Now is one of those rare times when the dedicated lovers of vinyl are rewarded with something exclusive to LP. By now we're all pretty familiar with Mulatu Astatke, what with Ethiopiques #4 and the LP reissue of his "Ethio Jazz" album he's practically a household name by now (at least around here). I'm kidding of course, but rabid fans of the inimitable funk/soul/groove sounds from Ethiopia no doubt place him pretty high on the short list of the greatest from the period. And what's better is that "Mulatu of Ethiopia" contains entirely exclusive tracks. Yep, that's right, none of these tracks are on any of the discs in the Ethiopiques series (though there are two reworkings of tracks -- "Dewel" and "Munaye" -- from Ethiopiques 4). The album itself, a reissue of a 1972 release of the same title, was recorded by Astatke in the U.S. during his tenure here and until now it fetched high prices on the collector's market. Given Astatke's experiences working in the U.S. with American jazz and Latin jazz musicians it should come as no surprise that it sounds nothing like anything else in the myriad Ethiopian groove reissues. For one, it's super smooov' (in a good way) with Mulatu picking up his mallets and playing vibes through it all and the recording -- which must have been done at some swank U.S. studio -- is ultra lush (what's that? You say you can hear the bass?) The music on this album totally sounds like a soundtrack to some long lost Michael Caine political intrigue film. You can almost see the cigarette dangling out of Caine's mouth as he drives around in an Austin Healey tailing a bad guy. On "Mulatu of Ethiopia" Astatke is accompanied by a pretty tight ensemble, much smaller than the orchestras of the Amha recording era. The backbone of his accompaniment is an uber funky organ/electric piano that sounds at times like they've got a wah wah pedal hooked up to it. Also included in the ensemble is electric bass, drums, percussion and plenty of soloing assistance from saxophone, flute and trumpet. Highly recommended, but act fast 'cause, as with so many things, we only have a few...
MPEG Download: "Mascaram Setaba" [/audio/mulatumascaram.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Mascaram Setaba" [/audio/mulatumascaram.m3u]
If there was an actual way to measure the warmth of music, the sounds Mulatu Astatke created in the '60s and '70s would be at the top of the thermometer, his incredible and rich Ethio-Jazz sounds drifting right from the speakers and melting into your ears, permeating every cell of your body. Strut strike gold once again, coming up a killer collection of some of Astatke's finest material, recorded between 1965-1975.
After leaving Ethiopia as a teen, Astatke studied music in different parts of the globe and it's wonderful to hear how he subtly infused those various outside influences into his classic Ethiopian groove based sound. Some of the tracks here will stand out as being the classic Astatke tracks we are all familiar with, culled as they are from the amazing Ethiopiques 4 collection, but Strut digs deeper as well, exploring some of the lesser known songs and sides, many of which show an awesome Afro-Latin jazz influence, as well as some tracks that find Astatke teaming up with vocalists like Muluken Melesse and Menelik Wossenatchew.
Astatke really does belong in that divine elite class of musicians like John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Ravi Shankar, John Fahey, Duke Ellington, Moondog, etc. - the sounds he creates are universal in their appeal. Infused with so much soul and emotional warmth, these are sounds that transcends genre or geography, plain and simple, this is amazing music!
Wow! This is one of the most ecstatically strange recordings of hip hop dance music we've heard in quite awhile and it is no wonder that its elusive existence was the spark that inspired Brian Shimkovich's Awesome Tapes From Africa blog (and subsequent label) a decade ago. After years of searching for the man behind the music and eventually getting permission for the reissue, we finally get to hear it.
Hailing from Ghana, Ata Kak Yaw Atta-Owusu released this cassette in 1994, an awesome tape indeed of homegrown African Hip-house - a hybrid genre of high energy disco, b-boy hip hop and off-kilter rap-singing, that we weren't sure even existed. Only 50 tapes were originally made and out of them, only 3 sold, making its rediscovery that so much more remarkable. Made with a synthesizer, a 12 track recorder and Notator Atari software, Obaa Sima is like no African hip hop we've heard before. Tinny drum machines, fast-paced babble-rapping, helium voiced back-up vocals, infectious bass grooves and an alltogether beamed in from outer space atmospheric soulfulness that somehow makes this all work. Seriously, it's as much fun as the craziest Bollywood disco stuff, ferinstance. Get in on this party train! Super recommended!!
Predictably, there's been beaucoup hype about this new super group / Radiohead offshoot, featuring Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, longtime Radiohead producer/engineer Nigel Godrich, and oddest of the bunch none other than Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were definitely curious what it would sound like, and while we were maybe expecting something pretty far out and experimental, Amok actually hews surprisingly close to recent Radiohead records and Yorke's solo record The Eraser. Which really shouldn't be all that surprising considering the lineup, and really is not a bad thing. In some ways, we wouldn't have been at all surprised if this had simply been released as a Yorke solo record (which essentially it kind of is?). Every time we play this in the store, someone inevitably asks us if this is Radiohead, which should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. The tracks here are not so much songs, like much of Yorke's (and Radiohead's) material, eschewing for the most part the standard 'pop' song structure, and instead letting atmospheres drift, and rhythms percolate, Yorke's voice often spectral and wordless, syllables stretched way out, transformed into woozy spidery melodies, the beats looped and layered and skittery, the bass thick and sinewy, pulsing and trancey and hypnotic, the whole thing peppered with strange little electronic filigree, the occasional buried horns, the vibe haunting and melancholic, and darkly, mysteriously groovy.
There's a definite late night vibe to most of the tracks, moody and chilled out, but then there's tracks like "Default", which is still moody, but super catchy, "Default" being the most Radiohead of the bunch, the first single, which makes sense, featuring a killer main melody that sounds like it was straight up lifted from some other Radiohead record, we just can't put our finger on which one, but you'll know it when you hear it.
So yeah, if you already love Radiohead, you'll love this, and if you dug Yorke's Eraser, you'll REALLY dig Atoms For Peace, and while we maybe weren't blown away at first, we find ourselves listening to this more and more all the time.
Nice 200 gram vinyl reissue of the 1981 debut from this British post-punk quartet that reminds us of a Pylon/Pretenders hybrid with sharper teeth. Smashing the power politics of sexual relationships with biting critique, this two female, two male foursome deliver cleverly disaffected songwriting with an urgent rhythmic energy. The band only put out two records and this one is their best, with infectious hooks and a bracing cynicsm that remains razor-sharp. They even pull off the rare David Bowie cover that far surpasses the original with "Repetition", a creepily banal look into the mind of an abusive spouse. For fans of Gang of Four, Delta 5, Xmal Deutchland, The Slits, Mo-dettes and the bands mentioned above. Recommended!!
Wow, this one's a real surprise, because as much as we're fans of jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers' early to mid-seventies rare groove and jazz albums, his later output that we knew of, pretty much fell into cheesy disco and RnB. So when Universal Sounds re-issued this album from 1983 that we had never heard of, we were a bit wary but also highly intrigued. Released on his own independent label Uno Melodic while he was between major-label tenures with Polydor and Columbia, Lots of Love clearly shows Ayers independence as he freely explores many styles of post-disco dance music from the Afro-beat inspired "Black Family", the electro-funk of "Fast Money", and the minimal house of "Chicago", while "D.C. City" hearkens back to the simmering rare groove classics he recorded with Sylvia Striplin and Ethel Beatty. He also gets in a couple of grooving instrumentals with the vibes, showing that he never lost his chops. His best record since 1976's Everybody Loves The Sunshine!
Recommended!
The two most recent records put out by ultra hip experimental electronic label Triangle, finds that label continuing to push well past the 'witch house' genre ghetto that birthed them. To be fair, the first few proper releases on Triangle, Holy Other, Clams Casino, and Balam Acab, were already a sort of POST witch house strain anyway, with some of the WH tropes retained, but with those groups upping the production big time, and ditching much of the lo-fi drag that defined the best witch house, and in the process, inventing a new electronica. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find the new record from SF electro weirdos Water Borders, a dizzying slab of Coil worshipping electronic what the fuck genius, and then there's this, the debut from Ayshay, which also incorporates a bit of Coil into the proceedings, but there seem to be no beats at all, at least initially, channeling some sort of Cocteau Twins ethereal drift, with some processed throat singing style vocals as a bass, the only beat a buried pulse, it's pretty compelling, and darkly haunting, and beautiful for sure. The second track offers up more of the same, channeling Grouper and stripping away all that low fidelity murk and instead creating a lush layered symphony of voices, subtly twisted and tweaked, another spectral vocal bliss out, and in fact, the third track is more of the same, it's like a three part vocal song suite that acts as a sort of introduction to the final 12 minute "Nguzunguzu Megamix", which is in fact the first track with beats, and while we may have been expecting some sort of skittery drag, or murky muted low end throb, it actually plays more like some lost Muslimgauze remix, all skittery Eastern percussion, multiple drums and rhythms all tangled up, some hand claps, some serious low end, all over those ethereal vox from the first few tracks, the sound constantly shifting, the beat growing more and more block rockin as the track progresses until it finally blossoms into some almost jungle near the end, the stutter and skitter (and some BIG bass booms), perfectly woven into that strange shimmery swirl of ghostly vox. And it's those last few minutes that are the sort of warped and weird, beat heavy mystery secret weapon that some cool DJ will unleash from his sonic arsenal at just the right time and just destroy the dancefloor. So good, getting tons of play here at AQ and appropriately just in time for the Halloween season...
We somehow missed the boat on the first two Bachelorette albums but now that the band has landed on Drag City, all the folks who slept on Bachelorette will finally get a chance to experience the utterly charming musical magic of this multitalented New Zealand songstress.
Bachelorette employ a keen pop sensibility as well as a fresh use of electronics, all the while finding inspiration in distinctly left-field musics, creating songs that are so totally engaging and memorable. You can definitely here bits of Broadcast, Bjork, and Goldfrapp, but Bachelorette rises is so much more than her inspiration, easily soaring over the mostly underwhelming hordes aiming for the same sound. The strength of Bachelorette is how she absorbs all sorts of disparate sounds and ideas ('60s psych-pop, Delia Derbshyre-esque electronics, girl groups, and we can't help but think that her song "Mindwarp" might be a tip of a hat to Patrick Cowley's classic hi-nrgy classic of the same name) and deftly weaving them together into so many different musical landscapes, which makes the whole album totally coherent, songs that flow with an ease and assured seduction that has us under her spell. Highly recommended!
In case you missed it on our mystery themed in-between list last week, something we reviewed just for that, for the first time...
It's pretty much acknowledged that Bad Brains are one of the most influential American bands of the 20th century, having blown the minds of every young hardcore band in the D.C. and New York scenes and beyond. Their sound went way further than just "punk" or "rock", blending jazz, fusion, and reggae into something that defies simple classification. While most people might be familiar with the group from their godly self-titled debut and after, Black Dots collects early material recorded at the then fledgling Inner Ear Studios from a session in 1979. The studio at that point was in owner/engineer Don Zientara's basement, with band members situated inside while H.R. did his thing in the backyard. It's easy to imagine how cramped things were, but between song banter reveals a band in good spirits as they tear the living fuck out of their early material. Bad Brains in '79 weren't as fast, distorted, and manic as they would become, but the chemistry is still totally unbelievable, sounding both loose and ridiculously tight at the same time. And even with modest recording gear the band sounds HUGE. This looser style works particularly well for their reggae numbers, always a point of contention with many fans. These recordings almost sound like some hyper charged group from the 60s taking things into new worlds. Not many bands could sound this bad ass while also sounding like they are having the most fun ever - but I guess if you wrote songs like "Pay To Cum", "Regulator", "Banned In D.C.", "Attitude" and everything else here, you'd also be having the best time ever. Loads of personality with this band (check out H.R.'s hilarious kiss off of "Bye, Celeste" at the end of "Red Bone In The City", their reworking of "God Save The Queen"), it's completely easy to see why they were such a force to be reckoned with. They were just different. Better. And again, completely bad ass. There's almost no point in going on with this review, sure you'll have some people who prefer what Bad Brians became, but others will tell you that music kind of doesn't get any better than this, stripped to its bare form. Whatever the case, it all leads to the same recommendation: ESSENTIAL.
Let's get this right out of the way, Erykah Badu is a genius! While we love and can't get enough of folks like Sharon Jones and Nicole Willis, there really is no one else like Erykah Badu, someone who is taking soul and funk into new and outer dimensions. She represents the best of hip-hop culture as well as carrying on a legacy of spiritual and cosmic soul. Badu has that something special that you can't really put your finger on but you sure can feel.
Her last record Worldwide Underground ranks as one of our favorite psychedelic soul/hip-hop records ever made! Five years later, she returns with another ambitious and crazy rewarding record that boasts Madlib as a producer, as well as the Sa-Ra crew, collaborations and guest spots by Georgia Ann Muldrew, Bilal, Omar Rodriguez (Mars Volta), and more. There's super tight and punchy live instrumentation, and samples that demonstrate a wide reaching and enlightened taste (The Yamasuki Singers, Eddie Kendricks, Curtis Mayfield, Nancy Wilson, etc). Badu is mindful and super knowledgeable about the past but she isn't a retro act, she is so about the here and now and could care less about trends and fads. She is one of the few high profile modern artists who truly has her own vision and such a special touch. Her live show a few years ago at the Paramount Theater in Oakland we reminisce about all the time, her band was so out there in the best of ways, and she owned the stage, even playing the Theremin and taking everyone in attendance to the outer limits of a super soul planet we wish we could always orbit.
Her new record starts off with an adaptation of the Roy Ayers produced Ramp classic "American Promise" and from there on out is filled with some of the best songs Badu has recorded to date, including a couple chilling tributes to her close friend J Dilla who passed away since her last album. New Amerykah has a couple moments where it trips up, but like all brave artists it takes the courage to slip up from time to time in order to create so much musical magic. Highly recommended, and for sure check out Worldwide Underground as well if you haven't!
ALSO ON VINYL!!
Erykah Badu is one of those singular artists who is able to create such a devotional and personal relationship with her listeners. Where New Amerykah Pt. 1 had a fiery political undertone, New Amerykah Pt. 2: Return Of The Ankh, is much more personal and relationship minded. But no matter what Erykah's songs are about, there is always a sense of authenticity and integrity that runs so strongly through them. In many ways this is the closest in sound and theme to her breathtaking debut Baduizm, as it shares a similar slow melting groove and such rich instrumentation that you just don't come by on many contemporary soul records. The amazing thing about Erykah Badu is how she is both so modern, futuristic yet an integral link to the history of powerful and spiritual soul. She doesn't rehash, or mimic, instead she's created a sound and style that is so totally her own.
New Amerykah Pt. 2 is as seductive as it is psychedelic. You can tell she has a deep love of pioneers like Ramp, The Rotary Connection, and Dorothy Ashby, but she has learned from her deep love of true hip-hop how to take from her influences yet create something totally new and unique out of it. There is no one like Erykah Badu around, she has proven she is a musical visionary, and her live shows only further prove that she is the real deal, capable of creating magic with her music that hits the soul in such deep and true ways. She also stands out in the way she is still very committed to the artform of the album. From start to finish this is a record that takes you on a journey that you want to revisit over and over again. The thing that makes Erykah Badu albums so remarkable is how they slowly seep into your subconscious. They are never about the latest trends or a quick fun ride, instead they are the kind of records you turn to at those crucial moments of your life and become a narrative that becomes as much a part of your journey as it is hers. These are songs that empower, comfort and challenge. Once again Erykah Badu has proven to be one of the strongest and most unique musical voices of our time!
Seems like the constant supply of Nadja / Aidan Baker releases has slowed down a bit. There was a time when a week wouldn't go by without a new releases from one or both. But if fewer releases means more like this new solo record, we're perfectly happy with the trade off.
As most Baker/Nadja fans know, Nadja records tend toward the bombastic and the metalgaze, seeing as that's what the duo is all about, but Baker's solo records are where he really gets to experiment. In the beginning it was mostly like a more minimal version of Nadja, the same sort of droned out drift, just with the volume and heft dialed way back. But then Baker began trying out new sounds, varied approaches, with different instrumentation, which brings us to Still Life, which just might be the prettiest, and maybe even best, solo record we've heard from Baker yet. Ostensibly his 'jazz' record, recorded using just piano, drums and upright bass, but this isn't like JAZZ jazz, this is like Necks jazz, droney and minimal, slow building and hypnotic, and Baker adds cool bits of weird production which only enhances the sound. Four loooong tracks, each one a dark miniature epic, the bass muted and minimal, the drums more like the skitter and sizzle of cymbals, while the piano plucks out the melancholic minor key melody, a repeated motif, that unfurls like a slowly mutating loop, it's not until about 9 minutes in that the rest of the drum kit comes into play, and even then it's just some barely there snare skitter, and the melody is wrapped in cool swooping effects, very subtle, but it makes the notes sound like they're swooping in. The first track leads directly into the second, almost as if they were two parts of a single song, this part though is even more spare, the chords on the piano, separated by long expanses of minimal drum shuffle and the slow decay of the bass. This track eventually builds a bit of momentum, the drums subtly more driving, the sound a woozy, mournful lope, definitely falling within the realms of 'doom jazz', Baker surprisingly adept on the kit, playing the rims, and unfurling busy little flurries, that manage to add texture without being distracting, and much like the first song, you never really want it to end.
Track three begins with a flurry of piano notes, all upper register, flecked with the occasional bass pulse, the piano getting more and more blurry, Baker subtly affecting the notes, blurring them, smearing them, transforming them into a sort of Lubomyr Melnyk style shimmer, all the while Baker underpins the proceedings with the wood-on-wood click and clatter of stick on drum shell, and at about 7 minutes in, the song shifts, and the low end swoops in, the drums coalesce into a proper rhythm, and the song becomes an ominous creep, all the while that initial flurry of piano plays on in the background, the vibe dark and drowsy and late night, the low end thrum and drums eventually fade out, leaving the song to end how it began with a swirling cloud of tinkling notes on the piano.
And finally, the record finishes off with another stretched out sprawl of hazy, droney hypno-jazz, again the piano offering melody and color, while the bass thrums and rumbles, and Baker keep simple time with stick on shell again, and so it goes, for nearly 14 minutes, an epic haunting minimal drone jazz drift equal parts the Necks, Bohren and Circle at their most murky and minimal. Gorgeous, haunting, beautiful stuff.
Fans of the Necks will definitely want this, as will anyone into dark, brooding minimalism and abstract doom jazz drift.
Man, Matt Baldwin just seems to get better and better, taking his already wonderful celestial spaced out guitar playing and constantly pushing his sound further and further out. This super limited self released outing finds Baldwin positioning one short track inbetween two epic 15 minute sprawls which evoke the spirit of Robert Fripp playing a Terry Riley composition or Michael Rother and Steve Reich teaming up for some hypnotic psychedelic kraut guitar drift. Exploring cosmic guitar explorations similar to folks like Mark McGuire and Phil Manley, this is such a wonderful record of truly tripped out and densely dreamy solo guitar. We could go on and on about how much we love this, but considering these are the very last copies left of this cd-r we should probably just say act super fast as we only have ten of these left!
After falling so deeply in love with Matt Baldwin's recent cd-r release, Imaginary Psychology, earlier this year, we knew that this bay area guitar wizard had really come into his own, exploring exciting new terrain in reaching epic psychedelic bliss.
This new outing finds Baldwin collaborating with multi-instrumentalist Nico Georgis, as they create two long form pieces that explore a more textured and layered sort of kosmische drift. The first track, "Year Of The Dog", finds Baldwin employing guitar, guitar-synth, as well as loops and delay, while Georis contributes clavinet, Wurlitzer piano, percussion, a Prophet 600, and a MicroKorg to create a meditative movement that's like some pulsating dreamscape conjured up by Robert Fripp, Michael Rother, Ash Ra Tempel, Manuel Gottsching, and/or John Cale. It taps into a sound that folks like Mark McGuire/Emeralds, White Rainbow, Bitchin Bajas, and Arp have been exploring, but with a much more organic and warm approach.
"Juan Carlos" is the other massive track here, an improv psych-jam, that features Juan Carlos Morales Tablada on congas and percussion. It starts with a slow build that immediately entrances as its sounds are both so connected to the earth, yet do such an amazing job of taking you to another dimension. In some ways the vibe makes us think of another one of our favorite cd-r releases from this year, Eat The Earth, by fellow San Francisco psych improv masters 3 Leafs.
Hand numbered and limited to 50 copies, this one is a no brainer. Don't miss out!
For his latest full length, Banhart has taken a marked departure from the mystical woodland art-folk kingdom he conjured and inhabited on his first three albums. This is evident even before you hear a single note -- he opted for a Sgt. Pepper style collaged crowd photograph on the front cover rather than another of his illustrations. He's tempered his vocal delivery to a more approachable range -- this might disappoint some of his fans for whom his unmistakable 'old' voice was the thing they loved most about his music, on the other hand though it certainly has the potential to appeal to a much broader audience -- but he's ventured out stylistically in a number of directions and incorporated various different instrument combinations into the surprisingly lush arrangements with wonderful results. Take for example the second song "Santa Maria Da Feira" and the sixth "Quedateluna" which both brought to mind glimmers of a long lost Gilberto Gil album, the almost soft rock production of the third song "Heard Somebody Say", not to mention the fourth song "Long Haired Child" which possesses a primal electric guitar psychedelic bluesiness that recalls Arthur Brown's demonic '60s stomp "Fire" (albeit much less unhinged). Midway through the album, some songs crop up that are more akin to the Banhart of old such as the quirkily playful ninth tune "Some People Ride The Wave". 22 songs! Wow! So great!
From the promise of a Banhartian Spring we find a Banhartian Autumn with a companion piece to Rejoicing In The Hands, Nino Rojo. This album, equally as stunning, features 16 songs assembled from 57 tracks recorded with Banhart mentor Michael Gira in Atlanta (see our review of Rejoicing for more info on the recording and production). Truly some of his most captivating and achingly beautiful songs to date with more elaborate finger-picked guitarwork and fleshed out backing vocals on songs such as the glistening "Owl Eyes" and the album closer "Electric Heart". One of our most favorite tracks, "At The Hop", is co-written by frequent Banhart collaborator Andy Cabic (Vetiver, Tussle). The enhancement of this enhanced-cd features a video for this song. Like its companion, Nino Rojo offers a Devendra Banhart with more polish, more freedom of movement and a little looser from the grip of self-awareness -- making for a more cohesive but no less eccentric and magical album.
Devendra Banhart -- who appears to be living his life as an indie-rock gipsy touring with whomever and squatting wherever, including a stint wowing locals here in SF -- crafts his neo-folk songs with the primitive instrumentation of voice and acoustic guitar, spanning a vast spectrum of fragmented emotions through a manic-depressive persona that can be as beautifully charming as it can be terrifyingly devastating. Michael Gira, who released this album through his Young God label, accurately described Banhart's voice with its skewed vibrato and unnerving warble as somewhere in between the magical voices of Marc Bolan, Karen Dalton, Syd Barrett, Tiny Tim, Daniel Johnston, and Nick Drake; and fortunately, Banhart uses that voice to tell a wholly unique set of stories that hold a succinct poetry. Hastily stitched from bizarre stream of consciousness associations and absurdist conditional clauses, Banhart's lyrics expand the realm of possibility into psychosexual surrealism. On occasion, Banhart's tales are anthropomorphic love songs, wistfully dreaming of archaic steam ships and the state of Michigan (yes, he pines for Michigan) with all of sexual cravings and romantic nuances of a young boy first pierced by Cupid's arrow; yet on other occasion, Banhart gnashes his teeth with such existential confusion that the targets of his epithets are blurred by his bilious rage. Within Banhart's language, reality has been realized as a swollen mass of malformed emotions compounded by the urgency that resonates within his voice.
Upon listening to this album, I've had the recurring, sinking feeling either that Banhart is destined to star in an upcoming Harmony Korine film or that he will be dead in a few years as victim of an unspecified gruesome tragedy. As I've tried and failed to assign such distinctly odd critical-doomspeak within various arguments and generalized thesis about the perception of the separation between art and life, I mention it because Banhart -- unlike any artist whom I've come across -- has been able to provoke such controversial thoughts. Far from me to wish Banhart or anybody ill-will, but true manifestations of horror defy logic and are very rare indeed. And this, gentle reader, is the real deal.
If you recall, Andee began his review of Woven Hand's album with the bold statement: "I hate to gush, but gush I must, this is my record of the year. Done deal." As for me (Jim, along with Marcy and Windy), the debut from Devendra Banhart needs to be given serious consideration as a contender for record of the year 2002.
Since the release of his evocative debut album Oh Me Oh My..., Devendra Banhart has deservedly catapulted to the status of an indie-rock icon. The critical acclaim for Banhart's work is based on the merits of his spectacular songwriting and uncanny ability to channel an incredible spectrum of emotional resonance. However, much of that success is also due to the hard work and dedication of Young God's bossman Michael Gira. The former Swan and current Angel Of Light has taken Banhart under his wing as his apprentice and has boldly asserted (and nurtured) Banhart's brilliance, majesty, and genius. His hard work has certainly paid off as almost every media outlet has sung Banhart's praises; but even so it was quite bizarre to hear Banhart's wavering croon on NPR's Morning Edition many moons ago.
Rejoicing In The Hands is Banhart's second proper album, following the short Black Babies UK EP which delved further into his piles of early 4-track recordings. For this new album, Gira took Banhart into a studio (which was located in an appropriately antique Southern home on the Georgia / Alabama border) and provided him with plenty of resources to flesh out his songs. In many ways, Rejoicing In The Hands follows the same strategy that Sub Pop employed for Iron & Wine's second album Our Endless Numbered Days: take one fantastic songwriter who made a great album of 4-track recordings, put him in the studio with some sympathetic musicians, and watch the magic happen. Thus, Rejoicing In The Hands has considerably more polish than its predecessor; and perhaps not surprisingly, the songs themselves are less dangerous, rabid, and self-consumed. Yet, the taming of Mr. Banhart is a relative process, as his work still invokes a mysticism of the unconscious through his complex metanyms and obtuse wordplay. His voice -- an eccentric hybrid of Marc Bolan, Karen Dalton, and Vashti Bunyan (who sings a duet alongside Banhart on this record!) -- continues to waver through stream of consciousness lyrics about his teeth, his beard, geographic love affairs, insects, Elvis, and other more likely subject matters like sex and death. Musically, these are delicate folk arrangements centered around his elliptical finger picking which is occasionally accompanied by some of Gira's fellow musicians from Angels of Light. All in all, Rejoicing In The Hands is a rousing success that will surely make Banhart the folk medium for his generation. Highly recommended.
No one does stoned and blissed out deep-in-the-forest jams better than Bardo Pond. For over fifteen years now this Philly outfit have been kicking out some of the most gorgeous organic spaced out rock EVER. Bardo Pond have so many different sides to their sound, from more song based tracks, to full on psychedelia, to dirgey space rock, and of course there's the sprawling tripped out and totally dreamy epic jams.
Gazing At Shilla finds the Pond in the latter mode, which is just fine as we can't get enough of that sound, when the band somehow bring earth and sky together in gloriously cataclysmic ways, allowing us to get so totally and fantastically lost in their sound. Recorded between 2003-2006, each side is a single, fantastic, sprawling twenty minute instrumental. "Eight - Thousanders" finds the band soaring and floating and gliding with such ease and fluidity. While "Kali" gets a little buzzier and darker, gritty space-y sonics transmitted from another dimension. Imagine if Roy Montgomery and Sonic Youth joined forces, or those special moments when Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple set their trajectory for cosmic spheres unknown. Ultimately though, it sounds like Bardo Pond (albeit only one of their many sides), a band who continue to grow, evolve and rule!
This the first of a new four part Bardo Pond related series of limited edition vinyl only releases on Important, we also just got the others in, one each by Bardo side projects Alaeshir, Alumbrados, and Moon Phantoms - the latter a collaboration with Japan's Suishu No Fune!
Very little has changed in the Bardo Pond camp, even after all these many years, and nearly as many records. And we're grateful for that. Peace On Venus is another collection of stunning, sprawling, spaced out heavy psych bliss out, with skies full of swirling distorted guitars, anchored by laid back drumming, and minimal basslines, and as always flecked with ethereal fluttering flutes, and those super distinctive, wasted, female vox. Just give a listen to opener "Kali Yuga Blues", with its thick, super distorted, crumbling riffage, blown out and laid back dream-psych heaviness, that builds to a truly intense coda, with FX drenched guitar swirl, drifting atop swaths of swirling flutes, the vocals buried in the mix, loping and lilting, moody and melancholic, and seriously druggy and dreamy. And so it goes, "Taste", is a brooding dark psych ballad, the flute providing much of the melody, with a kick ass midsong psychedelic freakout, but otherwise drifting drowsily, while "Fir" is nearly metallic in its heft, the riffing massive and blown out, the vocals witchy and bewitching, a dirgey psych lumber, equal parts blissed out space rock shimmer and churning downtuned doom, maybe one of our favorite BP tracks ever!
The record finishes off with two 10+ minute epics, first, the folky "Chance", which begins just acoustic guitar and flute, before the psychedelic guitars drift in, the song another loping midtempo brooder, sounding almost like a more psychedelic druggy version of classic Silkworm (which is most definitely a compliment), but again, the flute provides most of the melody, the bulk of the song spent drifting lazily, until the big build, and final few minutes freakout, where wah wah guitars get all tangled and intense, the flute following suit, total psych-prog bliss. Which leads directly into closer "Before The Moon", which as a sort of seventies UK acid folk vibe, albeit cranked up a bit and distorted, lurching, and drowsy, the guitars again crunchy and crumbling, buzzed out and droney, maybe the mathiest of the bunch, the prog vibe blurred into the group's zoner psych drift, the flute drifting in and out, the whole thing getting seriously metallic for the last minute or two, sounding a bit like a more witchy doomy version of Bardo Pond, one that might just appeal to fans of Jex Thoth, Blood Ceremony, The Devil's Blood, Sabbath Assembly, Loon and the like!
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!
Want to get lost in hazy, shimmering sounds that would sound perfect in the pristine church of 4AD worship? Sounds pretty great right, well, the sounds of Julianna Barwick deliver just that. With her looped ethereal vocals she creates such hypnotizing sounds that really evoke a more tripped out Lisa Gerard (Dead Can Dance) or Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins), a sound that is totally perfect for the crisp and cold days we've been experiencing as of late, each track a gorgeous soundtrack for bundled up evening strolls when you can see your breath in the air. Barwick has been crafting her own multi-layered, hazy and hypnotic sounds for several years now, in fact her self released debut, Sanguine, from over three years ago was a big favorite here in town at our local radio station KUSF and we're happy to have gotten that in as well which we'll most likely be gushing about on a future list. In fact that record came out just shortly after Grouper's wonderful debut Way Their Crept and the two definitely share a swirling and surreal sonic spirit.
We knew it was only a matter of time before the ethereal magic of Julianna Barwick's music would capture the attention and imagination of the underground music scene. After two utterly gorgeous self released albums, Asthmatic Kitty wisely stepped up to sign her and release this brand new stunning set of songs, which finds Barwick's sound becoming even more pristine and dreamy. Alongside Grouper, Barwick really is doing wonders to channel the ethereal magic of 4AD's sound via Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, and Cocteau Twins. Magic Place wastes no time heading right for the sky, which is where Barwick's songs always reside. Daydream reflections, moon worship hymns, sun cycle observations, close your eyes and let these sounds take you wherever they may. Beyond beautiful!
Julianna Barwick makes the kind of music that totally transports us into that sort of hazy spaced out daydream we wish would stretch out into infinity. Using just her voice and assorted manipulated loops, Barwick creates an hypnotic environment of sound that conjures up images of standing all alone in a huge cathedral, lit with washed out light filtered through ornate glass windows, reflecting off silver and gold sculptures. There is something so totally otherworldly and church-gone-cosmic to the sounds on Sanguine, like floating in a pristine sky, high on codeine as you swirl amongst fallen angels and mysterious creatures. Self released back in 2006, we are so happy to finally get this in the store as it really is one of the most mesmerizing and beautiful records to come out in the last several years. Because of the lack of its distribution the first time around, Sanguine didn't get the attention it deserved, which is too bad, because it most likely would have enjoyed the same sort of praise and popularity that groups like Grouper have so rightfully received, creating sounds from a similar template. And while the Grouper comparisons are inevitable, there really is something unique and singular about the way Barwick channels the most psychedelic and ethereal 4AD inspiration into a totally DIY hypnotic state of sound. Blissed out to perfection!
When it comes to modern day dance music it just doesn't get a whole lot more colorful, joyful and F.U.N. then the Basement Jaxx. What's always set them apart from so many of their peers is that while most good dance minded outfits tend to rely so heavily on retro influences, Basement Jazz, who for sure have absorbed the best in dance music of the last few decades from disco to house, electro and hip-hop, instead take those sounds and warp and personalize and modernize, creating their own distinct vision and sound. Scars is ranking right next to Rooty, one of our other favorite Basement Jazz jams, so full of such infectious songs that not only totally make you shake it, but they also have a really nice wide range of emotions and an incredibly lush sonic palette, with guest vocalists like Yoko Ono, Sam Sparro, Santogold, Kelis, Yo Majesty, etc. bringing their own distinct flavor to the mix. Scars is the kind of record that will get you moving AND get stuck in your head, we've already listened to it so many times and it's holding up so well on repeated listens. Who knows when Daft Punk will ever release a new album, but until then, the other major titan in modern dance brilliance will keep our bootys shaking!
The tape loop that William Basinski sources on A Red Score In Tile, dates back to 1979 during that manic period in Basinski's life when he was cataloguing shortwave radio noises, bittersweet sounding moments in muzak's mood engineering, and various piano extracts - all of which ending up on tape loops in the way that a lot of people build photo collections of the events, people, and places around them. But beginning around 1998, Basinski began to transcribe those tape loops digitally, finding an immense source for his future compositions that all heavily incorporate the slow-motion, sleepwalking murkiness of those original tape loops to their fullest advantage within his elliptical hypnosis of emotive tone and drone.
He actualized A Red Score In Tile first in 2003 for a piece of vinyl issued by the Chalk / Heemann label Three Poplars; of course, it quickly went out of print. This new cd version is a slightly different mix (only in that the piece isn't split over two sides, tracking instead about 45 minutes or so).
But for that tape loop, we're told the sole source is a piano, but it could have easily come from some of the bleak incidental music that Lalo Schifrin composed on the Rhodes for Dirty Harry. It's also incredibly prescient of the blackened 'horror jazz' from Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. This loop might only be cycling through an endless repetition, but it really doesn't sound that way. An atmosphere of urban decay hangs upon these broken notes, amplified by the vaporous reverb that oozes in, through, above, and below Basinski's sound. Of course, Basinski's music has long spoken of the elegant corrosion of sound, spoken most concisely through his epic Disintegration Loops series. But where the physical act of disintegration mirrors that of the sound itself, the sonic decay of A Red Score In Tile is spellbindingly subtle, and might actually be a grand illusion sparked by Basinksi's part works and deft ability to make a simple tape loop sublime. As a result, A Red Score In Tile is a stunning disc, one that ranks very highly within Basinski's always impressive catalog of recordings. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Ah, William Basinski. How your sounds soothe the soul. His beautifully drifting, tape-loop constructions once again waft from our speakers here at aQuarius, with the release of Nocturnes. The titular composition is a 41 minute piece that originates from prepared piano recordings made during his 'San Francisco' period circa 1979-1980. The notes that Basinski tapped out are singular, haunted stabs that form a simple progression into a resolving chord. It's a very subtle melodic flourish that only comes into focus through the slow, cyclical repetitions that has become the Basinski trademark. Similarly, he judiciously employs his signature production tricks of suspending washes of reverb and ghost-imaging echo patterns. In other words, it's a classic William Basinksi piece. The relatively short 28 minute "Trail Of Tears" is the recontextualized sound design that Basinski composed for Robert Wilson's opera The Life And Times Of Marina Abramovic, which also featured the songs of Antony Hegarty and the lead roles acted by Abramovic herself and Willem Dafoe. Basinski builds his soundtrack through a languid and slippery fretless bass motif which he deftly augments through steady equalization modulation and a billowing aggregated drone mass that eventually overtakes the bass melody, burying it in an snowdrift of accumulated blurriness. After he allows this construct to collapse toward silence, a second, equally elegant and equally languid motif from some unknown orchestral appropriation materializes. It's a trick that Leyland Kirby / The Caretaker has done plenty of times before, with Basinski's aesthetic manifesting an oceanic gravity in his looping patterns that is unparalleled. Bloody hell, that man makes good record.
By now, if you're a regular reader of the aQ list, you no doubt know all about William Basinski, and the Disintegration Loops that introduced us to his music. And if you're anything like us, you were immediately smitten by his gorgeous slowly decaying dronescapes. The power of a simple loop, played over and over, in various states of decay, hearing the sounds literally crumble before your very ears, like getting a glimpse inside music, behind the notes, within the chords, observing the magnetic particles as they drop like flakes of soot after a fire, music transformed into inert object, and the glorious sound of that transition, from light to dark, life to death, sound to silence.
Basinski's music is rife with meaning, representational for sure, but can easily be appreciated from a purely sonic standpoint, the sounds, his loops, are blurred and indistinct and so lovely, washed out, hazy, sepia toned, they sound like they were snatched from another time, lifted from an audial scrapbook, the sounds curled up at the edges, lightly blackened, the images contained within smeared and unclear, beneath a patina of age, the chemicals reacting over time, changing the color, the texture, the emotion even, of each of those sounds.
Vivian & Ondine is a more recent work, but sounds like it could have come from the same treasure trove that produced the Disintegration Loops, dreamlike and otherworldly, hushed, intimate, and so beautiful.
Bastard Wing is the duo of Christina Carter from Charalambides and Andrew MacGregor who records as Gown. A while back we reviewed a cd-r collaboration between MacGregor and Carter, which was a strange and creepy affair, but also a fairly caustic and atonal one, with plenty of anguished Jandekian wailing and Keiji Haino like frenzied howling, cacophonous and bizarre, but beautiful in it's own damaged way. The Bastard Wing finds the two in a much more contemplative mood, spreading out warm thick blankets of psychedelic strum, swirling fuzzy ambience, over which breathy ethereal vocals drift and shimmer, gorgeous foggy soundscapes of distant blown out psych guitar, haunting disembodied vocals, crackling crunchy distortion, swooping vocals that seem to creep up right to the microphone before fading into the murky background, everything bathed in thick reverb, tons of delay and clouds of swirling outer space FX. Some tracks sound like deconstructed Mazzy Star, with any semblance of 'rock' taken out, so the ghostly remnants are allowed to drift incorporeally heavenward, while others are frenzied otherworldly rituals, dense with thick vocal swirl and damaged guitar histrionics, although even at their most manic, everything is muted and smeared into an indistinct haze. Creepy and lovely. Definitely for fans of Grouper, Lichens and of course Charalambides.
Like all Free Porcupine Society releases, nicely packaged, this time in a cool simple white cardstock folder, printed with metallic silver ink, spare and striking.
Oooh. We're always excited about any new releases from French automated-instrument builder and trumpeter Pierre Bastien. How often do we get records featuring music made (in part) by robots? Not often enough. And such lovely music too. All these tracks were originally composed as soundtracks to projects by a Dutch experimental filmmaker by the name of Karel Doing (hence the title). But Bastien's music so readily stokes the imagination than Doing's cinematic visions are not necessary accompaniment.
We said 'automated-instrument builder', those instruments being what Bastien calls his 'Meccano', simple sound-making robots or kinetic sound sculptures, that make looping music box melodies and provide a backing of slow, steady mechanical clank for Bastien's own wheezing, muted trumpet. Bastien plays in a smokey jazz mode, breathy, beautiful, oh so melancholic, that in the this context reminds us of Chet Baker in some sort of Tom Waits-ish instrumental junkyard. The gamelan or thumb piano like plinkings of Bastien's Meccano - exotica for scrappy homebuilt robots - are rendered somehow more human by the sweet sighs of Bastien's trumpet. He also makes use of field recordings, unidentified underwater warblings, and other mysterious textures in constructing these tracks. Wonderful stuff, so languid and relaxed and full of life, animated indeed by Bastien's Visions Of Doing. Bastien's previous discs for Rephlex, and others, have all been 'late night faves' here at AQ, and this latest gentle gem from Bastien joins them for sure.
Although it's only a very small section inside our store, many of our most devout and curious shoppers have found gem after gem in our Italian Prog section. Franco Battiato is one of those gems for sure. One of those endlessly creative artists who completely defies categorization. Sweeping in scope and eccentric in all the right ways it's no surprise that Battiato has finally begun to get the attention he so rightly deserves, as folks like Jim O'Rourke have gone out of their way to champion these forward thinking sounds from decades ago. Released in 1973, Pollution is a psychedelic synth masterpiece foreshadowing so much of what was to come in the landscape of electronic music. With out-of-this-world synths that make Rick Wakeman's playing seem pedestrian, and an otherworldly dimension orchestrated to perfection. Like David Axelrod getting super psychedelic and arranging a record for Ash Ra Tempel. So extravagant yet totally coherent. These sounds are so alive, so full of color, wonder and beauty. It goes without saying that as more folks discover this record it will probably be sampled to death, and we wouldn't be all that surprised if Four Tet, DJ Shadow, or Plaid hadn't already borrowed a bit here and there. Like Jean Claude Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, this is an early '70s psych-prog masterpiece that is an across the board AQ favorite!
With only a couple ep's under their belts, Battles have been taking their sweet time creating their first proper full length and wow, has all that time and patience paid off! Mirrored is one of those records that grabs you right off the bat and sucks you in, intense and immediate, but with a staying power that has had us listening to this record over and over, finding new things to love about it each and every time. Math rock may be an equation that's been solved and worked out to a point of no return, but Battles have taken the polyrhythms and driving elements from their individual math rock roots (Don Cabellero, Helmet, Lynx) and added so many exciting ingredients to the mix. Fantastical prog like arrangements, spacey excursions, dance floor flirtations, a dose of oddly alien vocals, and a mesmerizing infusion of elements from 20th century composition, all whipped up together to make a record that sends you soaring into another galaxy with a fury and energy that can't be denied. In lesser hands all these elements could sound clumsy or forced, but Battles have found a way to make it all sound so seamless and fun! Like Goblin hijacking a Steve Reich composition, and dumping bags of glitter and the spiciest spices all over the place, creating the most beautiful and supercharged kind of mess. Some of our favorite artists, many who are maybe too prolific for their own good, could learn a thing or two from these guys. Sometimes truly honing your craft and perfecting that vision is worth it when the results are this glorious!
We've been enjoying quite a nice run of summer fever here in SF. Lots of outdoor adventures, picnics in the park, trips to the beach, fresh fruit to eat, naps with the windows open. So we thought while we've been indulging in all of summer's glory we would take the time to actually list one of our all time favorite Beach Boys records, even though its not a new reissue or anything. In fact it's two albums on one cd. While of course Pet Sounds always gets lauded as the Beach Boys' masterpiece, we think that Friends might be a contender for one of their greatest records as well. Every single track on Friends is pure pop perfection! You can hear the next several decades of smart pop music foreshadowed in the songs on Friends. "Busy Doin' Nothin" is like the sweet and quirky song Beck is still trying to make, "Little Bird" sounds like one of Yo La Tengo's most bittersweet numbers and the amazing instrumental "Diamond Head" with its reverb and ocean wave sounds provides the sonic blueprint for one of our favorite records of the last year, Panda Bear's Person Pitch. Not one clunker in the batch, Friends is truly one of the greatest pop records of all time!
While it would be worth it just for Friends, this two-for-one cd also contains 20/20, the Beach Boys' last album of the '60s. It's got a couple misses but wow are there some amazing musical moments to be found. You can definitely hear some bits and pieces that would end up as part of the soon-to-come masterpiece Smile, as well as some of the best songs Dennis Wilson wrote and sang for the band. It's also the album that features an uncredited (for obvious reasons) contribution from Charles Manson. He and Dennis Wilson had become friends before the Tate / LaBianca killings and as a gift he gave Dennis a song "Never Learn Not To Love" which was simply credited to Dennis after the Mason murders went down. The collection also includes 5 bonus tracks and really nice track by track commentaries in the liner notes.
The perfect music to make this an endless summer (as is, umm, well, probably the BB's Endless Summer too). If you don't have these Beach Boys albums we can't recommend these enough. Pop perfection!
Beach House's debut from a couple years ago won a special place in our hearts, so ever since we've been very anxious for this follow-up. We can't think of anyone these days who is doing warm and fuzzy melancholic pop better than Beach House.
Devotion flows perfectly from start to finish. It's the kind of record you want to play on repeat all day as you lay in bed with the one you love or lament the one you lost. These songs capture that gray soft line between longing and remembrance with a somber elegance that recalls Francoise Hardy's La Question and taps into the more subdued moments of Quixotic and White Magic. While many folks have taken a stab at Daniel Johnston songs in recent years, Beach House's version of "Some Things Last (A Long Time)" captures its devastating yet bittersweet heart. With hints of reverb, intoxicating vocal melodies and astute subtlety, Beach House has made an album that wraps you in a warm soft glow, as you bask in a golden breeze, totally hitting the spot and making every day feels like Sunday. So nice!
Swoon....sigh....melt! That's all we want to do when we listen to the newest album by this Baltimore duo who we've been in love with since their debut ep from way back when. The follow up to their great full length Devotion, this is a record we and so many others have been highly anticipating and it's so nice to start the new year with an album that is already ruling our stereos and will no doubt end up on many of our year end favorite lists.
Teen Dream is quite simply, exquisite and elegant. The golden warmth and soft waves of comfort and longing BH are able to express through their songs makes them truly one of the most special bands around. There is a timelessness and sense of authenticity that rings so true within their songs. This is the music you put on when you've had your heart broken or you just discovered new love or when you are laying in bed with that special someone and its time to just bliss out, lost in a daze without saying a word. Teen Dream is the soundtrack for thinking of a close friend who is in a far away place, it's a sonic refuge, when you need somewhere safe to drift and daydream all of your troubles away.
We have a feeling that this record is about to get an avalanche of press and attention but it couldn't be more deserved. This is hands down one of the most majestic and moving records to come out in a very long time. Nothing feels forced, no songs are throwaways, start to finish Teen Dream sounds practically perfect, a classic that will no doubt remain a classic regardless of shifting sounds and tastes.
As an added bonus Teen Dream also comes with a dvd, containing a video for every single song on the album created by different directors. We haven't even gotten around to watching it yet cuz for now all we want to do is listen to the album over and over again, letting ourselves get lost in the glistening images it evokes in our own subconscious. Breathtaking!
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!
Record number two from this post-Portishead combo, which finds Portishead mainman Geoff Barrow and crew fashioning a sort of abstract modern krautrock, culled from what we would imagine is the same recording technique used on their debut, which involved recording loops and parts live, and then fashioning them into proper tracks later. Which gives the jams a definite looped / collage vibe, but here on 2 (denoted in the title by two Beak shapes: >>), the sound and feel is much more organic, with what at times sound like proper songs, not just cool parts, with live drums beneath swirls of synths and processed guitars, each track essentially a single groove locked and looped, the group unfurling heady expanses of hypnorock mesmer, that sound somewhere between Faust, This Heat, Circle and even Aussie minimal jazzers the Necks. The vocals more prominent this time around, a plaintive croon, that tends to add color, more than drive the songs, which are already driven by some killer motorik drumming, which pulses and pounds relentlessly through clouds of woozy warped synth shimmer, throbbing reverbed riffage, muted melodies, some of the tracks sound like dead ringers for classic Faust jams, one track had a serious Slint vibe, while another had us imagining some lost German Oak track, with a few moments slipping into weird synth kosmische, and reminding us of Barrow's recent rejected score for the new Judge Dredd movie. Overall, a seriously mesmerizing collection of kraut-flecked hypno rock mesmer and looped rhythmic minimalism that should appeal to ANYone into any of the above mentioned groups, as well as other similarly sonic minded purveyors of math/kraut/psych/hypno rock radness.
There's nothing that welcomes summer quite like a brand new Beastie Boys record. And damn, once again they bring the goods with cleverness and charisma, undeniable skills, and high energy that's going to make us blast this loud at pretty much every gathering we'll have this summer and beyond. So cool to see how after all these years the Beastie Boys have really kept on top of their game, there really is not a bad album in their discography, and they're also so smart about taking their time between albums to make sure nothing is rushed or half baked.
It's been almost seven years since their last full length, To The 5 Boroughs, came out. During that time MCA (Adam Yauch) was diagnosed with cancer which he has since overcome and you can hear that feeling of ecstatic triumph in the sounds of these new supercharged Beastie Boys SONGS. It's really got everything we love about them, their rad MC skills, their attention to detail and impeccable taste in samples, a bit of old school punk rockin', and it's for sure one of the most gritty and thick recordings in their catalog, recalling some of the sounds of Check Your Head. They understand how to use the studio as an extension of their sound so damn well. Try to think of any other hip-hop groups from the late '80s who are still around, yet alone still making such fucking cool sounds.
All these Beastie Boys reissues are reminding us just how damn good and timeless this stuff sounded and STILL sounds. With the utmost love and respect for classic hip-hop culture, the Beastie Boys managed to be pioneers as well, infusing elements of punk, rare groove, Latin music, and even Tuvan influences into their sound, resulting in this classic album, originally released in 1994.
In an age where bands seem to release a new record every few months, one of the strengths of the Beastie Boys, and no doubt a key component to their incredible sound, was that they've always given themselves ample time to really hash out and construct their records, with always at least a couple years in between releases. And that time and care definitely shows, the sound so layered and lush, so catchy and so totally unique. It had been ages since many of us had listened to Ill Communication but once we threw it on again we were all immediately transported back, to a time where this was all some of us listened to. Hearing it again with fresh ears, it still sounds fantastic, groundbreaking even. A rare example of a group with big time mainstream success but with their musical integrity fully intact.
The cd version of this comes with a bonus disc of remixes and a few live tracks. The vinyl version is a double lp, remastered and pressed on 180 gram vinyl.
Whoa, it's been twenty years since Paul's Boutique came out!!?? 20th anniversary records are usually for bands like Chicago or Journey or Led Zeppelin, but we guess it's just another sign that we're getting older, as all of us remember buying this record the first time around, many of us on cassette, and playing the shit out of it for years and years. While the Beastie Boys were bratty, obnoxious and fun on their debut License To Ill, they didn't really show us what the were capable of until this follow up which kind of flopped commercially when it first came out, but now is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative hip-hop records and dense sampling tour de forces of all time. For so many of us who were pretty young when this came out, many of the many, many songs sampled on Paul's Boutique were unknown to us beyond the Sample. It wouldn't be 'til we grew up a bit that it became easier to place 'em all (Johnny Cash, Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, The Sweet, etc.). Of course producers The Dust brothers are due their share of the credit.
Paul's Boutique is like THE classic example of postmodernism at its most fun and creative. Taking bits and pieces of popular culture from the past and present, Paul's Boutique was jammed with so many rad obscure references in the clever lyrics as well as thick and bouncing beats and those now so recognizable MC personas. Several years before Beck was genre flipping and DJ Shadow was crate digging, this record set the blueprint for so much of the adventurous pop, hip-hop and electronica to follow. We can't help but get nostalgic when we listen to this now. So many memories... Skipping school for the first time, blasting the cassette on our brother's stereo when he was at his friend's house, forcing our folks to hear it over and over as we rode shotgun in the car. This is a record that so many of us grew up on and a disc that most definitely helped open our eyes and ears to the amazing lineage of hip-hop, funk, soul, rock etc. that the Beastie Boys were using as not just sound sources, but also for inspiration. They showed how wit and humor could be blended into music that was also smart and serious, and with a broad and complex sonic scope. While frat boys and squareheads may have ruined The Beastie Boys for some, you can never totally blame a band for their fans, and just because this record has been blasting in dorm rooms for the last 20 years doesn't mean it's not an amazing piece of music...because it is! The cd reissue features a pull out mini poster of the full artwork (much more than is on the cover), the lp folds out as a massive multiple gatefold, both versions include links to download some band commentaries.
We made the last Francis Bebey compilation from the Born Bad label, African Electronic Music 1975-1982 our Record of The Week back in 2012 (was it really 62 lists ago? Geez!). Yet, as much as love this Cameroonian musician and composer, if this new compilation was somehow more of the same, we wonder if we would bestow it the same honor. Hmmm... Guess the point we're trying to make is that this new compilation, Psychedelic Sanza 1982-1984 is an altogether different but equally amazing collection, the sound well removed from the electronic afro-pop of its predecessor. Why is that? Well. it helps to know that the sanza is an African thumb piano, also known as the mbira or kalimba, among many other names, depending upon region and design, and this compilation focuses specifically on the hypnotic ethereal music Bebey made with this instrument. Seriously, ever since the first compilation was released we've been hoping one would come out documenting this subsequent period as these are some of our very favorite recordings by Bebey. Music that is so incredibly groovy, but distinctly otherworldly, moving and hauntingly transportive that we HAD to make this one Record of the Week as well!
Compiled from recordings released on the Ozileka and Original Music labels from 1982-1984, Bebey's sanza recordings are less pop structured and more tribal and rhythmic, enhanced by loping funk-driven basslines and propulsive percussion. Yet despite their funkiness, they mark a more serious side of musical study away from the humorous pop songs Bebey became famous for and into a more tonal world of ethnological polyphony. The tonal range of the sanza doesn't adhere neatly to Western tuning standards either, adding a kind of mystical quality to the overall song structure, like a primitive version of minimalist composition. There's a dreamier element as well, as the fuzzy metallic bell tones of the sanza coalesce into mesmerizing whorls of sound with Bebey's voice floating above, sometimes in keening wordless bird calls of sound or deeply sustained ragged warbles. In others, Bebey sings alternately in French, English and Duala, sometimes spoken English like in "Forest Nativity" about a jungle child born to conquer wickedness, or in beautiful heartfelt laments like the french-sung "Sanza Tristesse".
The only liner notes provided are a remembrance by Bebey's son Patrick who recalls his initial misgivings with the instrument because he was trained on piano and the sanza never sounded right. Yet eventually his father won him over by gently prodding him to play and see what he could do with it. He writes, "Playing the sansa, you enter a world that enraptures you in a very serene and mesmerizing way. I think its sounds evoke a rainbow, with rain falling while the sun shines. A very peaceful feeling. It allows you to make music that truly sounds like life." Indeed!
Both the cd and vinyl beautifully packaged with incredible cover art, the lp pressed on nice thick vinyl, though unfortunately there's no download code.
Through all the genre's he's dabbled in, all the concepts he's fucked with, all the hits he's had, for many of us the story of Beck begins and ends with One Foot In The Grave. Recorded months before Mellow Gold, which ended up being released before it and turned Beck into a poster boy for the '90s alternative-nation, One Foot In The Grave is Beck's most stripped down, raw and impacting album. And a long time favorite of most folks around here.
Recorded by Calvin Johnson at Dub Narcotic Studios and released on K, this record shared much more in common with the humble raw sounds of the underground then it did videos on MTV, glossy photos shoots and all that would follow. The whole world seemed focused on "Loser" and and all the bullshit that came with Beck's sudden ascent to superstar status, but this record was proof that beneath it all was an amazing songwriter and a fantastic singer. While a stripped down lo-fi folksy/bluesy record sounds like such an ordinary thing now, back in the early '90s there really wasn't much of this going on. This was a decade before indie-folk would blow up big, it was the same year that Elliott Smith released his first solo album, the beginnings of a new burst of indie minded souls making folk music in a truly unique way. One Foot In The Grave was one of those records that kicked our asses, a record we could totally connect to, a record that we listened to ENDLESSLY. There weren't many singer songwriters around at the time who seemed to bring real grit to their sound, or who had any sort of unique perspective. Beck then was someone who you could tell loved Sonic Youth, Beat Happening and Neil Young, and was just sort of making real heartfelt songs, songs that sounded like they were being performed around a campfire, just us and beck, making s'mores, telling ghost stories and singing songs.
Rustic and haunting, simple and strong, One Foot In The Grave still sounds so great after all these years, and still manages to be the best sounding Beck record, even considering everything that came after!!
This reissue comes with sixteen bonus tracks (thirteen of which have never been released!)
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!
Anyone responsible for helping make such stunning sounds over the years with Stars Of The Lid definitely demands our undivided attention with any other related project or band. So when we heard that Brian McBride of Stars Of The Lid had a new band with Kenneth Gibson of Furry Things, we knew we needed to check it out. With a large ensemble backing them up, the two have crafted an immaculate orchestral pop record, that sounds nothing like any of their previous bands, but proving that McBride is a master of creating such beautiful and moving sounds no matter what shape or genre he is working with. Imagine the dreamiest version of The Byrds, the emotional impact of Elliott Smith, the most seductive elements of the Beach Boys, the shoegaze country vibes of Mojave 3, and you start to get an idea of the warm sounds that make up this beautiful debut.
Understated yet totally lush and full of soft sweeping melody. There doesn't seem to be a lot of press or hype surrounding this, but under the radar, Bell Gardens have crafted six of the most satisfying songs of the year!
This long time aQ favorite, finally back in stock!
Another solo outing from a member of the mighty Lungfish, and another disc of looped repetitive transcendental mesmer. First Daniel Higgs, then Asa Osborne's Zomes, and now Nathan Bell, how these guys ever put together an actual ROCK band we'll never know, we'll blame it on the drummer for now, at least until he comes out with some insane raga drone solo record, then we just give up.
It makes sense though as Lungfish songs weren't like normal songs, they were like minimal loops writ large, expanded into hypnotic epics, the band locked into an incredible groove, while Higgs does his thing over the top. But it becomes more and more apparent, that all the various members of Lungfish had a thing for minimalism, for drones, ragas, for repetition, and thus we have Nathan Bell's @2640. Recorded in a massive crumbling old cathedral, plugged into a blown out amplifier, these four tracks, while played on the banjo, don't sound country, or bluegrass, or even remotely twangy, in fact they don't really sound like they were played on a banjo. The notes have a sharp attack and a quick decay, but the massive space helps them stay afloat a bit longer than normal, Bell's arrangements and compositions offering nods to Reich and Riley, the pieces nearly static, a simple melody wound up within the endless repetition. So simple and gorgeous and absolutely mesmerizing. If you dug the Higgs solo records and the Zomes, you pretty much need this too.
Limited cd-r, in a hand screened fold over cardstock sleeve with a printed insert. And of course, as always LIMITED!
For some of us, Belle And Sebastian are one of the only bands that have been a constant in our lives for the last fifteen years. So listening to them always takes on extra weight as we immediately are flooded with so many memories when we hear their delicate and exquisitely constructed bittersweet pop songs. Seeing them live just a couple weeks ago we were reminded just how many life defining and moment-capturing songs they've created over the years with an ease and breeze that so many have tried to emulate but always seem to come up short. During that live set we got to hear several of the songs that are on Write About Love for the first time and it made us very excited for the album.
Like all Belle And Sebastian albums, it's hard to write about this new one without spending tons of time with it as they really are a band who make records for the long haul. As all their records have left a mark on us even if at first we didn't think we were as in love with it as the one before.
Write About Love is a nice mixture of the slower side of the band as well as a few totally sugary and catchy songs that we have been humming non stop since we got this in. The record does make us miss Isobel Campbell, as a couple of the female led tracks just aren't as special as when they were being sung by her. But we know that so many of these songs will become totally ingrained in helping cue so many future memories of romance, friendships, lazy rainy days, and sun soaked adventures. (FYI, vinyl being repressed, probably back in stock next week.)
There are certain sounds we can just never get enough of. Belong have always trafficked in one of those sounds, a blurred, bleary washed out droney, druggy drift, everything hazy and gauzy and pixelated, crumbling melodies, slow shifting textures, like old pop songs broadcast through broken transistor radios, or alien transmissions distorted by millions of miles of space and millions of years, every song some sort of dizzyingly smeared blown out, hushed and haunting dronescape, all thrum and shimmer, rumble and whir. It's a sound practiced by others for sure, but there is most definitely a pantheon, a royalty of sorts, and alongside Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck and few others, so too do sit Belong.
It's been maybe 5 years since their last proper full length, the gloriously abstract and distorted loveliness that was October Language, and since then, they've released a single 4 song ep, a record of covers, but of course utterly transformed, the very poppiness of the originals buried underneath layer upon layer of murk and grim and buzz and crunch, and again all stretched and blurred and smeared into these fantastical miniature epics, these avant pop flecked drones, warm and whirling and completely mesmerizing.
Looking back now, listening to Common Era, Belong's brand new full length, it's easy to say, that those covers were already hinting at a sonic shift, a move toward something more traditionally pop, a gradual approach to something more structured, more overtly pop, but the 'pop' of those songs is WAY removed from the pop found here, for Common Era has taken all that fantastic shoegaziness and shimmery ambience, and wrapped it around real and proper pop songs. Simple propulsive percussion, minimal guitar jangle, swaths of swirling keyboards, hushed breathy vox, everything reverbed and echoey and washed out, a sort of eighties style new wave minimal pop, but of course in the hands of Belong, it becomes something more ethereal, ghostly, ephemeral, druggy and dreamy.
Imagine My Bloody Valentine crossed with Tim Hecker crossed with Felt, maybe stir in some of Ariel Pink's idiosyncratic faux FM radio pop, and that's these perfect abstract, minimal chunks of lilting jangle, often buried in billowing clouds of warm swirling FX and softly distorted shimmer, but just as often, with much of the noisiness peeled back, leaving just some pure pop, and even then, it's muted and muddied, like it's being broadcast from some rift in time, a sort of blurred transmission from the past, pretty fantastic. Some of the tracks get downright spacey too, a sort of kraut flecked hypnorock, the takes the minimal repetitive psych of groups like Moon Duo or Wooden Shjips, and slathers on tons more echo and reverb, wreaths everything in blurred synth swirls, and fuzzy low end pulses, and lets the songs just sort of ooze and drift and hover, gradually becoming less and less pop, and more loose and abstract and woozy and washed out and dreamy. But ALL the tracks on Common Era never fully give up the pop. For all the droniness, and the minimal FX drenched soundscapery, this is essentially a gorgeous, albeit, strange and mysterious, pop record.
The funny thing is, since these guys are on Kranky, and their last few records were more minimal and droney and avant, this record will essentially be considered art, a sort of high brow minimalist pop music, or some sort of dronepop, and so, of course, all the folks who love everything Kranky, will no doubt dig this like crazy, as they should. But had this been a super limited cd-r, or been released on Not Not Fun or maybe Olde English Spelling Bee, this would be hailed as THEE lysergic lo-fi minimal bedroom pop jam of the year. WHICH IT IS. Too. In fact, Belong have managed to somehow make a record that's both a strange druggy lo-fi pop record, and a super abstract avant bit of poppy droney prettiness. And we LOVE it.
One of the more understated figures in Tropicalia gets one of his best but equally understated albums reissued. Forca Bruta, from 1970, didn't yield any of the hits he was known for such as "Chove Chuva", "Mas Que Nada" or "Umbabarauma", but it's still one of his best collections of songs. Backed by Trio Mocoto, who accompanied Ben through many of his biggest hits, Forca Bruta is a more mellow groover of samba soul that despite its simpler acoustic arrangements packs a powerful punch with some seriously amazing musicianship. Ben wasn't as radical a political figure as his compatriots Gilberto Gil or Caetano Veloso, but was instrumental in importing West African rhythm influences into his music which was influential in both Veloso's and Gil's musical development. Awesome reissue, highly recommended!
It's finally here, the debut from Cali sunshine retro poppers Best Coast, and as much as all the internet hype might make you want to think otherwise, it's just as good as they all say. The seven inches we've heard definitely already had us hankering for a full length, and as much as we dug those singles, the band has benefited big time from some serious production upgrade, the sound on Crazy For you finally realizes their potential. All the comparisons to Spector's wall of sound and sixties girl groups, now totally make even more sense, the sound here is totally timeless, fuzzy and reverby, like a treasure trove of rare sixties 7"s, but at the same time lush and lustrous and subtly modern, the guitars warm and liquid, and the vocals, wow, Bethany Cosentino manages to channel every torch singer and chanteuse that she was ever inspired by, her voice rich and smokey and passionate, every line sung with such conviction, the songs melancholic and wistful, a heartbroken longing infusing the sad songs, a pure unfettered joy, and enthusiasm for all the little things, sunshine, love, friendship, oozing from the happy ones, the drums simple and propulsive, the background vocals soft focus clouds of oooohs and aaaahs, Bobb Bruno's understated guitar parts sealing the deal, mirroring the vocal melodies but occasionally spiralling off into soft psychedelic swirls, and the songs, the songs are so good, catchy and fun, and dreamy and heartfelt, and like the sound, totally timeless, opener "Boyfriend" is an instant classic, the melody utterly beguiling, the perfect encapsulation of what Best Coast do so well, right down to Bruno's minimal leads, which perfectly compliment Cosentino's harmonies, the soaring chorus, and the simple propulsive rhythm that drives the song. "The title track is another practically perfect summer pop gem, more jangly and driving, like a sixties girl group jam as interpreted by vintage Unrest, more oooh and ahhhs, and plenty more hooks. The whole record is overflowing with perfect pop, with summery vibes, everything you could possibly want from a feel good pop record. And while they last, we have the version that tacks on the bonus track "When I'm With You", the closest thing the band has to a 'hit', a woozy, soporific intro, quickly exploding into a gloriously infectious pound, the main melody so awesome, and the chorus, a stone cold killer, the harmonies, the arrangement, the fuzzy guitars, the drums, everything. Perfect. Yeah okay, we totally love this record. Like crazy, and we're pretty sure you will too.
We've been trying to get a hold of any Best Coast records, but damn has it been near impossible. With a handful of very limited 7"s under their belts the excitement and deserved buzz about this West coast duo featuring Bethany Cosentino (Pocahaunted) and Bobb Bruno (The For Carnation, Polar Goldie Cats, Goliath Bird Eater) seems based entirely around the fact that these noiseniks make completely infectious pop music that is unlike any of their past bands. But rightfully so, cuz this stuff is fantastic!
Luckily a small number of this great 7" has finally been repressed so we can finally review it and gush about what perfect sun soaked breezy and infectious girl group inspired garage pop this duo whip up (and be sure to check out the new cd ep elsewhere on this week's list!). "Sun Was High (So Was I)" is one of those totally made for 7" songs as you can't help but want to play that side over and over. A laid back washed out anthem, like a DIY stripped down Go-Go's. The B-side features "So Gone" which has an awesome dreamy and fuzzy vibe reminiscent of The Breeders, and the record is rounded out with an awesome cover of Lesley Gore's "That's The Way Boys Are" which is bubble gum girl group perfection filtered through a golden Southern California haze. So good! Grab it while we've still got 'em!
