HORSE LORDS s/t LP (EHSE); CROSS Die Forever LP (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE)

Couple weeks ago I received two brand new records on the same day and, after listening, I felt like they had something in common. The bands don't sound anything alike, but I'll hang this double review on the premise that both bands feature veterans of the 2000s underground who are now reembracing certain 1990s sounds of their youth. And if when I say "1990s sounds" you feel some sort of "fear of indie rock" hesitation, well, fear not, these bands both hearken back to a rather golden time, a time just before indie rock became NPR's new wallpaper and the adult's new alternative . . . 

So, as I was saying: veterans of the 2000s underground, in this case Max Eilbacher (who came out of Baltimore's High Zero scene and plays with the form-destroying Needle Gun), and a guy from Teeth Mountain (I've never actually heard 'em but they've been making records since like 2008), are playing with two others (pedigree not immediately known by me) in a new band called Horse Lords that uses 1990s instrumental 'world music'-influenced 'post-rock' as a starting point, reappraised via the current explosion of African electric guitar music. I'll admit that, for a couple minutes, I was a little concerned that the main riff of the Side A track "Wildcat Strike" was a little too squarely in the Thrill Jockey When They Were Math Rocky tradition, but the band really stays with it, turning the riff around like a Moebius strip and trancing it out until teeth start to show. I just listened to it again and heard some nasty guitar licks I hadn't noticed before, so the grower is still growing. Also, bonus points for auxiliary second-line percussion that is not cosmetic but integral, because it airs the track out and spreads out the rhythmic space, playing "a beat in between the beat" (cf. Miles Davis, interviewed by Arsenio Hall in 1989, at the 8:40 mark of this YouTube). Side B is another single track, a little slower than the A side, also a burner. Reports are that the live show is too. You can get the Horse Lords album from (and listen to it at) the Ehse Records website. (P.S. That Arsenio Hall clip is a hoot and you should watch the whole thing. The tune they play is kinda nuts and I'm somehow still slowly getting more and more into 1980s Miles, which might just be the last frontier. And, in the interview, when he means Teddy Riley, he says Terry Riley, twice!)

And for the other example, we have a veteran of the 2000s underground in Michael A. "Ma" Turner, who made three or four* of the more singular underground rock LPs of the 2000s with his band Warmer Milks, now reembracing the 1990s sounds of his youth in his new band Cross, in this case going right back to Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and the very birth of emotional grunge itself. Or is it that simple? Going into it, I was thinking of the band as a continuation of Warmer Milks, so it took me a couple listens to readjust and realize this is very much R. Clint Colburn's band as well. He writes four of the songs by himself, including the first two on the album. Turner writes two by himself, and the remaining four are by Turner/Colburn. And, where Turner is the sole credited guitarist and has more of a background vocal presence, Colburn is the sole credited lead vocalist on all tracks, using a smooth goth/grunge ballad style that occasionally rips into a most excellent Lizard King shriek. The grunge-ballad singing, as well as the crafty, hooky songwriting and a surprisingly professional and clean production style, took a little getting used to, but then the songs really started to kick in. They're deeply felt and carefully written, and what initially sounds kinda slick settles into a satisfying and psychedelic heaviness (props to the spot-on rhythm section of Jamie Adkins on bass and Jason Schuler on drums), sprinkled with odd bursts of noise guitar, sublimated demonic background vocal chorales, the aforementioned tightly rationed Lizard King shrieks, and more. The record is thematically challenging too; not only is the title Die Forever, but almost every song on the album talks about death or dying, reaching a fever pitch on side two when the song "Die Rock" and its (very catchy) chorus of "Dying Dying Dying [repeat]" is followed up two songs later by "Temple" with its final chorus of "Die Die Die [repeat]." One might say they're being overly repetitious, but I think they're very much doing it on purpose. They also sing about Jesus, and His Cross (on "Forever"), and the band is named Cross, so this might be some kind of new take on outsider weirdo private press Christian rock as well. Either way, almost all of these catchy songs are getting lodged in my head, particularly the aforementioned "Die Rock" and the leadoff single/video "Inhuman Nature." Wrap it in a nice and shiny gold and black Robert Beatty cover design, and you've got another bold step from the Sophomore Lounge label.    (* Penetration Initials, Radish on Light, Soft Walks, and throw Permanent Drool/Lucifers Twins in there if you're feeling especially frisky.)

LABEL ROUNDUP: Silvox Recordings

Silvox Recordings is a Philadelphia-based label that has released nine cassettes so far (and co-released one 7-inch). I have here what look to be their second and third batches, four tapes released sometime in 2011, and three more released just this month. The label is run by Robert Francisco, who Blastitude completists and some others (with hopefully more to come) will recognize as the musician behind M Ax Noi Mach and the street photographer and poet behind the American Rager blog. Several releases in, his label is as interesting as his work in other media has been. Here's some reviews. 

From 2011: 

DAWN CULBERTSON Return of the Evil Pappy Twin C30. I'm going to start with the Dawn Culbertson tape, probably the biggest anomaly in the catalog of what is ostensibly a "noise" label. It's immediately apparent that something uncharacteristic is happening; the uniform black & white design with clear typeface is a Silvox standard and does little to tip a release's hand either way (except suggesting the possibility of something stark and minimalist), but add a traditionally framed photograph of a stern-looking and possibly hippie-era woman playing a lute, with the normal name Dawn Culbertson, and the weird title Return of the Evil Pappy Twin, and you don't really think "noise" or "industrial" or "power electronics." Listen to the music within, and things get a little weirder; it is indeed a possibly hippie-era woman sternly playing the lute, but she's also sternly singing, and it's not medieval madrigals either, it's an eclectic and rather hip assortment of mostly 70s rock and punk covers, like "Search & Destroy," "Blitzkrieg Bop," "Mongoloid," even the Yardbirds' "Heart Full Of Soul." The results are palate-cleansing to say the least. I'm not sure how much I actually enjoy Miss Culbertson's music, but the strength of her singing and playing is lingering in my head as I write. I like what the label blurb says: "The whole album has a pretty somber feel. The lyrics take on a new meaning when coming from Dawn. She speaks of herself through others' lyrics, highlighting different themes by accentuating different lines. Certain lines that don't stand out on the originals stand out on her versions." This is true of her lute playing as well. The liner notes also reveal that Miss Culbertson passed away in 2004, which certainly adds weight to her music.

  



















FRANCISCO FRANCO Instrumental Demos C50. This is another weird one because it's a band made of three known ragers -- Robert Francisco (M Ax Noi Mach, Angeldust, et al), Matt Franco (Air Conditioning), and Nate Davis (also of Angeldust) -- and what should they play when they all get together but . . . instrumental college rock demos that sound like a band that really looks up to The Cure and R.E.M. Okay, some of it gets a little dark, like a lighter and airier Joy Division, and most of it does have a pretty nice forlorn feeling, like prime For Against, but it's really not what I expected. Getting past these initial judgements somewhere along side two, I think the band does have a pretty good sound. It may be college rock, but at least its underground college rock, like those chilly thin-toned 1980s ballads that you only heard on tiny left of left of the dial campus stations. Still, as the album title itself admits, these are "instrumental demos," and I really do wish they had a singer. In fact, these are such good and clear demos, I can make up lyrics to 'em in all the right places. I might have to move to Philly so I can be their singer. You heard it here first. Guys? I'm in your band.

VEILED Museu Secret C24. Now here's a tape that sounds more like what I expected, again featuring Robert Francisco, this time playing in a duo with Barcelona, Spain musician Arnau Sala, who until recently ran the Ozonokids label and performs solo as Ex-Cop (see review below). There's a nice atmospheric photo of the duo in front of a wall-hung crucifix on the inside of the J-card, and an eerie forlorn religious statue on the cover. The Silvox description calls this tape "leather noise," and that's accurate, but there are no vocals, so it never really falls into the power electronics genre trap, instead riding a changing but constantly tensing electronic noise/synth pulse throughout four more-or-less equal-in-length tracks. It's loud but its also very subdued, and there is eventually even a strange languor in the way the tracks stay reined it. This works well with the "secret museum" concept, as the listener is allowed to step back and simply observe, evaluate, ponder. It also makes me realize how much I prefer drony synths in a noise/power electronics context to drony synths in a cosmic/new age context. (This just in: there's a new Veiled flexi-disc single available from the Glass Coffin label.)

BASTARD D-STRUCTION Narcissistic Suffering in the Static Understandings C24. This one has the most 'characteristic' imagery yet; the band name is Bastard D-Struction, the cassette title is Narcissistic Suffering in the Static Understandings (say what?), the first track is called "Industrialized," and it starts in unabashed classic industrial techno fashion with some news-bite of an irate broadcaster reminding us about all the piles of shit George W. Bush dumped onto our country during his reign . . . see, it's gotten me riled up too! Industrial music works! But seriously, this is some fairly generic but also fairly ripping industrial techno. Side one gets into some gabber styles which I haven't heard for a long time, and it's pretty invigorating. Side two is on more of an 'extreme techno with death metal vocals' trip that I find pretty grating. The vocals seemed a little more sublimated on side one, which I appreciate . . . I'm just not into dudes (or ladies for that matter, but it's usually dudes) who, track after track, only do one of the following: scream, yell, bark, bellow, or growl. Combinations of these five things can work well, but please don't get stuck doing one. But yeah, I already said that the vocals are somewhat varied on this tape, so they get a pass. The tape also has a cool cover. In general, I really dig the Silvox visual aesthetic; I appreciate not having to dig and/or guess to figure out who the artist is and what the name of the album is, and in my old age I'm finding black & white to be just as evocative (and even as psychedelic as) color. 


From 2012: 

MIRROR TALK s/t C38. This band, from Berlin, Germany, appears to be a Silvox discovery, and they've given us an au courant voyage into straight-up 80s-style synth-pop vocal tunes. It's not even really coldwave, more flowery and new romantic. Melancholy, but very, very pretty. Although it is a recent recording, there really isn't a single note, vocal, or move that couldn't have come straight from the 1980s, and I find that somewhat trendy and nostalgic. That said, I do like the way side one ends with a few minutes of near-cosmic instrumental music. It's like these guys earned the right to go near-cosmic by working out a few heartfelt-enough pop ballads first, just as Silvox Recordings earned the right to release trendy and nostalgic 1980s synth-pop by putting out varied music like Veiled and Dawn Culbertson first.

EX-CON Parlant Amb El Costat Esquerre C40. Okay, back to Silvox's bread and butter: "Delicately controlled, raw electronics. Industrial, rhythmic." This is a solo tape by Arnau Sala, the Spanish half of the Veiled duo, and again the label blurb I just quoted describes the music herein succinctly and accurately. There's been a lot of talk the past year or so about how "techno is the new noise," and how former noise artists are turning into techno artists. Some are being accused of trendhopping, not good enough to make real techno. Meanwhile, Ex-Con is sitting comfortably somewhere in between noise and techno without worrying about being either, just making music, and excellent tapes like this one. I like what Sala is doing and I think this and the Veiled tape are the pick of the label so far.

SYNB Scum Cusp C70. We close out this Silvox roundup with another 'characteristic' release: old-school "heavy dark electronics." In fact, SYNB is the nom de guerre of an actual old-school underground noise artist active since the 1990s, Mat Brinkman. You might know him as a musician with the groups Forcefield and Mindflayer, a superb visual artist, and a key member of the so-called Fort Thunder scene that spawned Lightning Bolt and others. He certainly knows what he's doing when it comes to heavy dark electronics, with plenty of space and separation for the weird sounds to be heard playing off of each other. Industrial rhythms both sublimated and pounding, creep-zone textures, and highly controlled white noise. Plenty of good stuff on the tape, though 70 minutes of it is a little too much for me. Tapes can be a different beast than an album, more like sketchbooks. Not to say this particular work is sketchy -- this stuff is "fully realized" -- there's just a lot on here, which means this tape will definitely give you your "money's worth."

BUY SILVOX RECORDINGS
  

PHO BAND/FAUX BAND 10" LATHE CUT (GREATDIVIDING) The greatdividing label of Queensland, Australia is back with a clear-vinyl 10-inch release that I'm guessing is a lathe cut -- it's got that Peter King feel. I'm never 100 percent sure who a greatdividing release is by, even as I'm looking at what I can only assume is the band name on the label. Other than the a range of greatdividing comp, it's either a record by house band Exiles From Clowntown or some combination of "Arob" and "Soottyb" (when Arob and Soottyb release records, are they split releases? Collaborations? For gods sake, are they split collaborations??), except this one is a split between the Pho Band and the Faux Band, although the Pho Band label also says "Arob/Soottyb," while the Faux Band label says "Soottyb/Arob." The greatdividing website says "Two 11 minute long tracks recorded at separate times in different places by the same two blokes," which actually explains it. Both sides of the record do have a very similar M.O., which is almost exactly 11 minutes of one guitar or instrument playing slowly morphing atonal skipping-record-style machine loops, which are improvised over by another with softly sketching guitar scribbles. I do wonder if all the greatdividing music released so far has been improvised, even when they are playing in Exiles from Clowntown, which has riffs and stuff, and sometimes even vocals. The Pho Band/Faux Band is more blatantly improvisational, mellower, and longer. The sometimes-maligned 10-inch format is actually welcome here, because it retains that quick-hit greatdividing style while going on plenty long enough to carve a quite nice and rarefied atmosphere, which I'm going to call 21st Century Industrial Electric Beach Dirge Raga.... good to know someone's doing it. You know, by the time greatdividing has built up 70 or 80 minutes worth of these obscure little 7-inches and 10-inches and lathe-cuts and whatnot, I'm going to want, get this, a CD of their whole discography, something in a nice and somewhat annotated foldout digipak, preferably with a high-quality slipcase. Hint, hint...

---

An INTERVIEW with GREATDIVIDING.

Is greatdividing an improvised music label? A rock label? Do you call your music anything, like when people in the real world ask you what kind of music you play? 

"a simple band of simple mates/ making sounds on a budget rate/ we make no claims to be great/ just simple sounds for simple tastes."

greatdividing was started to release some of the music we'd been doing that would otherwise never see the light of day.

We've been playing and recording in kitchens and halls since the late '70s / early '80s. We started in the same small town, but have lived in different states/cities for a lot of the time since and have swapped stuff and collaborated when visiting and via the post. By the mid '00s we had a heap of tapes and were still recording regularly. Although we had talked about releasing stuff over the years, it just never happened. Eventually greatdividing came into being in 2003. Our criteria for releasing stuff is 'would we want to own this ourselves, if we knew nothing about it?'

When people in the real world ask we're usually pretty flippant about it. We have no reason to label what we do. That's up to others. We are interested to hear other peoples takes on our stuff though. We like reviews, positive or negative…especially if they make us laugh.
  
Arob and Soottyb are two separate artists on the Greatdividing label, right? Two different people, right? Why does the Faux Band side of the lathe-cut say "Arob/Soottyb" and the Pho Band side say "Soottyb/Arob"? Does it have something to do with who plays 'lead' and who plays 'rhythm'? Are Arob and Soottyb also two of the three Exiles from Clowntown? How do you pronounce Soottyb anyway? I want to say Sooty B, which sounds like the name of a rap MC that performs dressed as a inner-city chimney sweep.  

Yep we're both Exiles and most definitely two different people. Both our 'handles' are taken from our email addresses. Soottyb is an amalgamation of a few different nicknames from over the years which got distilled down to Soottyb. It's pronounced : soot-tib. Thats a good one about the rappin' chimney sweep tho, ha!

The credits on the 10" reflect who instigated which track. We keep our real names out of it because our egos aren't involved. We'd been doing this for a long time without anybody ever knowing about us and we'd still be doing it if we had never released anything.

"kicking a few ideas around at greatdividing h.q." Pic by Soottyb.

You said you grew up in a small Queensland town. Where at and what was it like? How did you get into music there? Play in any shitty cover bands, or any good ones? Eventually you ended up in Sydney, right? How did 3 Toed Sloth come about? How did Exiles from Clowntown come about? 

Ah yes, Clowntown…a beautiful spot that the government seemed intent on turning into just another suburban shit hole (and succeeded). For instance, when i was a little kid there were miles of sand dunes along the beaches just outside of town where once you weren't even allowed to stop your car and walk because it was so environmentally sensitive, but by the time i was in my early teens those same dunes were being bulldozed to make way for canal style estates and shopping malls.

Like a lot of small towns, there were a lot of small minds, but also a few of the finest characters you'd ever wanna meet. Needless to say the small minds ruled. None of us have lived there for a long time now. We were run out of town by vicious mobs of grey haired pillars of society and golden haired hitler youth wannabes. 

We played music there purely for our own amusement. The place was ruled over by zealous senior citizens who's motto was There'll be NO FUN in this town! There were no venues or bands. We initially all bonded together through a mutual liking for punk rock. We got into music in the usual ways, friends, older siblings, radio, t.v. etc.   

3 toed sloth' were born from the ashes of Rodent. Rodent was the elder punk in Clowntown. He was great. He told me he could teach a five year old child to play guitar in 15 minutes flat, but he couldn't teach me. One day Rodent took his own life. Later i got his guitar from his parents and taught myself to play (take that rodent!) then i moved to Sydney where I tried unsuccessfully to join a few bands, but i could only play my own songs... A few years later Sharon (a friend from Queensland) turned up in Sydney with a bass. We started going to practice rooms where we would drink beer, make a racket and laugh at ourselves. After a year or so of this we invited Tom along because we wanted to hear what our racket sounded like with drums (feedtime had recently split). We sounded much better. I sang because i wrote the lyrics and nobody else wanted to. After awhile we were asked to play with our friends La Sect Rouge. We played our first show supporting them late '89. We never played all that often, it wasn't a good time for small bands like us. I only remember bits 'n' pieces…at one show i broke all my guitar strings by the fifth song. We were all good at breaking stuff. A friend once said that seeing 3 toed sloth was "like watching a bull in a china shop". Not exactly sure what they meant, but it rings true anyway. By the end of 1990 we had loads of songs and decided to record some to document what we'd been doing up to that point. In '91 we self released an lp. Our attitude was that it should live or die on its own merits. No promotion. We kept at it for another two years and recorded once more, when a fan offered to record us at his college studio as part of his course. Those recordings finally got released seventeen years later as the '…against the odds' dbl 7" on Unwucht and the Negative Guest List Jukebox Single #2. We never stopped coming up with new songs and it was always fun, but nobody wanted to know about us and towards the end we couldn't get a show for love nor money. Sometime around late '93 we just kind of stopped. People seem way more interested now than they ever were when we were around…we played four shows in 2011 (including SS-Ten in SF) to celebrate the release of the 7"s and twenty years since the lp. We had a blast. No future plans. 

Exiles from Clowntown is a bridge of friendship that links our futures and pasts. Although we'd all known each other for a long time, we only started playing together in this combination when the other two shared a big cheap house in Melbourne in the mid '90s. They had a room soundproofed with old mattresses where they practiced with a band they had with someone else. There were always instruments lying around so we would just muck around playing stuff off the top of our heads once in awhile. When it clicked it was effortless fun and we'd play for hours, if it didn't click we'd just hang out drinking and listen to records. After they moved out of there we all ended up in different cities and only got to play very occasionally. Somehow that made us focus on it more and its become our main musical focus. We enjoy it and although we do it for fun, we are serious about making music we want to hear.

Exiles in Clowntown live at 'greatdividing and friends' night. Pic by Kris Morriss. "Framed picture of the queen is part of the decor, not a prop."

"3 toed sloth and feedtime play their first shows in 17 and 22 years respectively greatdividing night easter 2011." Pics by Brendan Boucher. 

How often do greatdividing bands play shows? Do you ever tour in Australia? Any plans to travel to the USA and lose thousands of dollars playing to 10 or 15 weirdos at a time? Any other greatdividing plans being hatched you'd like to unveil here? An Exiles from Clowntown full-length perchance?

Everyone involved is scattered around the country, so its hard to arrange anything, let alone shows. We mainly play when people are kind enough to invite us…we try to oblige. We put on a 'greatdividing and friends' night last year in a small club on top of a large cliff over looking the pacific ocean. It was pretty great. 

We'd like to play more often, but its difficult with the distance thing and us all having busy lives etc.  As far as us coming to play in the U.S…that sounds only slightly less far fetched than saying we're going to tour Mars, but never say never i guess…we're open to offers! 

Current plans:  There's a new comp of new and old stuff 'Another range of greatdividing' in the works, with Unwucht doing the vinyl late 2012 or early 2013. 

There's been a long standing plan to do an Exiles from Clowntown LP.  Brendon from Negative guest list was a big supporter and had asked about NGL doing it, but that's not gonna happen since his unfortunate untimely passing. Since then Soft Abuse from Minneapolis have been in touch and offered to do it, so thanks to them it may actually happen in the not too distant future… 

Some good people here have offered to help organise Exiles…shows in Melbourne and Hobart later this year and we're looking forward to that.

"the small question mark in the middle of this poster was the only hint of a particularly well guarded secret that our friends feedtime (with tom on drums) *might play for the first time in twenty two years (as a public warm up for their one off at SS-Ten in 2011) *might  because we made them an open invitation and despite them all being in attendance, it was only confirmed they would play 45 minutes before they took to the stage...after saying 'fuck off, no way" when asked half an hour before that…"

Speaking of playing shows, what's the story behind this youtube clip? Some sort of outdoor festival, smart drink tent not visible? Was it a good night/day? If it isn't obvious by now in the interview, what's the lineup here?

   

It was a free festival of experimental and noise music. Held inside a large tin shed on an old government ship building island in Sydney Harbour early 2012. It was a good day, borrowed gear, no soundcheck, broken bass string in first song (no replacement), drum kit that kept falling apart…it all went pretty smoothly. Not saying we were best or anything like that, but we were definitely the loudest and most rocking.  Lineup: Soottyb - guitar + rav-box + shout , Arob - bass + mumble, Mr Mopriss - drums + inspiration *we like mix it up and swap instruments every so often. 

Who are these other bands on the range of greatdividing comp . . . Shoptoprockers? Rock Boycott? The heavily named Deep Brain Thrombosis? Rock Boycott & The Yellow Steed?? What's their deal, are they all still playing? Is either Arob or Soottyb or both in all of these bands too? 

Shoptoprockers: One of many projects that flourished in the cheap rental accommodation above shops on busy inner city roads in the 80's/90's. With no next door neighbours to annoy, we played to irritated flatmates and pissed off passing pedestrians. 

Rock Boycott: A jack of all instruments and master of drum (machine). Rumoured to be the bastard love child of Big John Zupp and Jackie Mac (minor '70s Brisbane t.v. celebs). Abandoned in the Beau Desert as a child and raised by dingoes. One day he crawled from beneath the rock ledge they called home, stood on two feet and walked. During this forward trajectory he turned laughing to himself and mumbled "rock boycott"...has made little sense since.

Deep brain thrombosis: Originally inspired to make music by T.V. advert jingles and later obsessed by the Radio Story from the second album by Alternative TV. Dbt is still trying to perfect the art of the downer jingle…its a real dilemma! 

the Yellow Steed: An early incarnation of Exiles from Clowntown during their space junk rock phase. Although they didn't know it at the time, they would prove to be the perfect backing band for Rock Boycott during his rock hard cock phase. 

Dbt and Rock Boycott are on going. Shoptoppers and Yellow Steed have been subsumed by Exiles… 

Arob and/or Soottyb are involved.

There has been a lot of exciting underground punk/rock musical activity coming from Australia just in the last couple years. Arob, in a previous communique you listed a bunch of killer Australian bands that inspired you growing up. So, in closing, the multi-part question from hell: who are the best Australian bands currently active, who are the best Australian bands of all-time, and who are the best non-Australian bands of all-time?

That's a great multi-part question from hell, but we don't really know much about best-evers…here's some Youtube stuff we like.

'77   

O string buster san 



A Warning



Homely



Nyuck x 3 




AEOC



Village idiot 



Shirt Dance



G.G.



Diamonds



Tender



Jesus christ in reverse



Choose



Some old guy




A GREATDIVIDING SAMPLER:

RELEVANT LINKS:

http://www.greatdividing.com 

http://www.vice.com/read/

rettsounds-unwucht

SUMMERTIME RECORD HAUL

PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer LP (MEXICAN SUMMER)
BLUES CONTROL Valley Tangents LP (DRAG CITY)
JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE Axis: Bold As Love LP (REPRISE)
BURNING SPEAR Marcus Garvey LP (ISLAND) 
NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE s/t LP (COLUMBIA) 

This is a list of the albums I bought at the record store this past weekend, in the order I played 'em that night after getting home. It was great to get the new Blues Control album on vinyl, but a couple weeks ago I received a (completely authorized) preview download of it, which I've since listened to 13 times, according to iTunes. By contrast, I did not have preview mp3s for Lucifer, Peaking Lights' hotly-anticipated-by-me follow-up to their lovely album from early 2011 called 936. A week or two ago, I even refused to click on a blog link offering a (completely unauthorized) free preview download of Lucifer, because I knew I was going to buy it when it was in the stores. I hope Emily White, David Lowery, AND Kenneth Goldsmith are all taking notes! I was going to buy it, instead of indefinitely "previewing" mp3s of it, just to own a print of Robert Beatty's cover art, but of course I had high hopes for the tunes themselves, hoping this would be a 936-and-beyond kind of record, especially after listening to the advance track "Lo Hi," a bold fusion of their most obvious reggae skanking yet with extended R&B-dream-prog-balladry and what is hands down the sweetest vocal appearance of an artist's infant child on wax since "Isn't She Lovely." And you know, now that I've listened to the record a good 4 or 5 times, and gotten familiar with a couple songs that I initially missed, I'd have to say that it is indeed a 936-and-beyond kind of record. And even if the tunes are in the background and you're simply viewing Lucifer as a collection of grooves this is still a good funky listen. All the summertime/barbecue/beach/lounge stuff people are tweeting about this record that gets retweeted by Peaking Lights is accurate. But turn it up, come closer to the songs, and you'll hear what lifts the material beyond mere barbecue grooves, that radiant glow of motherfatherhood that was even in full flower with 936, before their son was born. The foundation grooves might be retreating back to basic 70s disco/funk templates, but the way they are embellished with highly personal elements like actual melodic synth playing, Aaron Coyes's sundazed soul guitar licks, and Indra Dunis's simple and lovely melodies glowing through and illuminating it all, well, wow. Also love Beatty's design and the whole Lord of Light concept, including a hefty mandala poster inside. Also special shout-out to a relatively cheap full-length LP on Mexican Summer! ($14.99!)

So yeah, I already talked about the Blues Control LP last post, but special side note here about how cool it is that Peaking Lights and Blues Control are both romantically involved male-female musical duos, both influenced by a melting pot of music, who both just released great peak-performance-so-far type albums on the same summer day, which both have a kind of blue-on-white color scheme on the cover, and even a tilted-axis perspective to the art. For the record, I think it's completely 100 percent parallel development and coincidence, and besides some surface similarities in instrumentation and influence, the bands really don't sound like each other. Anyway, I played Blues Control next because my kids, age 9 and 7, who I have to compete with for early evening media fun time, and don't always want to listen to the records I do, really like Valley Tangents (I think mainly for certain particularly bouncy jazz-fusion passages that sound like really awesome video game music . . . needless to say "Iron Pigs" is a big hit). They're really liking Peaking Lights too, and definitely enjoy Ms. Dunis's sweet and dreamy singing. As for Blues Control, they've been present for many of those aforementioned 13 listens, and I don't think they've even once cared or even noticed that no one is singing at all.

Every time I go to Reckless I can't help grabbing a few of the classic, great, collection-hole-filling, oft-partied-on records in the $3-$10 range that are always stuffing the bins there. For example, why not grab a $2.99 hella-used copy of Axis: Bold As Love? Even though I did have it on vinyl, back in the day (80's reissue bought at the mall), at some misguided point I traded it in so I could "upgrade" to a CD copy, which I still have, from that run where they gave the classic first three Jimi Hendrix Experience albums NEW COVERS, if you can believe that. This $3 copy of Axis is much better, and not just because it has the correct cover. I mean, it is a total beater . . . every possible seam is split and the tunes come with lotsa crackle and some erratic skipping . . . but man, when the music is making it through uninterrupted, it is pure singing and stinging psychedelic honey of the absolute proper vintage. This copy even smells like the 70s . . . and I know because I was there.

Also grabbed a VG copy of Marcus Garvey by Burning Spear for a pittance. One of the great soul singers of all time (though in the service of Jamaican reggae, not American R&B), leading a set of deep roots historical/cultural protest songs from 1975. Not particularly dubby or otherwise notable production-wise, it's all about the intensity of Spear's singing and subject matter. Excellent record, which leaves us with the self-titled debut by the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Honestly, after all this heavy hippie music, this 1970 LP of mellow singer-songwriter country-music folk-rock might just be a little on the light side. I do like the New Riders, but I've always wanted to like them even more, because they play a version of what Gram Parsons called Cosmic American Music, which sounds like a beautiful idea, and they have a Grateful Dead connection, with Jer on pedal steel and Mickey Hart occasionally on the drum kit, and they have one dreamy cosmic nature ballad I really like called "Last Lonely Eagle," and it's on here, as is the 8-minute "Dirty Business," which is my second favorite song by them, with some extremely gnarly distorto fuzz pedal steel madness by Garcia. Overall though, I'd have to say Parsons's own Cosmic American Music band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, was a little more substantial than the New Riders. (Surprisingly, Sneaky Pete Kleinow is just as cosmic on the pedal steel as Garcia . . . also just found out that Sneaky Pete's steel guitar is that glorious sound in John Lennon's "Mind Games," which I always found to be a somewhat underrated psychedelic pop rager, with intense lyrics like "Some kinda druid dude/Lifting the veil.")

NEW ARRIVALS

BLUES CONTROL Valley Tangents LP (DRAG CITY) Way back around 2005 the band Blues Control, in the guise of another band called Watersports (same two members, Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse), were coming out of the noise underground talking about how they played "new age" music. This was a good three or four years before so many of the other equipment demonstrators in today's underground started doing just that, en masse. In the meantime a Watersports side project called Blues Control had started taking up more of Russ & Lea's time, and seemed to assimilate a lot of Watersports' new age concepts along the way. Now it's been a few years and Blues Control are so far ahead of the new new age crowd that their new album Valley Tangents really has very little to do with the term. People have called this a fusion album, and honestly, I think you could even call it straight-up fusion jazz. Either way, Blues Control play MUSIC, that is, series of instrumental phrases that sing from the heart, and have the ability to react to their immediate surroundings with freedom of movement and conversational play. This kind of music is impossible to mechanize, and Blues Control are so far into that zone with this new album that it's really quite a joy. Just listen to the opening track "Love's A Rondo." My iTunes says I've listened to it 9 times this week, and that doesn't count the 2 or 3 times I've watched the video, and how do I count the number of times bits and pieces of the song have been weaving through my head when the album isn't on? The way the short drum intro groove gives way to the gently cascading guitar & keyboard main love theme, which then gives way to a bold and long jazz piano solo by Ms. Cho, which gives way to variations on the main theme that alternate, rondo-style indeed, with deep-digging guitar lead sections from Mr. Waterhouse. Just a jaw-dropping deep heavy gorgeous tune, and honestly one of the great new love songs from the last.... 30 years? It certainly is in my house, and please note that Blues Control remain a 100 percent instrumental band, yet still have more to say than so many bands that actually write lyrics and sing them. And then "Iron Pigs" comes along, and it's kind of ridiculous.... Casio gunshots? Cheeseball synth horn fanfares? Giving way to a stomping and grunting stadium march? It freaked me out the first couple times I heard it, but now I love it. They've often had a track like that... on the preceding album Local Flavor it was the opener "Good Morning." But I digress, and from there I won't give away too much more about Valley Tangents, except that on it, Blues Control continue to venture into more extended, lush, jazzy, and brazenly romantic territories than they ever have before. Long may they rondo! Street date for the LP, CD, and CS (!) is this Tuesday, June 19th, and as of this writing you can stream the whole album at Ad Hoc. Last but not least, Blues Control will be touring the US, beginning this summer. Here's the facebook event page.

VARIOUS ARTISTS Eat The Dream: Gnawa Music From Essaouira LP (SUBLIME FREQUENCIES) It was excellent news that my favorite intercontinental music record label, Sublime Frequencies, was going to release an LP documenting one of my favorite intercontinental musics, the bass-driven trance-frenzy of Gnawa. The Gnawa are a North African people, often described with some awe and mystery, who migrated from deep West Africa to the Morocco region centuries ago. Thus, Gnawa music represents a synthesis of both African and Arabic shamanistic trance styles, and bass freaks unite, because gnawa is really all about one single acoustic bass instrument and that is the guimbri (spelled multiple different ways such as guembri or gimbri and also known as a sintir). This is a rough-hewn three-string rectangular lute that hammers down deep, driving, spiritual chanting lines built from simple pentatonic scales, usually accompanied by percussion and vocal exhortation, and whatever else goes on during deep all-night spiritual trance sessions. This article on Perfect Sound Forever gives some excellent background, and if they're still working, these files are an excellent introduction to the music via one of its masters, Mahmoud Guinia. And for all my anticipation, this Eat the Dream LP is really just about as excellent as I hoped, beginning with a gorgeous, deep, and dark guimbri solo by Maleem Abdellah Chania. He's the son of another Gnawa master, the late Maâllem Boubker Ghania, who leads the ensemble that plays on the rest of the album. There are also some spacious field-recording interludes as well, all recorded during a1994 trip to Morocco by Tucker Martine, who has already done a few fine releases for Sublime Frequencies. 

ED SCHRADER'S MUSIC BEAT Jazz Mind LP (LOAD RECORDS) Floor tom & bass guitar is the unlikely instrumental combo that makes up this Baltimore-based performing duo, and what's more they use it to build an invisible cavern of reverberating low end in which all kinds of sublimated 1960s-1980s glam pop ballad hooks lurk and cast shadows. They're put there by the singer, Ed Schrader, who also beats the drum. They aren't doing anything overtly minimal with the music, and in fact can almost sound like a regular rock band, except that they can't help but leave more hanging space in the sound than usual. This creates the contours of the aforementioned cavern, and Schrader is comfortable in it. Both the A and B side begin with a rager of a tune (which may point to an unashamed past headbanging to the mainstream industrial twin towers of Reznor and Jourgensen), but most of the record is made up of downtempo ballads, one of them a capella, and Schrader really has a feel for the form.

EGG, EGGS The Cleansing Power Of Fruit LP (FEEDING TUBE) First off, the press one-sheet that came with this album refers to Matt Krefting in the opening sentence, and his name is even bolded, which makes it look like he's in the band, which a couple people have already reported, Stigliano for one. I assumed he was in the band too, but after re-reading the sentence, which does not refer to him actually being in the band, and not finding his name on the extensive personnel listing inside the LP, I've determined that he probably is not actually a member. In fact, the only names I recognize are that of Matt "MV" Valentine and Conrad Capistran, the Sound of Pot himself, and they're mere "special guests." (EDIT: Oh wait, I totally recognize one more name, John Moloney on drums, electronics, and guitar. Sorry, it's a long personnel listing.) The band, like Krefting, is from Western Massachusets, but the frontman/vocalist here is in fact one Dave Russell, and you know, I've heard plenty of "ultra-goofy" and "weird person" lead vocalists over the past decade or so of punk and noise and no wave nowness, and this guy is honestly one of the most compelling ones I've come across. A lot of 'em just sort of get stuck doing their best to shriek/shout/chant/yell/goof right along with the music, but Russell not only rides with the music, he goes against it, in spite of it, instead of it, etcetera, in a disarmingly conversational manner. You feel like you're being communicated with, instead of shrieked at from a kept distance. Shards of strange thought steadily cross your path, like how Russell just told me that "you can dance with an albino bigot!" Then the extremely shambly basement garage noise-rock combo ("a goddamn all-star Valley ensemble") takes over and shuffles him away, but before you know it he's back with more mumbling, chirping, shucking, jiving, and singing. And you know what? It's working for me.

NEW ARRIVALS

On top of the pile we've got a brand new 7-inch EP by Tropical Trash, a Louisville, Kentucky band with members that have or do put in time with Blastitude favorite Sapat, and like that band, they play a strange cool take on underground rock. The EP is called Fear of Suffering, and it's got five tunes in all, one on the A and four quicker ones on the B. Press blurb mentions MX-80 Sound and that is indeed a good starting point. Weird, proggy, noise/experimental undertones, and, most importantly, heavy without resorting to mere distorto-bludgeon. I look forward to more material, and I'm excited that I'm not quite sure what to expect from it. I'm not even sure what to expect the next time I play this 7-inch. Editon of 200 on white from the Sophomore Lounge label.

Speaking of noise/experimental underground rock music, next on the pile is Sinews, the brand new LP by the White Suns on Load Records. White Suns are a three-piece from Brooklyn, two guitarists and a drummer, and they play what is basically screamy noise rock in a 90s aggro/emo style, with two of the band-members simultaneously working their own noise/electronics set-ups. That in and of itself might not sound 100 percent fresh, but let me tell you, not only does the band know how to play very well together, they also know how to compose and arrange. I seriously can't think of a single quote-unquote noise-rock band in the last decade who has used this much gradational dynamic range, space, and stasis in their compositions, without ever relinquishing a core clenched-teeth aggression, not even for a second. No matter how mad at the world your noise-rock band is, you can't be pummeling and bludgeoning and screaming all of the time. Sometimes life requires us to sit still, grit our teeth, and wait, and these moments are amply reflected here, as when, to name just one example, a torrential and viciously tight 90s aggro/emo tuned-snare outburst will drop into extended sub-bass noise-music solo-rumble minimalism. Also, the vocals are meted out carefully as to not shout the listener out of the room. It all reminds me that, yes, there were a few bands in that 90s aggro/emo style that were actually quite listenable, and White Suns are honestly up there with some of the very best, occupying a space that I will dare to shorthand as "Dazzling Killmen meets Gastr Del Sol." When the Load Records one-sheet begins, "The second full-length from Brooklyn's White Suns is a passage into the deeper recesses of contemporary psychic struggle," it is not one-sheet hyperbole at all.

Remember that Vwyrd Wurd label from a few blog-posts back, pronounced "weird word," and their debut edition-of-100 12-inch by a spooky tenuous weird non-singing noise-folk duo called Nocht The Only Ghouls? Well, now the label's brand new second release has just arrived on my desk, and it's honestly even more of a head-scratcher because it's something completely different, an album of dream-ambient synth-wash techno-pop soundtrack drama by an artist called . . . Daywand. The record is called Temporary Sanctuary. I've already listened to it three times trying to suss it out, and much of it sounds just plain wrong, like two late-night made-for-cable cop-show soundtracks are playing at the same time, or like a much shakier version of Ford & Lopatin, and yet I think this music is as compelling as any of the cop-show chillwave soundclouds I've streamed on Altered Zones, or Adhoc.fm, or whatever style/fashion blogs the kids are kickstarting these days. I'm not sure if I can explain why I like it better, but I'll try. One, it's on vinyl instead of mp3 or soundcloud or youtube. Two, it's from a hype-free scene (like Nocht the Only Ghouls and the Vwyrd Wurd label, Daywand is from the wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania). Three, I was already rooting for the label because I like their first release. Four, this is some really good Thai stick I'm smoking right now. (Just kidding about the last one. I don't even know what Thai stick is!) Mostly, it's because Daywand, like White Suns, but in a much different way, are "a passage into the deeper recesses." Keep an eye on these Vwyrd Wurd cats, okay?

And now for some new arrivals that aren't so new... I'm worried these are not just 2 months old, but like 2 years old. But hey, they're new to me and maybe new to you too. On top are two releases from The Spring Press label, first up one by Carlos Giffoni called Lift, in fact the first Giffoni solo thing I've listened to in something like 7 years. Haven't heard his No Fun Acid project at all, for example, although I did keep up with a couple '00s releases by his long-running (these days mostly not running) band Monotract, and those were great (seriously, peep 'em), but that's essentially rock music. Solo he plays harsh noise electronics that hammer their way into hardcore techno, and that's what we're getting with Lift, which sounds pretty "no fun acidy" to me, in a good way. The last song on the album is called "Society Is Born Again Just To Party," and it is indeed a slammin' acid wiggle that I, for one, can definitely party too. Someone pass the Thai stick! (Just kidding!)

One thing about that Giffoni record, and it would seem Spring Press in general, is that -- although the records look really nice -- you kind of have to hunt to find the album details, you know, like "Who is this by?" and "What is this called?" In fact, on this next Spring Press release, you have to hunt to find any text at all. The cover is a beautiful painting (The Lute Player by Caravaggio!), with no title or band name. There's no text on the back cover, either, and hey, guess what! NO TEXT ON THE LABELS EITHER. There's not even any text on the spine of the record sleeve. Call me old-fashioned but I guess I think a record should at least tell you who it's by, somewhere. I'm sure this record is by somebody, and probably even has a densely poetic title that is several words long. Either way, by the time I'm tilting the run-out groove into the bleak room light looking for any scrawled information, believe me, I'm a little fed up... ... and when I don't find any there either, it's a relief to finally trudge off to the internet to find out the title at thespringpress.com, and there it is: Ambianxe by Marco Fusinato. He's from Australia, and his album is solo electric guitar noise, performed live in Japan. Most of side 2 is completely silent, but when his guitar is audible, it is refreshingly heavy and active. It's been awhile since I've heard relatively unprocessed solo electric guitar mangle, so this is hitting the spot.

Hey, here's another excellent record on Sophomore Lounge. This one's also a little older, from a little deeper in the pile, and it's an edition-of-200 split release between Geffika and Skimask. Geffika live in Chicago, and are a woman-and-man guitar-and-drums doom-sludge-type duo, and they do it with a lot of heart, like a Melvins without any of the "we're going to annoy you" tomfoolery and a smaller recording budget. Very heavy yet still fragile because of the yearning gutsy twin vocals. I'm going to have try to check out a Geffika show somewhere since they live in the same city that I do. Too bad they haven't updated their blog in almost a year! Skimask are from Boston and play low-end wind-tunnel electro-punk, also pretty good stuff though not as immediate as the Geffika. No relation to the solo artist Ski-Mask from Buffalo I reviewed somewhere on this page back in 2004 (it seemed possible, had to look it up).