There has been no shortage of obscure '80s synth-wave reissues in the last several years. Most of them super cool, and while they all have an awesome sound and aesthetic, it's becoming more rare for them to be records that you actually want to listen to over and over and over. That said, this awesome reissue of the 1984 and 1985 eps by this Spanish band, Vocoder, has been hitting the spot big time, with not only a cool sound and style but actual fun and infectious songs that we've been blasting super loud on neverending repeat.
Vocoder have a seriously hi-NRG sensibility balanced by robotic dance grooves and a sassy / peppy vibe that makes these jams pretty irresistible. Maybe what Ruth or Gina X would sound like, brightened and tweaked by the hands of Patrick Cowley. The sounds of Vocoder offer this wonderful glimpse into the crossroads of a colder, still Kraftwerkian aesthetic merged with the Europop dance music craze that would be emerging several years later. But somehow Vocoder are way more fun and catchy then so many of the colder synth wave bands of their time and so much more rewarding and challenging than the more polished Europop that would dominate the airwaves after Vocoder had called it a day. While playing this in the store while we write this review, three different customers came running up to the counter asking what it was, and all three of them were shopping in different areas/genres of the store, always foolproof evidence that a record is seriously fucking cool!
2006 was a banner year for amazing Tropicalia reissues. Records by the likes of Som Imaginario, Alceu Valenca & Gerardo Azevedo, Marconi Notaro, Luis Eca, Rubinho e Mauro Assumpcao and Paulo Bagunca kept us feeling warm and fuzzy all year long. Discos Mariposa has become the label to turn to for amazing long lost Tropicalia as as they were the ones responsible for many of our favorite Brazilian reissues from the last year. It looks like 2007 may offer another exciting slew of Tropicalia rediscoveries for us as we began the year getting to know the music of Ronnie Von. A star of song and the small screen in Brazil for the last four decades, Von made his first television appearance in 1965 on the TV show the Brazilian Beatles Club. Von would perform live on various variety shows and cut records that sold quite well. His show The Small World Of Ronnie Von helped give a wider audience and launch careers for folks like Os Mutantes, Martinha and Gal Costa. But beyond just having such good taste, his own music is so so delightful. His vocals are so effortless and breezy. You can't help but wish you were soaking in the sun and daydreaming the afternoon away when you hear the songs on this collection. He's been backed by members of Os Mutantes and even collaborated with Caetano Veloso. Even after being struck by polio he's fought off illness and continues to be a staple of Brazilian television, the big screen and now more of us finally get to hear his great sounds!
Words can't describe how fuckin' happy we are to see this! Finally, The VSS's long out of print (and pretty hard to track down even when it was in print!) 1997 album Nervous Circuits has been remastered and reissued... and how! The new edition is bursting at the seams in sound and visuals with tons of bonus historical documentation packed on the cd and dvd!
The VSS = a short-lived yet incredibly influential and genre defining band from Southern California / Colorado in the mid-90s.
The VSS = Josh Hughes' deeply textured apocalyptic air-raid guitars, Andy Rothbard's lithe double fisting of snaking bass guitar and Juno 60 synthesizer, Dave Clifford's fevered muscular drumming, and Sonny Kay's clenched spewed vocals delivering cryptic wordplay and caustic socio-politically charged lyrics (mind you, due to his impassioned expulsionary singing style they're pretty unintelligible, you'll need to refer to the lyric sheet!).
The members of The VSS surfaced from the ashes of legendary post-punk band Angel Hair, burned incredibly hot and bright for only a couple years, and then later went on to other mighty bands Slaves, Pleasure Forever, Year Future, Rabbits, Red Sparowes and solo projects (Andrew Douglas Rothbard!) and an independent record label (Gold Standard Laboratories).
These days on paper, the marriage of post-punk, hardcore, synth-wave, electronic rock and metal is nothing short of commonplace. It's become a hip lifestyle genre, but this wasn't the case back then. And even so, this album still sounds fresh and immediate eleven years after its original release! Seeming at once wild and untethered and totally in control, it's a remarkably composed aural assault with plenty of quick shifts in mood, atmosphere and tempo that still stands head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.
The dvd offers what criminally few were able to witness in person back in the day... a young band who absolutely slayed in the live setting! There's nine song clips from various stops on their '97 U.S. tour as well as three sets in Brooklyn (six songs), Boulder (seven songs) and Berkeley (four songs). Be forewarned though, the quality of a lot of the footage is pretty poor -- having been culled from many fans' handheld home camcorder vhs tapes -- but our eyes have become accustomed to this sort of grainy, shaky stew a la murky cellphone-shot YouTube clips. Nevertheless a welcome electrically charged video document.
Yeah, definitely recommended!
New on John Dwyer's Castle Face label, the debut from W-X, which is actually the brilliant Tim Presley from garage popsters White Fence doing a wonderfully f'd up, sprawling solo set that's a messy lo-fi explosion of quirky, catchy, electronics-distorted grooves not entirely unlike John Dwyer's own Damaged Bug project. Full of bizarre, beat-heavy, echoing FX-laden foot tappers galore, from 16 second snippets to super stoned sounding songs, the album's an off-kilter jimble-jumble of damaged loops and sunny jangle, like riding on some crazed carousel. Real nice, fun and freaky.
It's been about three years since Rufus Wainwright released a proper album, but the wait seems to have been worth it, with possibly his most emotionally engaging and honest record yet.
Way stripped down, the entire album is just Rufus and piano. There is a stark and poetic nature to these songs that find him being a bit less snarky and clever than in the past instead opting for something more bare, mournful and sincere. We have always loved Wainwright's records, and are always in awe of his grandiose arrangements, but it's so cool how even with just his voice and piano he is still able to create such elaborate and interesting songs. We're also struck with what an amazing pianist he is, his playing both sparse and dizzying, lush and intricate, subtle and melodic. At times it's almost like this amazing version of piano virtuoso Lubomyr Melnyk joined by Scott Walker or Leonard Cohen. It's always a good sign when you can't think of many contemporary peers an artist has, showing how unique and singular their vision is. Besides maybe Antony & The Johnsons and Fiona Apple (by the way where are you Fiona, we miss you!!!) we can't think of many modern folks who have the same kind of talent and ability to create such dynamic and emotional songs.
And while on past efforts, there was usually always a song or two that try to get all rock and always seem a bit forced and out of place, on this album with only him and piano, there is no room for rock n' roll posturing, as he really zones in to what is at the core of his songwriting. Emotional, dramatic and richly crafted songs that have the power to leave you frozen in your tracks as you sit stunned and moved by these songs' bold and devastating honesty.
You may or may not have noticed that everytime we review anything by Peter Walker, it's always sort of in the tone of yeah, we like the new stuff, but come on, really, please reissue the old stuff!!! And while his two amazing records on Vanguard in the sixties remain bafflingly un-reissued, we can finally give you a taste of what we've been jonesing for. These recently unearthed recordings from 1970 were Walker's last recorded effort before facing "years of obscurity". Gathering a group of session players in Woodstock, NY at the home of Levon Helm (while Helm was away), Walker recorded these loose raga jams with tablas, flute, clarinet, bells, bass, and trap drums. These long-form meditative grooves are probably the best recorded insight into the sounds of Timothy Leary's Celebration gatherings at Harvard of which Walker was the musical director. Spiraling and trance-inducing, built on Eastern modal progressions, with flute and clarinet weaving throughout. Really beautiful! We're very thankful that the label head of Tompkins Square, Josh Rosenthal, managed to convince Walker to dig through his storage vaults and unearth this lost session. We want more!
The hazy and washed out cover art caught our eye but the sounds that came pouring out of the speakers is what won us over right away. Shoegaze blissed out electronics that seem to float in the clouds but also have a keen sense of melody. Walls definitely remind us a lot of that cool Morr music compilation of Slowdive covers that came out years ago, as it really does sound like our dreamy electronic based favorites tapping into the mesmerizing world of shoegaze greats like Slowdive, or the more celestial moments of Flying Saucer Attack's masterpiece Further.
Blissy blurry guitars and smeared murky vox buried in the mix on a few tracks, it all makes for such a perfect sun soaked sound. These songs swirl and flow with such ease yet it never turns into wallpaper as there is an understanding of creating actual songs and nice moments of subtle tension that give the record a rounded and utterly satisfying feel. Like an even more blissed out Infinite Body or our favorite outings by Ulrich Schnauss, or even what could happen if Panda Bear let go of his Beach Boys leanings and set his sights to a more soaring shimmery sound. This is turning into a major candidate for dreamiest record of the year!
Our Reggae section is by no means gigantic but we like to think that what we lack in quantity we make up in quality. But one thing that is apparent about our reggae section is that it's all about the classics and it's very rare that we hear newly recorded reggae that sounds as good to our ears as the old stuff. Sadly most new reggae (even by those who once delivered the good stuff) is riddled with cheesy keyboards and ultra-slick production while most newer dub is plagued by a generic paint-by-numbers ambience that lacks the grit and guts of what makes roots reggae and classic dub so special. So we were super psyched to find out that this Wareika Hill Sounds record we've been falling in love with was not some classic reissue as we first thought because of its totally warm and authentic sound, but is in fact a brand new recording by Calvin Cameron, who has played with the likes of Count Ossie's Mystic Revelation and Light of Saba. Smoking dubwise roots reggae that can not be denied! With an element of afrobeat in the fold (Tony Allen even makes an appearance!), there is a warmth and strength in these songs that has kept us coming back to this record over and over again. By far our favorite new reggae recording in a long time!
Oh yeah! The Guerssen label strikes gold again with another rad reissue of totally obscure psych-pop, this time out of France, circa 1975. Unless you're one of the two hundred people who actually got a copy of this private press record the first time around there is no way you (like us) have ever heard Warlus before. The timing couldn't be better on this reissue, as its stoned and breezy sounds would be so at home in today's underground. Imagine if Ariel Pink or Kurt Vile were coming of age in the '70s, this might be the home recording they would have made. We also hear hints of the more stoned and drifty side of Thee Oh Sees, even.
While this duo were French they sang in English and this, combined with the group's lo-fi and D.I.Y aesthetic, makes Walrus sound almost like some kind of amazing proto-Shrimper release. We're reminded of the psych-pop of Roger Rodier and, at times this makes us imagine a more melodic Jandek joining forces with fellow outsider Bob Trimble, covering Kinks songs! Or something equally awesome. The songs are intimate and woozy, with nice sound experiments sprinkled throughout. We've been hooked on this the second we heard it. Highly recommended!
It's been ages since we've seen folks freaking out and getting so excited about a record months before it was even released. But that's exactly what happened with this 12" by Washed Out. And while we tend to be a bit skeptical of blog-hype we have to say we whole heartedly agree with all the excitement surrounding Washed Out, because they/he do deliver, and what they deliver is some fantastic and infectious terminally chill pop.
The name Washed Out suits the sound so perfectly as the six songs on Life Of Leisure really do sound like some amazing washed out version of New Order, or Ariel Pink if he wore all white and cranked out a bunch of covers of Hacienda classics. Much like the Neon Indian record we recently raved about, Washed Out operates in that same realm of faded 80's nostalgia, and Ernest Greene's vocals are so casually seductive and smooth. Kind of like the male equivalent to the slow burning bedroom jams of Nite Jewel or a way stoned Cut Copy.
One of our customers said this was like the ultimate make out jam or post-sex chill out record and we can't really argue with that. Unless you were one of the lucky few to grab one of the crazy limited cassettes this is probably the first chance to get a physical copy of Washed Out songs and all six of the tracks on here are totally great (not a bummer in the bunch) and it also comes with a digital download. These might not last long so you know what to do......
The bands that you really end up loving and having life long relationships with are often the bands who you follow through all their incarnations, from their most primitive and noisy to when they flesh out and refine their sound, removing all the extraneous layers and creating something seemingly far removed from that first chunk of raw sound, but in reality, to you, it's just another side of that amazing artist. And it's the bands who you love in all their various sonic shadings and with all the twists and turns that become the ones who are the soundtracks to our lives. Guided By Voices, Pavement, Jawbreaker, all bands who we have loved from their sloppiest and most raw incarnations to their most poppy and catchy outings.
Wavves seem to be on the way to joining that elite crew. After unleashing two smoking records of way blown out garage pop burners, Nathan Williams has returned with a much more refined, up front and catchy gem of a pop record. As much as we loved the sound and aesthetic of the first two Wavves records we knew that the reason it struck such a chord with us was because we could tell this was a kid who had the gift of writing memorable and catchy pop songs, no matter how obscured those songs were by fuzz and crunch.
King Of The Beach ditches most of the blown out distortion and trades it in for even more colorful hooks, addictive melodies and songs that will be stuck in our heads for the rest of the summer and beyond. It's not like it's all totally slick or overproduced, in fact there is a really cool washed out sound that glides through much of the record, but instead of it being about going all into the red, it flows more freely, creating a perfect beachside vibe of an album. Williams is still singing about boredom, girls, the betrayal of friends, being a fuck up, etc., all long standing ingredients for some of the best mischievous pop of all time.
It hit us the other day why we love this record. It reminds us so much of so many of our favorite bands who injected punk spirit into such memorable pop songs. Bands like The Descendents, Screeching Weasel and Lifetime, who represented the great possibility of pop-punk. There is that same kind of impassioned, snotty, smart and spirited side to King Of The Beach that's been making us jump up and down in pure wide eyed grinning joy when we listen to it blasting as loud as it can.
The record also offers up the most varied collection yet of Williams' recordings, songs that evoke '50s girl groups, hand clapping head shaking ecstasy and stoned and whirling garage pop ravers. Start to finish this is an undeniably great pop record. Total contender for record of the year!
In the few months since we first gushed about our new found obsession, a weird little buzzy noise pop band called Wavves, it seems like a ton of other folks have been feeling the same way about the urgent, catchy, blown out and energetic sounds this young lad from San Diego has been whipping up. Already following up the great Woodsist debut is a new record on the bigger Fat Possum label, but not to worry the sound is still way blown out and in the red, and the songs still make you wanna sweat and jump and play with your friends in the burning sun. What makes Wavves so great is that they really are drawing from such classic sources yet infusing new life and energy into those sounds. Imagine the best parts of the Beach Boys, the Ramones and the Misfits, all channeled into some buzzy lo-fi shredder and you begin to understand the world Wavves calls home. Since we still have the debut on heavy rotation it caught us a bit off guard to find a brand new full length already, and another self titled one, but we get the feeling that Nate Williams (just 22 years old) is at one of those special creative peaks where songs are just bursting forth with no end in sight. And heck, we're not complaining, not one bit, cause when the songs are this damaged and catchy and kick ass, he can keep cranking them out FOREVER. Here's to a THIRD self titled record, BRING IT ON!!
We've got ourselves a new obsession! We knew very little about Wavves before we put this disc in but oh my god once we did we became so instantly addicted. This is some TOTALLY BLOWN OUT beach party crusty pop that's as bombastic as it is so totally catchy. We think they're from San Diego and that makes perfect sense, cause these songs just make you want to skate and hang out by the ocean getting baked by the sun and throwing caution to the wind. Imagine No Age and Thee Oh Sees collaborating together or what it might sound like to play the Beach Boys and JFA at the same time. This is some seriously gritty grimey pop that makes you glad you still have that shitty car stereo, as this was meant to be blasted in the most lo-fi blown out way possible, while driving around getting lost in these sun soaked washed out anthems. Filled with such contagious youthful exuberance it's making us feel like we're 19 again, in the best possible way.
There is such a bold urgency to this record, it grabs your attention and never lets go and we never want it to. As soon as it's over we pretty much only want to listen to it over and over again. We're reminded a bit of Holy Shit, Abe Vigoda, and the great and often overlooked 90's noise-pop outfit Further. But what makes Wavves so addictive is that they aren't a one trick pony, the few atmospheric electronic interludes and slower spacey tracks are just as potent as their wide eyed and full throttle jams. We've got a feeling there is a great future ahead for Wavves and what a totally awesome way for it to start. So rad!!!
Geez, has it really been 8 years since Gillian Welch last captivated us with a new album? It's hard to believe we've gone on all this time without her darkly bittersweet country-folk songs applying a soothing balm to our troubled souls. But her return to recording couldn't have had better timing as her music, so rooted in Depression-era bluegrass and early country styles, gels so well with our currently dire economic times, offering a gothic and desperate vision of heartbreak, loss and courage that is instantly relatable, yet makes us feel less vulnerable to the harsh cruelties of living that her protagonists endure.
Besides the long gap in time, not much has changed in Welch's (and her musical partner David Rawlings) sound or approach and that is just fine! Keeping the arrangements as stark as ever, there is only acoustic guitar, banjo, harmonicas and some hand and knee slaps along with the couple's peerless vocal harmonies as they waver between fatalistic folk songs, gospel-tinged bluegrass, and murder ballads. This is one of Welch's best records in a discography that has never wavered far from stunning. And speaking of stunning, the cover designed by Baroness singer, John Dyer Baizley is a beautifully unique letterpress print on thick handmade paper stock. A video of how the cover was made can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Mz_imdISk.
Of course long-time fans will want to scoop this up, but if you are new to Welch's haunting and harrowing voice and vision, The Harrow and The Harvest is a good place to start. It's definitely as good as if not better than Time (the Revelator) and Hell Among The Yearlings (our other two favorites of hers), making this absolutely essential!!
There is little doubt that the band behind James Brown from the late sixties to the mid seventies was just about the tightest unit around. Of course, Brown's habit of fining his players for missing beats would keep any band in check. But the band wasn't dubbed The JB's until after a legendary moment where most of Brown's band, including key figures Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, and Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, up and quit on him. Brown, in a pinch, quickly grabbed a young Cincinnati-based backing band, The Pacemakers, which included a young Bootsy Collins before he joined Funkadelic. With a new band, a new decade and a new sound, Brown pretty much singlehandedly created funk music, and the recently defected Wesley, Parker, and Ellis quickly returned to the fold. The JB's went under many different names and line-ups, including Fred Wesley and the JB's, Maceo and The Macks, Fred Wesley and The New JB's. The Last Word, and The First Family, but the core personnel were more or less the same except for the Collins brothers who were only on the first JB's 1970 lp Food For Thought which contained the hits "Pass The Peas" and "Gimme Some More". All of their records up until 1974 are solid funk staples with hits "Doing It To Death", "Same Beat", and "If You Don't Get It Right The First Time, Back It Up and Try It Again, Party" that would be endlessly sampled in hip hop for decades to come. Good to have these on vinyl again! Funk essentials!
Some records are totally unanimous AQ favorites and then there are those times that we are split pretty divisively on something. The latest from Kanye West has both some haters and some big time lovers here at the store. Those who love it (Irwin, especially!) can't get enough of its raw emotion (these are songs recorded after the death of his mother and the breakup of his engagement) and totally stripped down 808 beats that almost sound like they could be at home on a Kraftwerk or Suicide record if it was produced by Timbaland. This time out Kanye isn't rapping as much as he is singing, but knowing he doesn't posses the world's best singing voice he uses a whole lot of auto-tuning on his vocals. That's where those not as in love with the record tend to get turned off as he does use them on almost every track, a la T-Pain, but those who love the record feel that those vocals fit so perfectly in the flashing heart on sleeve feel of the record. Anyone who has recently experienced heartbreak will probably have a much easier time fully surrendering to these songs. It's almost like some kind of electro-emo-hip-hop carried out with such fiery passion and it almost sounds like it was all recorded in his bedroom on an 808 infused with the emotions and dire after-effects of a broken heart. So thumping, electric and pulsating. The record does sound like a heart pulsating with such rapid motion throughout. Give this record a chance, even if you have a hard time with Kanye's huge ego, because under all the bluster and bravado he really is pretty talented!
Chances are you either love to hate him or you hate to love him, but whichever camp you fall in, one thing is for certain... there's no escaping Kanye! One more thing that's for certain? Yeezus is as abrasive, genre-bending and challenging as any record you'll hear this year, mainstream or otherwise. It explodes with the kind of schizophrenic disregard for convention that only the most obsessive and confrontational albums achieve. From the jarring industrial assault of opening track "On Sight" to the sparsely bittersweet soul loop of closer "Bound 2", 'Yeezus' constantly surprises and consistently refuses to compromise. Single "Black Skinhead" is an exhilarating tribal whirlwind built around a '70s glam rock drum stomp. "I Am A God" doesn't sound too far from something the Swans might have come up with circa The Great Annihilator while the menacing dub of "New Slaves" wouldn't sound out of place on a Scorn record. Elsewhere the album flutters between grimy harsh synths, dusty soul, monolithic cinematic orchestral blasts, ethereal ambiance - seemingly all in the span of one song! Vocally the album finds Kanye at his most unrestrained and unrefined, sometimes recalling the guttural stream of consciousness outbursts of Death Grips. Lyrically it's by far his angriest record, pulsing with frustration and rage, tackling everything from race to excess to (very, very graphic) sex. It's not an easy listen but an immensely rewarding one and sure to be one of the more divisive albums of the year. And in our opinion one of the best!
Hell yeah! We knew just a short time ago when we heard their 7" on Captured Tracks, that these females from the UK were going to be a band we were gonna end up digging BIG TIME. With a full length hot on the heels of that 7", we are indeed digging this like crazy, as Frauhaus! is some totally immediate and addicting off-kilter post punk. Taking their love of greats like the Raincoats and The Slits and infusing so much of their own energy, vision and charisma into the songs giving them a very unique sound. In so many ways they feel like the perfect band to carry the torch for the great Erase Errata who sadly seem to have broken up (though we would be thrilled if that wasn't the case!). Herky jerky rhythms, songs that cut out all the fat, yet are full of such melodicism and incredible songwriting chops, something that so many groups who usually pull from similar sources of inspiration seem to be lacking. In fact there are some totally rad moments here that make us think of a scrappy DIY version of The Breeders or a way punkier Electrelane.
It's been so cool to play this record and then figure out what would be so perfect to play afterwards, as you can go in so many directions. We've rocked Chin Chin, Kleenex/Liliput and early Bow Wow Wow right after playing Wetdog and it seems to keep the same energy and spirit going pretty much perfectly. Short but sweet these fourteen tracks clock in at just under a half hour, but every single moment is filled with such energy and exhilaration!
We loved the White Fence record from last year, but nothing could have prepared us for what an amazing slice of warped '60s inspired psych pop they would conjure up on this mind blowing sophomore effort. Recorded with an analog warmth that melts and rocks and is so totally satisfying, overflowing with songs that rife with hooks and charisma galore, keeping us wanting more and more.
While influenced by the sounds of like Syd Barrett, Donovan, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, early Who, The Kinks or some track from a Nuggets compilation that would blow your mind, the secret to White Fence's greatness is that they don't just sound like a band from a different era, but they take some of those elements in creating such a warm and woozy vibe, with a set of songs that's had us under a spell we never want to get out from under. So damn good!
Totally awesome breezy lo-fi garage pop from Los Angeles, that we just can't seem to get enough of. While many of WF's lo-fi counterparts these days are all about fuzz and feedback, White Fence is so much more about infectious songs and deep running melody. Like some lost early recording of Chris Knox covering The Kinks or The Zombies, or imagine The Art Museums if they were a little more washed out and blurred and blissy. Also reminds us a bit of a more focused Ariel Pink, as WF are able to tap into such golden pop tones yet give them a nice warped and lysergic twist. While it's for sure going to get lumped in with a lot of our favorite recent garage pop faves like The Fresh & Onlys, Woods, Hanoi James, etc., there is something very timeless about the songs White Fence create. They could just as easily be lost nuggets from some obscure pastoral psych band out of the UK in the late '60s as it could be a Cherry Red band from the Paisley underground in the '80s, or a young Robert Pollard merging with the Elephant Six collective. For sure a strong outsider pop sound, with hints of Syd Barrett and Bobb Trimble. Bottom line is that this is top quality songwriting delivered in such a satisfying way. So damn good!
Don't think that Make-A-Mess pressed a ton of the vinyl so better act fast. But fear not, there's a cd on Woodsist too.
We love when music is released to perfectly coincide with the season it's being released in. With new records by Richard Youngs, Citay and this new White Magic ep we feel like we are armed with the perfect sound with which to usher in the fall.
We had to wait so long for White Magic's full length after their debut ep, so we're very happy that they'vee quickly followed up that great first album with another e.p. of their dark and hypnotic psychedelic folk. Conjuring the spirit of Karen Dalton and Grace Slick at her most mystifying, Mira Billotte has proven to be one of the most distinctive and compelling voices in the underground music scene over the last decade. Her amazing voice and mesmerizing piano playing are perfectly complimented by the strong presence of her partner in magical musical spells, Douglas Shaw, who wrote and sings on the ep's closer, which is absolutely beautiful.
With songs that sound like they should be performed at some ceremonial ritual, White Magic have carved out a special place for themselves and have proven that long after the whole 'freak folk' hype is dead and gone they will remain, as a band who truly conjure up meaningful songs and remarkable music. While it's just four songs and only about 20 minutes long, Dark Stars might still find its way on some of our top records of '07 lists. So good!
Ever since Mira Billotte hit the scene with her sister Christina in the band Quix*O*Tic several years ago she has been a force to be reckoned with. Blessed with an amazing voice that cuts right through into your soul and gives you goosebumps all over.
Her debut as White Magic, an e.p. titled Through The Sun Door, from a few years back took the more fantastical and ethereal side of Quix*O*Tic to exciting new heights. When White Magic toured for that record on the west coast they opened for Ghost and put on one of the most jaw-dropping performances we had ever seen. To this day, people who were there continue to talk about the fact that they got to witness something so special. Admirers like Joanna Newsom, Vetiver and Brightblack were all in attendance dancing their hearts out to White Magic's rich, commanding sounds. Fast forward a few years and we still only had that great show and that same handful of songs from the e.p. No full length, as well as rumors that there might never be one, and just two new songs on a Tylenol promotional cd (yes the pain medicine), a split with American Analog Set to tide us over. As our patience began to fade, we finally heard the news we had been waiting for, a new full length was on the way. Dat Rosa Mel Apibus is our reward for waiting so long and so patiently. And it was well worth it. With members of The Dirty Three and Gang Gang Dance, Mira was able to craft a record that resonates with a deep strength and an intense presence. The kind of record that is of course fun to listen to, but it's when you really allow yourself to enter its world when the real magic happens. Songs that suck you right into their raging emotional storm. Melodies that wrap themselves around your brain and tie your stomach up in knots. Like Bjork and Joanna Newsom, White Magic possess that same kind of singular voice and vision that makes their songs resonate with a long lasting power and a deep emotional resonance. So good.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Woohooo! A new release of music by Mira Bilotte aka White Magic is always something to celebrate around here and we just got in a handful of her new 4 song ep on cassette. The title track, "I'm Hiding My Nightingale" is of course a cover of the pre-Can group, The Inner Space, featured on the group's soundtrack for the German film, Kamasutra. Featuring Ariel Pink on acoustic guitar, it follows in the tradition of great White Magic covers by Nina Simone, Jefferson Airplane and Karen Dalton. "Runaway" is a beautiful ballad with slow piano builds and echoing vocals. "Mora" is more psychedelic , building upon a repeating vocal loop with hand percussion and shruti box drones while the final track, "Out Beyond The Moon" is a beautifully loping piano vamp, rhythmic and mystical that has us hoping for a new full length soon, as it's been nearly 10 years since her last one. Comes cassingle style with iridescent wraparound cardstock cover. Limited to 300 copies, and we're not sure we'll be able to get more, but there will be a 10" vinyl version coming out in July.
You know you must be just a little bit obsessed and seriously dying for new material by a band when two little songs are more than enough to tide you over! And that's precisely the case with this new 2 song single from White Magic. Their debut (also an ep) came out a few years back (and is now out of print!), and we've been waiting not so patiently for anything, a full length would have been ideal, but we can make do with this kick ass single!
Their debut ep had to be one of the best things EVER on Kill Rock Stars. Mostly the brainchild of Mira Billotte, who spent some time in an equally great band with her sister called Quix*o*tic. Mira has one of the most chilling and beautiful voices in indie rock without a doubt. The kind of voice that holds you down and forces you to surrender to its warmth and mystery. While folks like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom have garnered most of the attention, it's only a matter of time before the world catches on to the White Magic.
These two songs are such a gorgeously cruel tease, while we are forced to continue waiting as patiently as we can. The first song is their version of "Katie Cruel", an amazing arrangement of a classic tune by Karen Dalton and it's followed up by "Hold Your Hand In The Dark" a stunning original with immaculate piano playing and once again THAT voice, so effortlessly giving us chills and the grandest of goosebumps.
It's almost impossible to keep ourselves still and write about this new White Magic release as every time we listen to it all we want to do is spin and jump around. We've only had New Egypt in our hands and ears for a week now but we've already lost count of how many times we've pressed repeat to hear this ten minute track over and over again. Like some kind of amazing mantra on love, hope, paranoia and what the future could hold, this is White Magic at their fiery and feverish best!
Taking some of the ingredients of what was previously our favorite White Magic song "One-Note" from their Through The Sun Door debut over four years ago and stretching it out with even more dynamics, more fire and a dizzying spell that casts its magic in such physical ways. What separates White Magic from the psychedelic folk masses is that they create music that actually creates a strong physical sensation as well as tapping into emotional realms. It's impossible to listen to "New Egypt" and not have your body start responding physically to the sounds, it's perfect for strapping on headphones and taking on the city and walking faster and with more purpose than ever before.
We'd been hearing that this was supposed to come out for several months, but somehow the timing of it finally arriving now seems so perfect for the crisp October air, as this really sounds like a ceremonial offering to the season of fall. There is a flame ignited at the core of what White Magic creates that's truly connected to all the Earth elements while still inhabiting a space that's filled with intriguing mystique. Make sure to play this one loud as we've found it resonates with such striking glory when it blasts through our skin and inhabits both the inner and outer realms of our psyche.
Packaged with the latitudes series usual classy cardboard aesthetic with a gold embossed pyramid on the cover giving a clue to the transcendental song that is within! While this one is a bit pricey for its length coming it at over a dollar a minute, the song makes that math equation a no-brainer as it really is a priceless gem!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
White Noise's first album has long been one of the holy grails for kosmische / space rock collectors. Kinda strange, actually, because it's actually more on the "exotica" Moog side of things, as opposed to a Klaus Schulze or Conrad Schnitzler production... Released in 1968 on Island in a total vacuum, An Electric Storm could be a Perrey & Kingsley soundtrack to a Radley Metzger soft-core porn film with twee psych-pop vocal melodies (a la Beach Boys, Free Design, Monkees) topped off with lots of bizarre electronic squiggles that originated in the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop (home of the Dr. Who title track). White Noise's mastermind David Vorhaus keeps things pretty surreal with a track based around the recordings made at a orgy and with a precursor to the John Balance vocal mumbles about how "darkness was enshrouded by darkness and the darkness was deadeningly dark."
There must be fluorescent paintings of ladybugs, dancing mushrooms, and the beaming smile of an anthropomorphized sun adorning the walls of Crystal Dorval's bedroom, where she's been dashing off charmingly, disheveled bliss-pop tunes as White Poppy, which eventually caught the sympathetic ears at Not Not Fun. If not, her bright psychedelia oozes with acid-kissed warmth would be well served by such confines. It's definitely a vivid, touchy-feely and eye-dilating psychotropic drug that is Dorval's choice and not really the opiated stupor her moniker alludes to. The swirling spaced-out pop songs that drift through her eponymous album are graced with titles like "Skygaze," "Dizzy," and "Joyride" all of which are nearly onomatopoetic in describing what you'll hear. Although it does have to be said, she pens a track called "Existential Angst" which is anything but. Oh well. On some of her tracks, she adopts the drugged out, loop-station hypnosis that wouldn't stray far from the orbit of Motion Sickness Of Time Travel's electronic miasma; but Dorval is at her best when she deconstructs the bittersweetness of girl-group, fuzztone pop into a deliriously catchy and happily acid-damaged version of the Cocteau Twins. Yup, hypnogogic pop at its finest, right up there with Peaking Lights, if you ask us.
Recently, through several friends of aQ, we've been introduced to a bunch of really cool indie rock from China, Boyz & Girl (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Pairs, Snapline, Mr. Graceless, Carsick Cars, Duck Fight Goose, but the one that really grabbed us the most was this one right here, the oddly monikered White+, which is in fact not really indie rock at all, but is in fact an experimental offshoot of the Chinese indie rock group Carsick Cars. This duo describe themselves as being a "hardware electronica band", although the friend who turned us on to these guys, described them as sounding like Neu! crossed with Yellow Magic Orchestra, which thankfully is pretty dang accurate. Utilizing a set up of customized keyboards, pedals, samplers, loops and live drums (and the occasional bit of spare ethereal vocals), White+ lay down some droned out, super mesmerizing, darkly motorik krautrock influenced electronic hypnorock, that sounds like a weird hybrid of Circle, the Boredoms and Fabulous Diamonds, or something like that, just check out the opening track here. A cascade of skittering programmed beats, looped and layered, chopped and collaged voices, live tribal drums, swirling electronics, dizzying FX, the sounds warped and constantly shifting speed, the vocals processed into strange streaks of psychedelic melody, the various other loops slipping from crunchy chug, to spaced out shimmer, the whole track churning and propulsive and utterly hypnotic. The second track is where the Neu! first pops up and shines through big time, the band locked into a serious psych-kraut groove, a sound that positions these guys squarely in the current movement of kraut-psych space rock revisionists, but their sound is definitely more electronic, and much more beholden to classic krautrock, albeit here wreathed in psychedelic effects and layered with warm washes of keyboard melody, not to mention clouds of swirling FX.
And here's where we'd usually say something like "and that's how it goes from there on out", but these guys aren't so simple to peg. The next track takes seriously driving drums, and adds some electronic bagpipe sounding synths, the result some twisted Amps For Christ / Maserati hybrid, with brief bursts of twisted FX heavy warpage, where the sound slips into near Aphex Twin territory.
From there on out, all bets are off, bloopy and bleepy, skittery and playful one moment, all lilting melodies, and hazy dreamlike kraut-age shimmer, brooding buzz drifting atop wild dense drum damage the next, all supporting soaring echo drenched vocals, the vibe ritualistic and trance-like, definitely a sound that fits perfectly alongside modern day Boredoms. The live drums are really what make the band, even the most ethereal sprawl of soft focus electronic ambience, takes on a whole new vibe when anchored by some pounding rhythms, and the mix of programmed beats and real drums makes for a heady rhythmic concoction, with the surrounding sounds just as compelling, equal parts melodic pulsation, kosmische cascade, and tripped out sonic swirl, some tracks sounding like a full on, heavy as hell hypnorock band, others like ultra abstract avant kraut experiments, the vocals transforming some of the tracks into near popsongs, but more often than not, the vocals splinter and are transformed into something more textural or rhythmic, the song following suit, taking that pop element and wedding it to something much more abstract and psychedelic.
A unanimous new aQ favorite, and literally every time we play this in the store, we sell a copy! We have a whole bunch, but when we sell out, we'll have to get more from China, so might take a couple weeks. Needless to say, grab one NOW! Super deluxe packaging too, sweet design, massive booklet, obi, etc.
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While Erlend Oye is best known for his band Kings Of Convenience, there is something truly special that happens when he records under the Whitest Boy Alive moniker, cranking out some of the most infectious, breezy and immaculate sounding pop songs we've heard. His second album as The Whitest Boy Alive is just as potent as the debut we fell in love with a couple years back.
Breezing along somewhere between The Sea & Cake and The Junior Boys but somehow pretty much blowing both of those bands away in the way he creates songs that float with such ease yet have such solid impact, rife with sentiments that ring with such subtle truth. While it's not a surprise to have pop songs that deal with the nuance of human relationships and heartbreak, it is remarkable when those messages and simple vocal phrases are able to so simply and insightfully speak to universal truths. Oye truly has a way with words, but what makes Rules such a special record is that nothing ever feels forced or out of place, it all flows with such seamless perfection and allows you to skip and dance as your memory spins wildy off in a million different directions. There are so many songs here that have gotten totally stuck in our heads, but they are more than catchy, they are that rare kind of pop song that you actually WANT stuck there in your subconscious, perhaps never to escape. They're just that damn good!
We love how there are songs that take riffs from groups like Daft Punk and make them their own, while at the same time employing a subtle jazz aesthetic in some of the instrumentation that would fail so miserably in other hands but works so perfectly here. We could go on and on, but we'll stop by saying that this is for sure a major contender for pop record of the year!
Sometimes the true test of a record, is how many times you can listen to it in a row, and the first time we threw on the new EP from East Coast dream folk duo Widowspeak, we ended up laying it nonstop for at least an hour. Every time it ended, all we wanted to do was start it over again. Like the Almanac full length before it, The Swamps, is dark and lush and luxurious, the opener, dirgey and swampy, stripped down and wreathed in weird FX and field recordings, but after that, it's back to that fuzzy, dreamy, drifty sound that has us so in love with Almanac. The vocals breath and ethereal, floating above acoustic guitars, minimal percussion, and soft swirls of gauze-y ambience. Hooks galore too, and impossibly lovely vocal harmonies. The slower tracks are definitely reminiscent of Mazzy Star, check out "Calico", all wasted and woozy, and darkly dreamy, a strummy, sun dappled dream-folk dirge. The rest of the ep splits the difference between jangly pop, and more laid back dirge-folk, culminating in the closing title track, which is a haunting backwoods ballad, lush and layered, the music a softly swirling, elegantly strummed backdrop for those angelic vocals. Dreamy. And we're gonna listen to the whole thing, again, right, NOW...
While we have been digging lots of weird and lo-fi pop that's come out in the last few years, there's been a shortage of the kind of dreamy and focused pure pop records that make us wanna swoon for days on end. Luckily that has changed with the debut full length from New York's Widowspeak. We were already pretty much sold when we first heard their 7" earlier in the summer, which featured one track from this record and a Chris Isaak cover(!), but we had no idea that this was going to be a band who would be responsible for maybe one of the best pop albums of the year, this their self-titled debut. From the opening moments of the records lead off track, "Puritan" to the album's closer, "Ghost Boy", it's a record we'll be listening to repeatedly for a long time to come.
Widowspeak take elements of Cat Power, Beach House, and Mazzy Star, but somehow put them together in a way that countless other bands, all of whom take those same points of inspiration, never seem able to reach. Waves of warmth, and an economical approach to songwriting come together to create songs that make us just want to sway and linger as we stare into the eyes of someone we love, sounds that conjur up the memory of the one that we wish was still by our side.
We also love how as bittersweet and love soaked the songs can be, there are still these awesome and surprising moments that totally rock out and show sound both urgent and passionate, again in a way that many others treading similar terrain are never able to quite capture either.
This is that rare record rife with musical moments that both give us goosebumps as well as inspiring much shimmying and shaking. We might just have ourselves a new favorite band!
AND NOW HERE'S THE VINYL VERSION!!
Holy shit... Not only were we surprised (like everyone else) by the sudden appearance of a new Wilco Record, but also by just how goddamned great it is. We haven't been so taken by a Wilco record in ages, but Star Wars (is it really ok for them to call it that?) is like an awakening, finding Jeff Tweedy and the rest of the band at their most alive and exciting.
Beginning with a blast of noise, it's easy to imagine the more conservative, middle of the road, dad-rock fans of the band being a bit confused and/or annoyed, but it's glorious and leads us directly into a whole album filled with some of the most immediate and well crafted jams Wilco have yet recorded, probably their best collection of songs since A Ghost Is Born, and belongs right up there with that album, alongside Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in the best-of Wilco pantheon! Not just catchy and rockin', it also has an experimental bent with weird-out guitar moves that might perhaps fill a bit of the void left by the dissolution of Sonic Youth, and it's that knack for noisiness, woven into Wilco's masterful songsmithery, that makes Star Wars sound so exciting and fresh.
It's pretty satisfying when when a band you once loved, but that you kind of lost interest in, conjures up something mysterious and magical that immediately relights that fire, and hooks you all over again. We're beyond hooked on Star Wars and have been blasting it over and over since we got it.
We've been beyond excited in anticipation of this one. Wild Flag is the super group of our wildest dreams. Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss from Sleater Kinney along with Mary Timony from Helium and Rebecca Cole from The Minders. A few of us got to see them live at a super small show last year at the Hemlock and we were blown away by their immediacy, passion and energy. In other words it reminded us so much of what it was like to see Sleater Kinney, one of the best live bands ever in our opinion.
Luckily the songs on this debut capture that live energy, and give us one of the most punchy, catchy and rocking albums of the year. Carrie Brownstein does seem like she's the leader of Wild Flag as her signature guitar and vocal stylings are felt on just about every song. And damn, what can't Carrie do? After Sleater Kinney called it quits she found herself the 'it' music writer, with her great thoughtful music column for NPR's website, and then she mastered television comedy, starring in Portlandia with Fred Armistead, pretty much the funniest TV show to emerge in the last several years. But there is no doubt she missed rocking out and being on stage, and with Wild Flag her and her badass bandmates have tapped into that golden sound of impassioned indie rock with punk spirit that Sleater Kinney perfected in the '90s. On songs like "Glass Tambourine", Mary Timony takes center stage, her vocals, and even more unique and recognizable guitar stylings have been a long favorite of ours. Overall the sound of Wild Flag takes from the more poppy and driving moments of Sleater Kinney albums like The Hot Rock, All Hands On The Bad One, and peppiest tracks from their swan song The Woods. Blast this one loud, and make sure to see them live if you have the chance!
It's been a while since we've heard from Australian label Hidden Shoal, and just as long since we've heard from SF sound sculptor and dreamdronedrift composer Wes Willenbring, but now that we're all reunited, we can go ahead and gush over yet another fantastic Hidden Shoal release, and another gorgeous disc of ethereal ambience from Mr. Willenbring.
Willenbring is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, and those instruments form the basis of these songs, in some places that's obvious, but in others, the piano and the guitar, or any semblance of either, are blurred, or smeared, or pixelated into hazy clouds of sound, of softly shifting streaks of crystalline shimmer, the guitar often transformed into a buried pulse, the piano into soft focus flurries of barely there melody, at its most diffused and abstract, this is total bleary eyed starlight pop ambience, the sort of hushed orchestral drift that would appeal to fans of other sonic abstractionists like Stars Of The Lid or Tim Hecker or Fennesz. But Willenbring doesn't rely entirely on effects or processing, much of the music here is darkly delicate chamber music, shimmering strings, over pointillist piano, buzzing steel strings unfurling melancholic melodies in slow motion, one note at a time, a sound that's lush and haunting, cinematic and subtly epic.
Totally sublime moody minimalism, a late night moonlit, slip-into-the-ether sort of dreamdrift dronemusic, equal parts gauzy abstraction and languid whispery post rock drift, that is as divine as it is dreamy.
With a seemingly endless supply of amazing soul and funk reissues surfacing seemingly every day, we kept hoping that some current music makers would take some notes and cues from that golden age of soul and funk and start making some seriously raw and tasty soul of their own. Besides the great Sharon Jones & The Dapkings there had been a huge lack of killer modern old school soul. Luckily we think there might be a bit of a renaissance on the horizon. With The Dapkings backing Amy Winehouse and reaching mainstream audiences we think the time is ripe for a whole lot more great soul to replace the overproduced schlock that has dominated the r&b world for way too long now. With a band of great players from Finland of all places, Nicole Willis has made one of the best soul records of the year! After years as a backup and guest vocalist for everyone from Curtis Mayfield, Leftfield and Dee-Lite, Willis is finally the main attraction. After a few impossible to find outings Keep Reachin' Up seems like it will be the one that makes people stand up and take notice. It's a good thing too cuz damn does this record smoke!
Much like the Sharon Jones record, if you close your eyes and listen to Willis you feel like you're in another time entirely. She perfectly recalls that amazing uptempo 70's soul sound that would influence so many folks and pave the way for disco. Her voice is strong and assured, sexy and dripping with a sensuality that can NOT be denied. You can imagine how much Larry Levan would have loved her voice, as you can hear echoes of Gwen Guthrie, Betty Wright and even The Supremes in her songs. What makes Keep Reachin' Up so irresistible is the impeccable music and arrangements played by The Soul Investigators who include her husband Warp Alumnus Jimi Tenor whose take on classic sound is scary perfect (and we have to say we might prefer him in a behind the scenes capacity way more that as a front man) and the amazing playing by The Pekka Kuusisto String Orchestra. Every element is perfect. PERFECT! This has fast become a unanimous favorite around AQ (even with Andee who is typically a bit soul-shy) and we're pretty sure you will fall hard for this as well. So damn good!
Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!
Oh man. The third album from the Swedish prog/psych/doom wizards Witchcraft is finally here. We can barely contain ourselves. They say third time's the charm, and of course with Witchcraft it can't help but being so, since the first two times were charmed as well. This band's debut destroyed us with its incredibly authentic retro Pentagram/Sabbath stylings, with lashings of flute and folkiness too. Their second album, Firewood, captivated us with an equally early '70s heavy progressive vibe. Now The Alchemist succeeds at giving us what we want from Witchcraft -and- pushing further into the realm of melodic, folky proggy rock that stands on its own far beyond being a mere tribute to its '70s ancestors.
Guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and his band Witchcraft have pretty much proved that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" isn't always true. Witchcraft sure as hell does. That it's 2007 not 1972 isn't evident from anything on here, though it sounds as fresh as a daisy at the same time. These guys are so old school analog you halfway expect that their cd would be made out of black plastic and have visible grooves in it. We certainly could imagine some DJ's looking for breaks wanting this on vinyl real bad, you could do some badass hiphop mix with parts of "Remembered" ferinstance. Bet Andy Votel digs this band. Totally sounds like they could have gotten a deal with his favorite progressive record label back in the day (that'd be the famed Vertigo) had Witchcraft really existed in the '70s... certainly the inclusion of the sax solo (yes, a sax solo!) at the end of "Remembered" helps make it sound like something from an old Vertigo LP! Elsewhere Witchcraft get super sweet and gentle, or break out the heavy riffs Sabbath style (like you'd expect -- Sabbath originally being a Vertigo band y'know) in a blend we can't help but love.
Magnus' emotive, melodic vocals are so crucial here, one of this record's shining strengths. He still sounds a bit like a Swedish-accented Ozzy, yet with a graceful finesse, belting it out expressively or crooning with lilting loveliness. His vocals are matched by the absolutely powerful and gorgeous guitarwork throughout the disc. This album sweeps us off our feet immediately with the instant-classic opener "Walk Between The Lines", which is followed by a re-recorded version of the A-side of last year's 7" single, "If Crimson Was Your Colour", an urgent, witchy rocker embellished with some tasty Moog licks. Then there's the loping "Leva", which though Magnus sings it in Swedish, still goes straight to our soul. The Sabbath factor is ratcheted up on "Hey Doctor", a lumbering doom-riffed downer lamentation/accusation. The next track, "Samaritan Burden" combines the heavy riffs with a mellower mood and more acoustic-y moments, masterfully structured. It's followed by the aforementioned "Remembered", definitely an album-standout that's so '70s in so many ways that pretty much only Witchcraft could have done it in this day and age. And then, speaking of standouts, comes the nearly 15 minute long title track, "The Alchemist"! We'll omit description other than to say it's of course an epic mindblower, closing the album with magnificent, mesmeric, proggier than thou flourish.
Definitely a Top 10 Best of 2007 album. We'd have made it Record Of The Week, but what we've got here is the somewhat pricier Japanese import edition (the domestic version is due out towards the end of the month), with a Japan-only bonus track added on at the end, "Sweet Honey Pie", a lovely, acoustic little number. Not sure when/if we'll get more, so we were wary about giving it pole position. But with or without bonus track, it's an AMAZING new effort from this fantastic band, highly recommended. Seriously, we'd have been happy taking all day to write this review, just 'cause we love listening to this album so much.
Issued on cd for the first time since its original 1974 release, soul singer Bill Withers' final record for the Sussex label, +'Justments finally sees the light of day. It's a record that bears the weight of the world on its shoulders, recorded at a time when both his personal and professional relationships were falling apart. Fatigued from touring and fighting against label pressures to become more of a high-production showman, Withers created a more introspective and often melancholic soul folk record closer in spirit to Terry Callier than to Marvin Gaye. It's both been lauded as one of the major lost soul records of the seventies and dismissed as a critical disappointment, as it didn't have any of the winning singles previous releases had such as "Ain't No Sunshine", "Lean On Me" or "Use Me". And it pretty much sounded the death knell for the Sussex label that folded shortly after its release, which probably meant it didn't get as much promotion as his other releases did. It's a shame too, because as a whole, it's a really great record. Even though it's proven just to be as polarizing here in the store with some of us loving it and some of us hating it, though those of us who do love it are arguably bigger fans of soul, disco, and R&B than those who don't. Granted, it is a record that focuses on softer and bittersweet soul qualities rather than funk and groove, but it never ever gets treacley. So this may not be the heavy-hitter soul crossover record you are looking for, but for those who like to venture into classic soul's more obscure corners, this one yields plenty of rewards. A great rainy day record!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE** (well, the cd is on sale, the vinyl isn't.)
Bill Withers' second album Still Bill was not only one of the essential soul/funk records of the seventies with hits like "Use Me", "Lean On Me", and "Who Is He (And What Is He To You?)", but "Use Me" and "Kissing My Love", it's also been sampled on endless hip-hop records from Eric B. & Rakim, Jungle Brothers, Scholly D., Dr. Dre, Jamal-Ski, WC & The Maad Circle just to name a few. Stoned soul jams rarely get better than this. Compact disc version available at the **SALE **SALE* *SALE** nice price of just 5.00, or you freespending turntable types can get the freshly reissued 180 gram vinyl version!
Much better than Zola Jesus' recent rebranding of old songs with a string quartet, is Chelsea Wolfe's Pain Is Beauty. These two records have emerged at about the same time, at summer's end of 2013, and these two personalities seem to share the headlines of whatever glossy blogspottumblffeedtweeterbirdpitchfulking thing you might frequent. Yeah, the goth subcultures have long enabled their ice queens to emerge as fashion icons of a cold hedonism and sexually charged detachment, all the while looking fantastic in smeared coal-eyed make-up and frost-white skin. For now, it's these two ladies who are holding court in the land of the gloomy; but when it comes to delivering the art, Chelsea Wolfe has stepped up her game on Pain Is Beauty, easily bettering Zola Jesus' tepid stringed album and producing what is probably the best album of her young career. Her last album of acoustically driven songs - Unknown Rooms - showcased her songwriting chops and an elegant quivering falsetto that wrapped around her plaintive death-folk ballads. In fleshing out these songs with drums, bass, electronics, and yes some strings, Wolfe's songs all amass into a delicious album of moody witchiness and haughty debauchery, while retaining the magickal aura of her unhinged apocalyptic howl that manifested out of some arcane blood ritual. The use of electronics on the album is particularly striking, to the point where we have begun to hope for a full album with just purely electronic minimal wave arrangements. The opening number "Feral Love" is engineered upon a hammering blastbeat although the volume is dialed down beneath the infernal guitar noises and her bleak siren song. "The Warden" is another electronic track that hypnotically cycles through chorale vocals, a taut dulcimer riff, and sparkle-clad rhythms. Yeah, it's brighter than anything else she's done, but there's plenty of doomified plod, bad-ass villain vibes, and ravenously empty folk tunes that haunt the rest of the album. Time to break out the black nail polish again.
Emotional Rescue returns with another obscure Woo reissue originally only released as a cassette in 1990. For some avid Woo fans, this one has been heralded as an all out favorite, and indeed it is a incredibly strong addition to their already reissued catalog which we can't seem to get enough of. Marked notably by a more ethereal atmosphere made with digital synthesizers along with the acoustic guitar and oboe that has trademarked their sound previously. The arrangements still acoustically rhythmic but with less of a restless rush, and there is a greater presence of vocals, but not overtly so. In fact the first vocal track "Make Me Tea" is one of our favorite tracks with a lilting female backup vocal and gentle lullaby delivery. Their Durutti Column meets Cluster meets Penguin Cafe Orchestra vibe remains in tact, but with greater nuance on the details. That may be because of its new remastering, but this is really aurally quite deep and beautifully delicate, becoming at times more about the spaces between sounds than the sounds themselves.
Their is a vinyl version of which we have a couple of copies (just ask!) but will wait until we can get more before we highlight here. One thing to note however is that only 18 of the original 22 cassette tracks are on the vinyl version, and annoyingly "Make Me Tea" was left off the vinyl version and released as a separate 7" that we haven't been able to get. All the tracks are included on the cd however. Regardless, this is an amazing release, and a great place to start with this remarkable duo as any!
We have been wondering for a while now how long it would take for someone to reissue anything from this blithely influential but stubbornly obscurist brotherly duo, Woo, whose homespun DIY take on left-field new age-y electronic pastoral music has gone from largely ignored to rapturously revered over the span of 30 years since their debut. You can hear strains of their influence now in the music of Sun Araw, Ducktails, Nite Jewel, Animal Collective, Balam Acab, Washed Out and Caribou. But Woo's sound is not that easy to pin down, and It's Cozy Inside, the group's second album from 1989 (seven years on from their 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong), is as ethereal and intangibly beguiling now as it ever was.
Woo can best be described as a mix of Cluster and Durutti Column, two outfits separated by time and geography that delved deeply into the gentler realm of pastoral music while at the same time pushing the sounds to the edge of experimental composition through texture and effects. Add to this the bedroom recording techniques of Cleaners From Venus, the classical exotica of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the ethereal imaginary soundtracks of Bill Nelson, the wide-eyed romanticism of Virgina Astley's From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, and even the most genteel side of Throbbing Gristle or Chris and Cosey (of course at their most lethargic, far divorced from any heavy industrial sensibility) and we're getting closer to an apt description of the singular sound universe of Woo.
Yet this album is much much weirder then any comparisons we can attribute to it. Newly remastered, it still sounds like it was made for falling asleep to, its subtle textural effects of woozy synthesizers, clarinet and heavily affected acoustic guitar, don't necessarily create fully formed songs, but short serpentine instrumental vignettes that stream from one piece to the next, creating a strange filmic dream world that is difficult to get your head around. Its mutant take on new age and classical forms are hardly meditative kosmiche as much as they are a kind of worried ambient minimalism, the sound gathering in watery pools of texture and mood, breaking off and reforming in surprising ways. Eschewing a big impactful sound, Woo make a genial refusal of high-end sonic dynamics instead finding a softly-treaded yet eccentric path through a dazzling aural river that ebbs and flows in a way that most bands of the time would hardly dare to go. Woo's subtle brilliance may take awhile to unfold, but its rewards are plenty. With many bands mining vintage new age music, it's amazing that Woo's unique sound has rarely, if ever, been truly duplicated. Beautiful, mesmerizing and of course, highly recommended!
Can we ever get enough Woo? No! We've made both reissues of their first and second albums Records of The Week, and now Drag City gives us an incredible collection of previously unreleased tracks culled from hours of recordings that span a range from 1976 to 1990, and it's like unearthing a lost record that has been tinkered with deliberate slowness over a dozen years. The alchemy of the twin brother's signature sound: acoustic guitar, clarinet, toy instruments, percussion and vocals woven around synthesizers and programmed rhythms, creates a strangely melodic amalgam of future and past sounds, like Django Reinhardt, Geoff Muldaur (who wrote "Brazil"!) and Penguin Cafe Orchestra filtered through electric currents and becoming something more dreamier, but still slightly alien and weirdly hypnotic, and oh so beautiful. Seriously can't get enough of this! Highest Recommendation!
We made the 2012 Drag City reissue of Woo's 1989 album It's Cozy Inside, Record of the Week, but upon hearing this recent reissue of the group's 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, we knew with even MORE certainty that we had to make it a Record of the Week as well. We have been playing this constantly in the store for weeks, and with each listen becoming more enamored with its blithe mosaic of introspective soundscapes and quiet pop-jazz sensibilities. Reissued by Emotional Rescue a few months ago, we wanted to list this sooner, but the vinyl version had already sold out (it's being repressed, we're told), but we have the cd version while supplies last, so we recommend you act fast.
By the time It's Cozy Inside was released, the eccentric brothers Mark and Clive Ives' highly individualized method of making music using acoustic guitar, bass and clavinet processed through synthesizers to create strange hybrids of jazz and pastoral electronica was largely dialed in. But on their debut, with its compelling title and cover depicting a young child surrounded by the authority figures of religion, politics and academia all pointing in opposing directions and acting as a personal manifesto for forging ahead on one's own unique path, the sound is at once more open ended, searching and strange than the later record. Intermixing buoyant melodic passages with serpentine experimental sonic arrangements and rhythms, Woo sounds like a band made up of way more than just the two brothers. The opener, "Swingtime" is the perfect start. An intricate and bright melody punctuated by drum machine, labyrinthine bass and acoustic guitar, sounding like the crystalline guitar lines of Durutti Column, before suddenly dropping into the hot gurgling percussive ambiance of "Pokhara" with its Middle Eastern guitar sounds, made from sped up dubbed out rhythms. Each track melds into the next like an alien and otherworldly soundtrack, or more aptly, like aliens hearing the early jazz melodies of Django Reinhardt for the first time and trying to emulate that sound using modern technology. The sound is gentle, but never quite relaxing. Nothing stays at rest, but at the same time, nothing is rushed either. Moody and pensive, the layered acoustic guitar work is incredible, as it anchors the tenuous atmospheric backing of electronics and muddled loping rhythms. "Razorblades" channels the Brian Enoish side of David Bowie's Low into a dense and worried jazz deconstruction. The one vocal track, "The Attic" is a dreamy pop masterpiece seemingly transported from Factory Record's Benolux imprint or Les Disques du Crepuscule, two Belgian based labels that focused on the dreamier side of European new wave avant-garde pop in the eighties. Anyone who's a fan of those labels, and bands like Antena, early Thomas Dolby, John Foxx, Bill Nelson and later Tuxedo Moon as well as solo releases by Steve Brown, Benjamn Lew and Peter Principle, will find a kindred spirit in Woo's epic gentleness. We were playing this one day when ex-Yellow Swan Pete Swanson paid us a visit and he asked us what was playing. He had been told by many friends that he should definitely look into Woo, but listening to the track playing, he couldn't really understand why. But Woo is not a band you can just check out a track and get it right off. It's disarmingly soft in a way that may come off as wimpy at first, but it eventually gets under your skin in ways that are subtle and mysterious and then you can't stop listening.
A beautifully elastic and hard to pin down musical force. Limited!
As far as we're concerned, Austin's American Analog Set were one of the most underrated indie-rock-pop-emo bands of the late '90s and early '00s. They made some of the most hushed and moody bedroom indie rock we had ever heard, crating the perfect music for lazily relaxing with that special someone, but equally ideal for those lonely nights with only your memories to keep you warm. AAS had the earnest sincerity of Death Cab For Cutie, but also displayed a maturity in sound and scope that appealed to fans of folks like Low and Red House Painters. At the helm of American Analog Set was Andrew Kenney, who possesses one of our favorite voices...just so damn pretty! Soft and comforting and emotive without resorting to whining or typical indie boy tortured mewling. While we were sad to see American Analog Set call it quits a few years back (they should/could have been bigger than The Shins and DCFC!) we were super excited to see that Kenney has a brand new project Wooden Birds, and the Birds' sound pretty much encapsulates everything we loved so much about his old band. Slow and steady, warm melodies tucked tightly into each song, and Kenney's voice sounding as seductive and entrancing as ever. Nothing that Kenny does ever feels forced or heavy handed, he's able to deliver sentimental songs that slowly melt their way into your ears and wrap around your body like that amazing soft blanket you've had since you were little and wouldn't trade for the world. So nice!
Wooden Shjips are the kind of band that inspire rabid devotion, and not without good reason. They are, in their own distinct way, a perfect band, stripping psychedelia of all its unnecessary flourishes and focusing, REALLY focusing on the fundamental elements that make your favorite songs your favorite songs. No verses, no choruses, no frills, and no bullshit. Just an endless, hypnotic groove that allows the listener to tune out everything else and let the music take them where they need to be. This simplicity is also the band's greatest source of power. While other groups will work desperately to cultivate an image as a "psychedelic" band, Wooden Shjips bypass all that and instead let their music speak for itself. The results are always mesmerizing, not to mention somewhat strange and mysterious, the only logical outcome from four guys who must know exactly what they are doing and understand the importance of working together as a unit instead of showing off their individual musical chops, save the abundance of perfectly timed, ripping fuzz guitar solos. The songs on the band's self-titled debut and their collection of early singles are at once classic and modern, seeming as if they had existed forever and simply needed to be unlocked and revealed by the right musicians. In that respect, we should consider ourselves very lucky that Wooden Shjips exist NOW.
When news of a new Shjips record hit the streets, we aQuarians were foaming at the mouth wondering what might lie ahead. Then one day, without warning, Dos was here, the four disembodied heads on the cover staring forward like totem poles floating in silver space. While the first album featured a hazy image of the band sitting on a stairwell, their faces are the focal point here, almost as if Wooden Shjips are gradually revealing more to the mystery that is their existence. But what does it sound like? Well, hopefully our review can convince you of this album's absolute majesty... but since words could never properly explain how much this has struck some of us, you should probably check out the sound samples, and above all, trust us.
The album opens perfectly with "Motorbike", possibly the most joyous Wooden Shjips song to date. Swirling guitar chords and oscillating swooshes give one the feeling of traveling at high speeds through some glorious psychedelic vortex, throttling you about in the best way imaginable. It's the sort of song that makes you feel great to be alive, with catchy keyboard melodies recalling a more frantic version of the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" as the UNSTOPPABLE rhythm section lays down a steady rhythmic framework that doesn't let up for the next 38 minutes. Next up is "For So Long", maybe our favorite song on the record. Driven by a bass line that is both spooky and relentlessly catchy, sparse, percussive guitar and organ creep about, as singer Ripley's deep croon wavers in the atmosphere. The somewhat ambivalent vibe of this song makes it the ideal soundtrack to pretty much any moment in your day, whether strolling down the street without a care in the world OR walking home late at night in some paranoid daze. "Down By The Sea" utilizes an appropriate underwater effect on the organ as the bass and drums give you the impression of, well, walking down by the sea. About three minutes in, a classic Wooden Shjips guitar solo enters and eventually morphs into squalls of heavenly white noise. This wonderful psych excursion is followed by the more down tempo "Aquarian Time", featuring a cool tremeloed organ (or maybe it's a piano?) and a devastating fuzz guitar groove that locks in with the bass before another rad guitar solo takes you way up into the clouds. The closing number, "Fallin'", kicks off with a simple two note groove, accented by a reedy organ accompanying the bass and a glistening, cleanly strummed guitar while a simple snare hit keeps the percussive flow going, the work of a man who must surely be in a trance - seriously, how the hell does this guy play so steady for so long?!?! It puts you deep under the band's spell, and then, at the 4 minute mark, you are introduced to the CATCHIEST BASS LINE OF THE YEAR!!! It will stick in your head for ages. After 11 minutes, the song ends with an organ chord and amp hum, reminding you that, yes, Wooden Shjips are human beings and not just a psychedelic rock machine. It's like the band is stopping to breathe for a moment before the next adventure, which hopefully will come very soon. You are left wondering what just happened, and if you're like us, you'll immediately put Dos on for another spin (or, if you're like a certain AQ staffer, 9 or 10 more spins!).
The overall sound on Dos is more upfront and less murky than on past releases. This slightly higher fidelity suits Wooden Shjips splendidly, as these five songs are generally tighter and more snappingly rhythmic than anything they have produced before. Each instrument is represented perfectly in the mix, with nothing taking precedence. The nonstop propulsion of this group is undoubtedly the result of four people operating on another level of psychedelic comprehension, a level many other bands simply don't understand. At the same time, their music is highly enjoyable and not difficult to "get". We certainly get it...
To call Dos "essential" wouldn't be enough. We can tell you that this album exceeded any expectations we may have had. We can tell you how if anyone interrupts you while listening to this, you will be pretty pissed and will most likely ignore them and crank up the volume even more. We can tell you that it will remain one of our favorite records for 2009. But you probably just need to close your eyes and experience it for yourself.
Easily the BEST album whose tracks contain of a lot of seeming nonsense baby babble and backwards tape manipulations (that was originally improvised for Italian radio) we've ever heard. Even if you already think you'd like babbling vocals and tape FX, this is even better than you think. Why? well it helps that it was done by Robert Wyatt, who is a bit of a genius, you know. Of course, if you're a Wyatt fan, you already know you want this 'cause it's basically an UNRELEASED ROBERT WYATT ALBUM FROM 1981.
Now, the title is Radio Experiment as it definitely was an experiment, a successful one, fortunately. Wyatt was invited to come to Rome and spend a week at this radio station's studio, recording his spontaneous creative process during that time frame, whatever might transpire.
The radio people picked the right artist to participate in this project, as Wyatt fully embraced the concept, working in a "blank frenzy", willing to let the end results remain secondary to documenting the work in progress of music making, though as it turned out, the finished music is pretty cool. And strange.
There's seven completed compositions presented on this disc, along with a final 10 minute track that was assembled and edited by the radio program's staff from recordings made surreptitiously during Wyatt's initial "rehearsals" in the studio. He's a one-man band here, playing piano and keys and drums and Jew's harp and other "objects". And singing, overdubbing his voice, which is all over the place, from playfully chopped up burble to weird whisper to high pitched whine to mumbled chatter to, well, actual singing that's quite fragile and pretty. There's plenty of wordless ba ba ba la la la, and other more coherent parts where you can understand the lyrics, in some cases read from political/historical texts. Multitracked and layered, all these pieces have a dreamy, hazy, hallucinatory aspect, somewhat abstract but pleasant, moody and melodic too. Being to a degree improvised, some jazz seeps in from Wyatt's Soft Machine days, and one track in fact is an interpretation, of sorts, of Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce".
Overall, a week well spent! Wyatt fans of course should enjoy this, and it also sounds to us like something perhaps This Heat related, and there's lots of current underground, cd-r scene activity featuring fractured pop and rhythmic lo-fi psychedelia and the textural use of the human voice that unknowingly harks back to these archival recordings from 28 years ago, long hidden away but thankfully now issued on cd and vinyl. The way this combines both beautiful pop-iness with really weird methods and sounds seems like something fans of, say, Panda Bear would be totally into. Very recommended!
Everytime we've played this delicious reissue in the store, people have eagerly inquired, "Oooh, what's this?!" If you dig music that gleefully jumps boundaries and melts together genres with whimsical abandon (but NOT in the current irony-sodden, just-fuckin'-around fashion) -- in this case, a cross-cultural funneling in on the sounds of French Ye Ye Girl pop, far-out Japanese psych and prog influences, some almost-Carpenters level sing-song-y glorious pop, and assorted other vintage Euro-funkiness -- well then, Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki is for YOU!
Lovingly mastered from the original tapes by one of the original producers Monsieur Jean Kluger, this is the first time these recordings have been released on cd. Apparently there was originally one album and two singles released under the name The Yamsuki Singers on the French label Biram back in 1971. Needless to say, they've been next to impossible to find for years. If you're eager to get the skinny on Yamasuki, the project's lively history is printed in English in the liner notes, but there's also an added bonus on the back page of the booklet. If your French comprehension is any good, you can find out how to do the dance moves -- le salut, la joie, la peur, la grace, le combat, attaque (translation of this move's description: one assumes karate positions while shouting "caa ooh") and hara kiri!
By today's standards, you might find some of the 'oriental' (ahem, Asian) elements downright corny (the first song begins with a gong, and songs are introduced by a black-belt judo master!), but the sheer exuberance of the performances sweeps away any possibility of scowling criticisms. The sticker on the front proclaims "A fuzzed-out-educational-multi-cultural psych-rock-opera from 1971. Proto-psychedelic hip-hop with overweight drum beats and basslines!" Who's gonna argue with that?! Not us, we particularly appreciate the record label's use of the word "overweight". Yeah, we can hear what they're gettin' at -- the rhythm section is pretty thumpin' and hefty -- but it still made us giggle. Anyways, not to be super nit-picky but although this is indeed a conceptual album, after reading the liner notes we deduced that it's not so much a 'rock opera' per se, but more like a dance performance with lots of choral accompaniments. So who was behind all of this wonderful madness? Two French producer/composers, the aforementioned Kluger and Daniel Vangarde... and various children's choirs singing in Japanese. Ultra bizarre, campy, freaky and outrageous (again, even by today's standards!), we've got a sneaking suspicion that Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks probably saw/heard Yamasuki 'cause there sure are some striking resemblances with their own deliriously fantastic Kimono My House album that came out a few years later in 1974. You might find it sorta Zappa-ish too. Heck, it even spawned a dance move, "The Yamasuki"! Oh yeah, and if the fifth song "AIEAOA" sounds oddly familiar, you might recognize it as a song covered by Bananarama. Apparently the gals heard a version recorded by a band from Zaire (!), and loved it so much that they covered the cover "Aie A Mwana" and made it their first single!
Cup sez "Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!" Who's gonna argue with that, either?! Recommended, along with the other amazing reissue on the Finders Keepers label we reviewed last week, Jean-Claude Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches.
Holy shit!!! This has to be our krautrock (re)discovery of the year. Definitely contender for krautrock reissue of the year!! We have been listening to this NONSTOP since it came in. We had heard OF Yatha Sidhra, a German group whose only record, A Meditation Mass, was released in 1974, but until now we had never actually heard it. Apparently the record was massive flop which is utterly shocking hearing this now. Everything we could want in a krautrock record, loooong tracks, simple tribal percussion, flute all over the place, simple effected guitar, crooned almost chantlike vocals, squalls of totally heavy super distorted freaked out psychedelia, wild drumming, tons of effects, as well as long stretches of tranquil drift and fluttery folky shimmer.
The opening movement of the Mass begins with all manner of rumbles and drones, before it slips into a lilting laid back groove, all soft guitar curlicues, spare percussion, warm languid bass, and flittering flute, the track drifts lazily, occasionally erupting into ultra brief psychedelic blowouts, the flute howling, a cacophony of frenzied drumming, only to settle right back into the mellow drift. The second movement is a little more active, the drums more propulsive, piano draped over deep dubby bass, and the flute fired up and swooping wildly, jazzy but still pretty krautrocky.
The third movement is probably our favorite, clocking in at 12 minutes, the song starts out by returning to the opening groove, loping bass, fluttery flute, spare guitar, the drums a bit more aggressive, some angular guitar solos, all wrapped up in tripped out FX, eventually the song shifts into a more upbeat shuffle, the drums getting wilder and more chaotic, the guitar going nuts, spitting out psych leads all over the place, until the band locks into a serious blowout, the guitar white hot, the drums freaking out, the bass swooping back and forth, everything doused in so many effects the whole track seems to crumple and crumble under the weight, flanger and phaser and echo have everything totally tripped out and druggy, the drums and flute engage in a wild battle, a free jazz krautrock psychedelic frenzy, before finally simmering down, and slipping into a super soft lazy lope, the flute floating over a deep bass and minimal drum workout, finishing off with another drum vs. flute freakout, everything again dripping with echo and delay, as of the whole band was slipping deeper and deeper, moving further and further away.
The final movement, revisits the opening, the band slip smoothly back into that original groove, the guitars way more effected, the drums a bit more tribal, the flute still drifting above it all, the whole band locked into a totally dreamy, blissed out krautdrone drift, with the instruments dropping out one by one, eventually leaving just the guitar, wreathed in effects to shimmer and finally fade out.
So freaking amazing. Boggles the mind that these guys, and this record aren't spoken of in hushed reverence and worshipped along with Can and Faust and all the other krautrock legends. Hopefully that will change with this reissue, and even if it doesn't, at least we know how mysterious and magical A Meditation Mass really is...
Packaged in a super spare digipak, with a big book of liner notes (in English and German) and a bunch of photos.
Many of the sounds coming out of the recent surge of girl group inspired bands that we've been digging have been more on the garage and lo-fi rocking side of things, but Yellow Fever are mining that same sort of girl group glory with a more direct song based approach with totally stunning results. We hear echoes of the Young Marble Giants and their disciples, like Klang or Quixotic, albeit slightly more twee. We'd imagine that if Calvin Johnson heard this he would sign YF to K in a heartbeat, the music these gals conjure up definitely has many of the same endearing qualities of some of our favorite K records over the years.
Get Grass Widow and Girls At Dawn out of the fuzzy dirty garage, and bring them upstairs to the warm and comfy living room and you're getting an idea of where Yellow Fever are coming from. The songs are really compact and stripped down. Like Kim Deal and Julie Doiron doing extra minimal Aislers Set covers. Yellow Fever are amongst an awesome new breed of bands from Austin, Texas who are starting to get wider attention (weird that they weren't included on the new Matador compilation, Casual Victim Pile featuring a bunch of other bands from Austin). But it does make perfect sense that it's their friends the Vivian Girls who have released this on their own record label, Wild World, they for sure share a similar spirit and plenty of musical reference points, even though they approach their sounds from slightly different angels.
This is totally hitting the spot!
