This curious quintet makes sounds that recall the glory days of Nurse With Wound: long, shapeshifting collages of psychedelic murk interrupted by random outbursts of industrial clatter, nightmarish drones, deeply bizarre audio mutations and tangible masses of sticky audio goop of impossibly vague origin. The Sleeping Moustache consists of five ten-minute tracks interspersed with five brief interstitial tracks. Everything blends together well because nothing blends together well; forced juxtapositions and jarring eclecticism are par for the course, just like the finest NWW of yore.
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Splitting this vinyl, and the handmade silk-screened covers, between a pair of duos from Canada and Brooklyn shows noise, guitars and drums acts don’t have to follow the routes of their bigger peers. Although Mouthus’ heavily textured freakout is worlds apart from Cousins of Reggae’s broken behemoth, there is a common battleground.
Eugene Mirman is a very funny guy, the most promising of the current crop of so-called "alternative" comedians, a group that also includes Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Michael Showalter and Brian Posehn. His debut album, The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman, was a hilarious, brilliant collection of stand-up material that introduced Mirman's unique brand of self-reflexive, postmodern comedy. In comparison, this follow-up CD/DVD on Sub Pop can't help but seem like something of a letdown, but it's not entirely a lost cause.
Up until very recently, black metal was close to death. The great bands that helped cement the genre had lost their way and most new bands were one dimensional at best. Over the last few years, exciting bands began to rear their heads and life crawled back into the genre. Christendom Perished is one such album that has reaffirmed my faith in all things spikey and Norwegian.
If it isn't swathed in black and grim enough to cause rigor mortis, then it can't rock. That seems to be the prevailing attitude the nay-sayers take towards Boris and their newest record. Without a shred of reason, I've seen Pink hated upon in vitriolic doses, the result of a trendy paradigm shift towards doom metal and its various incarnations. Boris is going to appeal to a different crowd, though, a crowd that thinks My Bloody Valentine could rock just as hard as any metal and that dirty is just as good as heavy.
Harris Newman is one of the most diverse guitarists to emerge in the last 10 years and Bruce Cawdron is most notably known as the drummer for Godspeed You Black Emperor. Together they've both played as Esmerine with Beckie Foon of Silver Mt. Zion, and without her, the duo has released their first album as Triple Burner.
In these musically incestuous days it seems like underground improv super groups are meeting up in every inner-city basement. Most of these team-ups come and go in a pleasant enough pot and beer fuelled assault on the senses, but rarely give do they give glimpses like this into group dynamics. Despite this band’s apparent bleak worldview (evident in the song titles and collective name) this is a generously equal musical and unstereotypically focused offering. This is a band working towards one musical goal under the focus of four very different spotlights.
The term "exoteric" can relate popularity, being the exact opposite of "esoteric" and, for the most part, this description is suited to Metalux. Their strange noise has always been a little easier to swallow with its comprehensible beats, recognizable guitars, and punches of melody. Put them with John Wiese, however, and the title of this album begins to appear ill chosen.
Japan’s LSD March are best known for their thunderously loud and trippy music. Empty Rubious Red shows a softer and more melodic side as the group is stripped back to Shinsuke Michishita alone. The white hot power is still there but only rarely bubbles to the surface. Instead the focus is on building the same power and tension through quieter and less overdriven playing.
Orac Records' co-founder Randy Jones and Paul Dickow (Strategy) both take stabs at remixing the electro-popping, hard-edged dance number "The Love That I Crave" with solid results. The original is twisted and manipulated into stretches of dub-laced pop and sweet, delicate minimalism that is about dance as much as it is about lush beauty.
