29 April 2008

Albums and Singles

Believe it or not, the title only gives you a taste of the irony put to tape here.  Over the course of 19 songs, Lazy Magnet rummages though almost every form of popular music, sometimes covering several genres in space of a few seconds. Band leader Jeremy Harris and company have the musical chops to pull off such a scatterbrained project, but the silly lyrics and non-stop pastiche get to be wearing.

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29 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Wrnlrd  Oneiromantical War                                                               
FSS001  180 gram Ltd. Ed. LP / MP3 album
UPC:  890436001517
Release Date:  May 27, 2008

  It is an honor to inaugurate the FSS label with the sixth album by the supremely cryptic, singular black metal entity Wrnlrd.  Beginning with the self-released Mask of Hate under its Order of the Cloven Eye banner in 2005, Wrnlrd has bent black metal to its will.  Working with guitar, bass, fiddle, banjo, synths and samples; Wrnlrd throws metal, industrial,  noise, dark ambient and folk musics into a blackened and bubbling cauldron.  A potent stew indeed.
  Wrnlrd records spontaneous, wordless vocalizations and details the lyrics later, improvises massed guitar tones, buries samples deep into the mix and brings the disruptive and unpredictable elements of improvisation and chance into recording.  Wrnlrd albums have referenced the science fiction novels of Cordwainer Smith, surrealism, automatic writing and the arcana of Washington DC.  Oneiromantical War  is a trudge through tangled thickets of sound.  The album was mastered by Bob Weston and will be available in a limited edition of 500 LPs on 180 gram vinyl with a gatefold sleeve.
  Wrnlrd can be pronounced any way you like.  I prefer “wern-lerd”. Oneiromancy is a system of dream interpretation that uses dreams to predict the future.

Discography
Mask of Hate CD  [Order of the Cloven Eye] 2005
Mdlthr  CD  [Order of the Cloven Eye]  200600
In From the Night Herd  CD  [Order of the Cloven Eye]  2007
Cperadt  CD  [Small Sacrifice]  2007
Pentagon  CD  [Order of the Cloven Eye]  2008
“Oneiromatical War” on Varous Artists  Drone Season III  CD  [Brise-Cul]  2007
Wrnlrd-Bauer  Avulsion  3 inch CDR  [Brise-Cul]  2007

 ..this project is truly reaching the point where its material is more aligned with black metal through texture and atmosphere than anything else …aside from the instances of raw, straightforward speeds, you'll be hard pressed to pick out many riffs or influences at work within this album that could be classified as based around the traditional roots or riffing styles of the genre, and that's a great characteristic to achieve, really. Curious work, indeed.  Blodarstid  April 9, 2007
Wrnlrd has managed to create a claustrophobic and all-consuming album the likes of which will be hard to better… Dave Wait   Vampire Magazine  June 23, 2007

Its production is absolutely filthy, but in a good way, retaining low end even while its midrange sprouts hairy palms.... But the album is enjoyable not in spite of, but because of its dirt.  Cosmo Lee Invisible Oranges August 28, 2007

The sound is so thick and gnarled, the riffs so distorted they seem to exist in a churning sonic morass, the guitars and vocals constantly on the verge of crumbling to pieces, the sound so blown out, the drums are barely audible…but that drumless feel only adds to the organic sound … this epic heaving cloud of black swirling sonic mayhem, slowly and systematically engulfing everything in its path. …it's all about the gorgeous wall of sound this guy can produce, managing to sound utterly frosty and grim, but also epic and majestic, woozy, drone-y, druggy and utterly and terrifyingly black.  Aquarius Records  Feb. 22, 2008

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28 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

 

Wire is proud to announce that it has completed work on its 11th studio album, continuing the momentum that began with the band's 2006 reactivation and Read & Burn 03. Dubbed 'Object 47' - 47 representing its position as the 47th release in the Wire discography - the album finds Wire utilising the core writing partnership responsible for Pink Flag, Colin Newman and Graham Lewis. The latest release is described by the band as having "tunes with zoom", and this is best illustrated by the melodic and textural development already suggested by elements of last year's Read & Burn 03.

The full track-listing for the album is: One Of Us; Circumspect; Mekon Headman; Perspex Icon; Four Long Years; Hard Currency; Patient Flees; Are You Ready?; All Fours.

Object 47 will be on sale later this year, direct from PostEverything and via record stores worldwide. A final release date will be announced shortly, and so sign up to the mailing list to be the first to find out when the album will surface.

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27 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Released the same year as Nature Unveiled, Current 93's second full-length record is more uneven than its predecessor and less coherent. Time has been kind to Current 93's debut, but Dogs Blood Rising feels a little like Tibet's leftover thoughts and ideas forced onto record. It nonetheless boasts of several outstanding moments and marks Tibet's first obvious movement away from the trappings of the so-called industrial culture.

Durto/Jnana

Everything Nature Unveiled expressed with brevity and eloquence is unnecessarily confused and extended on Dogs Blood Rising. All the familiar symbols and references to Christianity, Satan, redemption, fear, human impotency, apocalyptic trauma, and positive biblical fables are present, but without the strength of a unifying esthetic. "Christus Christus (The Shells Have Cracked)" begins well enough with looped chants, abstract and breathy tones, and a sense of direction. It is an invocation of Christianity's dark side, a dimension characterized by death, burning, God's terrifying judgment (who will be saved?), and humanity's capacity for evil. "Falling Back in Fields of Rape" continues that promise of a new direction by solidifying it with a distinct meter, evenly recurring and reversed percussion loops, and a seductive chant deep in the background. Nature Unveiled was not without its structure, but at the beginning Dogs Blood Rising seems more thoughtful and coherent by virtue of its more conventional form.

Steven Ignorant's opening lines a few minutes into the song arrive unexpectedly, breaking the song's established vocabulary, and with his words Stapleton simultaneously increases the audio frenzy. The sequence of audio events presented in a short time is impressive. A metallic and vertiginous crash realizes the act of falling suggested in the song's title, then there is a moment of near silence before the now familiar words "In a foreign town / In a foreign land" are delivered. Ignorant's tone is initially narrative-like and it maintains the structure suggested by the song's opening moments. However, his delivery is quickly made ferocious, his voice reaches a feverish pitch, and in no time at all the music becomes equally crazed. The song is then transformed and a child's voice becomes the focal point, and then again another change occurs as a deranged and slightly forced growl makes its way into the mix, and then yet another change. This time a woman recites various cruelties to which humans are subjected while an organ slowly drones away beneath her voice. Over and over again the song mutates without warning, almost as though it were punishing the listener for expecting any kind of order. An unnecessary drum machine briefly makes an appearance before Tibet's dry and unnerving voice enters the fray, calling to mind his performance on I Have a Special Plan for this World. Unfortunately the song attacks the listener almost too literally, inspiring frustration more than fright, sympathy, remorse, or any other emotion. What could've been a new direction for Tibet and Stapleton instead devolves into a less powerful version of everything presented on Nature Unveiled.

Neither "From Broken Cross, Locusts" nor "Raio No Terrasu (Jesus Wept)" improves the album much. The former is a consistent song in both tone and structure, but it quickly becomes dull. For much of the song Tibet simply repeats "Antichrist" over and over again; his voice is amplified, distorted, and extended in various ways with little more than a martial and repetitive drum-beat to accompany him. The latter is, for some reason or another, dedicated to Japanese author, playwright, poet, philosopher, essayist, nationalist, and imperialist Yukio Mishima. Perhaps Mishima's literary and personal emphasis on the body inspired Tibet, but making any definite connection between him and the album is nearly impossible and suggests that Tibet was, at the time, juggling too many influences to make anything definite and powerful of them. Most interesting is the concluding piece, "St. Peter's Keys All Bloody." In a conversational tone Tibet greets darkness by way of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence." It's an especially interesting musical reference considering the song's generally accepted message, which touches on the absence of love in public life and lack of communication between individuals, public or private. In any case, the song also signifies Tibet's interest in more structured music, especially folk music. As the lyrics to "Scarborough Fair" while away beneath Tibet's scathing delivery I'm reminded of Tibet's synthetic sensibilities on Nature Unveiled. It's clear to me now that while Tibet worked initially within an industrial (or at least experimental) mode, he was from the start trying to break away from it. Simon and Garfunkel were almost the complete antithesis of what was happening in London's more underground venues in 1984, yet their influence appears on this record.

Also included in the first 1,000 copies of this reissue is a complete album remix by Andrew Liles titled Dogs Blood Ascending. It is in every way an improvement upon the original. The sudden and unappealing shifts of "Falling Back in Fields of Rape" are transformed into a unified and explosive expression of anger at the loss of innocence. The song, in its remixed form, begins with the child-like voices that populated the middle portion of the original and then proceeds to Ignorant's spite-filled diatribe. It's as though, by a simple rearrangement and some improved atmospherics, the entire album is given a perspective and force that it originally didn't have. War is clearly declared on the evils of the world, the pounding of drums that were previously wimpy synthetic thuds assume a meaningful dimension that they couldn't have had in the original, and all the musical changes that bogged down the original are given new life because of Liles' determination to maintain some semblance of unity within the song. The percussion on "From Broken Cross, Locusts" also benefits from Liles' careful hand. Instead of being monotonous and ineffective, they achieve a truly martial status that reminds me more precisely and fully of a fascist dread marked by the terror of marching and perfectly polished boots. Tibet's Antichrist-chant is invigorated by various effects and benefits from being truncated slightly. The song is thus made into the whirlwind of hatred I suspect it was intended to be. "Raio No Terrasu (Jesus Wept)" is given the most radical transformation. On Dogs Blood Ascending it is a quiet, subdued piece, emphasizing the somber quality of Christ's sacrifice. It's a real tribute to Liles' talent that he managed to latch onto the record's major themes and improve upon their presentation without rendering the album completely unidentifiable. It also shows that all the necessary pieces to the puzzle were available to Tibet in the crafting of this album; they were ready to be assembled in a powerful way, but simply weren't realized as well as they could've been. The remix ends with "St. Peter's Keys All Bloody," but this time a musical accompaniment that approximates "The Sounds of Silence's" melody is the main feature. Tibet's vocals appear, too, but the contrast between the toy-box melody and his pronounced groans adds a depth to the song not present in the original.

samples:

• Falling Back in Fields of Rape
• Falling Back in Fields of Rape (Dogs Blood Ascending)
• Raio No Terrasu (Jesus Wept) (Dogs Blood Ascending)

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27 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This Alabama-raised Atlanta-based trio impressed Killer Pimp late last year and we put out plenty of people and feelers in the area.  We got them on the same bill as APTBS in Atlanta and Athens and reports were all positive.  They've definitely got the loud thing going on but they know both how to arrange songs and how to arrange an album. Fire On Corridor X was produced with Ben H. Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, P-Diddy, Christina Aguilera) and sounds fantastic.  But don't take our word for it: two MP3s are being given away from the album at killerpimp.com and the group is about to embark on a small East Coast US tour to coincide with the release (read on for dates and locations).

 

5/28/08    DC9          Washington DC
5/29/08    Pianos       New York NY
5/30/08    the Saint    Asbury Park NJ
5/31/08    The Khyber   Philadelphia PA
6/1/08     TT the Bears Cambridge MA
6/3/08     TBA          Baltimore, MD
6/4/08     Local 506    Chapel Hill NC
6/5/08     The Rocket   Asheville NC
6/6/08     Barley's     Knoxville TN
6/7/08     The Earl     Atlanta GA

 

[PRE-ORDER NOW]

 

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27 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Jan St. Werner should be no stranger, he's 1/2 of the core of Mouse On Mars and a full time member of Von Südenfed and Microstoria.  Mound Magnet pt. 2: Elevations Above Sea Level will be released by Killer Pimp on May 27th. The limited vinyl edition (300 copies) is available through Sonig.com and the MP3s are available from fina-music.com. The CD version by KILLER PIMP contains one bonus track however.

[PRE-ORDER NOW]

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27 April 2008

Gary Suarez

Albums and Singles

Over a decade since his weeded out, hip-hop tinged hit “Herb Fi Bun” and the corresponding dancehall-geared solo debut Stand Out, the man known to his mom as Everold Dwyer fully extols a sincere love of Jah with this above-average collection.

 

African Glory / Rockers Town

Topically par for the course with the bulk of modern roots, The Most High finds Daddy Rings constantly and affably singing praises for Empersor Haile Selassie and the virtuous tenets of Rastafarianism. Those unfamiliar with this music might be put off by these spiritual and heavy-handedly judgmental verses, conveniently located in an uncharacteristically fat booklet.  Still, any dedicated reggae fan will recognize the talents of this practiced performer on songs such as "African Glory" and the cautionary "Cut Off." 

Not committed to any particular style, Daddy Rings revels in the joys of variety, as with the saccharine pop ditty "Hard Road," replete with lilting backing harmonies, and the rugged Mavado-like dancehall militancy of "Rise With Jah."  As someone more than appreciative of ganja anthems, "The Weed Song" just about exceeds my expectations and, in my estimation, surpasses the socio-politically apt though musically dated "Herb Fi Bun." 

With contributions from heavyweights Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, along with several other producers and session players, The Most High doesn't surpass leading lights like Luciano or Sizzla, though it certainly reminds that modern roots music doesn't begin and end with the more prolific ones.  Daddy Rings' return to the full-length album format was well worth waiting for.

 

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27 April 2008

Gary Suarez

Albums and Singles

Not just another British dance rock import, this Oxford-based ensemble imbue and invigorate the sagging subgenre with virulent, playful hooks that feel so natural they ought to shame the DFA Records stable in immediate, unconditional retirement.

 

Sub Pop

The youthful group's impressive chart success in their native country might not translate to similar appreciation stateside, though listening to these sensational, emotive, and often electrifying tunes, that hardly seems relevant. 

Foals make a joyful though secular noise throughout Antidotes, from the percolating opener "The French Open" all the way through the duo of exclusive bonus tracks which Sub Pop has astutely chosen to include.  With some of the best usage of horns in rock music this side of The Stooges, the band constantly raise the bar for other post-millennial indie upstarts with the splendid singles "Cassius" and "Balloons," the latter having practically burnt a hole in my now-deceased iPod from excessive repeat play.  The multitracked vocals of Yannis Philippakis mount the sturdy rhythms and quirky melodies of quality tracks like "Olympic Airways" and the spacious, arena ready anthem, "Big Big Love." 

Somewhat famous already for rejecting the initial production work done by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio, Foals have little need for name-checkable collaborators, as these intelligent, angular party tunes more than compensate for their neophytic status.  Ignore at your peril.
 

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27 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

The immediate aftermath of Jane's Addiction's disbanding yielded an even split of its membership into two unusual projects.  Flamboyant frontman Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins formed Porno For Pyros, darker and even more psychedelic than their former band.  With far less popular success, bassist Eric Avery and guitarist Dave Navarro started Deconstruction, a one-time project with the former taking on vocal responsibilities.

 

Dangerbird

Despite the pedigree and undeniable talent of these performers, Deconstruction's self-titled 1994 album proved no match for Porno For Pyros' own eponymous debut released a year before, which boasted the quirky, blithely apocalyptic alterna-rock classic "Pets."  Avery's quasi-gothic tone starkly contrasted Farrell's anti-commercial, yet nonetheless familiar, over-the-top vocal presence, and, quite possibly, the fickle marketplace simply may not have desired two post-Jane's acts.  Curiously, when Jane's Addiction opted to reunite later on in the 1990s, the co-founding bassist passed on the presumably lucrative opportunity, much to the dismay of many dedicated fans.  After a few years of operating under the radar of the increasingly commercialized and undermined alternative music scene under the moniker Polar Bear, Avery seemingly withdrew from public life, resurfacing occasionally and under odd circumstances, perhaps most notably auditioning to replace Metallica bassist Jason Newsted in the unintentionally hysterical documentary Some Kind Of Monster.  In recent years, his former Californian cohorts have stayed in the news if not in the charts, with Farrell devolving more and more into a hippie punch line and Navarro starring in his share of reality shows, including an embarrassing behind-the-scenes series chronicling the lead-up to his doomed marriage to Carmen Electra.  It is unsurprisingly though commendable that Avery chose to return to the scene with dignity and self-respect when he could have just as easily taken up residence on some VH1 D-list celebrity atrocity.  Uncompromising and independent, Help Wanted sets just the right tone for his reemergence from the shadows a startling seventeen years later.

Returning to a musical life in the shadow of band as monstrously popular and revered as Jane's Addiction would be daunting for any musician, especially with this much time having passed.  Yet within the two minutes of epic album opener "Belly Of An Insect," its unsung bassist has clearly returned reinvigorated with an edge that his former cohorts’ most recent efforts (Farrell’s Satellite Party, Navarro and Perkins' The Panic Channel) excruciatingly lack.  Based on the lyrical content of many of these songs, the years haven't brightened Avery's life all that much.  On "Beside The Fire" the hypnotic rhythm section briefly make room for tortured, almost paranoiac self-evaluation "I don't know why sometimes I lose my mind / When everything seems just fine" before soaring guitars and creepy organs overtake the mix.  His impressive, sincere voice channels Ian Curtis and Peter Murphy without the pretense of today's so-called gothic artists, as on the bluesy single "All Remote and No Control" and the moody yet often bombastic "Unexploded."  Avery gives up the reins occasionally for a few notable guests, not the least of which being Shirley Manson of Garbage, who lends her typically unmistakable pipes to "Maybe," a slow burning and stirring ballad.  Picking up the tempo a bit, "Porchlight" shifts from folksy comforts to Southern rock between verse and chorus, repeating with great effect.

Sharing Dangerbird's small but respectable roster with Silversun Pickups, a band with more than their share of reasonable comparisons to nineties' acts, Avery appears to have made a wise strategic decision.  Dangerbird, in turn, surely benefit from releasing this album mere days before Avery agreed to reunite with his fellow bandmates as Jane's Addiction is dubiously honored by an overrated British tabloid music publication best known for defaming Morrissey and attempting to portray drug addict/occasional musician Pete Doherty as a tortured genius a la Shaun Ryder.  Still, this win-win situation should be viewed not as cheap tactical marketing but, rather, serendipity.  Help Wanted is by far the best thing to come from the Jane's Addiction breakup this century, and an outstanding release in its own right.

samples:

• Belly Of An Insect
• Maybe
• Porchlight

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27 April 2008

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This slice of progressive folk music from the summer of 1970 is a charming recording by the duo of David McNiven and Angie Rew augmented by a rhythm section of Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, on loan from Pentangle. What's so funny about youthful possibility and childhood memory?

 

Sunbeam

The constant stream of rediscovered legendary lost releases can be wearing for those of us who feel that many of those works were lost for good reason: they weren't up to much in the first place. The Strange Tale of Captain Shannon and the hunchback from Gigha deserves a chance, though, not least for the sincerity and openness of the singers. Their songs hail from a period in modern Europe (and maybe in the lives of McNiven and Rew) when everything seemed freer and permissible; an era of full employment, a loosening of gender roles and sexual morality, and cheap continental travel. The simple inspiration behind each poetic song is also made clear in the copious liner notes. The material is good enough to stand this transparency and the fact that the writers have woven some childhood experiences into song merely adds to the allure. The notes also give off a strong whiff of earnest late night  philosophizing—the kind that some artists might choose to hide under a veil of cynicism.      

The record opens with "Hymn to Sylvia," concerning McNiven's chance meeting with a female biker in England after he walked across Northern Spain and hitchhiked the length of France. This song and the closing title track (set on a remote Scottish island) are epic, immersing pieces that, along with Danny Thompson's upright bass and Terry Cox's drumming, give the album a solid yet flexible spine. Apart from a few small sections of forgivably pretentious gibberish (it was 1970 after all) the psychedelic or acid aspect to the music is so low-key as to be virtually non-existent. By which I mean that it sounds hypnotic and transporting without being wrapped in obvious elements that have come to be misheard as representative of psychedelic music.

Of course, not everyone will swallow the wide-eyed optimism of lyrics such as "So draw your magic circles in the sky/Take a chance on all your dreams before they die," and those who enjoy the naturalistic production may be outnumbered by those who find it wooden. I find that, along with the nimble clarity of the guitar work and richness of the voices, the "flawed" lyrics and "dated" production are actually the strengths of this recording. And the fact that the duo still live in the landscape of Scotland lends an air of resilience to their music. After all, anyone could be a hippy troubadour in the Californian sunshine, right?

Previous member Carolyn Davis is featured on one song and her voice bears a pleasing resemblance to that of the great Lal Waterson. There is an affecting breeziness to Rew's voice and McNiven's has a sensitivity akin to that of Lindisfarne or (the vastly underrated) Ralph McTell. McTell is best known for his recurring hit single about the plight of London's homeless people, but it's worth hearing The Boy With A Note (his album about Dylan Thomas) and Kenny the Kangaroo and (the imaginary village) Tickle on the Tum are among the best albums of genuinely innocent songs ever made.

The group take take their name from a 1950s Italian movie, a romantic comedy. Captain Shannon… was originally intended for release as a double with Bread Dreams and Love's Amaryllis album which is also just reissued by Sunbeam Records.

samples:

• Hymn for Sylvia
• Butterfly Land
• Masquerade

 

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