Outer Space Gamelan

I Don't Want to Say Goodbye, But...

2007-11-02T21:58:00.000-04:00

Maybe you guessed as much from the fact that it's been nearly two weeks without a new post...but I've straight up run out of time to even so much as think about music, let alone review it. Yeah I keep buying stuff, but it's just collecting on desks and shelves and countertops around the house. I started this blog back when I had loads - oodles, even - of free time on my hands. And I started writing mainly for me, just because I had all these records and felt like I should do something productive and more involved than just listening to them once and tossing them on a rack. So now I guess I'm stopping for me as well. Although "stopping" sounds pretty final and I don't know if I'll be done for good. I might be able to squeeze something in once a week, but that'll be moreso to get through the backlog of things people sent in (for which I'm eternally grateful and equally apologetic, if you've sent something in recently and I haven't been able to review it; the purpose of this site was never to just fatten up my own record collection, I hope you understand). You can still drop a line for my address if you want to send something, but now it's a question of "if" I'll ever get around to it, as opposed to the "when" of before.
So that said, it's been a slice, and with any, ah, luck you'll still see me around, just not nearly to the degree of prolifacy I used to maintain. I'm closing comments on this entry because I don't want it to turn into some lame-o pity party or anything but you can always email me if you want to say something. Otherwise, thanks lots to whoever read, commented, emailed, or sent something in. The links on the right side point to other, far more talented scribes than I could ever hope to be, I recommend familiarizing yourself with them in my absence/sabbatical/what have you. Cheerio.

Ju Suk Reet Meate - Solo 78/79 aka Do Unseen Hands Make You Dumb? (De Stijl CD)

2007-10-17T21:38:00.000-04:00

Talk about your beautiful days in the neighborhood... it always is when pieces of the 70's noise /experimentalist puzzle fall into place. RRR laid out the border pieces when they put out the "Lowest Form of Music" 10xCD in conjunction with the Los Angeles Free Music Society, and De Stijl's filling in the middle by reissuing this offering from LAFMS cog and Smegma architect Ju Suk Reet Meate, originally birthed in a tiny edition back in 1980 on the group's own Pigface label. Listening to Smegma records, it's difficult to fathom from what corners of the world they drew their twisted inspiration from (David Keenan did a good job for the Wire last year but I can't remember much of it), and you might think that backing but one cell of the unit into a corner and picking at his brain would offer up more clues...but you're liable to be more confused after you're done than you were when you began. I was. But it's not such a bad thing either.
"Solo 78/79" compiles both sides of that LP as well as two 5-minute tracks that were hitherto unheard - one called "Guitar & Loops" and another called "Short Wave", both recorded in 1979. Given the rigid running times of each, it's plausible they were lined up for a single that never came to fruition, and it makes me kind of wish De Stijl (or someone else) went the extra step to reissue this as an LP+7" but now I'm just being churlish. Anyway, of the two LP tracks, side A is the one most steeped in, uh, normalcy, if you will. In addition to a rather surprising cello?/contrabass? solo that dips from near-rock riffing to free improv skronks and howls, the side opens with a rather straight garage rock guitar vamp...sorta belying what else is coming. Meate eventually blends the riff into a woozy nightmarish sequence featuring multiple unintelligible voices and something slowed down to the point of falling off the tape it was recorded on (possibly another voice) as a backdrop. Elsewhere he unearths a sound not unlike a backporch Deliverance-style twist on American primitive musics, with plucked banjos, creaking rocking chairs, voices in the kitchen and the back-and-forth of treefrogs in the summer haze, hinting something close to the "stoned blues" the label suggests. But all put together in such a skewed manner that it'll probably sound different to each and every person that hears it. The side closes with a tremendously ominous organ-led grind that could've easily have been lifted from a vast array of B-grade horror flicks, but also stirs up weird memories of Terry Riley or Charlemagne Palestine, so I got no idea where it's coming from.
"Side B" is considerably more impenetrable, and has a lot less distinctive movements than the former. Meate blends a multitude of old, crackling voice samples, all mostly understandable this time around but continously bleeding into something entirely new, and roasting each new interjection over the fire pit of gibberish already established. Think of it as a Zappa/Beefheart/Residents-afflicted stab through the heart of Reich's early tape works "Come Out" and "It's Gonna Rain". The meat (no pun intended) of the B-side is devoted to a looped, guttural chant - either run in reverse or in a language I'm not familiar with - decorated with, well, more loops: various horn solos are run through and wrapped around the voices (now wavering in volume), then the original chant is juxtaposed against itself, creating a disorienting echoey effect. The final trick in Meate's playbook is an impressive one - blending and crossfading what sounds like snippets of numerous gospel or folk records running at various speeds and pitches, into an overwhelming soup of sound that, with the addition of some wild, sliding, laser-like synthesizer noise, hits its "noisiest" stride as yet, before tumbling off into the great silence.
The two bonus tracks are interesting, but not nearly as filling as the material found on the original LP. On "Guitar & Loops", Meate splays languid, industrialish guitar lines out as landscape and treats them with a mixture of loops containing saxophones, piano strings, pre-Patton yelps and snarls, ringing synth noise, and a boatload else with varying degrees of success. "Short Wave" is what it says it is, but I'm a fan of garbled shortwave transmissions so I liked it, though you may not. There's also some looming tones over top that I think could be a guitar but shit it's hard to tell. I've long been intoxicated by the pieces on this record so up is down and left is right by now, maybe if I went in cold I could attempt to define it further. I'll leave it to the philosophers.
What more needs to be said? You know this is a crucial bit above and beyond the realms of criticism, you know you need to to attempt to get a grip on the picture, you know you're kicking yourself if you already bought the 10xCD and are wondering why this wasn't on it...suck it up and pick it up. Also worth it for the intense John Coors liner notes which I read once I bought this back in August or whatever but haven't revisited since. I know they're money and I see lots of exclamation points, so there you go. Cheers to De Stijl for letting the rest of us in on this one, I think I get it now. Just kidding.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Sun City Girls - Beginnings Dark (Enterruption 1-Sided LP) / Djinn Funnel (Nashazphone LP)

2007-10-12T22:25:00.000-04:00

The Sun City Girls are in some state of limbo, with the sad news of longtime member Charlie Gocher's passing this past February. No more live shows and no new recordings under the trio's name, but there will be, according to Alan and Richard Bishop, unreleased albums and videos, not to mention inevitable reissues (I believe Abduction and Majora are two labels in the process of reissuing hither-to out-of-print SCG material). "Beginnings Dark" is in an equivalent state of limbo, being that it's not really a new recording and not really a reissue either. "Beginnings Dark" takes its name from the Girls' 1993 Majora LP "Bright Surroundings Dark Beginnings", and its one playable side features a dramatically reworked version of "The Venerable Song (The Meaning of Which is No Longer Known)" from that very LP. "Beginnings Dark" was, according to the Girls' own website, "brought to our attention by recent advances in reverse technologies"...tongue firmly in cheek, I'm sure. But the rub is that the LP itself can be played two ways. Since the groove is cut from the inside out, you can reverse your turntable if you're so inclined and hear "Beginnings Dark" in its original form - which is to say, as "The Venerable Song". Or you can let your stylus plow through the grooves and hear it in its altered form, although that results in a whole lot ka-klunkage on mine. And while "The Venerable Song" is excellent in its own right - a jaw-rusting slog through Eastern spirituals prodded by a never-ending snaking Alan Bishop bassline, inspired Gocher drumming that flips between subtly shamanistic and violently urgent, spectre-evoking gibberish (or not) vocal wails from either/or - I'm starting to wonder if I don't prefer hearing it in reverse. Maybe it's just because I've played it so many times and it finally got under my skin or if it's just because it's something new, but holy smokes. You would think from the end result that maybe it was meant to be heard like this all along. The biggest revelation is the bassline, which transforms what was once a shady if not uninviting tick-tocking into a dark, alienating wooze, serving as the instigator for the fever-dream hallucinations the rest of the track stirs up. What's equally impressive is how little changes: the vocals remain alarmingly consistent with the yelps and yowls of the original's, if not with a bit more of an "E.T. speaking in tongues while in the thralls of an epileptic seizure" air to them, and Gocher's rapidfire percussion blows still come out of nowhere to staple you to the floor on occasion (the shakers and cymbal strokes a bit harder to discern), and the flute sounds almost exactly as it did played forward, with only the slightest notes askew like it was being wielded by, say, Keiji Haino. However, all these novelties can be achieved by ripping or downloading "The Venerable Song" and reversing it on your computer. So what's the point? Well I don't want to imply that the packaging takes precedence over the music 'cause that's just tacky, but you certainly get your $40 (I said $40) worth from Enterruption. Packaged inside the die-cut foil stamped cover you see above are two LP sleeves - one has the LP packed inside Indian Bingo's "Scatological" sleeve (as least mine did - what's the story there?) and it's worth a mention that the B-side of this kinda-marbled white vinyl has a gorgeous silkscreen print of some multi-limbed diety I'm too uneducated to recognize. The other sleeve is the "real" one containing a whole host of treats - three or four mind-scrambling black and white glossies, "We Terrorize the Sun" critical summation/overview of the Girls' career circa 1999 by Bonnie Banks, a couple of sticker sheets of art from the sleeve, two heavy cardstock color expansions on the sleeve art a large black and white group shot and a lovely photo of the young Charlie Gocher, as of October 1963. Phew...like I said, it's a real treat to unfold. And it would be at least of some consolation to you if you didn't appreciate spending 36 clams on a song you already own played in reverse, but it's all gravy to me. Because I'm the backwards man, the backwards man, I can run back as fast as you can.

I know "Djinn Funnel" came out last year and you know all about it and you've already heard it so I won't go into too much depth, but when Hicham of Nashazphone sent in his label's two latest offerings, he included this one too. Because he's a sweetheart. So the least I can do is offer a few of my thoughts on it. There's five tracks on "Djinn Funnel", recorded between 1999 and 2001, and they're the Girls like I've never been familiar with em before. I don't profess to know nearly the amount of SCG material as I'm sure many out there do but this one stumped me hard, if we were Invisible Jukeboxing I'd have been as out of my element as Marianne Faithful trying to nail down an MF Doom b-side. All these five are Sun City Girls playing the blues, playing the heavy electric blooz psych rock blues that is. "Nites of Malta" opens the set with a funky, swishing drumline and stoned, radio-ed nasal voice drip, with an absolutely searing Rick Bishop solo what kinda brings to mind Michio Kurihara shredding things on the record he did with Boris...'cept with the Eastern hookah haze the Girls often tread in. It ends with an explosive, thrashing chorus of screaming feedback (and screaming voices) and somehow the LP keeps getting better from there. If "Djinn Funnel" is the band's "Paranoid" - heavy, stoned and blues-informed - then "Dukun Degeneration" is its "Planet Caravan" with the echo of Ozzy's vocals replaced with noise distortion from Rick's guitar as Alan's struggles to keep things above water with melting, gelatinous bass fuzz. But it's Rick again who steers the songs up to and over the brink with more destructive, almost metal moves on "Dark Nectar", while he shears up in almost Mizutani-like fashion with another Eastern bent on "Red Sea Blues", an even closer comparison would be Acid Mothers Temple and the Eastern-influenced psychedelics they dredge up from time to time. The best is saved for last on the 12-minute epic finale "Grand Trunk (Drifters of the Grand Trunk)". Moving at a meditative pace and operating off of a rhythm section composed of Gocher's cyclical cymbal shots and Alan's gently loping, looping bass rhythm, the Girls hit a sound not at all unlike what OM put together on "Conference of the Birds" with a bit more in the way of subtly pushed, acid-washed guitar licks and airy vocals. Other reference points coult be Quicksilver Messenger Service or the Grateful Dead. And yeah the Sun City Girls playing in line with classic 70's psych sounds every bit as good as you'd hope. Only problem is with "Djinn Funnel" being over a year old and all, I don't know who's still carrying, so you might want to get in contact with Nashazphone directly. Depending on your funds (hey, you might want to put some money towards the "Juggernaut" and "Piasa..." reissues) I'd highly recommend both missives...it's just a matter of obtaining em, is all.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Haare - Psychedelic Funeral / Jarl - Negative Rotation (Abisko CSs)

2007-10-09T21:44:00.000-04:00

Abisko is a two year-old tape label run by a fellow named Tommy out of Sweden, but these two tapes from Haare and Jarl are the first I've heard from the project (same for the Haare and Jarl projects too, so it's all news to me!). Other names to have been run through the Abisko ringer include Enema Syringe, Jazkamer, The Rita, Government Alpha and Mania so I kinda knew what I was getting into with these two offerings. Not exactly smooth jazz, you could say. Because a lot of those artists and bands produce very harsh noise recordings. And smooth jazz is quite the opposite of very harsh noise recordings indeed! Incidentally these are the only two Abisko tapes presently on the market with the others having come and gone, so despite Tommy serving notice that future editions won't be so desperately limited, you're still gonna have to hurry if you want to wrap a talon around these babies. 130 copies of the Haare a(a)re out there and 150 of the Jarl.
Haare is the nom de plume of a one Ilkka Vekka of Finland who's been at it since at least 2002, with various shapes appearing on Freak Animal, Foxglove, Kult of Nihilow and Chondritic Sound. Like I said, I ain't never heard a word from Ilkka to date, but I have to say the cover and the title of his tape truly gave away the game before I hit play, and that's not a bad thing. When you've got a title as instantly classic as "Psychedelic Funeral" and an unbelievable drawing of some kinda skull/serpent/demon/lightning brainhump on your cover, well you're batting with runners in scoring position in my book. This tape features two 15 minute pieces across two sides, with the first one being the title track and the second as "Bardo Thodol", and both are blood dusting sides of searing noise metal crunch akin to loop tapes of airplane crashes, trainwrecks, and other such disasters with its unflappable start-to-finish sinus bursting manifesto. But true indeed to the title (and to other Haare recordings, so sez Abisko), there's definitely an inherent psychedelic dosage to these two stretches, with a heap of delirious oscillations, fucked EQs and glittering electronic demantia to give it all a breathable, airy, and unquestionably zonked atmosphere. Which is to say it ain't all walls...or maybe it is, but just the exploding plastic inevitable kind. Fathom a fervent amalgam of any and all Hiroshi Hasegawa units - later-day C.C.C.C., Astro/mero, Astral Travelling Unity - with the high-end heavy scream electronics of later-day Whitehouse, and a slap of New Blockaders destructo bust. If it sounds meaty, well that's because it is. So pass a tab, mother.

Jarl is Erik Jarl, also of Sweden so as to keep the Scandinavian connection alive. He's also been around since the early 2000's, appeared on that excellent "Sweetness Will Overcome" compilation Segerhuva put together a while back, and Leech (Navicon Torture Technologies)'s Annihilvs imprint. So, again, there are some clues. According to Jarl himself, "["Negative Rotation"] certainly has a very negative vibe, and now 6 years since it was finished, it's finally released to spread it's negative ejaculations". Amen! Couldn't have said it better myself! But I'll try. "Negative Rotation" is (apparently) 11 tracks spread out over an hour-long tape, and it kicks off with an absolutely brilliant hit of moody, desolate electronics digging out sounds like thunderstorms, exploding volcanos, nuclear explosions, all leading to a razed planetary wasteland at the end of it all. And I'm not kidding, these could just as easily be field recordings, if I wasn't so sure the planet was not in fact a dead orb in the space just yet. But shit, Jarl's got a feel for it. Other tracks on the first side all dabble in the same sort of post-apolcalypse visions - ghostly, cavernous winds blowing...rescue truck sirens of upturned vehicles droning and whining in the distance...thick clouds of smoke billowing upwards in a celstial coanopy...dead air static, heartbeats and iron lung rasps. All rendered so perfectly bleak and disquieting. The first side closes off with a distinctly harsh buzzing that's as loud as the tape ever gets, and gives way to a second side structured around lengthier, more minimalist pieces. One is an absolute trawl that sounds like a record needle scraping against a cold marble slab, an even longer one builds FM3 style burst transmissions at an achingly slow pace. There's other, lengthier stretches of snowblowing windstorms straight out of the Narshe mines while Jarl drags things towards their inevitable conclusion with a chalice of eerily clanging percussion and gently buzzing, resonating, very-much-alive circuitry. It's a totally warped bend on the traditionally insufferable dark ambient genre, taking lessons from Lustmord, the Maeror Tri, Raison d'Etre, and infusing em with new world breath via the likes of Thomas Koner, Francisco Lopez, Steven Stapleton, Maurizio Bianchi, Brian Eno, Andrew McKenzie, and other learned gentlemen of the impossibly bleak soundscape. "Negative Rotation" is far, far above lazy schlock comparisons like the ones I dole out on an all-too-regular basis; I highly recommend dropping the 8 measley clams and finding out for yourself. As a c60, it's bang for your buck, and the tape's duration allows for ample time to fully sink in and chill you to the bones.
One other thing worth mentioning is that I truly love the uniform look Abisko's given to the spines and the back quarter-fold. The simple block-lettered white text on black background for the spine gives Abisko's releases a nice, uniform look on my shelf without robbing them of any individuality. Other labels would be wise to take note.

Bread and Animals or Whatever You Want to Call Them Cassette Round-Up

2007-10-05T21:24:00.000-04:00

Bread and Animals are the shapeshifting label outta Belgium who be dubbed Dreamtime Taped Sounds on the following four cassettes but every batch bares a different brand so I'll just stick with Bread and Animals. They did a great brigade not too long ago featuring recordings from the likes of Uton, Fricara Pachu, Fossils, and others, so I've been looking forward to any new drubbings from them with baited breath. And they did not disappoint. I barely knew spit about any of these cats before coming into contact with these (and I still don't know one but there's a good reason for that, keep readin) but they took me on a voyage to skirt supernovas I can't even say I've dreamed of they're so far a ways out. And that's a plus.
Quintana Roo is a name I'd at least heard before and I want to say I've heard their music before too but that could just be a created memory. What I do know if that they're a cult gathering of some possibly young, potentially restless Americana elite, which is to say it's Britt from Not Not Fun/Robedoor, Amanda from Pocahaunted and Roy who moonlights as Changeling. Their offering is the excellently-titled "Temple of Self Decapitation" and includes two side-long pieces, also with excellent titles: "Young Eclipse" and "Blood of Kings". "Young Eclipse" is just the bees knees - a supremely sloshy kraut/punk trawl via somnambulist, mechanical cymbal/percussion strikes and upward-reaching star-scraping elecro-muzz, possibly even wrangled out of some hideously abused plugged-in six string but who's to say. There could even be some animalistic vocal wails down in there and I couldn't confirm/deny. Let's just say I think it's a possibility. "Blood of Kings" sorta works in reverse gears, building up a totally shaking synth/reverb barf yearn before leaning in with stony, sparkled drums and a nary distinct riff that grows ever more meaty, like a vocalless OM teaming up with a vocalless Double Leopards and it's every bit as sweet as it sounds. The end of side B winds up sounding like the start of side A which is a rad enough trick. You could pin this down alongside other current rock-destroyers Mouthus, Magik Markers, Sunburned Hand of the Man and give it a decidedly Faust-like slant (which it possesses) but it's way better than that and way above mere imitation. And way, way recommended.

Next up is a tape I'd like to tell you about but I'm kinda handcuffed because there's absolutely nothing on it to tell me who it is or what it's called or anything of that sort. The cover is a Xerox of a dolphin with a planet and some stars. So it's kinda hard to get a handle on the proceedings here, especially since the tracks are all over the realm. With an array of discernable and varied tracks dotting the landscape here, this could even be a compilation, but I have my doubts. But what you've got here, for example, is a cold synth drone warble what introduces everything and sounding like a chance meeting on a dissecting table of a Spencer Clark and a Conrad Schnitzler, and I'm especially reminded of Clark's activity with all the harsh tape cuts that bring more than a few tracks to their unexpected close. Also to be heard are raucous ping-ponging techno tones on the flip and the bubbling lava-birthed Menche-ian dribble that precedes it, or the ghastly atmospherics of what sounds like violin strings bent and dragged and tortured, soaked in an alcholic tape fuzz fog. Another cut somewhere along the first side sounds like a turntable scramble (it ain't, though) akin to a Gum record. I wish I knew who this was, there's lots to like in this here mysterious cluster. Any help?

When not inventing Daylight Savings Time and flying kites, Benjamin Franklin records music, sometimes solo and sometimes as a member of Buffle, R.O.T., and many more no doubt. "Takes Time" is a solo excursion, and appears to be comprised of four tracks, but it's kinda hard to tell em apart. It opens with a few deftly wrangled acoustic passages, sounds like a guitar prepared in some kind of fashion but I won't rule anything out here. B. Frank attacks it in a kind of way that speaks to me in tongues of Django Reinhardt but also Piotr Panin and Derek Bailey so who the fuck is to say. Later tracks introduce astonishingly powerful celestial synthesizer swoops to decorate Franklin's ominous string clanging, like a Robert Fripp Mellotron adventure. Most interesting however is the live recording "17 Min", with stretches of near-silence punched with occasional flinchings of sound that I spoze is more guitar and effects but it's so muted it's hard to say...almost out of nowhere the whole thing turns into a deeply resonant, buzzing, feedbacking affair which in turn morphs into an extended organ/harmoanium bleating, it too skewed by the grainy hissing of its original, untouched source material. Almost everything on this tape sounds totally alien or at least transmitted from alien muses through a human vessel, and that's what makes it so fascinating. I could never tell you exactly what happens or why and that's exactly why you have to hear it for yourself. So get it.

Lastly is a curious emission from Charles Balls, aka Andrew Zuckerman, he of Toronto's Gastric Female Reflex. "Love Affair with Lieven's Sweaters" is a collection of tracks with varying degrees of, shall we say, musicality to them. Each seems to consist of junked electronics crashing against found-sound snatches, loops, film and music samples, and a multitude of other glitches. They've all got their own names and they're all listed on the dynamite brain-impaling markered insert, but they're about as hard to hear on their own terms as they are to read off the sheet. If that makes any sense and it may well not at this point. Why, I couldn't even pick up the guest appearance from acquaintances Crank Sturgeon on piece number four or Zoe Barcza on piece number seven! Ah well, them's the breaks. This one's not so much my bag, but the moments most reminiscent of LAFMS/Rick Potts/Smegma nosedrip stroke me fine. Elsewhere I hear early 90's Japanese sentiments a la Ground Zero and the Hanatarash, Mike Patton's solo records for Tzadik, and a whole lot of RRR-bred weirdosity. Something nice is that the tape comes with basketball cards, and I pulled in quite a haul: Craig Ehlo, Mario Elie, a Dallas Mavericks logo card, and Michael fuckin' Jordan. Fleer '95-'96 styles. Buy your own so we can swap, but only if you're already into the whole brand of GFR goofiness or you might be a touch put out by what you hear. There, there.

Rapped Youth - Jaska & Mä (Lahna Records CD)

2007-10-02T21:51:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd ease my way back into the terrifying world of blogging (feeling better thanks!) with a totally weird release from the totally weirdest of Finnish labels - but don't hold me to that because it's Finland and I'm sure there'll be a challenger to the throne soon enough if not already. But whereas Lahna Records' countrymen and women of Fonal, Lal Lal Lal, and the like get ritually stuck with the "weird" tag any time you read about em, Lahna takes the cake with total out-ness and a vague "is this serious?" air hanging over anything they put out. Armas Huutamo, Petri Rainer, and now this EP from Rapped Youth, the "Cypress Hill of the northern taiga", what follows a CD-R EP they did for Lahna a while ago that's come and gone. This is an EP showcasing their two sure-to-be breakthrough tracks called (you guessed it) "Jaska" and "Mä". Tacked on are a radio edit of "Jaska", and a DJ Hallituksen (of DJ Government, you know) remix of each. It comes housed in a cardboard digipack and mine came with a bunch of Rapped Youth stickers (of their Yankees-style logo) that wouldn't peel so I had to toss em. Which is a bummer because I was itching to spread the word!
Of course the first account I had to settle mentally was, "is this serious?" and I'm pretty sure it is. Something like this might sway you in the other direction, but it just makes me want to believe it even moreso. Those three hep cats are, from left to right, Weed Jay, Desert R, and Homespirit P (can I name my firstborn "Homespirit"???). The liner notes make identifying each one on the track quite easy. Weed Jay is "low-end heavy user" which appears to mean he's producing, probably while smoking a lot of marijuana, while Homespirit P is the "casual MC" and Desert R is the "nasal MC". Both apt descriptions as well - Desert R is like a cross between B-Real and Brandon DiCamillo's CKY freestyle, which of course drags up that question of seriousness/irony all over again. But either you deal or you don't. Personally I think it's somewhere between genius and brilliance (with a touch of "amusing"). P is considerably more, well, casual in his approach, and the duo trade off verses on "Jaska" over a drum-and-horn heavy early 90's/L.A. beat, with what I think is live bass by Weed Jay. This track also features additional vocals from Missy Tee-Bagit (oh come on, her name is Tee-Bagit? Is this serious???) and she sounds kinda like a Finnish Nelly Furtado or something. It's better than it sounds, really. There's a brief back-and-forth of "ay ay ay" with the MCs and Missy and the kind of self-congratulatory hoopla that usually closes off your breakthrough rap single ("Rapped Youth" are the only words I understand, and it sounds like they're saying "Rapid You", much to my delight). I'd like to tell you about the lyrics, but, you know. "Mä" has a pretty sloshy beat with some lovely Spanish-sounding acoustic guitar plucking draped in vinyl crackle (wish I could place it because it sounds like a winner) alongside the bass and drums as on the prior. It's catchier in ways I can't describe because it's Finnish but the chorus is a real winner, P and R running down something.
The three "bonus" tracks are all kind of a wash, though. The radio edit of "Jaska" shaves off two minutes, editing out most of the minute-long phone call that opens the single version among other things, but the DJ Hallituksen remixes are the real bafflers because they sound almost identical to the originals. A couple loops here, some doubled vocals there, and that's bank. Which is weird because, according to the label, "DJ Governtment's DJ remixes with a recognizable touch. DJ Government's DJ has an uninhibited style of blending the pack and yet again it has produced tracks that are strongly independent works.". Is this serious??? Shit maybe it's so subtle I can't even tell...but calling them "strongly independent works" is a stretch and a half...listen to them back-to-back and you're almost hearing the same song twice.
I dunno, despite how totally ridiculous everything about it is, I'm feeling the Youth man. I could see a lot of people totally hating it but cmon, it's good fun. Way more interesting than, say, whatever Odd Nosdam's sneering over on Anticon. No sacred cows being devoured, just an honest opinion. But you may want to wait for the upcoming 7" issue of "Jaska & Mä", which trims some of the fat found here.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Pekos/Yoro Diallo - Pekos/Yoro Diallo (Yaala Yaala CD)

2007-09-19T21:38:00.000-04:00

All right. Looks like another label has cropped up in recent days to help Alan Bishop shoulder the burden of robbing the brown man blind! Ahahaha just kidding. Really though, I'm not going to touch that little moral dilemma with a yardstick, primarily because I'm far too apathetic to actually form a "stance" on it. I'll assume that neither Pekos nor Yoro Diallo are getting any cash back on this disc, but then in the same light I'll also assume that Jack Carneal and his Yaala Yaala cohorts aren't reaping much of a profit either. Let's just say it's all about the music and remain happier, for that. This is the first release on the label, with a name derived from what Bougounian musicians would reply to the question "ça va?" (according to Carneal, it means "just wandering"). Indeed, this first release was culled from a market in Bougouni where Carneal resides, and the other two are equally Mali-centric: a compilation of anonymous artists ("Bougouni Yaalali") and a disc from Daouda Dembele (who, like Yoro Diallo, I first discovered via the awesome Awesome Tapes from Africa blog.
Only a brief descripto is included with the album, and none of it talks about who Pekos or Yoro Diallo are. All it sez is that Carneal picked this tape up from a vendor in Kolondieba, an electricityless village two hours from Bougouni, and that it was "probably recorded on a boombox sometime in 1998 or '99". Which is good because everybody knows that the new Pekos is just wanky prog bullshit in lieu of actual songwriting. That was a joke. Anyway looks like Carneal himself doesn't even know if any of the above is true, adding that Bougounians are generally skeptical of verification. No idea what the hell that means but he's the guy who's been living in Mali the past eight years, not me, so I'll take his word for it. Anyway it's a collaboration (not a split) between the two, each man contributing vocals and playing electrified ngonis, which are explained thusly: "ngonis are large spike lutes; a four to five foot length of wood or reed is jammed into a hollowed out gourd and strings, often fishing line, are connected from a bridge at the base of the instrument to the end of the neck." There's also a continuous stream of percussion on the four tracks here, provided by someone (or someones) other than the two featured players. The duo sermonize across surely much more than the hour-long chunk provided here, but the four tracks that made up the cassette (and make up this CD) are more than enough meat to chew on till their next outing is stumbled upon and haggled over. The first track clocks in at an all-too-brief 14 minutes, and is remarkably effective in its simplicity: sloppy percussion strikes and a pulsing ngoni crackle (something of a cross between Konono No. 1's thumb pianos and an electric guitar, to my decidedly untrained ears) and form an amazing, almost bluesy lope. It's the kind of irresistably catchy rhythm that would be fine enough on its own, but the singing exchanges between Pekos (the raspier, somewhat calmer voice) and Diallo (the booming, commanding voice that often cuts off Pekos') really lift the track into a whole new place of untold glories. Diallo in particular hits on a constant melody every time he opens his mouth and it just has to be heard to be appreciated. No idea what these two are singing about, but the info I found suggests the two are probably being egged on via small monetary donations "to sing about how great Coulibaly is, Sidibe is, what a strong man Traore is, etc." Not sure I really care to find out what's being said though, you gotta be the Tin Man to not feel this. The second track is shorter and a bit of a down in terms of energy, with plodding percussio and one endlessly scraped ngoni. The other, however, offers up some interesting free improv scramble, usually at the most unexpected moments. Diallo and Pekos sound almost like they're riffing back and forth when they sing, lending an even more slothful air to an already sluggish, sun-scorched affair. Track three is very similar to the first, with a languid, gently galloping percussion/ngoni rhythm (given an odd, almost banjo-like flair here) periodically torn up by an almost call-and-response interplay between the two men. Diallo again is almost alamringly fierce with the way his voice cuts in from seemingly out of nowhere only to disappear just as fast. The latter portions of the track feature some of the wildest ngoni flurries yet, much to the delight of the small but appreciative crowd. The last cut is a massive 20-minute slab, as slow and as quiet as anything yet but also as fucked - dig the enormous feedback riptides that pour through and hiss in the background. This track sees Diallo take a step back and leave the lion's share of the speaking/singing to Pekos (who also seems to banter a bit with the crowd). Perhaps then it's Diallo who's responsible for the lovely flourishes from the makeshift instrument he wields, easily some of the most fully-formed and cleanly executed strokes of the whole set (reminding slightly of Tetuzi Akiyama's boogie work for electric guitar). A couple sections see the song turned over to various scrawls of the instrument, both solo and in duet, while others see still more furious shouting as the tune crawls its way almost subliminally to an ecstatic climax that's cut just short before any true catharsis can be heard...but that isn't to say there aren't revelations found all over the rest of the disc. It is worth noting however that the sound quality is far from pristine (which is definitely a good thing) - a couple of sound dropouts here and there due to the original cassette and just a general lo-fi, dirty sound won't please the tympanic membrane of stuffy musicologist types, but I don't think you fit that bill anyhows.
My lack of applicable knowledge of West African music betrays me from being able to draw any valuable comparisons but it sounds great to my ears and that's the only litmus test worth a hoot, to me. Needless to say if you've enjoyed what's been exported recently from the likes of Sublime Frequencies and the Crammed Discs label, you owe it to yourself to check out this one. I know as soon as I get a chance I'm picking up the other two jammers from Yaala Yaala, and eagerly looking forward to whatever else they're bringing over from the Malian markets. And how about that cover?

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Heavy Literature

2007-09-18T17:24:00.000-04:00

A whole whack of brain-peeling lit has made its way/is making its way to my offices as of late and no, this isn't a review of any of them, just a general heads up because you should pick em up to pass the time on the days when I'm absent. To the left needs no introduction, the new tome from Julian Cope what should probably be mandatory reading in public schools if the few PDF pages I leafed through in Krautrocksampler were any indication (is someone gonna reprint that thing or what?). It's a beautiful hardcover edition (and not too too pricey either for a U.K. print) with a nice section of color photogs of album covers from Rallizes to Flower Travellin' Band to Creation to J.A. Ceasar and more. Scratch here.
You'll notice on the Amazon page above you can buy Japrocksampler in tandem with The Source, a prized document from Ya Ho Wa/Father Yod acolyte Isis Aquarian that should hopefully shed some light on one of the more mysterious whatevers to take place in the Americana underbelly. In case you needed any more incentive (look at that bombastic cover!) it comes with a CD of rare and unheard Yod material including a 1973 performance at a high school??? Shit's in session all right.
Last is a fairly recent biog. on the infamous Viennese actionist-cum-diety (loose pun intended) Hermann Nitsch which I really don't know a thing about since it hasn't arrived and, regardless, I'm still making it through the Writings of the Vienna Actionists collection (that one covers the Big Four: Nitsch, Brus, Muehl, Schwarzkogler). Anything those guys get/got up to is of interest to me, so how can this one possibly go wrong? Get re(a)d.

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing (Tompkins Square LP)

2007-09-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

I always liked James Blackshaw but this is the first release of his I've actually owned, I think. Such is the crux of the internet and not having enough wealth to spread it into all the corners I may so desire. Well ain't that a B. But, through the use of our friend the MP3, I've been keeping tabs on James, from the lovely "Celeste" to the slightly off-kilter but equally enjoyable "O True Believers", but only now did I spring into action and snap up a copy of his latest "The Cloud of Unknowing" because it's the record I always felt he had in him (really!) and it absolutely destroys me every time I play it, which is a lot these days. I probably need to run the spiel by you again as much as you need to hear it again, but James is one of those post-Fahey/Basho/Kottke/Bull acolytes that roam the hillsides sniffing fresh dew, acoustico in hand (a 12-string on this voyage). In addition to setting himself apart from that ilk (while simultaneously wearing its influence on his sleeve), I never thought Blackshaw really fit in with the aforementioned new(er) breed - Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Rick Bishop, Ben Chasny, you know the names. All those guys have a rough edge to their playing. Not to a fault, mind you. But Blackshaw's playing is almost a pure, distilled take on Takoma (and India), imbued with an almost continuous stream of hopeful dissonance. In fact if you want to make a case for a criticism of "Cloud", you might say that it's excessively, what's a word, flowery? To the point of new age-y-ness? At some points? But alas. Talking about criticisms before I even get started, where are my manners.
The two main reasons to own this record are stuck at the beginning of side one and the end of side two - the 11-minute title track and the 15-minute "Stained Glass Windows", respectively. "Cloud" splays out a couple of formalities before slipping into a most sublime and encompassing refined/Primitive raga, with each of Blackshaw's rapidly shifting finger flicks spinning a cocoon-like web through the speakers, with precious care taken to wrap the listener up without even a moment of angularity in which one might awaken, startled, from their gossamer slumber. "Windows" is perhaps even more hypnotizing, focusing on constant repetition with Blackshaw working a dense layer of background notes that act like a La Monte Young backdrop to the runs his other hand is making. In between these two monumental slabs lie three shorter pieces. "Running to the Ghost" evokes the spirit of Van Dyke Parks with a steady ebb of crescendoing/receding notes joined by Fran Bury's violin and effusive chimes that, coming right after "Cloud", make the case for this one being just a bit too sweet on the teeth. On the other hand, "The Mirror Speaks" begins with a muddy torrent of string work that sounds downright aggressive, and while Blackshaw eases up the rest of the way, the song remains weighted with a sense of terse urgency. The same might be said for the cymbala-centric groan of "Clouds Collapse" which splits the record in two - as the only track without a hint of 12-string flourish on it, and with a dull noisy grind and swirling dark matter off in its horizon, it only hints at the fangs Blackshaw bares fully on the last five minues of the record. As the strains of "Stained Glass Window" fade out, they're replaced with an ominous lurch and fervent string scream by Bury's violin, kinda sounding like Eyvind Kang on the wrong side of the bed or a C. Spencer Yeh/Francisco Lopez hook up. Even Blackshaw's attempts at ugliness aren't enough to put a damper on the spirits in lifts on almost every other minute of its existence. And if you're willing and don't got a fully jaded/pessimistic soul, "Cloud of Unknowing" will let you scale some seriously heaven-scraping heights. Totally, truly, wildly, absolutely and highly recommended.
And speaking of killing it, this is another jewel in the Tompkins Square tiara, which has quietly but steadily built up an impressive little roster. The "Imaginational Anthem" compilations, the great Peter Walker tribute/celebration, Robbie Basho "Venus in Cancer" reissue, and a record each by Spencer Moore and Harry Taussig that I've yet to hear but ought to provide me with some real and much-needed education. Chapeau, sirs.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Night Wounds - Allergic to Heat (Woodsist LP)

2007-09-11T19:16:00.000-04:00

Here's an LP I'm so late on I think it's gone plum out of print...but the CD version was put out at least fairly recently on Corleone so at least it's still kinda topical. You probably know by now so I'll just swing through the formalities - Night Wounds is an L.A. based unit who were the trio of Patrick, Ryan and Toby when "Allergic to Heat" was laid down but they could've expanded/contracted since then, I ain't knowing. They're also pretty busy, with a one-sided 12" also due on Corleano in addition to splits in varying formats with like-minded neophytes Soft Shoulder and Knitwitch, 10lec6, AIDS Wolf, Twin Crystals and Shearing Pinx. So plenty of other chances to catch em on wax if you missed this one indeed.
I will preface anything about to say with this - I don't really feel a lot of this new new noise rock clutter that's typically spawned from California or Providence or Montreal or anywhere for that matter (well Russia and possibly Zimbabwe aside). So I was predisposed to be indifferent (or hostile) to Night Wounds before I even played them. Now I won't say they flipped me on my head, but there are great moves all over this record, even enough for a miser like myself to feel rattling his bowels...if not to step out onto the dance floor just yet. Dig opener "Allergic to Heat", introduced by a clarion sax call and a steelwork stomp that digs into my shins and elevates my cullions in a way I've not yet known. There's only one line out of all the sneering vocals I can actually make out and it's "I wish I knew" and every time it rolls around it's just like fuckin' yeah, you know? I get the same feeling whenever "Ex Best Friend" crumples into mega-distorted Naked City type flip outs before whipping back into considerably fucked post-punk slobber, then grinding to a near-halt (must be all those DJ Screw influences I hear about) and ripping out a supremely styrafoam sax chomp from way deep inside the group's own intestines. Less thrilling to me is the rather straight-forward, anthemic "Nineteen" with its repeated chorale of "nineteen/act your age" and the angular, grinding riffage of "Caving In". Both to me seem lesser than what the group is capable of, but it's no raw deal since the LP closes off with three excellent numbers. "Hex Appeal" and "Damage" are both rampant bloodfeasts driven by drumming that thuds and resonates like a well-oiled/programmed machine, but no robot could handle the limbic workout doled out by the former, augmented by zoned out horn shrieks. The militant drumroll march of "Damage" keeps things pretty rigid throughout, allowing only for a shaking guitar scrawl unsolo to pull it through to the homestretch. And it's quite a stretch. At 8 minutes, "X.O.T." represents almost a third of the album's running time (a perfectly succint 28 minutes), and it brings together just about every one of Night Wounds' disparate influences to showcase them under one roof. Starting out with another sax solo amidst a rubble of scorched guitar noise and sloshed drums (not at all unlike a pared down version of those Borbetomagus and Voice Crack tete-a-tetes), the track slowly grinds into a skewed noise/funk rhythm, intermittently exploding with spurts of free improv/fire music wailings and dark, almost sludge metal menace. I'm wheezing over here.
Listening to Night Wounds, one can glean a whole lotta influences packed into their sweet n' sassy approach - This Heat, Faust, Black Flag, Dead C., D.N.A., Mr. Bungle circa "Disco Volante", the Residents, Iggy and the Stooges, Fugazi, Big Black, Liquorball, Butthole Surfers...you could go for days. The trick (and what makes em so likeable) is that they never sound exactly like any one of em, instead melding all parts together in a sweaty gob of gunk that makes for a pretty sweet ride, even if there are a few bumps along the way. You might say it should be no other way. If this doesn't sound like your bag, give it a shot anyway. I was a non-believer and came away quite impressed. If it does sound like your bag and you haven't heard it yet, you'll be in dirty, stinky heaven.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Various Artists - Power/Field / Kilt - Snow White in Hell / Redglaer - Aneleutheromania (Anarchymoon 2xCD-R/LP/CS)

2007-09-06T22:00:00.000-04:00

Grab bag of fairly new Anarchymoon trans-missives on mixed format...in case you need help decoding, the compilation is the 2xCD-R, the Kilt is the LP and label proprietor Redglaer aka Bob Bellerue lays claim to the tape. Anyway you probably remember Anarchy Moon (or "anokmoon") from the bang-up job they did with that Dead Machines/John Wiese/Damion Romero set not too long ago, and ideally even the Roman Torment/Feed the Dragon 12" splt and the Redglaer 10" because those were worth a look too. Bob's back in a big way with these three and more, a Smegma LP compiling disparate 7" tracks (!) and a five-way split 7" with Raven Chacon, Redglaer, Alchemical Burn, AGL, and Mark Beyer. For now though, let's focus on eating what's on our plate, starting with the compilation.
According to the bit of info included on the "Power/Field" xerox, all 23 tracks across these two discs were "performed and recorded live on-site somewhere, outside of the studio and the stage", hence the title in large part I do imagine. The first disc is a pretty even split between power and field, with certain artists devoting themselves to the former (most of these found towards the front of the disc, it seems) and others to the latter. I have to say I'm more a fan of the field recordings - \\\'s "Vive Le Rock" sounds great for what could be a bunch of rocks (geddit?) bouncing around inside an aluminium bowl like metal kernels popping, while William C. Harrington's "LAX 9/17/06" and Christopher Fleeger's "Sea Gulls at Lake Ella" sound exactly like what the titles say they are, and all the better for it. The sinister gnaw of Chronicles of Lemur Mutation's "Cattle Gate" and David Kwan's "Howl" find their power in understated recordings from out in the backwoods of the planet and are a perfect oasis peppered between noisier jaunts like Phroq's static/glitch "Glass Building II" and No John's all-out noise attack "Nieuwpoort 2006". If the previous tracks hinted at some kind of "noise" inflection, he's the first to say what we were all thinking, and it marks a definite seachange for the rest of the disc. Jeff Gburk roars out of the gate with a sinus-blowing drone that whittles its way down to nervous static through distorted radio frequencies within its 8 minute running time and Infiltration Lab goes the opposite direction, starting from nothing and working up an impressive boiler room lurking pitch that'll take your fingernails clean off. From there though, the tracks get slightly faceless - tracks by Oubliette, David Kendall, sheaMgauer and Gen 26 all focus on electronically-generated rackets and drones with a low degree of memorability about them. Only Stephen Cornford's simple yet elegant "Air Con Quartet" (which I doubt is really what it claims to be but who the hell knows) sticks in the grey matter with its dull, wavering hums, but then again it does have almost ten minutes to get its point across.
The rest of the lengthy pieces are given over to the second disc, and there are six to speak of - one each from IDX1274, Dave Phillips, Ecomorti, Burial Hex, Nova-sak and Bellerue's Redglaer, all at least 11 minutes in length. Similar to disc one, these tracks waver in between the "field" and the "power" but you really wouldn't know it judging from IDX1274's hulking opener "Field of Waist High Grass (II)" which doesn't really sound like a field of waist high grass at all unless it has come to life and is attempting to swallow you whole. IDX1274's M.O. is that he doesn't use any keyboards or samplers and everything you hear is hand-manipulated from original ("clean") sources. Hard to pick out anything clean from this slobbering mess, but that's really more a compliment to IDX's knack for obfuscation. And it certainly sounds cut up and re-stitched too, but I think he's telling the truth. I think I'm more a fan of the methods than the results, but that's just me being a pussy more than anything. Nova-sak's "Field Power" (hm) is of a similar vein, this one sounding altogether more spacey and with some dropped-out moments but still noise-rooted and birthed from decidedly non-nature-al equipment. Burial Hex's "Reaping the Keep (Outsider Version)" has me on the fence, like a ten-minute slice of greyish blur spitfires, storm activity, darkened skies over vast farmlands, and shoot it even starts with a cowbell...I'd probably enjoyed a more slimmed down version of all this electrolysis, this one just seems to ramble. Ecomorti's "amaz on p inkele PHANT s eal for the Xtinct" uses the sounds of two endangered species' (I'll let you piece together which) in an off-kilter hum that's still more of the field, but doesn't quite sustain itself over its alotted running time. Curious I should say that because Dave Phillips' fantastically titled "Most Adults Are Atrophied Children Whose Fire Has Long Since Been Extinguished" (a phrase lifted from William Bennett's blog, sez Google) almost befalls the same fate but has a certain je ne sais quoi going for it that just sweeps me up in its ghost limbs like a princess. What it is, is an absolute slow burner of married high-pitched whine and pond sounds; ducks, loons, crickets, the like. Its only build up is the last two minutes when the drone fades out entirely, with the soothing sounds of waterfall and a duck to take it home. Beautiful! And it's as close to new age as you're ever gonna get from the Schimpfluch group so just take it. Redglaer closes off the proceedings with an awesome pieces that combines the best of both worlds, taking a full six minutes to slowly start to churn and transform into a static-speckled acid-burned noise jam with just thee most glorious oscillations that, at this point, sound more like heaven than anything Yod himself plunked onto the globe. Guess when it's your compilation, you gotta step up your game? Challenge met!
Sequencing questions on disc one and general - let's face it, inevitable - inconsistencies aside (and that's just my own personal take, maybe you'll dig how it is just fine), this one was definitely worth the two years of work that went into it. Painfully limited to 200 copies and housed in one of those sexy cardboard tuck-in sleeves, it's too bad more people won't get to enjoy it. But as of today there's still hope for Y-O-U.

Bellerue's also got a stake in this one, the debut full-length from his Kilt project what also features Raven Chacon and Sandor Finta. When I first got it and had no idea what it was, I confess to hoping it was a Scottish noise (or, going by the cover alone, black metal) band making a play on using the word "killed" as a band name, but some things aren't meant to be. I'll settle for what I got, and what I got ain't so bad either. "Snow White in Hell" is two long sides of noise demolish that purports to have actual track times and seperations but I'll be fucked if I can hear any of it, it's pretty tough to distinguish from all the general wreckage taking place. Sounds like all three have their hands in pretty deep here with overloaded circuits, junk pedals pushed to extremes, gibbering Porky Pig metallic stammers, and heavy abuse of what can only be described as a cross between a dentist's drill and a world-razing gamma laser (Light of Judgement?)...these cats are rough and raw and bringing it back to how you remember the good times circa early 90's Japanoise filth a la Incapicants or Hijokaidan. It's good to be reminded every now and then that blasts as harsh as this are still rippling through the strata. Because yes sometimes I do need to be reminded. If you do too, then get Kilt. Ahahaha, moving on.

A bit of full disclosure before I get into this one(-sider): I'm predisposed to like any tape with "fuck the government and the people" stamped on the inside because well I'm a sucker like that. "Aneleutheromania" brings together a selection of live Redglaer performances in a rather brutish cover wrap, and hits all the aforementioned aspects of Bob Bellerue's noise fetishism. It veers bodaciously from tinnitus-inciting sine scrawls to guttural noise sludge and a full spectrum of oscillations in between conjuring up feelings of radio transmissions, field recordings, 80's industrialism, concrete, and more. At the "lighter" moments it sounds like a Wolf Eyes/American Tapes thing and current Whitehouse by way of Africa in the darker spots. The odd vocalized grumblings and/or shouts, generally deformed by all the electronic gnarl they'll battling through, are just the sweet touch needed to push this one from sassy to salacious...but it's got bite, believe you me. Only complain is that it's a touch long for my tastes, but so's everything else in the world so I can't fault Bob for that one. Definitely a cool smattering, but I'd recommend the "American Masonry" 10" before this one, if it's still available.

Jean-Louis Huhta - Halfway Between the World and Death / Boots Brown - Boots Brown (Slottet CDs)

2007-09-04T18:12:00.001-04:00

Here's two of the newer releases from the upstart Swedish label Slottet, focusing on the current wave of Swedish form destroyers with records by Santa Maria (aka Maria Eriksson), Strountes (featuring Maria Eriksson) and DrapEnHund, a duo of 13-year old girls playing "slow Swedish punk rock for the future", one of whom happens to be Mats Gustafsson's daughter Alva Melin. If you don't recognize Jean-Louis Huhta or Boots Brown at a glance, well don't feel bad, because you probably do know em, in one way or another. Huhta's been around the block since the 80's, playing first in bands like post-punk Cortex and the amazing grindcore pioneers Anti Cimex, then in industrial/noise/techno informed outfits Texas Instruments, Lucky People Center and the Stonefunkers, and now onto other mutant forms of electronically inclined music with Audio Laboratory, the Skull Defekts, Brommage Dub and Ocsid. Among others, surely (Kozmic Niggah, DJ Louis, Dr. Nobody, 413...). Weird to fathom that with all this energy spent on music over the past 25ish years, "Halfway Between the World and Death" is in fact his first ever solo outing. The lineage behind Boots Brown is probably even moreso complicated, but I'm not gonna attempt to lay it all out for you. It's a quartet of Swedish improvisers, namely the aforementioned Gustafsson, Johan Berthling, Magnus Broo and David Stackenas, who I'm sure have all played together in various configurations before, but seem to be coming together under the Boots Brown moniker for the first time here. The name appears to be swiped from Boots Brown and His Blockbusters of the 1950's, apparently responsible for a tune called "Cerveza" what made it big in '58, but I can't say I've heard it. They may have also played with Little Richard but don't quote me on that.
While "Halfway Between the World and Death" is Huhta's first solo release, it could almost be listened to as a current-day retrospective looking back and reinterpreting the sounds that shaped his, er, career up to this point. Using mostly his laptop (and a little bit of guitar), Huhta embraces a multitude of styles across the 16 tracks present here, switching from polar opposites from song to song. On tracks like "Exit", "Running Boy", "Suddenly There is a Change" and "Straight to You", Huhta uses haunted, glitchy tones to offset his straight-forward guitar loops, which range from folky to soulful to psychedelic, sometimes within the same song ("Running Boy", which also features Huhta's processed voice strands, is a good example). Elsewhere, Huhta hits on eerie industrial-infected loops and noise strands ("Furniture to Sit On Kitchens to Cook in Cars to Drive", "Watching the Swells", "Marja-Lisa), and glacial Eno ambience and melting beat structures ("Assume Formlessness", "For Conny" and the astonishing crawl heard on the title track, featuring Johan Zetterquist on acoustic guitar). Huhta's funk/disco tendencies are even given time to shine on the epic closer "Truth is in the Sound", an almost aggressive dance-like deconstruction of a sinewy beat with screaming, searchlight sound effects...easily one of the best of the bunch. And there's a lot of bunch here. In fact you might say that at 76 minutes, "Halfway" wears out its welcome just a tad, but fuck that, only solo LP in however many years of service? You're hearing this one on Jean-Louis' terms, pal.

This Boots Brown ensemble is quite a different beast from the one I last heard Mats Gustafsson in, Two Bands and a Legend (well, the Thing, actually). Whereas the Thing is over-the-top garage jazz slobber, Boots Brown is just about the exact opposite - retrained, low-key, hushed, and tightly-wound. It's a testament to Gustafsson's versatility as a saxophonist (alto, tenor and slide here, not to mention electronics too) that he's able to excel equally in both settings. And he does excel - check out his lush, longform tones blown on "Mid Calf", the empty ones heard on "Gaucho Volcano" and the tire screech of "Black Industrial Greasy" - his fellow collaborators shine in equal measure. David Stackenas stands out remarkably on all tracks, his acoustic guitar spackling the landscapes of "Teak Industrial Trailblazer" and "Black Industrial Grizzly" (a shorter companion piece to "Greasy") with helter skelter chords fondly reminiscent of Derek Bailey's, and his "low budget electronics" (according to the inlay) grinding away in the background of "Gaucho Volcano" and "Mid Calf". I believe it's Gustafsson responsible for the endless gentle rattling and creaking sounds throughout "Teak Industrial" as Stackenas squares off with Magnus Broo's formidable trumpet punches and Johan Berthling lopes alongside on double bass. The two 10-minute-plus tracks, "Gaucho Volcano" (featuring Thomas Hallonsten on stomach-knotting organ warble) and "Black Industrial Greasy", make for the finest listens as the quartet take all the time necessary to deliver each note with remarkable, resounding precision making indeed the highs high and the lows low. This kind of miniscule jazz ("ultra modern chamber jazz?" asks the label) makes for a perfect antidote to the scads of heavy blowing sessions in practice across the globe today. Boots Brown remind me a lot of the criminally underrated French jazz group Hubbub, who ply their trade playing as loudly as quietly as possible. If that makes any sense to you (and it should), don't miss out on this.
Slottet also has a few new releases on the horizon that might be of interest. Boots Brown bassist Johan Berthling has his hands in a couple - "pop impressionists" Idiot Kid and a meeting between Swedish jazz trio Gul3 and Japan's Tetuzi Akiyama. Others include a duo CD between Mats Gustafsson and Christian Marclay, and a full-length from Richard Tomlinson aka Voice of the 7 Woods. Heavy times.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Susan Alcorn - And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar / Bryan Eubanks/J.P. Jenkins - Split (Olde English Spelling Bee LPs)

2007-08-30T22:11:00.000-04:00

A tag team of sexy new Olde English Spelling Bee LPs made their way to me recently. You may recall the label from their fairly recent, handcrafted, split LPs featuring Mouthus/Cousins of Reggae and Yellow Swans/Grey Daturas. I'm sure they've got a couple more to their name too, but I dare say these particular editions are their most triumphant turns to date. Not only do they make for good eye candy on your shelf, but the sounds have been heralded from here (well not yet, keep reading) to the high seas. And I understand that's a pretty important thing too.
It's a given at this point that you've heard all kinds of good things re: Susan Alcorn's newest long player, "And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar". And rightfully so. I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in (having heard, I must admit, none of her prior works) but "And I Await" is an alarmingly unique brand of lap steel (didja guess?) worked tunes from this Texan songstress, definitely not in the way of virtuostic ragas I was readying myself for. Which is not to say, of course, that Alcorn isn't talented or doesn't know her way around the instrument - very much the contrary in fact. It's just that the songs here (all solo) are filled with such a vast amount of intense spaciousness. Solitary notes are plucked and Alcorn lets the sound tumble up skywards over itself to dissipate in the air before making so much a move as to the next one. There's so much breathable space in fact it's hard to tell the difference from when she's playing a lengthy, continuous piece (the 16-minute title track) and when the shorter, individual pieces on the B-side begin and end. However, "And I Await" never even borders on the mundane. Alcorn has a knack for weaving such intricate and compelling yarns that it's impossible not to find yourself hanging off her every chord, waiting for the next one to hit. The end result is a personal, almost clausterphobic listen of an ordinary lap steel guitar transforming into some kind of spellbinding musical storybook, wrapping the listener up in a delicate cocoon of worrisome/hopeful Americana mesh. Think the desolate sensibilities of Houston, Texas' native son Jandek (with whom Alcorn has apparently collaborated?) and a soulful, dusty, psych/folk bedroom set from Houston-cum-Austin, Texas' Charalambides (longtime champions of Alcorn; Heather Leigh Murray in fact received her first pedal steel guitar from Susan herself)...add maybe a touch of Hisato Higuchi and his great "Dialogue" disc from last year and that's as close as I can pull it. Do yourself a favor: hear it yourself. The 750 pieces these are limited to come wrapped up nicely in a heavy gatefold with beautiful hand-rendered notes from Susan detailing the stories and inspirations behind every song, which is about the only thing I won't spoil for you here. But at 750, these aren't going to be around forever either.

Now I thought after Susan had gone and laid down an exquisitely tranquil atmosphere in my bedroom that these two miscreants were gonna come along and ruin things with their hip noise music but I was wrong again! Oh sure Bryan Eubanks (he of Collective Jyrk cohorts GOD) plays electronics on his side, but it ain't like that. "Multi-Key Coming" is a side-long black hole, a singluar pulsing drone birthed out of some kind of homemade synth modulator no doot, quietly but persistently quivering like the Blob with a hard-on, or thereabouts. As soon as the needle hits it's nary impossible to wrench your head away, much like Susan Alcorn before, 'cept rather than charm and intrigue this one just straight up gnaws through the brainstem and into the minds of all those it comes into contact with. All I can say is turn it up real loud because that's where all the action takes place in this concrete slab of noise minimalism. For fans of Hive Mind, Zbigniew Karkowski, Yellow Swans, Damion Romero and sweet, sweet death.
Jean-Paul "J.P." Jenkins' side, "Rough Metaphors", is all guitar based, but again not in the matter you'd probably anticipate. It's a long n' weird slab of barefoot around-the-house acoustic guitar improvisations (I may have heard a sitar?) played in generally loose and sparsh fashion with all kinds of background clatter and oddities to make you wonder just what the hell was going on when this was laid to tape. J.P.'s style is pretty all over the place, with Derek Bailey as the prominent figure but Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, Loren Connors and Eugene Chadbourne all springing to mind when drawing comparisons. Which is to say it doesn't sound like much else, at least. On the other hand, I can't help but think it sounds kinda slapped off 'cause it isn't always an attention-grabber, and it's also got a heavy sense of "well, what should I do next?" experimentation to it. And I spose that could be a bug to you if you were in a hurry. I dunno, I'm conflicted on the whole, maybe I need to spend more time with it. I do like it as an offset to the Eubanks' side, it's so different it made me forget what record I was playing - I caught myself trying to remember if I was on side one or two and if I had another side left to go before I realized it was a split and I'd already heard Eubanks' stone soup. This one's limited to 300 all told and has individually screened covers, not to mention an innard xerox that registers a 10 on the "what the fuh" scale.
As of July 2007 there were supposed to be two new OESB's to speak of, one from PussyGutt (?!) and another from Squim. Dunno if they came and went already, I don't think so, so those'll probably be worth paying mind to as well.

Ettrick - Feeders of Ravens (Not Not Fun LP) / GHQ - California Night Burning Dreams (Not Not Fun LP & 3" CD-R)

2007-08-24T22:14:00.001-04:00

Something old, something new, nothing borrowed, nothing blue. Well actually the GHQ vinyl is kind of a smokey blue marble thing, so maybe something blue. Britt at Not Not Fun was kind enough to send the Ettrick record to me an age ago, but it never showed and it was determined to be lost out there forever in the Canada Post wilderness. So Britt was cool enough to send another, and at the same time I put the money down for the new GHQ outing, so here we are (and we'll be here again once I sit down with those Mudboy and Family Underground stax, whoooiee). If you've been reading for longer than a month you know what a big fan I am of Ettrick's two-man black metal (okay okay I'll preempt you, "in image only" - now exeunt)/jazz stylings, and, well, I think I missed out on the last couple of new GHQ items so it's always good to catch up, especially when it's an edition as sexy as this one is (w/bonus 3" CD-R!).
I've been waiting on "Feeders of Ravens" for an age, ever since I heard it was in its larval stage, and after they steamrolled so hard on prior discs like "Infinite Horned Abomination" and "Sudden Arrthymic Death", they really would be hard-pressed to top themselves. And to be perfectly honest, I preferred the long bouts of those records compared to the morsel-sized portions divvied up on "Feeders". As you may know, Jacob Heule and Jay Korber both pull double duty on saxophones and drums, so "Feeders" sees them in all possible configuraitons. On introducer "You Will Taste the Teeth in Our Mouths", "The Horn Gjoll" and "Corpse-Strands", all damage is dealt via the horns, which are throttled half to death and skronked in all sorts of evil, screaming manners. The choked notes gobbled out on "Corpse-Strands" are most admirable and the pure fire-breathing intensity of the other two is impressive as well, I think I even heard the shock-therapy vocals of Abruptum's IT mirror through on here, but that's about as close to grim as it got (which is still pretty good in my book). The all-drumming track, "Demon of Filth, Demon of Woe" is a furious session which sees J. and J. knocking out stomach-knotting machine gun shudders, a sheer brute force cage brawl if there ever was to be one, whereas the remaining three selections stick to the "conventional" format, one on sax and one on drums, though I'm not so far advanced in Ettrick 101 to tell you who's playing what. "Sky-Bellower" plays right after the all-horn intro and knocks you flat as soon as the drums come storming through playing all sorts of ridiculous, blastbeat rolls. "Contriver of Evil" starts at high energy and then works into a curious sort of jazz kink, 'specially where the drums are concerned..."Raven Harvest", the album closer, begins with both men screaming bloody murder before the kit is taken hold, first by one, then by both, jamming out an extraordinarily fat slab of post-Graves/Ali/Jackson/Zorn/Sauter/Dietrich heave. Now don't get me wrong, these tracks slay and slay hard, but it almost sounds like this should have come before the marathon bouts of their previous discography, you know? I wouldn't not recommend it of course; if you can't get a handle on the CD-Rs then this one's definitely worth your time. If you've got the CD-Rs and a tight wallet, there might not be enough new tricks here worth your time. But on the other hand, Jesus Crow does this shit sound hot on vinyl. So there's that.

Speeching of going back thru time, this new GHQ release kinda does the same thing to me. I haven't really kept up with them too much lately but when I last saw them I thought they were kinda pushing out into more song-oriented turfs like Religious Knives, ex(?)-Double Leopards brethren, were going. So either I'm wrong or they've taken a turn for the severely dissonant. I was pretty sure GHQ added a new members like a bassist recently, but I couldn't find anything in a haphazard Google search to back that up, so it's definitely the trio of Marcia Bassett, Steve Gunn and Pete Nolan here. "California Night Burning Dreams" compiles a coupla live recordings (two from Sacramento and one from Eureka) while the CD-R does the same (Seattle). On the first selection from Sacramento, Marcia's heavily treated guitar sends out vast plains of white sand sound over which Steve sprinkles out crystal clear acoustic notes, perhaps at a level way more lucid than I've ever heard from these cats. Pete plays pretty solemn at first, limiting his contribution to a rousal of chimes, before slowly sprucing things up with a miltant march as Gunn's guitar strings slosh around like the flab hanging off Robert Johnson's heart. "Eureka" cuts in and presents darker overtones via downtrodden, languid phases from Gunn and gauze-wrapped droning vocalizations courtesy Nolan. Slowest of em all is the remainder of "Sacramento" which occupies the flip. Resuming the glacial burn of its predecessor, it focuses primarily on Marcia's tapestry of fuzzed-up gristle and Nolan's stoned plods through the vaguest of pentameters. Gunn, for his parts, adds occasional six-stringed tickles before stepping up full-time in the end to take it all out into the great nothingness. Funnily enough though, the "Live in Seattle" 3" might be the real crown jewel here, a terrific 13-minute stretch featuring an all-encompassing swirl from Marcia's guitar and black hole tearing electronics and Gunn's subtle guitar phases eventually fleshing out into a woozy, tangible stasis. Add in to that Nolan's subtle, stabilizing drumming, what sounds vaguely like a harmonica, chimes, and blissed-out, buried vocals from Marcia at her most Zazeelian, and you're fucking afloat, dude. Special mention should also be made to the mindblasting all-over collage cover art, and the sexy blue splatter vinyl job, totally making this package one worth a serious look, as if the sonics weren't already tempting enough. If you missed the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't GHQ Sloow Tape, here's yr solace.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Two Bands and a Legend - Two Bands and a Legend (Smalltown Superjazz CD)

2007-08-23T20:53:00.000-04:00

I can't sit on this one any longer, it's too hot. Too fuckin' hot. Even if I don't know the second thing about jazz. And refer to any jazz with a muscle as "Brotzmannesque" ("Ayleresque" if I need to fulfill racial quotas because generally everything I review comes from suburban white kids with a CD burner). I just can't risk not letting any other humans on the planet not know about this jewel. Two Bands and a Legend, more than worthy of the brash name they've chosen to bestow upon themselves, consist of just that: free jazz/garage rock hydra The Thing (feat. Mats Gustafsson, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Paal Nilssen-Love), psychedelic avant rock outfit Cato Salsa Experience (Cato Thomassen, Bard Enerstad, Christian Engfelt and Jon Magne Riise), and the legend, Joe McPhee. Who's gonna argue?! Turns out though this isn't the first time these two bands and one legend got together for some serious heaving. They had a record in 2005, also on the Smalltown Superjazz label, under their assumed names, called "Sounds Like a Sandwich". I musta missed it. This one came out in April, and now they've got a new EP out too: "I See You Baby". So before these guyses collective oeuvre gets any bigger, let me tell you a bit about this self-titled effort, easily one of my favorite records of the year already.
If you know The Thing, you know their bag is covers, covers of decidedly non jazz standards. The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, PJ Harvey, Led Zeppelin that sort of thing (but also Don Ayler and James Blood Ulmer, among others). That sensibility is brought to this record as well, with only two of the nine tracks attributed to members of the collective. The record starts off with PJ Harvey's "Who the Fuck", led by a huge bass drum stomp (from either Nilssen-Love or Riise) and Gustafsson and McPhee's horns following along with the shredded guitar wrenched out from deep within the Cato Salsa ranks. Cato Thomassen lends strained, distorted vocals, his shouts of "who the fuck! you trying to be!" struggling to worm through the brute force of the garagey swagger spewed forth by everyone else's instruments. Next, their cover of the Sonics' "The Witch", is led initially by Ingebrigt Flaten's improvised double-bass stretching, but rapidly congeals into an absolutely bombastic, face-slapping (and instrumental) take on the garage rock mainstay that truly has to be heard to be believed. Gustafsson breaks from the pack as the intensity increases to deliver a heaven-splitting sax flip out, with the final wind-up of the track sounding like the build up to a heart attack. The band's cover of "Louie, Louie" starts out similar to "The Witch", only it's the horns and a lot of wailing vocals serving as the introduction, led by Gustafsson and McPhee, and when the first recognizable notes of the tune are howled through, it's like a religious experience - and then the song starts, propelled by Nilssen-Love's absurdly heavy hand on the kit, that casts the song in an entirely new jazz-meets-sludge metal-meets-punk rock light. In his effusive liner notes, Thurston Moore declares this track the best shellacking delivered unto Richard Berry's standard since Black Flag did it in '81. Again, hard to disagree. When they detour into off-the-charts improv only to seamlessly launch back into the song's chorus a few minutes later...Jesus fuck. The real stroke of genius comes in the band's decision to follow up such a blasterpiece with Mongezi Feza's "You Ain't Gonna Know Me 'Cos You Think You Know Me", probably as close to smooth jazz as these dudes are ever gonna be, and it's a total swooner with McPhee's soulful lead, Thomassen/Enerstat's deft tropical guitar touches, Flaten's rubbery bassline and beautifully understated drumming. The band return to exuberence (and reverence) on their jumpy, caffeinated version of James Blood Ulmer's "Baby Talk", steered by Flaten's jittery bassline and decorated with spit-spewing solo sparks from the sax section, but switch back into an aggressive mode for an industrial lurch on a tune by Mats' daughter Alva Melin called "The Nut", featuring more thick sax haywire over a sinus-clearing pounding courtesy the rhythm section, and the supremely languid drawl of the Cramps' "I Can't Find My Mind", which is led almost entirely by the Cato Salsa Experience (with Cato again handling vocals...I assume), featuring interjections from McPhee that eventually close out the track. The two originals, Riise's ecstatic-but-brief "Too Much Fun" and Gustafsson's "Tekla Loo" (notable for some spoken word waxing from McPhee), are perhaps the least engaging, but are still interesting enough so as to not to serve as a downswing in the album's high-octane assault. I defy anyone - anyone - to listen to this record and not have a total blast doing so. To borrow a couple of lines from Thurston, if you can't free yr mind and shake yr ass to this slab...well the sense of audition is wasted on you good sir. So grow a pair and get the fuck down already. Ya heard?

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

(VxPxC) - Stoned to Death / Quetzolcoatl - Living (Leaf Trail CD-Rs)

2007-08-21T22:28:00.000-04:00

Hard times for these lovely new editions from the lovely new Leaf Trail label, the Irish imprint run by Irish human Tim Hurley aka Quetzolcoatl. Well, they hit hard times once they got into my hands at least. These discs come in oversized plastic sleeves which is a good thing because I promptly spilled Dr. Pepper (the vanilla berry one, fyi) on one of them. Luckily it was surface damage. Then the other snag came when I put em both in my three disc changer and forgot which was which, even after I specifically instructed myself not to. I think I got it all clean and straight now though, which is more than I can say for you and the group you hang around with.
I'm not really sure if it's divine coincidence or if there's something actually connecting these two names but the last time I reviewed a whack from Abandon Ship (the time before last, actually), (VxPxC) and Quetzolcoatl were two of the three acts involved. What's the deal, brothers? Birds of a feather flock together or what? Well whatever the case is, all I can tell from a surface glance is they're both heavy on nature and panoramas thereof. No complaints.
I thought the first disc was Quetzolcoatl, turns out it's (VxPxC), and you think I'd be able to tell the difference with one being an L.A. trio (Justin McInteer, Grant E. Capes, Tim Goodwillie), and the other being an Irishman solo flight...but that's more a testiment to (VxPxC)'s uncanny knack for sounding like a single solitary unit than my general ineptitude (really!). They pulled the same stunt when I heard "Reticent to Manifest" and I may have remarked on it then, too. A coupla exhibits on "Stoned to Death" (no shit) back up my testimony. Dig, por favor, the excellent way-torched frazzle worked over on the yawning psychedelic tone investigation "Empty Mall" and the harmonica-flecked toil + trouble of "Smoulder Exude", the name pretty much tells the whole story of this destroyed piece of ex-architecture. "Someone is Here" also sounds like it stems from one head, the duality of its razed soundscapes and glistening, bright vocals (maybe?) blending and intertwining as one. And maybe there was indeed only one at work on some of the tracks, who knows. The sounds these guys spew out their wizard sleeves is always so obfuscated, I'll be fucked if I can figure it all out. The next record should come with Venn diagrams for liner notes. Also of note is the amazing mutated dance/pop song "Love Falls" that closes out the record, sounding like something I'd expect to hear crop up on a James Ferraro tape. "Later Than You Think" shakes out heavy full-band action, built around fuzzy, downtrodden riffs that could crumple into dust at a moment's notice and swirling, looped background wash coming off strikingly similar to the more come-down moments of shoe-doom (I prefer Doomgaze, man he was a bastard in FF6) stars Nadja, Goslings, Jesu and similar. Meanwhile "Lower Still" channels the living soul of Terry Riley w/a heavy dose of Eno's bedside manners, all hazy and stumbling and rattling guitar/synth/noisebox fug. The whole disc volleys back and forth some between skyline and sewerpipe, and I don't mean that in a good and bad way. Sometimes you gotta get high, sometimes you gotta start low.

Quetzolcoatl's "Living" is a set of ten untitled tunes clocking in just under an hour, and all "crafted by piano artifacts". Which is to say that yes indeed most of these figure loosely around a charming/haunting piano refrain, drenched in a healthy helping of fuzzy ambience, distant creaking, the sound of howling wind, holistic breaths from heavens above, fragile heartbeats amidst low mechanized hums - all kinds of glorious, chest-swelling aural pleasures, really. Absolute tits is track number six - a dizzy piano tangle off in the sun-blinding horizon smothered in angelic drones and choir-like refrain emitting from who knows what. None others stood out as much as that one, but it's not to suggest the rest are bad. Quite the contrary. The entire albums bleeds together so seamlessly it's really one endless dunk into shimmering lakes and warm summer days without a touch of the irony or cheesiness you might expect to go with it. "Living", as the Leaf Trail jabber states, is "a personal, meditative, moving journey, through time, mind, worlds and dreams" and I'm a believer. No way is this music created by someone not in touch with the other and I'm convinced Tim is roommates with the other as of hearing this outing. Valid comparisons would be to the lighter moments of the Skaters (again!) and Double Leopards but moreso early John Cale and Tony Conrad (and Theatre of Eternal Music, it must be said), Charlemagne Palestine, Florian Fricke and Popol Vuh, more Eno...shoot I don't know, but don't take my word for it...pick one up and air out your skull yourself.
Not only do these jams come in oversized full color glossy sleeves (the (VxPxC) one is even stitched together!) but there's sexy inserts to match and cool, watercolor-style disc labels. Definitely a one to watch, especially with new blather en route from hooligans with names like Bonecloud (x2), Ghost Brames of the Cerf, Ixchel, and another Quetzolcoatl.
Samples available here because I don't have the time to do em myself tonight. Do forgive me.

RV Paintings - Trinity Rivers / Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood - Preying in Circles (Root Strata CDs)

2007-08-17T22:27:00.000-04:00

Two new beauts from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Root Strata, eternal purveyors of the new weirdness. RV Paintings is a new offshoot of the Starving Weirdos gang, featuring Starving Weirdo Brian Pyle, brother Jon, and their brother Spencer. No idea if we're talking actual siblings here or what, but it's not really important. But speaking of siblings, Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood, whom you shouldn't need any introduction to are definitely the real deal. The bro/sis tandem of Kristina and Michael Donnelly erupted out their native Australia back in 2004 via the Musicyourmindwillloveyou label, and Shirley, you've heard one of the gazillion records attributed to their name in that short span of time. But earlier catalogue number always goes first, so let's talk RV Paintings.
The three cats on this disc play a wealth of noise makers, standard and non-standard: electric and acoustic guitars, drums, loops, field recordings, yes. Fog-like layers, glasses, African slitdrum, wha. The biggest pratfall to avoid then is making noise for the sake of it (something I think the Starving Weirdos are guilty of at times) but nay, not on this disc. On the three tracks that make up "Trinity Rivers", RV Paintings nail it. "South Fork Trinity" and "North Fork Trinity", 10 and 15 minutes apiece, featuring glistening, shimmery guitar floating over black, watery graves, the result of whatever these loops and possibly even fog-like layers are. "South Fork Trinity" dips into a bubbling, steamy, swampmuck trench of churlish voodoo creep and frozen blurs culminating in a subtly euphoric, organic, and Buddhabox-esque ascension to the split heavens above. "North River Fork", the closing piece, takes things in the other direction by way of perfectly dealt percussion sloshing and strained, Partch-ian slitdrum tones. Just as quick as the track reaches its ebullient apex, all sounds are swallowed by stormcloud channels and seagulls crying, the perfect embodiment of the words "trouble at sea". "Mad River", the trinity-completer sandwiched in betwixt, is a beautiful ebb-and-flow piece with swirling, darkly psychedelic electronics and ominous drums, with a great patch of Tim Hecker/Machinefabriek droney ambient whuzz at the spiral's tail. This one too resorts to birdsong by track's end, but with actual waves to match, all frothing up against a dull cosmic hum. Basically a great album that not only lives up to its slick cover, but manages to sound exactly like it. Step inside...

"Preying in Circles" presents the duo of Kristina and Michael Donnelly, but this time joined by the mysterious EON (anyone know?) from sessions that took place between 2004 and 2006. The seven tracks on the CD feature the general BotOS (as we call em down at the station) sound, consisting mainly of acoustic guitars and hand-belted percussion, along with chimes and bells, occasional vocals, miscellaneous bowed and plucked string instruments, and anything else that happens to me in the toybox on the day of recording. Despite the expanded lineup, the songs are, for the most part, as restrained as I've ever heard em. "Ornamentum Dust Raga", "Thought Flickering Eyes Swallow the Forest" and "Insect Orbiting Shadows" feature sparse, languid acoustic guitar amidst constantly-shifting droplets of junky cabin floor instrumentation, while "April" and "Harp Fragments Drank Syrupy Blue Squid Blood" play off an exoskeletal form so as to resemble a vague take on coherancy. Best of all is the 11-minute finale "Ragged Pyres in the Night", a kind of summation of everything the disc has to offer, moving through multiple acts showcasing the group's knack for eerie Americana wordless folk prayers, No-Neck Blues Band communal slipshodal moves, British psych folk riffing (I swear I hear a meditation on Comus' "The Herald" in there), and Tower Recordings/Bummer Road campfire noodling. Root Strata's text posits this one as sounding like a "Sunday morning jam with your best friends outside in a garden just after tea" and they've got the Sunday morning part down pat at least...this is one of those quintessential records you throw on when you wake up early and shuffle around the house with the day ahead of you and sunlight pouring in through the windows. Unfortunately it's 1:30am as I type this so I'm Not Feeling the Rainbow so to speak, but I know when I come back to this one in the morning it'll hit me like gangbusters.
In the event that these two are old hat for you already (which is possible), there's a couple of neat sounding Root Strata LPs in the works to feed yr need. An amazing/insane sounding Gregg Kowalsky LP ("For his Graduate thesis at Mills Collage, Gregg translated, scored and conducted one of his electronic compositions acoustically for the 25 person Contemporary Performance Ensemble featuring Fred Frith on violin.") and an LP reissue of a long gone Jyrk silverback which saw the minds of Axolotl, Gerritt and Yellow Swans coming together for general ne'er-do-well-ness. Always summat to look forward to, then.

Nocturno Culto - The Misanthrope: The Existence of...Solitude and Chaos (Peaceville/Tyrant Syndicate DVD/CD)

2007-08-16T21:43:00.000-04:00

I was originally sposed to discuss this one an age ago, when it came in mail from Aquarius. Unfortunately, and through no fault of their own, the spindles that hold the DVD and the CD in place broke in transit and as a result, the CD rubbed against the shards all the way to my home, scratching it up beyond playability. So, you know, it was exchanged, the new one came today (in perfect health) and we're good to go. See the package for "The Misanthrope" is a bit of a delicate thing. It's basically a DVD-sized jewel case, which looks pretty swanky but manipulates rather finickily; I almost broke the "door" off this new copy. Then again, no one ever accused me of having the softest of hands. I digress. "The Misanthrope" is Darkthrone singer/guitarist/bassist/misanthrope Nocturno Culto's directorial debut, a "unique insight into solitude and metal" (how often those two do go hand in hand), accompanied by a 20-ish minute bonus CD featuring music specifically composed and performed by Nocturno for the film's soundtrack.
The film itself is only 56 minutes long, and Nocturno himself describes it as "a strange documentary/fiction piece...a totally weird film with no actual information, but with atmosphere and self irony". That tells about a fraction of the tale, in the sense that "The Misanthrope" isn't really a coherant film at all. It's more or less a collection of a few different scenarios broken up and spread out over 14 chapters...sometimes referencing eachother, but usually not. It's shot almost entirely by Nocturno with a handheld camera, and covers a lot of disparate ground: from opening with footage of Nocturno, Enslaved's Cato and a Metal Hammer scribe ice fishing, to shots of Norwegian forests, towns, and, uh, snowboarders, to "behind the scenes" clips of Darkthrone's "Sardonic Wrath" rehearsal sessions, Aura Noir's contract signing and record release party, and Japan's all-female blackened doom wastelayers Gallhammer playing live (!), it's all over the map. The best way to describe it is part tour documentary (see: Nocturno's trip to Japan), part home movie (see: Nocturno and Darkthrone cohort Fenriz's musings on technology and reality), part black metal featurette (the aforementioned bands and scenes), part art flick (lengthy shots of forests, waterfalls, fallen snow, cross-country skiing)...but mostly anything that Nocturno saw fit to include. There's no denying that this is pretty much a vanity project (as the man himself cautions in the liner notes, "some will find this DVD totally pointless") and ways away from both the black metal exposé and the black metal arthouse juggernaut one might've been expecting, it's still makes for a neat viewing at least once or twice for the more curious observer...Darkthrone nuts, on the other hand, should be all over this. And I almost forgot to mention the coolest part of the whole thing - the black and white scenes of Fenriz tugging a coffin through the snow interspersed throughout the film's duration. What makes it even better/stranger is that I was unwrapping my newly-purchased copy of Django at the very same time I was watching those scenes unfold...
Also worth mentioning that the DVD comes with some bonus features: rare Darkthrone live footage, promo video for "Too Old, Too Cold", and a photo gallery. I lost my DVD remote and can't access anything other than the main movie, but I'm sure they're swell.
The soundtrack, featured sporadically in the film, features 20 minutes of brand new Nocturno Culto (read: not Darkthrone) music created specially for "The Misanthrope". About the only song that even bears a shred of semblance to black metal is the hilarious/bizarre "Necroposers", sounding like a cross between 70s psychedelia, 80s industrial and 90s black metal riffs with Nocturno slurring "Yeah! This is groovy! Let's kick it!" and hacking up a lung through a vocoder. The solo features some serious shredd though, I must say. Other tracks like the opening "Battlehorns", "The Will to Deny", and "The Solution" are guitar-based promenades through dark ambient/CMI furnace rooms, while "The Bastard Son" and "Stay Away" hint at a love for 70s prog and krautrock, the former reminding of King Crimson's "Industry" or "Dig Me" while the latter seemingly inspired by Pink Floyd or Tangerine Dream/Kosmiche spaciousness with a little Goblin/Argento-style Moog/synth shadow. All of it sounds better within the context of the film, though I wouldn't balk at all at hearing a full album's worth of solo Culto aktion.
Darkthrone themselves have a new album due on September 10th, "F.O.A.D.". If you can't wait till then, "The Misanthrope" in conjunction with the band's recently-released "N.W.O.B.H.M." EP should be the horn o' plenty for you to toot on while you wait.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the bonus CD

Various Artists - A Nice Noise Evening Vol. 1 ([&] CD-R) / Various Artists - D.R.M.K. Kronika Vol. 1 (No Label CD-R)

2007-08-14T21:35:00.000-04:00

Got a couple of cool CD-Rs in the mail the other, er, month from Matjaz Galicic, Slovenian everyman who has a noise outlet called Gen 26 and a label called [&]. He used to run a couple of classic labels dating back to 1994, Abnormal Tapes and Fuck-U-Tapes (not to be confused, of course, with Fuck It Tapes). [&], as you can see, are responsible for "A Nice Noise Evening Vol. 1" which is recordings taken from an evening in Ljubiljana, Slovenia in 2005 featuring the aforementioned Gen 26, A.U.B. (also from Slovenia), Man Manly ("artistic nomad state") and Justice Yeldham & The Dynamic Ribbon (Australia). I don't know if Matjaz did the "D.R.M.K. Kronika Vol. 1" CD-R too, but he appears on it, along with A.U.B., Propalitet, Sist En 343, and Minimal Bastard. The D.R.M.K. is the Ljubljana-based "Collective for Development of Youth Culture" (the acronym is Slovenian you see), who put on all sorts of "youth actions" (concerts), exhibitions, art workshops, etc, featuring Slovenian and non-Slovenian acts in a "non-profit, non-commercial way and involve young people who otherwise might not have a chance to perform and take part in events such as these". Sounds like fun!
For a soirée that brought together four acts from potentially disparate locations, I would've expected "A Nice Noise Evening Vol. 1" to be a bit longer than the pithy 25 minutes it clocks in at, but hey, works for me. Each act contributes about 7 minutes of noise. Most immediately enjoyable are A.U.B. and Man Manly. The former does up a strange brew of sizzling feedback and xylophone/toy gamelan virtuosity topped off with the addition of a melting karaoke version of Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go". Sounds gimmicky, shouldn't work, but it does! Kinda like Japan's Thirdorgan, with more of a sense of humor. The latter, Man Manly, uses homemade instruments to bleed out a seriously head-emptying droning throb that only increases in both pureness and intensity as the track wears on. I thought my sinuses were going to erupt towards the end, so I liked it. Now the other two "sets" were nothing slouchy either - Gen 26 dredge up a nice haze of basement-birthed feedback swirl, guitar (?) crunch and spiked blasts of supercharged oscillation while Justice Yeldham & The Dynamic Ribbon Device belie their goofy name with menacing static gamma rays and spectral crystallizations steeped in abused pedals and synths. Sprechen sie sassy? It's worth mentioning this "Nice Noise Evening" comes housed in a sexy foldover sleeve made from what appears to be a thicker wallpaper-type textile, in hand-numbered editions.

The "D.R.M.K. Kronika Vol. 1" compilation, issued by D.R.M.K. themselves, brings together five acts all with ties to the collective: Gen 26, Propalitet, Sist En 343, Minimal Bastard and A.U.B., all contributing between 4 and 15 minutes of exclusive music. All five are pretty diverse (though all with noise roots...well almost all) so this compilation makes for an entertaining listen, especially since all the tracks are mixed around and no artist's tracks play consecutively. Like the Slovenian noise mixtape you always wanted! Gen 26 plays the most straight-forward, brutist noise on the whole compilation, approaching Masonna/Prurient terrortories with single-minded feedback assaults "Še En Komad Brez Naslova" and "Incubator of Death", while A.U.B. returns with his/her/it's brand of junkyard mechanical percussion, drones and feedback joined up with keyboard quirks, same as the ones I played around with on my brother's Casio circa 1990 or thereabouts. Awesome blast from the past! Of the remaining artists, Sist En 343 contributes just under 4 minutes of sound in the excellent "Merzfuk (Live In Swenak 26.10.2001)", sounding equal parts hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, and other world-ending visions of apocalypse, and Minimal Bastard also goes the single-track route, only with an 11-minute barrage of mutated drum machine beats and what could be a guitar begging to be put out of its misery. It has a lot more in common with some of the more severely bent black metal than it does noise, like a weird meld of the Battlecruiser label's bedroom simplicity, the production values and the distortion of early Anaal Nathrakh, and the militant head-down stomp of Bone Awl, all without a single word uttered or (possibly) a real note played. Weirdest, however, are the four tracks from Propalitet, none of which contain a bit of noise at all. It sounds like one guy belting out fairly rockist tunes on an electric guitar, devoid of any other instruments, imbued with a strange punk rock feel despite Mr. Propalitet's mid-paced, slightly-nasal, somewhat-bored sounding speak/sing voice. Somewhere in the midst of Frank Zappa, Ludo Mich, Bruce Russell, Keiji Haino and J. Mascis sits this guy. Quite a curious and cool disc, and it comes with a boss 80's DIY-style fold-out collage containing pics, info, tracklists, etc. "D.R.M.K Kronika Vol. 2" is on the way and is slated to feature a couple of the guys mentioned here in addition to people you might already know, which is to say Merzbow, Crank Sturgeon, George Cremaschi, and Molkjebka Pvlse.
If you're bored of the steady stream of Californian or Japanese noise discs you keep buying, it might be worth it to take a flyer on these, as you're sure to hit on something that tickles your fancy amongst the seven different acts featured. The D.R.M.K. disc is available throught their website while you can get "A Nice Noise Evening Vol. 1" from Matjaz Galicic right here.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Terry Riley - Reed Streams / Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan (Elision Fields CDs)

2007-08-10T20:41:00.000-04:00

More reissues! I couldn't pass up the chance to tell you all about two records you surely must've heard or heard of by now. Elision Fields have undertaken the task of reissuing long-gone slices from the Organ of Corti's Terry Riley Archive Series, I believe the first was "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band: All Night Flight" (which I reviewed last year or whenever it came about) and these are the two newest. "Reed Streams" is a reissue of Riley's first record from 1966, originally containing the "Untitled Organ" and "Dorian Reeds" pieces, remastered here and joined up with a 1970 performance of "In C" by Montreal's L'Infonie. Must've missed that one. The latter record reissues two 1970's Riley soundtracks on one CD: 1972's "Les Yeux Fermés" and 1974's "Lifespan". It's the first time either has seen a CD release, and Elision Fields have remastered everything from the original tapes.
The two "Reed Streams" tracks ("Untitled Organ" and "Dorian Reeds") were recorded on November 4th and 5th of 1966 in Riley's New York City studio, and both feature the use of his time lag accumulator. Over the 20 minutes it takes "Untitled Organ" to unfold, Riley creates a whirlpool of subtly-shifting sound via constantly reverberating, well, reed streams. His fingers move across the keys with almost alarming speed, channelling intense flares of organ phrases that after a while start to sound like they're looping back over eachother. Of course, because the piece is so rigidly executed with an almost mechanical precision, any misstep on the part of Riley's hands is almost like being jolted out of a hypnosis-induced dream, but luckily (and amazingly considering the accuracy required to make this piece work) it doesn't happen often, and it isn't too long before Riley's echoey undertow swallows you whole and the track is over before you know it. "Dorian Reeds" works a similar pulse but uses soprano saxophone and tape recorders instead, allowing Riley to actually loop sounds instead of just creating the illusion of doing so. The foundation of the piece is a series of fluttery and dizzying saxophone spirals, with Riley using strategically placed notes to punctuate and create a skewed rhythm to work off of. At times the saxophone drones melt together and take on an almost harmonic nature, other times they're so brash and vibrant it almost stings. Despite using similar techniques, "Dorian Reeds" isn't nearly as heavenly as "Untitled Organ" (owing largely to the differences in instrument) but still an overwhelming, inspiring listen. For the bonus track, Quebecois psych/prog colletive L'Infonie, led by Walter Boudreau, perform their take on Riley's legendary "In C" (here retitled "In C (Mantra)") and risk stealing the spotlight altogether. Utilizing a big band approach and combining everything from the aforementioned psychedelia and prog rock to jazz and funk approaches to post-rock and that Animusic stuff I always see on PBS, the group morph "In C" into an incredibly catchy and certifiably weird rock journey. I swear if you hear this and don't want to start air drumming along to the insane xylophone-cum-gamelan beat or rocking out alongside the sludgy bass line and effusive horns, you've got no pulse. Imagine a completely ecstatic (and likely stoned) version of Godspeed You! Black Emperor meeting Acid Mothers Temple (whose own version of "In C", while fine in its own right, pales compared to this one) playing a Terry Riley tune, maybe by way of the Forever Bad Blues Band, and you've got L'Infonie, at least on this track. The Riley pieces on their own would make this CD good enough, but the "In C (Mantra)" pushes it into the realm of the must-own.

"Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan" represent two of Terry Riley's earliest attempts to move away from tape manipulation and composing and into keyboard cycles and improvisation. The first of the two 18-minute tracks that make up "Les Yeux Fermés", "Journey from the Death of a Friend", uses electronic organ phrases in a bubbling, pre-industrial (think Coil circa "...And the Ambulance Died in His Arms") tonal excursion. For the most part though, the near-synthesizer tones of the organ sound somewhat cheesy and dated, almost bordering on the (gasp) new-agey stuff that I usually find Riley so deft at avoiding. I'll freely admit I've never heard the track in conjunction with the movie, though, so I've no idea how well it works from a soundtrack standpoint. The other track, "Happy Ending", uses organ and saxophone loops (akin to "Dorian Reeds"), moving through lengthy stretches first of the former (in charming, slinking tones) and the latter (in soulful, almost jazzy mode). The result hints at surrealist film noir drama up until the terrific, piano-induced catharsis that slowly draws the proceedings to a close. "Lifespan" features six shorter tracks, all of which see Riley whittling his minimalist stylings down into more digestible morsels, and represent certainly some of his most varied work I've yet to hear. "G Song" and "The Oldtimer" combine electronic organ with jazz sensibilities, while "M-Music I-Inside C-Curved E-Entrances" and "Slow Melody in Bhairavi" and imbued with a Middle Eastern aura as evidenced through the use of tabla on "MICE" and the languid, hookah-tinged harmonies in "Slow Melody". Curiously, the two longest tracks are the stand-outs. The six-minute ambient vocal/organ phrase loops of "In the Summer" are pure euphoria, surely as equally influential to Fennesz as they were to the Who on "Baba O'Riley". The 12-minute "Delay", using lower-register organ dronings and icy, paralyzing drones reminiscent of Hermann Nitsch's Harmoniumwerks, slowly builds to a frenzied pitch that once again sees Riley's fingers dancing mischeiviously across the keys, similar in spirit to "Untitled Organ" and bringing the whole set back around full circle.
If you were picking between the two I'd give "Reed Streams" the clear nod, especially to the curious listener and not the full-blown Riley (or school of minimalism) devotee to whom "Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan" would appeal more directly. Either way, it's great to have more and more of Riley's seminal work in print and available once again. I for one can't wait to see what other fruits Elision Fields are busy digging up and dusting off for our collective consumption.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Baby Grandmothers - Baby Grandmothers (Subliminal Sounds CD)

2007-08-09T20:41:00.000-04:00

I first heard Sweden's Baby Grandmothers on the great "Psychedelic Phinland" compilation, with their excellent "Being is More Than Life" tune. I guess a bit of an explanation is in order: Baby Grandmothers' first and only single (and indeed only recorded studio artifact they ever put out) was recorded and released in Finland, hence the Swedish band's appearance on a Finnish compilation. Subliminal Sounds, who have been responsible in the past for excellent reissues/compilations of Trad Gras Och Stenar, Parson Sound, and more, have collected that single and a host of live cuts dating from 1967 and 1968 to put together this excellent, long overdue tribute to Sweden's unsung psychedelic rock warlords.
The trio, featuring guitarist Kenny Hakansson, bassist Bengt "Bella" Linnarsson, and drummer Pelle Ekman, started out as an R&B band in Stockholm circa 1965, going by the name of T-Boones, with a couple of other members. In a couple years time they "turned on" as so many other R&B bands of the era did, slimmed down to the power trio format, and were the house band at the psychedelic club FILIPS, something akin to Sweden's answer to London's UFO Club. M.A. Numminen of Finland caught a Baby Grandmothers set at FILIPS and asked the band to record a single for his Eteenpan! ("Forward!") label, hence the Finland connection. The single was limited to 300 copies and scarcely distributed outside of Finland, and not long afterwards they welcomed new member Mecki Bodemark into the fold, eventually changing their name to Mecki Mark Men where they enjoy a degree nowadays as being Jimi Hendrix's favorite Swedish band. MMM split in 1971 with various members forming the excellent Kebnekajse (readying a new album, with Pelle Ekman still behind the kit!) and others drifting off into the great unknown. For now though, with the aide of this compilation, we go back to a simpler time. A better time. At least, that's what they tell me, because I was still in my dad's balls when it occured. Hiyooo!
The opening two tracks are from their aforementioned single, the (nine minute! A-side of "Somebody Keeps Calling My Name" and the flip, "Being is More Than Life". The former opens with a chiming, haunting guitar line, a softly pulsing bass rhythm and Ekman's insistent drumming...Hakansson intones the title a few times (one of the rare spots featuring vocals on the entire album) before sending the rest of the track off into a loose, Grateful Dead-style jaunt propelled by and centered around searing, jagged guitar solos from Hakansson. "Being" opens with more isolationist guitar notes and sparse cymbal skitter before taking on the kind of blues-mangling psych improvisation along the lines of Les Rallizes Denudes. The two longest tracks on the compilation come from a single show at FILIPS in October of 1967. The 16-minute "Bergakungen" is a hulking slab of snaking psych/prog moves flowing thick and heavy via Linnarsson's moody bass lines and Hakansson's restrained approach to the guitar - rather than lay waste to the stage and its surroundings with feedback-soaked shredding, he remains content to eke out only slight hints of that kind of ground-zero destruction, while also playing fluid, R&B-informed monologues. The other track is a 20-minute meditation on "Being is More Than Life", starting out almost exactly like the single version, then ratcheting up the speed and intensity, and then coming down and playing out the remaining half in a fashion reminiscent of Quicksilver Messenger Service's takes on "Smokestack Lightning" and "Mona" or Pink Floyd during their "Ummagumma" and "Atom Heart Mother" stages. Unfortunately it's not entirely captivating 100% of the time and probably could have been trimmed down some, but I guess it was the age of excess after all. The remainder of the album sees two versions of "St. George's Dragon" - one the full version of the song and the other a truncated, minute-long intro to album closer "Raw Diamond". "Dragon" is a high-energy rock number bolstered by racing percussion from Pelle Ekman, over which Hakansson's guitar pushes out fast-burning fireworks and electric shards before everything comes to a standstill...only to lurch back with a great pre-metal Hawkwind/Blue Cheer type assault led by Hakansson at his most frantic. The second version of the track and "Raw Diamond" are both taken from a Finland date, March 1968. With both tracks totally about two and a half minutes, it's hard to get a bite on where the band was at, but there's a meaner, dirtier, super-charged feel to them, and it's more than just the production talking (which is excellent on the whole, excluding a few sketchy jumps here and there).
Safe to say that if you're a big fan of the International Harvester/Trad Gras Och Stenar/Parson Sound lineage (and Kebnekajse, of course), this set is a must-own. I know I am, and I know it was for me. Baby Grandmothers aren't quite as freaked out as Parson or Harvester, but still incredibly enjoyable nonetheless, especially if you like your psychedelia barebones and driven by diamond-cutting guitar riffs. Subliminal Sounds releases don't usually come cheap, but they sure make em worth owning - in addition to the fine music you get here (cleaned up masterfully as well, considering) the CD booklet is packed with rare photos and extensively researched liner notes (in English, don't worry) from Dungen guitarist Reine Friske.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Sunn O))) - Oracle (Southern Lord LP)

2007-08-07T23:40:00.000-04:00

I like to envision a world where I hated this album and would spend the rest of my days slagging it off with a variety of comical puns. I had em all thought up - Snore-acle, Bore-acle, Chore-acle, Rather Listen to Gang of Fouracle...I woulda been king, at least on the internet. But then, you know, responsibilities intruded and I thought "well maybe I should actually buy it and hear it first", but I wasn't in no hurry. It was only when I felt compelled to order Southern Lord's 2xLP reissue of Velvet Cacoon's "Genevieve" (oh yes) that I decided to take the plunge. $17 for a gatefold-ed 180g LP ain't so tough, not to mention the free CD it comes with (more on that later). If you keep up at all with Sunn O))) or Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic website, you surely recognize the "Oracle" art from the installation the group did with New York sculptor Banks Violette. In June of last year, Biolette created resin and salt casts of all Sunn O))) related equipment and epherma - amplifiers, instruments, the like. The B-side of this record, "Orakulum", was composed especially for the installation ("to generate a feeling of absence, loss and a phantom of what once was") while the A-side is the "experiment" "Belulrol Pusztit" which I'm assuming was recorded at the same time since the same line-up is pretty much the same - the Sunn core of O'Malley and Greg Anderson with featured players Attila Csihar (Mayhem) and Atsuo (Boris). Joe Preston (Thrones) plays only on the first track.
The experiment behind the A-side "Belulrol Pusztit" is that it's origins lie in Sunn's contribution to the "Jukebox Buddha" compilation, featuring artists manipulating FM3's Buddha Machine to produce new mutant hybrid works. The group had them run through their backline at maximum volume, slowed down to produce gaping ghostly tones that only vaguely share skeletons with their original sources (and actually kinda sound like the bell/gong that rang in "Bathory Erzsebet" on "Black One"). Above the icy ambience, the guitar duo of O'Malley and Anderson spreads additional grinding drones, bleak and drenched with bile and viscera. Atsuo's drumming contributions are kept to a minimum at first but as the track crawls along his cymbal twinkles shine through more and more until he's actually hitting the snare and bass drum in a helter-skelter rhythm similar to Dale Crover on the Melvins' equally monolithic "Divorced". However it's Preston and Csihar who steal the show, and it'd be pretty hard for them not to - Csihar's incredible vocal breadth dominates any time it's used to its fullest potential and "Belulrol" is no exception. Through gasps, shrieks, howls, and guttural belching, Csihar single-handedly conjures up spellbinding visions of abyss and apocalypse. Lyrics are included for both tracks, but I don't speak Norwegian. Preston on the other hand is a focal point due in large part to inevitability - it's hard to ignore a guy playing a jackhammer. This isn't "oh it sounds like a jackhammer", this is Joe Preston playing a jackhammer, at least if you take their word for it. It's certainly the unmistakeable sound of a jackhammer, which is more a problem than anything else. It doesn't really mesh with the churning pool of desolate sound everyone else worked so hard to summon - it just really sounds like someone playing a jackhammer over a Sunn track. But hey, that's why these things are called experiments, right? Anyway it's not used enough to ruin the track, though I much prefer it when Atsuo re-enters to bolster Attila's demonic inhalations as the quintet swirl downwards and finally hit absolute zero, with the faint strains of the Buddha Machine filtering back in as the guitars drift off.
"Orakulum" is stripped down in comparison to its predecessor, and more traditional live Sunn fare. O'Malley and Anderson's sludgy guitar filth forms the constantly-shifting basis the track, piling riffs mountain-high. Their sustained power chord drones at times seem to osmose into pure electricity, at least until the fingers are lifted and the next rumble is pushed out. Atsuo abandons the drum kit entirely and focuses on adding extra shading via ominous gong strikes as Attila, in slightly more restrained but no less vitriolic form, spews out more word-destroying incantations with the aide of an echo pedal. Like I said before, no idea what's being said, but he's still preaching to the choir. Less to say about this one because it's pretty steady the whole way through, but it's definitely the better realized of the two tracks, if not the more memorable. In fact I always feel lousy reviewing Sunn records so recently after hearing them, because even years after their older records came out, I still find myself going back and hearing new things. I can easily see myself doing the same with the tracks on "Oracle", because I get the feeling both require repeated listens if one has any hope whatsoever at getting to the heart of either.
It wouldn't be a Southern Lord release if I didn't mention something about the zany pressing/editions this one's available in. The band says the "official" release is the vinyl version - limited to 7777 copies, 2000 of which are on clear vinyl. If you order the LP through Southern Lord (as I did), you get a free CD version of the album. There was also a tour-only (of course) edition of the CD, with a bonus disc featuring a 46-minute track called "HeliO)))Sophist". I'm assuming this edition is long out of print by now. What complicates things is that the single-CD version (the free one) has the 2xCD tracklist on the back. Or at least mine does. So for the Ultimate Sunn Collector out there, that's four editions to my knowledge - clear vinyl, black vinyl, single-CD and double-CD. But any way you slice it, 17 bones for an LP and a free CD is a great deal (even if the CD is kinda superfluous), so don't even front with the whole greed thing this time around. And get the Velvet Cacoon reissues while you're at it.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

CJA/Smokehouse - Whisky & Freedom / Nonhorse - Xol Mic (Abandon Ship Records CSs)

2007-08-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

I'm behind enough that I can't call these hot off the press, let's just say lukewarm off the press perhaps. At least Abandon Ship were kind enough to hold off on any new releases until I reviewed these final pieces from their last package (see last month-ish for mention of the Futurians and Buck Paco 3"s), so thanks to them for that. The rest ain't for long though, as they've got a whole slew more in the werks: 6majik9, Thousands, Stoneburner, David Newlyn, Fantastic Magic, Nessmuk, Crow Feathers, Capricorn Wings, and Starving Weirdos (a 7", first vinyl for the label!). Sheesh, what ever happened to sleep? It's not like these two monsters won't tide you over for the rest of your days either - the collaborative tape between CJA (Clayton Noone of the Futurians) and Smokehouse (Kaaterama Morehucan) is a healthy c30 deserving of multiple/endless plays while Nonhorse (G. Lucas Crane of Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice) spreads out over a c90 (!). Like I said, these could be the last two tapes I ever buy and I wouldn't kill myself, least not for a little while.
I had a hard time grappling the CJA/Smokehouse tape because if you're like me, you've come to believe that a forward slash seperating two artists' names on one release implies a split, but it ain't so - this is a real meeting of the minds (and bodies, none of that snail mail collab shit). Smokehouse is a new name to me but I knew CJA's brand of skewed apocalyptic folk/singer-songwriter/what the fuck am I hearing from PseudoArana's "Pink Metal" 2xCD-R issue. On "Whisky & Freedom" they gang thegither on vocals, guitars, organs, and drums each, and produce a selection of ten tracks split five aside. The first side is filled with hazy afternoon loner blues/jam ramble, with a the dissonant, guitar-led numbers sandwiched in between lengthy hangs of tape hiss and general silence, adding still more to the off-the-cuff air that already imbues most of these lazily strummed numbers. All the songs bleed pretty well in together like the cigarette smoke that filled the New Zealand basement where these tracks were laid down so it's pointless for me to try and break em up for you. Think a stripped-down form of early 90's Dead C. dirges like "Helen Said This", replete with Michael Morley's bored, languid vocals and Bruce Russell seemingly aimless strums. Mix that up with a touch of Syd, Skip Spence, Sky Saxon (insert S-initialed acid casualty here), and some varnish-stained floorboard shuffling blooz and you're all set. The second side doesn't play it quite so straight, the first couple of tracks ("Sunshine Stream", "In Bed") being instrumental guitar pieces and owing more to the trembling psychedelics of, say, Keiji Haino. There's a couple more pieces that seem to meet between the solo acoustic and experimental guitar flavors, using repetitive chord rhythms, stuttering organs, and wordless incantations to achieve maximal stoned psychfolk ecstasy. The record closes off with a so-called "traditional arrangement" of the cassette's namesake, sounding like a busted, semi-sober take on a poppy, Fahey-ish bluegrass ditty that deserves to be, like, a side and a half longer than it actually is. Overall "Whisky & Freedom" (the tape, not the song; okay maybe both) is a total masterwork and I wish I had the right words to do it justice. In part it's because these cats know what the hell they're doing and in part because it's just the perfect August record and hit at the right time. Seriously, you need to own this and if Abandon Ship's reputation for quality release after quality release was ever in jeopardy, well this tape slams all doubts. They could stick to putting out strictly Nickelback tapes after this one and I wouldn't lose an iota of respect. They've earned the right to do whatever they want.

Gabriel Lucas Crane has done a bit of work now under the Nonhorse name, but I've only heard "Haraam, Circle of Flame" from Release the Bats last year (this year?) and it was quite good. A weird mess of noisy blats, skronks, whirrs cut up and reassembled, nine untitled pieces each lasting exactly three minutes and fourteen seconds. "Xol Mic" contains two enormous tracks, "Torquqe Binder" on the first side and "Tony's Room" on the second, both somewhere around 30-40 minutes each. There's a detailing story from Crane behind both of these tracks, which you can read on the Abandon Ship site and then explain back to me since I have no idea what to make of em. Nevertheless. "Torquqe Binder", Crane's "ode" to Xol Mic (I told you, go read it), is pretty much the perfect Nonhorse track and exactly where I hoped things would go after I heard "Haraam". Some 40 minutes of total imnmersion in the briny depths of Crane's bottomless soundpool. Through the use of (I'm assuming) turntables, field recordings, tape manipulations, reel-to-reels, and likely a host of homespun gadgets and other instruments, Crane conjures up a continuous stream of slowly shifting sounds coming together in blurred swirls of nearly-identifiable waves. When you listen to "Torquqe", it's like trying to find something to grab onto while floating in outer space - reach your arms out all you want 'cause you're not finding anything. What you hear on "Torquqe" hardly resembles music, but don't misconstrue that as "oh this is a noise record" because it's anything but (well, this side at least). You hear plenty of sounds, but they're mashed together in such a totally abnormal fashion, it's literally unlike anything you've heard before - imagine picking up on an alien satellite whereby music is made using methods never before heard by the human ear. Maybe it's a slight exaggeration but it's also an apt way to describe the total alienation and disorientation brought on by the way Crane strings his sounds together. Imagine some crazed combination of AMM, Christian Marclay, Philip Jeck, "Revolution No. 9", Boyd Rice, John Oswald, Le Forte Four, Vodka Soap...I dunno, help me out here. Whatever, that's the easy way out, hearing it for yourself is the only way and I strongly recommend it.
The second side "Tony's Room" (this being a tribute to a guy named Tony whose room Crane moved into) was recorded with Foxy Pink Gloves (?) on bass clarinet, and it doesn't quite live up to the expectations set by "Torquqe Binder", but that's a tough gig to follow up. It's a side of scratchy, stretched-out drone hollowings and synth rumblings, bordering on a less straight/more fucked version of John Olson's Waves project by way of Putrefier, heavier on head-emptying drones broken up by Richter scale squiggles and disruptions than the all-out noize assaults though. It ain't harsh or anything, just not particularly fascinating...maybe it should've come first? Apparently Crane had to put out a fire in his sock drawer as this piece was being played. Intense!
I think I said plenty at this point, anything else is gonna be overkill. The CJA/Smokehouse tape is a necessity and the first half of Nonhorse's is absolute top shelf. $6 U.S., $7 Canada, $9 world for each and both are still available. Don't be a dang fool - stick that landing. Oooh yeah!

Rust Ionics - Moving/Pictures (Colour Sounds LP)

2007-08-01T23:42:00.000-04:00

More snuff jazz purveyors led by drummer Adam Kriney who seems to be all over the place as of late. You read about La Otracina a while back, then Owl Xounds not too long ago, and now the final piece of the package sent my way in, fuckin', October. Rust Ionics is a rule-busting jazz unit akin, certainly more Owl than Otracina, featuring Kriney on drums (natch), Ed Chang on saxophone and Doug Theriault on electric guitar, the latter two which play together in DUAL. The blurb over on the Colour Sounds page (Kriney's label...natch) tells the tale of this being quote "the most insane recording [Kriney] has ever recorded". Don't know if it's been bested since then since I'm not terrifically up to date with all of Adam's happenings, but it must be at least a contendor if not at the absolute top of the list. Don't know if it can hang with the Borbetomagus, PainKiller and Fushitsusha references dropped in said blurb, but I'm sure all three served as strong influence. And besides, this ain't no pissing contest.
I spose I could say that Rust Ionics are a bit less, uh, esoteric than Owl Xounds, but they make up for it in gusto. Side A joins the trio in progress, with Kriney already beating out a Neanderthral no wave stomp and Chang blowing high-spirited, upper-echelon alto snarks and twists. Theriault's guitar contributions are surprisingly minimal at first, limited to solely background shading via wrenched groans. Later when the group settle in, Theriault pushes out muted, plucked undercurrents with Chang still splattering endless nodes of vibrant horn work and Kriney sticking to cymbal-glancing splashes. The saxophone sounds almost processed around this point as Chang drops chemical cluster bombs of mutant howling, scooped up by Kriney's now-thudding declarations. It all comes to a head in the span of about six seconds and closes off the side sweetly. The flip features similar charges of assault and battery highlighted by an excellent solo spot from Chang who, if he wasn't before, is definitely running his saxophone through something now, or he's gotta be channeling the breath of the beast from iron lungs. Theriault's guitar only scrapes center stage once, and it's in partial duet with shortform gasps with Chang, so he may while he may not be encroaching on Sonny Sharrock's turf, the group sound mustered up is still very much Last Exit (or, to be still more precise, Peter Brotzmann's recent "Full Blast" record with Marino Pliakas and Michael Wertmuller), if for no other reason than the shared punk rock/heavy metal ethos. This whole Adam Kriney/Colour Sounds axis is proving to be a satisfying addition/alternative to other current jazz form destroyers c'est-a-dire Graveyards, Chris Corsano's various skirmishes, Daniel Carter/Test, Steve Baczkowski, Bill Nace/x.0.4., and all the rest. "Moving/Pictures" (Rush?!) is limited to a paltry 311 (311?!) pieces and can be available for $12 U.S., $16 world. Comes in a clear sleeve on sexy, transluscent blue vinyl (as you can see) too. Head on over to Colour Sounds to score MP3 samples and what are surely final copies at this point.

Borbetomagus & Hijokaidan - Both Noises End Burning (Les Disques Victo CD)

2007-07-31T21:41:00.000-04:00

I suppose I didn't really need to buy this CD. After all, I saw it when it happened. I lived through it once, and once was probably enough, all things considered. But for some reason I always find myself buying CDs of shows I already saw, and I'm not quite sure why - the experience is never the same, and isn't it better to leave certain things as memories instead of trying to relive them fruitlessly? Well maybe, but here I am with "Both Noises End Burning", a year and a bit after I saw the chaos unfurl before mine own eyes at the 2006 Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Quebec. Borbetomagus and Hijokaidan, together on stage for the first and possibly only time. Two seminal noise groups from either side of the Pacific coming together to do what they do best - demolish. Borbetomagus is, of course, Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich on saxophones and Donald Miller on guitar, while Hijokaidan was, in this incarnation, Jojo Hiroshige on guitar, Junko Hiroshige on vocals, Toshiji Mikawa on electronics and Nao Shibata of Doodles on drums. I think the moment when all seven stalked the stage right before playing remains of the most intense and downright terrifying moments of my life. And then they started playing...
Junko's unbelieably shrill yelps into a microphone cranked up as high as humanly possible start the whole shebang, with the remaining six leaping in a second after, all setting out to make the loudest, most grueling piece of noise brutism ever laid to tape. Obviously it's lost somewhat in the translation to CD, but when sitting in the Victo Colisée, the only thought my remaining few brain cells could muster up was, "it's not really going to be this loud the whole time, is it?". Don't get me wrong - I've seen loud shows before. And anybody will tell you that a noise show in an impersonal, echo-ey coliseum ain't half as powerful as a noise show in somebody's basement where you're wiping the artist's sweat off your brow in addition to your own, but this performance singlehandedly proved that all wrong. This was far and away the loudest show I'd ever taken part of. It was loud to the point of obscenity. Or oppressiveness. Or ridiculousness. Whatever. But the remarkable thing is that they did it, from beginning to end, seventy-fucking-one minutes of non-stop, atonal wailing, in every possible sense of the word. Not once in the set is their the slightest hint of a pause. Sure certain players move in and out as they see fit, but the collective rage never stops roaring, which is truly remarkable. Listening to "Both Noises End Burning" is an overwhelming, completely exhausting experience, which makes it all the more mind-boggling to think that seven humans actually got up on a stage and produced this much noise at such a sustained volume for such a lengthy span of time. To discuss what happens musically is irrelevant, not to mention totally impossible - all seven members operate as one, like a Hydra attacking with numerous heads, and you're the unarmed Hercules at its mercy.
Unfortunately, as is always the case with live discs, the happenings of the original performance don't (or can't) carry over. Jojo's incredible rock star posturing, Sauter and Dietrich blowing water on everybody else through the bells of their saxophones, Jojo and Donald Miller's Spinal Tap-esque guitar duel, Miller shoving his arm into Sauter's saxophone to get his attention only to show him the time on his clock (and be shooed away for his efforts), Junko and Dietrich swapping microphones to somehow make her twice as loud and as deafening as she was when she started, and of course the group hug after 72 minutes of absolutely insane, mind-shattering waste-laying. Hard to imagine that here in this age there are still more boundaries to push and still more places to take the noise genre - a superficial, one-trick pony at face value. It's hard not to think of "The Challenger Deep" (the rather appropriate name given to the one track here) and its single-minded onslaught as some sort of next level in noise. Yes it follows a simple pattern that's been beaten to death by its own members back in the 70's and 80's - play as loud as you can as long as you can - but I can't think of an incident when it was fully realized in all its gruesome, snarling, exhilerating glory like it is right here.
All told, I don't know how quick I'd recommend the record. I don't want to put it out there as some sort of retarded masochistic noise endurance test, but I also wouldn't want anyone thinking there's more to it than a full-on face-wrecking atom bomb slugfest. If you've got ears, "Both Noises End Burning" is a landmark worth experiencing, if not enjoyed, at least once. You might not love it, but I can't see how anyone could hate something delivered with such unabashed honesty and conviction, which to me is what really hits home about, indeed, the whole shebang. Besides the whole head-exploding, heart-imploding, soul-obliterating, synapse-blowing, colon-erupting noise thing.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Various 7"s Round-Up

2007-07-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

Had a quartet of recently released 7"s lying around that I thought deserved a listen, starting with the final two mailings from Not Not Fun's Bored Fortress 7" subscription series. Man, is it over already? All good things must come to and end and all that jazz. First plucked is Mindflayer/Deep Jew. Mindflayer you know because Brian Chippendale's the drummer, but Mat Brinkmann's the Other Woman in this duo and his contributions should not be overlooked either. Well it'd be pretty hard to overlook em even if you tried, because he's burying Chippendale in a chummy stew of synth/keyboard/tape/Speak n' Spell mucus throughout. I think I saw Brinkmann play live once and he hurt my face mightily, a feat repeated here whilst Chippendale thrashes away sounding almost mechanized by Brinkmann's gamma beams before busting out in the second half and heaving out a hearty percussion disembowelment like a Meshuggah tune reimagined by, fuckin', Tron. Providence noise rock goes instrumental grind? I can dig. Oh yeah I read that they make a lot of Dungeons & Dragons references in their names, but this track's called "Frizzle Fry 2", you can understand why the Primus ref is throwing me. Second side belongs to Deep Jew, who I know next to nothing about, but their info section of the insert claims their two tracks on the split were recorded in '08, so I like em already. Said two tracks - "Night Eyes 2" and "Cops Wet Pussy" - are freedback-doused firestorms of hardcore/grind/powerviolence/noise rock/I-could-go-on stew, totally trashed and inept and bareassed which is how I like it. Drums, guitars, vocals, possibly other things, all buried under the haze perpetuated by the lo-fi recordings techniques at work here. Reminds me a lot of early (read: good) Locust and, at special times, my personal faves World. If you like all that An Albatross and Genghis Tron stuff you should feel right at home with these guys, though this is way better, and probably even more enjoyable in the live setting than on record. I'd go see em. Probably

The aforementioned Mat Brinkmann also did the art on this Hototogisu/Hive Mind split, the final Bored Fortress entry for the year. So, uh, that's one degree of separation for you. The Hototogisu side is called "Full Prince Charles" and credits K.W. Jeter and a list of his novels for inspiration - who knew? Anyways, this track is one of the most aggressive shards I've come to know from the Bower and Bassett tandem, pretty much the polar opposite of early solo Bower Hototogisu records if you think about it. Keeps with the program brought on by Mindflayer and Deep Jew, though. You know the story by now - strings, pedals, and violence pushed to the point of overdrive with not even the slighest oasis in sight to catch one's breath. Strikes a chord somewhere between the Incapacitants and Tony Conrad's "Four Violins" on steroids. It may not be as imminently unique as those early Hototogisu records but it's still a nice enough wallop.
Hive Mind's side "Collapsed Shroud" is a simply yet effective boiler room drone with a lurking, churning foundation very much reminiscent of the lurking, churning foundation beneath Whitehouse's "Thank Your Lucky Stars" - I half expect to be verbally berated any minute into the record but I don't think Greh Holger is that kind of guy. Rather, he inflicts ominous warning siren electronics that trill in and out of audibility, serving not only a warning but I reminder that I need to listen to more Hive Mind stuff because I often forget how great it can be. Consider "Shroud" exhibit A.

Seagull's "The Conqueror Worm" (Ketchup Cavern One-Sided 7") came to me from nowhere looking pretty menacing; I was thinking it was either a noise record, a black metal record, or a Stephen O'Malley side project just from looking at the artwork. Turns out to be the first option, and a quick Googling reveals Seagull to be one Michael Piercey outta Vancouver, who's got an array of tapes and CD-Rs to his name, unbeknownst to yours truly. Ketchup Cavern sez "The Conqueror Worm" consists of "poorly-recorded static, roaring distortion (and some mysterious crackle added by the pressing plant)" and that pretty well sums it up. It's a straight-forward snarling drone, cavernous rattling and tectonic plate-shifting sensibilities abounding, which is nice enough but kinda begs the question why, as Piercey seems to be treading on sure ground here...though I could never say I know a man after listening to five minutes of his music. Plus I think I could get into it more stretched out over full-album length. So as long as it's competently performed (it is), who cares if it doesn't change my life. Slick black and white sleeve designs on this baby though.

First the Earth.Space Noise releases now this Nodolby 7" - I think Smooth Assailing and me are on the same promo lists. And they're beating me to the punch all the time! I digress.
The last curious 7" sent my way was Nodolby's "Axe Magnitude/Altered Beast" (Dokuro 7"). Nodolby (and Dokuro) is the work of Italy's Michele Scariot, and apparently the project has been active since 1998 though this is the first actual Nodolby release - and the first Dokuro release too. Or maybe I misunderstood and it's only Nodolby's first vinyl release. I don't really know. What I do, upon playing this here 7", is Jesus fuck it hurts. As if all the bent electronics, guitar abuse, "blasted synths and tape manipulations" weren't enough, "Axe Magnitude" had to have been mastered at at least 500% volume since I nearly blew out my speakers/anus upon dropping the needle. "Altered Beast", on the other hand, is a pretty great side of bombed electronics and fully engulfed guitar riffing that builds to a swell only to dither away into an even more fucked up squall of strangled trumpet yelps via Demis da Rold. Doesn't sound like a whole much else I can think of, so I like it, but just be careful with the volume when you first put the needle down. It's worth noting this is available in an edition of 99 black and 66 marble-amethyst, and comes in a lovely, thick sleeve w/insert. Dokuro's got a brand new release out too from Green Mine, a CD-R this time limited to 74 pieces, what might also be worth checking out. For now, I definitely recommend this one above all else.

Pulse Emitter - Progression to Desolation (Black Horizons LP)

2007-07-25T22:05:00.000-04:00

First ever headline vinyl appearance for Portland's Pulse Emitter, whom you should recall from the "Portland" 3xLP set not to mention countless other releases, performances, and the such. The man behind the name is Daryl Groetsch, who spends his free time building modular synthesizers for abuse on said releases and in said performances. I've only heard two things from him so far - his side of the "Portland" record which I enjoyed and a Housepig CD which I don't remember much of. I do remember hotly anticipating this LP (from the eternally-reliable Black Horizons label) and I can safely report I was not letdown in the least.
Two sidelongs occupy "Progression to Desolation", both somewhere near or around the 20-minute mark for maximum zone-out potential. The first side showcases Groetsch's buzzing synthesizer tones weaving in and out of audibility like black jets droning across a darkened sky, with intensity to be ratcheted up every few passes. Later these fluctuating notes give way to a wire-thin drone that starts out straight enough but gets progressively destroyed as Groetsch pulles and stretches it into a number of shreds and strands, before revisiting the old ominous squelches of earlier. There's then some brief interplay between the various machines used to generate these sounds before a flush of white noise creeps through and fills just about every empty space in the piece with sonic obliteratum. The whole thing is something of a curious mix between Rafael Toral, Joseph Hammer, prog/kraut leanings, and The Thing soundtrack. Sign me up.
Like the first side, side two features drones that ebb and flow but rather than cycle in a perpetual disappearing/reemerging act, they remain a continous beam of uneasy sound, churning and gnawing with constant waves of analog gloom. Those oceanic swells worm around for nearly half the piece till an electronic sizzle breaks the trancem leading the remainder of the record into hushed, minimal-shifting drone turf very much more along the lines of an Eliane Radigue than the ear-busting noise skree one might be expecting from someone so closely affiliated with that kinda crowd. Nay, "Progression" is an admirable work, both of maturity and of restraint. Highly recommended, but limited to 300 copies (with a different painting on the front of each!) so don't dawdle.

Ex-Cocaine - Esta Guerra (Siltbreeze LP)

2007-07-24T20:48:00.000-04:00

I've been on a mini Brian Ramirez kick lately: the fantastic Universal Indians "Monster Approach" LP and this year's Poor School "Voor Niets in Zijn" disc. Why not top it all off with the new Ex-Cocaine record, brought to the world by a label called Siltbreeze. Whole lotta morra Ramirez acion in the pipeline - a quick view of the Killertree website sees Plants, Ramirez/Pete Nolan, Ex-Cocaine/Yellow Swans and Poor School/Swords & Sandels epherma en route. What a time to be alive in '85.
If you somehow managed to miss out on Ex-Cocaine till now, here's a quick rundown: Brian Ramirez and Michael Casler are the duo behind the name and both utilize vocals, guitars, and percussion to stir up "plundering stoner folk jams" though they've been branching out from that a bit in recent days. Really, this was all documented on the "Keep America Mellow" LP, a Heavy Tapes release, and the just-out GHQ/Ex-Cocaine split 7", so you've not no excuse not to be knowing at this juncture. Despite being all new (to my knowledge) material, "Esta Guerra" is a pretty good overview of the ground they've dragged their feet over since they were birthed while offering up some new surprisings hinting at still more radness to come. Three pretty diverse songs occupy the first side of the record. The first, "The Warning", is similar to their side of the GHQ split - totally inept free-percussion sledging, beaten out by hand and stix in lo-fi, basement-tech glory, Bennink and Graves by way of Black Flag, blood is singing, you know. "Sun Before Arises" treads the turf of "America" w/ a woozy, discordant psych/folk wash, gorgeously rendered in sun-stained early morning laziness with the title being chanted in rather charming fashion - slots in fine alongside your Golden Calves Money Band, your Davenport, your Tower Recordings, etc., but with a bent that's all Ex-Cocaine and no one but. "The Tempest", finally, is a scowling square-off between Ramirez and Casler, one on guitar and the other on bass, sending out all kinds of mangled riffs in gnarled, barbed patches. At times they sorta congeal into shaky rhythms, but they collapse into sludgy compost just as quickly a la Gate.
The second side features a short piece ("The Sheafman") and a longer one ("With the With the When the One"). Both deal in sub-angelic guitar riffing, bruised harmonies, and wasted vocals - "The Sheafman" is a guitar-led sermon bolstered by tabla-style percussion while "With the..." is a colossal excursion in 60's psych riff carvings and 80's Xpressway/Shock junk rock moves, thick and hazy Rallizes vibes all over this one, albeit slower, methodic, and more fucked up. It embodies pretty well the general Ex-Cocaine ethos of lying out in the sun stoned out of your head with sweat and beer leaking out of every pore - sun blindness music indeed.
Overall - overall! - it's all pretty great slosh rock fro a couple of undisputed champeens though I think I still prefer the "America" LP. Hardly a fair comparison since "America"'s had plenty of time to settle and this one's the new kid that I have to spend more time with before I Really Get to Know It but shit, you can't go wrong with any of the Ramirez/Killertree filth in my book. Get to scopin'.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Herbert Stanley Littlejohn - 17th and 18th Century Works of Funerary Violin (The Guild of Funerary Violinists CD-R)

2007-07-20T23:01:00.000-04:00

I try to stay away from the more ridiculous things Aquarius digs up, but the whole Funerary Guild story was too tantalizing to pass up, though I did manage to resist for a while. I didn't look hard but why does it seem like they're the only ones selling these Funerary Violin CD-Rs? Are they in cahoots? How deep does this Guild run? Whatever the case...I picked up what I guess is the newest one, and if you haven't heard the incredible back story, well let me give it to you in severely truncated form: the Funerary Violinist is, as you might have guessed, a person who plays a specific kind of music for solo violin at another person's funeral. The Guild itself was formed in 1586 by one George Babcotte and they were staples are funerals for at least a couple of centuries. So how come you've never heard of it? Well sometime around 1833, for reasons still speculated upon to this day, the first of multiple Great Funerary Purges took place - books containing the histories, writings, and sheet musics of the Guild went missing, paintings of and about Funerary Violinists were altered or destroyed, with the same being said for violins baring the markings of the violinists of the Guild. Essentially, any trace of this 200-year old musical tradition was to be wiped off the face of the earth. It's only as recently as the 1970's that the history of this fascinating and hither-to totally unknown sect of music history has began to come to light, thanks to the work of Rohan Kriwaczek. A violinist himself constantly in search of the "saddest music in the world" to play at his concerts, he was approached by an unnamed member of the Guild (active to the day, however marginalized) with the promise of the world's saddest music. Having earned the trust of the group, Kriwaczek has since began finally making this music and the history of those who made and make it available to the masses in 2002 - not without substantial resistance from those within the Guild, at first. To date he has issued a book about the subject and three CD-Rs - one featuring the recordings of Wilhelm Kleinbach, last of the practising Funerary Violinists (playing the works of arguably the greatest Funerary Violinist of them all, Herr Hieronymous Gratchenfleiss); another compiling recorded works of Babcotte, Charles Sudbury, and Stanley Eaton; and this disc featuring the only known recordings of Herbert Stanley Littlejohn.
In 1954, a musicologist named Daniel Haughton came across a hand-written book of music called Various Works for the Performance of Funerary Violin, dating back to 1726. Haughton was aware of the Funerary Violinists and passed his findings onto Littlejohn, who authenticated the book as being one of the earliest known examples of written Funerary Violin music (much Funerary Violin work was improvised and hence not transcribed, you see). Two years later, Littlejohn set about recording the works - a suite each by Orlando Addleston (1681), Michel Meunier (1693) and Kaspar Ignaz Faustmann (1722), all with three movements apiece. Tragically, Littlejohn was never able to complete the recordings - he tripped over an elderly cat and fell down a flight of stairs, breaking his neck and fracturing his skull, before he was able to lay down the second movement of Addleston's suite and the third of Faustmann's. So what's left is only a fragment of what could have been - you might say a bitterly appropriate microcosm for all of the Funerary Violinists' work to date. All 22 minutes of Littlejohn's recordings are here, all bathed in a thick swamp of crackling dust from the years of abuse and poor preservation the original LP suffered. Littlejohn's violin is suitably morose and scratchy throughout, but on the Addleston pieces he leans into almost ebullient strands of high-pitched tonality - something Kriwaczek alludes to in his liner notes, stating "Littlejohn was renowned for [...] his playing's ceaseless enthusiasm and undeniable volume, both of which are much in evidence in these recordings, though at times perhaps a little inappropriately". The complete Meunier suite is a personal favorite, with Littlejohn's slightly off-tune and ragged strings transcending life and death by often working on mournful repetition and heart-wrenching melodies, though constantly shadowed by the grim spectre of the reaper himself. The two Faustmann movements are slower in pitch and sound considerably more deliberate, with Littlejohn dipping each note into a dull whine akin to the opening and closing of rusted iron gates. The limitations of the original recording devices, the medium, and indeed Littlejohn's own talent, all serve to push these recordings into the realm of the otherworldly, as if they weren't there to begin with. This is shattering, essential stuff that deserves to be heard after countless centuries of obscurity and ignorance.

I bought the book from Amazon (super cheap) to further research this musical phenomenon, but unfortunately I haven't been able to read enough of it to provide a suitable review. It's a beautiful-looking hardcover edition, some 200 pages in length, and contains just about all the fruits of Kriwaczek's hard work to date. A brief history of early Funeral Music is included, as well as a guide to the subtle art of the funeral march - from then, the book goes into depth about George Babcotte and how the Guild came to be, as well as chapters on some of the most prominent Violinist practitioners around - Littlejohn, Gratchenfleiss, Sudbury, Kleinbach, Eaton, and many more. The book details Mozart's rumoured association with the genre, the Great Funerary Purges and the Vatican's response to allegations of their involvement, and a general overview of where the genre, the Guild, and its practitioners are today. Also included are a tremendous amount of photographs, period pictures, sheet musics, paintings, and the like, each one helping to unravel at least somewhat the seemingly interminable mystery behind this age-old musical legacy unknown to all - until now. The only thing harder to believe than this incredible history going ignored and surpressed for several centuries is the fact that it was all made up.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Earth.Space Noise - Kassette Kvlt III / Kassette Kvlt IV (Earth.Space Noise CSs) / Cave Dudes - Damn Deer (Earth.Space Noise 3" CD-R)

2007-07-19T23:11:00.000-04:00

Got a rad package in the other day/season from the Earth.Space Noise Research Laboratories containing two of their Kassette Kvlt tapes and a 3" disc from a duo known as Cave Dudes. The tapes were of particular interest at first glance, with their cases housed inside screenprinted cloth stapled together (which turns out to be an inside out Megadeth shirt. Nice!) with sexy cardstock inserts, paint spattered tapes, and all that other good stuff. Have a look. Paying obvious homage to black metal, the idea behind ESN's Kassette Kvlt series is, and I quote, "an ongoing tribute to the history and future of noise, featuring devoted worshiper's of noise in it's various forms, whom for the sake of noise have cast aside their ego's and proclaimed anonymity". So, they're not compilations as I had originally thought. They're full length noise tapes recorded specifically for the project, only released anonymously. I'm not really sure how going incognito is a way to pay tribute to the genre while keeping it sacred, but I'll leave that question to the philosophers. It's a neat idea, in any event. The Cave Dudes disc boasts a nice package too, colour printed foldover paper and cardboard...nice of the label to go the extra yard for the oft-maligned 3" format, instead of sticking it in one of those flexi sleeves with a Xerox slipped in.
"Kassette Kvlt III" is two great sides of sludgy, swirling, apocalyptic drones, grazed with occasional digital buzzing, bubbling, and burning. There are a couple of voices throughout - one which sounds like the guy reading the news on the car radio in every zombie movie ever, and another which is most certainly live and part of the action. And it's a woman's voice, no less. Atop all the smokey, charred rubble, this woman with the golden throat belts out impressive chorales and incantations in a language I can't identify, but for all I know it could even be English. Whoever she is, her enchanting, siren-like voice does a great deal to set this act (whoever they are) apart from the usual gang of drone/noise scientists without ever becoming an annoyance. In fact, it's the perfect contrast to the scorched earth soundtrack on which she lets her voice roam. I spose a near-enough comparison would be Diamanda Galas, although considerably more restrained and, well, obviously not. The music ain't all that harsh either, but the kind of snarling bile and extended somnabulism that reminds of maybe John Wiese's more contemplative sets, or even a guitarless Sunn O))), if you catch my drift. All I know is that if I had a hand in making this, I'd be way too proud not to slather my name all over it. So hats off to these folk for that.

"Kassette Kvlt IV" is also a coupla side long pieces sounding like solo synth/pedal/oscillator mayhem, all very well done and executed but pretty well by the books so nothing really sticks. The destroyed vocals looming over most of side one were a nice touch, and there were a few heavy sparks on side two that hinted at greater things to come, but on the whole I was underwhelmed. I'm sure you can recognize the irony in me saying it, but after a while all that kind of electronic napalm and scramble doesn't even register like it used to. Not even in terms of quality, but even in so-called harshness - it scarcely makes a dent despite such aspirations, unless you turn it up to 30 or what have you. I guess it's that whole bludgeoning to the point of desensitization thing, which I'm sure has a name and I'm too daft to know it. Heck, I certainly don't hate this or anything, but I just don't think it brings anything new to the table. Sometimes anonymity has it's perks, I suppose!

Cave Dudes is a duo of Bob McCully and Kevin Hainey. I don't know Hainey from a hole in the ground but I do know that McCully operates under the Women in Tragedy moniker, and I'll take this time to relate an amusing Bob McCully story from my personal archives. He played here (as Women in Tragedy) sometime in June and as he was up onstage doing his noise thang, he had to stop the performance and ask if anyone had some sort of battery or something that was apparently crucial enough to stop the show dead to ask around for it. That wasn't the bad part though (since I felt kinda bad) but in the general scramble to get the man a battery, he remarked into the microphone (with a half-smile) "this is tragic" to which someone in the audience shouted out "Bob in Tragedy!". Which was highly amusing to me at the time, though probably somewhat less so to Bob himself. Anyway he went on without the battery and finished the set; it still sounded pretty good but probably wasn't what he was going for. Anyway I assume enough batteries were on hand when McCully and Hainey laid this 17-minute slammer down in August '06, because it's very good from second 001 all the way through. McCully here plays "keys, loops, effects, guitars, vocals" although I couldn't discern a single element of voice here, while Hainey does "loops, guitars, vocals". I wish I could say that it was "the kind of barebones acoustic pasting you'd expect from a duo named the Cave Dudes!" but with all that electricity being used, I hardly think it'd be fair. Still a pasting though - the first half works up a spacey power drone atmosphere through sizzling, mechanized guitar riffing, dissonant blooping and beeping, and oddly percussive strikes which I guess may be the loops referred to in the sleeve notes. It sorta sags in the middle, leaving the (intentional) impression that the two have run out of steam and/or ideas, only to roar back out of the gates, first with sickening blats and then with a colourful stream of over-the-top keyboard ecstacy which is when the track really takes off. Indeed, it's when the Cave Dudes flip out and let loose at their most primitive (aha!) that they're at their greatest.
I guess my favorites are pretty well outlined here, "Kassette Kvlt III" is a gem and the Cave Dudes are far from slouches themselves. Now I'm even more inclined to check out the first two Kassette Kvlt editions - low risk, high reward!

Religious Knives - Luck/In the Back (Heavy Tapes 12")

2007-07-17T23:06:00.000-04:00

No rest for the wicked, right? Like, I thought I was going to be caught up with the Religious Knives happenings till their new LP but I just saw that they went and put out yet another 12" after this one - "In Brooklyn After Dark/The Hand". Would've been nice to get that one and talk about it here too (since this 12" leaves me with only about 15 minutes of music to discuss) but what're you gonna do. I'll just wait for the new record, whenever it comes about. I also passed on the "Remains" No Fun CD of a while back, but that's because I think I already own just about everything it collects...though that's never really stopped me before. I also gotta say that I'm feeling this new Table of the Elements style logo/packaging deal, though "Luck/In the Back" keeps it real with typical (if you could ever really call it that) Maya Miller doodles on the back sleeve. Weird trend going on with the albums discussed this week and their monochromatic, text-only LP covers...I hope I can find a similar one tomorrow and keep the streak alive.
So of course Maya Miller is present here, you know Mike Bernstein is as well, and you may have even known Mouthus drummer Nate Nelson was in the fold too, but did you know they're now a four piece with the addition of Todd Cavallo on bass? Yup, looks like a set lineup too, but for how long is anyone's guess. Last I saw them, RK were just a trio with Nelson only having recently joined and they slayed (slew?), beating out all sorts of salaciously structured borderline-tropical jams what murdered the sweet spot. The two tracks here aren't quite as jovial, but they're still grand in their own rights. "Luck" is a supreme slog recorded apparently not long after the group was involved in a car crash, which may explain the title depending if you're an optimist. It's largely driven (no pun intended) by Maya's synth and Mike's extraordinarily morose melodica lines like a wounded loon crying out from the other side of the lake. Nate's drumming remains steadily in the funereal sentiment and by the time Bernstein steps to the mic to deliver the distantly hypnotic refrain of "I waited too long/but you never did come", I could be bowled over by the gentlest of breezes. Really, really great track that easily stands along the best I've heard from the group, duo/trio/quartet/whatever. It reminds me a lot of the theme from Midnight Cowboy, which is also nice.
"In the Back" is more immediately aggressive, with synthesizers (and guitars?) pushed into the red forming an abrasive pulse over which Mike and Maya trade buried shouts and drawls. The overall effect is very much similar to the suffocating miasma pursued in Ramleh's classic "Eightball Corner Pocket" track, minus the acoustic guitar and the U.K.-accented screaming. And also throw in an incessently pounded drum beat a la Neurosis on "Through Silver in Blood" and you're nearly there...wherever there may be.
I'm curious to see if any tracks from the new Religious Knives 12"s will see re-release on the LP. I can't speak for the TMU 12" but both of these pieces deserve an audience greater than the smallish print run this Heavy Tapes record will afford it. Particularly "Luck", which flattens me no matter how many times I play it. You could either play the waiting game and risk missing out completely or play it safe and snatch up one of these. You'll just have to ask yourself one question...

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Consumer Electronics - Nobody's Ugly (No Fun Productions LP)

2007-07-16T21:28:00.000-04:00

First new Consumer Electronics recordings since 1993, surely a cause for celebration. CE is, of course, Philip Best, he of Whitehouse and Ramleh most notably. Seems like a particularly busy year for best with this, the recent Whitehouse "Racket" LP (which I've yet to get a hold of), and numerous scheduled live dates which may or may not ever be fulfilled. Not to mention the Susan Lawly Whitehouse vinyl reissue project...hopefully all this activity means even more Best and Bennett (who produced the two tracks on this LP) action(s) to look forward to in the near future. Particularly on the Consumer Electronics front.
First of the sidelong epics is "Black Cotton Wool" and it's tremendous. I wouldn't be surprised if Best was hidden away working on just these 15ish minutes of music for the past 15ish years because it's just tops. Something like an eternal build to an unattainable destination, Best layers endless platforms of ominous noise menace alongside wails of exploding synthesizer scream like jagged faultlines splitting rocks apart. Think somewhere along the lines of the first murder in Suspiria played in a loop and the sound of a thousand eagles being sucked into jet engines. Simultaneously hulking and intimidating, yet equally liberating and exhilerating...it's a total blast, really.
Contrary to "Black Cotton Wool", "Grubbing" sounds a lot more like a(n extended) Whitehouse track, and is more singular-minded compared with the dynamics of the former. The track is built around a long-form crackling synth warble that's pretty much dead-on with the squelching fragility heard on Whitehouse's "Dumping the Fucking Rubbish", but with Best dotting the skyline with comet tails of stretched and contorted electronic ripples. Best's, er, 'troubled' synth belches out an almost percussive slop that lends an oddly rhythmic bent to the proceediungs, as if they weren't already disorienting enough as it were.
You might think it's curious that neither of these tracks bear the mark of Best's distinctive voice, but that's apparently a Whitehouse-exclusive trait nowadays. Though word does come that new solo Best vocal tracks have been recorded and will see the light of day after the release of "Racket", but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens with that. I feel I should also make mention of the two insanely sturdy cardboard slabs sandwiching the actual LP; to whom do I send the medical bill for my brand new indirect scrotal inguinal hernia?

Astral Socializing: Recent Neil Campbell & Related Round-Up

2007-07-13T22:34:00.000-04:00

It's better than the "Campbell's Soup" title I was gonna go with. Maybe. Neil was kind enough to send in a recent batch of CDs and CD-Rs he's been involved with, two from his mostly solo Astral Social Club project and two reissues on his brand new Music Mundane imprint, one by him and one not so much by him.
For at least a few years now, Mr. Campbell's been putting out CD-Rs of his homespun experiments in terror under the guise of the Astral Social Club, with most being limited to 100 or thereabouts, all titled simply "#1" through to "#12" as of this writing. They're all packaged in the same way too - I.D. stamp on an otherwise plain CD, solid colour cardboard sleeve with "the" ASC photo pasted on, often with its own colours altered. I guess you can look at each one as a snapshot depicting whereabouts Campbell is musically, though the lack of any recording information or dates makes that much hard to confirm. "#11" (Self-released CD-R) is a mix of traditional Astral Social Club/Neil Campbell-favored celestial loops, swathes, shimmers, sparkles and just about any shiny word you wanna pin on the free form emissions. Tracks 2, 6 and 7 (always untitled) showcase this side best, a side you've already probably come to know deeply enough if you've been following Neil's work in the Vibracathedral Orchestra, least of all his solo outings. These are, however, mixed in with a couple of darker splotches - 1 and 3 contain more shadowy dronings and rhythms like overcast taking hold of a previously sunny day, while 4 and 5 appear to meet halfway between, mixing heavenly radiance with substantial rackings of murky, watery squelches suggesting a brand of total cerebral submersion in the ocean's deep in lieu of the clouds above. Which is to say that these particular tracks hint at something a touch more insidious working way down in Campbell's guts.

For the most part, "#12" (Self-released CD-R) abandons the glimmer of prior ASC outings and moves into considerably more bent experiments that mine ears perceive to be possibly more laptop based. Dig, for example, the isolationist sunken-tone trawls of track 5, led by heavily-mangled vocal incantations, as well as the destroyed rock forms on number 3. Weirdest of all perhaps are the swirling, disorienting breakbeats and choppy rhythms found on track 7, scraping turfs usually touched upon by the likes of Venetian Snares. Venetiancathedr- no, nevermind. Two tracks return to the sun-kissed, starry-eyed crystallizing sound as aforementioned, both with their own curious twists - glitchy, Fenneszian buzz of track 4 and what sounds like a looped recording of a seal with bronchitis barking, a baby laughing, and audience chatter set against a truly lovely, dreamy, piano note tumble. The burst of applause at the end that jars you out of the tracks' hypnosis is almost an annoyance, because I would've been happy hearing those notes for another 20 minutes.
I haven't sifted through all of the "#1-#7" MP3 CD-R Neil included (and I don't know much about #8-#10) but if they're all as diverse as these two, sounds like it'd be hard to go wrong with whatever you can grab. Mind you, unless you're desperate to trace Campbell's musical development every step of the way, I can't imagine owning a full set is truly necessary. I'd definitely recommend picking up at least a couple for a rousing/drowsing good time.

"SOL POWR" (Music Mundane CD) is a reissue of various Neil Campbell recordings (under his own name) that have cropped up since 2000. It contains tracks from a Lal Lal Lal 12" and a Gold Soundz 7", as well as one that was previously available as a techNOH download. The seven tracks that bookend the album (1-3 and 7-10) are the Lal Lal Lal sides and form their own little cocoon around the rest of the record - starting off with the gentle seaside glisten of "Buoy Sounding in the Porth" and moving through the slowly-ascending 10 minutes of "SOL POWR" onto the shuddering synth loop of "Fizzy Gristle", layered with white beams of sonic photon and jangly, cosmos-gazing belches. "Faint Raindow Over Mud Field" and "Middenship" start the final section of the album, both quiet and restrained pieces with the latter doubling up on what sounds like an oud and a harmonium to subtly moving effect. "Scandinavian Disco Connection" closings things off, but probably not with the bang like one might expect given the title - rather, it's an ambient wash in the vein of Tim Hecker, Machinefabriek, or FM3. Sandwiched in between these two sides are a couple of Campbell's more rambunctious works ("Rolling Exploding" and "Fuzzjaw/Dub") along with another exceptionally lovely, low-key pulse in "Sky Full of Love". If you were looking for a kind of Neil Campbell primer, or a place to dip your toes in, you'll find "SOL POWR" to be a blessing. The fact that it holds up on its own as a coherant record rather than the mishmash of tracks it really is is just icing on the cake.

Stewart Walden's "Cucumber Sandwich" (Music Mundane CD-R) was originally "released" in 1992 as a c90, and the quotes on "released" come because it was actually just passed around to Walden's friends and such. It's been reissued here for the first time with a split-stereo mixing job by Campbell. You might know Stewart from his membership in A-Band with Campbell, Richard Youngs, Jim Plaistow, and many others. Apparently now he goes by Stewart Keith and is playing once more with the recently re-formed A-Band, but that's all news to me. And all I can tell you about his "Cucumber Sandwich" record is that it's presented as a single 45-minute piece, recorded entirely on Casio SA10...which is really remarkable when you consider the dizzying array of sounds Walden spits up over the course of "Cucumber" - needle scratches, mock explosions, church organs, field recordings, gunfire, conversational chatter, 8-bit MIDI glurge, and I have no idea how much of it is real and how much is imagine or conjured up by the spell Walden's weaving. It's a tough record to pin down - it's noisy, but it's not a noise record. It's messy, but most certainly not sloppy. Walden strikes a fine balance between out-there electronic demonry and instant composition, recalling everything from Christian Marclay and Otomo Yoshihide to Xenakis and musique concrete to RRRecords' "Recycled" series, Merzbow's tape works, and the Los Angeles Free Music Society. It may be a touch long at 45 clicks but at least it's never boring. And even then, you could always take a couple trips through using just the left speaker and a muted right one, then switch. The possibilities are endless! Well I suppose 3 isn't endless at all, but you know. Considering this was recorded back in '92, it represents a pretty important and hither-to unknown cog in the early goings of the whole A-Band/Campbell/Youngs/Wickham-Smith/etc contingent. If you find yourself gobbling up those recent No Fans compilations with great vigor, you can't afford to miss this one.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Matta Llama - Matta Llama (Mad Monk LP) / Owl Xounds - Teenagers from Mars (Mad Monk/Colour Sounds Recordings LP)

2007-07-11T22:11:00.000-04:00

I love it when two records converge upon me and I can match em up in one post. Killing two birds with one stone is my business, and business is good. I bought the Matta Llama LP on a whim some time ago, while Adam Kriney was nice enough to include the record from his Owl Xounds project along with the La Otracina CD I touched on not too long ago (and another LP from his Colour Sounds label that I hope to get to soon). Mad Monk is responsible for putting both these out, that being the label spearheaded by James Jackson Toth aka Wooden Wand. They also put out that D. Charles Speer I keep hearing about and maybe some day I'll have to look into it. For now, these.
All I knew/know about Matta Llama is that it's a four-piece featuring the excellent artiste Arik Moonhawk Roper on bass. I don't usually buy records just because someone in the band does really good drawings, but I felt compelled on this one. They keep things pretty mum because I can't find out who else is in the group for the life of me - all I can tell you is that they're based in New York City and this, their debut LP, was recorded at the No-Neck Blues Band's Hint House. What's to be found is a curious set of spacey, free rock improvisations courtesy guitars, keyboards, drums, bass, and sometimes vocals. The tracks bandy lazily about from bleary-eyed keyboard/drum plods ("Egypt Chic") to wah-riddled guitar-led, uh, sleepjogs ("Thetan Cruise"). You see, even when the group is pulsing forward as on "Cruise", the sounds are still permeated with an early morning stoned daze that prevents anything from getting too riotous or out of control. I don't even know what to think of the final shouted freak-out piece "A Sky Blue Screw", somewhat Sunburned and somewhat Sun City with lurching bass & drums a la Electric Wizard, doused with the occasional guitar bolt.
Two pieces occupy the B and they're both lengthy explorations in communal harmony vibes, maybe lifting the odd trick or too from the No-Neck book but with more of a discernable psych rock/krautrock structure. Sharp guitar beams wail over "Chortling Crystal" while Eastern ur-rhythms dominate "A Deepening Sky", led by exceptionally tight drumming from, well, whoever. These guys remind me a lot of Blues Control in the way they both borrow heavily from the acid-fried masters of yesteryear and push those sounds way out into the cosmos and the cornfields; I'm hoping to hear more from this weird alien genre skew, if not from these cats then from some other set of heros. All in all the lo-slung free rock moves of Matta Llama's LP call to mind a favorite passage of mine, which I think sums things up in suitably vague fashion: "Sometimes you wanna get higher / sometimes you gotta start low / some people say they gonna die someday / I got news, you never gotta go..."

Owl Xounds (nee Owl Sounds) are, at least on this occasiona, a trio of Adam Kriney on drums, Gene Janas on upright bass, and Mario Techtern on saxophones. Kriney cites the Misfits as his greatest influence, which I guess helps explain the title. And really, Owl Xounds need no introduction for mass annihilation (ahaha!), since you surely know 'em from the record they did with Arrington DeDionyso or the much-lauded "Toxic Raga" LP. "Teenagers from Mars" is another wrecking bawl of whatever kinds of 00's jazz buzzwords you can lay down...post-fire, post-ESP, post-free, post-al, it's everything and more. On opener "The Afflicted Interest", Kriney and Janas stampede forth, heads down and jaws clenched, while grizzled knower Rechtern ripsnorts his own path via insanely tight, skronked heaves. After a near-meditative start on "Our Motives Are Subject to Change", the trio soon return to more hellish wailing, first in the form of Kriney/Rechtern, then Kriney on a great solo, then back to full group for a soulful exit. "Collide a Scope and the Whistle of Doom" is the final piece for the side, rife with gentler/more tense experimenting akin the more knuckle-dragging moments on "Topography of the Lungs"...whereas the rest of the earth-beating while I'd slot em not far from Peter Brotzmann's Die Like a Dog Quartet. Then again, I never claimed to be a jazz scholar.
"X-ounds Memory" occupies all 20 minutes of the flip, with Rechtern sitting back and allowing for free interplay between the Kriney/Janas rhythm core. When they do reconvene, Kriney sticks briefly to the bass drum allowing for a sludgier feel, but soon moves to full-on cymbal smashing and limb flailing. And so it goes - I won't spoil the rest because you should really hear it for yourself but the give-and-take the trio hit on as they slowly dodge and strafe their way toward the climax is exhilerating. Special mention must be made to Rechtern's incredible horn mastery, as he owns this record from start to finish and his temporary bandmates are more than happy to accomodate him. Not to suggest it's a one-sided affair here, not in the least. These three finagle around like they've been on a rigorous practice schedule for years, and have made a good record all the more great because of it. Dunno man, I can't explain it so I'm gonna stop trying, but you'll know it when you hear it. It's not just talent, it's something else at work here. Fuck it, you tell me.

La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela - 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM/23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11 AM (Ne Glasba CD-R)

2007-07-10T22:19:00.000-04:00

Not gonna spend a lot of time on this one but I think you should at least know that it's out there, possibly available only through Keith Fullerton Whitman's Mimaroglu Music Sales shop, which is where I got it from. Totally illegit Slovenian bootleg issue of this classic LP from 1969. Copies of the original pressing of 2,800 are still available through Young's website, but for those of us who don't have $301 to spend, the mysterious Ne Glasba has surfaced and, much in the vein of Creel Pone before him/her/them, made available a great recording that was pretty much out of reach for a good 99% of the listening population.
"31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM/23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11 AM" is also known as "the Black Record", and features two side-long pieces that accompany the two dates that make up the record's title: "Munich From Map Of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery" and "The Volga Delta from Studies in the Bowed Disc". The first one is a pretty barebones recording featuring "only" Young & Zazeela's voices and a sturdy sine wave drone (via Young), and it still manages to be one of the most remarkable things I've ever heard in my life; Young's constantly-in-flux voice rising and falling and climbing to extraordinary peaks with Zazeela's more flat, more anchoring strands weaving in and out, either backing Young's or melting through unaccompanied. It could be, and I say this with few reservations, the most heavenly profound sounds to reach my ears in the history of my life. Or it's high up on the list.
"The Volga Delta from Studies in the Bowed Disc" is in stark contrast, containing considerably darker sounds than the celestial lift-off of the previous side (track). On this, Young and Zazeela simultaneously bow a four-foot steel gong, coercing brief glimpses of harmonic radiance from the instrument amongst lengthy, shifting, mechanized tones and reverberations. Dave Smith's helpful "Following a Straight Line" Young reader describes the piece as "[being] concerned with sustaining chosen sound elements with double-bass bows. It sounds a bit like distant aeroplane engines with certain pitches booming through above the rest" and that puts it as good as anything I could say. It almost sounds like night where "Munich" is day, providing an eloquent contrast that continues to resonate deep in one's blood long after the final seconds have ticked off.
The quality on both pieces is rather good for a CD-R bootleg - there's some gitchy static on the first, but it doesn't interfere too badly. The second sounds muddled, but it's hard to tell if it was recorded that way in the first place or it's a shoddy transfer. Considering all the art from the vinyl edition appears to be reproduced here, from the front and back covers to the LP labels, I'm assuming this was sourced from the LP (or a copy of the LP) and cleaned up afterwards, but I really couldn't say for certain. Whatever the case, I'd take the $15 I paid for this over the $301 version MELA sells and not think twice about it.
I'm not gonna get into the hows and whys of the whole thing, but it really is a borderline tragedy that recordings as incredible and as moving as this are still squirreled away in the vaults, some 40 years later (or more). Those of us genuinely interested in hearing them are restricted to low-fidelity MP3s, bootlegs like this and the "Der Zweck Dieser Serie ist Nicht Unterhaltung" 4xCD...or not hearing them at all, unless we should be so lucky as to catch a Young installation or be able to visit the Dream House in person. For now, it'll have to do.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

Ashtray Navigations - Four Raga Moods / Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes (Revival CD-Rs)

2007-07-09T20:24:00.000-04:00

Ashtray Navigator Phil Todd not-so-recently sent me two quasi-new discs from his absolutely-new Revival imprint which, as the name hints at, is a vehicle for Phil to reissue old Ashtray Navigations sides that have since fallen by the way side. Which is somewhat ironic I guess because "Four Raga Moods" and "Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes" are two of the more popular, or well-known, early Ashtray releases. According to the helpful tidbits on the backs of the sleeves, "Four Raga Moods" was originally released by Phil's own Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers in 1997, while "Pearls" saw release first in 1998 via Solipsism and then again in 2000 on Betley. Both these new Revival editions are limited to 100 copies each, and come housed in slick bootleg-style cardboard sleeves with glued on glossies and Xeroxes. The stamped CD-R labels are a sexy touch too.
I think I only ever heard bits of "Four Raga Moods" but I never heard it in its entirety, only its spiritual brother "Four More Raga Moods" from 2006. Whereas "Four More" is sloshed in vibrant Day-Glo colours and practically spilling over with druggy psychedelic excess, "Four" is almost a polar opposite. Or at least taking similar techniques and applying them in a whole 'nother fashion. There are indeed four untitled tracks here, the first of which clocks in at a monolithic 41 minutes. Compared to more recent Ashtray indulgences, it's downright minimal, based around what I'd approximate to be harmonium, guitar, cheap percussion, field recordings, effects pedals, violin...but never all at the same time. The only two general constants are a hazy pool of tape buzz and static and a woozy handdrum rhythm, beyond that it's caution to the wind. At times it sounds like Phil's trying to communicate a greater whole through an impenetrable wall of static, like a busted Walkman picking up alien satellite feeds or a shortwave radio station occuring just beyond the limits of your dial. Only in the dying few minutes of the song does a glorious wash of chime and guitar cut clear through the woozy dissonance, and it has me thinking the whole thing was recorded not at all as a joke, but maybe with tongue planted squarely in cheek. Whatever the case, it's a nice enough voyage once you reach final destination, but not one I'd be keen on taking often. Sandwiched between that opening behemoth and a 20-minute closer are two shorter tracks, both cut from a similar cloth. It sounds like field recordings form the basis of these two as well, with wind as the premise for #2 and rain for #3. Layered atop these earthly sounds are hulking, mechanical loops like steam engines constantly lurching forward (#2) and haunting, droning tones that twist in Phil's hands to reveal their multiple, luminous sides. The last track, in contrast to the mostly-minimal moves of the previous three, is all over the place initially - quick jump cuts of synthesizer chirping, conversation snippets, laser beam crashes, and the like, before settling into an ominous industrial oscillator rumble with a thick, juddering drone that might incite vertigo in the unprepared. I know my nose was bleeding, but the gentle folksy acoustic guitar/weather channel duet tacked onto the end plugged it up real good.

"Those Are Pearls That Were His Eyes" comes a year later, but retains many similar elements to the aforementioned release, not to mention currently Ashtray activity. It's a single 48-minute piece moving through roughly three acts. The first takes up about the first 20 minutes and is similar in form to the first track of "Four Raga Moods" - a sprawling background of ambient shimmer and gloss over which a multitude of junky equipment is used and abused, most notably a set of tiny bells and chimes that sounds a lot a mess of cymbals being played by ordinary household silverware. Phil's Psychedelic Breakfast, if you will. Later the snarl of Phil's guitar sparks begin to take over like storm clouds brewing over a lazy Sunday, only to dissipate entirely into "act two" - crumbling guitar quakes rubbed out over a warbly resonance resembling either church organs as recorded from just outside the huge double doors that'd lead you into the cathedral, or the later stages of "I Am Sitting in a Room". Whatever the dosage, it's real great and affecting and as the final chords of the guitar start to dissolve, I've already begun feeling seperation anxiety, like I don't want to abandon the weird n' warm cocoon spun for me. The final ten minutes see a final shift wherein the reverbing mush from the previous is retained except crunchier threads of guitar near-riffage take hold to bleach and cleanse the mind, recalling similar later and not-so-later-day moves by Birchville Cat Motel or Richard Youngs. Heavy.
These early works from Phil Todd are certainly more difficult to make it through than the full-blown acid-stained charges he's been leading more recently, but that doesn't make em any less rewarding. You could argue more for the opposite, in fact. It's great to have these early documents available once more (I hope represses are in order once the initial 100 runs are off the shelves), as they're not only great for tracing the leaps Todd and the Ashtray Navigations project have made in the ten years since, but they're also real good listens. A history lesson that's both educational and fun? I can dig it.
Phil asked me to mention some specifics in case you're looking at picking up one or both of these, to which I'll gladly oblige. £6 in the U.K., €10 in Europe, $14 for the rest of the world, postage included, and you can Paypal to ashtraynavigations (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Demons - Life Destroyer (A.A. Records CD-R/CS/DVD-R) / Video Madness IV (A.A. Records DVD-R)

2007-07-06T23:02:00.000-04:00

Last Suoni batch was from a show I didn't even get to see, as I had to take off early (same night as Michael Flower, for the record)...of course, I did get in some shopping, and picked up these two audio-visual treats from Demons, the newish group featuring Wolf Eyes' Nate Young and Steve Kenney on audio and Alivia Zivich on visuals when applicable. I've only ever heard the Demons/Hatred split tape A.A. put out a ways back and whatever may have appeared on the lathe compilation LP, so I was keen to check out the visual aspect to the group, especially having missed out on the first (much-lauded) Video Madness DVD-R.
The "Life Destroyer" box consists of a tape (in its own case with full art, no less), a CD-R, and a DVD-R, and there's a good bit of meat to chew on - the tape's about 20-25 minutes, the DVD-R's 20, and the CD-R's 35. Nothing to complain about there, though after getting through it all I wish it was longer because it's all so very excellent. The tape features two side-long pieces from Nate and Steve, "Sick by Water" on side A and "Life Destoyer" on the flip. "Sick by Water" boasts a totally sinister Outer Limits creep/snarl forming an enchanting, oscillating near-dub synth groove as the track's foundation. Huge, drawn-out noise scrawls and bombings git slathered over top via junk electronics, tweaked synths, and who knows what else. It's way more zonked than 'm making it sound though, trust me. This whole side is as cut out of its mind as the dudes who laid it down when they laid it down, if you can dig that. "Life Destroyer" is even more of a downshift in comparison, but its slow-building dark ambient grind didn't spellblind me the way it would've if my tape deck was not, in fact, a piece of shit, but alas I had to do a lot of start/stopping and fast-forwarding to get it to play right which killed the mood somewhat. I did hear enough to know that it was much looser in structure (e.g. no rigid loop forming the basis) and posed a lot more sonic threat by way of suffocating drone and sinewy circuit board squelches. More disparate, more abyssic, more alienating...more fun.
The CD-R has three tracks averaging out to 10 minutes per. The two that bookend the disc, "Early Year" and "Smoking Homes" both feature the kind of spacey, sci-fi dissonance that marked "Sick by Water", ghoulish, dreadful tones soundtracking post-apocalyptic visions of scorched earth and blood-red skies. The middle track "Hellstorm" lives up to its name a hundred fold, a throbbing, noisy, block-rocking track that seems to owe more to 80's punk and early black metal than to 60's synth records. It bowled me over contiuously for its entire duration and I'd go back and start it again once it ends in a heartbeat, that's how ridiculously infectious and straight-up rockin' it is. I knew I got my money's worth for the box as soon as I heard this one track, that's how much I dig it. So too should you!
The "Life Destroyer" video is a 20-minute clip featuring an extra-morose organ-tinged, frayed electronic buzz for a soundtrack. The embryonic film & light manipulations revolve around a shape/color-shifting blob that eventually explodes into a transmutating hyperprisms, gemstone glimmer, cold supernovas, and a whole lot of "else". The Demons track in the background dips into weird crescending near-prog synth loops and combine with Alivia's visuals to create an ultra-hynotic effect on the viewer. Later on the audio takes another turn for the strange and, kinda like what the tape did from side A to B, is far more chilling and isolating while the glowing static orbs on the screen make me think of Videodrome...which can't be a bad thing neither.

The "Video Madness" is also about 20ish minutes long, with three seperate tracks - first two from Demons and the last by Hatred (Nate solo). The first two, er, chapters see Demons' brand of churning synthesizer (going for the record on number of times I use "synth" or a variation thereof in one post) vitriol paired up with Alivia's visuals, in these instances looking like neon cobwebs pulling together and apart in a darkroom. I'm no student of the film so I wish I could describe her techniques at length but I'm pretty much clueless, safe to say they're far out and beyond my tiny realm of understanding and that's good by me. The third chapter sees more mind-engulfing, subtly psychedelic circle/spiral altering while the last one or two are insane black/white/red strobing nightmares under a great urban warfare/industrial insurgence crawl featuring somebody thrashing away at a drum kit much in the same way the screen thrashes away at your eyes. Not very highly recommended for epileptics or anyone coming off a full bag of Cheetos, but no finer way to maul a few synapses for anyone else. I know it seems like I just said something like this (cause I did) but these are definitely a couple of my favorite buys all year. I can't recommend the "Life Destroyer" box enough as it's covering all the bases. The "Video Madness IV" DVD, while featuring the better visuals, is a bit on the short side as a standalone. However, both are still available through the A.A. website, where you can also check out some preview clips of the "Video Madness" stuff so you'll at least know what to expect. Somewhat.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the "Life Destroyer" CD-R

Pasalymany Tapes Round-Up

2007-07-04T23:08:00.001-04:00

I love brevity and Carlo delivers it in spades on his new batch of Pasalymany Tapes (and one non-tape). Three new items, sure, but none topping thirty minutes in total length. That's how it's done: leave em wanting more, go out on a high note, "stick a pumpkin under its arm and call it the Headless Horseman", etc. Pasalymany always manages to dredge up and bring to light the raddest, baddest sounds of Montreal's local what-have-you scene and this batch is no different, repping three generally-new and underdocumented formations and projects.
Death Drive is the duo of Katherine Kline (Dreamcatcher) and Leyla Majeri (Yomul Yuk) and this self-titled cassette of theirs was originally released as a CD-R some time ago. This new issue tacks on a recording from a 2006 gig dubbed "Strawberry Jam Slam Strong 2006" that I may have seen with mine own eyes, because I know I saw em play at least once in my life. It was pretty good, and the track is pretty good, so maybe it's it. Whatever man. There's three songs on the first side with names and all but they kinda bleed into one another and I'm hardly astute enough to divvy them up so I'll just tell you you can expect shaky electro/synth dissonance married with tribalistic drum plod. 80's Wahrnehmungen industrial destruction meeting the Not Not Fun roster circa oh-seven plus additional circuit board damagery a la '00-'02ish Wolf Eyes/Nautical Almanac puke. There's the odd clip that comes out sounding like what's injected into Dreamcatcher tunes every now and again but for the most part that funk (I said funk) is totally absent. No mosh no core no trends no friends but you can get away with that when you call your band Death Drive. Second side (incl. the aforementioned live session) is more noise-based with only occasional percussion jumps and rattles, all in all a very enjoyable slice from the no-wave/noise DIY basement scuzz, and a very quiet one too...I had to wind my volume knob up to, like, fuckin', 18 before I heard anything. And then I spent the rest of the tape worrying if they were gonna explode outta nowhere and send me to an early grave. I was spared. As you may have guessed.

Metis Yeti is a guy named Fred Savard whom I only recently had the pleasure of meeting, and actually this is the first thing I think I've ever heard with his name attached to it, though I'm eager to get on this Sunken Skulls deal he has going with Carlo and other local area cellar-dwellers. For now I'll settle with "Dear Despair", a cassette he cut live in Verdun that has me chompin' at the bit for more. First side is "Iranium Uranium", a good side of trashy synth noise skree and general amplifier inferno that makes the jump from good to great when this weirdo chanting/singing female (maybe?) voice is dubbed in right near the end, lending a sense of alienation and intimidation to an otherwise downright mean piece. "Smoking While Pregnant" is the B-side and it's more hellish electronics burn with super-slogged processed vocals dragging the sludgy noise stew down further into the mud. Somewhat reminiscent of Prurient's "Pleasure Ground" record though less harsh and more...obfuscated. Worth whatever penny you're paying for the awesome first side alone.

I always have a hard time putting into words any of the insanity the Rivers and Mountains/ Ste-Sophie/CD Esoterik (that last one is not a band name but imagine if it was) crew dole out and Le Sentier Lumineux's self-titled CD-R is no exception. LSL I think is Francis and Jacob primarily of Ste-Sophie but also many other units, with Francis playing sax and Jacob on drums (according to the picture on the back), but it's really not what you think. And when I say it's not what you think and you think it's something else, it's not that either. Apparently this 20-minute jam was recorded live on Quebec City radio, but it sounds like this version was picked up by alien satellites and re-encoded before being flipped back down to earth. First of all, the sax doesn't even sound like a sax. I've played it three times and I can't figure out if it's the fidelty of the recording making it sound so skewed or if it's actually being processed. Or if it's being played through one of those long tubes and filled with water like Sauter/Dietrich styles. It sounds like someone's strangling a puma, basically, while Jacob beats the everloving tar out the kit pretty much non-stop...every time he comes around to the snare (three hundred times a second, appx.) it sounds like how being hit in the face with a boxing glove feels. Special mention must be made of the shouting match that occurs between the two when the instruments go full stop, which just fucks you up even more since you're still busy trying to dig through this overwhelming assault in the first place. Post-jazz, post-fire, post-heavy metal thunder, this is on a whole 'nother plane. Also, there's birdsong pretty much throughout. What? Yeah, me neither. 'Scuze me while I kiss the sky.
If you still haven't taken my advice and stocked up on Pasalymany goods yet, you really don't have an excuse anymore. Quantity and quality abound (and I assure you I have no vested interest in any of these cats, they can rot on the street for all I care! But they make good records). There's even a new Cousins of Reggae CD-R for you to get a claw on before it's Tip of the Tongue fodder and keep your eyes peeled for Rivers and Mountains, Sunken Skulls, Nonhorse and Wapstan later in '07 (maybe).

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the Le Sentier Lumineux CD-R (Death Drive and Metis Yeti samples available through the Pasalymany Tapes link to your right)

Michael Flower - Returning to Knowing Nothing (Self-released CD-R) / The Michael Flower Band - The Michael Flower Band (Manhand/Flowerhouse CD-R)

2007-07-03T22:38:00.000-04:00

As part of the excellent Suoni per il Popolo festival that took place here in Montreal last month, I was able to catch the Michael Flower Band not more than a day after Graveyards had played. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much else from the festival since all the good stuff seemed to take place when I was working, but what are you going to do. No way was I gonna pass up a chance to see Mick Flower, much less Mick Flower's band (featuring the likes of Sunburned Hand of the Man's John Moloney and...uh...Mick Flower). Times were bright, and before the show I made sure to scoop up the CD-R issue Mick himself put out of his recent "Return to Knowing Nothing" LP on Qbico and a Michael Flower Band CD-R. All this before they'd even played a note! Needless to say they were great and I became a major league fan of Flower's right off the button, reaffirming my decision to pick up these two documents.
It isn't that I missed out on the Qbico LP issue of "Returning to Knowing Nothing", it's just that the CD-R was 10 bucks cheaper at the show and I was on somewhat of a budget. Besides, it comes really dressed to the nines - pro-printed CD-R hanging out in an oversized "textured" cardboard foldover w/colour silkscreenings on both sides. Can't hardly complain about any of that. And now I can tote it with me wherever I go! So there's that. A lot of the talk around this record drew comparisons to the Theatre of Eternal Music et al; Young, Conrad, Riley, Cale, MacLise, even Pran Nath. It's all beautifully, beautifully true, but not at all in a treading-worn-ground way. Flower grasps the 60's freeness by the horns and rockets it into the 21st century and wayyy beyond. Tracks like "The Window is a River" and the 10-minute scorcher "FFR #1 (For BS)" feature Flower pulling golden throat Nath-style ragas, but doused in a wailing mix of keyboard, flute and guitar (the former) and sitar, shakers, syrupy percussion and horns (the latter). It actually carries a pretty heavy Vibracathedral Orchestra sentiment on these "busier" tracks, despite it being the work of one man alone. "Octave #1" blasts through with ecstatic guitar runs filtered through a hazy Eastern vibe and "If Your Light Goes Out..." is like Edip Akbayram playing along to the endlessly resonating drones from the Dream House. "Antlers and Whiskers" is a thick, electric drone probably making (over)use of the electronic shruti box I saw Flower use at the show, way over the top in sweaty-heaven drone bluster and sensory overload. I can practically feel the incense smoke clogging my nostrils. Best yet (as if I could choose between em) is "3pm 28_08_05" - Flower's guitar strings clanging and resonating like high-tension electricity wires over a tambura-like drone and wet, hand-slapped percussion that manages to straddle the fine line between ominousness and sky-reaching euphoria...I'm willing to settle for the latter, as this whole disc tossed me a ways up into the stratosphere and kept me a float for a solid half-hour, give or take...and made me want to start it all up over n' over again when it was done. Back when I talked about Ashtray Navigations' "Throw Up in the Sky/With Fine Clinking Magnets" LP from the same Qbico batch I said it would take a real heavyweight to dethrone it from being the best of the bunch...well, a challenger appears! This is easily up there for tops of the year so far...but then again, so is the Ashtray record.

The Michael Flower Band is generally but not limited to Michael Flower on guitar and John Moloney on drums, and as far as I can tell this is the first recorded work under the MFB banner. I'm assuming/hoping bigger things are in store, because this CD-R is woefully brief (17 minutes) but most definitely deserves to be heard by a larger audience. Or, at least, fleshed out into a full-on LP and delivered unto the masses. When I saw em, Flower was doing his own guitar improvisations until Moloney joined in and beat the skins to death at which point Flower lost his shit and it was jammed into the red sun, but there's a more laidback approach across these three tracks, and certainly a different sound. On the opening "Mode #2", Moloney lays down a pretty steady course for Flower to generally piss all over, which means that it works great. Moloney (of all people) is the glue here and Flower has tons of space to kick his spindly soloing into the next vortex, taking brief respites to pick at his strings like a chemist determining a precise formula before he reverts once more to an out-and-out attack. On "Balinese Falsehood" (as probably on "Mode #2 as well), they've either multi-tracked a sludgy, guitar loop or are playing along to it pre-recorded, but it dominates the jam with its low-slung, viscous tone. Flower sticks to high-tonal chord choking and Moloney beats out a repetitive rhythm - the whole thing is a little bit like Earth's "Tallahassee" fused with Skullflower's "Exquisite Fucking Boredom" - you know I approve. "C'est Ca!" is a minute of post-jam come-down noise/vocal wasting that, really, is neither here nor there. Even after seeing em play together in the flesh, this still defied my expectations and wound up sounding pretty great, even if it's a bite-sized morsel. Stay tuned though, I'm sure there's more to come from these two.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Night in a Graveyard: Recent Graveyards & Related Round-Up

2007-06-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

Weeks ago I talked about Jeff Arnal & Dietrich Eichmann's incredible LP on Editions Brokenresearch that was purchased at a recent Graveyards show. Here's the remainder of the fruits from that excursion. Kudos to the Graveyards crew for keeping their prices way more than reasonable and allowing to maximize the return on my Canadian moneys. Can't remember if I mentioned it in the other review but Olson, H was on that evening and slayed me in suitable fashion.
Night in a Graveyard (Rococo One-Sided LP) came out last year as part of Rococo's "Me Gusta Me Gusta" subscription series, whatever that may be/may have been. I see now they've done "Night in a Graveyard Part 2", another one-sider on white vinyl, but I haven't gotten that far yet. The one side of this record is almost certainly an excerpt for a longer proceeding because there's no real beginning, middle, or end to anything. You're plunked down and yanked out of the set almost before you're able to get a grip on anything. Anyway, this record features the trio's now signature style of ultra spacious un-jazz explorations via sax, cello, and percussion (which is to say no electronics this round). It starts out with Ben Hall's slow, deliberate cymbal clangs and shuffles before Hans attacks his cello with scissorhands and Olson not too far behind blowing sinister trawls over and across the group's collective plane. Hall and Buetow each take center stage for lovely unaccompanied spots, then the trio reconvene; not with the blow-out one would expect but more a drifting, lackadaisical push that smokes out and leaves me thinking that there was plenty more to hear from this soiree of activity. It's nice if not outstanding, and doesn't amount to much more than a morsel, all told. Only real complaint is the quality - lots of popping to be heard on the vinyl which kind of detracts from the quieter moments. Or adds to it, if you want to look at it that way.

Mêlée's "Bare Those Excellent Teeth II" (Editions Brokenresearch LP) is presumably a sequel to Graveyards' Brokenresearch LP of the same title, though I'm not exactly sure how that criteria was met. Graveyards seem to have this thing going where they're adopting names of old Graveyards releases for use as new projects, and that's what happened here (and below if you keep reading). "Melees" was a Graveyards record, and now Mêlée is the name bestowed upon the trio of Buetow, Hall and trumpeter Nate Wooley. The first side features so many lengthy ravines of silence that when the music sounds in it sounds almost like a jump-cut collage and not a live action. The snatches that do crop up conjure up a wide range of influences: Buetow's tightly-wound cello skronks reminds very much of Tony Conrad's "Early Minimalism" violin work, Wooley's trumpet works in tense slasher flick creep-ups as well as lengthier huffs (which occasionally melt with Buetow's cello into Theatre of Eternal Music style dronings), and collective similarities to the worlds of onkyo and electro-acoustic improvisation. The latter half finds the trio closing in on dark ambient shades only scarcely keeping up the holy ghost of jazz throughout. The second side is split between segments of inaudible stirrings and all-out (funeral) parlour playing. Wooley's blank-note blowing is the perfect touch to send the set home as Buetow's Conrad-esque grimaces grind through in finale. Highly recommended, but limited to just 200 pieces. On sexy snow white vinyl, too. Act fast.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided on Graveyards' "Traum" (American Tapes 2xCS/CD-R) box but it was a good price and got a heavy recommendation from Hans (a bipartisan commentator, no doubt) so why not. Turns out it's limited to 17 pieces and I think I saw 16 other copies clutched in the hot little hands of other attendees that night, so ring up the Montreal area if you really want one, maybe someone'll part with it. Before I heard any of the music contained within the cardboard mailer I was almost regretting buying it since American Tapes tour releases like this are usually rather off-the-cuff and feature about 10 minutes of actual sound on whatever medium they may come on, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The two cassettes are c60's that are actually filled to the brim (or just about) with sound, and the CD-R goes for around 50 minutes, making this box three solid hours of Graveyards-induced fun and/or terror. Like I alluded to above, "Traum" has already become the name of a Graveyards offshoot (Hall, Buetow, and Lambsbread's guitarist Zac Davis), but I'm at least fairly certain that the lineup is still Olson/Hall/Buetow here, especially since the Traum (band) sample on the Brokenresearch website doesn't sound a thing like the "Traum" (box) I have here. In fact, I'm pretty sure "Traum" consists of really, really old Graveyards material. It's about a zillion times more noisy than anything they've approached in recent days, and features some of the ugliest, gnarliest fidelity I've ever heard on anything bearing the Graveyards mark, especially the cassettes. They're so bogged down with overbearing hiss and warble, it practically adds a whole 'nother dimension to the group's existing sound. Not only that, but the trio are also playing some of their ugliest, gnarliest music, so it's a real Mulligan stew set to tape. The first side of the first tape I put on bears so much in the way of strained synth noise it's a lot closer to Wolf Eyes operating with a jazz drummer than anything else, as Hall is about the only semblance of the Graveyards sound managing to beat his way through the hellish din. Maybe an even better comparison would be Brian Ramirez's Poor School project teaming up with John Olson's ear-mangling Waves excursions. A seperate session on side one does see them returning to a vaguely familiar form but it sounds like Olson's playing a toy flute and Hall is beating up on upside-down metal trash cans for all I can tell, and they close it off with an ugly circuit bending/rampant percussion duel. The first piece on side two boasts an endless string of sharp electronic bite and oddly-timed whumps that sound more like cello than drums. Olson blows dizzy lines from way underneath the rubble of a feedback-ravaged living room but otherwise this is totally alien. The other piece is again slightly more "traditional" with Olson swaying from drawn-out one-note blats to more fleshed-out harmonies and Hall's robotic limbs working themselves into an automated frenzy. Buetow's involvement seems minimal/non-existant but then again I never really was the observant type.
First side of tape two is more fluid and coherant, again with minimal electronic skrees and featuring some of the most dazzling drumming this side of Rashied Ali. Olson and Hall duets seem to occupy most of the space here too, but maybe Buetow's just too sublime for the lo-fi-ness to pick up properly. Side two is more focused on lengthy sax pitches locking horns with barren synth squeals, forcing the piece into Reynals/"Whistling Kettle Quartet" turf at times. Buetow (present, definitely) and Hall add in deft pinches of sound where they deem necessary, like spectators egging on Olson in his battle to the death with the perpetual gamma ray of noise coming for his head. It keeps the whole track semi-groundedand at least somewhat identifiable as a Graveyards jam.
The CD-R is the toughest nut to crack of all. It features five untitled tracks, with some retaining early dirty/jazzy/noisy properties as heard on, say, the "Cemetary Open" records (particularly tracks one and five) but also busts some of their most flagrantly abrasive moves to date. The 13-minute second track is a straight up noise burn that's almost too singular-minded to even be considered a Wolf Eyes track. It's just a harsh, loud, reaming with Olson playing along in poorly-recorded glory for almost the entire time; the 15-minute track three is more experimental in attack but still brutal, and the saxophone and off-kilter, prepared sounds are the only semblances of percussion to be found. Who knew the link between the Abe/Takayanagi duo sets and the demolishing jazz/rock-influenced noise of Hijokaidan and Incapacitants could be found in Michigan, of all places? This has to be - has to be - Graveyards at their most embryonic stages, both embracing and distancing themselves from the experimental noise scene they all became tied to at one point. I myself prefer what they're currently dabbling in, but some of this stuff is crucial listening to find out how the trio got from where they were to where they're at.

Which I spose brings us to Graveyards' "Can I Take Medications If I Am Straight Edge?/Tales from the Unhealer" (Audiobot CD-R). Couldn't find nary a mention of this beautifically-rendered disc on the information superhighway, even the Audiobot website is mum on the topic. In fact, only mention I could find was from this nice fellow's blog posting which, amusingly enough, bemoans the same lack-of-info issue I'm in the process of expounding to you. This is a two-track (obviously) CD-R culled from a couple of live performances, and has to be the absolute peak of the trio's obsession with slow-paced, vacant, tense, silence-driven sparring sessions to date. At least the first eight minutes of "Can I Take Medications If I Am Straight Edge?" are dedicated to near-nothingless, with Buetow's shrill bowing and Hall's cymbal shaving only occasionally cutting through the hiss of the recording device. Slowly but surely the gears start moving and all three move in step for brief glimmers, relaxing back into their chairs as soon as you think something's about to erupt. They played with this trick a few times when I saw them before giving in to the urge and playing it balls-to-the-wall fire music rampage style, but the payoff never really comes here. Instead they stick to quick sprints throughout the near 25-minutes, weaving tension and release in and out of the other too quickly to ever really feel one emotion over the other. "Tales from the Unhealer" is a sludgier sound and the trio sound more on edge, opting for louder, more rambunctious moves than the previous session allowed. In fact, they spend a good bunch of the minutes here firing on all cyllinders, with only brief pauses to regroup before charging headfirst once again. It's actually two pieces in one, as applause breaks the set up halfway through the 20-minute track and they have another go, with Olson spewing ear-splitting sax noise to Buetow's groans, only to be joined by Hall in a final send-off which sees the three approaching the ecstatic, brash, Last Exit vernacular they sometimes so conscienciously avoid. The impact would've been all the more greater if the quality was better, but what're you gonna do.
I would say for your money the Mêlée LP is nonmissable (and you better get the Arnal/Eichmann record at the same time) and the Audiobot CD-R is a worthy listen as well. I won't even bother recommending the box because as good as it may be, it's long gone by now. Besides, if you're interested in earlier Graveyards approach, why not wait for that rumoured "Endings" box set? The Rococo one-sider is good, but not an essential piece if you've already got a lot of other Graveyards in your record collection to spend time with. Anyway I'm a sucker for just about anything these guys come up with, so you can hardly go wrong whichever way you choose by my book. Which isn't a very picky book, to say the least.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums
Mêlée MP3 courtesy Editions Brokenresearch

Mayhem - Order Ad Chao (Season of Mist CD)

2007-06-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

A few years ago when I was a lot more into metal I used to waste loads of time at HMV, because there was a guy there who knew his stuff and would stock the metal section rather admirably. I mean, we're not talking underground vinyl here because it is HMV after all, but I used to take loads of flyers on the various Relapse, Nuclear Blast, Season of Mist, Candlelight, Peaceville, etc. releases that'd come in. Having fallen out of nearly all forms of metal recently, it's safe to say I've been spending money in venues other than HMV, but I recently found myself back in there once more trying to kill some time. I paid a visit to the metal section wondering if anything good had come out lately, and apparently the new Mayhem had. I was never even much of a Mayhem fan, either. "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" is a classic, and I was into "Live in Leipzig" and "Deathcrush" as well. You know, the black metal rites of passage. I never heard 1997's "Wolf's Lair Abyss" which is apparently pretty good, but their late 90s/00s output was pretty much a shell of what the band used to be. 2000's "Grand Declaration of War" was abysmal and 2004's "Chimera" wasn't much better. What brought me back around on "Order Ad Chao"? Same reason that brought me back around with Cryptopsy's "Once Was Not" two years ago - old lead singers rejoining the fold, yeah! I'm talking about Attila Csihar replacing Maniac, of course. Not that I really had a problem with Maniac. It certainly wasn't his presence alone that was ruining the later-day Mayhem records he performed on, that was a group effort. But really, how could I say no? Attila was great with Aborym but to hear him back again with Necrobutcher, Blasphemer, and Hellhammer...I'm game.
Nobody really needs a Mayhem history lesson at this point (you should read "Lords of Chaos" if you do, it's not perfect but I think it's the best out there) so I'll just cut to the chase: "Order Ad Chao" is a great record. It's not a classic record and "De Mysteriis" is in no danger of being dethroned, but compared to the two full-lengths that came before it, "Order" is a borderline revelation. The production is slick, but not to the point of overkill - the record retains a sludgy, somber atmosphere that remains heavy on the low-end throughout. It's a switch from all the lo-fi black metal cassettes I've been buying lately but I don't mean that in a bad way. Its density pretty much suits its dark subject matter. The music itself is quite varied: at times the band stampede through with razor-sharp riffs and bludgeoning percussion, as on the furious "Wall of Water" (possibly as close as the band get to their earlier sound) and "Great Work of Ages". "Deconsecrate" deserves special mention for not only moving with blazing speed bolstered by Hellhammer's thunderous percussion, but for showcasing Attila at the absolute height of his vocal abilities, ranging from dramatic bellowing to cord-shredding wails and back to his usual snarl. The second half of the album is a bit more spacious and seems to take cues from death and even doom metal. It starts with the near-10 minute "Illuminate Eliminate", slowly festering with atmospheric guitar noise and Attila delivering a drawn-out growled diatribe until the track's midway point eruption, capped off with more strained vocal theatrics and a slithering, near-industrial finale, not at all unlike the aforementioned Aborym. Similar in approach albeit shorter in running time, "Psychic Horns" and "Key to the Storms" sees Mayhem peppering their whirlwind attacks with more spacious and disparate digs (check out Attila puking all over the downtime in the latter track). "Anti" is the perfect closer, marrying the all-out attack with gut-wrenching tension only to break loose and wind up with a conclusion with the power to bring down buildings, or at least mine own jaw.
As much as Attila deserves all the praise he'll get for his awe-inspiring return (not to mention the fact that he delivers in every possibly manner on the record), Hellhammer's insane drumming is what keeps things constantly pulsing. Dude's played for so many bands it's almost easy to forget how great he is at what he does, and I don't know if I've ever heard him operating at a higher level either. Maybe that's what makes "Ordo Ad Chao" so good and so much better than prior attempts - for the first time in ages it sounds like Mayhem came together to make a record that absolutely kills from start to finish, agendas and drama and everything else aside. I urge anyone with a vague interest in black metal to check out "Order Ad Chao", even if you've never heard the band's older works. It may not be as essential or life-altering as some of their other records, but it'll hardly steer you wrong either.
Final word about the packaging - Season of Mist, are you kidding me? When I first grabbed the album in its plastic wrap I thought it came with a really thick booklet since it was so heavy. Only when I took it out did I discover the insane metal slipcase that houses the jewel case, which itself contains a booklet containing lyrics and the like. Totally over the top and beautifully rendered; a suitable way to celebrate both their 150th release and a new Mayhem record that really does rule.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above album

(A power failureprevented me from posting this last night so it goes today, in case you were wondering about the 6/27 date)

The Skaters - Dispersed Royalty Ornaments (Wabana LP) / Dripping Avenues (Self-released CS)

2007-06-26T23:47:00.000-04:00

Sunday on the way to a show a friend played me a great tape by either James Ferraro or Spencer Clark. It was the ridiculous one with the photocopied mustachoied dude on the cover and had a ridiculous title that might've involved the word "Lamborghini". It was influenced by disco. It was also on Volcanic Tongue for a couple of shakes of the lamb's tail. I was glad to hear it because it was a great, spot-hitting set of summer jams, and I had only recently begun to re-integrate myself into Skaters mode, since I guess I go through phases of listening to them. When I got home I remembered that I had these two documents just waiting to drill me off to sleep, and thought they'd make good blog fodder in the meanwhile. Skaters LPs are a rare enough sight so I had to snatch up the beautiful-looking "Dispersed Royalty Ornaments" courtesy Wabana as soon as I learned of its existence and the "Dripping Avenues" tape was a throw in to a Fusetron order or something a while ago because you can never have too much Skaters and you can never have too many cassettes...and you can never have too many Skaters on too many cassettes, of course.
There's never too much back story behind anything these guys ever put out, but Wabana spins the yarn that Ferraro and Clark are out there (Berlin and beyond, I'd assume) working on their private imaginations as they call em, with no phone and no Internet service and no way to field all the major label offers they've been getting! Well anyway they made a pretty good statement to the A&Rs of the omniverse with "Dispersed Royalty Ornaments". It features four untitled pieces, two per side, both split pretty cleanly down the middle of each vinyl side. The pieces themselves aren't too different from another but each side seems to represent a different sound, idea, session, what have you. The first is pierced with a bit more clarity than I've come to expect from later day Skaters & related (particularly Clark's Vodka Soap)...usually they're so wrapped up in muddy fug it's tough to get a grip on anything, but this one cuts through. A knower compared it to electric Miles and on first needle touch I thought he was yanking me but then I thought about it for a while as the two fiddled with knobs and dials and field recordings and microphones and it really started to soak through. And speaking of soaking through, I can definitely smell these guys recording this side belly button-deep in steamy, fetid, decomposing mush, all kinds of jungle fever and hidden throat works. Parts of this side really remind me of the yowling sets/tapes from local psychnoise trio Ste-Sophie though I guess that's hardly a useful point to you, unless you heard em. The Second Side's two pieces are even more disparate and minimal, serieseses of alien fetus yelps and groans simmered in a hazy stew of drooling aural flake. The sound poured onto the black wax here seems to melt and leak right off the turntable, till it's all over the floor and seeping into your ears that way. That way. If the first side was electric Miles, then the second side is a mutant Townes Van Zandt, stretched to paper-thin consistency and sloppily wound back up again. You'll know it if you hear it. Maybe.

The "Dripping Avenues" tape has already seen the light in a couple of forms. First, its B-side is "Wind Drapeing Incense", which was their side to the "California" 10xLP box set. Secondly, the whole thing (incl. "Dripping Avenues) was released by Sick Head Tapes in an edition of 60, now way gone. I dunno about the Sick Head edition but the Skaters' version comes with an insert "explaining" both pieces, at which point I have to question if James and Spencer really believe these insane, impenetrable blurbs they sometimes have been known to pen (see: "Diminishing Shrine Recycles") or if they're just bullshitting us. Or if I'm just too much of a dunderhead to dig for any semblance of a meaning, which is altogether very possible. Anyway, I didn't come here to read, I came here to listen! "Dripping Avenues" is new to my ears and I was wondering how it could stack up to the already-great-in-my-books "Wind Drapeing Incense" and it does stack up, it stacks up excellently. It's classic Skaters for a near 20 minutes: supremely muddled hand drumming (recorded somewhere between the 5th and 6th stages of hell) is the anchoring point around which a swirl of blacks and greys implode and interlock, with the pair's vocal chords serving as the central node of all the turbulent activity. The slimy distortion and fug goes down like a black tar shooter and all the while Ferraro and Clark maintain the absolute peak point of their collaborative prowess, making it seem like a slice to control something so amorphous (not to mention having it sound so good). Back when I reviewed the "California" box I was effusive in my praise for "Wind Drapeing Incense", and I remember thinking at the time that it possibly represented a huge leap forward for them. None of that's changed. The track still resonates with its multiple acts, each one built around a unique (and nearly identifiable!) sound source - pulsing ritual drumming, skewed Bollywood keyboard melodies, ghostly gospel chanting, and others that float through and catch your ear for only a second. It's the closest the Skaters have ever come to making a pop record, and that should be all the reason you need to hear it. If you're into the Skaters, skipped the "California" box, and missed the original Sick Head issue, holy balls do you need this. Even if you own the "California" box it's worth owning again on cassette format. Maybe. High high high recommendations to both.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums (iMeem is back in action...for now)

Blues Control - Blues Control / The Shining Path - The Shining Path / La Otracina - Tonal Ellipse of the One (Holy Mountain CDs)

2007-06-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

I spent my long weekend with three new CDs from the ever-reliable Holy Mountain label, because they just put out perfect soundtracks to fritter away summer daze. Blues Control don't need an introduction from me at this point, but in case you don't know it's the duo of guitarist/junk electrician Russ Waterhouse and keyboardist/er Lea Cho, and they were responsible for that great "Puff" LP on Woodsist of times past, not to mention a more recent smash single as part of the Not Not Fun Bored Fortress split 7" series. Can they do any wrong? We'll find out! Also on the show is the Shining Path, the "rock band" version of Californians Monosov/Swirnoff aka Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff, augmented by drummer Brandon Relf. Last up is Brooklyn's La Otracina, featuring Adam Kriney (Owl Xounds) on drums, Ninni Morgia (Trauma Unit, Quivers) on electric guitar and Jordon Schranz (Quivers, Eastern Seaboard) on bass. As with most anything on the Holy Mountain roster, all worship at the altar and pay homage to the almighty riff in their own special way, which is more than all right by me.
Blues Control are probably the cagiest of recent acts to wear the "stoner rock" tag, and they eschew it for a good while on their self-titled full-length. To my surprise. I was actually expecting the album to be a lot more guitar-oriented than it was. Instead the main focal point is Lea's keyboards and Russ' electronics, which is a nice and unique touch. On tracks like the gorgeous "Migration", "The Blue Sheep", and "Hummum", they leave the rock behind almost entirely to focus on echo-y, reverberating tones and acid-cut, sun-bleached soundscapes. But then when they do touch down for the riff-lead excursions as in the fantastic guitar/Casio rhythm collision of "Boiled Peanuts", the vacant arena rock soloing on "Double Chin", or the repeated, snarling guitar lines of "Frankie's Problem" and the epic finale "No Sweat", it thocks you in the skull twice as hard than it would've if the whole record was dedicated to that kind of jamming. The album hits that poifect Blues Control balance of weightless electronic gob and slicing guitar notes all the way through in a way I wouldn't have thought possible, and when they get to adding the piano and the harmonica, well I just couldn't ask for anything else. After the first time I played it I thought I preferred the Woodsist LP, but now I realize this has definitely unseated it for top honors in the band's catalogue, and is definitely one of thee must own records of the year. I mean, really. Who else can you even compare these cats to? That's what I thought, a league of their own, baby. On your knees. Again.

I never heard the Shining Path as minimalist improv (?) duo Monosov/ Swirnoff, so unfortunately I can't provide any commentary as to how those experiments translate into their rock band with Brandon Relf. For that, I apologize. I heard someone compare one of their (Monosov/Swirnoff's) Eclipse records to a combination of Morricone, Satie and Pauline Oliveros, though I can assure you none of those influences are present here. The Shining Path sounds a lot like free jazz souls trapped in rock n' roll bodies, at least when it comes down to their colletive interplay and Monosov's free-wheeling, sax-mimicking solos. But make no mistake, they're a rock band through and through, boasting rapidfire power trio moves that would have any other group of amateurs busting at the seams or panting to keep up. These guys fire on high pretty much from start to finish, incorporating elements of jazz improv, prog rock and psychedelia, thrash metal and stoner rock, no-wave and noise rock, and just about anything else with a root squarely embedded in the "rock" form. Vocals only crop up once or twice on the record so for the most part all their focus is on the instruments, often bringing to mind like-minded spirits Don Caballero, albeit with a harder edge - maybe Psyopus or Orthrelm or Behold...the Arctopus without all the math-rock tendencies. I think the best comparison I can come up with for the Shining Path sound is the story of a young Masami Akita editing down the most guitar-smashing and amplifier-destroying moments of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and the Who bootlegs to compile them all on one tape - the destruction of the rock song, as it were. This record is like all those moments penned on sheet music and executed both flawlessly and devastatingly. I wouldn't call it the most original thing ever played, but shit it's hard to say no when it's all done as well as what's heard here.

La Otracina are pretty similar to the Shining Path, at least on first glance - instrumental guitar/bass/drum trio on the Holy Mountain roster. But, unlike the Shining Path, La Ortracina are a lot more interested in space, and I'm not just talking about the final frontier. All five tracks on "Tonal Ellipse of the One" boast a looser, more open feel, and I'm guessing it's because the devotion these guys have to the trance of psychedelic rock throughout the ages. Hard not to be reminded of groups like Acid Mothers Temple, Kinski, Boredoms circa "Vision Creation Newsun", SubArachnoid Space, Comets on Fire, etc on tracks like the sprawling "Beyond the Dusty Hills (Cowboy in the Desert Part Two)" and "Ode to Amalthea". On the other hand, "Nine Times the Color Red Explodes Like Heated Blood" pays homage to the masters with a nasty, Blue Cheer groove that comes flying outta nowhere mid-song and the super-spaced monumental opener "Yellow Mellow Magic" a la Flower Travellin' Band or Gong. "Sailor of the Salvian Seas" even recalls High Rise, if they went on a bender with the dudes from Lightning Bolt and set it to tape. Despite all the name-dropping these guys incite, "Tonal Ellipse" is a sweet enough ride that you can fully immerse yourself in it without ever really thinking these guys are derivative, per se - they're just really, really up front about their influences. And it rocks hard enough that I, for one, don't give a shit who else they sound like. This is a monster record no matter how you slice it. If any of the aforementioned bands tickle your invisible orange/foot-on-monitor fantasies, you ain't gonna be none too let down. I can assure you that.

MP3:
Blues Control - Blues Control
Blues Control - Frankie's Problem

The Shining Path - Hadliku Ner

La Otracina - Nine Times the Color Red Explodes Like Heated Blood

iMeem was giving me all sorts of problems tonight so it's back to Sendspace, hopefully for the last time.

Mega Happy Fun Time 3" CD-R Round-Up

2007-06-21T19:16:00.000-04:00

It dawned on me lately that I was accumulating quite a collection of 3" CD-Rs, so rather than review them all seperately I decided to stick all six together in one big festive 3" bash. I dunno why but I'm not really a huge fan of 3"s, something about the compactness of it all just puts me off, even though I'll concede that they're pretty ideal for your noise, drone, what have you, releases. Maybe the format just reminds me of my own bedroom deficiencies...maybe that's why I prefer big meaty 12"s! Oh god I've said too much :( Penis jokes aside, if you sent me a 3" lately, it's probably in the batch below, so keep on a-reading.
First up is a mysterious one from one mister K.E. Revis called "5.5.2007" (Boxer Music). It's initially remarkable for its ridiculous and borderline dangerous packaging, which I'm a big fan of. The CD-R comes in a little cloth pouch stapled to the inside of two oversized wire mesh sheets tied together like a little book. The colour insert has some minimal information on the back, but it doesn't tell you anything I already haven't. And Revis' presence on the internet is pretty minimal too. He runs an eBay store through which you can buy his releases and other distributed items, and all that tells you is that Revis has been making music since the late 80's, with "5.5.2007" the first in a planned series of self-released 3"s. Anyway the single, 20-minute piece is definitely in the deep-end of dark ambient/drone maneuvers, I count account for anything Revis is using but I'm betting a lot of pedals, synths, and/or laptops are involved. "5.5.2007" is a slow-moving changeling, brooding along ominously until loud rushes of oceanic roar take over, only to recede as quickly as they arrived. The trick is repeated a couple times in the track but never grows stale, instead lending a welcome sort of ebb-and-flow touch. Elsewhere the shaking, bass-y tones bring a general post-apocalypse/nightmarish feel or something equivalent to being swallowed by a black hole. If you're feeling the Nurse with Wounds, Atrium Carceris, Lustmords, and Vidna Obmanas of the world, you'll enjoy Revis' equally bleak outlook. Check out his store as linked above for more (4 releases to date including this one, $6.99 a pop).

Far be it from me to dabble in cliché stereotypes, but the guy who moonlights as Cauchy-Riemann (sorry, couldn't find the name his mom gave him on the interwebs) could've been the kid sitting alone in math class who everybody wanted to secretly get to know but no one had the guts, and here's my evidence: first of all, the name means, according to Wikipedia: "In mathematics, the Cauchy-Riemann differential equations in complex analysis, named after Augustin Cauchy and Bernhard Riemann, are two partial differential equations which provide a necessary but not sufficient condition for a function to be holomorphic." Got all that? And on the first of two 3"s he sent my way, "Finite Sets" (Self-released), all the tracks are all given names like "{.8, 12, .2, .0002, .4, 5, .00009, .01, 2.3}". I would just like to say, what gives? Why would you make me try to learn with your noise? As if I listened to music to try and pick up math tips. The whole reason I have a blog is because any dummy can do it, you don't need any skills! The nerve! No but really now. I don't know how much of a role calculations play in Cauchy-Riemann's noise, but it's blunt and harsh and loud enough that any slack-jawed inbred kin get their ears punched out by it, and that's what I like. The twelve tracks on "Finite Sets" range from 34 seconds to just under 3 minutes and each one has its own destructive flavor to it. Sounds to me like this Ohioian dude's taking cues from the likes of Masonna, early amp-annihilating Prurient, Whitehouse, Pain Jerk, et al...almost everything here is in the extreme high end of the spectrum, bright and sharp and harsh enough to make your eyes water. It's been a while since I ain't heard a nice firing-on-high harsh noise wailer, and this one made me want to stick earplugs in under my headphones, so it's safe to say I enjoyed it. I regret not uploading track 11 specifically for you to partake in, the crashing what-the-fuck-is-that percussion going on under CR's blizzard of white-hot noise and static skree is the bee's knees, and I mean that.

Cauchy-Riemann's second 3", "Utah" (Self-released), is a good bit bassier and, uh, "experimental" than the previous one. By that I mean it sounds more like CR's making it up as he goes, sorta generating things in a haphazard-cum-intentional fashion. I don't really know how to describe it, but it ain't as singluar as "Finite Sets". I thought it was actually gonna be a quiet one after the opening coupla seconds of "Salt Lake City", with its field recorded ocean waves (real ones, this time), but it quickly veers into scattered electronic burning. The four other tracks ain't as harsh, all thicker and more gnarled and often engaging in lengthy (as lengthy as a 20 minute disc can get) bouts of sustained throb and tension. "Oeden" sounds like faulty wiring about to explode completely while "American Folk" is a teeth-rattling stretch of dense blows delivered with jackhammer-like force. Both discs come in 3" jewel cases with hand-rendered Xeroxed inserts and a stenciled paint job. "Finite Sets" is an edition of 50, "Utah" is limited to 30. I suggest buying em both, playing them together real loud, and stuffing your nose with Kleenex to stop the bleeding.

Harm Stryker is a great name for a project and I have no real idea why. I'm not even sure that it means anything. So I guess from the get-go I was inclined to like their self-titled (Public Guilt) 3". Harm Stryker is a Virginian duo featuring Kelly Norse and Kenneth Yates (Caustic Castle, Insects with Tits) and already have a clutch of releases on labels including 804noise, SocketsCDR, and the awesome Brise-Cul label outta Montreal...not to mention upcoming joints on Bloodties and Obscurica. According to the label, the 16-minute piece that occupies this disc is "part requiem for our architectural history, part vitriol-fueled sound in opposition to the box stores, condominiums, and gentrified, cookie cutter housing taking its place". I don't know how much of that I hear in the piece, although there is a general feeling of moroseness and lamentation that comes through. Apparently fluidity and grace is the duo's signature, which I thought was just a nice line from the label but it appears to be true here - this is a fully-realized, borderline epic piece comprising electronic drones, ambience, noise, and knob-twiddlling euphoria. Norse and Yates move deftly through expertly-crafted caverns of engulfing sound, striking the perfect balance between all the aforementioned buzzwords I just ran through. Never too over-the-top or understated, the duo function as close to a single mind as you could ever hope to achieve in this genre - the soundscapes one will lay out always compliment what the other is doing to perfection, weaving and melding together in sublime fashion. If you took the best portions of, say, My Cat is an Alien's extraterrestrial excursions and gave them a harsher bent, you wouldn't be too far off from Harm Stryker's sound, but whereas the Italian duo sometimes seem to get to caught up in their own orbit, Harm Stryker keep it all anchored to the earth and get it done with style. Hey, if you're thinking of ordering that insane "Untited" 3xCD noise compilation from Public Guilt, do yourself a favor and take this one too. It's four clams well spent, trust me. Only 100 pieces around, though.

The last two discs of the night come courtesy the ever-reliable Abandon Ship label (in addition to a couple of other quality tapes to be discussed at a later date). To date I've been pathetically ignorant re: New Zealand's the Futurians but I guess you're never too old to learn, and I'll start here with "Zenit" thank you very much. I at least had a general idea what they were like - Blastitude calls em "totally tranced-out sci-fi garage garbage rock" among other very positive things, and it's to my understanding that whereas they usually use vocals and drums, both those things are absent from "Zenit". In fact, this record sounds a lot like its cover looks: punk rockers into Moogs and synthesizers and drum machines and other decidedly non-punk rock instrumentation. That all filters through mighty well on the opening stomper "Genetic Futurian" - way crude high-pitched synth drones and general gizmo fuckery over a thick as hell, gut-busting percussive slosh. The other three tracks are a bit more restrained - "Laika" retains the crumbling percussion but a dizzying keyboard loop is lazily plastered atop, but "Black Gull" is an excercise in droning and blips that could be R2D2 contributing guest vocals to Sunn O)))'s "Bathory Erszebet". The near 10-minute "Nuclear Future" is the real ace in the hole though - supremely minimal near-dance beat that slowly trails off, leaving the listener with an almost rudimentary drum machine rhythm, surely as close to top 40 techno as these cats are ever gonna scrape. Totally weird and totally intriguing, I now wish to hear their more rockist pieces 'cause this must border on near-academia for them. Totally righteous, mind you.

Buck Paco seems to be a band named after its frontman Buckland Oswald Paco, though who knows if such a person even exists. Other folk contained in the "et al." portion of the title include Eric McDade, Wayne Ford, and Melody Kruczier. Never heard these guys before either though they once shared a 12" with fellow Philadelphians Bardo Pond, so maybe you know em. For a band with "over 100 songs" in their repertoire, they seem to release precious little, which is cool by me. Gives me a chance to catch up on a band, for once. By the artist/title alone I was sorta expecting some Alvarius B/Uncle Jim type strands and I guess there's a bit of that here, but considering this is a group and not one guy, there's more of a full band thing: Paco plays guitar and sings, McDade plays guitar and bass and sings, Ford handles guitar and bass and samples, and Kruczier does percussion, whistling, and cello. Though not everybody and everything is featured on each of "I've Wasted My Breath"'s five tracks. Though the communal aspects might suggest Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice, these guys seem to worship at the throne of Quicksilver, the Dead, Blue Cheer, Crazy Horse, etc. rather than, say, Comus or Vashti Bunyan. Which is to say they're imbuing most of their songs with a sublime sense of Americana crossed with the blues crossed with psych rock and an appreciation for the repetition and general low-slungness of the Dead C. Which is all good in my books. "48 Hours and No White Elephants", "Reciprocate" and "I'm Not Sure What It Meant, But I Know I Meant It" are all examples of taking one fried riff and driving it into the sun, being mindful of a high distortion level and not much else. "Don't Tell Me" approaches Kyuss' scorched-earth lanquid stoned isms, and "Lonely Man's Walk" buddies up Neil Young solo free-thinks with noisy static...kinda like trying to listen to Neil Young on the radio in a tunnel. I think I'd have to hear even more to make a safe judgement, but, like the Futurians disc before it, I'm certainly intrigued. Maybe time to make a few more of those 100 tunes available, what say?

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Origami Replika - Kommerz (Segerhuva CD) / Bardoseneticcube & Igor V. Petrov / Necromondo (Mechanoise Labs CDs)

2007-06-20T18:35:00.001-04:00

Had to exclude the titles of the Mechanoise Labs CDs because things were getting pretty hairy up in there, but I think the message is clear enough. One CD from the Segerhuva label, and two from Mechanoise Labs - a meeting of two European noise peddlers. Sweden's Segerhuva actually sent me a few discs but, in sticking to my vague attempt to review "mostly" new stuff, I had to exclude the two other great records - a reissue of Blood ov Thee Christ's amazing 1987 bomber "Master Control" and a great compilation of various noise artists called "Sweetness Will Overcome". So, apologies in that I'm unable to dedicate more space to these records, but know that I fully recommend both (and a newer release that they didn't send my way but still gets a thumbs up very much big time - Edwige's "The Inconsolable Widow Thanks All Those Who Consoled Her" LP). Meanwhile, I think Mechanoise Labs are from France, but I'm not 100% sure on that since info is pretty hard to come by, or I'm not looking in the right places. Either way, they've been in action since 1998, and have released records by folks like Aidan Baker, Stelladrine, Aluminium Noise, and more. These are a couple of their newest outings, though they've since put out a Concrete Belly 3" CD-R. Guess I'm falling behind. What else is new?
Starting off with the Segerhuva record, which comes courtesy a "now-defunct part of the ever changing cultural Origami collective/phenomenon", which is news to me but that's okay. Origami Replika brings together a trio of Norwegian noise ne'er-do-wells in Lasse Marhaug, Tore H. Boe, and Mads Staff Jensen. In 1997 they recorded this re-working of classic Merzbow material, and only last year did it finally manage to see the light of day. It lists all the original Merzbow records that were mutilated to form the source, and they're mostly all from the early 80's ("Metal Acoustic Music", "Sadomasochismo", "Vratya Southward") with a couple of then-recent CDs thrown in for good measure ("Akasha Gulva", "Oestered", "Loves" with Emil Beaulieau, "Rectal Anarchy" with Gore Beyond Necropsy), as well as the destruction of nine Merzbow cassette cases. Doesn't get much more immersive than that, does it? It would be easy remix Merzbow tapes and force them into sounding even more disorted, more harsh, more noisy, more fucked up than they already do, and where's the challenge in that? Luckily these three are too good to avoid such a pratfall. The 12 untitled tracks on "Kommerz" are, for the most part, thoroughly composed and downright mature, suggesting a tremendous amount of respect for the original recordings while simultaneously morphing them into something brand new and equally grand. Track three, for instance, is a mighty impressive statement of intent. Over the course of 12 minutes, Origami Replika reconstruct Merzbow's sound into a slow-building, dense electronic threat, before it sharply fizzles out...only to come back twice as fierce like the the final, unexpected drop on what was already an exhilerating rollercoaster ride. The trick is tweaked somewhat on track eight, where the sound grows progressively louder and angrier with each passing second until it hits an apex, plateaus, and vanishes again. Other tracks like one and four are so rhythmic-yet-noisy that they hit a stride between Masami Akita's initial Dadaist tape-mangling chaos and his 2000s-era "Merzbeat" et al. explorations into near-beat oriented noise tunes. And remember, this was done before the "Merz-" series even came about. It ain't all pedal to the metal though - I have no idea what was being sourced on tracks five and six but they're both, for the most part, lush space-vaccuum floats through the more pensive segments of the early Merzbow catalogue, while the last track is a similar hollowed siren-in-the-distance dream sequence that again inspires incredulity when considering the source. Overall, Origami Replika have done a fantastic job moulding Akita's work into whole new beasts - clearly retaining the original sonic properties of the source but assembled in such a way as to suggest new realms, dimensions, and hitherto-unimagined possibilities. Next time any mouthbreather tells you Merzbow's just a load of meaningless noise, show them this disc and ask em how three dudes manage to extract such magnificent new life from it. Good stuff indeed.

"The Perpetuum Mobile Space Vehicle" is a collaboration between three experimental Russian artists. Bardoseneticcube is the duo of Igor Potsukailo and Sergey Matveev on electronics, while Igor V. Petrov is a saxophonist who I know next to nothing about. This album was recorded over the course of five years and features six incredibly bizarre, spacious tracks. When you think electronics and saxophone, you might think heads-down pedal-pushing knob-twisting ear-bleeding mania and heavy horn skronking and throttling, but I guess they do things a little differently in Russia. Bardoseneticcube's portions consist of samples of speeches, slow-plodding drum machines, otherwordly ambience, found-sound industrial/darkwave snaking, and maybe that's even them on piano too. Petrov blows soulful sax lines that border on the romantic at times, totally not the ragged-breath heaving I was expecting in the slightest...and together these three synthesize beautiful, organic pieces that eclipse mere thickheaded experimentation and enter well into the domain of some kind of undiscovered alien jazz existing on a totally seperate plane. "Shkapina St." pulses with a techno/ambient flare all the while accompanied by a watery, distant, operatic vocal track and Petrov's patient, lonely, sorrow-filled sax. He really stands out on the too-short "Brownend", as close to ghostjazz as you'll ever hear (with apologies to Mr. Braxton). "One" is equally brief, but centered more on Bardoseneticcube's shimmering electronics and ominous, ritualistic thumps. The closing "Logosax" is the culmination of their collaboration, with Potsukailo and Matveev putting down a repetitive, crunchy beat and Petrov weaving gorgeous lines through and around the dripping sinew. If you liked the Ariel Kalma/Richard Tinti "Osmose" record I always come back to, you pretty much need to hear this, although it really doesn't sound like anything I can plot specifically. Which is a good thing.

Last is Necromondo, from the U.S.. All I know is that it's one guy, apparently by the name of Tirdad CK, and the only other work he seems to have to his name is a 3" CD-R called "Quarantined Quarters" that comes with the first 50 copies of this self-titled disc. If the cover wasn't enough of a tip-off, Necromondo is inspired by 70's cult horror movie classics, certainly not the first nor the last noise project to claim as much. I'd also take an educated stab (no pun intended) and venture mondo and giallo play as much of an influence in Tirdad's work. His first full-length harkens back to 80's Broken Flag/Iphar/Come Organisation actions in many ways, which is a blessing and a curse - not that anything on here is bad, it's just not very new ground either. Necromondo's at the top of his game when he engages in long-form pieces that have plenty of time to Sink Their Fangs Into the Listener (ha ha!) - ""No One Leaves This Island Alive" at eight minutes is a grind, creating a palpable feeling of tension and desolation juxtaposed against a rainy backdrop, and "Soaked in Blood III" at seven-plus boasts ominous, locust swarms of synth noise and suffocated gasps to greater effect. "Soaked in Blood I" is equally effective, setting a chainsaw-like whirr against psychedelic oscillations and the sharp gleam of "Theme for a Machete" is enough to literally make you jump if you play it loud enough. Unfortunately the rest of the tracks (especially the middle) pass by with relatively little to latch onto, although maybe I just need to give it a few more listens before it really sets in. Or maybe someone needs to make a movie around all these chilling sounds - it's really more of a soundtrack record than anything else. I guess I just don't have the imagination to mentally draw up my own murder scenes while I'm listening to it. I'll be keeping my eye out for anything else under the Necromondo moniker in the future, because the potential's definitely there.

I'm testing out a new method of posting MP3s, using iMeem's Flash playlists. You don't need to install anything to use em, just click the link below (it'll pop up in its own window) and stream away. Let me know what you think in the comments section, if you feel so inclined. Personally I think it's a lot easier than going to Sendspace and downloading each one seperately.

Click here to listen to MP3 samples from the above albums

Bardoseneticcube & Igor V. Petrov and Necromondo MP3s courtesy Mechanoise Labs

Raccoo-oo-oon - Behold Secret Kingdom (Release the Bats CD)

2007-06-19T21:51:00.000-04:00

This band is way too easy to hate. They got major league hype and then all sorts of backlash and it's kinda gone so far in reverse that I almost feel bad for them in a way (not that they need my sympathy or nothin'). And at the same time, I also hold them in contempt. First of all they remind me Animal Collective, a band whose name I'm even loathe to type because they inspire so many bad feelings in my guts. Then they have that dreadful band name which was probably invented by Panda Bear or Gentle Hawk or whoever from Animal Collective. Then their press photos typically rock that outdoorsy/in touch with nature/faux-hippie pastiche...oh dear. I was trying to come up with a term I could use to assess/slander these kinds of bands and "Wal-Mart psychedelia" was the best I could do, and pretty fitting I think. So why bother with the "Behold Secret Kingdom"? Did I merely listen to the album and write about them in my blog only to trash them? It may seem like that, but wait! It's not what you think!
Truth be told, I want to like Raccoo-oo-oon, in spite of just about everything about them. I listened to (and reviewed) their last CD on Release the Bats, "Is Night People", and it had some pretty inspired moments. Well, "Behold Secret Kingdom" is more of the same. This group is (was) billed as a psychedelic-punk-something-or-other band, but god knows they don't hit on those moments often enough. If they really were as psychedelic and as punk and as earth-lovin' as their press releases would have them to believe, they could be my favorite band. However, this record was recorded and produced with a sickeningly bright sheen to it, negating almost any supposed air of punk ethos, while most of the psychedelia is the kind of rehearsed looseness that drives me up the wall, like anybody is dumb enough to believe these tracks are as off-the-cuff as the band would have you believe. But as I said, there are moments. Moments when the shackles come off and my preconceived notions fly out the window and I ask "why can't they play like this the whole 50 minutes?" - "Mirror Blanket" is a pop song at its core and functions exactly the same way as "Fluff Up Your Fur" did prior, building an insanely catchy rock rhythm via swirling guitars and dedicated drumming, topped off with a buzzing free electronic buzz wailing over top. The cooing and yelling and moaning is a bit much, but what the hell, might as well take it all the way home now that we're here. The same naive vocal tricks taint the otherwise enjoyable "Invisible Sun", a colossal stoner rock riff-laden anthem, and "Visage of the Fox", which is a pretty lame xylophone/drum/etc jam until another it lands in the throes of more sludgy riffing and world-beating drums that Brian Chippendale could be proud of. "Fangs and Arrows" brings more heavyosity, again courtesy Ryan Garbes meaty percussion, far and away the best thing these guys have going for them. At times his thundering, apocalyptic crashes are the only things keeping the songs afloat, particularly when they get bogged down too much in kitschy campfire jams (see: almost every part of the album I didn't mention), which is my main sticking point with "Behold Secret Kingdom" and indeed the band as a whole. Ditch the grating "whoa we're just a coupla bros jammin' in the forest wearing dirty jeans and beads" shtick with the overdramatic vocals and jangling and zany instruments and stick to the balls-to-the-walls, fucked up, psychedelic, punk rock jams! Then we'll be buds! As for a recommendation...well if you think Animal Collective is the most avant-garde shit around and you bump it playing Wii Sports snacking down on Mountain Dew while wearing ankle socks...have I got a record for you!

MP3:
Visage of the Fox
Diamonds in the Dunes

Adam Frank & Sam Shalabi - Overpass! A Melodrama / Alexandre St-Onge - Mon Animal Est Possible (Alien8 Recordings CDs)

2007-06-18T21:36:00.000-04:00

After a relatively lengthy downtime, Alien8 seem to be hitting their stride again, with recent releases from Nadja and Lesbians on Ecstacy (Nadja plays feminist electro-pop/punk while LoE plays doom metal, FYI) and these two new curios rooted in Montreal's experimental music scene. The former comes courtesy Sam Shalabi (himself seemingly quieter lately, maybe holed up working on this) and Adam Frank, teacher of American literature at the University of British Columbia. As to why a university teacher's got top billing on an experimental music record, I'll touch on that in a sec. Meanwhile Alexandre St-Onge doesn't release a whole lot under his own name, but you've probably heard at least one record featuring his work. In addition to solo records on Alien8 and Squint Fucker Press, he's played and recorded with Fly Pan Am, Klaxon Gueule, Molasses, Et Sans, Feu Therese, Undo, and the Ambiences Magnetiques ensemble, not to mention a trio with David Kristian and Sam Shalabi himself.
When it comes to Frank and Shalabi's record, "Overpass! A Melodrama" ain't just a funny name - this really is a melodrama, and it's really about an overpass, in Vancouver. The backstory's pretty long to get into here, but it comes down to this: in 1971, a pedestrian overpass was constructed over a set of train tracks to facilitate school children crossing to the other side without having to crawl through/around/under the parked train they would habitually encounter every morning on their way to elementary. A group of mothers (the so-called "militant mothers"), fearful for their children's safety, took matters into their own hands and forced the city's hand by standing in front of and blocking an oncoming train and building a tent on the tracks in protest. Some court battles and a long story later, the mothers won and the city agreed to build the Keefer Street pedestrian overpass: a strange, slippery, turquoise-green chainlink enclosure that, according to Frank's liner notes (he also wrote the libretto), "[had] become a symbol of victorious political action" for the people who live near it (and make use of it). Sound like a weird thing to write a musical opera about? It is, and the word "weird" itself appears numerous times both in Frank's text and just about any other press I see regarding the album. Essentially, Frank and Shalabi's goal is to "[offer] an entertaining investigation into the consequences of incomplete modernization"...so says the label. "Overpass!" is written and performed in the style of an opera or a play, with Shalabi (accompanied by Josh Stevenson, Kate Lawrence, Jeff Allport, and Rob Sparks)'s music providing the backdrop for the actors' voices to spin their yarns over top. The basic plot outline is that the narrator Antonia arrives in Vancouver and tries to make her way around the confusing quasi-urban landscape, meeting Merv, an assistant to the city engineer, at a party. Later she happens upon the overpass and ponders its significance, before meeting Merv again to engage in a final conversation. It's a fairly loose narrative to say the least, often bordering on surreal. There's a synopsis included but it doesn't give away all the secrets either, so you'll have to listen to what's being said, and "Overpass!" really is largely about the spoken word. Although I found it happening frequently where a great chunk of music will seep into your brain previously undetected and sorta coalesce into a beautiful melody before your ears - Shalabi's guitar is almost staggering when its full weight hits on the pulsing "Bad Parties", while "Brut, or Freeways and Their Discontents" boasts gnarled near-metal riffing and synth squall totally unlike any Shalabi-related anything I've come to know. The music is far form being mere background noise and often serves to add another dimension to what the characters are talking about: "A Structure" features commentary from Antonia spoken from a perspective of being on the bridge itself, which the music conveys alarmingly well via a mix of groaning, uneasy ambience and chainlink jangle; "Back on the Tracks" combines interview snippets and archival quotes from the mothers involved in the court case with an ominous smattering of near-trip hop electronic collage, mirroring the pessimism and doubt expressed in the audio clips. The final track, "Jello Sunday (Nature Wins Again)" is the last dialogue between Antonia and Merv and is wholly unintelligible without following along with the libretto, and even then it doesn't seem to conclude a whole lot...but the lovely folk song featuring Shalabi's sparkling guitar and Antonia (Annice Kesler)'s charming voice that functions as a coda to the album speaks volumes in terms of musical power alone.
I'm sure all that was confusing to read, as it was confusing to decipher and type up. The only real way to get your ahead somewhat around the record is to buy it, read it, and hear it, though I don't know how hasty I'd be to recommend that. Sonically it's interesting enough, somewhat of a cross between Robert Ashley's "Perfect Lives" operas and Sam Shalabi's own "Osama" record, but never at any point did the significance of this overpass ever resonate with me...not from the music, not from the words, not from the back story or the synopsis or anything. Either I just don't get it or Frank and Shalabi didn't do a good enough job of making me get it, though that could've been their intentions all along. You may not have to be in love to be moved by a love song, but I think if I'd at least seen this overpass myself or lived with it, I could understand it's purported "weirdness" that made it worth writing about and dedicating a whole album to. An impressive and ambitious undertaking, regardless.

Switching gears now to talk about "Mon Animal Est Possible", Alexandre St-Onge's new solo record featuring partner Fanny. The story here is that these eight songs were written as a way for St-Onge to "communicate with monsters" and exorcise his own monstrosity through them, hence the title: making possible his own animal. It's a bit of a Franglo colloquialism, I guess. Well anyway, I've never really heard a St-Onge solo release (a friend played a record of his a few years ago for me but I can't say I remember it well), but these love songs seemingly go for the jugular in their own shadowy way - there's a healthy batch of ultra-minimal electronica-bred stasis to be found on "Animal", born out of the use of what sounds like Moog synthesizers, keyboard, laptop, theremin, probably guitar and bass, and Alexandre and Fanny's own voices. I gotta confess that Fanny's heavy breathing on "La Passion de la Transparence" sounds like what I was desperately hoping to hear from that miserable Air/Charlotte Gainsbourg collaboration that came out recently...I guess you could say Fanny's playing Charlotte (or Brigitte or Jane, really) to St-Onge's Air, but the glacial, glittery ambience that turns up here is far more interesting than anything I've ever heard from the former. I suppose a quick and easy reference point would be Alien8 pal Tim Hecker, though these pieces feature weirder, Aphexian bends and quirks, with haunting vocals brushed from corner to corner, at times sensitive and emotional and other times as distant and alien as an E.V.P. field recording. I also feel that I should bring up Popul Vuh as a strong reference point, but maybe that's because I'm a serious Popul Vuh kick lately. Really though, St-Onge's spectral floats and grainy meditations ain't too far removed from what Florian Fricke himself was hitting on in the seventies with all those Herzog soundtracks. St-Onge's bass seems to crop up briefly in "L'animal Chante Chou" and "Bébé" features glitchy laptop warble akin to Fennesz, but otherwise the tracks congeal together in an icy pool of sound that'll swallow you whole and threaten to suck your heart out of your chest and nothing could be nicer. Despite all the namedrops, it would be unfair for me to leave you with the impression that St-Onge is copping from the classics - every minute of "Animal" breathes with St-Onge's own breath and slowly unfurls to reveal an organic, mature, fully realized work on par with the likes of "Harmony in Ultr-" errr just trust me, it's a very good album and well worth your time and dollars.

MP3:
Adam Frank & Sam Shalabi - Brut, or Freeways and Their Discontents
Adam Frank & Sam Shalabi - A Letter of Invitation

Alexandre St-Onge - L'extase Spectrale
Alexandre St-Onge - L'animal Chante Chou

Vibracathedral Orchestra - Wisdom Thunderbolt (VHF CD)

2007-06-14T22:55:00.000-04:00

Is this the first new VHF release in a while, or have I just not been paying attention? Same for the VCO too - they went pretty quiet for a while after undergoing some serious personnel swaps, but they've come back mighty strong on this album (their first on VHF since 2004's triple CD-R set "Pontiac Lady). I was wondering if it was gonna be curtains for the group, after co-founder Neil Campbell left in 2006, shortly followed by Bridgette Hayden's departure. I'm still not 100% sure on the status now because the seven tracks on "Wisdom Thunderbolt" ain't exactly brand new themselves. Both Campbell and Hayden are here in addition to mainstays Mick Flower and Adam Davenport. Throwing their weight behind the quartet include heavy-hitters like Matthew Bower, Chris Corsano, Pete Nolan, and John Godbert. Woof.
For a record that could conceivably be the group's finale (though I doubt it will be), "Wisdom Thunderbolt" provides an excellent summary of almost all facets hitherto explored by the collective. In their decade-plus of activity, the VCO have touched on everything from krautrock and psychedelia to noise and punk rock to stoner rock and La Monte Young drone levitation, and they're all on display here, oftentimes in the same song. Most noteworthy is the sprawling 12-minute centerpiece "Rainbow Whirlwind", carving out strobing synthesizer shudder against an achoring near-beat more akin to a CD player skipping. The group splash generous helpings of cymbal, bell, and chime chatter over top, before the electricity of Flower's guitar lines drive the piece out into aforementioned psych/raga spaced-out territories akin to the drawn out, melted-sound symphonies that take place on "Pontiac Lady" or the "Live on WFMU" LP. The group visit this sound a couple more times on the album, particularly on "Ochre Dust" featuring a subdued Matt Bower or "A Natural Fact": a great piece of bluesy jamming akin to the Dead tag-teaming with Les Rallizes in an opium den somewhere. Unfortunately the quality of the recording is markedly poor, and phases out almost entire the usually devastating effect of Chris Corsano's robotic stomps.
The group also hint at the pseudo-"world" music references (particuarly African and Indian) they've previously checked on tracks like "Packhorse" in the past - dig the snakey tribal percussion and flutes infecting "Order of the Broad Eraser" (skewed by expanding electronic gulps) and the sidewalk celebration of closer "What!!!", at least before it drops off into a gnarled and eerie venture into dark woods with Hayden's moaning vocals working hard to conjure up visions of spectres and the like. On the title track, an 8-bit guitar (?) loop lends a vaguely-rockist air to the otherwise folkish, starry-eyed ecstacy that takes place, but the sound never fully manifests itself until "Sway-Sage", the best argument for VCO as rock n' roll heroes to date. Similar to "Baptism > Bar > Blues" from 2005's "Tuning to the Rooster", it begins with a brief clip of something clearly lifted from another artist. In this case it's an 8-second excerpt from a 70's classic rock anthem I can't identify, before the group go full throttle amidst cries of "woo!" (band or audience, I'm not sure which) and guest Pete Nolan's furious drumming that sounds almost exactly like John Bonham on "Rock and Roll" - how apropos.
While I'm sure some people have thought past VCO releases to be a chore to get through, I can't imagine anyone saying the same of "Wisdom Thunderbolt" - the album's diverse and colorful enough to keep anyone transfixed, and I wouldn't be afraid of saying this is their most accessible album yet (ever?). If, for whatever reason, you find the gravy to be in Vibracathedral's droning, longform, meditative excursions, this record probably isn't for you...but if you want to hear the group clearly at the peak of their creative abilities, putting any other imitators to shame in the process with their highly-attuned sense of interplay and exchange...well then welcome aboard.

MP3:
Ochre Dust
Sway-Sage

Nordicwinter - Threnody (None More Black Records CD)

2007-06-13T22:07:00.000-04:00

First off, I have to say how much I enjoy the irony (?) of a black metal label seemingly naming themselves after a Spinal Tap reference. Seriously! At least I hope that's where it comes from...we could all do with a little less over-the-top seriousness in the genre I should think. It is 2007, after all. Anyway, None More Black's fifth release is from a Quebec black metal act by the name of Nordicwinter, who is really masterminded by a one Evillair. The band does play live (what?! When?! How'd I miss it?!?), and in such instances expand to include members of Symphony of Blasphemy and Slain in Fire. But on Nordicwinter's debut release, all instruments, drum programming, and vocals are credited to Evillair.
It would seem only logical for any label to want to take a chance on Nordicwinter. First of all, one-man black metal bands are at the peak of their popularity, and Quebec black metal in general seems to be under the microscope moreso now than in a long time, due to Akitsa's continuing (underground) success. However, Nordicwinter depict two very stark deviations from both these stereotypes: you can't really classify them a typical bedroom black metal act since the songs can all be played live and don't feature any keyboards nor an overabundance of "suicidal" black metal lyrics, and although they're from Quebec, there is no evidence whatsoever of the theme of nationalism running through Evillair's lyrics (because he's obviously English - or else he's a francophone with a dazzling command of the English language). In fact, throughout "Threnody"'s 9 tracks, you could easily be coerced into thinking there was a full band playing instead of just one dude multitracking - heck I wasn't even sure if the drums were real or not until I read the liner notes. The sound Nordicwinter dabbles in is at the same time tough to pin down but not entirely original - Evillair makes no bones about paying homage to the masters like Bathory, Hellhammer, Darkthrone, and Burzum (and Mayhem for sure). Maybe a mid-tempo Darkthrone with heavy Bathory overtones would be a close approximation. And though the attack is simple (vocals, guitars, bass, drums; all tracks), Evillair ekes out a smattering of diversity from an obvious template, usually with songs averaging 4-5 minutes in length. "Enshrined in Ice" is thrash-y while "Echoes of Solitude" is a miniature epic that sees Evillair multi-tracking vocals and stirring up a frenzy from the drum machine in its grandiose finale. "Legions" and "Unto Dark Winds" come the closest sonically with Nordicwinter's USBM solo contemporaries, both displaying a razor-sharp guitar grind that's akin to what you might here on one of the more stripped down Leviathan tracks, but it (and Evillair's vocals) also make me think of Germany's Nargaroth, minus the absurd sense of humor/ludicrousness. The closing "A Blissful Twilight Death" evidences this best, boasting a similar knack for the kind of vengeful, plodding menace that the latter can be responsible full. The production on "Threnody" has a dirtiness to it that sounds deliberate, almost like listening to MP3s at 128 kbps - you know the song was recorded at a higher quality, but you just can't hear it. In terms of current black metal where it seems more and more bands are trying to plunder the depths of acceptable recording fidelty, "Threnody" seems pretty clean in comparison, though it's still no George Martin polish by any means. Also worth mentioning are Evillair's lyrics, nicely and clearly reproduced in the album notes. Generally dealing with death, sorrow, misanthropy, desolation, and the like, Evillair has a far better hand and mind for dealing with these topics compared with some of the pap heard elsewhere. They're never too dramatic and never too thin, and each one is of a highly individualistic, poetic nature. For this and for his musicianship, not to mention his ability to compose coherant, thoughtful songs, Evillair and his Nordicwinter project should be commended. However, "Threnody" never does much to stand out from the pack or make a case for itself as a must-hear record - it's simply a very good excecution of a pretty standard formula. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest a keyboard incorporation or anything, but I'd like to see Nordicwinter take a few more chances on their next record, or at least deviate from the framework they're occupying in "Threnody". But the potential is there, and it's all the more reason to keep your eye on em for the future. Heck even if from reading this they sound like your bag, go for it. You might not be blown away but I guarantee you won't be disappointed either.

MP3:
Enshrined in Ice
Ancient Prophecies

Birds of Delay/Dreamcatcher - Bored Fortress Split / Heavy Winged/Blues Control - Bored Fortress Split (Not Not Fun 7"s)

2007-06-12T23:37:00.000-04:00

Can it really be that time again? Seems like just the other day I was playing the first two installments in Not Not Fun's excellent Bored Fortress 7" split subscription series, that is to say Yellow Swans/the Goslings and GHQ/Ex-Cocaine. These came in not too long ago and it's hard to believe we're nearing the final two - Hototogisu/Hive Mind and Deep Jew/Mindflayer. For now though, let's live in the present. The U.K.'s Birds of Delay were flying (pardon the pun) low for a while but seem ready to annoy and overjoy on a larger scale, with recent releases coming on somewhat more visible labels like Troniks, Main & Disfigure, and A.A. Records. Here the duo (Luke Younger and Steve Warwick) present "Sun Pillars 2" - a pretty deelish slab of swirling electronics, reinterpreting mid-period Total splut and dosing it with a ghostly background wash a la Yellow Swans vs. Machinefabriek but far more ragged than what you're probably imagining. This one seems a bit more wilder n' other Birds of Delay I heard but maybe I'm just creating artifical memories at this point. Solid.
Dreamcatcher are another duo but they're on the other side of the Atlantic, though still not in Amer'ka. Blake Hargreaves and Katherine Kline are cooped up in Montreal, at least for the past long while, and I've had the chance to see and hear them on numerous occasions, not the least their fried LP debut "Nimbus". Their track, "A Team Come True", isn't leaps and bounds ahead of what they normally do - in fact it's almost a skeletal version of something you might here them cultivate in the live setting. Which is to say a nice-near-catchy batch of rhythmic, electro-tinged bloops and bleeps, seemingly as much influenced by 80's industrial as perhaps 80's hip hop - nobody raps here (well I don't think Blake's obscuro vocal drawls should count) but it ain't too far from what the scholars might call a "beat" either. Beats me, indeed. Towards the end there could be what sounds like turntables at work, or maybe it's just sampling, but either way it brings an alien or other-worldly (or -continently) vibe and I can get behind it, no question. Angle Records is doing a CD reissue of two of their finest hours ever put to cassette, "Eyes of Leatherface" and "Prom Night" (the latter originally on American Tapes! Oboy!) while an Bennifer Editions cassette is in the works. Whaaaaaa...!

The only non-duo being discussed today is Brooklyn's Heavy Winged, and I hope they're happy for totally ruining the insanely clever journalistic angle I had in mind for this whole post. They are in fact a trio, a power trio at that - Ryan Hebert on guitar, Brady Sansone on bass, and Jed Bindeman on drums. The first time I heard of these guyses' I was expecting some super bass-y drone based on the name alone, but the results, at least here on "Dark Spring", are rather the opposite. A real whacked out side of repeating strings/drums filth clashes that almost plays out the side till it slowly devolves into some kind of crazed proto-metal/psychedelic noise set. Definite Silbreezian tendencies on display here; I was thinking about Philip Glass leading Harry Pussy but then someone else came up with "just intonation with chainsaws" and I thought that was even better. Otherwise think of some freaked out hybrid of High Rise, Universal Indians, Lambsbread, Ex-Cocaine, Godflesh, and the Melvins. Yeah, somewhere in there oughtta do it.
Last but certainly not least is "Mashpotato", a recording from a WFMU session by Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse, collectively known as Blues Control. The song evokes constant dreamy keyboard flutter crescending its way through the entire side, accompanied by what could be a toy piano marching tune and ever-flowing streams of guitar yawn. Everything works beautifully in time to lend that special epic feeling to what's really a simplistic track not even four minutes long - the first time I played it I thought I was going to cry or at least fall to my knees. The second, third, and fourth times, I knew it was love. Possibly the best Blues Control piece to date, and I didn't think there was nothing they could top on "Puff". Don't know if NNF are seljing these seperate like the last ones, but you should do whatever it takes to hear it.
The 7"s come housed in the usally snappy specially-designed sleeves with info inserts.

Altar of Flies - Dead Air, Broken Wings / Gitwars - Live at Ideal Noise Fest / Worms - Melted (Hästen & Korset CSs)

2007-06-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

Sweden's Mattias Gustafsson (not to be confused with that other Mats Gustafsson or that other other Mats Gustafsson) sent me these tapes from his relatively nouveau Hästen & Korset label, and they are sexy. Obviously for monetary reasons, young labels can't usually afford to go all-out on their early releases, but Mattias apparently doesn't subscribe to that rhetoric - pro-printed glossy colour sleeves (you should see the Gitwars one folded out, it's a real experience) and matching colour cassettes. All pretty limited to under a hundred copies per though, so you'll have to move if you want in on the action. My only gripe is a tiny one, and that's to say that there's hardly any information on the acts involved once you get to the inside. A little insert would've been handy to avoid any extraneous Googling, but maybe I'm just lazy, or that was the whole intent.
I did know from day one, however, that Altar of Flies is Mattias himself. Not that I'd ever heard his music, until now at least. As one might suspect from the title, there's a piece per side. I have to say that "Dead Air" isn't particularly memorable - a pretty faceless set of electronic scrawl and industrial throb that kinda knuckledrags its way on by in the 10 or so minutes it takes to get from point A to point B. So, you know, all right. But "Broken Wings", by contrast, borders on the revelatory. Mattias sets a low, intimidating drone over which occasional effects explode out of nowhere like fireworks into the night sky or detonations of a far more severe nature. The all-too-brief conclusion is the real money though, a downtrodden chord progression resonating like church bells sound and then trail off, leaving nothing but a lasting vibration inside your skull for at least the first few minutes from when it goes silent. This tape went from being a wash to being brilliant in a scant few minutes, which means I just have to investigate the rest of the Altar of Flies discography to find out which is the more accurate representation. With all the hullabaloo about the name lately, I have a hunch it's the latter.

Info would've come in handy right about here when I was trying to figure out what the deal was with this Gitwars band, and their "Live at Ideal Noise Fest" tape. Turns out it's a guitar duo featuring a couple of guys from Stockholm and whose members have performed in bands like the Skull Defekts and Trapdoor Fucking Exit, but that's all I got. No names. Anyway their tape is a trip - I had a hard time believing it was actually played live until I heard the burst of applause at the end...and even now I'm sure these cats can conjure up all sorts of clapping and hooting from their crazy hi-tech boxes so I'm gonna have to track someone from the audience down and do a one-on-one so I can confirm what really went down. In the meantime I'll tell you what's on the one and only playable side of this one - it opens with a buncha prickly guitar noodling that sounds like it was gonna erupt in a monster Big Black noise/riff fest with huge stomping drums, but it never happens - they just beat out this weird, carpal tunnel riff and wrangle it until it somehow dissolves into a super minimal chunk of crackling electronic noise...I'll go ahead and assume there's more than guitars at work here because this was a mega buzzing drone that would've tired me out of it lasted any longer than it does. But lo and behold right from there it gets downright melodic, dare I say elegiac. Later on the duo baffle with jutting, electronic-infused prog rock stabs (think the early notes to King Crimson's "Red") and a lengthy section where the same, noodling guitar sound from the opening attempts to reinterpret nursery rhymes as you might expect someone like Orthrelm's Mick Barr or Melt-Banana's Agata to...I told you it was a trip.

I had to do some digging for info on the Worms tape - turns out it's Mattias Gustafsson again. We're back at square one! I'm not sure exactly how he differentiates an Altar of Flies set from a Worms one though. Maybe he's using different gear in Worms or something, and it does sound even more minimalist than "Dead Air, Broken Wings". There's actually not a whole lot to say, but that shouldn't be taken as a bad thing. "Melted" is another one-sider - a virtually unchanging carved-out looping scythe, clearly electronically birthed, plodding on for the better part of 10 minutes until it's furrowed itself into the absolute dead center of your brain, before being accompanied by a distant, siren-like noise...très apocalypto and desolate. There's a couple of other pieces on the side and they're quite a bit harsher but still, I think, subscribing to a minimal philosophy - bubbly magma feedback and noise bile crashing together in a delicious stew of brightly burning embers and grinding gears. I still preferred "Broken Wings" but it's all going down smooth nevertheless.
Just checking up on recent label activity, it looks like Hästen & Korset have a split out between Altar of Flies and Canada's Fossils in addition to a few more AoF releases, a Herrarnas (found sound) tape and an Afric Simone bootleg that sounds pretty tantalizing. I also happen to know that Altar of Flies have a tape out on the inimitable Pasalymany Tapes which is surely essential given their penchant for quality, so plenty of starting points for Captain You.

Nebris - Bleak Angels (Dystonia EK CD)

2007-06-08T23:20:00.000-04:00

It seems like a lot of folk (band folk, artist folk, etc) have it in them to play their own improvised soundtrack to pre-existing movies, in a live setting or what have you. I like to switch it around from a listener's standpoint and play records in sync with movies I happen to find on TV (or baseball games, you know, whatever's on). Recently I had Nebris' "Bleak Angels" on headphones while I tuned into a supremely shitty horror movie called the Guardian and I can't even begin to tell you how much better the movie sounded with "Bleak Angels" as the soundtrack, no dialogue necessary. Of course, if "Bleak Angels" can turn a lousy movie into a watchable one, imagine what it could do in the company of a good one! Well I'm not much for imagining, so instead I'll tell you what it is I liked so much about the record, just as soon as I provide you with a little background information. Dystonia EK is a Montreal-based label that was founded in 1989 and released clutches of tapes and CD-Rs for the following decade until ceasing operations around the turn of the millenium. No real reason is given for the layoff, but Nebris is their first new release in a good seven years, and "the beginning of a new phase" for Dystonia. I tried looking up some of the label's old releases but all I could hit on was a CD-R from Annihilist, who also seems to be in league with an artist called Automata aka James Hamilton, who also plays in Column, which is what Nebris used to go by, and the name of the guy who runs Dystonia EK is James, so I'm led to believe that if this lineage is correct, then Dystonia = James and James = Column (now Nebris), ergo Dystonia = Nebris. All that to say that I think the guy who put this out also runs the label. Sheesh. I should've just skipped over the graduate-level thesis and gotten right to the music in the first place.
This "Bleak Angels" thing, first of all, comes packaged in a very swank three-panel digipak case featuring variations of the same apocalyptic cover art all over. Noise records just sound better when they're not packaged inside grandma's tube sock, you know? As the story goes, Nebris rely on amplified organic materials such as bone and gut strings and minerals (fossils, meteorite fragments, stones) to generate their (his?) sound sources, often pushed and stretched to the point of breaking by an array of effects and processing. I can't say I spent a lot of time picking up on the exact moment a rock was "played", which is good. There's three tracks here all three falling in between the 15-20 minute marks, and although they're very seperate tracks, they work together to create slow-building and eventually devastating work of industrial-bred noise and ambience. Opening piece "V" makes me think almost immediately of Maurizio Bianchi-type industrial bluster mixed with Daniel Menche's heavy metal noise thunder - and of course I'll have to draw parallels to the organic heartbeats found in the tones of Aube's singularly-sourced records. What all that amounts to is a feverish blizzard of wholly unplaceable, sinewy sounds chopped up and coughed back up like a woodchipper regurgitating its metal innards. I wouldn't say it's overtly aggressive or anything but it sure as heck ain't very subtle either - think of it like a dense, frost-riddled wind strong enough to permanently alter your facial features if you stand too long in its path.
"II" initially isn't worlds removed from Tim Hecker's grainy ambience, but it slowly takes a sinister dip back into shadier territory, akin to a late night back alley shortcut through the desolate (indeed) industrial sectors showcased on the album cover. Throughout the track, Nebris layers semi-frequent groans of white noise static over top of the spooky gloss already being served up, crossing the Conet Project's shortwave paranoia with Cold Meat Industries' trademark tundra tones.
Nothing, however, hits quite as hard as "IV", and I think I needed one after it was over. It appears to be the culmination of all the cold-blooded aggression coursing through the previous thirty minutes of the disc, because it explodes in a mess of acid rainfall and never looks back once. It's hard to hear any of the bones n' stones sourcing that supposedly gave birth to what plays out on "IV" - the chaos that rips through the speakers at a torrential rate is borderline impossible to keep up with, Nebris keeps the howling winter wind drones in effect but accompanies them with horrific death rattles, mind-wiping static shrieks, and a palatable sense of danger and urgency. Think Francisco Lopez's earthly soundscapes paired with the shock and damage induced by mid-90's Merzbow and, well, it's a head start. All these comparisons I've dropped don't really amount to a hill of beans in the end - Nebris has created an album unique and interesting enough that in years time we'll be talking about what artists sound like Nebris, not vice versa. Highly recommended and a great way to start off the rebirth of Dystonia EK. Upcoming projects for the label include a CD from Sweden's Niellerade Fallibilisthorstar and a new Nebris LP.

MP3:
V (excerpt)
II (excerpt)
IV (excerpt)
MP3s courtesy Dystonia EK

The North Sea - Snakeroot Ceremony / Thousands - Sand and Stone / Rob Funkhouser - Allegory of the Cave (Phantom Limb Recordings CD-Rs)

2007-06-07T23:26:00.000-04:00

What's with all the fascination with spectral extremities lately? Was the syndrome referenced in, like, the Da Vinci Code or some other hip book or movie that I just haven't picked up on? First there's this local group in the area called Ghost Limbs I think, then there's the new Pig Destroyer album "Phantom Limb" (which rules and I'll review it if I ever find it), and Wikipedia tells me that even the Shins have a song called "Phantom Limb". Well now (VxPxCx)'s record label shares the same title and I'm starting to get pretty baffled. Whatever the case may be, I was recently sent a batch of recet Phantom Limb titles, though I had to exclude a couple of the tastier looking ones ((VxPxC's "Of Determinate Age" and Fantastic Ego's "Ego Trips the Light Fantastic") in the interest of time and relevance. So these are a few of their latest. They were the latest but I'm so behind that they've managed to put out Cahier, Bjerga/Iversen and Fantastic Sleep records in the meantime. Either I'm too slow or some of these cats put out way too many records. Maybe both.
I was forever under the impression that the North Sea were some kind of post-rock band, although maybe there really is a post-rock band with "North" in the title that I'm mixing em up with (One Mile North, maybe? Is that a real band?). Either way, I probably couldn't have been further from the mark if I tried. The North Sea is actually one guy named Brad Rose, who's also responsible for the Digitalis Industries empire (Foxy Digitalis, Foxglove, Digitalis Recordings/Productions, you know). I probably would've checked out his stuff sooner if I hadn't thought that I already knew what it was. I can imagine a hilarious, sitcom-esque scenario in which I spake the words "no don't bother with the North Sea, they're shit" all the while thinking of a totally different act entirely! Well, maybe Brad Rose doesn't find it funny, as I could have already cost him hundreds of thousands of untold dollars in album sales. But he seems to have done okay so far without my help, so I'll just talk about his "Snakeroot Ceremony" CD-R instead. Packaged inside one of those fancy fold-out cardboard sleeves with a stamped CD-Rs (I hear Brad hates spraypainted CD-Rs, which I think is the direct result of running any sort of music reviewing thing because I've experienced it too and I think if you send one to Tom Lax he breaks it over his knee and stick the shards up your nose), "Snakeroot Ceremony" is a pretty nice set of folky, acoustic bouzouki jams, six tracks spread out over a half-hour. Not too often you hear the bouzouki trotted out lately but Rose knows his way around the instrument to be sure, sounding at his peak like Sandy Bull, especially taking into consideration the shared smokiness of the two artists' recordings. Most of the tracks on "Snakeroot" bring to mind images of cots in attics in summertime, dusty chests and sun-bleached floorboards galore, possibly at granny's house, and that's a nice thing. You can hear it best and most on the closing epic "The Sea Sang "Hallelujah"", easily the best of the bunch, although I can't say Rose hones in on Bull's virtuosity, but then again, who does? Overall it slots along nicely between maybe an instrumental Charalambides session (although Brad does offer up some mumbles on "Evergreen Lore"), and similar to certain Six Organs of Admittance records, he adds in nice flecks of chimes or harmonium or harmonica and even some jangly, makeshift percussion on "Roots & Weeds". Personally I had a nice experience with the album when the last notes dwindled away and the evening birdsong outside my window filtered in serving as a fitting coda to this summer soliloquy. Not very earth-shattering but adept enough that I can't fault it for anything either.

I was quite looking forward to this release by Thousands, which is a group (one-off?) that features members of (VxPxC), Fantastic Ego, and Antique Brothers. Two reasons for this - firstly I'm still bowled over from the "Reticent to Manifest" tape from (VxPxCx) I reviewed not too long ago, and secondly it was recorded "live in the Joshua Tree desert with only battery powered and acoustic instruments, and the coyotes' howl". Man, right on. (VxPxCx)'s groovy and coyotes just rule, so what's not to love? AND you're telling me it was recorded at Bono's home studio?? Ha ha! Just kidding. But really, deserts are rad too so this seemed like a can't-miss prospect here. I was thinking the more acoustic outdoor jammers the merrier in terms of personnel for this one, but it's really not very merry at all. I guess the fact that they're working battery-powered means this session had to be pretty well toned down, which I can appreciate, but there must've been more options soundwise than the washed-out, lazy, lo-fi, ambient drivel that occupies almost every minute of "Sand and Stone"'s hour-long running time. Pretty much every song (seven in all) comes and goes without so much as a single memorable note sticking to the inner walls of my cranium. Only on the closing epic (hey, I'm noticing a trend here) "The Hierophant Speaks" does the quartet ever start to congeal into something worth latching onto - a hushed, minimal rhythmic interplay a la Thuja et al that ends up being all too brief. The track lasts a good 17ish minutes but quickly abandons this idea in search of other, more formless and tedious excursions. There are brief flashes throughout the record that hit a general "what could have been" feeling when listening, but that's about it. Everybody's heard about (oftentimes lived) the Classic Band Experience where you stay awake the entire night, high out of your collective mind, writing the single greatest artistic statement of your career, only to wake up the next morning to play it back and realize that it's total bullshit? I don't mean to be too savage but it sounds to me like nobody played this one back the morning after.

I gotta say that Rob Funkhouser sounds more like an 80's jerry-curled rap star than a proliferator of electronic music, but what's really in a name anyway? "Allegory of the Cave" is a 40-ish minute-long piece, and though it's definitely a singular composition, it also moves through very distinct sections, or acts if you prefer. This is the Midwestern's debut release, and a whole lot of electronic or processed gear is put to work over the course of this record, most likely including laptops, pedals, synthesizers, Moogs, keyboards tuned to sound suspiciously like wind instruments, xylophones, and so on. Or maybe not. With gadgets in tow, Funkhouser has created a slow-shifting icy whale of a piece - early on there are pretty clear comparisons to be made with Steve Reich's tape manipulations (even if Rob is working with different medium), although later on I pick up on more Hermann Nitschian sensibilities, specifically what almost sounds like a reinvention of his "Harmoniumwerks" drones, overlayed with Conrad Schnitzler squiggles and Brian Eno's holy ambience. At about the halfway point, an endlessly plunked xylophone/toy piano/whatever lends a layer of sinister haunt to the drone, like hearing a child's music box go off in a dark room and trying to figure out which closet it's coming from. Otherwise, the lush synthetic drone swathes underneath, prividing a sublime and dream-like foundation over which Funkhouser works. Another act brings back around the processed flute-like sounds from the beginning of the disc set against a watery submersion, only to close off with curious tropical-sounding percussive notes that really brings things full circle when it begins to recall the pianos on Reich's "Different Trains". It's nice. Strange and strangely amorphous, but nice, and enough to keep your ears pricked up for whatever else this guy's got on tap.
I should probably also mention that although the Thousands release came in the same cardboard fold-out as the North Sea, the remaining three (Funkhouser and the two not reviewed) are in amaray cases with full colour printed inserts. And they're all limited to around 90 units each. Best bang for your buck in my humble opinion is the North Sea, but at $7 U.S./$9 world per, there's plenty of bang to go around.

MP3:
The North Sea - Evergreen Lore

Thousands - Horizons of Waste

Rob Funkhouser - Allegory of the Cave (excerpt)

Schnäbi Gaggi Pissi Gaggi - Schnäbi Gaggi Pissi Gaggi (Tochnit Aleph 12")

2007-06-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

I got to wondering recently what the Schimpfluch crew and associates were up to lately, which is never really a healthy thing. But it seemed like ages since I heard something new outta their Swiss caravans, so I decided to pick up this new addition to the Tochnit Aleph Punk Series (volume four; prior volumes featured the Good Looking Communists aka Raionbashi + guests and Sidewalk Social Scientists aka Joke Lanz) and I have to say the fantastically baffling name played a strong part in my decision. The other puller was the fact that this "band" consisted of Rudolf Eb.er, Joke Lanz, and Céleste Urech. The latter of which is Joke's son. He was 3 years old when this was recorded. He played drums and wrote (almost) all the lyrics and music. Ridiculous? Yes. Absurd? Yes. Gimmicky? Yes. Right up my alley? You know it.
Turns out this wasn't really the best place to look to find out what's up with the aktionists' current activities, seeing as how this session was laid down in, uh, 1993, but I digress. Schnäbi Gaggi Pissi Gaggi apply a deft twist to the classic power trio lineup by excluding the guitar altogether - Rudolf does "vacuumvocals", Joke plays "ventilatorbass" and Céleste is on percussion. Obviously the most knee-jerk reaction is to compare Schnäbi Gaggi Pissi Gaggi to Rush in this sense, but I feel I must point out that Neil Peart can't hold a candle to Céleste's wizardry behind the kit (and on the frequent occasions when Céleste deems necessary to add his own vocalizations, he does sound pretty close to Geddy Lee, so that's two-thirds of the bases covered right there...and nobody really cares about Rush's guitarist anyway). The music on here is indeed divided up into songs, given titles like "Schlagzug Boxe Quark (Wurscht Isch Viel Geiler)" and "? (Oppis) Microphon Schlagzug Boxe Uma (Oder So)" which just roll right off my tongue. But as you might expect, Céleste's compositions don't exactly sound worlds removed from minute-long improvised jamming with three people on vocals, bass and drums. I think the longest song might scrape two minutes, which is obviously the "YYZ" of the set, but other than that it's all kept pretty to the point. Just about every song features Rudolf screaming or gagging on Céleste's lyrics while Joke backs him up with an extremely distorted electric bass current and Céleste thrashes about behind the kit, usually occupying himself with the cymbals. Interspersed between these mini-masterpieces is banter between the musicians and the audience, who would probably have consisted of friends and family (I can't understand German but I do not think there were any monologues goading women into taking their tops off or any equivalents of "are you ready to fucking rock, Cleveland?!?!?!?!"). Easily the best thing about the record is Rudolf's vocals which are all too restrained for a punk rock set (I don't care if there is a 3-year old present! Unlesh the fury!), and force the band into realms that are at least somewhat past semi-serious tossed off jams. Apart from that, there's not too much else on display here, but then again I'm not so sure what you were expecting to hear. I could say it's a great work of post-dadaist Fluxism blah blah blah but instead I'll say it's a pretty fun record that doesn't have too much longevity after you hear it once, and sometimes that's right where you want to be too.
One of the best things about the album is the bang-up art job Tochnit Aleph did - the striking photo of the trio in action on the back sleeve may be the best part of the whole thing, and there's a great black and white fold out featuring more pics of the group and Céleste looking vaguely reminiscent of Nick Cave. Plus the drawing on the front is pretty cute too, and how many Schimpfluch releases can you say that about?

Jeff Arnal & Dietrich Eichmann - Live in Hamburg (Editions Brokenresearch LP)

2007-06-04T21:43:00.000-04:00

Graveyards swung through town on Friday which meant lots and lots of bills were exchanged for records, and one I selected was this highly recommended document of two individuals I'd never even heard of just a day prior. Graveyards cellist Hans Buetow gave a quick rundown and an effusive on-the-spot review of it, which made it all sound really good but I had to remind myself that it was put out on Hans' label, after all. But regardless, I'd heard other good things and had enough other stuff with the Graveyards brand on it in my mitts already, so I figured why the f not. That night I got home and left it out intending to spin it on my way to sleep, but alas I actually wound up falling asleep before I could put it on. So when I awoke to go to the bathroom at noon Saturday (early to bed, early to rise!), I did put it on before I went back to sleep and just from the first half of the first side that I managed to catch, I was head over heels. Later that day I went back and played it all, then I played it again, and again, and again, until I decided I'd bump everything else in the review schedule (it exists, really!) down one to slot in this magnificent slab. At first I thought I was way behind, what with the date on the back of the sleeve reading 2006 and all, but I got on this here internet and discovered it just hit in April, apparently. Well, whatever. Still doesn't really excuse me from knowing nothing about these two gents as they did put out a CD on Leo in 2004 called "The Temperature Dropped Again" which I spoze I coulda heard about if I had my ear more to the floor, but you can't catch em all and my name ain't Ash. Turns out Jeff Arnal is a Brooklyn-based percussionist with names like Charles Gayle, John Hughes, Gordon Beeferman, Donald Miller, Ryan Smith, Nate Wooley, Michael Evans and way more than I care to name, while Dietrich Eichmann is a pianist who studied with Alexander von Schlippenbach before turning to free jazz, only to then focus on composition for the next twelve years. He's recently returned to the improvised jazz limelight with, among others, the Dietrich Eichmann Ensemble and the Straight Trio with Lars Scherzberg and Astrid Weins. And now that we know the roots, we can get to know the fruits.
Turns out Hans is no liar - "Live in Hamburg" = two great sides of free-thunked jazz academia via Arnal's percussion and Eichmann's prepared piano. On the first side, Eichmann prepares his piano in such a manner as to make it sound something like a rusty drainpipe banging against aluminium siding in the rainstorm that Arnal's stirring up with skittery cymbal splashes and light, jerky skin hits. If you peruse the Brokenresearch descripto, it says thus: "mechanistic as complimentary and logical - eschewing the randomness typically associated with improvisation", which is exactly what was dawning on me as the side played to a close - as different as these cats seem to be on first glance, they at least know each other well enough musically to constantly stay in step. In fact, they often end up repeating or recycling rhythms as they go, like they're both got a shared headspace set aside for those compositional tendencies to be blurted out live as they're rolling along. The whole first side is the kind of in-the-zone drizzle I could find myself playing over and over for days. Wait, that's exactly what I've been doing. Carry on.
Whereas side A was more or less one long train of thought, the flip changes up quite a bit. Eichmann starts out by strumming the piano's guts while Arnal rends out dollops of heavy-weighted thud muck before settling into a refrain reminiscent of the hack n' slash kinesthetics of the prior side. That all changes later as the duo dredge up tense horror film approaches mixed with a sound not totally unlike Harry Partch's "Delusion of the Fury" before Eichmann reverts his piano back to a more traditional sound, plunking and plinking while Arnal sounds like he's playing his kit with little more than his bare hands. All these different little subsections are interspersed with either notes so low you can barely hear them or a full-on silence, and after the last gasp for breath they wind up wonderfully for the conclusion, Arnal's brush-clutching limbs moving almost robotically across the gently resonating drum surfaces and Eichmann's lines rolling automatically like a Conlon Nancarrow player piano hymn. Simultaneously red hot and icy cool, this is a record of two exceptionally gifted artists coming together to make a joyful noise, and we should count ourselves lucky to be amongst the 8 billion who have a shot at hearing it. However you'll have to be quick if you want to hear this particular expression, since Brokenresearch only pressed up 200 of em and you know it'll be gone in a flash once it hits the Volcanic Tongue front page, guaranteed. I'll get around to the other Graveyards-related goodness from the weekend on other day, but for now this is the real unmissable, tops of '07 to date for sure.

MP3:
Live in Hamburg (excerpt)
MP3 courtesy Editions Brokenresearch

Boris & Merzbow - Walrus/Groon (Hydra Head 12")

2007-05-31T23:09:00.000-04:00

Eventually there's gonna be a day where I don't buy any more Boris records, but evidently that day is not now. Maybe it'll be the next one, a 2xLP split with Doomriders. Unless, of course, one manages to come out before that one. Which was kinda the case with this 12". It was announced at least a year and a half ago, maybe more. Or it just seems that way. Either way Hydra Head did a real bang up job with the vinyl (in all sorts of various colors and limited editions and probably packaged with Boris/Merzbow t-shirts, hoodies, jackets, slipmats, mousepads, shoes, eye glasses, chastity belts, etc). Woe to the Boris diehard who's gotta own em all. This was originally a tour-only thing, but you know how those stories wind up ending...magically there were just enough left over to sell through mailorder, so you don't have to trade your "White1" promotional pillowcase on the Southern Lord forums just to get one! Hurray! Which is cool because it's a nice looking thing that everyone should take to bed at least once - slick green gatefold sleeve with trippy Fangs Anal Satan artwork on the inside and the record is a delicious white/green splatter platter.
So what's the deal? Dos huevos - "Walrus" is a song that used to be called "I Am the Walrus" before Boris decided it needed a good shortening, while "Groon" happens to be the name of the last track on King Crimson's atrocious "Earthbound" record. You might think with the 12" format that these were stretched to the gills, but it ain't so - about 15 minutes of total sound to be found here. Well that's cool, the fatter the grooves the better. "Walrus" is scarily similar to what you'd expect Boris and Merzbow covering "I Am the Walrus" to sound like. Sure it keeps the faith and notches up the lurch quite a bit more and Merzbow adds scatty, tumbling laptop spackle all over the side like a Japanese Jackson Pollock, but it's certainly not a ways off from the original - Takeshi has Lennon's slightly dazed, lethargic delivery down pat, and even tops him with a more epic delivery of the title lyric...I gotta express some disappointment that "goo goo ga'joob" was not retained, as I feel it's quite crucial to the spirit. Although I can't gripe about that too much when half of the original lyrics are cut out and rearranged anyway, with Wata stepping up to deliver "expert texpert choking smokers/don't you think the joker laughs at you?" in a monotone eerily similar to Jennifer Charles. Merzbow rounds the whole thing up with a little electronic obliteration that's really neither here nor there in the end.
If "Walrus" was a by-the-book rendition of the original, "Groon" is the exact opposite - nary a trace of the original funk/prog/jazz jam can be heard in Boris' version, with the exception being maybe Atsuo's lead-limbed drumming. Much in the way that the "04092001" LP was Merzbow accompanying existing Boris songs, "Groon" sounds like a group improvisation with Masami dredging up mega-sludgy distortion, and low-end rumble. At times you can only really pick up Atsuo and Masami, I have no idea if the other two are even playing anything. It also reminds me a lot of the "noise drone" version of Boris' "Vein" album, for what it's worth. It's nice enough but when I think of all the other King Crimson songs these cats could've been reproducing, I ache. Among others, "Thela Hun Ginjeet" is just begging to be destroyed with some serious heavy metal thunder, although maybe I'm the only one around who sees that as possibly being a good idea. I heard there was supposed to be a new King Crimson in 2007, good news because 2003's "The Power to Believe" ranks up there with the best and helps erase the memory of some of the 80's/90's atrocities they were responsible for. If it ever comes around I'll totally talk about it here, in fact I think I'll put the money I was gonna spend on Boris record #35443 towards it! No disrespect intended. As for this, yeah it's nice and all, but nothing you need to own...I mean you may as well just download "Walrus" and be done with it, although you don't need me to tell you how much better it sounds on vinyl. Still, it's not worth breaking your back/bank to add to your collection either.
"Well, first of all, I couldn't even see his face. I couldn't see his face. He was holding a gun in his hand. Umm... I was thinking...This is a dangerous place..This is a dangerous place.."

MP3:
Walrus (excerpt)
Groon (excerpt)

Der TPK - Harmful Emotions (Siltbreeze LP)

2007-05-30T23:04:00.000-04:00

Teenage Panzerkorps on vinyl on Siltbreeze, it's a match made in heaven and a dream come true all at once. I was late getting hooked on these guys and missed out on practically everything they ever did, which ain't much. But "Nations Are Insane" kept me tapped in while I waited for this one to drop, and that was more than enough gristle to chew. That one came out on Pink Skulls, the punk/metal imprint started up by Jewelled Antler mason Glenn Donaldson, who also plays in the band (acronymized to Der TPK, at least for now) as Edmund Xavier, alongside Bunker Wolf, Catholic Pat, and Boy True. All I know is that apparently Bunker Wolf is a 40-year old German punk rock dude, the others are mysteries to me. The way I like it, youngblood.
Like the rest of their touches, "Harmful Emotions" dabbles largely in supremely scuzzy, lo-fi, broken-as-hell punk rock, with each track swimming in its own mire of shoddy production, stumbling instrumentation, quasi-accidental amp feedback and reverb, and generally any sound that's holy and true to all ugly/beautiful forms of rock n' roll that're liable to get polished out by some poindexter with a red hankerchief in the back pocket of his too-tight jeans come mixing time. I didn't do much research because I didn't want to kill the dream, but I'm being led to believe that these songs (16 in all! Most under 2 minutes!) are all largely improvised and nailed to the tape in one take, because that's sure what it sounds like. Warts and all, and all, and all that. What's most intriguing to me about "Harmful Emotions" is that it ain't 100% balls to the wall, not at all in fact. Many of the songers are slower, dirtier waltzes that seem just as interested in referencing acts like the Fall (oh god are the Fall ever all over this one) and the Homosexuals and This Heat and the Sun City Girls. And maybe even the Monks, if they came around in the 80's! "Thy Depth!", "True Corpse", and "Creepy Books" demonstrate this side of the group best, whereas "Theme Control", "Nameless Disease", "Blood Math" and "True Corpse" all dial up 80's punk rock/DIY ethos as authentically as you're ever gonna hear it in two thousand and seven. Heck I can even hear the echoes of Faust amidst all the wreckage and debris here, and I swear it's not just the German connection that's springing em to mind. Well okay, maybe it is. Thee Bunker Wolf's vocals are at times up-front, and at times so low you can barely tell if you're actually hearing em. The drums are often a sludgy battering. The guitar riffs are usually falling over themselves. The organ swirls in and out of rattly focus. What more can I say? Basically all the best moves of any session that includes beer and a microphone in the middle of a sweaty living room...and it transports you there on a puke-stained magic carpet so buckle up.
All told I'm thinking you might think this LP was straight idol worship, and maybe it is in a way for the guys playing it, but that doesn't stop it from being really very quite positively excellent in its own right. It's more like a deconstruction/rebuilding type thing than anything else, and when it's this haggard and this serrated and this curmudgeonly, it's pretty tough to say no...and I haven't even had a drink yet. Was just reading Neil Campbell as Invisible Jukeboxee and whoever the Jukeboxer was made mention of the A-Band "Artex/A Lot" LP, limited to 500 and now down there in the annals a bonafide deal-maker...flip this sleeve over and there the scrawl sticks me - 440/500. Now I'm not trying to suggest that this record will lead an equally celebrated fate, but I am trying to suggest that you don't want to be in a position where you were the nearly man to this record too, do you? Pick a box. Its contents will help you on your way.

MP3:
Nameless Diseases
True Corpse
Thy Depth!

Petri Rainer - Trubaduurimusiikkia / Armas Huutamo - Vastapainovoima (Lahna Records CDs)

2007-05-29T23:15:00.000-04:00

I like a lot of things, and I like a lot of Finnish things especially, so Sami Maaranen knows the route straight to my heart with his young-ish Lahna Records label. Despite having been around for a couple years, the label is just five releases old, with the Petri Rainer EP being the newest addition to the catalogue. Armas Huutamo is catalogue number three and it came out two years ago! Kind of a reprieve from the habitual deluge of CD-R noise shlock these days, so I like em more already. And another good reason to like em is that they don't dabble in shlock - these two discs are quality recordings with respectable packaging jobs to match.
So I didn't know this Petri Rainer from a hole in the ground, and if you don't either you can sorta tell the fruits by the roots (or something) just by the cover art. There's some kind of mutant singing aloud with a guitar. On the record, there's some kind of mutant singing aloud with a guitar. For 10 minutes. That's right. EP in every sense of the acronym - five songs, 10 minutes. Beautiful! Nothing I hate more than when a feller doesn't know when to quit and drags his already-subpar album out to an agonizing 40-50+ minutes, so when it doubt make it short as far as I'm concerned. But 10 minutes? Shit yeah, this is like George Costanza leaving on high note and heaven knows we all wanted more from him. But then after I listened to "Trubaduurimusiikkia" ("troubadour music", I'll assume), I was wondering if I ever really want Petri Rainer making a record longer than this one already is. The Lahna Records website calls Rainer "Apocalyptic folkmusic, classical guitaring and maniacal pathos, troubadour music with a pinch of black metal" and they're really not too far off, even if the black metal in question is more along the lines of Dead Raven Choir's folk noir hymns (not that that's a bad thing, just don't get too exciting hoping for blastbeats and corpsepaint). Rainer strangles and forces chords out of his nylon-stringed guitar that might create an atmosphere comparable to DRC, but it's pretty hard to stay focused on his guitar playing once he starts singing. The lyrics are spat out at a mile-per-minute ratio, raving in a high-strung, jerky, emotional fashion about things I can't even begin to comprehend outside of running them through Babelfish and I'm far too lazy for that. I found myself struggling to recall my rudimentary knowledge of avant-garde Finnish music to draw an apt comparison, but nothing really fit and I didn't want to force it, so I'll stick to the Japanese names that flew at me after the 10 minutes had passed - Kan Mikami and early Keiji Haino with a twist of Yamatsuka Eye. Basically the kind of unflappable sound that some people wouldn't take a minute of, although I thought it was pretty boss myself. You can download almost half of the EP below and see if you're man enough for the Petri Challenge (get it? Like "Pepsi Challenge", you know?).

I originally wasn't planning on talking about this Armas Huutamo CD since it came out in 2005 and I try to keep things fairly recent here, but I wasn't planning on the above EP being so short either. And besides, they're too great not to mention whenever I have the opportunity. I first came across them last year thanks to a 7" on the excellent Lal Lal Lal label last year that collected a few tracks from a frenzied 1998 teenage improv punk session. I was expecting more of the same from "Vastapainovoima" (gosh these are some long record titles), and I sorta got it. Then I didn't. Then I did. See, the first track "Viekaa Minut" opens with a whimsical, adult contemp/latter-day-R.E.M. treatment that threw me for my first loop, only to leap headfirst into balls to the wall three-chord punk rock stomp, beginning with what I can only hope is the Finnish equivalent of "one, two, three, four!" (or, if there's a God, "one, two, fuck you!"). From there they veer back and forth between punk rock and snarling, poppish rock accompanied by garbled, computerized voices...and back again. So it goes. And it only gets weirder from there. "Nuoren Wertherin Karsimykset" is a noise rock/oi slammer in the vein of the Jesus Lizard, and "Sonni" is an up-tempo 90's punk rock chomp (at under two minutes), but that's pretty much where the similarities to the Armas Huutamo of old end. The trio bring down a thick, tribal ritual on "Huuda" that I can compare to a Finnish act of yore, namely the awesome Sikiöt. And then they switch it up entirely on the next track, "Kiertorata", with a brash funk/disco pulse that I wouldn't have been shocked to hear on an LCD Soundsystem album. The hissed "swastika" in the lyrics mixed with a George W. Bush soundbyte (who does a great job keeping time to the beat) is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the penis, but I don't think subtly is in the game plan for the whole album...so who gives a hoot. The band even flirt with full-blown metal on "(Periaatteessa) Tytto" and "Seisova Vesi", the former with a psychedelic tint to it and the latter a grimy if over-the-top thrash/power anthem. But it's the longest pieces that are the most baffling - the 10-minute hardcore/jazz/surf attack of "Uniaika" and the 8-minute "Kevytta Ilmaa" ping-ponging back and forth between lounge and male/female-voiced folk-pop. After the closing jazz funk slink of "Polkka Vasten Paalua" (nary a polka in sight!), it's pretty tempting to draw comparisons with Mr. Bungle circa "Disco Volante", but that's really only in spirit. At least they're not cribbing the notes directly like most of the Bungle-worshipping "weird" American rock bands I've heard. Armas Huutamo add way too much of their own brand of insanity to "Vastapainovoima" to warrant a longer look for sure, although parts of me can't help but miss the mindless fury of their teenage years, but that's because small things amuse small minds and I fit the bill all right. If you're bored with what's currently playing around your head lately and want to take a chance on a couple of real out-there platters, you've got my recommendations right here. Lahna Records also has a couple of spring releases to look forward to with morbid curiosity - Rapped Youth ("Cypress Hill of the Northern Taiga"!) and 7" from an as-yet unnamed duo boasting "tunes from the reverse sides and edges of romanticism", so stay peeled for those while you're at it.

MP3:
Petri Rainer - Sillä Me Kaikki Uppoamme Pulputtaen
Petri Rainer - Mitä Muuta Samaanit Olivat Kuin Oman Aikansa Kylähulluja?

Armas Huutamo - Viekää Minut
Armas Huutamo - Nuoren Wertherin Kärsimykset
Armas Huutamo - Huuda
MP3s courtesy Lahna Records

Jorge Castro - Pastoral / Cornucopia - Death of the Sun / Astro/Cornucopia - Drop Out Bones/Shock Therapy (Sonora CD-Rs)

2007-05-28T23:18:00.000-04:00

Cornucopia are the go-to noise duo from Puerto Rico, having released works on labels such as Hospital Productions, Gameboy Records, Chondritic Sound, and most recently Heavy Tapes, not to mention their own Sonora label, from whence these three CD-Rs were birthed. As Cornucopia, Claudio Chea and Jorge Castro have been flying under my own radar for quite some time, as I've never really taken the time to get to know em better...until now, when Jorge took it upon himself to correct that for me, and for which I am indebted to him. The Castro solo disc and the Cornucopia compilation are both fairly recent releases, while the collaboration with Astro is from 2006 but was too badass to exclude.
According to Castro (sounds like the name of a sitcom), "Pastoral" comes from a lifelong interest in grindcore and death metal. Well that's hip by me, but it's evidenced nowhere on the 10-minute title track that opens the album. Which isn't a bad thing. It's a lovely, weightless drone consisting of organic, painted tones and gently looped mechanical swathes. It's the kind of lushness (lushosity?) that recalls the glorious "Osmose" record by Ariel Kalma so you know it's money, Eddie. On the next track, however, those metal influences start cropping up in a big way, because "Detrito" is a layered piece of snarled guitar riffs set to a dubby test-pattern backdrop, and it slowly blossoms into a fully-fleshed out definite near-metal threat not at all unlike what you might expect from Skullflower or even Stephen O'Malley and Peter Rehberg's KTL project. It's tough to slice, no fooling, and it merges the now-popular noise/guitar metal notion together like few others I've heard.
The final track "Horizonte", on the other hand, is a formless drift even more washed out than the first track...more like Tim Hecker's body of work condensed down into an ice cube and polished down to a sheen. With a belt sander. Castro hits a real nice mix of just about everything here (or everything you would want to hear from one guy, one guitar and some pedals), but track number two is definitely number one with a bullet in my heart.

Jorge is rejoined by partner in crime Claudio Chea on "Death of the Sun" which presents an a-chronological look at some of their earlier work (1999 to 2003 plus one from 2005), and like "Pastoral", it demonstrates a devotion to diversity in sound, albeit with more of a noise bent. 1999's "Mantraofabrokenman" opens with a harsh beat that teases a full-on "Merzbeat"-type rhythm but it's quickly obliterated by a flurry of computer-generated blasts and white-knuckled knob fiddling. "Bromuros Antisepticos" from 2002 is a lengthy piece using super sparse tinny jingles and acid rain fallout - you know the opening two minutes of Jean Claude Vannier's "L'enfant Assassin des Mouches"? Right, except pulled out over 15 minutes into a scraping, harrowing drawl. "Luz", from the same year, is similar to Castro's "Horizonte" in that they're both glacial, high-frequency droning mammoths, but "Luz" evolves in quite a striking manner, subtly revealing additional hidden skins and ending up more like Maryanne Amacher or Eliane Radigue by the end. 2005's "Mensaje No Existente Re_cia" works in the same slow-thunked vein, replacing the harsh tones with cement-scope deep sinking drones and occasional furnace blasts like the whole thing was recorded in a dank boiler room somewhere. There's even a couple of brief, hyperblasts like "Monumento a la Nada" and "Diezmo" that show these dudes know when's the time to run a blitz just as well as they know how to play the zone...d out. Kinda like what I said about "Pastoral", really - beautiful and ugly and diverse enough to please anybody. Living up to the Cornucopia moniker rather admirably, then. Apparently somewhere in here is a collaboration with Sickness, although I wasn't listening for it and as such totally missed out on it. These kinds of things should be written explicitly somewhere in the case of daft punks like myself!

"Drop Out Bones/Shock Therapy" might look like a split for all intents and purposes, but it's actually a sort of collaboration in that Astro created "Drop Out Bones" out of Cornucopia sounds (plus his own synth additions), while Cornucopia sourced "Shock Therapy" from, you guessed it, Astro sounds. "Drop Out Bones" (what a great title) is one of the best Astros I've ever heard post-C.C.C.C., and certainly a terrific display of the drawn-out cosmic benders he's come to call his own. The first long while is devoted to a thick blowing drone (remixed Cornucopia tunes, no doubt) and gizmo chirping (Astro's synth, no doubt) that comes off sounding like a weird mash-up of Supersilent and Merzbow and Pan Sonic's "V" collaboration...later it sets into an oscillating psychedelic vaccuum not too far removed from Astro's tag team efforts with Damion Romero - certainly one of those turn off/tune out asteroid belts that'll knock you dizzy for the entire length of its playing time (about a half-hour)...and it's also further evidence as to why Hiroshi Hasegawa is one noisician I'm consistently looking forward to hearing new things from.
Cornucopia's track on the other hand pushes out a series of frigid-aired static akin to a cold front descending on Tusken Raiders, or possibly the aural equivalent of living in an iron lung although I can't personally confirm that. Cold footsteps on ceramic tiles constantly interrupted by bolts of radio static also lend this one a severe hospital-ward vibe like a trip out of/through Silent Hill. Not too much to say because it's simple and effective, inasmuch as its intense and in the pocket, and more than worthy of sharing silver (green, in the case of this CD-R) with the almighty Astro. Or maybe Astro's worthy of sharing it with the almighty Cornucopia. Why can't we all just get along, anyways?
If this all sounds like your bag and it probably should, you can score most of these jammers from the Sonora website or the Archive distro, not to mention ErstDist and Mimaroglu and other attuned e-head shops. Of course, you're also probably a lot quicker on the draw than I am and you got em all by now and know the whole Cornucopia deal like your ABCs, in which case I'm kinda surprised you're still reading. Go ahead, rub it in.

MP3:
Jorge Castro - Pastoral (excerpt)
Jorge Castro - Detrito (excerpt)

Cornucopia - Mantraofabrokenman (excerpt)
Cornucopia - Bromuros Antisepticos (excerpt)
Cornucopia - Luz (excerpt)

Astro - Drop Out Bones (excerpt)
Cornucopia - Shock Therapy (excerpt)
MP3s courtesy Sonora

Ashtray Navigations - Throw Up in the Sky/With Fine Clinking Magnets (Qbico LP)

2007-05-24T21:50:00.000-04:00

You probably remember where you were when you heard the names of the four latest Qbico records hit the streets. It was heavy times. Ashtray Navigations, Astral Social Club, Vibracathedral Orchestra and Michael Flower. Are you kidding? Four U.K.-spawned demolishers. If you're anything like me, you promptly started to fret about which/how many to buy because Qbico records don't really come dirt cheap. I was actually gonna skip em all but I knew I'd regret it later, so I bit the bullet and scored the Ashtray Navigations LP because I know Phil Todd's brew and I know it always hits the spot - not to say the others don't, mind. And heck, they're only about $22 per, which isn't so bad if you think about it. Who needs to eat when you've got records to play, man? Besides, you can feast on the eye candy this album will provide - great, mind-blasting artwork via Phil Todd himself and white/sky blue splatter wax, certainly apropos when taking the title and the music into consideration.
I'm not even sure if anybody else is playing on this record or if it's Todd multitracking, but it's got his acid-stained visions all over the place regardless. Both sidelongs work with an idée fixe - building off of and decorating glorious foundations of sound. "Throw Up in the Sky" is the more "traditional" AxNx piece, if you want to put it that way (it reminds me a lot of what was heard on his fantastic 2006 outing "Four More Raga Moods"). It's a beauty of a slow-moving sheen that starts out with quiet roaring electronics and tinny snare hits that eventually congeal into a heavenly, soupy gloss. Amidst said cascading backdrop is a whole pollution of syrupy synth calls lifted from the same whooshing vein that Acid Mothers Temple are usually so keen to hit on. The loping percussion ushers along Todd's swirling guitar rag, but the track is never in any hurry to get anywhere - all the sounds wind up splayed out in the sun and are allowed to melt freely into one another until either they evaporate or day creeps into night. Todd's mastery of everything even remotely in tune with psychedelia is here in its spangled, sprawlin' glory though he never shoots even so much as a backwards glance - Ashtray Navigations are pushing on into the 41st century and bucking "revivalism" so hard I got saddle sores. It may well be down to an exact science at this point in the game (15 years on!) and I'll still be first in line to guzzle whatever swill's in the beakers.
"With Fine Clinking Magnets" hoists itself up on a grainy, space-vaccuum type drone, with Todd's guitar adding assorted some gasps, some yawns, and plenty of strung-out liquid tonality echoing and reverberating until the next strings are plucked and coerced. The mechanical underbelly lends a disorienting urban feel to an otherwise heavily stoned session of front-porch guitar ramble...even more so when Todd's guitar adopts a sound somewhere close to a banjo stuck with a wah pedal to lay out a supreme bluegrass/psych shred. Or maybe it's Robert Fripp with a Mellotron letting loose on a concrète backing track sniff. All'n'all it's denser and not as gorgeous as the other side (with an ending that's much more "noise" than anything I've heard from the band in recent daze) but it still manages to be a sweet ride and as worthy of your precious time as anything else on the planet.
I may never know if I made the Right Choice when it came down to selecting a fruit from the Qbico branch, but I tell you, those other records have got the bar set sky-high if they're gonna try and top Phil Todd's contribution. I know this one (and probably the three others) are sold out at Qbico by now but there's a few other stores in town that boast copies, so maybe you should try the usual hangouts before you get too discouraged, huh? If you've heard the others (or all of em), lemme know yer thoughts in the comments section a jump or two down below.

MP3:
Throw Up in the Sky (excerpt)
With Fine Clinking Magnets (excerpt)

x.0.4. - Cataracts (Ecstatic Peace! LP)

2007-05-23T22:26:00.000-04:00

Bill Nace has been destroying guitars for so long outside of my record collection that I thought it high time to rectify that situation. Unfortunately I slept on his "Solo Gtr" tape that got mega praise last year but no way I was gonna miss out on the vinyl debut from the x.0.4. trio to which he belongs, alongside John Truscinski and Jake Meginsky (formerly a duo of just Nace and Truscinski, see a CD-R on Audiobot for further knowledge). Nace I caught once upon a time playing in Thurston Moore's Dream Aktion Unit at the Victo fest so I was already somewhat acquainted with his hooded sonic battery, but Truscinski and Meginsky are pretty new names to my eyes. Well it turns out that Truscinski can be heard hittin' skins on a brand new GHQ CD-R for the Arbitrary Signs label, while Meginsky is a student of and research assistant to a one mister thee Milford Graves...say no more. Together, the two make more racket under the name Slaughterhouse Percussion although that name doesn't ring any bells for me either, maybe it does for you? If so you can clue me in after class. And you know Nace from earlier work with Chris Corsano in Vampire Belt, Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance in Ceylon Mange, and Thurston Moore himself in Northampton Woods.
"Cataracts" is steeped in two side-long sessions, recorded in Vermont of last year, and it does a fine job of inverting the kind of assault you'd expect from a guitar/percussion/percussion trio. The first side mainly features rolling percussion not at all unlike cement cyllinders cascading down a paved incline, while whistle and creak and drainpipe guitar marrow tumble and oscillate note over strangled note in a twinkling free-anything display. As the end of the first side nears, a full-on restrained guitar squabble/feedback fencing comes into view on the horizon that sounds like the chilled beginnings of a Prurient LP I can't put my finger on, or maybe it isn't even Prurient at all. The same brand of microtonal flickering groan occupies the other side, except with way more super sparse, dragged-string and cymbal beltsanding not at all unlike the Graveyards line-up when C. Spencer Yeh steps in. In fact, if you like the crawling sounds of Graveyards, it's hard to picture you not getting a kick out of x.0.4.'s crystal sharp improvised skewer...even if they're not always on the same radar.
It's hard to pin x.0.4. down anywhere which is why I like em so much - I'm picking up loads full-Americana-band dementoid sensibilities in the trio's approach but also patches of desolate-Americana-basement loner mentality, hitting chords somewhere from Smegma and the L.A.F.M.S. troupe down to Boyd Rice and GX Jupitter-Larsen. Good on Ecstatic Peace! for making this edition bountiful and cost-friendly too; no excuse for you now, buddy.

MP3:
Untitled (side A) (extract)
Untitled (side B) (extract)

Medroxy Progesterone Acetate - Supplications (Black Horizons CS)

2007-05-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

Another beautifully packaged tape of unknown sounds from the great Black Horizons label, this one from a unit called Medroxy Progesterone Acetate, who originally released "Supplications" themselves in a collectors' edition of five (!). This reissue could boast the toppest notchest packaging from BH to date - "color cover on black shimmer cardstock, with an insert containing texts / collage, on silver paper, clear labels. Hi-bias chrome tapes in an edition of 56" (hey, it's 51 more than the last run this tape had). Medroxy Progesterone Acetate is the nom de plume of Waterloo, Iowa's Darren Bauler, who used to play in a "tape-junk combo" called BFP, whatever that may stand for. When that dissolved in 1999, MPA began, and has since released a few documents on his own and other labels, including a collaboration with the Number None as Damp and Damned on Sloow Tapes. He's got a record coming soon on Musicyourmindwillloveyou called "We're a Monotonous Band" and another called "Play Something Slow" on Paha Porvari, so there's much to look forward to. Don't know how they'll match up to the standards set by his previous releases - early editions claimed to come with baby teeth and "fetish items" while some long-gone CD-Rs were 100 tracks in length. Gad-fucking-zooks.
Bauler puts a staggering amount of equipment and instruments to work in his recordings, some standard and most not-so-standard, including various mystifying things with names like the Sleep Generator and the Abbadon Device...sounds more like machinery for torture. And I guess in a way you could say it is! Nyuk nyuk. But seriously. I'm guessing a vast amount of Bauler's noise-makers were drawn upon to complete "Supplications", because the sonics are diverse enough that there's scarcely any repetition at all throughout the whole c78, and when there are, you know it's for effect and not for lack of originality. On the first side, Bauler splits between two kinds of blackened ambient sprawl - on "The Mars Hill Halfway House Talent Show" and "They Will Never Find My Body", there's far more ominous notes to be found. Scrambly electronic vibrations like circuits blowing and a dubby, bass-heavy background give way to buried vocal extracts and dizzying static creating a worrisome, paranoic atmosphere on the former while the latter threatens with mechanical tooth grinding, brightly burning feedback spears and phantom moans emitted from the mouth of the beast/Zardoz floating head style, minus the camp and the red tights and the Sean Connery. Whenever someone uses the term "that sinking feeling", it's this right here they're referring to. The other two tracks on this side are still creeped, but more in the hovering stasis/cosmic noise kind of way, almost an aural representation of the shimmery black cover the tape comes wrapped up in. In fact, "Vons Serin, Hidden in Soil", hits its stride in between floaty strobing and gorgeous washes of lighthouse/seaside ambience, that sounds like what you might hear form the control deck of an alien spacecraft while your organs are being given a once-over on the examining table in a chance meeting. Don't you hear from a lot of UFO-abductees that they felt a sense of calm and fearlessness when they had E.T.'s playing doctor with the vitals? Right, well that's this track, to a tee.
El flippo is dedicated to three longer tunes, and unfortunately the first few minutes of the opening "The Hudson Working (They See You With Three Eyes)" come out rather warped by way of a somewhat-mangled tape, but I must say it adds a great air of zippy distortion to the already-skewed synth droning...although it causes my tape player to shut off intermittently which I must say is no fun for anyone. So I missed a chunk of the build up, but the power that sinks in once everything rolls smoothly again still ain't impacted any less - this is a space-sucked black hole drone that'll compress those innards we talked about a paragraph ago if you get too close. It settles into a near-aquatic longform assault, combining said spacehum and the kind of electronic spatter and gargle that doesn't sound planets removed from my own tape difficulties I experienced near the beginning. "Little Pieces" works up a dust-eating drone akin to a streetcleaner passing beside you on the street, or in your bed, and an almost-rhythmic squelch like a deformed, spacey, pseudo beat. Whatever gizmo Bauler uses to generate that vaccuuming drone, it's amazing how much music the ear can pick out of it, because on the surface it sounds like a pretty static layer of dense electro-soak, until you start listening a little deeper. The closing "Melusine Shoreline" is an assortment of various plundered sounds seemingly laid out at random against a milky-white backdrop of gush, but slowly they congeal into patterns of off-kilter effects and snippets, replete with fucked-with conversation clips as if you weren't already nervous enough. It's real nice, if a little over-long.
On the whole I'm not quite sure what to make of this Medroxy Progesterone Acetate thing, but I can take one thing to my grave and that's knowing he put out at least one great tape that I heard in my life, and I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for the follow-ups because I can smell great things coming from behind the closed door to this cat's downstairs basement. What's great about "Supplications" is the balance in strikes between composition and improvisation, as well as noise and tranquility - too many noise acts these days try to bludgeon you into being intimidated and don't bother to (or don't know how to) put in the effort to craft something truly unique that'll stay inside your head long after it comes out of your stereo. Darren Bauler's got all that down pat already, so there's no place to go from here but up. Or down, depending on how you look at it. If you have yet to cop one of Black Horizons' beautiful editions, no finer place to start than with "Supplications", and not only because it's the only one that has yet to sell out (I think). Early tops of '07 for sure, if I'm allowed to include reissues as such.

MP3:
The Mars Hill Halfway House Talent Show
MP3 courtesy Medroxy Progesterone Acetate