Turkish psych fans! Here's another one for ya. We've already given the thumbs up to the wonderful Hurel Arsivi album from the Hur-el brothers. Now we've got a cd reissue of their first album, a self-titled longplayer from 196-. It's just as 'exotic' as Hurel Arsivi, but less overtly rock n' roll, being even more ethnic in flavor -- though it's very far from a purely traditional Turkish music recording! There's definitely Western '60s rock influences, but don't expect much in the way of heavy guitar fuzz-fests. Rather, you'll groove to a infectious rhythmic feast with melodious singing that's rooted in 'old school' Middle Eastern music but has a cool sixties pop-era vibe as well.
The sonorous vocals (all in Turkish) are highlighted, backed by every hipster's 'oriental' beat fantasy. 3 Hur-el are equally effective when playing uptempo dances, or much slower, moodier numbers, so the whole disc's a treat.
Last time, we listed some excellent Swedish psych reissues on the Silence label, all Parson Sound related bands like International Harvester, Harvester, and Trad Gras och Stenar. But those weren't all the great LPs Silence has dug up for cd reissue recently!
It's quite a bit different from Algarnas' approach on "Framtiden", being heavier, proggier, and more structured. The drifting, freeform improvisational aspects of the previous disc are overtaken by progressive rock compositions that incorporate eastern ragas, western classical music (there's a quote from Holst's "The Planets" in the first track), and folk ballads -- but Algarnas' roots in droning psychedelia aren't ignored either. Third Ear Band is referenced in one song, while the album ends with a gorgeous female-sung folk ballad. On the whole, "Delayed" is pretty great, but it seems that it comes from a more familiar '70s Prog Rock aesthetic than the truly otherworldly magic of its predecessor. So, unless you're more into prog than psych, definitely get "Framtiden" first, but then check this out -- it's a worthy, if lesser, successor to that album (BUT if you're someone who likes psych but can't cross the line at all into "prog", then maybe this isn't for you at all). When we first heard about "Delayed", we were hoping perhaps for a live disc with more of the material that formed the great bonus tracks on the "Framtiden" reissue, but the actual content here is far from disappointing!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of three new discs in the latest series of lovingly hand made 3" cd-r's from the Grey Daturas' Diagnosis... Don't! label (the other two being Bonecloud and Nigel Wright, reviewed elsewhere on this list). Poerua Acid features two looooong tracks from beloved NZ noisemaker and PseudoArcana label head honcho Antony Milton, and is the perfect mix of his two sides of his sonic personality, one side lilting dreamy and melodic, the other, dense, muted and noisy.
The opening track begins with just guitar, all warbly and slightly out of tune, the tape speed shifting and changing speed, making it sound like the sound on one of those grade school film strips, warm and wreathed in reverb, underneath, strange little swells and swirls drift and shimmer. Over the course of the track, the delicate finger picked melodies sink deeper and deeper into the background, until all that's left is a blown out muddy dronescape of overlapping rumbles and haunting flute like melodies.
The second track is much less restrained, opening up with a thick wall of guitars, dense and tangled, thick with distortion, roiling and overblown, garbled vocals and all manner of mysterious melodies lurk ghostlike beneath an epic expanse of layered guitar grind, like a more blissed out and melodic Sunroof! or Hototogisu.
Packaged in thick textured maroon paper mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
And as always, these are SUPER LIMITED, and odds are we won't be able to get more. So don't dawdle...
Soon after Munich's hippie commune krautrockers Amon Duul formed in the late '60s, some of the more musically inclined formed Amon Duul II whose early releases include the masterpieces Yeti (1970), Tanz der Lemminge (1971), etc. Wolf City is just their fifth album, recorded in 1972, and it's fucking fantastic and I can't believe I never heard it before. It's a little bit less experimental than earlier projects, a little more song oriented, but that may be a good thing if prog-flavored German psychedelia is a new cuppa tea for ya. (My co-worker Byram, in fact, found Wolf City a little too Yes-y for his taste -- so listen to the soundclips before buying.) There are seven tracks here, and each one shifts mood slightly -- from the epic masterpiece opener to a single gentle instrumental to spacerock jams, all the arrangements totally unpredictable and interesting. There's heavy prog-style guitar, pleasantly jangly (what sounds like 12-string?) guitar, screeching violin, deep declamatory bass, sweetly macabre piano and organ, plus all manner of weird chuckles, grunts and choir-like ahhhhs. So good! Wolf City is as epic, hummably memorable, kickass, and heavy as Pink Floyd & Genesis, more chaotic and messy than Can, more accessible and full-sounding than Cluster. If you've never heard Amon Duul II before, this is a fine place to start, as are any of the abovementioned albums. Strongly recommended! Windy's new favorite album. In a tie with Goblin's equally prog-gy Il Viaggio del Bagarazzo Mark for hands down Best Reissue in my 2002 year end tops list.
The absolute hardest albums to write about are those we hold in the highest esteem and though we have an aversion to the general notion of a "desert island selection", this Amon Duul II disc is one of those albums that we could see as an definite inclusion on
More bizarre ethno-renaissance punk folk skree (performed mostly on homemade and invented instruments) from ex-Man Is The Bastard noisemaker Barnes. Sounds like an odd collection of electronically malfunctioing zithers and bagpipes and kazoos, all playing turn of the century traditionals from some other world. Beautiful and baffling.
One of our favorite bands offers up another disc of their unique, unclassifiable sounds. This one really embraces a '60s hippie vibe, with occasional outbursts from their "power violence" past (AFC leader Barnes was the "noise guy" in California's seminal
Two ridiculously-collectible albums ($600!) one on cd, ostensibly by the groups Anonymous and J. Rider, who were basically the same bands headed by Ron Matelic, who was heavily influenced by the psychedelic sounds of the Byrds, the Beatles, Crosby Stills &
These two long time aQ faves have now been re-issued on vinyl, as a deluxe gatefold triple lp. YOWZA! Here's the skinny on these two classics, originally released way back in 2002:
Though Lawrence, Kansas based Appleseed Cast has been around since 1998 they haven't been as widely heard as their contemporaries The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, and we would have imagined that the release of Low Level Owl volumes one and two would change all that (although it seemingly hasn't helped too much as this record came out last year and Appleseed's public profile hasn't really improved all that dramatically). Though AC was basically your run of the mill emo band (Andee's old band even played with them a few years back at a hardcore festival!), we highly doubt their most recent efforts will be confused with their mid-west emo contemporaries. Within the emo/post-hardcore spectrum Low Level Owl has much the same hue as Sunny Day Real Estate's angst-ridden How It Feels To Be Something On. Anthemic, meandering, and contemplative are definitely some of the adjectives that might describe this new sonic one two punch. Taken together Low Level Owl I and II are a much more sophisticated work than How It Feels was (and we love that album very much thank you), combining a sense of pop hook writing akin to Death Cab For Cutie or even Built To Spill, but with the added epic glory of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Radiohead or Mogwai's arrangements and production, but none of that overbearing pretension (esp. G.S.Y.B.E.'s incessant use of homeless street poets) and more a wide-eyed excitement to just make music!. This is good clean all American pop music for the emo lover who's old enough to have been drinking for at least a good ten years. The songs are filled with gorgeous melodic guitar lines soaked in spacious reverb, huge drum sounds and earnest vocals. If part of emo emanates a sense of nostalgia (Get Up Kids with Rick Springfield, Sunny Day with Christopher Cross) then we almost want to put Appleseed Cast on the same page with U2 circa Under A Blood Red Sky with many of the guitar and drum parts, but we imagine that might bum out some AQ customers so we'll refrain. Oops, too late!
The thing that really kicks a hole in our pants with these albums is the obvious love and meticulous care that went into recording them. The band apparently spent three months recording all the tracks; laying down the initial tracks and then sculpting them with additional overdubs and extensive tweaking, even miking leaves blowing along the driveway outside the studio and including it as a segue between two songs. In fact, both albums are obviously meant to be listened to in their entirety, with nary a second of silence between songs, as tracks bleed and drift into one another. Volume two begins, quite ingeniously and literally, where volume one leaves off -- with a brief reprise of the ending track. It could be us, but volume two seems to contain more Mogwai style extended jams and instrumental musical forays and experiments. So hearing the two together is pretty much perfect, the more ebullient "pop" record set up right there alongside the more drifting and pensive one. Almost everytime we play this in the store, someone buys a copy or comes to the counter to see what the heck we're playing. Fans of Death Cab, Get Up Kids, Flaming Lips, and all things emo, pop, and power pop, who missed out on the Low Level Owl a few years back should definitely have another listen and see what they've been missing!
An amazing compendium of facts (and some fantasy?) pertaining to the surprisingly under-documented '70s self proclaimed Aquarian tribe The Source Family and their freeflowing psychedelic jam branch Ya Ho Wha 13!
For years our awareness of this group was limited to the obscure recordings of the band (including the extraordinary giant box set God And Hair), and a smattering of vague and sensationalist 'cult' rumors. The members' secret oath and a marked absence of controversy, calamity and crime no doubt kept this group underwraps and off the pages of tabloids. Our fascination grew tenfold a couple of years ago thanks to the compelling dvd documentary "Yahowha 13: Re-visiting Father And The Source Family". It recounts the history of the movement founded by Father Yod (aka Ya Ho Wha, born Jim Baker) through interviews with original members and archive footage. Definitely recommended viewing. Fortunately for those whose interest has been piqued, we now also have this book. Isis Aquarian was one of Father Yod's fourteen 'women' or 'spiritual wives' and the group's appointed record keeper. Hence she was integral to the inner workings of the Source Family and has compiled an enormous archive of photographs, writings, and memorabilia. Her wealth of and deep connection to this knowledge makes for an immensely intimate and informative document. Lively and entertaining too, among other things, the book details living a utopic life in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills and a subsequent move to Hawaii, observing Father's integrated teachings of ancient philosophies and religions (strongly influenced by Yogi Bhajan and the writings of Manly P. Hall), practicing daily pre-dawn meditations and rituals, and eating a strictly vegetarian diet. In fact, the Source Family ran one of the very first and most wildly successful vegetarian / raw health food restaurants which was located on the Sunset Strip (recipes and photos from the restaurant are included!). Nowadays yoga has been mainstreamed into another physical fitness trend -- a glorified stretching if you will, the ancient spiritual teachings lost to the masses -- and terms like 'guru' and 'visionary' are bandied about with abandon, but back in the late '60s and early '70s there was a West Coast consciousness explosion goin' on, and these people lived it!
The bonus cd is a daunting experience unto itself featuring not only a mindblowing Ya Ho Wha 13 live performance at Beverly Hills High in 1974 (obviously not the most pristine recording quality nor anything resembling trained musicianship -- this is a sensory overloaded moment captured in time of opened channels and the cathartic power of music), but also fascinating radio interview segments, enlightening Father Yod lecture snippets, and Source Family chants! Anyone curious about Ya Ho Wha is gonna want the book, we'd think, and this bonus disc pretty much makes it essential, with its several tracks of unreleased Ya Ho Wha jams, freaky stuff to be found nowhere on the infamous God & Hair 13 cd box set...
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!! ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
International Harvester, Algarnas Tradgard, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Kebnekajse. If those names mean anything to you then you're probably like us -- a big fan of Sweden's answer to krautrock, the Svenska psych-prog-folk bands of the seventies. There's been a veritable smorgasbord of cd reissues of awesome if obscure classic LPs by these and other '70s Swedish outfits over the past couple of years, and now comes this, a cd version of the third (we think, but maybe it's the fourth?) album by this legendary group, Arbete & Fritid, from 1973. Like Harvester and Kebnekajse especially, you'll hear plenty of traditional Scandinavian traditional folk music mixed up with a kinda Velvet Underground rock style in A&F. They've been described as sounding like the "Third Ear Band meets Terry Riley" and that's pretty accurate, especially on the last track here, a 20 minute drone-jam called "Ostpusten-Vastpusten" that's probably worth the $17 this costs alone. That's actually a bonus cut, taken from the Arbete & Fritid side of a 1972 split LP with some other band we've yet to hear. While that's the highlight, the rest of this disc is mighty fine too, the only problem perhaps being how their diverse interest in folk, politics, repetitive minimalism, and experimental jazz doesn't always lead to them maintaining a consistent vibe. During one song you'll be transported to the a cold farmhouse in the Swedish wilderness filled with rustic hippies sawing on violins, but then on the next you're in a basement radical jazz club pondering urban issues after a streetfight with the Man. In a way though that's kinda cool. Tea party waltzes and heavy fuzz jams, they're all here. Had we heard A&F before those other bands mentioned above, it's quite likely that they'd be the measure by which we'd judge the rest, as apparently they were a seminal influence on the scene -- in fact, members of the Parson Sound/Trad Gras Och Stenar axis later joined A&F after this particular album. Hopefully then this is only the first of a slew of A&F reissues!
Few records in recent memory have provoked such a breach of unanimity here at Aquarius. Some of us (Andee, Cup, Byram) are the naysayers who feel that the artist's eccentricities ring rather hollow -- i.e, fucking around rather than genuinely fucked up. Meanwhile Jim and Allan lean towards the positive on this one. (Aw heck they'll come right out and admit it: they like the Ariel Pink.) And it hasn't helped (or has it?) that several of our friends have come out as big Ariel Pink supporters. You know how that is. Either you want to jump on the bandwagon (Allan?) or you want to be the contradictory one (Andee?). So if you come into the store and ask somebody here about this record, you'll surely get an impassioned opinion, but who knows on what side it will be.
So what's the deal with Ariel Pink anyway? perhaps you're now wondering. Well he's this young dude from LA and he makes lo-fi fucked up pop music, his heavily effected falsetto vocal stylings drifting out from damaged electronics and naive guitar fumblings. The Animal Collective heard a demo and fell in love with it (you see, Ariel Pink is a love or hate propostion, we think) and had to release this new album on their label Paw Tracks. It kinda sounds like fey '80s Brit-pop, all melodic and swoony, being broadcast via a static-y radio signal, for that far-away, timelost vibe. And then, even more weirdly, there's an element of '70s soul/R&B too! A strange mix...visiting the Fall's dubby adventures...or channelling an adolescent Bowie...and catchy as all get out. Beneath all the orchestral samples and looped beats and layered vocals and generally warped warbliness of this, lies some solid songwriting. Yessir, what might seem at first listen like home-taped half-assedness reveals depth and feeling and...we'll even say talent. Reveals to those of us that like it, that is. So what did it take for Jim and Allan to get into this? Well our Jewelled Antler buddies Loren and Glenn helped to convince us, 'cause they're fans...and also, Allan went and saw Ariel Pink live at the Hemlock a few weeks ago, and though it was a technically disastrous show, it was also one of those completely enjoyable, amusing, so-bad-it's-good experiences. Charismatic chaos. The show seemed to prove that AP is the real deal, not a poser but a genuine, authentically fucked up (drug-addled?) musical wonder. So now the album has grown on Allan quite a bit. And you know what? Even Andee is now admitting that Ariel Pink is at least "stupidly charming."
Wow! Somehow Bardo Pond just keep getting better and better and with Ticket Crystals we're pretty dang sure they've made their best record yet! Everything we love about Bardo Pond all wrapped up in one surprisingly coherent album. Expansive guitars, dusty clouds of sonic whir, grungy outbursts, spaced out jams, metallic undertones, deep in the woods folk wanderings (yes, of course there's ultra warm flute on display!), and some mysterious pop sensibility to boot! Ticket Crystals is to Bardo Pond what Feathers was to Dead Meadow, the perfect culmination of years of songcraft and sonic experimentation resulting in both bands best records ever. Fans of Dead Meadow will indeed eat this up (some folks here think this record might even top all time AQ fave Feathers) as will long time BP fans. And any one into the whole blown out psych rock thing, a la Loop, Spacemen 3, Telescopes, etc, NEED THIS. How the heck you missed out on Bardo Pond in the first place we'll never know but c'mon, dig in!!
Ticket Crystals is the kind of record that you can get completely lost in, a wild dreamlike psychedelia that pulls you in deeper and deeper as it unravels. A slow burning spacerock equal parts drone and drift. A record that manages to be totally heavy, beautifully abstract, completely catchy and so so lovely all at the same time. SO RECOMMENDED!
You know we must confess it is getting harder and harder to write about instrumental acoustic guitar records and not repeat ourselves. Sure we can talk about the various fingerpicking styles, the different tunings, the long-enduring influence and lasting legacy of John Fahey, but it starts to sound routine and in a wide field of players concentrating solely on one instrument, it's not easy to keep a fresh perspective. So thank the stars that the Tompkins Square label has reissued this amazing 1970 recording from Robbie Basho because it sounds so refreshing. Basho was the least known of the Takoma label trio, John Fahey and Leo Kottke being the brighter stars. But Basho's style heavily influenced by raga modalities and Celtic melodic structures was more akin to the classical and Eastern hybrid styles of Sandy Bull and Pete Walker. Venus in Cancer is a transitional recording originally released on ABC's Blue Thumb imprint just after he left the Takoma label and before his later New Age dabbling on Windham Hill. The songs are long and flowing, spiritually imbibed (but not overtly so) with melancholic melodic structures and raga-ish tempos that occasionally burst out in song. Yes, folks, Robbie Basho sings on this one (a point other reviews we read seem to ignore). But, before you all run away into the hills, let us tell you that his voice is a) pretty great in context with what he's playing and b) it's thankfully sparse throughout the record. On one song, he does some Henry Flynt-style field hollering, on another a bit of spoken verse, and yet on another his voice recalls a slowed down Antony or John Jacob Niles. This has got to be one of the best and unusual examples of primitive guitar we have heard in a while and as you well know we have heard a lot. Plus the cover art is pretty damn rad. Highly Recommended!
Robbie Basho: amazing, mystic guitarist. Robbie Basho: absurd, overwrought singer. Here you get a lot of his entrancing ethno-folk guitar, and also a bit of his sincere, but unintentionally silly vocals. Still, "Zarthus" is quite lovely, a blend of "Persian,
Yes, the elusive (but not as elusive as Smile, the legendary unreleased/unfinished Brian Wilson masterpiece that this was released in the stead of) Smiley Smile album most notably contains the summertime anthem "Good Vibrations", but it's actually the second song entitled "Vegetables" that's worth the price of admission alone. An absurd ode to their absolute veggie love featuring some sonic embellishment - read: chewing - from none other than Paul McCartney. Add "She's Goin' Bald" to the equation and is there any question what mad pop scientists the Beach Boys were? We've never understood the fuss over Smile, what they actually released here was GREAT. Now, throw in another whole album, namely Wild Honey, plus six bonus tracks and woo-hooo... you need this!
Wow! We haven't been this smitten with a debut release in quite a while. Didn't know much about this Baltimore duo but we do know, the second this record we laid ears on this the first time, we were immediately seduced by the glorious sounds within. Hazy, daydreaming pop with equal parts magic, mystery and dreamy darkness, all drenched in beautiful melodies and sincere sensuality. Kind of made us think of Broadcast taking a warm bubble bath with Coco Rosie. Lights out, candles burning, bubbles floating, reverb dripping. There is a timelessness in these songs that is so evocative, Warhol's factory, a summer twilight in Southern California in the '70s, an abandoned art studio in the UK. You can never quite put your finger on exactly where these songs are drawn from but in the end it's music truly unique and wonderful. A mysterious voice, a haunting presence and songs carry you off, eyes closed, to somewhere much more enchanting then wherever you really are. So nice!
DOOM HISTORY HERE FOLKS! And not just that, it's a fantastic album. Ok, you know something is up when almost EVERYONE here at AQ absolutely loves a doom metal album. Not just the regular metal heads (Andee, Allan, Jason, Lauren) but also Jim and Cup too. Indeed, Cup's two cents for this review is this: "fucking awesome!"
So what's all the fuss about Bedemon? Well some of you may be familiar with the band Pentagram from Maryland, who have about a 30+ year history, going on 40 in fact. Well Bedemon are essentially an obscure but very worthwhile footnote to Pentagram's history, being the "solo" recording project of original '70s Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer, the majority of this recorded circa 1973-74 with a few tracks from a 1979 Bedemon session as well. They never played out, or even released any records. Bedemon were more of a practice room, basement-recording project that involved Palmer and friends, including the other members of Pentagram, most significantly the uniquely talented vocalist Bobby Liebling who sings on all of these cuts. It was just a way for Palmer to get his own songwriting down on tape, stuff that wasn't recorded by Pentagram. It's totally in the same vein as Pentagram though, if anything MORE dark and doomy than Pentagram's '70s output. Very heavy, and heavily Black Sabbath influenced, also with echoes of Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and Iggy & The Stooges (the track "Time Bomb" is very Stoogey, in a way similiar to Pentagram's "Last Days Here"). And for '73, this is definitely about as heavy as it gets, Sabbath and Pentagram themselves excepted. There's so many great tracks on here, each one more sorrowful and wrought with doomful emotion than the next, all of 'em throbbing and (awesomely) distorted. Yes, the quality of these rehearsal tape recordings is downright grungey and murky, but in our opinion that isn't a distraction nor a detraction. In fact, it only makes this better, totally capturing that spirit and raw energy of jamming in the garage for your own enjoyment. And it also sounds doomier that way too. Hands down, Randy Palmer wrote some of the best Pentagram songs, and many of these are just as good. Some of his riffs absolutely lay to waste those of his contemporaries. Just imagine if Palmer had decided to promote his doom skills rather than keep them for the most part to himself. Holy shit. At least we have this, one of the best "lost" albums ever uncovered in the realm of heavy, underground music.
Sadly, Palmer died in a tragic car accident just a few years ago, so the official release of this material at long last is also something of a tribute to his memory. Some of this stuff has been bootlegged before, but this legit release has been done with the blessings of Randy's survivors and the input of the other Bedemon musicans. There's even a Wes Benscoter cover painting based on Palmer's own hand-sketched ideas, as well as lots of photos, a Bedemon history written by Palmer before he was killed, and some very fascinating, detailed, and heartfelt liner notes from fellow Bedemon/Pentagram bandmate Geof O'Keefe.
Essential to all true fans of Pentagram, and also to anyone into heavy '70s Sabbathy psychedelic garagey proto-metal!!
What comes to mind when you think of The Bee Gees? Saturday Night Fever? Disco? White suits? 30 years of cheesy disco dancing to "Stayin' Alive"? The awesome(ly atrocious) film version of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? SNL's "Barry Gibb Talk Show"? Probably all of those things.
Which is too bad, 'cuz if it weren't for all that stuff, maybe you'd think instead of lush melancholy experimental pop music, incredible vocal harmonies, horns, strings, orchestras, mellotrons, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Zombies...
Some of you probably have no idea what the heck we're on about, but well before disco and Saturday Night Fever and all that, way back in 1967, the Bee Gees were crafting some of the loveliest, most compellingly mysterious pop music around. With a sound that borrowed from other bands of the time, most notably the aforementioned big three, the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Zombies, but incorporated those influences into a sound that was distinctly their own. A sound at times gorgeously classic sounding, and at others surprisingly strange and dark and experimental.
The influence of the Beatles and the Beach Boys is undeniable. The song "Please Read Me" is incredibly Beach Boys-esque, and marks the first time the group would employ falsetto vocal harmonies, obviously influenced by Brian Wilson, and which would of course become their trademark. And the cover of 1st is by the artist Klaus Voorman, who of course also designed the Beatles' Revolver. But scratch a little below the surface, and there is so much more. A musical world of dreamlike, melancholy psychedelia.
"Holiday" is a brooding and moody dirge, with haunting organ swells, and pizzicato strings, with soft horns and simple percussion, and a gorgeous vocal melody, as well as a strange and impossibly catchy bridge with simple nonsense vocals. Then there's "Red Chair, Fade Away" a dreamy, rainbow hued blast of psychedelic pop, blissed out and trippy, with tons of layered production, fuzzy guitars, jazzy horns, fluttering flute, all wrapped in a stained glass production, peppered with circusy calliopes and soaring strings.
But two of the tracks on 1st really stand out. Lovely and catchy, but so dark and emotionally intense. The first is "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You", which begins with minor key strings over monk-like chanting background vocals, before the Strawberry Fields vocals kick in, over a shuffled rhythm and some deliriously fuzzy psych guitar, with the chanting vocals resurfacing throughout the song before it fades into a truly haunting outro, just those strings and some heavily reverbed drums that stumble into the darkness. The other is the amazingly monickered "New York Mining Disaster 1941" with it's haunting nearly a capella verses (backed up by barely audible guitar strumming WAY down in the mix), jangly guitars, throbbing simple percussion, the whole track mournful and melancholy, the minor key brightening briefly for the chorus before drifting baack into haunting melancholia. The track is laced with strange funereal strings, and again the vocals are just so beautiful, lush and dreamy.
The rest of the record is just as fantastic, every song a strange gem, it's difficult to pick which ones to mention, you'll of course recognize "To Love Somebody", which while not a huge hit for them (although it did crack the top 20), has become an international pop standard, and was originally a track the band wrote for Otis Redding, but their version is the best, so lush and rife with layer after layer of instrumentation, as well as some amazing melodic flourishes left off subsequent cover versions, then there's "Cucumber Castle" with its super dramatic strings, Spanish sounding trumpets, moaning cellos, and bizarre player piano background trills, all behind a main melody that is so unbelievably catchy... we could go on and on and on. Needless to say, it's difficult to not go all gushy and declare this as one of the all time greatest pop records. But what the heck, it is! Listen to this enough and you just may banish all thoughts of white suits and light up dancefloors from your head forever!
Gorgeously elaborate reissue, in a full color 8 panel digipak, full color with tons of amazing photos, a massive booklet also packed with photos, with lengthy liner notes, as well as notes on each track from the surviving members. The first disc contains the full version of the album, in both stereo AND mono, the second disc contains 9 alternate and early versions (including two dramatically different versions of "New York Mining Disaster 1941") as well as 5 unreleased tracks, most of which are as good as anything on the album proper!
Glenn Donaldson has been incredibly active lately in a number of San Francisco psychedelic / improv outfits (all with records out on the local Jewelled Antler cd-r label), including Thuja, the Knit Separates, the Blithe Sons, the Sky Green Leopards, Youth
You know how you can 'hear the sea' when you hold a conch shell up to your ear? Well imagine listening to a conch shell and hearing not just surf but also some gentle, haunting improvised psych-folk sounds inside there as well. That's what you get with this new Blithe Sons disc. Yes, Jewelled Antler drone minstrels Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson (1/2 of Thuja) return again with recordings from their travels to some of the more scenic, out of the way spots in the Bay Area. Did I say scenic? I mean sonic. The darkness of a dank old abandoned army bunker might not be the most picturesque sight 'round these parts, but the sounds Loren and Glenn conjure within its confines are a moody delight. Of course that bunker (and other sites these two visited) are near the quite picturesque Pacific, the ocean providing the seashore/undersea imagery and inspiration for Arm Of The Starfish. The hiss and hum of the Blithe Sons' field recordings of their own musical activities could be the sea in the distance... This cd is really lovely and droney and it makes me imagine that they have overloaded a ramshackle rowboat with their 'instruments' -- guitars, harmonium, bells, tape recorders, bits of driftwood, glassy pebbles, rusted metal, who knows? we're just guessing -- and floated out on an ancient lake, becalmed in the evening dusk, to sing softly as their boat slowly sinks and the sun sets.
Loren Chasse, proud owner of a brand new cd-burner, began the Jewelled Antler label as an outlet to release small cd-r pressings of a variety of warbled psychedelic projects that have spun-off from his bands Thuja and Knit Separates. The Blithe Sons is the first such release, featuring Chasse and Glenn Donaldson (from Mirza as well as Thuja / Knit Separates). Despite hailing from San Francisco, Chasse and Donaldson have tapped into a vein of melancholic UK psychedelia which runs from the Wicker Man soundtrack through to the early instrumentals of Eyeless In Gaza and the pensive sounds of Richard Youngs. While Donaldson's expressive guitar lines are central to the Blithe Sons arrangements, the album's uniqueness is found in the production work which often positions the quiet instrumentation in the pronounced foreground making the songs so intimate, as to seem played right inside your ears... or brings in some quite textural noises (very common to Chasse's solo sound investigations and manipulated field recordings) as a 'duet' with the melodic lines of the guitar. Very nice work! Based on this, the next Blithe Sons release deserves be a "real" cd release on a proper label (although the musical quality, beautiful packaging and reasonable price of this release shows that cd-r labels are sometimes quite worthwhile).
Recorded this past spring in the open air of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Waves of Grass is the second release from The Blithe Sons, an offshoot of the improv-drone ensemble Thuja, featuring Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson. Like miniatures of the
These days, any band that uses improvisation with heavy doses of loose, opiated psychedelia, lazy comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the No Neck Blues Band. It has to be said that The Blithe Sons, who have warranted a number of such comparisons, sound ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the No Neck Blues Band. And actually they are much better off because of it... The Blithe Sons, of course, are the Jewelled Antler Collective's most active members Loren Chasse (Thuja, Child Readers, Id Battery, Coelacanth, etc.) and Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, Bird / Ivy / Olivetree, etc.), having literally embraced their philosophy that "making music should be a picnic." Thus, they've taken to hiking all across coastal California, recording their pastoral avant-folk songs and empathic minimalist actions in direct communion with the landscape around them. The two sites which are particular to the Sons' third album "We Walk The Young Earth" were a wooden bridge in San Gregorio and the concrete bunkers scattered throughout the Marin Headlands. The latter were sites that have played a large role in many of the textural amplifications that Chasse produced in Id Battery; however, Chasse doesn't return the Blithe Sons to the smoldering abrasions of Id Battery. Rather, "We Walked The Young Earth" turns their minimalist hymns and melancholic drones toward a space that is even quieter, more introspective than anything yet produced by the Jewelled Antler collective, as if they've become hypnotized by their own reverberating drones in the confines of the bunker. It's true that in these spaces, Chasse and Donaldson spend a considerable amount of time listening to the environment around them, and shaping sounds that are sympathetic to those spaces. That's something with which the No Neck Blues Band has never really ever succeeded, instead opting for more of a druggy improv stumble. A sleepy album for sure, "We Walk The Young Earth" is another gorgeous album from these perennial AQ staff favorites.
Man! The '60s and '70s psych reissues from around the world just keep wowing us. I mean, there's lots that don't, but those that do, DO. Spain's Eduardo Bort (the guy floating cross-legged in space on the cover with his guitar in his lap, presumably) and his band released this album back in 1975 and we'd never ever have heard of it if Fonomusic hadn't just done this nicely digipacked cd reissue. We put it on and thought, this is pretty good, yeah...and then a track or two later we were all just, like, 'I need this!" From soft gentle folkiness to hard rock guitar workouts, there's a lot to like here. The record consists of six epix of many moods, from spaced out psych to symphonic prog -- moody, melodic, dynamic and bombastic. Bort & Co are capable of sudden energetic, frantic prog outbursts and fuzz-riffed heaviness, like when about seven minutes into "Walking On The Grass" Bort's band really starts rippin' (with a total Iron Maiden galloping bass-line). Very cool. And the vocal majesty of that track reminds us of Deep Purple's "Child In Time" quite a bit. The production is amazing too. Recommended ('specially if you also dig Steamhammer's Speech or Wishbone Ash or Uriah Heep or anything sorta prog, sorta hard rock, sorta psych from the same era!).
Ooooh soooo gooood! As seems to be the case with each new Broadcast album, a couple of listens is all it takes to get Tender Buttons hooks into ya! The effects of Broadcast's pop intoxicants aren't as immediate nor as obvious here as those of 2003's The HaHa Sound, but they're no less potent. Broadcast continue to melt their sound into the ultra-pretty sounds of '60s girl groups. In doing so, they perfectly showcase lead vocalist Trish Keenan's unbelievably lovely vocals which occasionally take on a more somber tone here than they did on the airier HaHa Sound. Despite the undeniable sweetness of Keenan's voice, the band always gracefully sidestep excessive syrupiness with the counterbalance of heavier guitars, a propulsive groovy rhythm section and a broad spectrum of hefty analog synth melodies and textures. A luminous dreamboat with a tiger in its tank. Swoon!
Unsurprisingly, major-label debut is nowhere near as good as previous album, There's Nothing Wrong with Love, but that's okay cos they're not TRYING to write pristine 3-minute pop gems anymore. Instead, BTS seems to be interested in out-epic-ing their 10" with Caustic Resin, and fans of that release will love this album. 3-sided vinyl in gatefold sleeve available through Up sometime in March.
REISSUED ON VINYL! For the first time we think since it originally came out in '94.
Chances are that you know and love this album. If not, you probably just don't know it yet. As far as '90s indie rock goes, this is literally, completely, and wholly essential. Make friends with this record. It sounds exactly like a day dreamer's high school experience should. Catchy songs, breezy reminiscences, and more hooks than you can shake a stick at! Never heard it, lent it to a friend, or sold it during financially thin times in college... now's the time. Carpe indie!
Oh yeah. '70s Turkish FUZZ rock in effect here, big time!! Knowing how much AQ customers LOVE the psychedelic Turkish tunes of decades past, this is a no-brainer. Buy it. Now. That is, if you like Edip Akbayram and Erkin Koray and all the others we've gone gaga over as the stack of such reissues gradually grows... These guys actually have membership links to all sorts of Istanbul rock stars, from Koray to Mogollar to Cem Karaca (whose early band Kardaslar we'd love to get a reissue of...). They were a pretty important band in the scene, on an underground level anyway.
The name Bunalim apparently means either Depression or Frustration in Turkish, fitting for a band hailing from a city, Istanbul, who defining mood is melancholy (according to Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk). You can hear both the energy of frustration and the sadness of depression in their music, which consists of blistering, Iron-Butterfly-heavy hard rockers mixed up with the style of traditional Anatolian folk dances and songs. Ballsy bombast and beautiful balladry both. And we're not kidding about Iron Butterfly -- one of the tracks here is a Turkish language cover of "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", a song (originally by Allen Toussaint, actually) that appeared on Iron Butterfly's first album, Heavy. Definitely it's the IB version that inspired Bunalim's rendition! Why so much "Bunalim" with these guys? Well it wasn't easy being a long-haired, underground rocker in that conservative society in those days! Plus even in the West there was much to make the youth feel worried and oppressed.
This disc collects their rare singles tracks (they never made an album) from 1970-'72, and captures them at their most raw and garagey, loud guitar rockin'. They definitely showcase a distinct, kick-ass Middle Eastern take on the acid rock sound of the day, and really what could sound better than that??
This cd reissue includes well-informed liner notes and lots of cool vintage photos in the cd booklet. Shadoks, keep 'em coming!
In 1964 recording engineer Jim Dickson set down on tape the earliest incarnation of the Byrds, even, it seems, before they named themselves that -- they had also used the monikers Beefeaters and Jet Set (a Jet Set single is included here). This is what some
The cd comes packaged in a slipcase with an excellent accompanying book of liner notes, many darling photos (those guys were like 20 years old, so young!), 2 nice postcards, discographical info, & comments from all the bandmembers, plus Pamela Des Barres, Domenic Priore, etc.
Annoyingly, the LP version, while it is on 180 gm vinyl and features a nice gatefold sleeve for its two albums, only features 28 tracks. The cd version has 40! Huh? And while the 16 of the tracks on the cd version were previously unissued, only 9 from the LP version have never before seen the light. I never understand the logic with these things -- is Sundazed ripping off the LP buyers amongst us, or are they trying to tell us that the extra tracks on the cd version are kinda throwaways anyway? Sigh...
Yay! Never had this on vinyl before. This longtime AQ British folk fave from Incredible String band offshoot C.O.B. is back in print again, on deluxe 180 gram vinyl, remastered from original tapes at Abbey Road, packaged with cd version (which includes seven bonus tracks) and a large illustrated color booklet with tons of info, the works!
Here's what we had to say about it the first time around:
C.O.B. (Clive's Original Band) was the creation of Incredible String Band founding member and one of the grandfathers of today's fringe folk scene, Clive Palmer (R.I.P., he passed away just this year). The incredibly-named Moyshe McStiff And The Tartan Lancers Of The Sacred Heart was C.O.B.'s second and best - or at least most exotic and weird - album, released in 1972. Such beautiful melancholy! Some of the instrumentation here is similar to that of ISB (acoustic guitar, banjo, clarinet) but with lots of harmonium and the addition of a dulcimer with a widened bridge (invented by C.O.B. band member John Bidwell), an odd droning sound that darkens the mood a bit more than most stuff you'll hear from ISB. If you're a fan of British folk in the traditional and/or acid vein such as Shirley Collins, Trees, Forest, Fairport Convention, Vashti Bunyan, even Current 93, this cd promises to be a true wistful pleasure. WAY recommended!!
C.O.B. (Clive's Original Band) was the creation of Incredible String Band founding member and one of the grandfathers of today's fringe folk scene, Clive Palmer. We don't know if you got the chance to see Mr. Palmer alongside fellow ISB founder Mike Heron at last year's reunion show, but it definitely seemed like his banjo-picking was a little rusty and he looked kind of dazed (no wonder, what with 35 years out of the spotlight). When this record (C.O.B.'s second and best, or at least most exotic and weird) was made in 1972, though, he was in top form, and the result is such beautiful melancholy! Some of the instumentation here is similar to that of ISB (acoustic guitar, banjo, clarinet) but with lots of harmonium and the addition of a dulcimer with a widened bridge (invented by C.O.B. bandmember John Bidwell), an odd droning sound that darkens the mood a bit more than most stuff you'll hear from ISB. If you're a fan of British folk in the traditional and/or acid vein such as Shirley Collins, Trees, Forest Fairport Convention, or current underground folkies such as Espers, Vashti Bunyan, or Current 93, this cd promises to be a true wistful pleasure.
For nearly twenty years now, Eugene Carchesio and Leighton Craig have been creating wayward recordings in barely-released editions on cassette and cd-r for their exploratory free-folk / semi-improvisational communions with the Australian landscape. Only recently have any of their recordings made their way across the Pacific, mostly by way of their contributions in the group Lost Domain, whose drifting, monochromatic ragas have been released by such shambolic stalwarts as Digitalis Recordings and PseudoArcana. Leaves is another such entry in their humbly spectacular wanderings; this time, it's through the exceptional Australian label Naturestrip. The easiest comparison that anyone could make to Leaves would be to The Blithe Sons, where two dedicated listeners creating droning harmonics alongside the unpredictability of natural events. Carchesio and Craig often are found slumped over their battery powered keyboards, creating shimmering drone vibrations that accompany the cacophony of lorikeets, crows, cicadas, and wind in Leighton's Brisbane backyard, where these recordings were made. When the birds and insects allow it, Carchesio and Craig pick up an acoustic guitar, violin, and recorder (amongst other instruments) for some purposefully primitive arrangements pocked with dreamily psychedelic references and quietly clattered improv. Really, really nice!
German progressive folk-psych with female vocals from 1978, originally a private press rarity now reissued on cd with some bonus live tracks (including a song called "Sweet Heroin", not too pastoral that).
Easily, one of the most important reissues of 2006, East Of The Sun available again though Andrew Chalk's own Faraway Press, complete with breathtakingly resplendent packaging: a silkscreened and embossed printing. These recordings originally came out in 1994 as a cassette, released through Ora's in-house label, Ora being an early collective that revolved around Chalk, Colin Potter, and Darren Tate with occasional assistance from Jonathan Coleclough, mnortham, Lol Coxhill, and a handful of like-minded British drone enthusiasts. A few years later, the Italian label Hic Sunt Leones convinced Chalk to reissue the cassette in digital form. That CD version of East Of The Sun compressed the two sides of the cassette into a single 50 minute piece and was flushed out with some complementary dronescaping. Chalk was never happy with the Hic Sunt Leones version; and thus his reissue of the album returns to the original version found on the cassette, now gloriously remastered in its entirety. For those persnickety types, the 17 minutes or so which concluded the Hic Sunt Leones version is not here; but that is a minor loss compared to the pinnacle of drone-based minimalism found here.
Sure, Eno's ambient records On Land and Thursday Afternoon were milestones in the realm of ambient music, setting an impressionist context through which any number of the images, thoughts, and ideals could be imagined; but that strategy was perfected by Andrew Chalk on a couple of records. There was his ephemeral album Sumac in collaboration with Jonathan Coleclough, there was the first Mirror album Eye Of The Storm, and there's East Of The Sun. Very dark without becoming unbearably cold, East Of The Sun is a constant bloom of nocturnal frequencies, whose origins may be thoroughly blurred bass guitar or possibly some resonant artifact from Chalk's acoustic work in Organum. Regardless, the resultant drones drift with no beginning and no end, merely rippling, reflecting, and turning upon themselves in a perpetual, very slow motion turbulence. Leaves tumbling in autumnal twilight. Fog spilling over coastal hills. Moonlight tickling the agitated surface of a pond. Any of these organic references for meditation on simplicity to reach the sublime and the profound could easily apply to Chalk's East Of The Sun. Not just recommended, this is required listening.
Goldfall is Andrew Chalk's highly anticipated new vinyl-only album, released on his own Faraway Press imprint. After pretty much of all the Mirror records had been released as super limited vinyl-only editions (with a couple of those getting reissued later on cd), Chalk's recent solo endeavors have been extended droneworks that weren't suited to the LP format. He's clearly outdone himself with the packaging on this return to vinyl, as he's situated the thick slab of vinyl within a dense cardstock sleeve with a die cut opening exposing silkscreened print beneath; and he's sealed the sleeve in a delicate piece of tissue paper that also features an elegant print reminiscent of Shoji screen prints. In contrast to the floral artwork, Chalk's sound production within is a far darker and heavier experience. Sourced from the meandering piano interludes of Vikki Jackman, Goldfall is a dark, shadowy record of protracted reverberation and timbral rumblings. In comparison to Chalk's previous piano album Blue Eyes Of The March or to other exceptional piano abstractions (i.e. Jonathan Coleclough's Period or Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon), Goldfall is downright ominous. And you all should know that Andrew Chalk + ominous = highly recommended. But you should also know that Goldfall is limited to 300 copies.
The sequel to the River That Flows Into The Sand had originally been released through Andrew Chalk's Faraway Press imprint as a super-limited edition cassette in early 2006. We never managed to get a hold of those cassettes; and it goes without saying that they disappeared before we could even blink. Thankfully, Chalk has re-released all of that material on cd, remastered by the inimitable Colin Potter. As on the first part of The River, Chalk picks up the guitar for his minimalist explorations tightroping between the ghostly impressionism of Keiji Haino's Nijiumu project from many moons ago, the narcoleptic atmospheres of Maeror Tri / Troum, the oceanic ambience of Boris' Flood, and the time-reversal qualities of Eliane Radigue, all the while putting to shame every upstart drone artist with a cd burner and an Echoplex.
Just as the first River cd meanders through five variations of the cascade sound, Chalk produces another five tracks of rippling drones on this disc. Similarly, he has packaged the disc in the dotted decalcomania which graced the first cd. The major differences can be found in the gritty, growling distortion which exists just beneath the surface of these glassine drones. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!
With all of those Jewelled Antler projects keeping AQ's dear friend Loren Chasse busy, it's no wonder that it took over three and half years for him to complete the follow up to his acclaimed 2002 album Hedge of Nerves. Yep, it's true that Loren has released two solo projects under the Jewelled Antler moniker Of; but he doesn't see work such as The Air In The Sand (or Hedge of Nerves, or anything from id battery or Coelacanth, for that matter) as being related to Jewelled Antler. Who are we to argue?
That said, Loren's solo work is made in pretty much the same manner as much of the Jewelled Antler work, particularly The Blithe Sons, where he treks up and down the Pacific Coast making tons of field recordings and then playing those recordings back in similar environments with small speakers and occasional accompaniments from rocks, sand, teasles, leaves, and the occasional alto recorder. Part of this process is an attempt to move away from the constraints of the digital workstation; but at the same time, Chasse is far more interested in the curious alchemy that occurs when a space listens to itself making sound. A nighttime chorus of crickets gurgles within aqueous percolations and the tectonic crash of surf crashing against rock. Rain vaporizes in a caustic sizzle as it falls upon overhead electrical wires, and this sound is compouned by the sharp crack of branches and the slow hiss of sand. For all of the elemental sounds that dominate his recordings, Chasse extracts subtle musical timbres and fragile half-melodies that haunt The Air In The Sand. Beautiful and timeless, this is another marvellous album from Mr. Chasse.
Vic Chesnutt's collaboration with a number of folks on the Constellation Records roster (aka A Silver Mt. Zion and a list of friends which includes Fugazi's Guy Picciotto and members of Hangedup, Frankie Sparo, Esmerine, The Quavers, and yes, Godspeed You Black Emperor) sounds *exactly* as you would expect... bleak and immensely moving. They keep such perfectly dour company that we wonder what took them so long to make it happen! Flooded with anguish and raw nerves, North Star Deserter is an intense frayed journey, but not without a moment or two of glimmering hope and twisted folly. Chesnutt's lyrics have always been an affecting bruised blend of the absolutely direct and the utterly cryptic. We know they're a perfect match for his own creeping, barren plain plucked guitar accompaniment, but wow, when joined by these additional like-minded vocalists and musicians the results are often times crushingly beautiful. Placed before a landscape of ominous cello drones, electrified string shards, and near-military marching drums, his weathered rasp of a voice resonates anew. The amazing breadth of this album is captured in two songs late in the album -- the thunderous roar of "Debriefing" and the hushed haunted loner "Marathon". Damn. Recommended.
"It's not magic, it's music". The Child Readers are the duo of Jewelled Antler mainstay Loren Chasse and vocalist Jason Honea of The Knit Separates. This, their third album (the two earlier ones were cd-rs on JA, now out of print) is something like an audio postcard from their own far-off fantasyland... They give free reign to their creativity, with tracks here ranging from textural noise/drone of near Merzbowian dimensions to the folky acoustic song-fragments seemingly recorded on a picnic in the woods...We hear child and adult voices mingling, alongside tape spooling and twinkling tinkling toy piano or chiming music box sounds...Honea's sensitive, melodic vocals might be accompanied equally by sparsely strummed guitar and the burble of a brook. Lyrically, he could be taking inspiration from children's stories -- that is, stories BY children. Such as the weirdness of "The Shark Airplane". Other tracks, like "Sexual Anguish (including The Psychic Castle)" can only be the work of grown up children. Full of interesting textures and real emotion, this is yet another excellent Jewelled Antler-related release, something like Honea's inner child being babysat by the Blithe Sons. Euro import, limited.
Delicate? Calm? Circle? Yes. Listen up. You'd think that for a band with, no less than, what, twenty albums to their name AND who always write songs with an invariable central musical concept (circularity, natch, the repetitive pulse that all their songs share no matter what else is different betwixt 'em) we'd by this point feel like we'd heard it all from them already -- even if their all is ALL really great. But no. This new album surprised even us. And it too is great. Really great. If you're expecting the NWOFHM (New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal) stylings of Tulikoria or Sunrise, or the motorik krautrockiness of Alotus or Guillotine, or the heavy prog of Prospekt, or the spacey jazzy dubbiness of Pori, or all of the above (as these descriptors actually apply to pretty much all their albums to varying degrees), well that's NOT exactly what you get with Miljard. There's really no comparisons this time to Neu!, Can, Tortoise, or Hawkwind, let alone Judas Priest! Instead we'll mention Thuja, The Necks, Morton Feldman, Bohren und Der Club Of Gore, Philip Jeck, 3/4hadbeeneliminated... But it's still definitely Circle. It's just that, as Ektro's website puts it, "rocking has been traded for some quiet reading on the couch at home". And boy is this hauntingly atmospheric, instrumental music PERFECT for such activity.
Miljard NEEDS two discs, because this music is so spacious and expansive, a slow-moving stream, or the ripples in a pond. The pond, perhaps, frozen in the Finnish winter, in a twilight landscape softened with snow... The first track on the first disc, "Parmalee", is a twenty minute piece that sets the relaxed and gorgeous tone of this record. Meandering, pretty piano, reminding us of Rob Reger's playing in Thuja, quietly joined by abstract electronics and guitar...and Circle's usual repetition and pulses are still there, at about 11 minutes the pulse becomes more noticable, by that time you're absolutely entranced... already we're convinced, this is a fantastic record, and there's still 1 and 2/3rds discs to go!! The next track, "B.F.F." is slightly more uptempo, but still has the classical vibe from the piano. And then another twenty-minute cut "Duunila" comes on, a whispery dark drone, hushed, with some sparse clatter, and gentle bass notes. Oooh, sheer beauty. And on it goes, all the way through to the gauzey, vaguely gamelan-like 20-minute "Viitane" which closes out disc two, nearly two hours of amazing music, the soundtrack to a limpid dream from which we'd never hope to wake.
Out of the whole Circle discography, the atypically riff-less stuff here comes closest to the material on side one of Mountain, a very brooding and unusually ambient live set which not everybody got to hear 'cause it was a limited, LP-only release. This at least is not so limited.
Geeze, what *can't* they do? With Miljard we're pretty sure Circle have cemented their status as just about the best band ever, as far as we're concerned. Ok, the AQ universe of best bands ever is pretty big, but Circle might just be the best of the best... Recommended, people!!!
It's quite remarkable that only two records into their existence Citay have managed to carve out a sound that is so instantaneously recognizable and distinctive. With their soaring guitars, glorious melodies and harmonies that sound as if they're raining down from the sky, this ensemble led by Ezra Feinberg has quickly become one of the shining lights of the San Francisco music scene, but we think that folks from all over the globe should be hearing them, so they too can be swept away by Citay's carefully crafted songs.
Little Kingdom is the follow up to their debut which was a unanimous AQ favorite when it came out around two years back. With a similar sound and feel as that first outing they have widened their reach as the songs descend with a much more expansive quality. Brimming with a crisp sensation Little Kingdom is matching our autumnal mood so perfectly.
We love how Citay always sound so monumental without resorting to the typical quiet...quiet...loud...eruption formula that so many post-rock groups use when they want to sound grand. What makes Citay so great is that they don't TRY to sound grand or monumental, it's just that the songs they make require a presentation that the band understand so well and do so effortlessly. Little Kingdom makes us want to run into leaves and feel the wind rushing against our skin, whisking us away, the sounds of the strings on guitars summoning us to a greater place!
