The series of deluxe Japanese reissues of Sunn O)))'s oeuvre has peaked with this version of one of the group's finest moments. Long and undeservedly out of print, this early album has had its original vinyl artwork restored (the less than stellar art from the original CD has been relegated to an inner sleeve) and has been supplemented with a reworking of the album by Nurse With Wound. Reissue packages rarely look and sound so good.
Give us an hour, we'll give you music to remember. This week we bring you an episode with brand new music from Softcult, Jim Rafferty, karen vogt, Ex-Easter Island Head, Jon Collin, James Devane, Garth Erasmus, Gary Wilson, and K. Freund, plus some music from the archives from Goldblum, Rachel Goswell, Roy Montgomery. Rubber ducks and a live duck photo from Matthew in the UK. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Honey Owens' sophomore effort for Kranky encapsulates a mystical space with both moments of direct songwriting and more spaced out passages of psychedelia. The album's artwork suits it's contents: a giant siamese cat swims in moonlight bathed waters that are simultaneously issuing forth from and retreating into some sort of God-head before the stars and a plateau ablaze.
Piercing white hot treble hiss gushes from sterile iPod earbuds, pumping out deafening volumes into the passive, helpless skulls of my fellow commuters and fracturing my focus as I attempt to read a self-imposed requisite of at least thirty pages from my fifth book of the month and year.
Having had the privilege and pleasure to catch this dazzlingly deviant duo in concert on several occasions this decade, this album of covers seemed all but inevitable. Here, much to my delight, the diminutive diva and her frizzy-haired ivory tickler present some of these practiced though never before released songs on disc for the very first time.
The late period Elvis sideburns that Albin Julius has been sporting in recent photos do not seem to be simply an aesthetic selection: he has fully embraced the cult of rock and roll. Although vestiges remain, he and the rest of the band have pushed away from the neofolk and avant garde martial trappings of the past into their own semi-perverted form of rock music.
The Room40 label is quickly establishing itself as a touchstone for oblique, esoteric electronic experimentation. So on first glance, this album's cover art of a flower seems somewhat out of place among the austere design and digital graphic manipulations. It is, however, a very appropriate image given that beyond all of the digital processing and trappings, what lies beneath the layers is a subtle, beautifully melodic work that retains the innate warmth of the acoustic instruments that form the source material of these tracks.
