Back in 2011, we made Might Of The Planet Eater, the debut from weirdo minimal blackened power electronic one man band Will Over Matter our Record Of The Week. We initially discovered WOM via the fact that the 'one man' behind that one man band, was none other than Harald Mentor, mastermind of aQ beloved Finnish rhythmic black metal minimalists Ride For Revenge, who for some crazy reason, we just realized, have never nabbed Record Of The Week honors, cuz in retrospect, any/all of their previous records were more than deserving.
As we mentioned in our reviews of the other Will Over Matter records, if you thought Ride For Revenge were weird, then prepare theyself to be blown away, baffled, confused, frustrated, thrilled, unnerved, disturbed, most likely all of the above. Will Over Matter takes the dense rhythmic churn, already sort of spaced out and abstract, and replaces the bass and drums and traditional instruments, with what sounds like a battery of cobbled together electronics, home made machines and invented instruments, it's tough not to envision Mentor as some sort of mad scientist, in his murky musical laboratory, surrounded by walls of primitive electronics, old computers, blinking lights, blown speakers, a room full of towering obelisks of obsolete technology, harnessed into something otherworldly, and improbably next level. The sounds these machines emit glitchy and gristly, jagged and hiss-drenched, in some ways the template for WOM is the same as it was for Ride For Revenge, the 'band' locked into simple, lurching, lumbering motorik grooves, the 'beat' wrapped in dense sonic swirls, thick fields of static, everything glitched out and in-the-red. A head spinning sprawl of blackened kraut-noise synth-drone power-electronic minimalism, that RULES. Which brings us to the latest missive from Mentor, which is another psychedelic minimal electro-noise WTF doozy, the vocals kept to a minimum this time, the three lengthy tracks, spaced out and droney, slow shifting layers, constantly morphing textures, pulsing and pulsating, the sounds raw and gristly, the tracks maniacally repetitive and cyclical, in a way that to our ears is total tranced out bliss, but to less adventurous ears, might be just the opposite. The lack of 'song' and 'structure', not that there was that much of either on past WoM release, but even less so here, is precisely what makes Phenomenal Highways a whole different beast, at times, it's like past WoM records stripped down to their very skeletal essence, the opening track some sort of primitive kosmische ritual, a single synth locked and looped into a seemingly endless cycle of simple pulses, weirdly warbly and super distorted, a heartbeat like pulse wreathed in filthy, crusty synth squelch, that squirms and oozes, occasionally shaped into actual melodies, but more often than not droning and buzzing hypnotically, the final few minutes, finds the sounds transformed into weird lazer blast like blurts before suddenly blinking out.
The second track is even MORE minimal, a super spare soundscape that sounds like some mysteriously manipulated alien field recording, something you might here on Editions Mego, a field of crumpled low end crackle, muted and murky, peppered with little bits of percussion, the sound a weird bit of grinding muddy noise, it's not until 7 minutes in that the sound splinters, the background smoothing out into a whirring distorted drone, while Mentor delivers some demonic sermon over the top, his voice processed and doused in distortion, before the track explodes into a field of grinding electronics, tangled melodies, swirling tones, a robotic psych-noise freakout that manages to be more listenable than it has any right to be, a head spinning psychedelic churn that blossom into a final super blown out speaker shredding blowout, before oozing into the final track, a weird shuffling sprawl of rib cage rattling low end, dense subsonic tones delivered through what sounds like slow motion helicopter rotor wash, weirdly rhythmic and mesmeric, this minimal ooze and creep soon joined by strange curlicues of melody, the deep tone gathering all sorts of acoustic crunch as it goes, and once again, about seven minutes in, a super distorted blast of fractured blown out melody surfaces, giving the whole thing a seriously psychedelic vibe, those tones totally overtaking the rest of the sound, before fading out, and returning us to the slow-swell pulsations of the first half, only to fade out into a crackly sprawl of sculpted feedback, wreathed in hiss and hum, the sound smoldering and sinister, draped over a buried barely there rhythm, some echo drenched vocals in there too, everything sort of washed out and blurry, drifting beneath sheets of feedback and fields of staticky hum, all culminating in a final freaked out psych-noise squall, that does little to disguise the haunting melodic beauty that lurks within.
As always, amazing, bizarre and bafflingly brilliant, a dizzyingly abstract, twisted industrial psychedelic drone-noise masterpiece. That is of course also extremely limited...
Okay, field recording nuts, this one is for you. Just who ARE the noisiest guys on the planet you ask? Why, that would be the decapods of course, aka the ten footed crustaceans, a la crayfish, crabs, lobster and shrimp!
The real question then, is what kind of noise do these noisy guys make? Well, thanks to Jana Winderen (whose Surface Runoff 7" on Autofact we raved about a while back), we now know. Describing it is the hard part. Not sure if this is a recording of their little feet on some surface underwater, or them swimming around, it doesn't sound as much like a field recording as it does some strange fuzzy, buzzy, glitchy drone record. Which is actually pretty cool. A swirling cloud of muted clattery crunch, muted skitter, what sounds like record crackle or tape hiss, static even, all over little bumps and creaks, almost like the sound of something hitting the mic, but it seems more likely that this is the creatures doing what they do, elsewhere, there seems to be rocks shifting or moving against each other. You can also hear the sound of running water, splashes, maybe it's just the current, it's a pretty awesome fascinating sound, very textural and abstract, layered and otherworldly. As a field recording artifact, it's definitely weird and wonderful and enthralling, but simply based on the sonics, it's a pretty awesome listen, minimal and drone-y and abstract and surprisingly soothing.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, these are probably the last copies we'll get. Includes a cool tape cover, with drawings of a decapod and liner notes detailing interesting facts about the creatures.
Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!
A while back we reviewed a super limited tape of ultra obscure early nineties proto-trip-hop from a woman named Leslie Winer, who recorded much of her music under the mysterious symbol/moniker ©, and who was in fact a former model, a pal of William Burroughs and Jean-Michael Basquiat, not to mention a sometime guest vocalist on records by groups like Bomb The Bass. Apparently Winer ditched modeling, and soon dropped off the map, but not before making a record called Witch, considered to be an essential early chunk of skittery, hazy, woozy, trip hop style electronica, well before there really WAS trip hop. The record featured Jah Wobble among others, and was/is a gorgeous chunk of druggy, dubbed out minimal electronic murk that most obviously referenced Tricky, Massive Attack, even Portishead, but predated all of them (with much of Witch having been recorded in the eighties).
On this new cd collection, on the newly launched Wormhole imprint (and offshoot of the kick ass Tapeworm label that put out the Winer tape we first heard), that tape is expanded to include even more mysterious sounds from Winer's mostly unheard back catalogue, a sprawling selection of tracks recorded throughout the eighties and nineties, including several collaborations with Vincent Gallo which appear here for the first time. Long sprawling horn flecked dubscapes, rife with barebones rhythms, tripped out FX, warm muted chordal swirls, plenty of downtempo weirdness and creepy crawly late night shimmer. A dark skeletal avant dub, softly roiling morass of blurred sonics that underpin Winer's strange vocals, hushed and whispered, a sort of slow motion toasting, spoken one second, crooned seductively the next, occasionally multitracked into dreamy harmonies, but just as often slipping into something far more sinister. The tracks expanding into billowing clouds of thrum and whir, anchored by loping rubbery basslines, and wreathed in slowed down samples, fragments of reggae guitar, disembodied horns, all woozy and warbly, everything wrapped in a gauzy haze of record crackle, tape hiss, smeared psychedelic ambience.
Here and there the drums are cranked up into something more block rocking, but even then Winer transforms it into something more murky and surreal, the bass gets super distorted and fuzzed out (some dubstep foreshadowing for sure), everything wrapped around effected acoustic guitars, sampled, layered, recontextualized vox, Winer's vocals slipping easily into lower registers, and sounding a lot like Tricky, due in no small part to the rhythmic murk they're wrapped in, and throughout, strange little flurries of percussive filigree, all of these swirling abstract elements woven into a mesmerizing sprawl of shuffling tripped out, psychedelic downtempo moody muddy groove, that should definitely appeal to fans of witch house, as well as the warped fringes of modern downtempo electronica (Burial, Holy Other, Balam Acab, James Blake, How To Dress Well, etc.).
Super swank packaging to boot, an oversized A5 glossy cardstock insert, liner notes on one side, art on the other, as well as a fold out poster, everything printed in metallic silver ink, and all in a thick PVC sleeve.
Why it has taken so long for this to be reissued is baffling, but we're just so glad it's finally here. We have raved about Leslie Winer's musical work on two previous archival releases from Tapeworm and its offshoot label Wormhole, but those really only hinted at the genius of Witch, her only previously released record, from 1993 (though much of it was recorded in the late eighties). Records don't get more cult than this. Released on a white label, using the copyright symbol as her moniker, here designed as a circle of Ourobouros that was originally hand stamped onto blank white sleeves. Even the album and song titles with their alphanumerical wordplay ("N1ear", "1nce Upon A Time") would fit right at home with the obscurant syntax of witch house, even though this was recorded nearly 20 years before. Witch has been labeled as "proto-trip-hop", which it sort of is, as this record predates what Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky were doing just a year or two later, and even Winer herself has been called by NME "The Grandmother of Trip Hop", a label she has rejected and rightly so. "Grandmother" doesn't have the same aura of respect as what the music press names male musical innovators such as "Godfather" or "King", and Winer, a poet and formal model with a chic androgynous style who was close friends with both William S. Burroughs and Jean-Michel Basquiat is hardly a little old lady.
Witch is both a product of its time and far ahead of it. On the surface, it's not that far removed from Sinead O'Connor, especially her song "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" with its James Brown drum sample and spoken intonations, but Witch is much darker, cooler and more subdued. It has a very London feel to it, a feeling of frustrated action against cultural stagnation and trying to create something new out of nearly nothing. Winer doesn't necessarily sing as much as observe and respond with cool detachment, a sort of soundtrack of her experiences relayed poetically to an unknown listener as beats, dub rhythms (from Jah Wobble no less), and musical samples and snippets of dialogue coalesce around her. It's a heady mixture, definitely dreamy and druggy, but she refreshingly doesn't try to endear the listener to her own personal entanglements and positions on gender, beauty and social norms. It's more like she's having a searching complicated conversation with herself.
Musically, what Witch really predates is the contemporary woozy and warped electronica of Peaking Lights and Maria Minerva, especially in the layering of breezy dub rhythms in hazy reverb and abstract murk. It's a beautifully extraordinary work that continually rewards the more we listen. Big thanks to Superior Viaduct for making this more widely available. Incredible and soooo recommended!
Available once again, this legendary doom/death classic, done up deluxe by Southern Lord. Available on vinyl for the first time in about 20 years, and again on cd...
We're always excited to sing the praises of this record, it's been one of our favorites for years, always on the iPod, and never far from the stereos of those of us into the DOOOOM. The last reissue came out way back in 1999, but wasn't always that easy to get, and so were were psyched about this new one, and Southern Lord's version makes perfect sense, especially with the ongoing interest in all things doomy and sludgy AND the fact that probably EVERY SINGLE band on SL owes a HUGE debt to these doom / sludge forefathers. We bet there's even some folks out there who don't realize there was any doom pre- Corrupted / Boris / Earth / SUNNO))). Well let's go all the way back to the very early nineties, head out to Long Island and re-discover the pummelling majesty of the mighty Winter. There's not a doom band worth its stripes who wouldn't cite Winter as an influence, and one listen proves why. Crusty, downtuned sludge metal, but unlike the current crop of ultra doomsters, Winter's roots were in much more traditional thrash and doom metal as well as crusty punk. Often described as a slowed down Celtic Frost, due in no small part to the vocal delivery, Winter managed to mix elements of Black Sabbath (obviously, what doom band doesn't), Hellhammer, diSEMBOWELMENT and UK political crust band Doom into a slithery, creeping, suffocatingly dense blast of chugging guitar, pounding drums and creepy growled vocals. On closer listening their are also strange bits of organ and found sounds and bizarre vocal snippets scattered throughout and buried here and there. There are even guitar solos!! But no normal solos, no these are all spikey and twisted and serpentine, chaotic squalls of prickly squealing freakout that fit perfectly into Winter's desolate doomscapes. The other thing worth mentioning is the lyrics, which at the time got them a lot of attention / flak, quite cryptic for sure, but they seem to focus on saving the environment, anti-pollution, anti-technology, ecological awareness (Exit-13 anyone?) displaying their crusty roots there for sure! Fans of the new crop of doom and ultra doom would do well to take a peek at a band who truly was ahead of their time, a band who helped lay the groundwork for the sonic pummelling provided to you on a daily basis by bands like Skepticism, Esoteric, Rigor Sardonicous, Moss, Bunkur, and even Electric Wizard and Sleep, who might not even exist were it not for Winter.
The vinyl is housed in a super heavy, deluxe, Stoughton style gatefold jacket, and both versions, vinyl and cd, include a big booklet full of lyrics, artwork and old flyers (the lp's booklet in the form of an oversized newsprint insert!)..
The only bummer about the Southern Lord reissue, is that for some reason, this version leaves off the bonus tracks that were included with the previous cd reissue, the equally kick ass Eternal Frost ep, but maybe/hopefully Southern Lord plan on reissuing that one later, on its own. Here's hoping!
A brief blast of swirling organs, shards of crumbling noise, chanting children, streaks of feedback, swirling melancholy melodies, all tangled up into something at once caustic and chaotic, but also weirdly moody and moving, which is how we're introduced to Winter Line, aka Steven Vallot, who on this new tape (his debut?) displays a pretty serious knack for crafting beauty from blackness, his tracks like some sort of alternate universe, experimental noise DJ Shadow if that makes any sense. His sound palette is quite varied, but much of it tends towards the difficult. Be it blasts of high end buzz, or grinding metallic crunch, but those elements are balanced by Vallot's deft hand at weaving that noisiness into soundscapes of surprising musicality, a glowing dark energy seems to suffuse all the tracks here. It's often loud, ominous, clattery and crunchy, distorted and downright noisy, but it glimmers and shimmers, soars and swirls. At one point, a crunchy bit of rhythmic clatter is laid our beneath a sky full of high-end glimmer and tinkling chimes, wreathed in clouds of crunchy staticky hiss, and children's voices reciting some sort of ominous incantation, it could be a mess, but instead it all falls together perfectly.
From there on out, Vallot anchors thick clouds of black buzz, to churning machinelike rhythms, and drapes delicate melodies over the top. In some ways, it sounds a bit like recent Record Of The Weeker Dan Friel mixed with Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, both also past ROTW-er themselves, the tracks here are expansive and lush, and quite lovely, not despite the noisiness, but really because of it, and because of Vallot's deft hand at balancing those two extremes and meeting somewhere in the middle. At times, we get glimpses of Carpenter or Goblin, that sort of brooding synth soundtrackiness, and at others, it's just a gorgeous prismatic soft noise bliss out that's hard to really put into words, but it's rare sort of 'noise' we love, a noise that manages to move beyond sheer noisiness and attain its own sort of rhythmic and melodic beauty. Wow. So gorgeous. Fans of soft noise technicians and abstract soundscapers will be in heaven! Includes a download code too!
When we first got this disc in, we had no idea what it was. We never would have guessed it was the Winterblut as the new Winterblut was supposed to have original cover art by Wrest from Leviathan. But this disc was in a plain all-black slipcover. So we slid out the jewel case, and what do you know? The jewel case was opaque and black as well, with absolutely no text on it anywhere. At this point we still had no idea what the heck it was, until we pulled out the booklet, and lo and behold, there it was, Wrest's artwork, some seriously demented painted shapes grappling, a nude woman, a demon, way too many clawed hands...
It's been four long year since we last heard from Winterblut, and at the time, the album Grund Gelenkkunst had just been released and found Winterblut totally transformed from a grim buzzing Nordic style black metal beast, into a twisted, convoluted SST meets Voivod sort of black prog combo, having more in common with Ved Buens Ende than Darkthrone, with a punk rock production, gnarled Greg Ginn riffage, super strange arrangements and some very un-black metal elements. Which of course meant we dug it like crazy. And played it to death, always expecting to hear more from Winterblut sooner or later.
So it ended up being later, but finally here it is, Das Aas aller Dinge, and while a lot has changed in the last 4 years, much of the prog has been purged, and not all the riffing is angular and obtuse, Winterblut hasn't merely reverted to classic Norwegian style black buzz, although much of Das Aas aller Dinge is more blasting and buzzing than anything on Grund Gelenkkunst, instead it's apparent from the very first riff, that L. Hiver, the man who is Winterblut, still has a distinctly skewed take on black metal, with the tempo firmly set at mid, and plenty of Voivodisms still in place, right down to the vocals, in fact one can almost imagine this is what Dimension Hatross would have sounded like had it been a black metal record, lurching and mathy, woozy and sort of seasick, everything shrouded in reverb and black black distortion a killer groove, complex drumming, the guitars skeletal and spidery as much as buzzy and black. Even the second track sounds like a blackened Voivod, and part way through when it kicks it up into full on blast, the melody and riffing is still haunting and minor key, with a subtle sci-fi edge. The next few tracks are definitely heavier on the buzzing and the blackness, and more old school classic Norwegian style, but still the riffs are completely atypical, gnarled and just a little bit off. In a good way.
It's on "Das Aas (Erloschen)" where the band get all weird again, a super slithery, slippery stop start groove with a main riff that warbles drunkenly up and down the fretboard, with big wide open spaces between chords, the drums a simple framework for the guitars to tangle themselves up in. A track or two later, there's the 15 minute epic "Das Aas (Sehnsuchtig)" a loping waltzy Burzumic dirge, that partway through transforms into a furious blast, and then unwinds into a killer serpentine progscape with impossibly off-kilter drumming, and strange tempos, everything still bathed in black, the vocals a raspy growl, but all strung along a lurching mathrock rhythm, the riffs following suit, a whirling relentless black space prog jam. The record finishes off with "Das Aas (Egnid Rella)" another track that meshes classic black with the twisted riffage and octopoidal rhythms that made us dig Winterblut so much in the first place.
Obviously amazing, and essential, but even considering everything we just wrote, if you're anything like us, it could have been summed up perfectly in 4 simple words: "black metal Dimension Hatross."
As mentioned above, packaged in a black opaque jewel case, in an all black slipcover, the booklet inside and the disc face features killer artwork from Wrest, the booklet also includes some seriously creepy band photos, as well liner notes and lyrics.
Yeah, this has been out for a while. A long while actually, but due to random distributor problems which resulted in us being unable to get more than a few of these at a time, we were never able to list it, UNTIL NOW. And we were dead set on listing this, because the three records that make up Box Set contain some of the most intense, brooding and rocking post punk EVER. The Wipers are one of those bands that never got all that popular, but were definitely a band's band, the kind of group that gets namechecked by everybody, and thus influenced everybody, but still remained way below the radar.
Formed in 1978, the Wipers spent their career toiling away in obscurity, seemingly adverse to recognition or popularity, even turning down the opening slot on several Nirvana tours, worried that it would seem too opurtunistic. And Cobain was probably the Wipers' biggest supporter, even covering a bunch of their songs. In fact, lots of people who hear the original versions of "D-7" or "Return Of The Rat" think it must be some punk band covering Nirvana, instead of the other way around. And the more Wipers you hear, the more you realize Cobain did more than just cover their songs, his songwriting style and melodic flair is definitely heavily indebted to the Wipers. Some of the more brooding less rocking Wipers songs sound just like Nirvana tracks that could have been. Minor key mope rock that sort of builds and builds, not necessarily getting louder and faster (although sometimes they did) but getting more and more intense, threatening to explode, the kind of genuine angst and fury that can NOT be faked and imbues music with that sort of emotional charge that turns good music into great music. Cobain had it. So did Greg Sage. And these records prove it. Dark and driving. murky and moody, rough and totally rocking. One of the best bands you may have never heard. And if you picked up that recent Nirvana box, there are a couple Wipers covers on there, and they drive the points home that, not only did Kurt Cobain owe a huge debt for the 'inspiration' but also that Sage was a songwriter on par with Cobain himself, who many consider to be one of the best songwriters of the late eighties / early nineties. Box Set contains the first three Wipers records, Is This Real?, Youth Of America, and Over The Edge, all remastered. A total of 51 songs, 23 of them never before released. Liner notes by Greg Sage himself!
Yay, at long last (five years!) the return of our/your/everyone's favorite Swedish retro-proto-metallers, Witchcraft! With this, their fourth album, they've moved on from their previous label Rise Above to a new home on bigger label Nuclear Blast. They've also altered their lineup quite a bit, though of course mainman Magnus Pelander remains at the mic (though he's not playing guitar anymore, for some reason, concentrating solely on vocals). Going through changes� without changing -too- much, as far as us listeners are concerned, thankfully. Even with a new drummer and two new guitarists, this still sounds of a piece with the Witchcraft of olde, certainly in part due to the distinctive, emotive, melodic vocal stylings of Pelander. We just love his voice, and he puts on a great performance here. He's got flair, the whole band does.
Musically, Legend is maybe a bit more modern and slickly produced than previous Witchcraft outings, and certainly they didn't get rawer or heavier, no. The direction they took was onwards and upwards. But the influence of such vintage greats as Black Sabbath and Pentagram hasn't exactly waned, though nowadays we'd be more likely to describe Witchcraft as being their own psychedelic, doomy, melodic, proggy, heavy rock thing. Good meaningful music, well played, with lots of both light and shade - lumbering riffs, lovely vox, great guitarwork� Now, someone here thought that this new Witchcraft showed signs of being "success rock", whatever that means, and someone else here (Andee) thought some of it sounded a bit like Queens Of The Stone Age (meant, he assured us, as a compliment!), and yeah sure this is perhaps geared to appeal to a bigger audience than the record collecting '70s downer rock nerds that Witchcraft themselves once were (and heck, still are - after all, the likes of "Dystopia" here sounding like something off of one of Sabbath's final few Ozzy-era albums like Never Say Die). But, whatever. At the risk of sounding snobby, very few bands who get big are really all that great, but Pelander and Witchcraft definitely deserve all their success, so we won't hold it against 'em. Longtime Witchcraft fans, you have nothing to worry about, listen to "It's Not Because Of You" ferinstance and tell us that it doesn't sound like it coulda been on The Alchemist or Firewood. Once again, we're happily enscorcelled by this Witchcraft - and hope it won't be another five years between albums, again!
Domestic vinyl version coming out later in October, fyi.
Oh man. The third album from the Swedish prog/psych/doom wizards Witchcraft is finally here. We can barely contain ourselves. They say third time's the charm, and of course with Witchcraft it can't help but being so, since the first two times were charmed as well. This band's debut destroyed us with its incredibly authentic retro Pentagram/Sabbath stylings, with lashings of flute and folkiness too. Their second album, Firewood, captivated us with an equally early '70s heavy progressive vibe. Now The Alchemist succeeds at giving us what we want from Witchcraft -and- pushing further into the realm of melodic, folky proggy rock that stands on its own far beyond being a mere tribute to its '70s ancestors.
Guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and his band Witchcraft have pretty much proved that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" isn't always true. Witchcraft sure as hell does. That it's 2007 not 1972 isn't evident from anything on here, though it sounds as fresh as a daisy at the same time. These guys are so old school analog you halfway expect that their cd would be made out of black plastic and have visible grooves in it. We certainly could imagine some DJ's looking for breaks wanting this on vinyl real bad, you could do some badass hiphop mix with parts of "Remembered" ferinstance. Bet Andy Votel digs this band. Totally sounds like they could have gotten a deal with his favorite progressive record label back in the day (that'd be the famed Vertigo) had Witchcraft really existed in the '70s... certainly the inclusion of the sax solo (yes, a sax solo!) at the end of "Remembered" helps make it sound like something from an old Vertigo LP! Elsewhere Witchcraft get super sweet and gentle, or break out the heavy riffs Sabbath style (like you'd expect -- Sabbath originally being a Vertigo band y'know) in a blend we can't help but love.
Magnus' emotive, melodic vocals are so crucial here, one of this record's shining strengths. He still sounds a bit like a Swedish-accented Ozzy, yet with a graceful finesse, belting it out expressively or crooning with lilting loveliness. His vocals are matched by the absolutely powerful and gorgeous guitarwork throughout the disc. This album sweeps us off our feet immediately with the instant-classic opener "Walk Between The Lines", which is followed by a re-recorded version of the A-side of last year's 7" single, "If Crimson Was Your Colour", an urgent, witchy rocker embellished with some tasty Moog licks. Then there's the loping "Leva", which though Magnus sings it in Swedish, still goes straight to our soul. The Sabbath factor is ratcheted up on "Hey Doctor", a lumbering doom-riffed downer lamentation/accusation. The next track, "Samaritan Burden" combines the heavy riffs with a mellower mood and more acoustic-y moments, masterfully structured. It's followed by the aforementioned "Remembered", definitely an album-standout that's so '70s in so many ways that pretty much only Witchcraft could have done it in this day and age. And then, speaking of standouts, comes the nearly 15 minute long title track, "The Alchemist"! We'll omit description other than to say it's of course an epic mindblower, closing the album with magnificent, mesmeric, proggier than thou flourish.
Definitely a Top 10 Best of 2007 album. We'd have made it Record Of The Week, but what we've got here is the somewhat pricier Japanese import edition (the domestic version is due out towards the end of the month), with a Japan-only bonus track added on at the end, "Sweet Honey Pie", a lovely, acoustic little number. Not sure when/if we'll get more, so we were wary about giving it pole position. But with or without bonus track, it's an AMAZING new effort from this fantastic band, highly recommended. Seriously, we'd have been happy taking all day to write this review, just 'cause we love listening to this album so much.
From the seemingly infallible Paradigms label, who in the past have brought us amazing releases from (we're gonna have to stop doing this, pretty soon the list of killer Paradigms releases will be longer than most reviews): Hjarnidaudi, Amber Asylum, Throne Of Katarsis, Blueprint Human Being, Utlagr, the Angelic Process, Titan, Jarboe and that amazing Walking With Ghosts compilation. Avid readers of the list probably own all or most of those by now. Each one totally unique and amazing in its own way. This time around we have two more releases just as unique and amazing, the droning doomed classical of Hallvardur Asgeirsson reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this disc of bizarre, convoluted, super dynamic, avant garde doomy post rock from German outfit Woburn House.
Hailing from Germany, the strangely monickered Woburn House at first listen sound a but like Dutch hypno-metallers Gore, with an immediately catchy and crunchy riff that repeats and repeats. Actually it's almost so heavy and modern sounding that it makes us think more of some sort of avant metalcore version of Gore. Gloriously grinding, churning riffage, complex yet melodic, over pounding drums. But suddenly, the vocals kick in, a soft, sort of chanted croon, while beneath it, the guitars shift to strange minor key angularity, before the whole song twists dramatically into some super complex Voivod-y metallic prog. And it's then that you realize there's still nearly thirteen minutes to go in the track! And in those thirteen minutes the band will twist and turn and shift and explore pretty much every post rock or metal nook and cranny you can conceive. Blown out high end freakouts, creaking and groaning swells of shipwreck doom, muted slow core minor key jangle, loping dreamlike slowcore, but always returning to that killer opening riff. It's very much like a doom influenced metalcore Slint, super complex, incredibly emotional, with all sorts of disparate parts and melodic fragments that fit so perfectly together, it's hard to imagine the song any other way.
Track two revisits the Voivod-y prog of the opener, beginning as a lurching dirge-like doom, with HUGE dynamics, and strange howled vocals, before shifting into a much more propulsive mathrock prog a la Bastro or Drive Like Jehu. Ominous and threatening, but super hypnotic and complex, eventually unwinding into strange strummy minor key jangle, and eventually a soft shimmery expanse of warm church organ whir.
The third track is all metallized math rock. See-sawing between spare finger picked guitar and simple shuffling drumming, and huge distorted angular crunch and complex prog pound. Again like a modernized version of Slint or Bastro, the same sort of arpeggiated minor chords, shuffling rhythms and mesmerizingly obtuse arrangements, albeit with much more metal vocals, and some ambient field recordings mixed in.
The final track is another epic (all four songs are 10 minutes +) offering up their own take of that whole Isis, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, sort of dramatic post rock slow build majesty. And they nail it. The choruses are massive slabs of downtuned chug, the in-betweens are swirls of shuffling rhythms, finger picked guitars, simple strum, melancholy melodies, drifting and shimmering, slowly building to their inevitable climax.
We been loving the whole doom dirge sludge meets post rock thing (Isis, Tides, Mouth Of The Architect, Village Of Dead Roads, Irepress, Baroness, Conifer), but we're sort of extra smitten with Woburn House, who sound like we WISHED math rock and post rock sounded back in the day. Instead of making their sludgey metal, sound a little post rock, they sound like they could have been a post rock band back in the nineties, albeit with much bigger amps and much more metal souls!!
Unlike most of the Paradigms releases, which come in cardboard sleeves wrapped in hand stamped, brown paper, this disc is in a digipak, with some seriously intense and disturbing (but quite beautiful) drawings...
We've been dying for this one, the latest from German post rock avant metallers Woburn House, whose last Paradigms release Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine totally blew us away, with its weird mix of black buzz, post rock drift, metallic prog and noisy discordant math rock. And while on first listen, it seems not too much has changed, as we get further into the record (heck, further into the first song!), it seems that Woburn House have indeed begun exploring a new sonic direction...
It only takes a few minutes for this record to establish it's utter dominance, beginning with a drifty lilting spidery guitar melody, soft and jangly and minor key, before slipping into a lurching downtuned chug, all stop start crunch, before slipping back into the opening drift, this time accompanied by some skittery rhythms, and so it goes until finally the vocals come in, a warm ethereal crooned harmony, with a distinctly shoegaze-y vibe, way down in the mix, allowing the song to grow more jagged, and get a bit Voivod-y, before finally stretching out into a gorgeous looped sounding sun dappled post metal drift, all soaring chiming guitars, and those warm vocals, the track finally winding down in a swirling swell of epic sun dappled psychedelia. Wow. Okay, so yeah, things have changed quite a bit, in as much as WH have managed to expand their sound even further, and taken their metallic sound in a distinctly less overtly metallic direction.
The more we listen, the more it becomes evident that this record is much more mellow and poppy, than it's more metallic predecessor, the core sound falling somewhere between the twisted blackened metallic pop of Lifelover and the grandiose doom pop of Katatonia, the result is awesome, emotional, intense, epic, with the songs often building to huge chaotic climaxes, but just as often loping along dreamily, and metalheads fear not, while it is poppier, there is still plenty of crushing heaviness, gnarled riffage, and lurching chug to balance the blissy mathy pop and haunting shimmery drift that makes up much of the rest of the record.
"Globus" is some dark dreamy spacedrone, with its tribal drumming, dense fuzz bass, effects drenched guitars, all locked into a looped motorik groove that wouldn't be that out of place on a Expo 70 or White Hills record. "Transmitter" brings the metal back, but definitely drifts into some serious Katatonia territory, with some woozy drifty almost-prog, occasionally giving way to huge swells of metallic heft, and more of those warm crooned vocals, the entire song wreathed in a gauzy washed out sheen.
And finally, there's the 23 minute closing track "Transformer", which opens with the most black metal bit on the whole records, a buzzing blast, peppered with warbly minor key melodies, and warm swirling drones, but at its core, this is pounding and thrashing and heavy, until before you know it, the band have shifted gears once again, unfurling a glimmery driftscape of crystalline guitar and warm blackened ambience, when the track does kick back in, it's in a whole new form, a cool, lumbering post rock tangle of metallic buzz and complex start stop arrangements, there's even a long stretch of that sort of blown out Jesu-style metalgaze, before everything drops off, and all that's left is a field recording of birds, and cars, the side of the highway presumably, people talking, all manner of ambient sound, eventually the song does drift back in, and finishes with a few minutes of woozy laid back slow core pop drift, hazy and weary and like much of the rest of the record, dreamy and melodic.
Folks looking for lots of buzzing blackness or crushing chugging metallic pummel, might not find enough of that here, but for folks who love their metal infused with all manner of pop, and dig stuff like Amesoeurs, Katatonia, Lifelover, Alcest, and that sort of stuff, will definitely dig this a LOT.
Debut full length from this East Coast one man black metal band, and from note one, A Spell For The Death Of Man reveals itself as something not even remotely typical, a distinctly different, and surprisingly melodic take on the old blast and buzz. The opening minute or two of the nine minute "Solitude" is just guitar, all soaring mournful and minor key, playing out a distinctly post rock riff, unfurling lazily, wreathed in reverb, majestic and epic, sorrowful and distinctly indie, gradually growing slower and slower, before stick clicks bring on the blackness, a furious tangle of squiggly buzzsaw riffage and blasting beats, buried blackened shrieks. Somehow, even though on the surface the song seems to have switched gears completely, elements of the intro remain, within and beneath the roiling heaviness, lending the music a distinctly 'indie rock' vibe, especially when the track shifts again, and suddenly it sounds a a little like Superchunk or Seam, only supercharged and blackened and Satanized. Not to say this is super poppy and jangly, but it is, sort of. Once you hear it, it's tough to ignore, but then why the heck would you want to? Folks with a super limited musical scope, say, ONLY metal, probably won't hear it as much, especially if they're open to more melodic stuff like Alcest or Amesoeurs, but for those who maybe didn't grow up listening to only metal, as we're guessing is the case with Woe mainman (and only man) Xos. Just wait until the breakdown near the end, when that opening riff is wrapped around some muffled chugging, and some dense tribal drumming, suddenly it's equal parts Husker Du, Bastro and black metal.
The rest of the record is a bit more traditionally black, but even then, with galloping rhythms and dizzying black riffage, the songs still manage to sound strangely melodic, and in some super abstract sense, kind of poppy. But again, all of this pop and jangle and post rock, is totally tangled up with some seriously dense thrashing and super heavy, blasting black metal. It's that unlikely mix that makes Woe sound so different, and makes this record so awesome, deftly balancing the grim and the kvlt with the moody and hooky and melodic. The record closes with an even less black metal number than the opener, strange angular midtempo minor key guitars, plodding drums, very postrock / mathrock, the vocals still in black metal shriek mode, but draped over a lilting almost dirgey slowcore groove, definitely pretty, and a bit woozy and mysterious, but still heavy, and just the slightest bit black.
Fans of more melodic blackness will definitely dig, while dabblers and newbies might have just found the perfect black metal gateway drug.
Wold are an ultra mysterious outfit from the barren land to the north (Canada, Saskatchewan to be precise), who play the weirdest and most weirdly recorded black metal we've ever heard. Imagine some old radio serial, or some snippet from an old black and white film, sort of scratchy and fuzzy and otherworldly, then smother it in guitarfuzz and blown out distortion, add some keening guitar melodies and blast beats, and you've got what we can only describe as a black metal Philip Jeck. The warm and warbly keyboard melodies and timeless cinematic snatches of sound are so hypnotic and dreamily repetitive. It's almost like a black metal band doing their own blackened version of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops. Kind of hard to describe, but Wold somehow take the drone-y aspect of BM bands like Graveland and Nargaroth even further, adding a creepy and scratchy looped mesmer beneath a wash of almost My Bloody Valentine like guitars. Or an even more abstract analogy, imagine Persephone in Hades, the goddess of Spring who was kidnapped and spirited down into the depths of hell, all these little ribbons of Springtime and loveliness drifting in the cold and grim underworld, a bleak and miserable expanse of sound with brief glints of color and sunshine, glimpses of a world that once was, looped like a rotting old filmstrip, repeated over and over and over, head nodding, thoughts drifting, eyes closing, spirit shifting, soul blackening.
As if the music weren't weird enough, the band is fronted by the curiously named Fortress Crookedjaw, and backed up by his cohorts, Operationex and Obey.
And then of course there's the band's manifesto:
"Wold embraces the Mytho Poetic; the communication is expressed through our music, and theoretical as well as practical work done through our Woldclan brotherhood and our lodge, the L.O.T.M.P..
"Wold venerate our ancestors and cultures through myth and existence, and remain open and reflective to other effective metaphors.
"Wold promote awareness.
"Wold strive for honor and dignity above materialistic lies and novelty culture.
"Wold solemnly swear to adhere to the law of the Self."
It takes a lot for a record to so completely kick our ass and to so confound us musically. Definitely one of the coolest and weirdest black metal records we've heard in a long long time!!
One of two black metal / noise hybrids on this week's list, the other, from Australian one man band Nekrasov, this one, the latest from Canadian duo WOLD, whose discs of noise drenched outsider black weirdness have held us in their thrall from the very first listen.
But much has changed since L.O.T.M.P, which was an impossible hybrid of Philip Jeck like turntable warble, and walls of blacknoise, classic black metal buzz filtered through sheets of haze and warped shimmer, well, okay, maybe not that much has changed, if anything, the biggest change is how much noisier Wold have become, and how much more they hew to traditional black metal, albeit appropriately skewed and cracked and fractured and WELL fucked.
For those new to the strange world of Wold, they are a duo (formerly a trio), from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. They are called Fortress Crookedjaw (best black metal name ever?) and Obey, there's a picture in the new cd of two really regular looking dudes, not sure if it's Wold, but if it is, never has there been more of a "but they were such nice boys" in black metal. Because the sound of Wold is anything but regular black metal. There are riffs, and harsh screeched vocals, there doesn't seem to be drums very often, none are credited in the liner notes, and you can't really hear them, except on one track, where a primitive drum machine spews out a stuttery waltz, and often even when they're NOT there, we still feel like we're hearing them, the duo unfurl sheets of white hot guitar hiss, walls of crumbling distortion, that seem locked in some sort of static sprawl, kind of looped, but also wavery and warbly, due no doubt to the recording quality, as well as the composition. Tape hiss is much of a part of their sound as the guitars, maybe more so. An array of electronics also add layers of grit and glitch, the sounds grind and scrape, piled on top of each other until often it's a seemingly impenetrable wall of sound. But the wall is cracked, and all sort of fucked up sounds ooze through the cracks. Some tracks are super abstract post industrial ambient scrape-scapes, all grinding rhythms, and swirling hiss, others get dangerously close to classic sounding super raw primitive black metal, but as you listen, they seem to change shape, the riffs, the vocals, a glancing listen reveals nothing untoward, just some killer blasting lo-fi buzz, but once you settle in, the music drags you kicking and screaming into some jagged harsh buzz drenched, off kilter chaotic noise infested blackened sonic underworld.
If we had to pick bands to compare Wold to, it might be Ildjarn, Akitsa, Bone Awl, that sort of super raw, blown out in-the-red underproduced fury, but then add some Faxed Head, for the two share a similarly skewed and totally demented aesthetic, but where Faxed Head do it for laughs, Wold twist it into something sinister and frightening. Certainly Merzbow, as NOISE is a major component, but even when Wold are spewing sheets of what appear to be white noise, the sounds are not that simple, they churn and twist, and hide layers upon layers of sonic weirdness underneath. In fact, on first listen we were a bit put off a bit by the sheer noise level of Stratification, gone were all the warped buried 78 sounds, and in their place even more hiss and buzz and skree, but headphones changed everything. Revealing amidst the harshness an incredible array of strange sonic weirdness, buried melodies, obscured loops, bits of prettiness, almost invisible through the haze and murk and blur and NOISE, but which manage to subtly change lead into gold, turning something almost too harsh and abrasive, into something impossibly mesmerizing, and for the adventurous ear-ed, a veritable sonic wonderland of noise drenched beauty.
The return of Canadian black metal weirdos Wold, and another batch of completely blown out, noise drenched, abstract, lo-fi, ultra raw, frosty grim heaviness. Although with these guys, heaviness is not necessarily accurate. It is heavy, but more in the sort of Neil-from-the-Young-Ones kind of 'Heeeeeaavy', totally psychedelic and tripped out, and a blurred, washed out swirl of sounds that only really loosely approximates black metal.
Most metalheads would find themselves diving for the eject button, but for the rest of us, who are willing to dig deep into outsider sounds, Working Together For Our Privacy is as rewarding as any of the other Wold records, a hidden world of sound, melodies, and textures, riffs and beats, almost entirely obscured by swirling whirling clouds of crumbling distortion and FX drenched white noise. On the surface, this is the sound of a million TVs between channels, a symphony of AM radios out of range, broadcasting nothing but static, but like when you stare at snow on a TV screen, images surface and emerge and change and disappear, the same thing seems to happen listening to this Wold record, from the chaotic skree, all sorts of sounds and song fragments surface, revealing something almost pretty lurking beneath the violent and abrasive surface.
All three songs here, long ones, seem cut from the same cloth, each an explosion of industrial crunch, and blurry buzz, heaving and roiling, not even black so much as WHITE, white noise, white out, a cloud of particles and sonic fragments, a barrage of crunch and crush and pummel, that can almost completely block out the songs themselves. Almost. In a weird way, this stuff is hypnotic, mesmerizing, entrancing, if the conditions were right, this sort of thing could definitely lull you to sleep, but cranked through your shitty old speakers, it could also induce embolisms. Such is the magic of Wold. Another winner from these mysterious Canucks, one where the prizes remain a banged head, ringing ears, blown speakers and a head full of buzz....
Young Swedes playing traditional heavy metal, a pretty great debut. No Hammerfall-like pop silliness, just heads-down, raised-fist, speedy Iron Maiden/Riot styled METAL with decent-enough (not too) high pitched vocals, and plenty of ripping guitar work. And the production, courtesy of Peter Tagtgren (Scandinavian metal producer of the moment), is super. Take the likes of In Flames or Soilwork, add real vocals and make the songs a bit more catchy, that's Wolf. And they should get props for the incredible Richard Scarey/children's book-like cover art (by famed European illustrator Hans Arnold), a cover which has been universally but unjustly slammed in all (otherwise positive) reviews that we've seen of this album. It's great, and it harkens back to the album covers of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal which weren't afraid to be weird and not-blatantly metal for metal's sake. Anyway, we applaud the band for their unafraid aesthetic choice. More importantly, we also salute them for making such a great record!!
For their latest collection of homebrewed electronic analogue filth, the boys in Wolf Eyes have decided to join the Hospital Productions roster, home of Prurient, Cold Cave, Ash Pool, Grey Wolves, Prurient, Kevin Drumm, Malkuth, and in some ways it's a perfect match. While all of that typically crusty and blown out Wolf Eyesian buzz and glitch and ruble and whir is all intact, Always Wrong actually displays a fairly significant shift, not just in sound, but in song writing. Unlike past efforts which tended toward the epic side long abstract noise jams, AW is practically a collection of songs, with vocals playing a much more significant part, sure they still offer up serious shards of skree and dense chunks of jagged buzz, but the manage as always to make their noise MORE than just noise, texture, timbre, mood, melody, and for the first time, SONGS.
The record opens with some electronic buzz and some muffled percussion, and right up front some snarled vox, spitting all kinds of venomous vitriol, over a strangely haunting glitchscape, before finally erupting into a clattery clangy Wolf Eyed Whitehouse jam. Tons of feedback, swooping electronic tones, clipped and stuttery chunks of buzz and squeal, all somehow woven into a lurching, stumbling malfunctioning industrial lumber. But it's the next track where things get really interesting, beginning with another high end squall, the streaks of skree get smoothed into haunting melodies, backing up a drawled gloomy almost Lou Reed sounding vocal, underneath it all a darkly gothic bassline, all murky and buzzy, some crunchy riffage popping up here and there, the whole thing a darkly swirling, but still crunchy and caustic, bit of coldwave, that should definitely please fans of the dark and morose, the brooding and black.
"Broke Order" sounds almost punk rock, crushing crumbling detuned crush, over grinding mechanical rhythms, dense clouds of blurred buzz, and yowled vokills, a lumbering lurching ultra heavy distortion drenched monstrosity, that again, manages to still be weirdly, if just barely, melodic.
The rest of the record drifts druggily between those different sounds, "Pretending Alive" is a slow crawl, of reverbed metallic percussion, jazzy horns, lots of layered amp buzz and tape hiss, spidery disembodied guitars, "We All Hate You", is another strangely post punk post industrial almost new wave sounding jam, more moody vox, heavily effected electronic beats, thick gritty textures, and woozy minor key melodies, finishing off with "Droll / Cut The Dog", starting our downright pretty, long form drones, deep resonant rumbles, tense minor key melodies, very creepy and cinematic, the buzz and glitch kept to a minimum, eventually shifting gears into another sort of industrial coldwave outro, all pounding minimal rhythm, sung spoken vocals, warm washes of washed out hiss, dense tangles of undulating drones, and as always, lots and lots of glorious blown out buzz.
Michigan's masters of the gristled throb return with their second record this year. Maybe the only group still carrying the torch of eighties industrial (TG, Psychic TV, etc.) Wolf Eyes continue to spew forth a noxious brew of analogue electronics, squealing feedback, primitive drum machines and tortured, anguished howls. At first this seemed like their weakest record, but on repeated listens, this 3 track sort-of-e.p. reveals itself as maybe their best. Perhaps not as brutal and abrasive, but just as intense and much more -gasp- melodic. The first track burns slow and dark, like an Italian horror movie soundtrack done music concrete style. Chirping and whirring, like the sound of mechanical insects creep over a soundscape that is downright ambient. Eventually the inevitable onslaught begins, as Merzbowian white noise swells and Mothra-like sqwawks collide with machinery run amok, a wall of squeals and creaks and rumbles. The second and third track, are a little more 'classic' Wolf Eyes, you know, sort of like the bastard offspring of Whitehouse and Suicide. A simple pulse, throbs relentlessly as unintelligible, gutteral vocalisations battle for supremecy with high pitched squeals and feedingback amps. Track three is a bit more sedate, but just as ominous and rhythmically pulsing. Some sweet, sweet noise.
Ann Arbor, Michigan. Home to heavy, powerful dirge rock and noise from the likes of Gravitar and Universal Indians and the power electronics sabotage of Nautical Almanac. Somewhere in between lies the homemade electronics power sludge of Wolf Eyes. Aaron Dilloway (Mr. Hanson Records) heads this behemoth, always unpredictable -- from beat driven floor shakers to tweaked out
When we reviewed the first record from these French black metal freeks, easily one of our favorite weirdo black metal records ever, we reprinted their particularly twisted manifesto, just to help shed some light on what these guys were all about. No manifesto tucked away in record number two, but the line-up and instrumentation is somewhat revealing:
E: Abnormal guitars, odd bass, weird sounds abuse, mortuum tunes
L: Eerie and bizarre vomit parts, vaporous incantations
C: Ethereal drums, wraithlike mix tasks, noise suffocation
And the rest of the liner notes go one to describe most everyone and everything involved as repugnant. So yeah, think repugnant, abnormal, odd, weird, eerie, bizarre, ethereal, wraithlike, noisy and suffocating, and you'd definitely be close to understanding the sort of gloriously sick blackened metal damage Wolok produce.
Caput Mortuum is tighter and more well produced that the first record, while simultaneously being somehow more fucked up and warped. All it takes is a listen through the first song, and you'll know if you've got the kind of fractured and freaky constitution to withstand this sort of aural punishment. Skittery effected chants give way to woozy tangled riffage, chaotic relentless blast beats, raw sick processed vokills, the whole thing convoluted and impossibly gnarled, with lurching start stop arrangements, a moody melodic breakdown, that gives way to a chugging churning drone drenched anti-groove, which in turn gives way to a lumbering, stuttering fucked up, almost industrial sounding bit of buzzy stumbling blackness, alternatingly pounding and blasting. ALL the sounds wreathed in strange effects. Think Blut Aus Nord or Spektr's fucked up inbred offspring. It all makes a little more sense when you realize one of the three responsible for this unholy damage is also responsible for the raw primitive filth that is Zarach'Baal'Tharagh.
But Wolok, like their elder statesmen in Spektr and Blut Aus Nord, are mired in black metal, but obviously are giving it all they've got to transform regular old buzz and blast into something else entirely, and fuck if it didn't work. Warped and woozy minor key dirges give way to impossibly frenzied freakouts, noise drenched doom is gradually transformed into strangely melodic avant doom pop, before exploding into some seriously Naked City worthy stop start whatthefuck, like listening to a Lifelover record melt, while someone spins a Deathspell Omega record manually with their finger. In fact, much of this record sounds a bit warped and warbly, as if while the band was recording, someone, a band member or otherwise was constantly fiddling with the tape speed, and various other things in the control room, adding all manner of indescribable weirdness to the proceedings, but all that strange shit wouldn't mean much if the band couldn't play, and songs and riffs weren't amazing, it would be just a cool sounding mess, instead, this is in fact a cool sounding mess, but a dense, super technical, gloriously freaked out and frenzied, moody, otherworldly, twisted and seriously, geniusly fucked up mess. And while we hate to say it, this definitely joins the new Katharsis in the running for black metal record of the year!
By now, Wolves in the Throne Room have established themselves as one of America's most gifted and awesomely dependable black metal bands, and their third long player, Black Cascade, picks up right where their recent Malevolent Grain ep left off. All the elements of their expansive, blackened psychedelic approach are here: sprawling songs with a methodical attention to song structure, relentless drumming, perfectly interlocking dual guitars, tortured raspy vocals, and an ability to seamlessly merge synthy ambience with a furious but often very melancholy black metal onslaught. There seems to be a legion of haters out there, ready to label the band as a bunch of PC hippies who aren't adhering to whatever rules they assume apply to a style of music that is pretty nihilistic and iconoclastic by nature. But fuck those people. This band is great and truly deserves whatever accolades come its way.
The ever-present density of WITTR's sound is further heightened on Black Cascade, their bio proudly emphasizing the old school analog sound they have achieved through vintage recording gear and classic tube amps. While we don't want to ramble on about various pieces of musical equipment, it should be noted that these devices have certainly helped the band to capture a sound music nerds might refer to as "organic". Sure, we at aQuarius love all the homemade bedroom black metal that sounds as if it was recorded in a blender during a tornado... The sound on Black Cascade, however, is clear and upfront, though hardly refined or polished. It is quite rock n' roll in a classic sense, which works great when the band breaks out some Thin Lizzy-esque guitar harmonies on the first track "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog". Mossy, ultra distorted guitars hang like a thick black cloud (or a sea of fog, if you will) in the atmosphere as the drums create the necessary propulsion that make a Wolves in the Throne Room song sound like it could, and should, carry on FOREVER. Song #2, "Ahrimanic Trance" is, true to its title, a hypnotic, trancelike black metal trip into some long forgotten wilderness. The song gives one a feeling of being transported at high speeds across the landscape while watching from the back of some primitive vehicle, a sense that is carried on in the next track, "Ex Cathedra". The final song, "Crystal Ammunition", starts life as a dizzying, hyperspeed slab of pure black metal before morphing into a beautiful lament that may (or may not) reference the melody from Malevolent Grain's "A Looming Resonance". It's seems like things will culminate in the ultimate fadeout. But, uh, what happens after the fade out? As everything gallops off into the distance, otherworldly guitar chords and tambourine are the only sounds evident. Eventually these too recede as they are overtaken by a phased out synthscape. Fucking awesome.
While this album was great from the moment we first put it on, repeated listens have been revealing more and more. To say this is a huge departure from what Wolves in the Throne Room have accomplished in the past would be inaccurate. It is, instead, the sound of a group who, with each record, becomes a more realized version of itself.
We've been selling Wolves In The Throne Room cd-r demos like crazy since we first discovered these guys last year. And how could we not? You gotta love a band that unfurls massive fuzzed out epics, 10+ minute bursts of swirling droning black metal, dirging, lurching and gorgeously blown out. The obvious comparison is SF black metal legends Weakling, and you know we wouldn't make that comparison lightly. The same sort of fierce brutality and chaotic ferocity mixed with impossibly anguished emotionalism all wrapped up in a blackness that is informed as much by suffocating dark ambience and mesmerizing drones as it is grim black metal.
If you thought the WITTR demos sounded great, HOLY SHIT does this new record blow those out of the water. Which is a good thing as two of the songs here are actually from the demos, but they have been massively reworked and completely re-recorded. It's got a huge wall of guitar sound, surprisingly heavy for a black metal band, in place of more typical reedy buzzy BM mosquito guitar. There's thick snarling monster riffs, dense and multilayered, spread thick over furious pounding drumming and howled strangulated vocals (very Weakling-esque). Now you might think the world needs another Nordic style black metal band like a hole in the head, no matter how amazing they are. BUT, Wolves In The Throne Room do it SO WELL, and write amazing songs, and manage to mix it up like crazy, incorporating all sorts of un-BM elements, gorgeous folky ambience, weirdly TRUE metal riffing, even some ethereal angelic female vocals. It all somehow fits, and makes the Wolves' black metal black enough to remain true, but fucked up enough to matter. Plus they probably do think the world needs need a hole in the head...
You'd never guess from listening to this record that the WITTR are a bunch of short haired, furry vested, tight panted, scruffy indie dudes from Olympia. But don't let that put you off, impossibly true metal nerds, just close your eyes, listen close, and all you'll see are grim, 10 foot tall, spike encrusted leather clad warriors of the misty, ancient northwestern forests... Yep, we're surely excited to have their "real cd" debut, at long last!!
Previously known as Pussygutt, this male/female duo from Idaho continue to craft grimly powerful blackened folk flecked dronescapes that defy easy categorization. The name Pussygutt probably put off plenty of people, and while Wolvserpent perhaps better captures the group's ominous tone and black metal leanings, it still leaves much about the music, and its makers, quite mysterious.
Two sidelong sprawls, the first a haunting bit of dirgey folk, laid over lush shimmery drones, a gorgeous funeral lament, that only hints at the abject brutality these two are capable of, instead, simply invoking a darkly melancholic mood, eventually guitars drift in, plucking out simple sad melodies, while the strings continue to swirl and soar, gorgeously tense and intense, cinematic and soundtracky. It's not until nearly the nine minute mark that the drums come in, as do the electric guitars, laying down a sort of skeletal doom framework, a different kind of downtuned slowbuild creep, pounding drums, muted riffage, the strings and Sunroof!-like drones growing in intensity, a super intense bit of droney tribal drift, but with an odd start stop arrangement, peppering the lush droning plod with little bits of more traditionally metallic riffage. Eventually some shrieked vocals swoop in, and the song stretches out into a strangley psychedelic epic, a bastardized mix of Godspeed like post rock, avant ur-drone drift, funeral doom, and glacial black metal buzz, all muted and blurred as if mixed by Tim Hecker.
The flipside takes up right where the first side left off, long layered high end tones, a lush undulating upper register dronescape, haunting and hypnotically shimmery, before finally lurching into some seriously metallic crunch, a lumbering doomy dirge, buzzing riffs, caveman drums, all wrapped in swirling swaths of reverbed vocals and superdistorted streaks of ambient melody, erupting into occasional blasts of uptempo chuggery, but always slipping back into that stuttery creep, and constantly wreathed in a lush otherworldly sonic haze.
Like Pussygutt before, Wolvserpent continue to hone their unclassifiable sound, a melding together of dark hushed folk, minimal drone music, and blackened dooooooom. Their name change probably won't really make 'em much more commercially appealing, but who needs that, when you're ruling the darkened otherworld of psychedelic avant heaviness???
We made Wolvserpent's Blood Seed lp our Record Of The Week on list #358 back in November of last year, Wolvserpent being the group previously known as Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho capable of crafting grimly powerful blackened folk flecked dronescapes that defy easy categorization. And as we mentioned then, the name Pussygutt probably put off plenty of people, thus the shift to Wolvserpent, and while that name definitely better captures the group's ominous tone and black metal leanings, it still leaves much about the music, and its makers, quite mysterious.
Yet for as much as we dug Pussygutt, and love their new Wolvserpent incarnation, we somehow managed to miss completely, the Wolvserpent lp that preceded Blood Seed, a record called Gathering Strengths. Thankfully, the mighty Crucial Blast have stepped in, and combined both Blood Seed AND Gathering Strengths into a handsome double disc compendium, the first disc of which, is the first time on cd for the aforementioned Blood Seed, two epic sprawls, the first a haunting bit of dirgey folk, laid over lush shimmery drones, a gorgeous funeral lament, that only hints at the abject brutality these two are capable of, instead, simply invoking a darkly melancholic mood, eventually guitars drift in, plucking out simple sad melodies, while the strings continue to swirl and soar, gorgeously tense and intense, cinematic and soundtracky. It's not until nearly the nine minute mark that the drums come in, as do the electric guitars, laying down a sort of skeletal doom framework, a different kind of downtuned slowbuild creep, pounding drums, muted riffage, the strings and Sunroof!-like drones growing in intensity, a super intense bit of droney tribal drift, but with an odd start stop arrangement, peppering the lush droning plod with little bits of more traditionally metallic riffage. Eventually some shrieked vocals swoop in, and the song stretches out into a strangley psychedelic epic, a bastardized mix of Godspeed like post rock, avant ur-drone drift, funeral doom, and glacial black metal buzz, all muted and blurred as if mixed by Tim Hecker.
The second 'movement' takes up right where the first left off, long layered high end tones, a lush undulating upper register dronescape, haunting and hypnotically shimmery, before finally lurching into some seriously metallic crunch, a lumbering doomy dirge, buzzing riffs, caveman drums, all wrapped in swirling swaths of reverbed vocals and superdistorted streaks of ambient melody, erupting into occasional blasts of uptempo chuggery, but always slipping back into that stuttery creep, and constantly wreathed in a lush otherworldly sonic haze.
Which brings us to Gathering Strengths, originally released on lp by Olde English Spelling Bee back in 2009, like Blood Seed, a single track split into two epic parts, the first, subtitled "Silence Within", begin with the chirping of crickets, which is soon joined by some haunting distant low end thrum, a dreamlike swell, which is soon joined by a more intense layer of buzzing tones, overlapping woodwinds, rife with mysterious overtones, a creepy harmony, the buzz and shimmer drifting in and out, the minimal drift gradually coalescing into an intense bit of dronemusic, like a blackened Phil Niblock, while off in the distance, barely there percussion surfaces, fragmented slo-mo rhythms, while more and more layers are piled on top, super intense and trancelike, until the woodwinds drift off, leaving a feedback laced stretch of blackdronedrift, softly clattery and corrosive, A wolf Eyes-ian industrial sprawl, that transforms into some hauntingly lovely gypsy like folk, driven by a mournful fiddle melody, the sound swells and smolders, all lilting melodies, and cinematic atmosphere, the vibe like a doom folk Astor Piazolla, that is until a MASSIVE avalanche of washed out downtuned doomcrush rolls in, that gorgeous fiddle now all tangled up in a heaving SUNNO)))-like churn, which manages to be both brutal and blackened, dreamy and so totally lovely. Impossibly pretty heaviness, this whole double disc worth it for that 5 or 6 minute stretch alone.
But there's still the second part, that one subtitled "Spirit Walker", this one starts off in seriously gorgeous drone-folk mode, the band laying down a lush, mesmerizing, hauntingly tense layered drone backdrop, over which the violin keens and cries, accompanied by simple shamanistic drumming, the result a darkly mesmerizing glimpse into some lost forest glade, where some shadowy priest like visages are gathered around dancing black flames, conjuring up spirits from another realm, but like the first track, this one too gradually grows heavier, with the addition of a slow thick dirge-y doomy riff, not super distorted or grumbly, but more softly buzzy, the chords ringing out and fading until they seem to bleed into the sounds around them, only to have the next chord take over, what we said about the last few minutes of the first track, well, we could say it about this whole track, worth the price of admission all on its own, a hazy tranced out chunk of heavy, heady, forest folk drone drift bliss.
Both records are incredible, and work amazingly well together, and like Pussygutt before, Wolvserpent continue to hone their unclassifiable sound, a melding together of dark hushed folk, minimal drone music, and blackened dooooooom. Their name change probably won't really make 'em much more commercially appealing, but who needs that, when you're ruling the darkened otherworld of psychedelic avant heaviness???
Dark, ritualistic, blackened ambience, and experimental psychedelic black metal from members of Dead Reptile Shrine, Ride For Revenge, Will Over Matter, Blutleuchte and Cloama, all of whom we've raved about separately on the aQ list before, and who have all come together to create this hour long songsuite, that fuses twisted electronics, shimmering kosmische drift, minimal percussive post industrial murk, and tranced out hypno-psych mesmer. Separated into four movements, and given titles like "Satan Universe Moloch", "Bug Humanity", "She male Vegetarian" and "Neptunean Crystal Rain", at first blush, the sound seems to fall closest to the weirdo minimal electronics of Will Over Matter, the opener laying down a gristly sprawl of glitched out electronic buzz, but bolstered by some dreamy, almost krautrock sounding guitar, a twisted kosmische / avant electronic hybrid, those guitars soon dropping out, leaving a wild tangle of damaged FX and mutated synths, a darkly chaotic blacknoise, that eventually resolves into some dark, almost John Carpenter sounding cinematic dronemusic. Those hazy soundtracky atmospherics bleed into the second track, this time accompanied by some twisted vocalizations, wreathed in static and distortion, and drifting beneath thick undulating sheets of synth, everything peppered with bursts of glitch and crackle, moody and ominous, haunting but weirdly tranquil. Soon industrial rhythms surface and enter the fray, they remain muted and in the background, while once again, the electronics take over, this time drifting atop mutated vocals, pitch shifted and heavily effected, not to mention fluctuating fields of woozy melodies and strange, damaged samples.
It's not until track three ("She Male Vegetarian") that there's any actual black metal, and even then, there's a buzzing blackened main riff, but instead of exploding into a furious blast, that riff lumbers ominously through fields of chaotic murky drumming, the result much more trancelike and weirdly hypnotic, and quickly that riff splinters into a weird stretch of chiming distorted harmonics, and tangled sonic skree, before slipping back into the black churn, now joined by more guitars, the sound more lush and expansive, but still woozy and stumbling, you can definitely hear the Dead Reptile Shrine here, but before you know it, the sound shifts, transformed into a lovely bit of soft synth ambience, before once again, exploding into a field of blackened power electronics, smeared into something droned out and murkily mesmerizing, finishing off with what sounds like a bit of sampled Finnish folk. Finally, the close is announced by the sound of thunder, which is quickly subsumed by some bleak, blurry, tinny black metal riffage, smeared into staticky swaths of blacknoise, laced with moaning, anguished vokills, the sound growing gradually less and less noisy and buzzy, another barrage of alien electronics soon taking over, the record finishing off with a weird bit of black ambient electronic ritualism, that grows more hushed and haunting, before fading out completely.
Twisted and lovely, bleak and black, mysterious and bizarre, minimal and murky, fans of any / all of the members' other projects will no doubt dig. But best be quick, this is LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!!! These are the ONLY copies we will ever be able to get, and once they're gone, they are gone for good!!!
We didn't really know too much about Women (insert joke here!), we missed their self-titled debut completely, but this new one is really fantastic, a hazy, reverby dark pop record, but unlike the legion of lo-fi homebrewed retro rockers, this is a gorgeously lush, expansive and seriously experimental record. The blurred, snowswept front cover is what caught our eye, and the music inside is the perfect soundtrack, channeling the sort of gauzy washed out blurriness we love so much (a la Jeck, Hecker, etc.), but winds it all up with a more classic sounding dour pop.
The record opener is the perfect example, a lush, layered swirl of sound, a muted high end skree, wrapped around a minimal almost Joy Division-y bassline, the vocals laid back and wreathed in delay, those weird textural high end parts adding a strange bit of melody, the song drones and drifts, the sounds growing more and more effulgent, the buzzes thicker, the hazy atmospheres pulsing and undulating, it's hard to describe, almost like an Interpol demo, covered by some eighties industrial band, played back at the wrong speed during a performance by Philip Jeck. That sounds pretty goddamn great, and it is.
The whole record is not nearly as murky and abstract, the band mix in some more traditional pop, angular guitar jangle, propulsive drumming, squiggly atonal melodies, low slung bass, a sort of broody new wave one second, jangly Byrds-y strum the next, but always just a little twisted and obscured, whether it's bits of distortion, or thick swaths of crumbling distorted ambience, the sound as varied as it is, manages to flow so organically, the whole thing so hypnotic and inviting.
The title track is total slocore dream pop, Galaxie 500 by way of Beach House, while "Bells" is not actually bells, but instead, a lush, thick, softly distorted gorgeously layered dronescape. "China Steps" is a loping bit of drone drenched post punk, but infused with plenty of warm whirring luster, the song flitting from looped dirgey mesmer to clanging crashing crunch, "Untogether" is a woozy bit of hazy soft psychpop drift, but laced with streaks of buzzing hiss, the whole rest of the record unfurls as a collection of lazy sun dappled dreampop, like Pavement meets Interpol meets Best Coast, but the residual buzz and blur of that opening track, clinging subtly to the otherwise hooky jangle.
Definitely a new favorite.
We have been wondering for a while now how long it would take for someone to reissue anything from this blithely influential but stubbornly obscurist brotherly duo, Woo, whose homespun DIY take on left-field new age-y electronic pastoral music has gone from largely ignored to rapturously revered over the span of 30 years since their debut. You can hear strains of their influence now in the music of Sun Araw, Ducktails, Nite Jewel, Animal Collective, Balam Acab, Washed Out and Caribou. But Woo's sound is not that easy to pin down, and It's Cozy Inside, the group's second album from 1989 (seven years on from their 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong), is as ethereal and intangibly beguiling now as it ever was.
Woo can best be described as a mix of Cluster and Durutti Column, two outfits separated by time and geography that delved deeply into the gentler realm of pastoral music while at the same time pushing the sounds to the edge of experimental composition through texture and effects. Add to this the bedroom recording techniques of Cleaners From Venus, the classical exotica of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the ethereal imaginary soundtracks of Bill Nelson, the wide-eyed romanticism of Virgina Astley's From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, and even the most genteel side of Throbbing Gristle or Chris and Cosey (of course at their most lethargic, far divorced from any heavy industrial sensibility) and we're getting closer to an apt description of the singular sound universe of Woo.
Yet this album is much much weirder then any comparisons we can attribute to it. Newly remastered, it still sounds like it was made for falling asleep to, its subtle textural effects of woozy synthesizers, clarinet and heavily affected acoustic guitar, don't necessarily create fully formed songs, but short serpentine instrumental vignettes that stream from one piece to the next, creating a strange filmic dream world that is difficult to get your head around. Its mutant take on new age and classical forms are hardly meditative kosmiche as much as they are a kind of worried ambient minimalism, the sound gathering in watery pools of texture and mood, breaking off and reforming in surprising ways. Eschewing a big impactful sound, Woo make a genial refusal of high-end sonic dynamics instead finding a softly-treaded yet eccentric path through a dazzling aural river that ebbs and flows in a way that most bands of the time would hardly dare to go. Woo's subtle brilliance may take awhile to unfold, but its rewards are plenty. With many bands mining vintage new age music, it's amazing that Woo's unique sound has rarely, if ever, been truly duplicated. Beautiful, mesmerizing and of course, highly recommended!
We made the 2012 Drag City reissue of Woo's 1989 album It's Cozy Inside, Record of the Week, but upon hearing this recent reissue of the group's 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, we knew with even MORE certainty that we had to make it a Record of the Week as well. We have been playing this constantly in the store for weeks, and with each listen becoming more enamored with its blithe mosaic of introspective soundscapes and quiet pop-jazz sensibilities. Reissued by Emotional Rescue a few months ago, we wanted to list this sooner, but the vinyl version had already sold out (it's being repressed, we're told), but we have the cd version while supplies last, so we recommend you act fast.
By the time It's Cozy Inside was released, the eccentric brothers Mark and Clive Ives' highly individualized method of making music using acoustic guitar, bass and clavinet processed through synthesizers to create strange hybrids of jazz and pastoral electronica was largely dialed in. But on their debut, with its compelling title and cover depicting a young child surrounded by the authority figures of religion, politics and academia all pointing in opposing directions and acting as a personal manifesto for forging ahead on one's own unique path, the sound is at once more open ended, searching and strange than the later record. Intermixing buoyant melodic passages with serpentine experimental sonic arrangements and rhythms, Woo sounds like a band made up of way more than just the two brothers. The opener, "Swingtime" is the perfect start. An intricate and bright melody punctuated by drum machine, labyrinthine bass and acoustic guitar, sounding like the crystalline guitar lines of Durutti Column, before suddenly dropping into the hot gurgling percussive ambiance of "Pokhara" with its Middle Eastern guitar sounds, made from sped up dubbed out rhythms. Each track melds into the next like an alien and otherworldly soundtrack, or more aptly, like aliens hearing the early jazz melodies of Django Reinhardt for the first time and trying to emulate that sound using modern technology. The sound is gentle, but never quite relaxing. Nothing stays at rest, but at the same time, nothing is rushed either. Moody and pensive, the layered acoustic guitar work is incredible, as it anchors the tenuous atmospheric backing of electronics and muddled loping rhythms. "Razorblades" channels the Brian Enoish side of David Bowie's Low into a dense and worried jazz deconstruction. The one vocal track, "The Attic" is a dreamy pop masterpiece seemingly transported from Factory Record's Benolux imprint or Les Disques du Crepuscule, two Belgian based labels that focused on the dreamier side of European new wave avant-garde pop in the eighties. Anyone who's a fan of those labels, and bands like Antena, early Thomas Dolby, John Foxx, Bill Nelson and later Tuxedo Moon as well as solo releases by Steve Brown, Benjamn Lew and Peter Principle, will find a kindred spirit in Woo's epic gentleness. We were playing this one day when ex-Yellow Swan Pete Swanson paid us a visit and he asked us what was playing. He had been told by many friends that he should definitely look into Woo, but listening to the track playing, he couldn't really understand why. But Woo is not a band you can just check out a track and get it right off. It's disarmingly soft in a way that may come off as wimpy at first, but it eventually gets under your skin in ways that are subtle and mysterious and then you can't stop listening.
A beautifully elastic and hard to pin down musical force. Limited!
As far as we're concerned, Austin's American Analog Set were one of the most underrated indie-rock-pop-emo bands of the late '90s and early '00s. They made some of the most hushed and moody bedroom indie rock we had ever heard, crating the perfect music for lazily relaxing with that special someone, but equally ideal for those lonely nights with only your memories to keep you warm. AAS had the earnest sincerity of Death Cab For Cutie, but also displayed a maturity in sound and scope that appealed to fans of folks like Low and Red House Painters. At the helm of American Analog Set was Andrew Kenney, who possesses one of our favorite voices...just so damn pretty! Soft and comforting and emotive without resorting to whining or typical indie boy tortured mewling. While we were sad to see American Analog Set call it quits a few years back (they should/could have been bigger than The Shins and DCFC!) we were super excited to see that Kenney has a brand new project Wooden Birds, and the Birds' sound pretty much encapsulates everything we loved so much about his old band. Slow and steady, warm melodies tucked tightly into each song, and Kenney's voice sounding as seductive and entrancing as ever. Nothing that Kenny does ever feels forced or heavy handed, he's able to deliver sentimental songs that slowly melt their way into your ears and wrap around your body like that amazing soft blanket you've had since you were little and wouldn't trade for the world. So nice!
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
Ah, Woods. It seems like maybe some of us here haven't given these guys as much attention as they deserve. Of course, some of that has to do with the difficulty in getting very many of their singles, and maybe we were just blasted with so many releases on the Woodsist label (which, you guessed it, Woods own and operate) that we overlooked them... not too sure, maybe we're just quibbling. But we will quibble no more, because At Echo Lake has our undivided attention.
This album exhibits an effortless but impeccable attention to songcraft, and even though it clocks in at under 30 minutes, its all encompassing greatness causes you to lose track of time and space, just like a good album should. While Woodsist has earned a reputation for blown out garage pop, Woods themselves are more on the folk side of the spectrum. Words like "lo-fi" will undoubtedly be thrown around, and not without good reason. This IS lo-fi, but instead of hiding behind tape hiss and distortion, the songs make perfect use of the recording quality for an album that is lush, dreamy, and above all, BEAUTIFUL. Singer Jeremy Earl's falsetto croon has earned many comparisons to Neil Young, but we're still trying to figure out who else he reminds us of. Some sort of Jad Fair/Elliott Smith hybrid on helium? Chris Gunst from Beachwood Sparks? Eh, why bother, because we imagine before long it will be Earl other people are being compared to when everyone is ripping his band off. This stuff is just so great that we can't imagine Woods NOT ascending to the next level in the indie world.
Lightly psychedelic opener "Blood Dries Darker" gives off a hazed summery feeling, its warm acoustic (we think) bass recalling the sounds of groups like Dead Milkmen or even Violent Femmes, but also sounding very appropriate for 2010. "Suffering Season" finds Earl and Woods' other half Jarvis Taveniere sounding a bit more like a ramshackle Beachwood Sparks with a ridiculously catchy chorus asking "Who knows what tomorrow might bring?"
The instrumentation on this one should appeal to anyone who dug other recent aQ favorites the Smith Westerns, as both bands seem to inhabit a world where the whole lo-fi thing is not just an excuse for not going to a real studio. Many numbers, like "Time Fading Lines" aren't necessarily "sad", but definitely a bit melancholy. A lot of these songs give off a sense of longing, not in a super defined way or anything... ultimately, though, the vibe here is pretty triumphant, some real feel good kind of stuff. Woods also know how to shake things up a bit, like on the instrumental "From The Horn", hands down the most rocking song here. Skittery guitars and some more aggressive than usual drumming have the band letting loose, and the addition of the cool backwards tape sounds actually reminded us a bit of Faust, as strange as that may sound.
Woods have created their own magical world, perfectly captured in Earl's awesome artwork, which adorns all Woodsist releases but not surprisingly make most sense on his own record sleeves. It's strange, but also very intriguing, a perfect visual accompaniment. The best thing about Woods is how they manage to be mysterious but inclusive, making tunes that will surely please all types of music lovers. It's always great when an album unexpectedly knocks you on your ass. At Echo Lake is one of those albums.
And fyi, for the next two weeks, we'll have the cd format of this on a special $2 off sale, so it's $11.98 instead of the regular $13.98, until 5/21/10!
World Standard is a long running "ambient acoustic" project dedicated to the "American primitive spirit" produced by YMO founder Haruomi Hosono and run by Soichiro Suzuki. Windy didn't like this one as much as the last one, which was more sort of dreamy electronica. Volume three utilises guitar, piano, organ, glockenspiel, pedal steel, fiddle, banjo, euphonium, trumpet, saw, ukelele and more. They cover Albert Ayler's 'Ghosts' as well as a handful of 'traditionals'. Not sure how the last 'electronica' record necessarily paid tribute to the primitive American spirit, but this one sure does. The tunes are languid and dreamy, instruments sound warm and gauzy, with summery, back porch melodies and warm swells. Tentatively plucked guitar and loping horns, funereal but sort of hopeful at the same time. World Standard have definitely captured that 'old timey' sound. Think Souled American, Scott Tuma, Calexico, Orso, but with a brass band, some chirping birds, a few electronic tweaks here and there, a flat top barge floating lazily downstream, all day to leisurely strum and pluck and bow, not a cloud in the sky and not a care in the world.
We realize that lots of folks might have only recently discovered aQuarius, and may have missed out on lots of past favorites we consider essential listening. Many of those same people may not relaize that our very own Andee runs the tUMULt label, on which some of our all time favorite records have been released. Since the world has finally caught on, caught up and plain old caught a serious case of Finnish fever (Circle, Avarus, Anaksimandros, Islaja, Kemiallisett Ystevat, etc.) we figured it was high time to re-list this slab of beautiful brutality, from mighty and mysterious outfit, Worms:
Will Finland never cease to surprise us? How can one tiny country continue to produce so much progressive, transgressive, creative and fucking perfect experimental rock? Circle, Keuhkot, Avarus, Anaksimandros, Mieskuoro Huutajaat, Pharoah Overlord, Ektroverde, Skepticism, Kemialisett Ystavat, and now Worms!
The Worms may be new to us (and actually to most people in Finland, surprisingly) but they have been a fixture of the Finnish underground for over a decade. And even after a decade, their entire recorded output consisted of three 7" singles and a few compilation tracks. So Andee's tUMULt label managed to track down the band, and discovered that they actually recorded a full length a few years back, but the label that was supposed to release it dropped the ball.
So here it is finally and man is it something. Five tracks of beautiful brutality. A dark and wintry, more motorik My Bloody Valentine, mixed with a little Circle and a little Filth-era Swans. Or some Frankensteinian dirge rock band, equal parts Godflesh, My Bloody Valentine, the Shadow Ring, and the Swans.
The disc starts off with a massive 30 minute medley, a droning hypnotic dirge, like Terry Riley composing for Godflesh or the Melvins and not a little reminiscent of Dutch riff gods Gore. Endless and hypnotic, crushing and brutal. The next three tracks display Worms more melodic side, letting a little pop shine through, with lilting vocals and darkly melancholic melodies and frontman Veli Pesonen's deep Michael Gira like drawl intoning simple mantra-like lyrics, over jangly strummed riffs, more melodic maybe, but still drone-y and hypnotic and dreamy. Think late era Swans, or maybe the Terminals, or the Clean, that sort of dreary, jangly New Zealand rock. The twenty minute 'Border' closes proceedings with a glorious din of shimmering but harrowing guitars, buried melodies and relentlessly propulsive rhythms. This was a long time coming, but once you hear it you'll agree it was well worth the wait. Definitely for fans of all the above mentioned bands as well as connoisseurs of drone/dirge/doom. Crushingly beautiful. And of course essential.
A couple years ago we reviewed an obscure, DIY cd-r release, In The Stars, by this band Wormsblood. As you might guess from their name, they're an underground black metal free noise new weird America psych folk cd-r band... oh wait you might not guess that. But you'd get the idea this is something dark and strange and evil, right? Not some normal indie rock band that's for sure. And you know this, if you remember our review of that previous release. So, band leader Wyrdskull (an alter ego of Clay Ruby from freak folksters Davenport and psych doomsters Jex Thoth, we have reason to believe) and cohorts are back with a new release, an actual cd this time, though the music is still way DIY and lo-fi (like we like it!), consisting of three "demo" sessions recorded between 2004 and 2008. Though without that info you wouldn't know this wasn't conceived as all one album. Ten tracks total, about 38 minutes of very, very fucked up "metal". Like, if Ariel Pink did even -more- drugs and then tried to produce a black metal album. Or, imagine a black metal Faxed Head (as we said about 'em before). It's that weird, that WRONG. And thus damn right in our ears. 'Cause if we know anything, we know our fucked up black metal. Dead Reptile Shrine, Varghkogargasmal, Vorak, Dead Raven Choir's Cask Strength stuff, old Necrofrost, Wold, etc., this fits right in, not that it really fits in anywhere.
The disc starts off with the amazing/retarded "Fragments Of The Witch" which will either convince you this is the best thing you've heard since you played the Weakling album backwards through a malfunctioning Kaoss pad while screaming at the top of your lungs, or convince you to turn it off. Obviously, we're part of the former camp. A murky, palpitating admixture of primitive, clanking rhythms, truly over-the-top gargled and anguished kokills, dim distorted guitar riffs and woozy synths dealing out Skeptical doom plod. All of it mired in an echoey, almost dubby "production". The next track, "Hollow Cost Nothing", ups the ante with even more majestic, messed up melodies. It dawns on us that whomever is on guitar can really play. Somehow this makes Wormsblood sound even more insane. It also suggests that maybe one way to look at this isn't as an attempt at making tr00 cvlt black metal primitivism, but rather as simply a very, very, VERY damaged version of traditional '80s heavy metal (and we recall they did do a Manilla Road cover on the In The Stars cd-r)...
Then, there's a track that also appeared on that cd-r,"The First Dim Shinings (Of Those About To Awaken)", which takes a turn into ritualistic ancient folk musick, with a military snare and Muppet-on-meth vocals. It's like Ghost meets Abruptum. Or ESP-Disk's Cromagnon gone metal. That's followed by "Sig Bind", which begins with abstract, Jewelled Antler-y atmospheres before erupting with high-end guitar neck strangle, kind of like a Kemialliset Ystavat meets Krallice mashup. By the end of this track, it's a madhouse of maniacal voices, harshing the mellow with which it began. And on it goes, this disc of demos delving backwards in time, the recordings getting boombox-ier and buzzier, the songs even less songlike and more soundscapey if possible. "Goodnight" opens a can of that Striborg-style aersol spray, a grim sonic mist of vibrating electric strings and hissing exhalations. "Obsessed By The Bloodstone" (is that shout-out to cult pulp fantasist Karl Edward Wagner?) is an ambient piece for keyboard - and barking dog! And then sometimes, they get it together for an extended spasm of, uh, song, full of high pitched singing/shrieking and chaotic drums/guitars.
Now, you might be thinking, there's other black metal releases on this week's AQ list. Yet this is the only one we chose as a Record Of The Week. Does that mean it's BETTER than those other black metal albums? Better than Ayat, or Moloch, or Nav, or the new Satyricon, for example? Well, no, not exactly. But we're not judging this purely as a black metal release. We figured this was something that AQ customers into any sort of bizarre, fucked up music (many of whom love black metal, to be sure) would find intriguing. 'Cause as metal as this is (and it IS, really metal, if you listen close) it's equally something else entirely. There's whole passages of "music" here that sound more like that fake field recordings disc Jurassic Soundscapes, but with lonely werewolves wandering around in the prehistoric swamps. And drugged up pterodactyls swooping about overhead. Wormsblood's sound is as much recognizable metallic instrumentation (guitars, drums, vocals) as it is wyrd sound FX and destroyed noise, rustlings and clankings and howlings.
As befits this music, this comes packaged in black and white and grey, bearing disturbing, fantastical, hellish yet cartoonish line drawings that look a bit like Mike Diana's notorious art... get the LP if you want to study the drawings in detail.
Debut full length from these East Bay doomlords, who once featured our very own Andee behind the kit! It's three tracks 43 minutes, of slow building, brooding, emotional, classic epic doom, the emotion mostly due to the vocals, way up in the mix, a cool sort of John Garcia (Kyuss) / Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) hybrid, moaning and mewling during the slow post rocky parts and howling and wailing during the churning chug of the more doomy parts.
Surprisingly catchy and hooky, Worship Of Silence minus the vocals might slip into something more sludgey and ultra dooooooom, but the vocals transform this into something much more accessible, this sounds like a slight, but it's totally not, it really wouldn't be that weird to hear this stuff on some super progressive alternative / metal radio station. It's the Soundgarden vibe, it's hard to avoid, but fuck it, why bother, we all love Soundgarden, so imagine Cornell and company trading in their Zep worshipping grunge, for sprawling epic downtuned doomscapes, with cool swirling riffage, wild tribal drumming, long expanses of shimmery drift, a definite prog element too, as during lots of the slow brooding tribal parts, the band definitely dip into Tool territory, which makes for an awesomely hooky, catchy, but still crushing and epic post-doom. And it's not just the vocals, the riffs and the arrangements are awesome, well crafted, channeling the sound of old school classic doom, but twisting it into something much more modern and polished, eminently headbangable, but definitely a little progged out and catchy as fuck. We're definitely digging this big time.
Seems like only moments ago, my favorite record of last year came out. Maybe that's just because I still listen to it almost every day!! It's that good. If you read the AQ list you know I'm talking about the totally amazing Woven Hand record, a solo project of David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower. Let's quickly recap for those who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Sixteen Horsepower make weird backwoods gypsy folk, augmenting normal instrumentation with fiddles, accordions and mandolins. Dark and swampy tales, campfire stumps and lugubrious dirge folk crawls. Sound good? Well that's 'cause it is!! A huge AQ favorite. We weren't sure what to expect from Edwards solo record. We certainly weren't expecting it to surpass 16HP in every way, but it did!! Darker and creepier, tales of apocalyptic doom and Biblical salvation rendered in dreary, droney folk, lit by the fire of a bayou campfire. SO SO SO GOOD!!! One of the few records that really moved me. Seriously, like to tears. It's so gorgeous and passionate and sinister and perfect. Yes, PERFECT. So here we are a year later and a new record from the Woven Hand. Blush Music is music composed for a modern dance performance by the Belgian dance troupe Ultima Vez. It's about half re-worked songs from the first record and half new material. At first I was a little disappointed that it was different versions of old songs, until I heard the new versions. GOD!! This record perfectly complements the songs on the first record. One of the highlights from the first record was the cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", a perfectly gut wrenching, tear jerking slow motion valentine to lost love. On Blush Music, "Ain't No Sunshine" reappears as the 12+ minute "Animalitos", with the original stretched out into an entirely new shape, complete with dark, mornful ambient passages, wheezing organs, bombastic percussion, rumbling drones, bird calls, and forest sounds, with the vocals and melody occasionally surfacing only to be immediately overwhelmed by the turbulent soundscape. A couple songs from the first record get this treatment and the results are sublime. The new tracks, while not as immediately catchy as a lot of the tracks on the first record, still capture the same dread and dark hope. A good way to imagine this record in relation to the first, is imagine the first record as the -soundtrack- to an epic biblical southern love story equal parts Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Southern Comfort and All The Pretty Horses. Now imagine that Blush Music is the -score-, all the incidental music, the theme reworked and stretched out to hover emotionally beneath dialogue, or to guide the viewers emotions. I think this record works better if you already own the first one (thankfully the first one was just released domestically), but that isn't to say Blush Music is not a perfect slice of dark and droney, fire and brimstone, forlorn and forgotten, gorgeously damaged, gypsy psych-folk. 'Cause it is!
So far, we've made EVERY record we've reviewed, but one, from post 16 Horsepower apocalyptic swamp-blues folk-gospel proselytizers Woven Hand a Record Of The Week. And really, we're not sure why we didn't make that other one (Blush Music) a ROTW as well, and for that matter, this new one too, a stunning collection of songs that displays David Eugene Edwards and co.'s continuing shift toward a sound more heavy and bombastic, while still managing to retain the gut wrenching moodiness and soul stirring sonic fire and brimstone of those other records. That shift is even more evident this time around, as Edwards' back up band on Refractory Obdurate is made up of members of hardcore heavies Planes Mistaken For Stars!
Just check out the opener "Corsicana Clip", which perfectly lays out the new WH musical math, beginning like a classic David Eugene Edwards jam, all brooding, and twang flecked, shuffling and loping, hypnotic and darkly majestic, brooding and harrowingly haunting, and we'd be perfectly happy if that's how the track played out, but then about halfway through, the song explodes into something seriously heavy, thick chugging guitars swoop to the fore, the drums get more bombastic, the echo drenched vocals wilder, a furious psychedelic blowout that's not at all what we've come to expect from WH.
A bunch of the tracks here are more restrained, playing out like just another great Woven Hand record, but others are fierce slabs of twisted post punk, some are smoldering slow build epics, and still others are super distorted hard rocking stomps, but they all sound perfectly and classically Woven Hand. The production is massive as well, giving the sound some serious heft, the new players injecting serious venom into the songs and sound, and consequently, Edwards also sounds more intense, his vocals snarling and feral, his guitar playing wild and frenzied, the dynamics dense and dramatic, the sound careening wildly from hushed haunting mesmer to furious almost noise rock crunch. Awesome.
Oh, how we wish sometimes that we had more time to spend with some of the records we review. In some cases, it's an hour or two, maybe 2 or 3 times through an album, sometimes, unfortunately, it's even less than that. With so many records, it's not always possible to totally immerse yourself, and some music requires that sort of immersion, for it to be fully appreciated, for the sounds to open up, the layers to peel back, revealing the music's beating heart. Such is the case with the music of David Eugene Edwards, formerly of 16 Horsepower, now spreading his dark apocalyptic folk gospel via Woven Hand.
The music of Woven Hand, as is evidenced by past aQ reviews (3 of the past 4 WH albums, well, now 4 out of 5, were aQ Records Of The Week, and when we try to figure out why the other one wasn't, for the life of us, we just can't), is the rare music that moves and inspires, sends shivers down our spines, gives us goosebumps, brings us to the edge of tears, a music powerful and personal, and so so intense. The sounds of Woven Hand, while gorgeous, are also ominous and haunting, the message even moreso. Edwards' lyrics deal almost exclusively with death and damnation, sin and salvation. He, more than any modern performer is the rock equivalent of a revivalist preacher, testifying like his life depended on it, and perhaps it does. The music backing up Edwards' passionate vocals, is a dark swirl of backwoods folk, of gothic rock (not to be confused with goth-rock), sweeping cinematic soundscapes, old time blues, lush and almost orchestrated, strings moan, sweet sad melodies are plucked out on old pianos, or unfurled from wheezing harmoniums. Woven Hand is the sound of some old dusty ghost town, or some strange traveling minstrel, set up on the back of a rickety old wagon, playing for coal miners, and forest folk, lit from below by flickering firelight, shadows dancing behind the band like some sort of mysterious back up band of spirits.
Ten Stones remains true to the first few books in the Gospel of the Woven Hand, from the first few notes, this could be nothing else, Edwards' super dramatic rich velvety croon, the tone of the guitars, those melodies, minor key yet shot through with some sort of hopeful warmth, some ineffable otherworldly glow, the one thing that is different, is just how rocking some of this is, almost heavy at points, the guitars thick and growling, the drums pounding and frenzied, strings singing, but all kept in check by Edwards' vocals. This new found heaviness is not a new direction, just another arrow in Edwards' musical quiver, as many of the songs still slither and crawl through those lost backwoods of tarnished souls and wasted lives, the twang left to drift in wide open spaces as often as it's wrapped around the heft of crunch and bluster. The record does manage to move in unexpected directions, the accordion driven filthy blues jam that is "White Knuckle Grip", or the moody torch song shimmer of "Quite Nights Of Quiet Stars", the pounding bluegrass buzz of "Kicking Bird", but even those anomalous excursions, somehow fit perfectly into the long winding musical road of Ten Stones. The last three tracks finish off things about as perfectly as possible, "Kingdom Of Ice" is total apocalyptic drama, the twang of banjo beneath a buzzing drone, Edwards's spitting fire, "His Loyal Love", a swoonsome, murky drift of soft smeared guitar buzz, shuffled percussion, and haunting reverb drenched vocals, the entire song wreathed in a swirling gauzy fog, and finally the untitled closer, a deep whizzing, nearly static drone, long tones slowly shifting, thick distorted guitar rumble and sweet soft tones, shimmering and spread out into a kaleidoscopic soft focus blur.
Another stirring apocalyptic missive, from one of the few, true remaining musical prophets, and even if your soul doesn't need saving, Ten Stones will have you wishing it did.
Musical salvation is at hand!
When we hosted our first South By Southwest showcase last year, with our pals at WFMU, and were preparing out dream lists of bands to play, Woven Hand was right near the top of our list, after all, we'd made 4 of the 5 Woven Hand records our Record Of The Week (5 of 6 counting this one), and had somehow never seen them live. So when they confirmed, we were ecstatic, how could it not be totally amazing? But the biggest surprise wasn't that it WAS in fact, amazing, or that it was powerful and moving and intense, it was that they were so LOUD and so HEAVY, the room packed, the sound ALIVE, a crackling energy coursing through every note, the volume deafening, but somehow it was perfect, just a huge swirling mass of intense apocalyptic swampy doom folk, the drums thunderous, the guitar jagged and howling and heavy, and the vocals, on record it's some sort of testifying, but live, we were almost ready to convert, and become born again. It was that intense, that inspirational, that emotional.
And the thing is, Woven Hand records do a pretty amazing job of capturing that emotion and energy on record, no small feat considering how many of the most amazing bands live, fall flat recorded, but that has never been a problem with David Eugene Edwards and his Woven Hand, or even Sixteen Horsepower, the band that came before (and was also a Record Of The Week honoree). The records are holy documents of sound, Edwards' fundamentalist Christianity, that would normally rankle, in the context of Woven Hand becomes so much more, the power of belief, the power of the spirit, of faith, rendered in sound. It helps that the sounds is a harrowing, brooding, apocalyptic swampy folk, rife with tales of damnation and salvation, hellfire and misery and suffering, the music simultaneously a cautionary tale, and a song of praise, the two often wound up tight, making the message, and the music, that much more mysterious.
On The Threshingfloor, Woven Hand sounds as dark, and haunting, and heavy as ever, the various Eastern and world music elements that were definitely present on past records, here are much more of an essential component, adding an exotic vibe to the already intense doomfolk. The record begins with a haunting almost acoustic ballad, lots of buzzing steel strings, a moody minor key melody, minimal percussion, and Edwards' powerful vocals, all underpinned by thick droning swells. It's on the next track, the title track, that we revisit the power of that live show we witnessed in Texas, a frantic chunk of jangle and strum, lots of extra percussion, anguished super powerful vocals, an acoustic guitar wielded like a battle axe, Eastern melodies woven throughout, a seriously powerful bit of musical conversion. "A Holy Measure" is more stripped down and folky, but no less powerful, followed by the doom folk dirge of "Raise Her Hands", creepy and menacing and yet still utterly lovely.
One new element, that we never noticed before was what seems to be nods to groups like Joy Division, low slung gloomy basslines, deep tortured vocals, on one hand it seems like maybe it was always present, but here, that vibe is huge, try to imagine some sort of Christian apocalyptic doom folk cold wave, and you'll be getting closer to tracks like "His Rest", or "Behind Your Breath", gothy and grim, but still flecked with twang and shimmer and strum.
Elsewhere, "Singing Grass" is a gorgeous and utterly heartbreaking ballad/dirge, all acoustic guitars and moaning cellos, and the vocals, so dark and mournful, easily the most moving track on the record. "Wheatstraw" is only a minute long, but it's darkly evocative, a haunting dronescape, gauzy and hazy and ghostlike. "Orchard Gate" is a gothic folk epic, fire and brimstone made sound, but again, for all its darkness and misery, it's just so breathtakingly beautiful.
The strangest moment is the record closer, "Denver City", a weirdly rocking skiffle folk rocker, with distorted vocals, and surprisingly major key chord progression, which sounds more like Railroad Jerk than Woven Hand, it perhaps doesn't fit the dour mood of the rest of the record, but maybe that's why it's at the end, the light at the end of the tunnel perhaps. But if light is the last thing you want from Woven Hand, then bail out before "Denver City", and you'll emerge from The Threshingfloor still wholly under its dark spell....
I hate to gush, but gush I must. This is my (Andee's) RECORD OF THE YEAR. Done deal. It doesn't matter what happens for the rest of the year. Kurt Kobain could come back from the grave and record a new Nirvana record. Laddio Bollocko could get back together. Earth reunion. It doesn't matter. This is it. THE ONE. It's magical, dark, mysterious, sinister, gorgeous and moves me like very few records do. But I digress.
Woven Hand is David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower's solo project. If you're anything like me, you're always wondering why people have solo projects that sound just like their 'actual' band, and often not nearly as good. But fear not. While Edwards' Woven Hand is similar in many ways to 16HP, it takes things in a direction even darker, dreamier, creepier, and more religious (more on that later) ending up sounding EVEN BETTER than 16HP. Hard to believe, especially if you loved 16HP's 'Folklore' that we made record of the week a few weeks back as much as we did! Woven Hand is like a Cormac McCarthy novel put to music. "Blood Meridian" arranged for rock band. "All The Pretty Horses" sung by wandering minstrels. Desolate and dreary, violent and cathartic, but not obviously so, more like a creeping seeping sickness, death and destruction and human sin as it swallows souls and destroys lives. The instrumentation is similar to 16HP, a dark and dreamy gypsy swamp-folk, but more lush, with thicker, richer atmospheres, and murky, almost impenetrable instrumental backdrops, underpinning Edwards' tales of redemption and forgiveness, sorrow and apocalypse. The lyrics are way more blatantly religious, biblically themed, and aimed at touching our souls. Which for some reason doesn't bother me as much as you think it would. The words are poetic and symbolic, simple and timeless, just beautiful stories and poems, like much of the Bible. Removed from the Christian tradition (thousands of years of hypocrisy and murder and keeping people from thinking for themselves), Edwards' biblical testifying almost has me bowing prostrate hoping to appease a stern but ultimately forgiving God. It helps that Edwards delivers these parables in a rich, throaty rasp, a gorgeous gruff tenor, like a mix of Mark Lanegan, Chris Grigoroff (Souled American) and Nick Cave, that sounds like it has the power to make men sob and women swoon. It all comes together, sound and fury, voice and instrument, in a rich tapestry of fear and hope and death and the cycle of life and desperate dreams of an afterlife. It's rare to really hear music so powerful and so evocative that it manages to become more than just 'rock music' or 'that pretty cool band.' This record brings me to the verge of tears, makes me shiver...I feel it in my brain and in my heart and in my soul. Seriously. This is what music should be to me. Intense and emotional and heartfelt and brutally powerful. There's a creepy crawly version of Bill Withers' 'Ain't No Sunshine' that manages to be even better than the original, due in no small part to the dark, funereal treatment it gets from Woven Hand, that under the right circumstances (or wrong circumstances) could crush me into a weeping, sobbing heap, with my heart broken into a thousand pieces. I wish all music could do that...
The buzziest black metal band in the land? That's precisely how Wrath Of The Weak were described to us, and the truth wasn't all that far off. The sticker on that cd compared them to Burzum and Ildjarn as well, which was also pretty right on the money. But the buzz factor, turned WOTW into something much drone drenched and spacey, tripped out and trancey, like Velvet Cacoon before them, the buzz defined them, every note, every melody, was designed to be wreathed in buzz, to blur and smear into streaks of sound.
This is record number two from WOTW and it's just as buzzy as its predecessor, but a few things have definitely changed. The tone and timbre is different, a bit more bright and brittle, less murky and washed out, more high end, more a wall of blackened skree. And within the sound, the the songs seem to be more musical, more complex melodically, there's a whole lot more going on beneath the buzz. Blasting at full volume in headphones, this record is an epiphany, your ears grow accustomed to the relentless buzz and begin to dig out sonic subtleties, picking up on all sorts of hooks and riffs, sounds and voices, different parts flow seamlessly into each other, the drums actually seem to crystallize before your ears, instead of just another layer of buzz, they are a distinct rhythm a flurry of beats, the vocals seem to emerge from the surrounding skree, offering up another unique layer sonic fury, but everything is so intertwined with the buzz, that these occurrences shift back and forth, the drums drift in and out, the vocals buried surface briefly, sometimes everything locks together into a total static blur, other times they all swing and swirl seemingly haphazardly, before locking into step again. It's the nature of a sound this dense, of music this furious and this buzzy, so blown out, so distorted, that it require some serious alchemy to make get all the sounds to hold their own, and even then, it requires some serious listening to hear them.
And like the record before it, which ended with some weird skittery electronica, this record finishes strangely as well, with a nearly 22 minute ambient drift, all wheezing organs, and deep shimmering tones, woven into dense sonic drifts, some definite soothing aural warmth after the frosty chilly buzz of the preceding 45 minutes.
More musical manna for the buzz hungry, definitely some of the fiercest, most distorted and noise drenched black metal you'll hear. Been wallowing in the extreme buzz of Velvet Cacoon, Mausoleums, Brown Jenkins, Procer Veneficus, Animus, you might as well add Wrath Of The Weak to that list...
A two song blast of extreme noise drenched buzz to tide us over until the next Wrath Of The Weak full length (which we actually have in stock, we just haven't gotten around to reviewing it yet). When it was first suggested we check out WOTW, we were told they were the BUZZIEST black metal band around, and damn if it wasn't pretty much true. But if that first record was indeed the buzziest, not sure what this tape is all about. If anything it's even more droney and dense, whatever riffs are happening are blurred and smeared and stretched into one massive roiling buzzscape. There might be drums in there, but if they are they are buried deep beneath the churning black mass of buzz above it. Very close listening reveals some distinct riffage, and even some melody, but back away and it's like standing in a super collider, gloriously and ear splittingly, head spinningly, rib cage rattlingly LOUD. The second side is a bit more defined, but only in that the sound is a little murkier, a little more melancholy, a heaving dirge-y dismal minor key drone, that seems to shift druggily back and forth between two thick shimmering buzz drenched chords, creating a creepy, melancholy melody out of massive walls of crumbling fuzz and blasting black blur. Barely even black metal, but fucking awesome nonetheless.
Fantastic packaging, an all black tape, not even a little window in the middle. Spare black and white sleeve, white on the outside, black on the inside, minimal text, housed in a black and yellow transparent slipcover. Super striking. CRAZY LIMITED TOO. ONLY 100 COPIES. Out of print already, we got a bunch, but they won't last long...
Another way too limited release from one man blackened ultra-buzz merchant Wrath Of The Weak. As we've mentioned before in the past, before we had heard a single note, WOTW came highly recommended as perhaps THEE buzziest black metal band around, which was, and is still indeed to a certain degree the case, but as other bands are piling on the buzz, and black metal seems to be moving in a more blown out and shoegazey drone drenched direction, it's a bit tougher these days to truly be the lord of buzz.
Thankfully, WOTW is about more than just buzz, the tracks are dense and dark and thick and corrosive, often like a Wolf Eyes track transformed into black metal. Plenty of crunch, and abstract industrial whir, sheets of feedback, tracks sometimes collapsing into gorgeously grinding stretches of slow motion sprawl, haunting melodies buried beneath, everything rough and ragged and raw, but blurred into soft shapes and bleary warm sonic swells. Often not remotely black metal at all. This ep is the perfect example. The opening track is just guitars, a roiling and lush soundworld, no drums, at least none that we can hear, just a massive heaving wall of crumbling distorted crunch, wreathed in hazy clouds of buzz and hiss and whir, playing out a woozy minor key melody, but very very sloooowly, a smoldering slab of mind expanding divine and blackened space drone.
And as if to further make the case that WOTW is far from just another black metal outfit, the second track is a cover (we think) of the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows", less black metal, and more tripped out druggy psychedelia, those distinctive drums, long spidery streaks of sitar like buzz, all the sounds softened and smeared and stretched out into totally trippy tendrils, unfurling through swirling clouds of blissed out shimmer. A black metal band would likely be your LAST guess, we're hearing White Hills, the Heads, and other modern space psych combos. And finally, the record closes with what initially sounds like what could be the blackest track of the three, but the opening riff, instead of exploding into a frenzy of blasting and buzzing, stretches out into something much more dreamy and abstract, a sort of looped guitarscape, the initial riff becoming less and less distinct, as all sorts of other sounds and overtones surface around the main melody. WAY too brief at 2 minutes, that track definitely could have been extended to make this a full length and we would have remained happily entranced.
LIMITED TO ONLY 66 COPIES!! We got a handful, and we got every copy the label had left. The cd-r's are affixed to a block of wood, and the woods is housed in a screen printed and hand sewn fabric sleeve. So nice.
Latest release from the crazy prolific E.E.E. Recordings label, home to all things unblack, as in Christian black metal. We've gone into the whole unblack thing at great length in the past. While it may seem antithetical to most, a music that was founded and is defined by its very anti-Christian bent, being subverted and appropriated to glorify the Lord, but we'll leave all that stuff to the chatrooms and message boards, all we know is this unblack stuff sounds amazing! In the past we've raved about Glaciial, Light Shall Prevail, Agathothodion, Elgibbor, Flaskavsae, Offerblod and Njiqahdda, check any of those reviews for more on the whole unblack phenomenon, in the meantime, we'll investigate the grim buzzing soundworld of Wrathful Plague.
With a name like Wrathful Plague, and the fact that these guys are on E.E.E., you might assume that this is more unblack metal, but in fact, according to the label, the band is non-religious, not the first E.E.E. band to keep their convictions on the DL (Drommer is another), thankfully, they SOUND unblack, which by now has a definite sonic connotation. Unblack artists are definitely on the fucked and freaked out end of the BM spectrum, the sounds as much a part of their music as the songs, sure there's plenty of grim buzz, and furious blast beats and harsh hellish vocals, but all performed and recorded in such a way, that they end up smeared and blurred, murky and damaged, tape hiss offering up as much buzz as the guitars, the tone changing from muddy and muffled, to tinny and brittle, but it a way that only adds to the mood and atmosphere of the music.
Wrathful Plague, for all its claims of eschewing religion, at least in the context of their music, DOES in fact feature folks from all of the above mentioned bands, Light Shall Prevail, Glaciial, etc. so we imagine there is some pro-God action going on somewhere in there, but the more important thing is, that it -sounds- as awesomely fucked up as records by those other bands.
WP are not as mathy or complex and convoluted as a lot of E.E.E. bands, instead, they traffic in raw blasting fury, and in this case, the lo-fi recording enhances the bands washed out buzz in a big way. The guitars grind and swirl, but sound looped, often blurring into near static streaks of minor key sound, the drums, programmed it sounds like, are a chaotic framework, buried miles down in the mix, offering up another crackling layer of hiss, the vocals a distorted croak, the distortion alien sounding, and blown out, so at it's most furious, various overtones begin to surface and beat wildly against each other, creating strange subtle rhythmic variations and subtle distortions and causing the sound to become even more hazy and indistinct. A blurry blast that manages to be fierce and black and grim but also warm and dizzyingly droning and intensely hypnotic. Minus the few acoustic interludes, it's a mesmerizing chunk of relentless black drone hypno-metal. And if you can read the words "black drone hypno-metal" and not buy this record, that you are made of stronger stuff than us...
The current incarnation of sixties-spawned free jazz & acid folk label ESP has been doing more than just reissuing their old n' obscure classics. They've also been signing up some new bands from the NYC jazz underground (which we have yet to really check out), and, perhaps better yet, have also dug up some hitherto *unreleased* vintage recordings from artists in the ESP orbit. Such as the music on this disc, which barely contains the energetic maelstrom stirred up by tenor saxophonist "the Reverend" Frank Wright and his band, live at Germany's Moers Jazz Festival in 1974. There's two long (almost half-hour tracks) here, full of frenzied blowing from Wright, who after all was inspired by Albert Ayler to take up the sax in the first place, and was discovered by ESP boss Bernard Stollman while sitting in with John Coltrane's band in '64! The other cats on here are certainly up to the challenge of expressing themselves alongside Wright -- you've got Alan Silva on bass, Bobby Few on piano, and Rashied Ali's brother Muhammad on drums! Together they made some truly vital, exciting music that night, and you can hear the crowd at Moers really getting into it!
This is a gorgeously sublime drone record reminiscent of Maeror Tri/Troum or Organum at times. Lots of bowed guitars, bowed cymbals, random found sounds (markets, rain, church), and guitars all looped into thick velvety drones, with clanging percussion
We haven't heard from New Zealand dronescaper Peter Wright in about a year. Well, it's been at least that long since we've reviewed one of his discs. Somehow two other Wright discs slipped through the cracks in that time though, which is a shame, since pretty much everything we've heard from Wright is fantastic. This latest double disc is no different.
Nine looooooong tracks spread out over two discs, most in the 15-20 minute range, which is ideal for Wright's slow building, slow burning drone-epics, allowing for plenty of time to drift and shimmer and buzz and whir and rumble.
The first disc opens as disembodied voices float above and within thick swells of grinding melodic buzz, smoothed out into undulating sonic sheets, feedback is dulled and blunted and transformed into warm ambience, the raga-like buzz sprawls out seemingly endlessly, this is Wright at his heaviest and most aggressive, the tones taking on a timbre not that far removed from Nadja's doomic crush, but Wright approaches that sound from another direction entirely.
The rest of disc one is much more serene, minimal and hushed, a slow swirling ambient shimmer, delicate and crystalline, which over the course of two tracks and nearly 40 minutes manages to slip from hushed whisper to smoldering whir, glowing hotter and hotter but never letting loose, until the 6 minute closer gets all riffy, the guitars blindingly distorted, but remaining soft and warm and hauntingly melancholic.
The second disc is the perfect second movement, shifting from warm effects drenched drifts to deep subterranean rumbles, from sun dappled cinematic ambience to reverbed minimal mood music and finally to full on crumbling corrosive blown out crunch, with weirdly decaying distortion, strange strangled guitars, thick swaths of blurred buzz, and gorgeous chiming tones ringing out in the background.
Yet another collection of divine drones and sublime minimal soundscaping from the inimitable Peter Wright. Needless to say, absolutely gorgeous, and for the droneminded among you, most likely essential.
After some initial clang and crash and general futzing about and plugging in, Peter Wright gives the drone-heads everything they've been jonesing for. Rich deep drones with drifting, wailing feedback offering up minimal melody, shimmery industrial soundscapes, and noisy expanses of raw sound that alternately wrap your ears in sandpaper of velvet. Instrumentation includes guitar, clarinet, percussion, bicycle (!), and of course the broken Kawai.
MPEG Download: "The Broken Kawai" [/audio/wrightbroken.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "The Broken Kawai" [/audio/wrightbroken.m3u]
