Now on vinyl! Here's what we said about the cd when we listed it before:
Summer's here and what better way to celebrate than to put on this gorgeous reissue of the very first Tropicalia record, the stunning 1968 debut of Caetano Veloso. As big in Brazil as Sgt. Peppers was in England and America, its fusion of Brazilian popular music with pop, psychedelia and politically pointed lyrics gave birth to the Tropicalia movement and earned Veloso a brief stint in jail for "anti-government activities". Today, even without understanding its political subtext, the celebratory freedom that is conveyed in these vivacious and effervescent songs couldn't resonate more. Leave it to the Brazilians to make the radically political a party as well. Fuck Yeah!
Some folks may know Lisa McGee from Barn Owl side project, Higuma, or her vocal work on Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Love Is A Stream, or perhaps even Portraits, the zen-minded supergroup of Bay Area improvisationalists. Truth is, McGee has been a muse behind a lot of great recordings in that circle so it's really nice to see her finally in the spotlight via her debut solo effort, Vestals. In some way McGee is channeling Rachel Brook from early nineties Bristol bands, Flying Saucer Attack and Movietone, in her ethereal noise-pop laden songs replete shimmering electric guitar, and featuring Trevor Montgomery's bass and partner Evan Caminiti's bowed guitarscapes. The atmosphere of desolate spaciousness and the smoldering shoegazed distortion that ripple through the Higuma recordings are certainly present; but in Vestals, McGee pushes the song-writing to the forefront with chiming hypno-drone-rock bliss akin to Roy Montgomery channelling the Velvets, which thrums and drones most prominently on the album's lengthy mantra "Of Ripples." But she can also shift into quite the chanteuse, as on the crushed-velvet noise-pop of "Forever Falling" and "In Waking Dreams" where McGee's voice carries the songs to stratospheric crescendos through a hook-laden bliss. A gorgeous debut that limited to a mere 300 copies!
Vetiver's beautiful new record places a welcome emphasis on textured atmospherics and rhythm that is so warm and enveloping, we just want to melt in its lovely embrace. Each track is delicately nuanced with such strong musicianship and songcraft that we feel transported every time we hear it. Frontman Andy Cabic DJ's a regular night here in SF at The Rock Bar, called Mellow Shots, exploring the deeper cuts of seventies and eighties soft rock nuggets, and Cabic is an extraordinary crate digger of some obscure far-flung sides. So it's apparent that some of the better aspects of that influence has seeped into his songwriting and arranging, while doing away with the cheesy familiarity that most people associate with music from that era. So nice!
Oh Man! We haven't been able to stop playing this record from local San Francisco folk heroes Vetiver since the day it arrived. We knew it would be good but we're really surprised at how amazing and fresh it sounds given the tidal wave resurgence of the neo-folk movement that Devendra Banhart and Vetiver front-man Andy Cabic have spawned in the last few years (check out the Devendra-curated Golden Apples of the Sun compilation reviewed elsewhere in this list, to see what we mean). To be honest, the neo-folk scene has become a bit over-saturated as of late. Not that we don't enjoy the music, but there are so many folk acts nowadays that it's become almost too overwhelming to keep up.
So the stakes have been raised quite a bit since Vetiver's quiet self-titled debut, as the past couple of year's have seen Cabic, out on the road touring not only with Vetiver but also as part of Devendra's touring band, starting record label Gnomonsong with Banhart (which released the debut Feathers cd), and garnering a huge amount of praise, attention and expectation. It seems the months on the road have been very good to Vetiver as recent homecoming shows at 12 Galaxies and the Great American have shown, delighting packed audiences and winning new converts who may have overlooked their fine debut. No more playing tiny intimate shows at Adobe Books, a little sad to say, but really, we are very happy for them. To Find Me Gone is more rock-oriented than its predecessor, as the band has evolved from an acoustic guitar, violin, cello trio to include a full time rhythm section (including Otto Hauser from Espers on drums, and Kevin Barker from Currituck Co. and Noah Georgeson on guitars) with spectacularly rich results. Unlike their debut, where the strong songwriting and performances were a bit overshadowed by the heavyweight guest appearances from Hope Sandoval, Colm O'Ciosoig and Joanna Newsom (It also came across in some press as a Devendra side project), Cabic comes fully into his own here, showcasing a sublime quality of world-weariness hewn from months on the road. It's exciting, after hearing their debut, which was years in the making, to not find the usual sophomore slump, but instead witness such naturally self-assured songwriting and arrangements. Opener, "Been So Long (Gb Fade)", a song first heard in a more acoustic arrangement on the Between EP, begins with a raga drone that spaciously opens up into fantastic sighing choral harmonies. In fact there is a subliminal pulsation to the whole album that really brings out Cabic's sweet vocals but also keeps them centrally present as the country tinged ambience of flutes and cellos (played with grace and restraint by Vetiver veteran, Alissa Anderson) swells and swirls around him. Country shuffler, "Won't Be Me" sounds like Yo La Tengo in a rare pop Americana moment while the sudden electric surge on "Red Lantern Girls" is pure shoegazer country-stomp acid folk. The closer "Down at El Rio" co-written with Devendra is so nostalgic and sad, a gorgeous gorgeous song. A long time record collector, and stellar DJ, Cabic mines his influences well. Less "freak-folk" than his friends and contemporaries, Cabic instead follows the compositional path of 70's singer-songwriters like J.J. Cale, Emitt Rhodes and John Phillips. It's a refreshing next step in the ever prevalent neo-folk scene. For a limited time, we have a special limited version of To Find Me Gone with two extra bonus tracks. Beautiful and so totally recommended!
French prog from the seventies can move us in just the right ways, especially if it hits that sweet spot between Kosmiche new age and sublime Euro-jazz, yet still has that individually eccentric feel that you only get from the French. Patrick Vian's sole 1976 lp Bruits et Temps Analogues, famously included on the Nurse With Wound list, is just such a record. An amalgam of Michael Rother sky gliding electronic music and a mellower take on the "Superficial Music" of Bernard Szajner, Vian packs a lot of punch into his compositions, propelled forward by the hypnotic counterpoint of sunny guitar lines, analog Moog washes, flutes and all kinds of dazzling rhythmic instrumentation, such as kinetic jazz drumming, and deep vibraphones, the latter thanks to the help of Mino Cinelu (who had played with the likes of Gong, Weather Report and Miles Davis). There's also an exotica quality at play here especially on the track, "Orenock" which feels like we're on safari on some strange desolate planet, as well as some avant-garde tendencies, such as using tape manipulations of recordings of American sporting events on the musique concrete piece, "Tricentennial Drag". Vian began his musical career in the legendary French prog /free jazz band Red Noise, but the vibe on Bruits et Temps Analogues is way more serene and groovy. It lives up to its awesome cover painting. Originally released on the Egg / Barclay label, it's about time this stellar album got reissued. Thanks Staubgold! Highest Recommendation!!
We've long been fans of minimal techno maven Ricardo Villalobos, his records spare and skeletal, rhythmic and repetitive, the sort of electronic music we find utterly mesmerizing and totally irresistible. In addition to that, Villalobos does not shy away from strange sonic experiments, and is thus no stranger to odd samples, considering he made a whole record out of sounds borrowed from French prog legends Magma, so this new record really shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, nor should we have been surprised by just HOW great it turned out, but it was, and we were, which should speak to just how incredible this strange sonic experiment truly is. Villalobos teamed up with Max Loderbauer and created this sprawling double disc which is essentially a minimal techno mash up of modern classical and European jazz, with all the sounds culled from various releases on the legendary ECM label, which include, most excitingly for us, Arvo Part, but also loads of ECM stalwarts like Bennie Maupin, Paul Giger, John Abercrombie, Christian Wallumrod, Alexander Knaifel, Miroslav Vitous, Louis Sclavis, Wolfert Brederode, Enrico Rava, Stefano Bollani and Paul Motian. Never heard of any/most of those, it hardly matters, as the duo of Villalobos and Loderbauer stretch out the sounds of the originals into spare rhythmic minimalism, looping and layering, adding subtle bits of rumble and crunch, deep pulses and abstract shimmer, fields of glitch and muted crunch, but to our ears, it sounds like very little was added to the mix, and much of the magic came from deftly manipulating the originals. The techno element is really negligible here, the sound is much more abstract avant jazz, or hushed minimal drift, in fact, the sound is so unique it's quite difficult to really describe simply. The sound actually reminds us quite a bit of Aussie free jazz minimalists The Necks, the same sort of subtle shifting sonic palette and the gradual evolution of sound. Opener "Reblop" is a hushed super spare bit of solo piano, wreathed in clouds of occasional cymbal shimmer, and some melodic harp, the notes on the piano wreathed in reverb, the cymbal shimmer strangely distorted, the wide open spaces peppered with soft synthy streaks and bloopy squelches, which often mirror the melody, it's really strangely pretty, but also subtly alien. "Recat" is about as close as things here get to techno, which is not that close, but the original brushed snare rhythm is looped into a clipped minimal electronic flecked skitter, that rhythm delicately processed and gradually transformed while all around it pianos and strings unfurl melodies that become gnarled and softly distorted into new shapes, the result a sort of warped lo-fi kraut-jazz. "Resvete" is super spare and spaced out, cymbal shimmer and angelic female vocals, Villalobos and Loderbauer's contributions so subtle, that barring a few glitchy bits, it's difficult to tell how different this version is than the original, quite we're guessing, but it's so deftly transformed, that it's not hard to imagine this as just some strange slab of experimental European jazz. And the tracks that sample Arvo Part, manage to make magical music even moreso, taking Part's lush liturgical drift and making it even more washed out and ethereal, mysterious and dreamlike.
One of our favorite tracks is "Reannounce", which is very tribal, almost African sounding, hypnotic rhythms, and processed chant like vocals, underpinned by some throat singing like buzz, and some wild almost free sounding percussion, "Recurrence" too with its lazy drumming, and slo-mo late night smokey slowed down jazz feel, the whir of the trumpet buzz turned into a muted drone, the sound almost like the music is melting. "Rebird" finds the duo building what sounds like an imagined field recording, underscored by delicate, slightly warped piano, and a barely there rhythm, while "Retikhiy" sounds like some sort of alien world music, or some reimagined forest folk transformed into looped electronic minimalism. We could really go track by track, every song here is mysterious and magical, the rare sort of record that transcends it's genre, it's hard imagine anyone into adventurous music not loving this. It's jazz, it's classical, it's electronic, it's plunderphonics, but it's also none of those, the sound truly more than its constituent parts. The extensive liner notes go into great detail about the creation of this collection of songs, explaining that the duo did not have access to the original tracks, so had to use the records themselves, and thus chose tracks where rhythms and instruments were isolated in the composition, in addition, gaps and pauses and record noise, as well as the natural room sound were also sound sources, with much of this improvised live, with the intention of "combining the functionality of reduced electronic structures with the living textures of ECM productions", with the most important thing being "to harmonize these two worlds, without them aspiring to mutually deactivate each other, to keep both - the organic and the electronic - in balance." So great, definite contender for record of the year, jazz, electronic, classical or otherwise!
Finally! A full length proper cd release from this UK troubadour. After going on a bit in our review of VOTSW's most recent cassette release (the only release we'd ever been able to get in sufficient number to list) we were pretty thrilled to have this cd show up last week, and we've been playing it non-stop ever since. There were a couple surprises in store for us though...
The first being that it was released on Finders Keepers / B-Music, a label more well known for its strange reissues of lost classics, and who in the past have brought us records from Selda, Mustafa Ozkent, Susan Christie as well as all time AQ faves like Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, the Welsh Rare Beat comp and of course Jean Claude Vannnier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches... It all makes a bit more sense when you realize VOTSW, aka Rick Tomlinson, had in the past recorded for Twisted Nerve in the UK, which happens to be part of the same family of labels. The other big surprise, is that where as past VOTSW releases have been mostly guitar, dark Appalachia, drawn out drone-y ragas, steel string guitar plucked and strummed, buzzing gorgeously over distant drones, falling sonically between Jack Rose and James Blackshaw, this disc is all over the map, expansive and epic. VOTSW is now expanded to a three piece, incorporating electric bass, violin, piano, drums, along with the usual guitar, sitar, oud, and it sounds like it. This is lush and produced, a gorgeous rich tapestry of sound.
The root is still that buzzing guitar, but here it's surrounded by all sorts of different sonic filigree. The first track begins much like past Voice Of The Seven Woods recordings, a steel string guitar, strummed and picked, a buzzing tangle of notes, a dreamy disembodied twang, but a few minutes in, the band joins in, propulsive percussion, a throbbing pulsing second guitar/bass, the whole thing sounding like some strange krautrock folk, perfectly seguing into the next number, an intense buzzing wild gypsy folk jam, brief but so exhilarating. Then there's the funky effected Bollywood psychrock buzz of "The Fire In My Head", totally freaked out and acid drenched, lots of buzz and strange affected melodies, and a definite sixties funk groove. A few songs later, the super blown out, backwards guitar drenched, acid rock psych jam of "Second Transition", then a song or two after that, a super muddy murky hippy jam, all loping distorted drums, distant strum and wailing crumbling blown speaker leads sprawling all over the place, and near the end of the record, the propulsive acoustic kraut rock soundtracky jam of "Return From Byzantium", gorgeously epic, the drums wild and relentless, the guitars buzzing and droning and locked together as if they could go on forever, all of these sonic excursions separated and peppered with long luxurious stretches of gorgeous languid Appalachian buzz and minor key finger picking, delicate folk flutter, and that oh so warm and familiar buzz and twang.
Not at all what we were expecting, but all the better for it! Definitely stuff that if it was on some vintage vinyl, would have the B-music DJs drooling. Essential listening for adventurous lovers of classic folk, sixties psych and obviously for all you far out freak folks...
First things first, we know some folks have strong feelings both positive and negative for all things 'Star Trek'. So if you fall into either camp you might wanna disregard this band's name and the album's title completely! We found the music to reveal very little connection to Star Trek and/or Vulcans. In fact, we sensed very little overt sci-fi action here at all. Well aside from the song titles... and the galactic analog synth action that accompanies the reggae riddims. While the name choices did successfully grab out attention, we were subsequently a bit disappointed by this discovery, however, the music quickly won us over anew in surprisingly different ways! This album is sooo awesome and sooo perfect for baking in the (late) summer sun! Imagine this... what if Os Mutantes lived in Jamaica? And had a rendezvous with Perry & Kingsley, Joe Meek and an Arp 2600 synthesizer? Or how 'bout some kick-ass psychedelic prog dudes getting their reggae on while sipping fresh fruit cocktails? Got you hooked yet? Well, here's the skinny... The Vulcans were actually not a band in the traditional sense, although after hearing this cd we sure wish they were! As legend tells it, back in the early '70s some session musicians including Ken Elliot of UK prog-psych band Second Hand got together and recorded these songs. They group were dubbed The Vulcans by Trojan Records when the smart decision was made to release an album. We have to stress once again that despite what the title and band name suggest this is far from a novelty album. You can drift off, trip out or sink right into this generous serving of Vulcans tunes - there's two albums on one cd, 1972's Star Trek and perhaps slightly heavier and edgier Interstellar Reggae Drive (the latter originally released under the wacky moniker Colonel Elliot & The Lunatics). Recommended!
"Who taught who the cold hard facts of life?" is the chilling question at the heart of this bitter tale of betrayal and revenge between husband and wife. It's also the title track of this Porter Wagoner two-fer which combines two early seventies concept records, The Cold Hard Facts of Life and The Soul of The Convict, providing a narrative arc of love, sin, murder, redemption and salvation. We absolutely loved The Rubber Room (also put out by The Omni Recording Corporation), an anthology of Wagoner's less known Southern Gothic sides that painted a much darker picture of the kind of singer we thought he was. Now that the man is gone at the height of a career revival, we get a chance to hear some of his best full lengths, recorded at a time of deep personal anguish. On this two-fer (which shares only five tracks with The Rubber Room anthology), he sings plenty, first about the consequences of cheating and then sings plenty more about the consequences of killing. Includes a cover of "Folsom Prison Blues" and six extra single tracks. Porter shows us once again he's a man to be reckoned with in this life or the next. As he queries at the end of "The First Mrs. Jones", "Did my little song scare you?"
Yes, yes it did.
Rest in Peace, Porter!
Well Dang! Why it seems we're in the midst of a full-on Porter Wagoner revival. Not only has the man just released one of the best country albums of the year (Wagonmaster, which we reviewed last list), but at the ripe old age of 80, just played to a sell-out audience at Madison Square Garden opening for The White Stripes. While for a time, he seemed to epitomize everything that was old-fashioned about Nashville, from his vintage glittering suits to his often overtly pained and sentimental delivery on many a song about love and The Lord. No truer did that image seem to be when Dolly Parton, who first debuted on Wagoner's TV show before becoming his most popular singing and song-writing partner for nearly ten years, decided to part ways for a solo career in the mid-seventies. Surely a low point in his career, but the man never went away, quietly releasing records and remaining an ambassadorial presence on the Grand Ole Opry circuit ever since.
Yet, it also looks like all that flash and kitsch so present in Wagoner's performances and recordings have inspired a hip cult following through the years after all. But not because of his more popular hits. We mentioned in the Wagonmaster review about an early seventies song that was a bit of a novelty hit, called "The Rubber Room", a dark, wrenching, reverb-soaked ode to mental illness. Well, most of his records from the mid-sixties onward had a track or two that delved similarly into the darkest of themes: revenge, murder, murder-suicide, insanity, prison, parental abuse, neglect, drinking, punishment, and redemption. The album covers similarly shared his fondness for theatricality, sometimes dressing up as a hobo, wino, prisoner, or shown walking in on his unfaithful wife. These songs weren't always his biggest hits but they had the highest Nashville production values with strings, choirs and dramatic special effects, and put together they create a bizarrely surreal patchwork of the Southern Gothic. So what better way to celebrate Porter Wagoner's big career revival with this mighty anthology put out by the awesome folks at Omni (who also brought us the Bruce Haack Electric Lucifer reissue we made record of the week, a couple lists back). Instead of focusing on charted singles and successes, this anthology compiles together 29 left-field tracks recorded between 1966 and 1977 (with the exception of only one charted single, "The Carroll County Accident") that cover all the dark themes mentioned above, many in poetical song-story form and loosely sequenced in themes.
So let's give a brief summary here of the main themes, after "The Rubber Room", there are some country-crossover songs, reminiscent in style to Lee Hazlewood and Jimmy Webb, that deal with the savage life of Native Americans outlaws ("George Leroy Chickashea", "Indian Creek"). Then, there are the achingly lonely tear-in-your-beer songs ("Lonely Comin' Down", "Lonelyville"), which then segue into the cheating songs, ("My Many Hurried Southern Trips", "Woman Hungry") then the wife-killing and wife/other man-killing songs ("First Mrs. Jones", "The Cold Hard Facts of Life" "Julie"). After that there are some tear-in-your-BOTTLE songs ("Wino", "Bottom of The Bottle") then the hobo songs ("Life Rides The Train", "My Last Two Tens"), then a prison song sung from the point of view of the prisoner's only son ("Let Me In"). Then the devastating Dolly Parton duet, "The Party" about a couple's children who die tragically while the parents were out partying. And finally a couple of songs about prayer and redemption ("Little Boy's Prayer" and "Moments of Meditation") just to give a slight semblence of hope to things. Phew! and there's so much more!
Surely not the happiest of records, but one that will still undoubtedly put a smile on your face. It's definitely one of the most well curated, intriguing and exciting country collections to be put to disc from a man who is finally getting his due. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note: The first pressing is currently out of print. We've got a bunch of these, but it may take a while to get the next batch, so please be patient if and when we run out.
Anyone who saw the great 2008 Scott Walker documentary, 30th Century Man, may recognize this final Walker Brothers album from 1978 as the musical bridge that connects Scott Walker's early over the top orchestral balladry from the sixties and seventies to his bizarrely dark and doomy sonic explorations of the past 25 years. The rare, much sought after Nite Flights is a strange brew indeed. The Walker Brothers started out in the mid-sixties as the British equivalent of The Righteous Brothers. Even though all the members were American and not brothers, they had a much bigger following in England. Nite Flights is their last hurrah and much like the Beatles' White Album, it feels like a suite of the various members solo leanings, rather than a cohesive band effort. Though it's brought together production-wise by everyone's attempt to follow a more modern rock direction, so it's got a more driving and rather darkened vibe that unfortunately includes some era (in)appropriate rock sax, and electric guitar solo riffery. But it's the Scott Walker songs (the first four on the record) that are worth the whole price of admission, especially the title track which has a noirish night drive David Bowie feel (in fact Bowie covered it, but Scott's is better!). "The Electrician" with it's foreboding tense beginning is the biggest premonition towards what he would later attempt on Tilt, The Drift, and Bish Bosch, even if it includes some lush big pop orchestrations of strings and harps that looks nicely back to Scott 4. A curious rock record that has some weirdly great songs that every fan of Scott Walker should have.
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!
Finally reissued and on vinyl, is one of our all time favorite solo guitar records, Rainy Day Raga by Peter Walker!!! Released on Vanguard in 1966, it sits perfectly between John Fahey's Requia and Sandy Bull's Inventions. Like Bull, Walker was fascinated and influenced by Middle Eastern, raga and modal forms (as well as Spanish and Baltic Romantic motifs) and found the perfect venue to explore the raga's hypnotic trance-like properties in Cambridge, Massachusetts as musical director of Timothy Leary's Celebration festivals. Offering up a mostly original record, save for a beautiful rendition of The Beatles "Norwegian Wood", the lysergic qualities of Walker's performance here are augmented by accompanying musicians Bruce Langhorne (!!) on percussion and Jeremy Steig on flute displaying a gentle pastoralism to the sometimes intense raga workouts. But even the quieter solo parts like "River" and "April In Cambridge" showcase Walker's astute knack for dynamic technique in his performances, and composition. While he only recorded two albums for Vanguard in the sixties, before his recent resurgence, they aptly showcase what a visionary he was to the current generation of solo guitar excursionists, and we are so grateful that this record is available once again to prove it! Highest Recommendation!!!!!
Light In The Attic continues its deep search into the Vanguard vaults and unearths this long-awaited gem, the second Vanguard album by hippie gypsy guitarist Peter Walker. His first album, Rainy Day Ragas is one of our favorite solo guitar records ever, and we never imagined it would take so long to reissue this excellent 1968 follow-up. The Second Poem of Karmela Or Gypsies Are Important sees the Cambridge guitarist who orchestrated musical events for Timothy Leary's Celebration Festivals expand his instrumental range into all kind of exotic instrumentation of sitars, tambouras, sarods, violins, flutes, and tablas. Ranging from raga jams to gypsy reveries, there is an open-ended beatnik quality to the music that seems to lend itself to all kinds of imagined visual accompaniment such as trippy projections or interpretive dancing, the romantic raga forms circling around an undefined center of plaintive guitar explorations. Resonant and devotional, the swirling freeform chaos of sound gives way to some incredibly beautiful guitar excursions. The amazing final track, "Mixture", with its backward phasing and organ drones is like hearing Terry Riley and Henry Flynt playing on some unearthly psychedelic jam. Highly Recommended!
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wondrous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (nee: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theater of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Although comprised mostly of covers, Walker already began to show strong songwriting skills on his first solo record, Scott, especially with "Montague Terrace (In Blue)" where he describes unsavory neighbors in his tenement flat, one as a "bloated belching figure", and another "whose thighs are full of tales to tell of nights she's known". But it's "My Death", one of three Brel covers that is the album's centerpiece. Later covered by David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, Walker's version features such hypnotic orchestration, serpentine guitar passages and swelling stabbing strings that it almost feels like we're being brought to the threshold of death on a cloud of poisonous perfume.
Overall, a fine selection of songs that show his range of performance and promise for the records to come.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 2 is one of our favorites, not that it's necessarily different from the others but the choice of songs flows perfectly together. In fact the first side of Scott 2 is pure pop vocal perfection, beginning with the Brel cover "Jackie", whose enthusiastically fast delivery is mind-boggling (Youtube this!). Then the bitter torch of "Best of Both Worlds", the Tim Hardin cover, "Black Sheep Boy", the original "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg" about a man escaping from the claustrophobia of domestic life into a tragic fantasy. "Next" is next, one of Brel's most visceral and theatrical tunes about the dehumanizing experience of a military coming of age, which is then followed by Walker's companion sequel "Girls From The Streets" told by the same character as a man resigned to a life of bitterness and depravity. Yet the centerpiece is the fantasia "Plastic Palace People", which begins side 2. A dizzying dualistic fairy tale about a boy's embrace of his youthful innocence and a girl mourning the loss of hers. This kills!
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 3 has the best cover art of the bunch. The others are pretty straight ahead portraits, but 3 is a close up of an eye with vibrantly purple eyelashes. Inside the pupil we see a melancholy Walker, which is apt, as Scott 3 is the most melancholy of the four records. The tempo is slower and apart from the Brel inspired original, "We Came Through" and the quirky acoustic tribute to Cryogenics of "30th Century Man" (featured on the soundtrack to Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic"), most of the tracks on Scott 3 are ballads to the ghosts of romance. Definitely a rainy day record, and probably not the best place to start for newbies.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 4 is definitely the most unique of the four. It's all original compositions for one thing, but also the arrangements are more upbeat, and while the orchestral elements are there, folk, rock and country elements of guitar and drums appear more than ever before. Still eccentric songwriting abounds. The opener, "The Seventh Seal", a flamenco pop tribute to the Bergman film of the same name about a medieval knight's chess game with Death is full of the pomp we love in Scott Walkers music. And while there are no Brel covers on 4, his influence can be heard on centerpiece "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)", as well as "Hero of the War". A sequel of sorts to "Plastic Palace People" on Scott 2 can be seen in "Boy Child", one of the most beautifully arranged ballads, while the strings in "The World's Strongest Man" brings tears every time. Yet, weirder still, the final three songs take a strange turn into lush country pop with slide guitar, and back-up vocals (for the first time!) that allude to the direction Walker persued unsuccessfully through the seventies. Still very Stellar!
It's been 4 years since Warpaint's full length debut, The Fool, and this beguiling girl group hasn't lost any of their dreamy mystique, despite gunning for a lusher and glossier production. Sonically, the band is tighter than ever before, more centered rhythmically, and wielding a greater prowess on electronic and atmospheric elements. But they still have a dark pop witchiness that comes out in interesting ways, not just in the moody swirling hypnotic foundations of their songs, but in dubby bass-centered jams like "Disco/Very", that shows the band only getting stronger and fiercer with age. Their sound more highly polished, Warpaint still channel bands like Electrolane and Blonde Redhead in their best moments, but are taking it a step further in defining their sound and completely owning it. 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......
We're not sure if it is tied to the recent death of visionary ESP-disk label founder Bernard Stollman, but it seems like many of the great forward thinking musical releases of uncategorizable out-rock, avant-jazz and beat performance pioneered on Stollman's label in the sixties and seventies are seeing new light. We re-listed the primal freak of Cromagnon recently, and the legendary Sun Ra lps Heliocentric Worlds vols. I and II are in our orbit once again as well (email us if you want to order). But this week, we have a solid vinyl reissue of the 1966 College Tour album from obscure out-jazz chanteuse, Patty Waters.
An influence of Diamanda Galas, Patti Smith and Lydia Lunch, the seemingly mild-mannered Waters became well known for her 14 minute interpretation of "Black is The Color of My True Love's Hair", from her first ESP album, 1965's Sings. In it she takes the traditional ballad and wrings out every gut-wrenching emotion from restrained grey-toned torch song to epic fits of shrieks and screams. At the time, that song hit a visceral nerve especially coming after a more staid but nevertheless nocturnal repertoire of beautifully skeletal jazz-balladry. Here she was taking Billie Holiday's sad and soulful delivery to new depths of nuance and extreme vocal innovation.
On College Tour she expands upon those dynamic vocals in a live setting using an all-star back-up group as part of a New York state college tour which included Sun Ra Arkestra, Burton Greene, Giuseppi Logan and Ran Blake. With flute, bass, piano and percussion in seemingly improvisational backing, Waters at first sings quietly in wordless coos and breathy whispers, that over time follow traditional jazz singing, but soon evolve (or devolve depending on how you look at it), into brays and wails, animal noises and hollers. The backing music follows suit. Two long suites embrace this dynamic with a brief, transcendent interlude of "It Never Entered My Mind" which is so gorgeously delivered, that it counters any doubt that this performer can actually sing. Water only recorded these two records for ESP, and then disappeared for about 25 years to raise a family. Though she made a new record of jazz standards in the nineties, it was nothing like these two early classics. Dig the Mansonesque cover photo, this is still some next-level shit!
Remastered and hand-numbered to 1000.
Out of all the proto-new age records that have become available again this one is quite unique and utterly weird. Often stated as the very first psychedelic album, it is more a document of of the intermediary space when beatnik bohemian sensibilities were beginning to transform into hippie communal expression.
British born philosopher Alan Watts, who popularized Eastern philosophy for Western audiences from his base in the San Francisco Bay Area of the late fifties and early sixties, emphasized the link between the practices of Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy, and proposed that if the sane man couldn't let himself lose control every once in awhile, he wasn't truly sane. So what we have here are freeform recordings from 1962 of wordless group chants, drum circles and primal scream therapy tempered instrumentally by circular repetitions of out of tune piano, percussion and flutes. Babbling call and response, vocal trills and whistles over caveman rhythms with occasional spoken philosophical passages by Watts himself, it has early influential links to later communal psych records like Parson Sound, Amon Duul and Taj Mahal Travellers. Though its outright and blatant freakiness may be an acquired taste for some, those who have a penchant for the sort of recordings featured on the famous Nurse With Wound list, especially Alan Sondheim's group Ritual ALL-770, this may be right up your alley!
Lodged somewhere between The Seeds garage aggression and The Kinks pop lyricism is Florida's greatest sixties "never-was" band, We The People. Supported by two strong in-house songwriters, We The People were almost too pop-savvy and musically accomplished to be called a garage band, but they could tear it up with the wildest proto-punk groups out there but also deliver smart and clever lyrics, killer pop hooks and dreamy psych vibes. The opening Morricone-ish guitar hook of "In the Past" (covered by The Chocolate Watch Band) is the clincher, along with the feedback rave-ups of "You Burn Me Up and Down" and "Too Much Noise" and the moody tremolo pensiveness of "(You Are) The Color Of Love" and "Alfred, What Kind of man Are You?". Unfortunately, they never received any wide national attention, despite being signed to RCA Victor, and after one key songwriter jumped ship, it pretty much sealed the band's fate. This anthology collects their best and most essential singles, a much needed pairing down from the completist 2cd set Sundazed issued a decade ago. While it has almost the same tracks as the early Collectables reissue, the tracklisting is greatly improved for better flow, making this feel like the album that was never made. Seriously, there's not a bum cut on here, and they're all original songs. Essential!
Contemporary British psych/folk singer Jane Weaver has never had a proper aQ review, though she has appeared on many of our reviews of various Finder's Keepers comps such as Bearded Ladies and Bird Songs, and she is part of the Pre-Cert label super group Neotantrik with husband Andy Votel and members of Demdike Stare. Her sixth full length, The Silver Globe, has finally got our undivided attention, largely because it's a wild departure from the pastoral folk-psychedelia of her previous solo efforts and embraces a heavier cinematic electronic kraut-rock sensibility akin to Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, The Sound Carriers, and Death and Vanilla.
Named after the polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski's (Possession) incomplete sci-fi masterpiece from 1988, On The Silver Globe, whichin turn was based on a 1901 polish sci-fi novel (written by Zulawski's granduncle Jerzy Zulawski) about an ill-fated moon expedition. The epic drama of grand fantastical desire and ruinous failure that mars both the fictional narrative and the actual real-life circumstances surrounding the making of both the book and film seems to be a perfect foil for Weaver's emotive vocals that are both cool and dreamy but have the ability to drive us through the various peaks and valleys of atmospheric lows and electric transcendent highs. Beautiful!
We listed the original version of this several months ago, if you missed it then, though, you're in luck 'cause it has just been issued again in a special deluxe edition, with a whole bonus disc added on! And, somehow, it's cheaper!! That's right, this widely-acclaimed 2014 album now is expanded to include a 2nd full-length disc entitled The Amber Light. Here's what we said about The Silver Globe proper, the first time we listed it:
Contemporary British psych/folk singer Jane Weaver has never had a proper aQ review, though she has appeared on many of our reviews of various Finder's Keepers comps such as Bearded Ladies and Bird Songs, and she is part of the Pre-Cert label super group Neotantrik with husband Andy Votel and members of Demdike Stare. Her sixth full length, The Silver Globe, has finally got our undivided attention, largely because it's a wild departure from the pastoral folk-psychedelia of her previous solo efforts and embraces a heavier cinematic electronic kraut-rock sensibility akin to Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, The Sound Carriers, and Death & Vanilla.
Named after the polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski's (Possession) incomplete sci-fi masterpiece from 1988, On The Silver Globe, which in turn was based on a 1901 polish sci-fi novel (written by Zulawski's granduncle Jerzy Zulawski) about an ill-fated moon expedition. The epic drama of grand fantastical desire and ruinous failure that mars both the fictional narrative and the actual real-life circumstances surrounding the making of both the book and film seems to be a perfect foil for Weaver's emotive vocals that are both cool and dreamy but have the ability to drive us through the various peaks and valleys of atmospheric lows and electric transcendent highs. Beautiful!
And then, regarding The Amber Light, well we just got it in, so the label's blurb on it will have to suffice: "The Amber Light carves a niche between new age motivational music, radiophonic folk, and snarling krautrock, echoing the kosmische stylings of The Silver Globe with the punk urgency of '80s domestic synthpop. The Amber Light's four original songs are accompanied by three exclusive instrumental themes (including a commissioned theme from an American vampire film), and three collaborative re-workings/duets based on tracks from The Silver Globe, with co-production from Tom Furse (The Horrors), Andy Votel, Suzanne Ciani, members of Demdike Stare, and original Silver Globe inhabitants Pete J. Phillipson and Martin King."
Yes! Rarely has a collection of four songs captivated us as much as this welcome reissue and first-time vinyl release of Weekend's '81 demos. When it was released on cd for the first time back in 1995 on Vinyl Japan, we couldn't stop listening and now hearing the tracks on vinyl nearly 20 year later, we are smitten all over again. Weekend was Alison Statton's band formed shortly after the demise of beloved British post-punk minimalists Young Marble Giants (whose Colossal Youth was a former ROTW, and one of our favorite albums ever!). Weekend ended up having more of a breezy jazzier vibe than YMG, closer to Marine Girls, Antena, Durutti Column and The Field Mice, putting out a sole full length, La Variete in 1982. While we loved that record (though not everyone here did, as the inclusion of saxophone in anything but a strict jazz context can be a real deal-breaker for some), the real discovery was the demos that featured 4 songs from La Variete, but much more stripped down (read: no sax!) and bittersweet, sounding probably close to what YMG would have sounded like had they continued. With Statton on voice and bass, and supported by chiming guitar, drum machine, violin and percussion, these songs are exquisitely executed and allowed ample room to breathe. The stunner being the 9 minute "Red Planes", which is given a beautifully slow instrumental build before the vocals come in and break our hearts. "Drumbeat" and "Nostalgia" are barely more upbeat, but carry the same sense of cool detachment that made Colossal Youth so damn charming. The final track "Summerdays" is an instrumental in the sunny pastoral vein of Durutti Column or the recently reissued Maurice Deebank. For fans of all of the above bands as well as Low, Galaxie 500, Heavenly, and Beach House. It may seem short, but trust us, you'll be playing this over and over and over again!
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!
A big bag of songs indeed! 28 of them as a matter of fact, and all pretty incredible from a singer/songwriter we weren't familiar with, though we did know his two most famous songs, "High Flying Bird" and "Jackson", as performed by others such as Johnny Cash, Jefferson Airplane, Judy Henske and Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. Billy Edd Wheeler was smack in the middle of the crossroads where country, folk, pop and rock meet. Mentored by famed songwriting team Leiber & Stoller, Wheeler penned many great tunes for Cab Calloway, Lonnie Donnegan, Hank Snow and The Kingston Trio as well. Wheeler had a very folksy style using the big classic sixties country-pop production (the kind you've heard on plenty of other Omni reissues from Dee Mullins, Porter Wagoner, Hoyt Axton, Johnny Paycheck and Henson Cargill), but underneath the wholesome exterior of the songs lie pointed messages about the environment, taxes, falling out of love, the desperation of the hard working poor, and the soul-killing culture of the white-collar worker. Highly skilled with language and a turn of phrase, Wheeler was a master at weaving an epic story into a three minute pop song, whether it be a coal miner yearning to fly away like a bird, a mushroom taking elevator operator, a badass cowboy preacher, or the emotional wreckage of a marriage on the skids. 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.
Reissued on cassette for a limited time!
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 (care of Delia Derbyshire!). White Noise's mastermind David Vorhaus keeps things pretty surreal with a track based around the recordings made at a orgy (as well as a Satanic mass!) and with a precursor to the John Balance vocal mumbles about how "darkness was enshrouded by darkness and the darkness was deadeningly dark." A sonic touchstone for Broadcast, The Focus Group and the Ghostbox label. Limited to 100 copies.
Whoo hoo! Kranky cranks out another colorful psychedelic dose of nu new age dream-hop from Portland's Adam Forkner, aka White Rainbow.� Considering Mr. Forkner has been at the forefront of the pysch-pop new agey dream drone thing for awhile now, its no wonder he's perfected his trance dance, acid bathed tribal ambient shtick into a polished slab of catchy tunes, that fit somewhere between Cluster, Cocteau Twins and the golden gate park drum circle. Wavering angelic vocals soar across space and time, trails of colors fall to the ground as sprawling nebulous rhythms come in one ear and out the other. Definitely one of those records where listening on headphones uncovers all kinds of details and special secrets. Dreamy, fuzzed-out rainbow riffs gazing over pitter-patter percussion and waves of ambient wash, the doors of infinity are open, are your chakras aligned??
Where past White Rainbow releases might have been more guitar and vocal driven, New Clouds seems to offer much more awesome synthesizer wizardry, which we dig. But compared to Prism of Eternal Now, it seems New Clouds offers less variation and is more one dimensional, maintaining a steady sonic thickness that may be very satisfying to some, but a bit monotonous for others. Any way you look at it, New Clouds is a fantastic edition to the Kranky catalogue and a perfect soundtrack for your next out of body experience!
If there's any justice in this world, it should be anytime now that Adam Forkner becomes a household name, well at least in houses that care about awesome underground music. His past bands, Yume Bitsu, Surface Of Eceyon and the ambitious project [[[[VVRSSNN]]]] all had amazing moments that swept us away, but we think it's in his newest incarnation as White Rainbow that he's truly tapped into some serious musical magic.
Much like his recent collaboration with Honey Owens for the limited cd-r by their duo World, Forkner has found a way to stretch out his sounds and tap into something transcendent. With it's Dr. Brommers inspired manic packaging, and it's equally metaphysical title, this is a record whose sounds are well able to back up the mysterious belief system its entire aura points at. Channeling the living spirit of folks like Terry Riley and LaMonte Young, Prism Of Eternal Now is not merely just a tribute to those icons but living proof of how their influence has touched and inspired a younger generation of musicians aiming to create dense, enchanting, and alive sounds.
The album reveals many different shades of Forkner's musical explorations. From the dreamy, subdued and shoegazey side to the active, relentless and spacious. This is music to get lost in, lost to and lost with. The kind of record you put on and that immediately has you drifting off in a million different directions. Forkner has made his own brilliant Rainbow In Curved Air for a new generation. Highly recommended!
Maybe it's the encroaching autumn, but lately we can't get enough of solo piano music. Especially when it's all minimal clusters of wistful passages, lilting progressions and sustained overtones. While this isn't a solo piano record per se, the liquid piano playing of Italian classical composer, Ludovico Einaudi, collaborating with electronic artists Robert and Ronald Lippok (To Rococo Rot, Tarwater), is at the heart of every track here. The group works fluidly together as a single unit (they recorded this live, together in one room) with the electronic nuances and occasional, but never overpowering, rhythms interlocking with Einaudi's playfully lyrical compositions. It's a lovely album that reminds us of the Rune Grammofon label's prettiest releases, and is fast becoming one of our favorite late night / early morning records. Highly Recommended!
One of our all-time favorite soundtracks to one of our all-time favorite movies gets the deluxe gatefold vinyl reissue treatment. You probably know you want it, if you want it. And if you don't, we can only think of a couple reasons: you've never seen the movie, or you don't have a turntable. Definitely correctable conditions. It's a bit expensive, too, but so worth it! This is the vinyl version of the domestic stereo master reissue from 2002 with the incidental music included. Includes extensive liner notes on both the film and music. Here is what we said about the cd edition way back on list #147:
Oooh - a domestic release (somewhat different from the previously available version issued in 1998 by the UK's Trunk label, more on that later) of the soundtrack to the amazing and supremely creepy 1972 British pagansploitation film The Wicker Man! A group of folk musicians, most of whom appear in the film, bring Nordic lyre, harmonica, concertina, recorders, guitars, hand drums and more (some psychedelic electric guitar at one point!) to Paul Giovanni's exceptional Celtic influenced compositions. More than just film accompaniment music, the soundtrack plays an important role in the film's characterization of the pagan inhabitants of a remote island off Scotland (led by their Laird, played by Christopher Lee in what he considers his greatest role) who are suspiciously reticent in helping a stuffy, upright Christian policeman (Edward Woodward) investigate the mysterious disappearance of a young girl. Sometimes bawdy, sometimes haunting, and ultimately infused with the film's mounting sense of menace, the songs capture the lusty forces of nature which embrace death as readily as birth. As much as they work in the context of the film, these songs form an album that is great in its own right. Divided into "Songs From Summerisle: Ballads of Seduction, Fertility and Ritual Slaughter" and "Incidental Music From The Wicker Man," the tracks are culled from newly unearthed stereo masters as well as rougher and perhaps more appropriate sounding mono mixes which originally appeared in the film. Highly recommended, both for fans of English folk (of the sixties revival and/or "apocalyptic" varieties) as well as for fans of cult oddities. Truly the "unholy grail" of film soundtracks, as the Trunk version's liner notes put it.
Oh, if you've got that disc, and are wondering what's different with this release, here's the lowdown: That 1998 cd release was a mono recording, taken from the music and effects tapes from the shortest (86 minute) cut of the film, whereas this new version was done from the newly-discovered stereo masters of Giovanni's music, and includes the wonderful song "Gently Johnny" which only appeared in the longer, uncut version of the film and thus was missing from the Trunk cd. The sound effects and dialogue aren't mixed over the songs, as with the earlier version, and as mentioned, this new disc is organized with a suite of tracks of incidental music and sound effects presented separately, following the actual songs (rather than mixed all together, arranged as in the film). However, this new Wicker Man's running time is actually a few minutes *shorter* than the previous version, even with "Gently Johnny" included. Hmm. We're not exactly sure what's missing, presumably some of the incidental music /effects were edited differently. But no matter, this still must be considered the definitive Wicker Man soundtrack, because of its superior stereo sound source, as well as the packaging, which includes a handsome layout of photos and text in the record's gatefold and features blown up movie poster art on both sides of the record's jacket.
And if you haven't ever seen the movie, it's on dvd now, go rent it!!
In the long wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's good to remind ourselves of the amazing musical legacy of New Orleans. So what better time than now to get this 2 disc reissue of one of the more unique and underrated funk groups of the early seventies, The Wild Magnolias. The first Mardi-Gras Indian group to get signed to a major label (they're not real Native Americans, but African-Americans partaking in a long-time tradition of street�based competition with rival tribal factions fully decked out in elaborately ornate, feathered Indian regalia), The Wild Magnolias were known for their gospel like call-and-response vocal chants over driving funk rhythms provided by The New Orleans Project led by keyboardist Willie Tee. Compiling their 1973 self-titled debut, and 1975 follow-up, They Call us Wild, the Magnolias mix up original songs sung in native-sounding patois ("Handa Wanda", "Ho Na Nae") with interesting takes on New Orleans folk standards such as "Saints" and "Shoo Fly". Includes a PDF version of a 68 page book about their impressive history. An awesome reissue of some bad-ass funk and an amazing peek into one of New Orleans most unique street traditions!
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!
This album has been slaying us! Finally available, this long-awaited expanded 2 disc deluxe reissue of Pacific Ocean Blue validates its worthy cult following. Released in 1977 by the first Beach Boy to go solo, many were surprised at how the seemingly least-talented Wilson brother created such a maturely produced and beautifully arranged statement, one on a completely separate musical wavelength than brother Brian. Yet by then he already had a solid track record going with the band. On almost every album The Beach Boys put out from 1968-1974 (their best years, in our opinion), Dennis had writing credit on at least two tracks, some of which like "Steamboat" from Holland and "Little Bird" on Friends were among the best songs on either.
Getting production and arrangement help from Glenn Jakobson and Daryl Dragon (Farm, The Dragons, Captain and Tenille), the overall feel of Pacific Ocean Blue marks the end of that vibrant sun-dappled seventies west-coast sound; a coke and whisky sunset to the sunrise wake-and-bake of David Crosby's If I Can Only Remember My Name. The production doesn't recall Brian Wilson's lost childhood fantasias from Pet Sounds or Smile, but rather the resigned weariness of someone who lived fast and came up empty. With one exception (skip track 2!), the mostly piano-led songs gravitate from mellow groovers to heavy but plaintively restrained ballads with epic swells that would sound right at home on a Wilco, Vetiver or Plush record. While it still feels of the time, like a rare classic FM radio moment where a song comes up that sounds familiar and really good but you can't place it, it's mostly free of those late seventy MOR moments (no wonky sax or guitar solos). It's not so much yacht rock as it is a warm slow sailboat ride into oblivion.
Included on this disc are bonus tracks from the POB sessions including the gorgeous cinematic instrumental, "Mexico". A second disc contains sessions from Wilson's never released follow-up, Bambu, which demonstrate that POB was not a mere one-off. It features strong songs with more Caribbean rhythms and soulfulness than POB, (like if Gary Higgins recorded a late seventies follow-up to Red Hash) but it's less a definitive statement. One of the tracks from these sessions, "Holy Man" (also included as an instrumental) has vocals added by Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who remarkably sounds just like Wilson (if we weren't told, we'd never have noticed it was a different singer). Dubious as it sounds it's not a bad thing, as both versions highlight what an amazing instrumentalist and songwriter we have lost. Essential!!!!!
If you have been paying attention to the British tabloids and gossip blogs lately, then most likely you, like us, have heard about Ms. Winehouse's drunken antics (her ongoing feuds with white Brit soul-sister Lily Allen, her heckling Bono at a recent awards show, or her oddball sense of fashion), long before you would have actually heard her sing. But who doesn't love a Hot Mess these days, especially one who can surprisingly deliver the classic soul goods as forcefully as she. Seriously, every time we play this, customers do double takes when they see her skinny frame on the cd and hear this big ballsy voice, they just don't match up. At least not until you hear the lyrics, especially on the opening track, the very timely "Rehab", and you can see that her rough charm belies some hefty emotional damage. Backed by the Dap-Kings (well, the band sounds like them and she's touring with them, so we think it's them) and featuring a cameo by Ghostface Killah, Ms. Winehouse's second album is a lovelorn soul cocktail made from the tawdry shards of a broken gin bottle.
Why it has taken so long for this to be reissued is baffling, but we're just so glad it's finally here. We have raved about Leslie Winer's musical work on two previous archival releases from Tapeworm and its offshoot label Wormhole, but those really only hinted at the genius of Witch, her only previously released record, from 1993 (though much of it was recorded in the late eighties). Records don't get more cult than this. Released on a white label, using the copyright symbol as her moniker, here designed as a circle of Ourobouros that was originally hand stamped onto blank white sleeves. Even the album and song titles with their alphanumerical wordplay ("N1ear", "1nce Upon A Time") would fit right at home with the obscurant syntax of witch house, even though this was recorded nearly 20 years before. Witch has been labeled as "proto-trip-hop", which it sort of is, as this record predates what Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky were doing just a year or two later, and even Winer herself has been called by NME "The Grandmother of Trip Hop", a label she has rejected and rightly so. "Grandmother" doesn't have the same aura of respect as what the music press names male musical innovators such as "Godfather" or "King", and Winer, a poet and formal model with a chic androgynous style who was close friends with both William S. Burroughs and Jean-Michel Basquiat is hardly a little old lady.
Witch is both a product of its time and far ahead of it. On the surface, it's not that far removed from Sinead O'Connor, especially her song "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" with its James Brown drum sample and spoken intonations, but Witch is much darker, cooler and more subdued. It has a very London feel to it, a feeling of frustrated action against cultural stagnation and trying to create something new out of nearly nothing. Winer doesn't necessarily sing as much as observe and respond with cool detachment, a sort of soundtrack of her experiences relayed poetically to an unknown listener as beats, dub rhythms (from Jah Wobble no less), and musical samples and snippets of dialogue coalesce around her. It's a heady mixture, definitely dreamy and druggy, but she refreshingly doesn't try to endear the listener to her own personal entanglements and positions on gender, beauty and social norms. It's more like she's having a searching complicated conversation with herself.
Musically, what Witch really predates is the contemporary woozy and warped electronica of Peaking Lights and Maria Minerva, especially in the layering of breezy dub rhythms in hazy reverb and abstract murk. It's a beautifully extraordinary work that continually rewards the more we listen. Big thanks to Superior Viaduct for making this more widely available. Incredible and soooo recommended!
In 1978, being qualified as "the Pink Floyd of the New Wave" might have come across as something of an insult; and by today's artistic strategies of rampant revivalism such a pithy remark may ring true to many a listener. That statement was, in fact, the critique prescribed to Chairs Missing, Wire's second album, as the album decelerated the pogo punk minimalism found on their first album with an increasing use of experimental production. In hindsight, Chairs Missing is the perfect transition between the high-strung velocity of Pink Flag and the staggering gloominess of 154; yet most transition records have a clunkiness about them, like a lanky teenager not quite able to fit into his sunday best. But Chairs Missing is miles above the average transition album. To many a listener, Chairs Missing stands as the ultimate Wire album, with near perfect pop songs alternating between anthemic punk and eccentric production techniques (i.e. atonal synth drone, staccato guitar chops, overdubbed guitar distortion, etc.). Where Pink Flag kept many of the songs under a minute and half, Chairs Missing is downright baroque in its presentation of 3 minute tunes. The genius of Chairs Missing is how Colin Newman, Robert Gotobed, Bruce Gilbert, and Graham Lewis manage to steer through the diverse songwriting landscape, in how the album's opening track "Practice Makes Perfect" transitions from a delicate prance for jangled guitar into a precise expression of menace, in how "Outdoor Miner" creates the catchiest, Beatlesque chorus you'll never be able to sing back to yourself given the complexity of its rejoining, nonsensical syllables, in how jaggedly clean the guitars of Newman and Gilbert attack each other, in how Lewis' bass is fluid and effortless, in how this run-on sentence seems to have lost its way trying to fathom the complexity of Wire. If you believe that the length of Aquarius' reviews directly correlate to how good the record actually is, then we have failed as we would need to write a fucking a book about how stunning this album is. Yeah, Chairs Missing is incredible; and if you don't have it, you really should.
Okay, one thing to bitch about the reissue of Chairs Missing is that the cover is curiously bleached out of its color; the reissue also doesn't come with the (really great!) bonus tracks found on the EMI cd version of the album. Come on Wire, you released this album on your own label. At least you could give us all the bells and whistles found on other versions of this album! This is our only complaint, and a minor quibble for sure.
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!
Adolf Wolfli (1864-1930) has long been one of our favorite artists. An incredible touchstone of what has been called Art Brut or more commonly Outsider Art, Wolfli created an epic body of work while suffering from psychosis (and resulting hallucinations) and confined in isolation at the Waldau Clinic in Bern, Switzerland for the latter half of his life. Working with loaned pencils and newsprint and other materials that he would have to scrounge from his surroundings, Wolfli developed an amazing kaleidoscopic cosmology of vast complexity featuring colorful angelic orders, dynamic structural compositions and weaving motifs of idiosyncratic musical passages. Some of these exist as free drawings, but most (1600 of them!) were illustrations for a semi-autobiographical epic that eventually expanded into 45 volumes of over 25,000 pages. The musical notes, starting out as decorative motifs at first begin to take on more significance as he developed his epic book, especially in the last two volumes where he outlines his musical theories, favoring marches, waltzes and mazurkas for their rhythmic quality, as a means (to put it very simply) of some form of spiritual self-transformation. It has remained unclear if Wolfli had musical training or if he transcribed the scores from found sources, but he often would write out the scores and play them on a paper trumpet he made.
Which brings us to the purpose of this book and cd. There already exists a history of analyses of Wolfli's musical scores to see if they actually can be performed. Recordings have been made including one by Graeme Revell with the help of Nurse With Wound in the late Eighties, but many of these were largely interpretive and subjective, adding ambient impressions largely based on the visual aspects of the artworks as well.
For this particular analysis, Belgian composer and violinist, Baudouin de Jaer, who didn't have previous exposure to Wolfli's work, sticks to a more empirical approach to the scores. Limiting himself to solo violin with mute, de Jaer attempts to decipher what he sees as cryptograms (Wolfli made the scores with six lines staves instead of the traditional 5 lines and didn't connect the notes horizontally, suggesting alternate meanings), and forms his own detailed hypotheses in the book about how Wolfli put the musical forms together (mostly believed to be copied from a book of marches for 4 handed piano). Musically, the 32 pieces are very short and spare (about a minute or less with the longest clocking in at about 3 minutes). But de Jaer does a lot with little, often using the side of the violin for percussive rumbles or rubbing the strings for bird-like chirps, the music has an off-kilter fanfare feel to it that follows logically from Wolfli's divine cosmological visions. The book is about 25 pages with full color illustrations and text in French and English and with the cd, offers a fresh new insight into this complex artist's work that will be of interest to old and new fans alike!
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!
All you music nerd, yeah we're talking to you. You're just like us, you love reading reviews, even of records you already own. But even better is reading about records you've never heard of. And records you're not sure you'd even want to hear. That's where the Siltblog comes in. A sporadically updated site wherein Siltbreeze head honcho Tom Lax reviews all sorts of random and weird records that cross his path. We've definitely discovered some killer stuff, and it's always a totally entertaining read.
Tom wrote about this SF outfit a while back and a few people asked us about it so we got in touch with the band and got a bunch for the store. The Wooden Shjips (huh? we don't get it) aren't as far out as a lot of stuff that gets grilled on the Siltblog, but after a few listens it's easy to see why it's so special. It starts out with a fuzzy garage-y stomp, and it sounds downright indie rock. But then, nothing happens, the groove just sort of locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laid back and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing.
The final track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
The third collection of X Ray Pop tracks in as many years finds this duo of frenetic eighties French synth-poppers in their later era (1984-1989) with catchy songs pulled from lps and cassettes that while still as zany and edgy as the music on the earlier collections, also shows both more polish and dreaminess with more complex instrumentation and arrangements. Their first two collections showcased both their demos in minimal synth-wave form and their full-length releases with a hyper-punkier edge. This collection reminds us even more of French pop groups like Les Rita Mitsouko and Stereo Total with a richer poppier sheen that's effervescent and bubbly but still very weird. Includes bonus material of early demos of their classic songs like "Alcool" and "L'Eurasienne" sung by male member Doc Pilot. This is fast-becoming our favorite of the three collections!
