating gradually, until they sound robotic and alien, a little like Cylons from the old Battlestar Galactica!!! What the fuck? And that's just part one. Part two of the 32+ opening jam, finds the band slipping back into a field of blooping FX and electronics, that again, are eventually subsumed by some damaged drumming, and crumbling distorted guitar buzz, noisy and chaotic and fucking demented. This time, the sound does get fast and buzzy, but it's a loping, stumbling blackened mess, that eventually resolves in a tangle of buzzing, glitched out electronics. Phew! Only two other tracks on the first disc, but they're lengthy WTF? workouts. One's an old track from 2009, that is freaked out NOISE, sounding very Japanese, or Japanoise. Total skree and screech, howl and throb, feedback, and gristly grinding crunch, howled vokills, some seriously brutal blacknoise. The other's a 20 minute epic, recorded in 2013, the same time as those first two tracks, this one ditching the electronics, and unfurling a murky rumbling ambience, which soon turns into some weirdly dubbed out black dirge murk, sounding a bit like Aluk Todolo, a sort of black-kraut hypno-rock, totally mesmerizing, and if those first two tracks didn't make it worth it for you, this one definitely will...
The second disc is much more 'metal', the first few tracks live, the band sounding a bit more conventional, but only a bit, the sound distorted and blown out and lo-fi, but still tranced out and minimal, very much in the vein of Aluk Todolo, some dirge-y occult rock, with some sick, howled vox, loping, lumbering, minimal black murk, that veers from churning almost-doom, to stumbling metallic frenzy and back again, with at least one guitar doing nothing but spraying thick crumbling black drones over the proceedings, either that or the riffs, just blur into blackened smears, either way, it's plenty tripped out and hypnotic. There's a few awesome demo tracks, super brittle and muddy, with weirdly clean guitar riffing, distant drumming, rumbling vokill rasps, all smeared into some minimal black metal murk. There are some other rarities, a fantastic 10 minute ambient creepfest, all grinding low end, mumbled vox, pipe fight percussion, spare and SUPER creepy, laced with some electronic flecked guitar buzz, and some seriously tripped out production, and a second track, that's cut from the same cloth, but then adds a shit ton of furious blackened guitar-noise to the proceedings, not to mention some super fucking creepy vocals, making it sound like some blackened bastard offspring of Whitehouse and Suicide! Then finally, more old demos, these the most metal of the bunch, epic riffing, simple drumming, the first of the three almost sounding like 'true' metal, old school lo-fi crusty filthy blackness, raw and fierce and pretty fucking rad.
Finland's weirdo minimalist black metallers Ride For Revenge might just be in the running for most aQ Records Of The Week, especially if you count RfR electronic offshoot Will Over Matter, and even moreso if you consider the fact that even if we didn't make one of their records a ROTW, we thought about it, and likely wanted to, and probably didn't for some non musical reason, like having to get them from Finland, or ordering a bunch and selling most of them before we even get a chance to review/list it, and really, in retrospect, not sure why we didn't just institute permanent/perpetual Record Of The Week status on these guys. What we're getting at, is even though this is NOT a Record Of The Week this time around, it basically IS. And will always be, cuz if any band demanded the slavish worship of the aQ crew it's these guys, who manage to take a genre we already love, and transform it into something that barely sounds like that genre at all, and yet somehow makes us love it even more.
This latest batch of jams is another black-dirge / noise-rock wallop, this trio delivering some ultra primitive heaviness, with some of the sickest, grittiest, gnarliest guitar buzz ever, not to mention thick, organ dissolving low end, and chaotic, shambolic, caveman drumming of the highest order, all wound up into extended dirges that play like krautrock melted down into a brew as black as pitch, then reconstituted with some sort of ancient black magic, the resulting lumbering sonic ritualism is as mesmerizing as it is terrifying, the sound in constant flux, whether it's stumbling black metal primitivism, doom-ed tarpit creep, psychedelic blacknoize, or wild, thrashing metal-punk, it all bleeds into one massive, epic, demonic sonic sprawl, in fact, so much so that song titles, and even song breaks seem superfluous, nobody's gonna grab this and think to themselves, let's throw on "The Fog Is Green And Pungent" (okay full disclosure, we actually did!), no this is a fully immersive experience, this is the sort of black bog filth you're meant to luxuriate in, to get lost in, to let wash over you, and pull you under, just surrender, let the churning molasses riffage and pounding dirge-drummage ooze into your every orifice, and transform you from the inside out, headphones on, you become a shambling, blackened acolyte to these mysterious priest of blacknoise/occult rock ritualism, and suddenly it's transcendent, the sound becomes shape, the shape becomes divine, the underworld rises up and swallows the surface dwellers whole, and the soundtrack to this apocalypse becomes, a gnarled, filth encrusted thing of grim black beauty, and we honor this epochal convergence, by sacrificing ourselves, and as our souls wither and die, we become one with these ancient spirits, approaching the black gates of the netherworld, we all join together, a hulking black shape, horned and fiery, and for eternity, we Ride For Revenge!!!!
We talk a lot about how weird Finland is, so before we go any further, let us apologize to the majority of Finland who to be fair are probably not weird at all. Now that we've got that out of the way, HOLY SHIT! Is there no end to the amazing and damaged and demented music coming out of Finland. We're beginning to think not.
The latest evidence comes in the form of the brand new full length from Ride For Revenge, who we first heard a while back on a split with fellow countrymen Torturium, their half of the split a downtuned black trudge, like Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT but with that impossible to describe Finnish something that transforms everything into some special sort of what-the-fuck. Creepy synths, plodding drums, grinding guitar and harsh vocals, not exactly black metal, not in the traditional sense at least, but most definitely metal.
On King Of Snakes however, the band have gotten even weirder, and distinctly less metal, but no less heavy. Supposedly there are guitars, but to our ears it just sounds like just drums and lots and lots of bass. Each song a plodding doomic lurch, the drums pounding out a simple rhythm, the riff repeating over and over, most songs with just a single part, very mesmerizing and hypnotic. Like a caveman Circle or a guitarless Gore, these guys just bash out endlessly cycling looped low end and killer crushing doom drum pound. The vocals are a super affected gurgling growl, not in the death metal sense, instead, super dramatic, intoning unspeakable evils, a rumbling demonic baritone, peppered with the occasional super delay drenched goat metal grunt.
Some tracks also have cool creepy keyboards as well, that add all sort of mood and texture, and it's not cheesy metal synth either, it's all strange analog buzz, a sort of krautrocky blur draped over the endlessly pounding groove.
Ride For Revenge are another one of those black metal bands, who seem to be black metal more out of pedigree than sound, but even though this doesn't sound like metal, it is most definitely black. It sounds a bit like Godheadsilo jamming with Finnish alchemical dronelords Tiermes, with the occasional injection of Hawkwinded FX and SUNN-drenched rumble, mysterious and murky swaths of throbbing low end thrum wrapped around the drums like some evil warlock's cloak.
Imagine if Amphetamine Reptile was a black metal label... then these guys would be Halo Of Flies... Most definitely one of our new favorite 'black metal' records...
The long awaited return of Finnish black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, and when we say weird, we do in fact mean WEIRD. We sort of forget about these guys when we're going on about the most fucked and damaged black metal ever, and maybe that's because their sound ends up being SO fucked up and freaky that it almost ceases being black metal entirely, instead, they seem to traffic in some sort of bass and drums, downtuned doom dirge, a series of hypnotic loops, locked riffs, all completely fractured and crumbling and confusional.
In the review of the last RfR record, King Of Snakes, we mentioned Amphetamine Reptile, and Halo Of Flies, Winter and diSEMBOWLEMENT, Gore and Circle. On Wisdom Of The Few, they continue on in that same baffling blackened trajectory resulting in a sound that off the top of our heads sounds a little like Om and Faxed Head. Right. Most metalheads we'd imagine will not be pleased, as this is seriously wacked, more textural and rhythmic than riffy and buzzy, it again sounds mostly like just bass and drums, but that's once you make it past the lurching, stumbling, guitar intro, streaks of feedback are all tangled up with a strangled reverb drenched guitar, playing out some sort of fractured atonal riff, the entire thing peppered with bits of hiss and glitch, before finally exploding into the lo-fi dirgery of the title track. A super murky muddy looped riff, pounding drums, rumbling low end, and some croaked demonic gurgles, the sound is super in the red, the drum fills peg the needles, but it still manages to sound muddy and subterranean. The drums and bass (or extremely downtuned guitar) locked into a mantra-like loop, the cymbals super hot, a relentless crash and sizzle, again reminding us of a blackened super minimal Gore. But things get even weirder. The clouds of hiss and glitch from the opening track return, and suddenly the sound is not metal so much as some sort of abstract doomy drone. A bass riff pounded out over and over and over, while around it, static crumbles and buzzes, sheets of feedback drift off in the distance, the 'groove' is peppered with little squalls of scrape and crunch, all underpinning a creepy spoken vocal.
The next track is even weirder (or perhaps just as weird), the drums wrapped in weird warped FX, pounding out a simple propulsive beat, wrapped in flanger and phaser, sounding super space-y while all around it, the gurgling demonic vocalist grunts and gurgles, over another totally mesmerizing black groove. Let's not describe the next track as weirder than the one before, cuz it's gonna seem ridiculous after a while, needless to say, it's weird in a different, equally twisted way. A deep whirring rumbling low end, a skittery almost funky krautrock beat, a heavily accented voice speaking ominously and dramatically, the voice switching from speaker to speaker, the drums shifting and subtly speeding up and slowing down, the rumbling drone-y buzz, occasionally revving up, then revving back down. Fucked up for sure, but so creepy and cool.
"Morning Won't Bring A Twinkling Star" is the longest track here, and manages to merge many of RfR's disparate elements into one epic sprawling blackened rhythmscape, a loping drum beat, a woozy seasick bassline, the drums distorted and motorik, the vocals reverbed and haunting, before slipping into a long stretch of warped low end warble and high end sine wave shimmer, before lurching back into blackened action. The record finishes off with a brief soundscape, equal parts distorted crunch, moaning feedback, downtuned flutter, minimal whirring synth, thick doomy buzz and FX drenched warble.
Woah. It's like dipping your head into a garbage disposal grinding up muddy murky chunks of Darkthrone, Aluk Todolo, Gore, Faxed Head, Circle, Urfaust, Geronimo and Lightning Bolt at 16rpm, a utterly demented and genius mix of freaked out, lobotomized black sound, a total mind melting, speaker shredding, ear punishing, minimal post black metal mind fuck. SO FUCKING AWESOME!
ATTENTION FINNISH MUSIC FREAKS!!! It isn't all forest folk and hypnotic space rock over there you know. Finland has some serious metal bands as amazing, as heavy and as fucked up as anyplace else, maybe even more so. Just off the top of our heads, Dead Reptile Shrine! Maybe the weirdest black metal band ever, Reverend Bizarre, amazing classic doom, and let's see... Horna, Thergothon, Circle Of Ouroborus, Spiritus Mortis, Stumm, Wyrd, Vultyr, Trollheim's Grott, Uncreation's Dawn, we could go on and on and on...
So here we have a split from two Finnish black metal one man bands, one name you might recognize, the other you might not, but both are equally amazing.
It takes a very special band to share a split with the mighty and mighty demented Dead Reptile Shrine, but Torturium were up to the job, as evidenced on their recent split with DRC reviewed right here a few months back. Here they continue on their damaged and convoluted journey through some off kilter black thrash buzzscape. Midtempo and completely blown out, guitars are thick snarling beasts, flaying the flesh fron your skin, while some of the most anguished vocals EVER soar and shriek, the drums a murky thud, everything chaotic and crazed. Blasting and buzzing relentlessly, the whole thing threatening to come hunhinged and fly into sharp jagged pieces. Fucked up and furious and so great.
Torturium shares the split with fellow counryman Ride For Revenge, who with a name like that you might expect some classic thrash, but this is anything but. Muddy downtuned guitars, harsh vocals and simple pounding drums, all woven into some sort of murky dirgey black doom. Midtempo rhythms, drums WAY up in the mix, everything sort of droney and hypnotic, tons of reverb, weird swaths of creepy clean guitar, everything cloudy and indistinct, a super old school production liek Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT, fuzzy and relentlessly, trudging through thick FX drenched drifts of black buzz and weird whorls of creepy haunted house synth. So cool and so weird. Definitely a new favorite, and another notch in Finland's holster, or bedpost, or whatver. SO RECOMMENDED!!!
As always, we were way ahead of the curve. You were too, right there with us. Going all the way back to Acid Bath, that seminal NOLA rock band, that somehow combined Eyehategod style sludge, and groovy dramatic emotional rock a la Alice In Chains or Katatonia or Jeff Buckley, we were proclaiming that not only should Acid Bath have been HUGE, but AB frontman Dax Riggs should be a rock star. So here we are over ten years later, and all that time, Riggs has continued on, first with Agents Of Oblivion, then Deadboy And The Elephantmen, all groups and records we LOVED, and played incessantly, but still, Dax and co. lurked way underground, barely even making a ripple in the mainstream music world.
But come last year, Riggs resurfaced, performing live and releasing a pretty decent disc (that we've yet to review), and suddenly being pushed hard, his sound, not all that different from Agents Of Oblivion, but now with some promotional real label muscle behind him. Unfortunately, not much happened with his solo record, so it was time for plan B, the first Deadboy And The Elephantmen record, re-released as a Riggs sort-of-solo record. Fair enough. We proclaimed it genius way way back when, and time has done nothing but demonstrate what a killer slab of dark grooviness and intensely emotional heaviness this record is, was and continues to be. So since lots of folks may not have been around when we first gushed about this disc, figured this was the perfect time to gush again.
Years and years ago, the big rock n' roll sleeper hit here at Aquarius had to be the awesome Agents Of Oblivion album, featuring two crucial ex-members of the late lamented cult band Acid Bath. Heavy, poppy, psychedelic rock with vocalist Dax Riggs crooning beautifully over it all. We shoulda made it record of the week, we all thought in retrospect. It became one of our favorite records EVER. We were really bummed then to hear that the Agents, like Acid Bath before 'em, broke up not long after the album's release. But, rumors filtered in that Dax and a new crew of New Orleans n'er-do-wells had formed a new band with the unlikely name of Deadboy and the Elephantmen to carry on where the Agents left off. Allan confirmed this when he happened to visit N.O. and was lucky enough to catch a live performance from this new band. They had a demo out then, and we anticipated a full album release on some big label to appear soon...we waited...and waited... and eventually a Deadboy record did come out, but the band had to release it themselves, since once again, the big labels had no idea and dropped the ball big time. Mystifiying, 'cause Dax is a rock star if ever there was one, and these guys should have been HUGE. This record is epic and darkly dramatic, heavy and groovy and weird as fuck, but also catchy and beautiful. Totally accessible yet morbidly underground, we hear everything from some voodoo Alice Cooper darkness and drama, to a little Aerosmith swagger, to the heaviness and angst of Alice In Chains of course -- Acid Bath was always an AIC meets EHG (Eyehategod) hybrid, in a really good way. Radiohead's "Ok Computer" is hinted at too, and Jeff Buckley, as the music combines weirdly sensitive melodicism and dark atmosphere inspired by their hometown's swamps and cemeteries. Dax is as impressive as ever, he really *sings*, drawing out vowels over a dozen notes. His vocals are oddly warm and comforting but also anguished and intense. While the songwriting on this album does not quite match the relatively flowery yet heavy tunesmithery of the Agents of Oblivion album, and neither does the instrumentation call attention to itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing here as it lets Dax' voice take center stage and he... just... wails. He's like a sludge metal Bowie, flamboyant, and dramatic, his vocals impossibly emotive and intense. Sometimes despairing, sometimes incantatory. Oh the angst! And the music is a perfect match, going from brooding and minor key, to explosive and space-y. For fans of Alice in Chains, Acid Bath/Agents of Oblivion (of course), Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, and Woven Hand. It may have taken a decade, but finally the rest of the world can discover what some of us knew all along�
Acid Bath, Deadboy And The Elephant Men, Agents Of Oblivion, we love them all, due in no small part to frontman Dax Riggs. As we've mentioned before, in numerous reviews of the above mentioned bands, Riggs was and is a rockstar, even in the druggy sludge combo Acid Bath, his soaring super dramatic vocals, and twisted surreal lyrics helped transform that band into something much more than just another NOLA sludgerock outfit. With every new band, came progression, away from the heavy, the dirgey, the druggy, toward a sound much more bluesy, glammy, poppy, but always the focal part was Riggs brooding moody croon.
We recently made the reissued Deadboy And The Elephant Men record If This Is Hell Then I'm Lucky record of the week, reissued under Riggs' name, in a bid by the label, we're guessing, to finally push him toward the mainstream, which makes perfect sense. Even more sense once we heard this, Riggs' first proper solo record, from last year. Fans into stuff like the White Stripes, Wolfmother, the Black Keys, no reason they shouldn't be digging this just as much. The sound on We Sing Of Only Blood And Love is a weird slithery Southern bluesy drugrock, incorporating bits of glam pop, gospel, AC/DC groove, but most of all, lots and lots of blues. Makes sense that this came out on Fat Possum, same label as the Black Keys. In lots of ways, this actually sounds quite a bit like the Black Keys, only if they were raised on Eyehategod instead of Howlin Wolf. Supercharged metallic blues, with pounding drums and some awesome churning riffage. But like with everything Riggs does, it's all about THAT voice. As rich and lustrous and over the top as ever, so much so, that at times, it almost sounds like Jimmy from the Frogs, full of trills and soaring almost operatic drama. Which is not at all a bad thing, and that voice all tangled up with these sludgey blues riffs, it's tough to beat.
There's also a bunch of stripped down, more acoustic numbers, sprawling and skeletal. The vibe very Mark Lanegan, sinister and languorous, but where Lanegan's voice is a whiskey soaked baritone, ominous and haunting, Riggs voice again, is intense and almost over the top.
If you're fans of any of Riggs' other outfits, and lord knows you sure as shit should be, you'll definitely need this. But for the uninitiated, this just might be the Riggs record that's accessible enough to turn him into the rockstar he's always should have been.
It's been a while, but it's time to haul out all those extra doom 'o's we've been saving for an occasion just like this. The return of ultra doomlords Rigor Sardonicous, they of the monstrous glacial downtuned crawl, the 'evil' cymbal (more on that in a second), the growled demonic vox, the lugubrious slow motion trudge, all that stuff we love, and all the stuff that can usually only be described by a whole handful of extra 'o's in doooooooooom.
But the opening track threw us for a bit of a loop. All weirdly folky, with chanted vocals, and fluttering flutes, some haunting almost Renn Faire court music, which quickly gives way to clean mournful minor key clean guitar, could this be the same Rigor Sardonicous? All doubts are wiped away moments later when the whole sound shifts down about a hundred octaves, the crumbling super distorted guitar spreads out like a black fog, the drums pounding, the cymbals still way up in the mix (beginning to think it's their trademark), and then the vocals. WOAH. Impossibly gurgly rumbles, like a frog croaking from the bottom of a tarpit, perfectly complimenting the band's murky plod. Weirdly the band does speed it up, but everything is so muddy and blurred that it almost makes no difference. You can hear what sounds like a little girl way off in the distance, as if she's locked in the dungeon of some great black beast. This is some awesomely creepy, heavy, and fucked up dooooooooooomy shit for sure.
If it's even possible, this is the most extreme Rigor record yet. The guitars more dense, heavier, even more downtuned, the vocals absolutely inhuman, it does almost sound like some super slow dooooom record, slowed down even more. And when the band do 'rock', they still out-doom most of their slow motion contemporaries.
Nothing else to say really. Been digging the most recent Moss, the Corrupted reissue? Still loving those Monarch records, the recent Trees disc? Fancy yourself a doomlord? Well strap on your armor, your headlamp, some industrial strength ear protection, and crawl headfirst into this black tarpit of sound, Rigor Sardonicous take even the heaviest and slowest sounds somewhere even slower and lower and so much doooooooooooooooooooooooomier�
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The unanimous AQ staff favorite of the week. Disc one is totally stuck in our cd player...it's only about 20 minutes long, but it may as well be infinite, 'cause we just keep playing it over and over. Appropriate, because, as with much of the late '60s work of American minimalist composer Terry Riley's work, repetition (with subtle changes) is the modus operandi here. The original source song "You're No Good", a pop-latin-boogaloo number released by Harvey Averne in 1968 (he's not credited in the liner notes to this, strangely) is a great tune in its own right. But soon after the original song's release. Terry Riley got his hands on it and created what oughta become one of his all time classic tracks. Riley used pedal-driven tape-loops and the Moog to take the infectious "You're No Good" chorus to extreme, abstract, mesmerizing lengths. It's looped over and under itself, at first sounding completely normal and then imperceptibly gets weirder and weirder until it's so odd that the customers in the store start looking concerned and asking if the cd player is skipping. It stutters wonderfully! Sometimes the left and right channels are playing different parts of the song simultaneously, to eerily beautiful effect.
That the original song is so insanely catchy and hook-filled (it's a "Dancing in the Streets"-style pop number) definitely contributes to the accessibility and fun of the piece. Disco minimalism? Hell yeah. Apparently it was commissioned as theme song for what must have been a very avant-garde Philly dance club, the operator of which was a Terry Riley fan present at the concert documented on disc one... Brilliant.
By the way, the original Averne song can be found on the compilation Dusty Fingers Vol. 2, and we've added a clip of the original below for you to compare.
Disc 2 of this archival set is live material from one of Terry's Poppy Nogood All Night Concerts held in Philadelphia in the fall of 1967. The lovely drones produced by his soprano sax and "time-lag accumulator" must have kept the attendees happy and hypnotized in their sleeping bags 'til dawn, and now we can experience a cd's worth of it now at whatever time of day or night we choose. Nice.
Holy grail second album from one of the best American metal bands EVER (who never get their due). While we'd say 1981's Fire Down Under (their third) is THE one to get, if you were to get only one, once you've heard that you're gonna want to hear more. And so mucho kudos to Rock Candy for at long last providing the world with a cd reish of Narita, originally released on LP by Capitol in 1979. New York's Riot were what the NWOBHM would have sounded like if it would have happened in the USA instead of the UK. A supercharged, metallized step up from the American '70s hard rock of the mid-seventies (bands like Starz, KISS, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top), definitely melodic, but much more rippin'. And also way more ass-kicking and streetwise than most of the Sunset Strip style hair metal that the US offered up a few years later, though Riot surely were an influence on the best of that bunch. They still exist today, by the way, releasing records (big in Japan!) but lots different from back when, in part due to the fact that their original lead singer, the amazing Guy Speranza, RIP, is long gone from the lineup. That guy shoulda been a famous rock star, just listen to him here.
If you're anything like me (Andee), you absolutely -loved- Quicksand and shed quite a few tears when they called it quits. Rarely had there been such an aggressive, almost-metal band that managed to be melodic and catchy as fuck without sounding cheesy or
I was so excited to find this record a few moths back. I had been waiting like crazy (if one can wait like crazy) for the Rival Schools record (Walter from Quicksand's new band) and here it was. What a score! So I brought it home, threw it on, and it wasn't
Track five is a languid, slow rolling moody epic, with rumbling slow strummed guitars, and chiming harmonics sounding like the Wipers or Nirvana's Lithium alllll sloooowed dooooown. The record closes with a bang. A huge crunching, sort of bouncy Quicksand style guitar attack. Crunchy stop-start riffs (ala Helmet's 'In The Meantime') but with Walter's scratchy sad boy wail and totally epic almost sing-along choruses. So so good. I love this record!
We'll keep this one simple: if you're a fan of the 'stoner rock' genre, and especially if you're into those lords of space Monster Magnet, you must buy this disc!! Atomic Church is second album by Sweden's Roachpowder (the name comes from Burrough's Naked Lunch
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Swedish 'Southern' groovy stoner metal. Who would've thought that something this southern fried and stoned sounding could come out of Scandinavia? Huge crushing riffs, ultra catchy hooks, and an amazing Phil Anselmo (Pantera/Down) sound-alike vocalist (that is, like Phil when he's actually singing, not when he's sounding stupid). Incredible.
I swore we would try to review this record without mentioning it, but what can you do? It's so blatant and obvious and undeniable. This band sounds EXACTLY like Spoon. I mean exactly. Dark and moody, shuffly rhythms with brooding pianos and a voice that is uncanny its similarity to Spoon's Britt Daniel. But to that we say "so what?!?" This record is awesome. And for us at least, who can argue with a new Spoon record, whether it's by Spoon or not. Granted, there -are- differences. The Robbers are much less experimental. way more poppy and accessible. And when they rock they definitely slip into Strokes / Interpol territory, which again is not necessarily a bad thing. There's also a liberal sprinkling of horns which is a nice surprise too. I usually defend bands who have a singer that sounds like another singer (sounding like Ozzy is a common example) because you can't really help how you sing, your voice is your voice for the most part, but when the voice that sounds much like another singer, is then complimented by a band that just happens to sound like that other singer's band, well then you gotta wonder just a little, if the band thinks to themselves "Holy shit, we sound a lot like Spoon." So if you're a stickler for absolute originality, then The Robbers On High Street might be a bit to close to -that- other band. But if you're looking for some dark and intense, catchy and rocking experimental pop, you'd be hard pressed to do better than Tree City. At least until the new Spoon record.
As we've mentioned in a bunch of other reviews, lots of our favorite bands are woefully under-represented on the aQ list, generally, it's because those records predated the list, so when a record gets reissued, it's often a chance to finally lavish praise on a record that's been a favorite for years (or decades). In this case, it's not a reissue, but instead a live record from Georgia garage punks the Rock*A*Teens, who are currently are covered on the aQ site by just a couple sentences about one of their records, which is really a shame, cuz we LOVE these guys. So until someone mounts the lavish, deluxe reissue campaign these guys and their incredible records deserve, we can revel in this sweat soaked high energy live set cobbled together from an extended residency at the Star Community Bar in Atlanta, between 1998 and 1999, courtesy of aQ pal and Chunklet mastermind Henry Owings, who continues to dig up incredible rarities (we're still loving the recent Don Caballero record, and are hoping he'll do a Bar-B-Q- Killers reissue, another legendary and underappreciated Georgia outfit), and incredible this is.
If you've yet to discover the Rock*A*Teens, imagine a swampy, reverb drenched, fifties style, garage rock rockabilly, filtered through something more modern, swaggery and dramatic, the same sort of gospel tinged swampiness of Woven Hand, but more rocking, feverish, loose limbed and wild. Brooding, sweat soaked, bloody knuckled, broken bottled, booze soaked, psychedelic blooze stomps and echo drenched slow burn ballads in equal measure, all whirring organs, reverb galore, buzzing distortion, wild tribal drumming, and stunning, timeless songwriting, all wound up into something gloriously gritty, grimy, ecstatic, cathartic, murky and emotionally charged. Just check out the samples and you'll be sold. "Black Ice" might be one of our favorite songs EVER, in a body of work that has an impossible number of potential all time faves. Every record a stone cold gem, and this live set manages to transcend the limitations of the 'live record' and transports the listener to a dive bar in Georgia, lit with Christmas lights, packed with punks, this band crammed onto a little stage in the corner, conjuring up musical demons, and angels, and creating a gorgeous, noisy, heart breaking din. AWESOME. Includes a download too.
Pretty provocative name huh? These problematically monikered nineties Bay Area improvised noise makers, in fact, boasted a pretty surprising and stellar pedigree, the duo included Kelvin Pittman now of Portland Bike Ensemble, and Kyp Malone, of fellow SF noiseniks Iran and now of... TV On The Radio!!? Huh? Yep, long before Malone was playing huge festivals and helping send Pitchfork into conniptions, and releasing solo records, and impressing the indie rock throngs with his impossible and impressive facial hair, he was in fact one half of Rocket Science, a raucous, blasting, psychedelic combo, who spit out a wild fusion of free jazz and free noise, and this was their only record, released on Vulgar Tango way back when, along with the debut Iran lp reviewed elsewhere on this week's list. The Vulgar Tango dude discovered a stash of records (both Iran and Rocket Science) that had been hidden away for close to a decade, and decided to let us have them!
So yeah, we always sort of wondered why in all the articles about TV On The Radio, they never ONCE mentioned Kyp's time in RSATNLF, although we can sort of guess. Which is too bad, cuz these guys ruled. Nothing at all like TV On The Radio of course, or Iran really (except for some of the noisiness), Rocket Science took guitars and bells and drums and some 'singing' and wound 'em all up into a super charged take on that SST jazz sound, filtered through a warped SF noiserock filter. Sometimes surprisingly melodic and tranquil, but more often than not, fierce and free and heavy and loud, skittery percussion, tangled grinding guitar gnarl, some serious psychedelic crunch, lots of feedback, all woozy and warped, chaotic and off kilter, brief squalls of splattery atonal skronk, give way to warbly drone psych squiggles, which gives way to drum-kit-down-the-stairs cacophony, which then gives way to some almost metal chug and thud, which always seems to blossom into a crumbling mass of swirling sound and amp damaging free-rock delirium. Gloriously ramshackle and seriously challenging, an extremely noisy and loud look back at one of our favorite unsung outfits that helped define the SF underground in the early 2000s...
We knew nothing at all about this disc when it arrived. Not even sure how we ended up listening to it, but we're so so glad we did. The thing is, we get tons of stuff to listen to. Some all time AQ favorites began life as a random record that showed up in the mail, so we try to listen to everything, or as close to everything as we can. But there's so much, that just listening to random stuff that gets mailed in could be its own full time job (and before you all email wanting that job, trust us, it's not all it's cracked up to be). Inevitably stuff slips through the cracks, or we finally manage to listen to a cd months, sometimes years after it shows up.
But this one caught our eye straight away, with a super creepy cover depicting a dead woman, covered in blood, in a wide expanse of blackness, above her a head, with a hole in the forehead, and a rainbow shooting through the head onto the dead woman, all done sort of oil painting style. Immediately we thought, "Wow, that sort of looks like some Argento movie". Then we saw the title, 31 Invalid Movie Themes � Italian Music. Hmm. By a group called Orchestra Di Rockford Kabine. Okay, so maybe, we thought, a soundtrack to some giallo we'd never heard of. The first track seemed to confirm that, a snippet of dialogue from some Italian movie, dialogue, some buzzing creepy sci-fi synth, a panicked woman, screaming, some sort of struggle...
Then suddenly, we're in some sort of groovy sixties funk jam, all shuffling percussion, wah wah guitar, throbbing bass grooves, and then out of nowhere, a strangely convoluted interlude, very brief, but sort of stuttery, and then back to the groove. So now we're dying to know what movie this is from. Then the next track is some sort of stripped down electro groove, a jazzy piano vamp, lots and lots of record crackle, this couldn't be from the sixties...
And it isn't. It ends up it's a German duo called Rockford Kabine, not a person at all, not a composer, an electronic/sampling outfit who describe their sound as "acid smurf" (huh?) and whose modus operandi is crafting little cinematic pop nuggets. Like DJ Shadow doing Morricone. The various tracks are super brief, but super groovy and catchy, some are dark and ominous and ultra creepy, some are playful and exotic. Some sound like they belong in a spaghetti Western, others like they belong in a classic Italian horror film, one track even uses the sound of a pinball machine as the rhythm. Plus the whole disc is peppered with bits of dialogue from movies making it seem even more possible that these could all be little fragments from lost movie scores.
The sounds are all over the place, but manage to sound like they all belong, if not in the same film, at least in the same collection. From the aforementioned opening groover, to the smoky synth flecked mood music of "Al Signor Lorenzo N." complete with a creepy children's choir, to the exploitation cop show funk jam of "Di-Stanza", to the super distorted buzzy sixties psychedelia of "IX", to the Tom Waits via Amon Tobin stuttery junkyard percussion of "Insensato", to the muted meandering twangy western sizzle of "Italo Calvino", to the stripped down, but somehow still spooky rhythmic workout of "Zombi 3000", to the very DJ Shadow-ish creepy crawl of "Profondo Rosso" and it goes on and on. Every track is a strange little gem. Mysterious and cinematic. Each could easily be the theme from some lost film, or just a kick ass little segment from some DJ's set.
31 tracks, averaging a little more than a minute each, these tracks may not actually be from real movies, but repeated listening will have you wishing they were, or just creating the movies in your head as you listen. Fucking awesome.
We first discovered amazing German duo Rockford Kabine via their debut full length, Italian Music: 31 Invalid Movie Themes, which on the surface played like a series of micro snippets of actual Italian soundtrack music, interspersed with snippets of dialogue, brief excerpts from what we can only assume are in fact real films, the music the perfect compliment, wah wah guitars, Morricone-ish twang, smoky synths, spooky rhythmic dronescapes. It was an incredible collection of music that very well could have been soundtrack music, but was in fact an original creation, imagined music for imaginary Italian films. And we were blown away. Not soon after, the band contacted us to let us know that they were already working on a follow up, this one an ACTUAL soundtrack, to some sort of arty XXX adult film, yep, a porno, which in some weird way made sense, what with RK's ability to conjure up super sultry and sexy sounds, that draw from all sorts of different sources, their music already cinematic on its own, seemingly perfect to be wedded to visuals, and heck, when the visuals turn out to consist of sexy women, some wielding daggers, wearing World War 2 style gasmasks and leather bodysuits and well, it's tough to argue with that.
But since the soundtrack was to be available ONLY as a bonus disc with the movie itself, it required some wrangling, and contacting an actual adult film distributor down in SoCal to get our hands on copies. But we're so glad we did. Even removed from the visuals, like all great soundtrack music, Rockford Kabine's score for XERO is incredible, haunting, mysterious, groovy, funky, abstract, cinematic for sure, but also lush and experimental and moody and mysterious. The strange thing too is that the film seems quite European, almost like some Inglorious Basterds style Tarantino war pic (or maybe that's just the aforementioned gas mask get up getting to us), but the music is very Eastern, in fact all the titles seem to be in Japanese, which only adds to the mystique of Rockford Kabine's fantastic soundworld.
So we'll discuss the film in a bit, but as aQ is a record store, and this is in fact our Record Of The Week, it's probably best to discuss the soundtrack/score all on its own first. Like Italian Music before it, XERO is a series of shortish tracks, between 1 and 2 minutes, each super distinctive, with the duo conjuring up incredible mysterious moods in a manner of seconds, leaving the listener in most cases wanting more more more. And like their Italian Music, this does play out like some sort of DJ Shadow style sonic collage, still drawing from Morricone, and the Italian giallo tradition, but also from classic '70s porno music, with some funk and groove, but instead of the oft ridiculed wah wah guitar style porn kitsch, this is much more evocative, and dark, guitars are slithery, basslines low slung, undulating, bells chimes, notes drift through fields of reverb, riffs chug and churn only to dissipate in a field of chimes, spaced out drones collide with almost Tangerine Dream like synths, flutes flit and flutter, the rhythms are minimal and motorik, some tracks playing out like some krautrock groove (reminding us that Can made softcore soundtracks too, way back when), others like some lost cosmic disco. It's actually quite hard to describe XERO, there are so many different sounds and styles, and it's hard to imagine them working as a soundtrack, especially to an super stylized XXX art film, but removed from the film, the music, as varied and constantly shifting as it is, somehow plays out cohesively, like an album proper, guitar twang is laced over a minimal footstep like rhythm, organs wheeze, everything sounds softly woozy and lysergic, exotic percussion collides with gamelan like melodies, minimal hip hop beats are wrapped around stuttering loops, occasionally coalescing into some seriously fuzzy hairy funk, other times drifting into Goblin style almost new wave sounding synthscapes, acoustic guitars unfurl some Western strum, but woven in are some haunting synth melodies, even some mysterious voices, soaring strings and sorrowful piano, tense droned out ambience, skittery almost Portishead style downtempo beats, bells and chimes, all sorts of strange production, the sound sometimes crystal clear and lush and lovely, other times hazy and druggy and gorgeously washed out, a kaleidoscopic sonic journey through some imaginary world of naked women, gasmasks and daggers, weird Asian masks, furry shag rugs, a world that would have stayed imaginary had these sounds not been used to edit the film of the same name.
The film is indeed pornographic, and XXX. It's all female-on-female, there's very little actual hardcore sex though. And while it IS a porno, with no plot to speak of, it's almost more like it's about the music. Indeed, the movie was edited to the music, much like Sergio Leone used to blast Morricone's scores on the set and have the actors move to the music, so the film here is a series of impressionistic tableaus, the colors acid drenched and super saturated, long slow stripteases, even the actual sex is strangely arty and not traditionally sexy, but the strange constantly shifting images, the cool, always changing music, work together, creating something much more than a porno, in fact, the film seemed more like something the band would project behind them when they performed live, strange masks, the aforementioned rubberclad gasmasked mystery woman, another woman who looks a bit like a sexier female version of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, long duster, big hat, face obscured by hair, and as the back cover proclaims, "See the shocking ending the censors didn't want you to witness", and we can definitely attest to the fact that the ending is really weird, depressing and violent, and not at all sexy, but in some way, that makes this whole project more interesting, and bizarre, and pretty much perfect for Rockford Kabine's incredible soundtrack. Though of course you don't HAVE to watch it, the prudish can enjoy the soundtrack fully without reference to the visuals.
Needless to say, this is TOTALLY RECOMMENDED, but, since the soundtrack cd does in fact come with an XXX rated adult dvd, thus is required some unaccustomed legalese on our part, as follows... This is only to be purchased by adults, and by purchasing this, and/or adding it to your online shopping cart, you are hereby agreeing to these stipulations: that you are an in fact an adult, being of legal age, 18 or 21, in your legal jurisdiction to view adult oriented material that may be sexual or graphical in nature. (Local laws vary throughout the United States, so if you are not 100 percent sure of the laws applicable to you, you are advised to check before purchasing.) Further, you agree that you will not redistribute this material to anyone for which it is illegal for them to view or possess such material, nor will you permit any minor, or any person who would find this personally offensive, to view this material, and finally that you will hold harmless aQuarius recOrds, its officers, ISP, and employees, from and against any claims, liability, losses, costs, damages, or expenses (including attorney's fees) arising from you use of the images contained on the dvd. Furthermore, you will defend aQuarius recOrds against all claims of impropriety regarding your purchase of this item. Phew. We'd have put all that in small print if we could.
For folks who musically came of age in the nineties, there are a handful of bands that defined out tastes, bands we obsessed over, bands that even to this day, are spoken of in hushed tones, a musical pantheon who not only created some of our favorite records EVER, but also seemed to spawn a legion of later/future bands, started by those self same fans. We're talking Slint of course, Codeine, Bitch Magnet, but then there's Rodan, another Louisville band (same as Slint) that seemed poised for greatness, but who left us with only one record, just six songs, but holy shit, those six songs, that one record is a fucking mind blower, a heavy, noisy, melodic math rock stunner that to this day few bands have come close to matching, in terms of intensity, originality, and pure math/post/noise rock radness. And while the various members would go on to play in other great bands, June Of 44, the Rachel's, Shipping News, Sonora Pine, none of those bands captured the same sonic magic as Rodan. Readers of the aQ list who don't have Rodan's record Rusty, do yourself a favor, and drop everything, and track it down NOW. You will not be sorry. For those of you like us, who have played that record to death for the last 20 years, well, this record is for you.
There were rumblings a while back of a new Rodan record, or perhaps an unearthed second album, which had most of us FREAKING OUT. Ends up what it was, was a collection of singles and compilation tracks, and Rodan's Peel Sessions, so not a new record, or a lost record, but hell, we're not complaining one bit. This collection opens with what might actually be one of our favorite Rodan song ever, their track from, the Simple Machines way way split with Tsunami, Unrest and Superchunk, and it's the perfect Rodan song, with it's super mathy, tense and dense, opening, all stop start heaviness, crazy shifting time signatures, continually morphing arrangement, then BAM, the song explodes into an impossibly catchy almost jangly pop, that sounds a bit like a noisier mathier Sebadoh, albeit all instrumental, finally returning to that churning mathy intro. Worth it JUST for that track. But there's so much more. Their How The Winter Was Passed 7" from 1993, which was released right before Rusty, and is a bit more aggressive, howled vox, wild mathy tangles, some VERY Slinty spoken word broodery, then there's their track from the Half Cocked soundtrack, their track from another killer split with Rocket From The Crypt, Pitchblende and Walleye, another one of our Rodan faves, churning and proggy, heavy and noisy, crunchy guitars, spidery melodies, wild intricate drumming, more Slinty spoken word, and some cool trippy psychedelic vocal harmonies, and there's a killer track from some comp even us obsessive Rodan fans never managed to track down, which finds Tara Jane O'Neil handling the vocals, over another Rodan classic, lurching from mathy tangle, to lilting lope and back again.
And if that weren't enough, the real reason for fans to snag this is the Peel Sessions, three tracks, never before released as far as we can tell, from the same era as Rusty, and sonically, it's more Rodan radness, darkly melodic, heavy and mathy and super melodic."Sangre" is all aching minor key moodiness, wrapped in prickly mathy crunch, "Big Things, Small Things", is quirky and tangly, a slow build, super dense/tense math workout that's like prog for the indie post rock set, the sound dizzying and intricate, but never losing site of the song, never ditching the melody, the sort of impossible hookiness that Rodan seemed to conjure up effortlessly. And finally, there's the almost 11 minute long "Before The Train", which needless to say, RULES, tons of parts, all woven together into an incredible, epic sonic sprawl, some ridiculous drumming, some stuttery start stop mathiness, some dreamy driftiness, a practically perfect collection of everything we loved, and still love about Rodan!
On top of tall that, both the cd AND the lp also include a bonus download of ten unreleased live tracks!!! So absolutely and utterly recommended!!!
RIP Jason Noble.
With the first track on this anthology being a recording of wind from a 1935 sound effects record, AQ beloved sound artist Steve Roden makes a very literal introduction to I Listen To The Wind That Obliterates My Traces. Released by Dust-To-Digital, this beautifully constructed hardback book filled with images both from and ephemeral to Roden's collection of 78s, as well as two discs worth of sounds from that antique vinyl. Yeah, the idea is pretty much the same as what the Climax Golden Twins presented via Dust-To-Digital on their also-awesome Victrola Favorites anthology a few years back; but Roden's collection trends more to the mid-part of the 20th Century and is focused on Americana (including a couple of Hawaiian tracks made before the islands were granted statehood). Following that crackled recording of the wailing wind from that sound effects record, is the unmistakable voice of John Jacob Niles, the 'mountain tenor' whose spooky falsetto and maudlin melodic wanderings predated Devendra Banhart by a good 60 years... Afterwards, there's plenty of bluesmen, blueswomen, gospel belters, Appalachian balladeers, and barbershop crooners, many of which seem quite world-weary in singing their tales of lust, money, and liquor (or the lack thereof). Some of the names are familiar to us (e.g. Clara Smith, Roy Smeck, Sol Hoopii), but there are plenty of anonymous recordings from home-cut discs as well. The arrangements for many of the songs tend to be very sparse, just voice and guitar is pretty much all you get on every track; and the album is dotted with tracks from antique sound effects records of birds, ice, and even "night noises!" For those of you aware of Roden's own compositions of understated field recordings, quiet ruminations on found objects, and soft looping techniques, this shouldn't be a big surprise.
The vintage photos inside this 184 page book are completely lovely, with all of their rumpled edges, ruddy patinas, and cracked surfaces, with some far more poignant - such as the shot of a bunch of violas suspended outside in the sun perhaps to allow a coat of shellac to dry. There's the silhouette of G.J. Jessup decked out in his one-man drum and bugle corps regalia, and the glum looking fellow with the unkempt mustache leaning against his Funnygraph contraption (sadly, there's no corresponding recording for either photograph). Pages and pages of interesting images to provoke curiosity and evoke reverie. Altogether, Roden has compiled over 150 photos and 51 tracks for this stunning document of sonic obsession from Dust-To-Digital! Hard to imagine NOT wanting this.
Wow! Ok, this is pretty darn amazing. We ordered a copy of this based on a brief description we read, something along the lines of: "long lost futuristic funky proggy electronic music from behind the Iron Curtain". That was enough for us. And maybe for you too, though we're gonna go on and on about this anyway. But yeah, if that description piques your interest, let us just say that you will NOT be disappointed. However incredibly weird and cool you might imagine this could be from that short synopsis, it is probably even better!
And we were listening to it, and loving it, before we delved into the detailed liner notes and found out what it was all about - or when exactly it was from. So that's another recommendation, the music stands on its own without prior awareness of its quite interesting historical aspects.
What you get here are ten killer tracks drenched in echo effects, dense with percolating beats, uber-distorted analog synths, and eerily ear-catching melodies, a sound utterly full of "flanged, phased, and fuzzed electricity". They're previously unreleased reel-to-reel recordings, circa 1978-1984, from the vaults of this pioneering Romanian DIY electro-prog-pop groop who only released two tracks officially during their career, on a state-sanctioned compilation lp in 1981, before fading into obscurity. Rodion G.A. was founded in 1975 by a fellow named Rodion Ladislau Rosca, who had been collecting prog records and experimenting with homebuilt electronic gear since the dawn of the '70s. The G.A. comes from the names of the other two founding members of the band, but it's really composer Rodion Rosca's show, the material here recorded in Rodion's home studio in Cluj, most instruments played and programmed by Rodion himself, with occasional 'real' drumming contributed by one of the other guys.
Despite the deprivations of living in an oppressive Communist dictatorship, Rodion's creativity flourished, and this music still sounds super fresh and ahead of its time, venturing even into full-on proto-techno with the likes of "Diagonala", though always in its own unique hybrid form, on that track ferinstance mixing in what sounds like Eastern European folk motifs and Goblin-y giallo soundtrack spookiness. Krautrock influences shine through too, Kraftwerk and Cluster for sure, plus we can't help but think of odd outsider aQ faves Bruce Haack and Wicked Witch - cool company to be in!
Rodion's bombastic "hairy funk" prog grooves are melded to melodic pop hooks, always cloaked with a wonderfully miasmic layer of lo-fi grime. Everything here has its unique charms, ranging from the sinister, grittily distorted bunkurfunk of "Citadela", to the motorik delightfulness of "Salt 83", so strangely warped and sunshiney, to "In Linistea Noptii", wherein lovely piano playing mixes it up with the electronic elements. Some tracks are instrumentals, some have catchy vocal choruses - and some are visited by what sound like the echoing cries of a prehistoric pterodactyl, presumably another synth effect, sizzling stabs of which are always swooshing around.
So THIS was the sound of underground Romania back in the day, who knew? We are so thankful this freaky music didn't stay a secret forever. Yep, these "lost tapes" are quite the discovery, minds have been blown for sure. Automatic Record Of The Week.
Packaged with extensive liner notes by Andy Thomas, illustrated with vintage photos, telling the whole fascinating story of Rodion's stunted career, and recent reemergence as the "Godfather of Romanian electronic music". Oh, and the vinyl version also comes with a cd!
Those of you who exhibited the good taste to purchase the cd reissue of Rogue Male's debut album, the 1985 NWOBHM classic First Visit, highlighted here recently, are all probably wondering when the reissue of the band's second and last album, 1986's Animal Man, would arrive, right? And you might also be wondering, just how well does Animal Man stack up against First Visit anyway? Well good news all around. It's finally here, and damn right Animal Man is just as good as First Visit, maybe even better. Which means: tough, hard rockin' '80s British metal, catchy, somewhat speedy, and still semi-futuristic (as far as their Mad Maxish costuming goes anyway... also note the computer voices at the start of side one).
Motorhead is still an obvious influence, some Thin Lizzy too. We're hearing both in the vocal dep't., which are sorta gruff and yobbish... kinda punk really. "The Real Me" reminds us of some Di'Anno era Maiden, specifically "Running Free" from Killers. Love the harmonica blowin' coda on that one too! There's definitely a punk, streetwise element to this band's metallic stylings, lots of take-no-shit attitude certainly. In fact, anyone in the market for an uplifting personal anthem might try out track three, "Take No Shit"!
At their most pogoish punk, the poppy unemployment protest rocker "Job Center" could be a Rezillos track. And at times, particularly when they work in the quasi-industrial "sci-fi" effects, this sounds a bit Killing Joke, actually. But their influences go further back - "You're On Fire" includes a nod to the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.
As with the First Visit reissue, this too is limited (2000 copies) and comes in a digipack. One bonus track this time, the non-album cut "Rough Tough (Pretty Too)" from the "Belfast" 12" ep that preceded Animal Man's release. The cd booklet includes lyrics, and biographical liner notes that yet again misspell Rogue Male as Rouge Male. Whoops.
Remember, if Andee and Allan here at AQ had gotten their as-yet-unnamed and still utterly hypothetical '80s metal reissue label off the ground already, THEY might have reissued the two Rogue Male albums themselves, if they could have. Rogue Male was top of their list - get this (and First Visit) to really understand why, maybe.
So, as you probably aren't aware, Aquarius co-owners Andee and Allan have been thinkin' about doing a heavy metal reissue label for a while now. For obscure stuff they love from the '80s that's never ever been legitimately reissued on cd. They even each came up with a short list of things they'd want to try and put out on their (as yet hypothetical) label. Why are we telling you this? Well, on both their lists, you'd find this band, England's Rogue Male.
Now it turns out that they can take Rogue Male off the list - 'cause their album First Visit HAS just in fact been reissued! Yay! Metal Mind just saved Andee and Allan a lot of trouble, and thousands of dollars!
Rogue Male only made two albums, of which this, from 1985, is the first. It's speedy, fist-pumping metal with a definite, catchy rock n' roll edge to it. In combination with the singer's gruff, Lemmy-like voice, this garnered a lot of comparisons to the mighty Motorhead, especially with regard to this disc's lead-off track "Crazy Motorcycle".
But also, they were known for their "futuristic", "sci-fi" image, because of their Mad Max style stage gear and the cover of this album, which depicts what appears to be a Terminator cyborg with a mullet! For a few brief moments there in '85, Rogue Male were the heavy metal equivalent of William "Neuromancer" Gibson or something. Or thought they were. After all, the British heavy metal magazine of record Kerrang! named them "the next big thing", which unfortunately was probably the kiss of death (how many next big things ever are?). After just one more album (1986's Animal Man, also a good 'un and hopefully soon to be in stock here too) they called it quits.
Really, Rogue Male weren't as advanced as their whole "cyberpunk" image seems to suggest. They were maybe more punk than cyber, doing songs more streetwise than science-fictional, about such topics as motorcycles, sex, and unemployment. Though we suppose, if Mad Max is the model, then at least motorcycles and unemployment are indeed "futuristic".
Despite Rogue Male's lack of success back in the day, anyone into a gritty, melodic mix of heaviness and poppiness '80s style should enjoy this overlooked album, one that from start to finish is a simple headbanging pleasure! Definitely one of the best from the latter days of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, that reminds us not only of Motorhead but also some of the more "hot rockin'" Judas Priest tracks of the era, and also of Thin Lizzy just a bit as well. There's just such a raw charm to the urgent, chunky, repetitive riffing of a song like "Look Out" that we gotta love. It doesn't matter that Rogue Male weren't actually innovating anything, they still managed to have a distinct identity and make some basic, quality NWOBHM tunes that have stood the test of time and well deserve reissue.
This limited edition digipack cd includes two worthy bonus tracks, and a cd booklet with new liner notes (which unfortunately contain a couple of typos, misspelling the band's name as "Rouge Male", whoops) and a couple of pretty funny band photos. Recommended! Remember, we were gonna put this out if we could!
Why haven't Andee and Allan gotten their reissue label off the ground yet? Well aside from being way busy with Aquarius (and in Andee's case, tUMULt) they haven't had too much luck contacting the bands they were interested in, so far... and also (and most importantly) they can't seem to agree on a NAME for the label. Andee wants to call it Heavy Rescue Records. Allan's keen on Hair Sprain Records. Anybody have any better ideas? ...Or, know how to get a hold of any former members of a band called Lords Of The Crimson Alliance (from New York, circa '86)??
Past records from Roll The Dice found the Swedish duo channeling the spirit of John Carpenter, crafting lush, sinister synthscapes, that much like the rest of the current crop of Carpenterians, played like some lost soundtrack, and while this new one displays much of that sound still, they've fleshed out their sound big time, the most notable shift being the addition of actual strings, turning their already lush sound into something downright majestic.
Brooding pianos drift amidst clouds of crackle, deep reverby shimmers, ominous minor key melodies, little bits of glitch, the strings gradually building to a harrowing, haunting coda, and that's just the opener, that sounds exactly like it could be the music beneath the credits from some seventies Italian giallo, right down to the simulated record crackle.
The band push way past their faux soundtrack roots, building epic bombastic creeps, like "Assembly", a stately march, more of a trudge actually, the chords ringing out, beneath big booming percussive thuds, a sinister slow build, that eventually blossoms into something almost Swans like, albeit heavy on the strings and piano, but still, it's fierce and intense, a near orchestral sonic death march, with a Godspeed style slow build energy, the songs here not so much songs, as pieces, single parts that develop over time, that expand and sprawl, often to devastating effect, the strings stunning, the mood darkly heart wrenching, some tracks the strings get all Bernard Hermann Psycho-stabs, sometimes accompanied by the plunk of prepared piano, those tracks drifting into full on 20th century / musique concrete territory, but other drifting along dreamily, sounding like the prettiest, most minimal Tim Hecker track, all hazy and washed out, and delicately crystalline, while still others sound almost like trip hop, channeling groups like Portishead or Massive Attack, that sound even more effective with the strings, that add so much pathos and emotion. Fantastic stuff, haunting and lovely, alternately brooding and bombastic, cinematic and soundtrack, but also dabbling in straight up sound design, fans of Tim Hecker, and Fennesz, and Godspeed, and Belong, and Stars Of The Lid, not to mention all the modern retro-synth wranglers, the Goblin and Carpenter worshippers, this is the next step in the evolution of that sound, and is really pretty goddamn stunning.
Pop music definitely seems more and more like a lost art every day. For every hundred bands that can whip up a chaotic noise rock racket, or every thousand bands who tune down and unfurl walls of crumbling low end sludge, there are maybe only one or two bands, who are creating true, timeless, amazing pop music. Rife with amazing production, incredible songwriting, lush harmonies, clever lyrics, mind blowing hooks, maybe even horns and strings, and out of those bands, maybe only a fraction are doing something truly original. Aping the Beach Boys or the Zombies or the Beatles can only take you so far. And to be totally honest, way too many bands claim the Beach Boys or the Zombies as an inspiration, most taking just the surface stuff, which was only part of the musical magic involved.
So thus we have the strangely named Rollo Treadway, from Brooklyn, although on first listen we would have sworn they were from sixties London, or perhaps sixties Los Angeles. This disc showed up out of the blue in the mail one day, and on first listen we were already proclaiming this pop record of the year. How could we not, this is everything we love. Retro pop so good, that if you didn't know better, you might assume this was the real thing. And heck, it IS the real thing, just 40 years later. The strangest thing about this band is the fact that the drummer is Blake Fleming, formerly of the Mars Volta, and before that, the godlike Laddio Bolocko! But don't be expecting any of that sort of stuff, this is pure pop. Lush, string laden, harmony drenched pop. Mellotrons, warm organs, jangly guitars, and some of the most gorgeous breathy vocals harmonies we've heard in ages. The other amazing thing about this disc, is that it's a concept record of sorts, the first song, "Kidnapped" is sung by the male half of a couple of siblings who have been kidnapped, it's strangely moving, and super creepy. Later in the record, a track begins with the sound of a typewriter, and the song reveals itself as a letter from the kidnapper to the kids' family. The high concept never derails the songs though, and the songs are damn near perfect.
The opener, is quite possible THE pop song of the year. Quite reminiscent of Belle And Sebastian's "Step Into My Office, Baby" from their Dear Catastrophe Waitress (a record even the B&S hating Andee LOVES), beginning with twangy Western guitar, some cool percussion, maracas, shakers, a woozy guitar melody, all beneath a super effected stuttering main riff, then a circusy bridge, with gorgeous falsetto vocals, soaring strings, even some horns, a very Zombies like string break, there's even a flute solo. It manages to be dreamy and ethereal, but also surprisingly rocking. We've probably listened to this song a hundred times since we first got this in. Thankfully, the rest of the record is just as gorgeous, borrowing heavily from the above mentioned influences, but wrapping those influences in their own distinct song writing, some incredible intricate guitars, super varied drumming and percussion, horns and strings everywhere, whirring organs, but the focal point is definitely the vocals, lush and whispery and soft, the harmonies rich and layered and seemingly effortless.
"Dear Mr. Doe" continues the kidnapping plotline, the typewriter leading into a jaunty organ riff, and a simple propulsive rhythm, wandering bassline, and the vocals, multi tracked, each one complimenting the other, vibes, more organs, a shimmery sixties groove, almost dreamlike, while the lyrics instruct the parents not to call the police and where to leave the money if they ever hope to see the kids alive again.
It's really hard to explain what exactly is so magical about this record, other than the sound is amazing, and the songs are fantastic. Just listen to the sound samples, if "Kidnapped" doesn't immediately send you into paroxysms of pop bliss, then you need to march right down to your local Pop Music headquarters and turn in your membership. Pop kids of any stripe will dig this like crazy. If you love the Zombies, Beach Boys, Badfinger, Beatles, Kinks, or more modern pop revivalists like Jellyfish, the Three O'Clock, the Wondermints, Silver Sun, Redd Kross, Belle And Sebastian you will definitely love getting lost in the Rollo Treadway's lush baroque pop wonderland.
NOW ALSO ON CD!
UK horror soundtrack vinyl label Death Waltz, deviates again from their ongoing reissue campaign to offer up another modern soundtrack, but fear not, Room 237 stacks up pretty well against all the classics the label has been resurrecting recently, it would be really easy to mistake this for some classic slab of grimy cinematic sonic creep from back in the day. Jonathan Snipes and William Hudson channel the greats, John Carpenter, Goblin, equal parts sinister synth drones, twisted electronics, blackened ambience, seventies kosmische, haunting melodies, Italo-disco, groovy synth wave, the craziest part of all is that it's the soundtrack to a DOCUMENTARY! But then it's not any documentary, it's a 2012 film about Stanley Kubrick's classic, The Shining, or more specifically, all the crackpot theories folks have about the Shining, with interviews with various people, each presenting their take on the hidden meanings behind The Shining, and some of them are doozies, from the genocide of the American Indians, to the Apollo 11 moon landing, and yeah, even the Holocaust. The movie is twisted, and fascinating, hilarious and disturbing, some of the theories totally far fetched, others not so much, with plenty of visual evidence given for each. Watching the movie, we were actually struck by the score, which at times reminded us of the music from Phantasm (Death Waltz, reissue that one!!!), or Halloween, which seem like they wouldn't be suited to a documentary, but somehow, they add a sort of cinematic gravitas, even more so when this new score is coupled with original footage from The Shining. But hell, even removed from the film, Snipes and Hutson's score is fantastic, big bombastic percussion, darkly swirling synths, choir like vocals, haunting melodies, pulsing almost disco-y synthscapes, plenty of futuristic electronics, cascading keyboard arpeggiations, and shimmery chordal swells, fluttery psychedelic flutes, some of the music super tense and ominous, reminding us also of the incredible score for the recent Beyond The Black Rainbow (Death Waltz! Do that one too!!), sort of cosmic prog, infused with a heaping dose of the sonic heebie jeebies. So goddamn good. And again, fans of classic old school horror scores, will likely flip their lids! As will anyone into the retro futuristic faux-soundtracks of Zombi, Majeure, Umberto and all the rest.
Like all Death Waltz releases, the packaging is super swank, the cd comes in an eye popping full color six panel gatefold digisleeve, complete with the cool pop up cd holder featured in other DW cds, the vinyl is 180 gram, red and yellow, cut at 45rpm, and housed in a heavy casebound tip-on sleeve. The vinyl version also includes a cd of the complete score as well!!
Second blast of gloriously grungy noise rock from these recent aQ faves who seem to have taken the blatant Nirvana obsession of their Ideal Cities and tempered it a bit, the new ep way more polished and poppy. All of which was hinted at on that first one for sure, but here, the moments of noisy crunch and fuzzed out pound are more in service to some seriously kick ass songwriting and big BIG hooks. We're tempted to even say 'radio ready', cuz goddamn if this stuff wouldn't sound right at home alongside the usual modern rock suspects. That said, Roomrunner are still plenty scrappy, and the influence of classic grunge is all over their sound, but they've managed to finally make those influences less obvious, crafting a sound that ultimately sounds like Roomrunner, and not the bands they grew up on. Opener "Ms. DNA" takes up right from where Idea Cities left off, a pounding grunge groover, but quickly the sound blossoms into something way more melodic, with spidery guitar melodies, wound around equally spidery melodies, giving it a sort of psychedelic vibe, before the chorus swoops in, all anthemic with vocal harmonies galore, before lunging right back more grungy crunch. And the rest of the record plays out similarly, most of the songs starting with a very Nirvana-esque sonic seed, often transformed into some very familiar sounding grunt riffing, but then in EVERY case, the song becomes something else entirely, jangly, catchy, poppy, the vibe is still super nineties, and given no context at all, you'd likely think this was from back in the day, but somehow it sounds simultaneously nostalgic and fresh and exciting at the same time. A rare feat for sure. And while it's still noisy and weird enough for underground weirdos, it definitely sets these guys up for some mainstream love, which is not a bad thing at all.
Includes a download too!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Root is Czech black metal band, led by vocalist/visionary Big Boss. They've been around for a long time now, developing from rather primitive and fucked up black metal to the likes of this album: classical-leaning heavy metal opera weirdness. As fucked up as their earlier stuff but so much more advanced. Really amazing and strange, with Big Boss' sub-baritone vocal stylings being only the first of the many eccentricities on display here. Recommended.
A double cd reissue (w/ bonus tracks) of two albums (from 1990 & 1992, newly remastered) by this cult Czech black metal band. Not as advanced as their latest release "The Book", but definitely unique and full of interesting music. For fans of fellow Czech weirdos Master's Hammer and strange black metal in general.
Rorschach, for those of you that don't know, were THE hardcore band of the early nineties. Seminal, influential and completely amazing. Furious and pummelling, political and totally kick ass. The singer went on to start super hip, post hardcore indie label
Not sure what there is to say about Mr. Jack Rose that we haven't already. Most faithful readers of the aQ list are no doubt well versed in Rose's music, but for those who aren't, Rose is a practitioner of his own unique brand of modern Appalachia, a master of the steel string, whether finger picking or playing with a slide, Rose can coax amazing sounds from a guitar, and all by his lonesome create lush steel string guitarscapes, that range from haunting and mysterious to folky and familiar.
This super limited lp gathers up 3 long live tracks, all quite different. The first is a track from Kensington Blues, a big favorite around here, recorded live in Chicago, and is of course amazing. Swirling clouds of notes, tangled melodies, shimmering drones, almost like Lubomyr Melnyk on the guitar, incredibly fast finger picking, the notes whirling and piling up into blurred chords, all woven into a rich layered expanse of droning folk. So fantastic. The second track was recorded live by longtime aQ customer, Berry Kamer, for the VPRO radio show in Amsterdam, and demonstrates Rose's more traditional side, much more classic folk and Appalachian sounding, folky and wistful, dreamy and gorgeous and fluttery, but still plenty dense and deep, with more incredible fingerpicking, but much more subtle, the result some classic Fahey style pick and strum.
The whole of side two is taken up but a single looooong high end drone exploration, that harkens back to Rose's days in his old group Pelt. Previously released on the now WAY out of print vinyl only compilation By The Fruits..., this track finds Rose getting all Sunroof! with a gorgeous wavery field of high end drones, and metallic shimmer, buzzing pulsing layers, overtones and buried melodies, glistening and glimmering, all upper register tones blurred and smeared into effulgent streaks, moaning and scraping and singing, the various tones allowed to burn bright and blend into the surrounding tones, a serious chunk of divine ur-drone for sure.
Folks who have been going crazy for James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Matt Baldwin and the like, will definitely dig this. Rose fans, well, you know you need this already. The drone track will definitely hit the spot for Sunroof! fans and anyone into otherworldly and transcendent drone music.
INCREDIBLY THICK VINYL, super heavy black and white sleeve, limited to less than 1000 copies, we have a bunch, but as always, they will probably disappear quick...
Yet another baffler from Norway's Jester Records (the weird-ass label run by Garm from Ulver) who in the past have brought us Bogus Blimp, When, Esperanza, and the newer, more experimental Ulver records. This is sort of an electronica record. Sort of.
Yet another band to add to the current crop of boys club crashing, ass kicking female fronted, hard rock / heavy metal bands (alongside The Devils Blood, Jex Thoth, Loon, Cauchemar, Christian Mistress, Wooden Stake, Blood Ceremony), this one hailing from Atlanta, not so much a metal band as a hard rock power trio, with a lead vocalist with a serious set of pipes on her, no screeching, or buried in the mix warbling, Miny Parsonz dominates, her vocals sexy and sultry and witchy and powerful and dramatic, super distinctive, a little rough and raspy, but perfectly suited to the groups, swaggery, groovy, hard rock, almost Southern rock sounding at times, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, probably more than Sabbath honestly, the songs slow building and smoldering, the guitar smokey and spidery, the drums, subtle and laid back, the band creating lush dark mysterious twang flecked drifts, Parsonz' vocals slithering over the top, deep and throaty, the riffs getting more and more distorted, the drums crashing in, and suddenly it, the heaviest seventies hard rock jam you never heard, the hooks perfect, the vocals, so BAD ASS. There's a serious slowcore thing going on here too, like Loon, reminding us of aQ faces True Widow, that slithery moody minimal crawl, plus there's a definite eighties metal vibe happening too, mostly in the vocal melodies, that had us thinking of Lita Ford and Doro Pesch, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact, it adds a whole other dimension that other current female vocalists lack, and the fact that these guys (and gal) are obviously more about writing songs, that just SOUNDING heavy, means the more you listen to these jams, the more they stick. When we first heard this, we thought it was pretty cool, but now we can't stop listening, and damn if "Sleeping Witch" isn't the hard rock jam of the year. A new favorite for sure. And if you dig any of the above mentioned bands, this might be one of the best of the bunch. We've got cds, and colored vinyl, take your pick!
Latest disc of dronemusic from aQ customer and master dronelord Andrew Moon, his first for Utech, and definitely one of his heaviest.
From the opening few seconds, this is some seriously distorter metallic static heaviness, a massive crumbling wall of slow moving fuzz guitar, gorgeously layered so it's not just some guitar-against-the-amp bullshit, no, this is some serious minimal dronemusic, just instead of tones, or sinewaves, Moon has opted for BIG amps and slow glacial chords. The sound pulses and throbs like it was alive, and it sort of is really, with all manner of metallic buzz and grinding shards of feedback drifting beneath and within the humid cloud of warm whirring thickness. Moon is a master of maximizing minimalism, and this track is the perfect example, both understated and pretty, but thick and corrosive and heavy enough that some dronedirgedoom obsessive could get really into it. And it's the sort of sound we can never get enough of, and one that could have stretched the length of the cd and we would have been perfectly pleased.
But there's more to Moon and Tomorrow's Void than just heavy buzz, the second track is much murkier affair, moaning deep tones gradually spread out and grow more and more melodic, even as feedback adds another layer to the proceedings. But 10 minutes later and the guitars come growling back, unfurling an avalanche of crumbling fuzz and blown out minimal anti-metal.
There are 3 or 4 tracks over the remainder of the record that dip into much more muted minimal dronescaping, some offering streaks of high end with their rumbling whirring drift, but the majority of the record is spent with distortion pedals on, filling rooms and speakers and headphones with billowing clouds of warm buzz and ever expanding slow motion guitadrones, each one in its own way powerful and dark, but to our ears trancelike and dreamy, the exact sort of heaviness that has us entranced and drifting off to the other side.
Heavy With Illusion is a collaboration between RST and Lenz, the latter being a previously unknown singer from Shanghai; and the former being one of our favorite New Zealand drone technicians, aka Andrew Moon. The previous RST outings are all-consuming thrums of amplifier smolder and long-form drone topography, coming out of the same tradition that begat Gate, Birchville Cat Motel, Surface Of The Earth, etc; and we had loved everything Moon has ever touched. That still remains true with this collaboration, though this album is very much a departure for RST. Heavy With Illusion allows us a glimpse into Moon's craft for the song, taking up the mantle of lumbering slowcore previously mined by Codeine, Low, or even the latter day incarnation of Earth. There's a melodic miserablism to Moon's chiming if heavy guitar which make full use of loud-soft dynamics with occasional drums punctuating the crashes spread out through these songs. Lenz mostly sings in Cantonese, very occasionally in English, those instances, along with the translated lyrics, speak to the morose poetry of Lenz's lyrics - death, the loss of love, psychic dislocation, and the disconnection from nature. She alternates between a plainspoken narration and world-weary melodies, as if Jenny Toomey of Tsunami were to front a Codeine / Charalambides cover band. Moon does offer two tracks of his drone-centric work with Lenz sitting those out on the sidelines. But the two together create a special sort of minimal musical magic. Pretty amazing, we gotta say!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
WOW. And do we mean WOW!! Fifteen classic free jazz records from the late sixties / early seventies, long out of print, finally getting the ULTRA deluxe reissue treatment. For some reason these are incredibly limited, so they've been a bit tough to get, so we're going to list a few at a time as we can get them.
Ahhh, the trombone, not the most common of jazz instruments, but one of the most versatile and powerful, "the voice of God" according to one 19th century composer, and to our ears one of the strangest and coolest. Roswell Rudd may very well be one of the better known masters of the jazz trombone, as well as one of the few white players in the sixties free jazz scene. Having done time with a handful of big jazz names (including Cecil Taylor) this is a reissue of Rudd's first record as a band leader. Featuring Rudd on trombone,�John Tchicai on Alto Saxophone, Finn Von Eyben on double bass and Louis Moholo on drums, these five tracks smolder and smoke, it's free, but not chaotic and skronky, instead, the sounds here sort of drift and intertwine, these pieces smolder, dark and brooding, murky and subterranean sounding, the drums are a constant skitter, a dense tangle of impossibly free rhythms, the bass wrapped around the drums like a warm blanket, Rudd's trombone and Tchicai's sax are slippery slithering snakes one moment, then wisps of smoke the next, occasionally turning sharp and jagged, but usually slipping back into the shadows. A dark dreamy blend of�marching band music, traditional African music, New Orleans jazz, and random avant free drone clatter and shuffle, with long stretches sounding like they came straight off some lost Avarus or No Neck record. So mysterious and beautiful. HIGHLY recommended.�
Comes in a gorgeous diecut fullcover three panel sleeve, with new artwork, as well as a huge booklet with the original album sleeve notes, new liner notes in french and english as well as a bunch of cool photos. So nice!
Easily one of our favorite post punk / death rock groups EVER. Tense and angular, angry and ominous, sinister and sinuous, dark and gothic, every song here a stone cold gloom punk classic, the bass thick and almost new wavey, the guitars jagged, fuzzy and distorted, raw riffage and driving drum pound, all in support of the twisted vocals of Nick Blinko, whose distinctive vocals are only rivaled by his even more distinctive artwork, which adorns the cover (and the cover of all their records), a dizzyingly meticulous black and white horrorscape, that perfectly captures the world of nightmarish, anxiety ridden terror that lurks within the grooves of Death Church, and presumably within Blinko's mind as well, which is probably what resulted in several stints in mental institutions.
Even all these years later, Rudimentary Peni sound so good, their music so relevant, and whether consciously or not, aped by far too many modern bands to count, powerful and personal, depressive and kicking-against-the-pricks pissed off, and catchy as fuck, this record has lost none of its twisted black energy in the nearly twenty years since it was first released.
Let's just start by saying WE LOVE RUDIMENTARY PENI. Easily one of our favorite punk rock groups EVER. Murky and muddy and furious and freaked out. If you somehow don't already own Death Church or Cacophony, you must go try to track them down immediately. Those two records are as near flawless as something fucked up and punk rock and gloomy and demented can actually get without ceasing to be all those things.
Much has been written about Peni frontman Nick Blinko, who has spent most of his adult life in and out of asylums, and who is responsible for the band's super striking album covers, super intricate pen and ink drawings, which must take forever, and could only have been drawn by someone either truly inspired, truly demented or both. And somehow, those drawings perfectly and impossibly reflect the music on the inside. Where the drawings are incredibly detailed and complex to the point of mania, the music is stripped down and repetitive, often with just one or two parts, the vocals often just a few lines repeated over and over.
Listening to No More Pain, the first RP record in almost 4 years, we were struck by how much all of the super raw and stripped down primitive black metal sounds like Rudimentary Peni. Akitsa, Bone Awl, Ancestors, Ildjarn, plenty of D-beat stuff, slow it down to a more garagey punk rock pound and it's uncanny. In fact, the mind boggles at a black metal Peni, imagining these tracks sped up and blackened, wow.
Anyway, this is classic Peni, 10 songs, less than 20 minutes, simple, stomping riff heavy crusty punk, the drums pounding away, the riffs repetitive and mesmerizing, the vocals growled and howled and crooned, the lyrics mantra-like, the songs weirdly catchy too, almost poppy, but just 'off' enough to remain dark and mysterious and intense.
The only true weirdness is a very unexpected cover of Pachelbel's Canon, which to be honest, sounds pretty good, the guitars all warped and twisted, but it almost sounds too happy, but everything is slightly off enough, and just a little bit cracked that is manages to sound just a bit demented, which we can only suppose is the point.
Not to be confused with Japanese prog duo Ruins, these guys are from Germany, and traffic in classic old school thrashing blackness, channeling the greats like Bathory and Sodom and even Darkthrone. On first listen, we just took Ruins for another bunch of retro thrashers, which technically they are, but we left the record playing, and the more it played, the deeper we got into it, the more obsessed we became. We're not always that into old school thrash, our tastes run more to the black and droney, or the fucked up and frenzied, but there's something about these guys that has all the metalheads around here in a bit of a froth.
The riffs of course destroy, buzzy and crushing, the production massive and in-the-red, the vocals are insane, a glass gargling bile spewing demonic rasp that pretty much seals the deal. Tons of distortion and reverb, the songs simple and stripped down, raw and relentless, it takes all our self control to reign in fits of spontaneous head banging when this disc is playing.
The crazy thing is Ruins is a one man band. We're used to one man bedroom black metal, but listening to this we envision three long haired guys all holding up chains and upside down crosses, scowling at the camera, bullet belts massive spikes, leather jackets, in a graveyard or some forest or something, pretty insane that something this furious and blown out and thrashy is just one guy, but hell, kudos to him.
Not sure what else to say, this rules, total punked up greasy, filthy thrashy blackened metal genius, give the sound samples a few listens, once you're hooked, you'll be hard pressed to pry this thing out of your cd player.
Includes Ruins' first two demos, from 2006 and 2007, as well as a bunch of previously unreleased bonus tracks.
METAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At last, reissued -- as a 'real' cd (not a cd-r) and cheaper too! This debut DJ/Rupture mix disc was a big hit here at Aquarius (and elsewhere too, apparently). We'd been getting the cd-r version on /Rupture's own Soot label direct from the man himself, but those are no longer available. Kid606 stepped in and signed DJ /Rupture to his Tigerbeat6 label, with a new /Rupture set called "Minesweeper Suite" due for release on August 27th. But, in advance of that, the Kid's other label, Violent Turd, has made the "Gold Teeth Thief" set available once again. Packaged in one of those plastic clamshell cases, with nought but a sticker for artwork, this remains a budget release, but a welcome one. It's also apparently a limited edition reissue, so if you missed it before, don't sleep on it now!! Here's our original glowing review, backed up by being named one of the top 50 best albums of the year by The Wire:
This is one of the best mix cds we've ever heard. And it's not about insane turntable skills, or about that 'isn't-it-weird-and-crazy-how-I've-juxtaposed-hip-hop-and-classic-rock' gimmicky stuff or about how famous or cool the DJ is (in fact, I bet you've never even heard of DJ /Rupture, an American living in Spain). It's about his choice of songs, and how smoothly and creatively they're mixed (live on 3 turntables). This cd is just an amazing and deft mix of dance hall (traditional -and- HARD ala DJ Scud etc.), hip hop, dub and electronica. Nothing fancy just 70 minutes and 43 tracks of some of our favorite shit: Missy Elliott, Nas, DJ Scud, Barrington Levy (a different track than his contribution to the amazing 400% Dynamite compilation, but you'll recognise his oh-so-familiar 'Woah Wooah.'), Nettle, Dead Prez, Bounty Killer, Kid 606, Venetian Snares, Luciano Berio, Shabba Ranks, Non Phixion, Wu-Tang Clan, Cannibal Ox, Djivan Gasparyan, Sub Dub, John Wall, Oval, Project Pat, Muslimgauze and even Paul Simon/Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Miriam Makeba (ending all smooth and pretty with no beats at all). Wow.
New Zealand noise-guru Bruce Russell has taken some time away from his busy schedule running the Corpus Hermeticum megacorporation and recording with The Dead C and A Handful of Dust to release this solo recording. "Maximalist Mantra Music" perfectly describes the improvized clatter and guitar feedback wrestled into a hypnotic drone. So we'll just leave it at that, well, except to say this this is one of Andee's current drone faves.
Dead C main man Bruce Russell's latest solo record is a gorgeous slab of gurgling textures and humming buzzing drones. Built from a seven meter pre-recorded tape loop and slowed down thumb piano, these two lengthy pieces build from rich, soothing foghorn like tones into shimmering washes of high end feedback and rumbling clatter. Really, really beautiful and much less abrasive than a lot of Russell's work.
