The drunken heavy rock charm of Canyon Creep‘s 2001 full-length, Hijack the World, makes itself known almost immediately on the aptly-titled intro, “Intro.” Starting off with some dramatic sampled horns that may or may not have been recorded from a tv and may or may not have come from Flash Gordon, a voiceover soon comes on to set the stage:

“Once upon a time
in a land called suburbia
There lived a noble breed of men
Men who spent their lives on a never-ending quest
For honor, glory… and fine chicks.”

So it goes, and “No Brakes” picks up as the first chapter of that quest — rife with unpretentious, ballsy riffing and a not-in-the-slightest serious mood. I managed to nab a copy of Hijack the World on the cheap thanks to All That is Heavy‘s ongoing series of $6.66 killer deals — along with records by Rite, Bongripper, Tweak Bird, Wellwater Conspiracy, Monkey3, Jason Simon, and so on — and with production by Billy Anderson and art by Italian collective Malleus in their early days, felt lucky to do so.

It tops 28 minutes and I suspect if it was going to change the planet it probably would’ve done so at some point in the last 12 years, but the San Francisco trio’s first and only studio outing tapped into a heavy riffing dudery that’s still prevalent today, guitarist/vocalist Tony Buhagiar keeping to a throaty delivery offset by some of the corresponding backing vocals of bassist Dave V. (who takes a lead spot on “Can’t Afford You”) and drummer Jerry Rivera. Songs are by and large short and straightforward, the longest being six-track and highlight “Black Bra” at 4:59, but extras like the gang shouts at the beginning of “I Got the Shakes” and the (surprisingly righteous) bluesy guitar interlude “Warm Beer” add to the no-frills appeal already present in the Northern California ode “Yreka,” which shows some of its date in lyrics bitching about guys in baggy pants, but winds up on the winning side of the argument anyway.

But the high point of the record is “Black Bra,” the unabashed dudeliness of which stands as symbolic of an era when “not being PC” meant more than an excuse for white people to post racist shit on Facebook. They’re doing it in the name of comedy, but there’s a narrative at work anyway and the cleverness of lines like, “Got stuck with a bad borracho/Started talkin’ shit and tryin’ to act all macho/He grabbed your ass and you decked el gacho/With a brick and I would’ve loved to watch you, yeah,” underscoring not only stoner rock’s ongoing penchant for interspersing Spanish lyrics (always fun), but a divide where charm and a familiar misogyny part ways. They’re on the right side of that argument too, and the brick has a lot to do with it, but more relevant, the song rocks and sets up the ending “Can’t Afford You,” “Yreka” and “Give Me Some,” all three of which are about scoring, on some level.

Canyon Creep can get filed maybe not under lost classics, but under decent records worth a look for those like me who may have missed them when they first came out. Another 10 or 15 years and all this stuff will get reissued by somebody or other. Buhagiar and Rivera play together in Tuco Ramirez, and at least according to the Canyon Creep Thee Facebooks, there’s a second Canyon Creep album being worked on that never came to fruition during the band’s first run, which ended in 2002 after Hijack the World came out. Whether or not it ever comes together, the debut may be a blip on history’s radar, but it’s a blip with some cool riffing and beery grooves, and that’s enough for me to dig it.

Canyon Creep, “Warm Beer” & “Black Bra” from Hijack the World

Canyon Creep on Thee Facebooks

Tuco Ramirez on Thee Facebooks

I know this is going to sound strange looking at the stack of CDs above, but the truth is, I didn’t buy as much at Roadburn and Desertfest as I could have. For instance, this whole trip, I only picked up two pieces of vinyl — the new Electric Moon 10″ and the Yawning Man/Fatso Jetson split 12″ — and that’s it. I didn’t buy the Dread Sovereign 12″, limited as it was, and there were countless other pieces I could’ve grabbed and justified buying with the sheer fact that it was money I wasn’t spending on booze. I’m not going to go as far as calling it restrained, but it was nowhere near the most reckless I’ve ever been when it comes to spending cash on albums, even with the exchange rate taken into account.

Stuff like Winnebago Deal, Black Skies, Sparzanza and Endless Boogie (good thing I bought that, because indeed, they didn’t have it at the merch table) I’ve already talked about picking up at Sounds in Tilburg, and that was awesome. It came as a surprise though to find a full-on Svart Records table in the merch area when Roadburn itself started up. I guess it made sense, with Svart acts like Victor Griffin’s In~Graved, Jess and the Ancient Ones and Seremonia playing the fest, but it was still cool to see and I appreciated the chance to buy CDs from the former two acts (the latter I’d already bought my last time at Armageddon Shop in Providence), since although I was sent digital promos for both, I’d rather save myself the trouble of hearing something like Jess and the Ancient Ones‘ Astral Sabbat or Hexvessel‘s Iron Marsh, liking it and then being pissed later and just cut out the middle-man, bite the bullet and buy the album without feeling like I then need to cover it. I got the High Priest of Saturn CD from that table too, and no regrets.

The Burning World Records table at Roadburn also had a few necessities, among them the Mount Wrath live set from Conan — their 2012 Roadburn appearance in the Stage01 room that was so frickin’ loud I feel like I can still hear it — and I also grabbed a disc from The Angelic Process called Coma Waering that I’d later learn was a reissue of a full-length from 2006 and not in fact a follow-up to 2007′s Weighing Souls with Sand, which I remember digging a lot when it came out on Profound Lore, and a copy of Slomatics‘ A Hocht, which Burning World released last year but which I hadn’t gotten to hear. Right on the other side of the same room was the Exile on Mainstream table, which was selling Toner Low‘s III and from which I also bought the first Tlön album, having remembered digging the second one after getting it from the same source last year.

It’s worth pointing out that neither of those records is actually on the Exile on Mainstream label, but they were selling them nonetheless and I relished the chance to pick them up, along with the self-titled Johnson Noise, which it turns out I already own, and a copy of Electric Moon‘s The Doomsday Machine, of which I’d later buy a double from the band’s table. Admittedly, when Electric Moon showed up, I got impulsive. My instinct was to buy everything they had, and I didn’t go that far, but in addition to a second The Doomsday Machine, I also got the Electric Moon, D-Tune EP, the aforementioned 10″ You Can See the Sound of… and one of guitarist Sula Bassana‘s solo albums, as well as Vibravoid‘s Gravity Zero on Sulatron Records. There was more and I’d have got it, but frankly I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

From bands, well, I got two tapes from The Cosmic Dead – Live at the Note and Inner Sanctum – in addition to a CD of Orbiting Salvation, both Kadavar discs from their table, the digibook version of Les Discrets‘ Ariettes Oubliées… (review here) after seeing them so thoroughly bring that material to life on stage at Het Patronaat, Black Magician‘s Nature is the Devil’s Church, The Midnight Ghost Train‘s Buffalo, and the Within Time album by Koiramato, which I’d soon understand was being sold by Mr. Peter Hayden because it’s a full-length of complementary textures for MPH‘s Born a Trip sophomore outing. I set up the CD to go at the same time as the Born a Trip Bandcamp stream and sure enough, even the changes lined up. It was excellent. I’ve never gotten something like that just right before — see Neurosis‘ Times of Grace and Tribes of Neurot‘s Grace and me with my fingers on two very out-of-sync play buttons — so it was exciting on multiple levels.

Aside from a free Van Records compilation, that would be it from Roadburn, and though I tried and failed to hit up a couple stores I’d been to previously in London — goneski — I still did alright at Desertfest and at the pre-show, picking up albums from Enos and 1000mods from the night before the fest-proper began, and filling out the weekend with that already-noted Yawning Man/Fatso Jetson split vinyl, a CD by Black Moth that I haven’t had the chance to hear yet but am very much looking forward to based on the couple minutes of their set that I saw, and Center of Gravity by Croatian heavy riffers Center, which I was given to hopefully review. I haven’t gotten there yet — I’m back a week now and I haven’t even gotten caught up on email, though I’m working on it — but maybe one of these days. The record’s pretty cool, in any case.

A lot of the stuff I’ve not yet had the chance to check out, but the good part about an actual CD is I don’t get pissed off about the real estate on my desktop it’s taking up and delete the folder. Can’t say the same for, well, nearly every digital promo I get these days. The last couple years have definitely seen a decline for the compact disc — more than ever in 2013 were the vinyl-only releases featured — but I still did alright, and hopefully I’ll continue to do alright until CDs go the way of those other dead formats, LPs and tapes. And by that I mean get a retro comeback. I’ve got no shortage to listen to in the meantime.

The Cosmic Dead, Orbiting Salvation

Not that it’s not something I do on the regular anyway, but there’s something even more satisfying about going record shopping when The Patient Mrs. isn’t around. I guess it’s the illusion that I’m getting away with something, though basically, it’s that: an illusion. But a couple weekends ago, as I was headed down to Philly to catch Been Obscene share a Kung Fu Necktie bill with Borracho, SuperVoid and Clamfight (review here), she was gone for a few days and I took it upon myself to make a stop off at Vintage Vinyl in Fords to pick up a few odds and ends.

If ever there was a justification for the Garden State Parkway — which is among the most overpopulated, miserable, thin-laned highways I’ve ever driven on (and I’ve driven on California’s 101,  the Masspike into Boston and I-95 all up and down the Eastern Seaboard) — it’s Vintage Vinyl. Exit 130 if you’re going southbound, as I was, it’s a destination-type shop; one worth traveling to even if you’re not necessarily driving somewhere else. Jersey has a scant few remaining, but Vintage Vinyl is the one most geared toward the heavier end of the spectrum. The metal CD section is the first thing you see after getting in the door. Awesome.

Most of what I grabbed this time through was stuff I’d reviewed by wanted a physical copy of. I’ve ranted enough about how much it annoys me to make these purchases — I suppose if someone had to be the last one to place any value whatsoever on my time, it was bound to be me — so I’ll spare that, but I was still glad to nab recent outings from Samothrace, Troubled Horse, Darkthrone, Orange Goblin and SardoniS. I’d wanted to get Royal Thunder‘s CVI and finally give it the listen I’ve felt it really deserved since I saw the band in Manhattan in February — even though their guitarist spit beer on the crowd — but decided to roll with the preceding 2010 self-titled instead.

That’s an old impulse. I remember being upwards of 10 years old, hearing a band’s song on the radio, and then buying the album before to hear where they came from. I don’t know if I’m the only one who does it, but it’s something I’ve always done. It’s a two-sided deal, because I do get to listen to the origins of a band, or at least the relative origins, but don’t get the material I want to hear. Why, when I was obviously buying a stack of discs, was I limiting myself to just one Royal Thunder CD when I could’ve easily solved the problem by getting both? I don’t know. Old habits die hard.

Fortunately, the self-titled is pretty awesome in its own right, though I think the pick of the haul might have to be Beast in the Field‘s 2009 sophomore outing, Lechuguilla. The Michigan instrumentalists hadn’t quite yet adopted the Satan-loving aesthetic of their two subsequent albums to date, 2010′s World Ending and 2011′s Lucifer, Bearer of Light, but the work itself is no less malevolent. Broken into six tracks, the 37-minute long-player is essentially one extended piece, building a huge tension throughout the first several tracks before finally landing at full impact with “Lake OF Blue Giants” and carrying a vicious lumber through the remaining two extended cuts, “Castrovalva” and “The Emperor’s Throne Room.” I got turned on to these guys last summer when I was out their way en route to Days of the Doomed II, and I have yet to regret getting ahold of one of their albums. I’ve got them all now, so they’re four for four in my book, and hopefully Lucifer, Bearer of Light has a follow-up soon.

I’d heard Mirror of Deception‘s previous outing, 2006′s Shards, and so was glad to pick up 2010′s The Smouldering Fire on the cheap with the bonus disc, and something I’ve been meaning to get as long as I’ve been meaning to get to Vintage Vinyl was My Sleeping Karma‘s last album, Soma. The purchase was bittersweet (it’s the first of their albums I’ve not been given a physical promo to review), but I was comforted by the opportunity to hear the two bonus tracks in the digipak version. First is “Interlude by Sheyk rAleph,” performed by the long-tenured German sitarist/psychedelic soundscaper Ralph Nebl, who uses Sheyk rAleph as a stage name, and second is “Glow 11,” a remix credited to Holzner & Kaleun that brings electronic beats into the melting pot of My Sleeping Karma‘s heavy psych meditations. What’s really interesting about it is neither would’ve been out of place had they been included as part of the album proper, which I guess shows just how expansive the band’s palette has become.

Of course, the subsequent gig at Kung Fu Necktie was the highlight of the night, but a bit of record shopping beforehand certainly took the bite out of the trip, there and back afterwards. And The Patient Mrs. was kind enough to not even mention it later, letting me keep my delusions of sneakiness, so really it was an all-around win however you might want to look at it.

My Sleeping Karma, “Interlude by Sheyk rAleph”

I bumped into T.G. Olson‘s The Complete Blood Meridian for Electric Drone Guitar 6CD set the way someone might bump into a mountain. I was in the process of putting together the recent stream of the Across Tundras/Lark’s Tongue split, and found it on the Across Tundras Bandcamp page, just waiting for me. And I say it was “waiting for me,” because who else could it possibly have been waiting for? Six CDs in a hand-bound book complete with two prints, a page cut out of a Navajo history (that’s on back of the red design, above), and a copy of an 1850s pamphlet from the US government on Indian activity. For $25? Shit. I couldn’t order it fast enough.

It is, as advertised, a complete soundtrack to Cormac McCarthy‘s ultraviolent and classic 1985 novel, Blood Meridian, scored on guitar by T.G. Olson of Across Tundras. Throughout most of the 233-minute (that’s three hours and 53 minutes) release, it is indeed just Olson‘s guitar, plucking out distorted Westernisms in fittingly sparse fashion, but there are flourishes of activity here and there, earlier on some drums and synth and samples, later, a flourishing sense of foreboding that comes to a head in a wash before the included “Epilogue” piece rounds the work out. There are notes, resonant melody, but never songs so much as movements of a whole work, some fading in and out, some ending cold.

Would be inappropriate to say the physical product is as fascinating as the music — because as much as there is going on with the packaging, it’s not a nigh-on-four-hour thematic run through a brilliant piece of literature — so I’ll stop short of that and just note the obvious time and effort that went into it. Both prints are handmade, as is the art on the CD book itself, which opens to pages of collage images and print imagery. There are 12 pages in all, three discs in backwards, designed on sleeves, positioned on the right side of the first half, the left side of the second, with an image in the center of houses carved into a mountain cut in half by the rope binding the whole thing together. Mine got roughed up some during shipping, but a bent corner only adds character in this context.

The level of detail extends to the music. It would have to for a project like this not to completely fall flat — which I’m happy to say The Complete Blood Meridian for Electric Drone Guitar doesn’t. Still, one might think that after the first five discs, Olson might phone in a drone or two, but in keeping with McCarthy‘s writing style, the guitar follows a path that’s almost lush in its minimalism, creating a wide open expanse that makes you feel small, threatened and helpless even as you keep wanting to go further into the kid’s story, the Glanton gang, the scalping, on and on into this swirl of purely American senseless destruction that’s our history as much as it’s what we want to watch on our televisions in the evening. If you’ve never read the book, do that.

As for me, it’s been a while, and I might just have to revisit Blood Meridian with Olson‘s score accompanying to see how it matches up. He recorded live, improv late in 2012 and early in 2013 and is only doing 100 on CDR (also 50 on four cassettes), so if you want to get in on the physical version, time’s probably short. The download is a whopping five dollars, which if I’ve got my math right, means you get 2,796 seconds of audio for each dollar you spend. Just in case you want to check it out, here’s the Bandcamp stream:

T.G. Olson, The Complete Blood Meridian for Electric Drone Guitar

T.G. Olson: The Complete Blood Meridian for Electric Drone Guitar on Bandcamp

Across Tundras on Thee Facebooks

“Straw Foot,” written by David Eugene Edwards during his time with 16 Horsepower, was released on that band’s 2000 album, Secret South, as the closer. It’s one of the record’s more memorable tracks — 16 Horsepower‘s take on the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger” is also particularly striking, as are several others; “Poor Mouth,” “Silver Saddle,” etc. — and this performance was filmed in 2009, some four years after they disbanded and some seven after Wovenhand, Edwards‘ subsequent and current outfit, released their landmark self-titled outing.

The two bands exist on such different wavelengths it’s hard to think of them running concurrently, though in many ways Secret South was the last 16 Horsepower album, followed by the live album Hoarse (2000), 2002′s Folklore, half of which was takes on traditional folk songs à la the aforementioned “Wayfaring Stranger” (no less brilliantly done; see “Single Girl” and “Outlaw Song”), and their swansong compilation Olden, which brought out material from early sessions in 1993 and 1994. But they did run for a while at the same time, Wovenhand releasing their sophomore album, Consider the Birds, even as 16 Horsepower embarked on some of their final touring. Hindsight gives smoothness to what at the time are often jagged transitions.

There’s a lot of great stuff on the internet. I’m particularly fond of this site, for example. There’s a lot of crap too. I’ve had a hard time coming up with something better than the clip above of Edwards playing “Straw Foot.” The raw, organic performance showing the song’s roots. Edwards‘ voice, which I’ve no doubt generations to come will fail to imitate. How the camera seems to dance in and out of focus to the music. It’s something I keep going back to, so I wanted to post it here in case anyone else had missed it along the way. I know sometimes we all get busy, and not in the fun way.

I recently had occasion to pick up Wovenhand‘s latest album, 2012′s The Laughing Stalk, on CD from Glitterhouse Records. Psych heads might recall their early Monster Magnet releases. After The Laughing Stalk (original review here) was released last fall, I spent some pretty significant time with the then-available digital stream via Bandcamp. There was a special edition LP/CD version available, but for someone like me — I hope you’ll pardon the melodrama, but I sometimes feel like the Omega Man of the CD-purchasing market — a straight-up compact disc was what I was looking for, so when I saw the Glitterhouse version available, digipak-style, I jumped on it, and no regrets.

It hadn’t been that long since I heard it anyway, but I still felt like I was somewhat revisiting tracks like “King O King” — the line “The people, a vain thing” standing out even more this time around — and the building spiritual energy of “Coup Stick,” which bides its time amidst organ tones to open up with Edwards vocals in its second half. I didn’t even know the album was recorded live (no easy feat given the variety of arrangements), so for that little piece of knowledge, it was easily worth the price for a purchase I was going to make anyway. And if the worst that happens is I spent more time hypnotized by Ordy Garrison‘s drums on “Maize” and “In the Temple,” chances are I’ll live.

Probably this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s mine, so for a bit of symmetry with where we started this post, here’s the title-track to The Laughing Stalk to finish:

If you’ve never seen it, Iron Man‘s merch stand makes a hell of an impression. A case that opens to several panels, the shirts, CDs and LPs that the Maryland doom stalwarts have on offer rest securely behind a transparent sheet of plastic, almost like a museum display. I’d happened into this wonder of hands-on marketing on I don’t even know how many occasions prior, but last month at Eye of the Stoned Goat 2 in Delaware (review here), it was the Iron Man Shall Rise demo that caught my eye among all the other fodder for window-shopping.

They probably didn’t think much of it at the time, but the Iron Man Shall Rise demo turned into more of a landmark than Iron Man could or really should have imagined at the time. Its three tracks — “Jumping in Head First,” “Time is the Enemy” and Juggernaut Too (Perpetual Force)” — represent the final appearance of vocalist Joe Donnelly in the band. For that alone, Iron Man Shall Rise should be a noteworthy release, but the tracks were recorded in 2010 by John Brenner of Revelation/Against Nature and released on his Bland Hand Records imprint, made especially for an appearance at that year’s Doom Shall Rise festival in Germany.

That appearance didn’t happen, and by the time Iron Man put out the Dominance EP a year later, it was current frontman Dee Calhoun on the mic, having been announced as the band’s new singer in January 2012 following the band’s appearance in October 2011 at Hammer of Doom, also a German fest. But even as Donnelly‘s swansong, Iron Man Shall Rise is hardly centered around his performance. Rather, of all the Iron Man discs I’ve heard, this one is the most about guitarist “Iron” Al Morris III, and particularly the rich blanket of fuzz he weaves with his classically doomed tone. Along with bassist Louis Strachan, Morris‘ all-too-underappreciated sound is at the fore on the shuffling “Jumping in Head First,” as Donnelly and then-drummer Dex Dexter are somewhat buried behind, and when the six-stringer kicks in with a lead, even Strachan takes a backseat. As does the rest of the planet.

It’s not necessarily a surprise that Brenner, himself a veteran of the Maryland/D.C. doom scene, would want to highlight Morris‘ work on this demo recording, but in light even of Iron Man‘s EPs over the last couple years — the aforementioned Dominance (review here) and Att hålla dig över, which followed in 2012 — Iron Man Shall Rise has a different sound than anything the band has done, the layers of riffs and backing leads in “Time is the Enemy” giving way to the consuming fuzz of “Juggernaut Too (Perpetual Force),” presumably a sequel to the track “Juggernaut” from 1999′s Generation Void. Here again, Morris‘ guitar work is consuming, an initial lead making way for the verse before Donnelly‘s half-snarled chorus.

Save for a few fills, Dexter‘s drums are more or less inaudible behind the guitar and bass, and that Morris lead returns to its prominent position at the end of the track, which is more or less just a stop. It’s a curious kind of release — very much a demo — and if you think you’ve heard every side of their sound that Iron Man have to offer and you haven’t heard these tracks, then you’re mistaken. In another dimension, Iron Man Shall Rise came out with “kvlt” marketing and got the band hipster cred. Seriously. It happened.

Iron Man, “Sodden with Sin” at Hammer of Doom IV

It’s been a while since I’ve had a fully functional turntable, and by that I mean one that worked at all. Platters have been coming in for review for The Obelisk and I’ve managed to figure something out, either listening somewhere other than my office or whathaveyou, but really, it’s something that I’ve been missing up to this point. I tried several times to acquire a working one to no avail, until just this past week, Slevin rolled through with one he wasn’t using and set it up. Toss in a new cartridge, dust it off, and as you can see above, whamo, a working player of vinyl records.

Nifty, right? I traded him the busted Technics that formerly resided at the top of my office shelf system and he gave me this working Optimus, and since I don’t know the difference, I’m just happy to have one that actually can play an albums. I’ve had a pile of stuff here waiting to be written up or even just listened to, so at the end of last week, there was a bit of a binge in vinyl listening, one after another after another and so on. Can’t help it. Sometimes I get excited.

In the spirit of sharing, I thought I’d post the first five records I put on once I had the ability to do so. Needless to say, there have been several more since:

1. YOB, Demo

I haven’t asked to confirm, but I think this was actually the one that got Slevin on board for giving my pathetic ass in the first place. A couple weeks ago, I put up a rant, basically pissing and moaning at having bought myself the 2009 vinyl reissue of YOB‘s demo despite not being able to hear it, so when I finally could, it was the first thing I grabbed. Sure enough, the four tracks on the release — the three of the initial 2000 demo and one live track to close out side B recorded in 2005 — were as primitive as one would have to expect, way more Sleep-derived even than YOB‘s first full-length, but still a joy to hear after so long. Even as a curio, this one was worth the wait and since I’m planning on having this turntable for a while, I was glad I got to play this one first.

2. Asteroid, Move a Mountain 7″

Maybe this one was kind of obvious, since a review went up the other day, but wow, I was looking forward to hearing the latest from Asteroid. Aside from thinking they’re one of the best Swedish heavy rock acts going these days — balancing heavy psych jams with memorable songwriting and sounding so incredibly natural doing it as they do — I wanted to hear how they were developing with their new drummer and was glad to find that even on such a short, two-song release, they hadn’t lost that combination of structure and laid back exploration that has made both of their albums to date so much fun, indeed pushing it further on the B-side, “One Foot in the Grave,” which was some of their fastest material yet. I was already looking forward to their third full-length. Now even more so.

3. Mars Red Sky/Year of No Light, Green Rune White Totem

Mars Red Sky — whose new EP, Be My Guide, is due in April, in case you missed the news that just went up — were kind enough to send me a vinyl copy of their Green Rune White Totem collaboration with their countrymen black metal experimentalists Year of No Light, and I think it must have gotten lost in the shuffle around the time the hurricane hit, and then when I finally would’ve had the chance to hear it, there wasn’t a working record player to make it happen. I was bummed out, because although Green Run White Totem is up on the YuberToubes, I was dying to hear the real thing. The textures that Year of No Light bring to Mars Red Sky‘s rich, deep tonality make the 12-minute collaborative piece all the more fascinating, and the black and red vinyl give it a truly special feel. It’s one I’ll be returning to for sure, especially as Mars Red Sky get set for Desertfest next month and that aforementioned EP release.

4. Clutch, Strange Cousins from the West

The heartbreak of slightly ripping the sleeve when taking out the second of the two LPs in the special edition of Clutch‘s 2009 outing aide, Strange Cousins from the West was a listen a long time in the making. The packaging on the Weathermaker vinyl is astounding (and now ripped, god damn it) with foil and a six-panel gatefold, and when the first side of the first LP started, I swore up and down it was the wrong platter because it was “Freakonomics” instead of “Motherless Child.” Nope, just a different tracklisting than the CD. Given that this is an album with which I’ve spent significant time over the four years since its original release, it was probably the first one on this list that I could really get a sense for the difference the vinyl makes, the compression in the cymbals and warm pops, etc. Particularly in light of their new one (review here), it was cool to revisit Strange Cousins and hear the older material in a new light.

5. Black Sabbath, Dehumanizer

If I’m honest, I don’t even really know where this vinyl copy of Dehumanizer came from. Must have been a reissue that came through at some point, but it’s been in my office for a while now and so it was something of a matter of principle that it should get a play on initial run with the new turntable. The 1992 reunion album between Black Sabbath and vocalist Ronnie James Dio isn’t the best work of either party — and wow, that really came out on side B; I can’t even remember the last time I purposefully listened to “Too Late” or “Buried Alive,” and I named my dog after Dio — but for cuts like “I,” “Master of Insanity,” “Computer God” and “Sins of the Father,” Dehumanizer was well worth another visit. Now I just need to get a copy on tape and I’m all set.

–

Even though I have a working turntable in my possession, I don’t see myself going overboard as a vinyl collector or anything like that, but if someone’s got a 7″ for sale at a show or something is vinyl-only, at least I know I’ll be able to give it some due time without using someone else’s player or scrambling for a download. But mostly it’s just a review thing for stuff that comes in on LP. It’s not like I’m looking to start a vinyl library. Not like I’m already eying up Hypnos 69 splits on eBay or anything. Me? No way. Ha.

Once they figured out what they wanted to be as a band, Unearthly Trance only got heavier, so that the debut full-length from Serpentine Path — which unites that trio’s final lineup with guitarist Tim Bagshaw, formerly of Ramesses and Electric Wizard — should be darker and more extreme in its doomly ways isn’t so much a surprise as it is a natural evolution. Add to that vocalist Ryan Lipynsky‘s ongoing tenure in black metal progressives The Howling Wind and it makes even more sense, though Serpentine Path have little in common either with Lipynsky‘s other outfit or with Unearthly Trance. Some of Ramesses‘ death-doomiest moments might be recognizable in the eight-track/42-minute self-titled, but there’s little to none of the cultish psychedelia that offset such dirge marching in that band. With Serpentine Path, it’s pretty much all bludgeon.

The album was released last fall on Relapse and met with as positive a response as something so unabashedly negative can, and since it came out, Bagshaw (who wrote the music on the debut) has reportedly relocated to New Jersey from the UK and Winter guitarist Stephen Flam has joined as well, making the band a five-piece rounded out by bassist Jay Newman and drummer Darren Verni. I just recently came into contact with Serpentine Path courtesy of Flam, who was interviewed here a while back (if you didn’t read it, you should, it’s awesome), and having spent some time with the record, as usual, I a little bit regret not checking out it sooner. The drawn-out stomp of “Crotalus Horridus Horridus” and the ’90s-style leads infecting “Obsoletion” are a death-doomer’s missing link, and the purposeful unipolarity in Lipynsky‘s vocals there and elsewhere throughout the album only makes the band’s intentions clearer.

Bagshaw‘s guitar even on a shorter track like “Bats Amongst Heathens” — easy to hear a Winter influence there — crafts an abyss of tone, and as they’re no strangers to slow, lurching rhythms, Newman and Verni work well in walking the line between snail’s pace grooving and unhinged immobility. Periodic samples like that at the beginning of “Beyond the Dawn of Time” don’t so much ground the material as add to the chaos, and a song like the later “Compendium of Suffering” is given even more weirdness in its break for the vague spoken echoes playing out over the unceasing plod of the verse riff. I guess if you want the short version, Serpentine Path are seriously fucking heavy and seriously grim. They don’t stray from that modus throughout these tracks, but they don’t really need to either, since the more oppressive a song gets, the more it’s doing its job. They win no matter what.

Closer “Only a Monolith Remains” seems to have been the inspiration for the artwork as well, which seems to be nodding at Hellhammer on the front cover while on the back a sort of Cthulhu-meets-the-Pradator monolith plays host to the tracklist. The inside of the liner has snake scales embossed onto the paper, as do the lyrics, and the tray under the CD also has an embossed ouroboros, so clearly somebody was putting effort into the aesthetic from the ground up. Not the first time I’ve given Relapse‘s Orion Landau kudos and it probably won’t be the last. One way or another, Serpentine Path‘s Serpentine Path is a record I’m glad I got to check out, since given the changes in the band they’re not likely to repeat themselves next time around.

I remember when YOB‘s 2000 demo got re-released in 2009, I held off buying it. My thinking was that sooner or later the thing would show up on CD and I didn’t need to shell out for the vinyl, which, well, wasn’t a format I wanted to deal with anyway. Sure, YOB occupy a slot on my ever-rotating list of favoritist favorite bands, but what was the point in buying a copy of their demo on vinyl and feeling stupid later when I finally got it on the CD I wanted in the first place?

Well, the point turned out to be that there was no CD coming. Probably I could’ve asked someone and found that out, or done even the most cursory level of research and found out that Raven’s Eye Records, the label run by the artist Sean Schock (also of Geistus and H.C. Minds), wasn’t doing a CD pressing and that once the vinyl run was gone, that was it. That the label, like the band, was based in Eugene, Oregon, and that even in this day of interwebular immediacy, it might not be so easy to come by. But yeah, I didn’t do that research or ask anyone if a CD was coming. Hey, it was 2009. I was busy not having a job.

YOB‘s demo retreated to that place in my mind that holds the list of music I should pick up at some point. I guess half of me was still holding out hope that a compact disc release would come along sooner or later, and it just took that long for me to finally resign myself to the fact that one wasn’t, but at long last, I snagged a copy of the 12″ version on eBay late last year. It was my Xmas present to myself, a little something to get me through the cold months. Calling it a treat in such a manner didn’t really take away from the fact that I was a stubborn dumbass for not buying it in the first place, but it did give that all-too-familiar feeling of dumbassery a nicer frame than it usually gets.

The package showed up a couple weeks back. Not exactly timely for the holidays, but whatever. I was still happy to see it, except for the fact that at this point, I own two turntables and neither of them works. So yeah, after three-plus years, I decided to buy YOB‘s very first demo — three tracks, “Silence,” “Revolution” and “Dogma,” coupled with a live recording of a song called “White Doom” recorded in 2005 at CD World in Eugene, pressed up with artwork by Brian Mercer – and I don’t have a way to play it.

One of these days, I’m gonna hear this fuckin’ thing. “Revolution” is up on the YouTubes, so that’s easy enough to check out, but hearing how different it is from the version that appeared two years later on YOB‘s 2002 12th Records debut full-length, Elaborations of Carbon, does little more than tantalize and make me want to listen to the other tracks. I’m sure it’s up for download somewhere, but screw that. I’ve waited this long, I can keep on staring at the LP sleeve until one of the two turntables — which are stacked one on top of the other with posters on top, for that extra touch of class — is repaired or a third is acquired. Patience has always been one of my stronger qualities.

YOB, “Revolution” Demo

Time was limited. It was Monday morning and I was supposed to go to work after all, but as I was in New England anyway, a quick run to Armageddon Shop in Providence didn’t seem all that unreasonable. I’ve never come out of there feeling less than satisfied, and even back in December at the Boston store, I was able to pick up a few winners. Plus, Armageddon‘s been on my mind lately with their handling the repress of Elder‘s Spires Burn EP and the release of Magic Circle‘s self-titled, for which I have a review pending. All that, coupled with my general desire to crane my neck before a CD rack, made the stop a necessity. Turned out work was still there when I finally showed up anyway. Go figure.

On the wall of my office is a post-it with albums I’ve been meaning to pick up — mostly review stuff that labels won’t send out physical copies of anymore that I’ll grudgingly buy and devalue the effort I put into writing about them while also diminishing my appreciation for the record out of the pervasive annoyance. It’s a vicious cycle. Anyway, most of what’s on it I couldn’t remember, but it was fine. I managed to find enough and then some, as you can see in the stack above. The new Bedemon (track stream here) and Seremonia (track stream here) records were a must, and I hadn’t actually gotten a CD of the last Enslaved (review here), so I figured if I was going to give someone the cash for it, at least I could feel good about it going to Armageddon. The rest was gravy.

The first Hooded Menace full-length, Fulfill the Curse, Orodruin‘s Claw Tower and Other Tales of Terror and the repress of Life Beyond‘s Ancient Worlds were cool finds, but I was even more stoked on the 2003 Cream Abdul Babar/Kylesa split on At a Loss. I think they came by their progression honestly and I think Spiral Shadow (review here) bears that out, but it’s easy to forget how blisteringly heavy that band was at one point, all noise and fury and potential. With the unbridled weirdness of Cream Abdul Babar to complement, that split was a killer. The punkish War and Wine by the UK’s The Dukes of Nothing was something I had my eye on for a while, with Orange Goblin‘s Chris Turner on drums, bassist Doug Dalziel (ex-Iron Monkey) and Stuart O’Hara (ex-Acrimony, current Sigiriya) as one of two guitars, and more on the hardcore end, the self-titled collection from Hard to Swallow was a pleasant surprise, spanning the short tenure of the outfit that featured Jim Rushby (Iron Monkey) on guitar and Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey and even later of Crippled Black Phoenix) on drums and a host of others from that sphere ripping out primitive, violent bursts in rapid succession.

With 13 tracks in 27 minutes, there’s little room for screwing around, so Hard to Swallow get right to it, blending raw riffage with extreme punk fuckall. The compilation was released on Armageddon‘s own label, and though it’s more hardcore than what I’ll generally grab, it’s a solid, intense listen. A secret track incorporating Sabbath‘s “Under the Sun” into a grind medley made a decent, meaner answer to The Dukes of Nothing‘s album on Tortuga, and the metallic outing from Enslaved and Seremonia‘s distinctly Finnish weirdness. More local to home, I grabbed Halfway to Gone‘s split with Alabama Thunderpussy, which I already own but figured for six bucks I’d take a double, and the 1997 debut from underrated Jersey-based psychedelic rockers, Lord Sterling.

Your Ghost Will Walk was one of those albums I figured I’d probably never happen upon, perhaps even less so in Rhode Island. I haven’t been chasing it down for years and years or anything like that — a preliminary search can find copies out there — but neither was I going to pass up the chance to get a new one. The pressing is on Chainsaw Safety Records, may or may not be original, and for anyone who heard Lord Sterling‘s Weapon of Truth (2002, Rubric) or Today’s Song for Tomorrow (2004, Small Stone), the first one is a little more jagged, a little more post-hardcore, somewhat less psychedelic, though the ethereal garage via The Doors vibes of the later albums are definitely present in some nascent form. I always dug those guys, so it was cool to hear where they came from a little bit.

Because I can’t resist a CD on Man’s Ruin and because I’m forever a sucker for NYC noise, I impulse grabbed The Cuttroats 9‘s self-titled. The band had Chris Spencer and Dave Curran from Unsane in it, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong and I was right. It was a last-minute thing as I was looking through, but I’ve done way worse. All told, the haul was well-rounded and with a cup of coffee from the bakery down the street, I felt like the win was even more complete. About five hours later, I strolled into my office like I owned the place.

When Sabbia came out in 2006, I was interested. I remember seeing it was around, and knowing that Brant Bjork was somehow involved, and that the desert, the fuzz, etc., but I never picked it up. You know how it goes. Some things just get by you, and when it comes to music DVDs, they’re cute once or twice, then you never watch them again. They sit on the shelf and collect dust. Brant Bjork‘s music is so visually associated in my mind with a specific imagery, I guess I wasn’t in a hurry to have something come along and screw that up.

Fair enough. Sabbia came and went, and it wasn’t until this past weekend that I finally stumbled on a copy, on sale for a whopping three dollars, and felt inclined to pick it up. Actually, I felt excited to pick it up, since it’s harder to get nowadays than when it was first released. I paid three dollars cash money and when I finally put in the disc, I quickly saw that Sabbia – which was directed by Kate McCabe and features Bjork both performing and wandering around a convenience store to pick up some beers — was more than just a standard music DVD. It’s more like a love-letter to desert weirdness brought to life as the music and the visuals feed into each other’s ideas.

There’s no narrative to speak of, though a thread runs throughout of a hottie making her way across the sands in slow motion, but through a series of vignettes based around songs — sections titled “Future Freak,” “Cobra Jab,” “Cool Abdul,” “Joint Ritual,” and so on — McCabe takes the viewer through a range of experiences, usually drenched in sunlight, and it’s everything from skateboarding to snow on cacti to dark-room dancing, trees, open skies, music, people, buildings, sunglasses, freaks, drugs, stars at night. It’s not about Bjork specifically, though he’s in a lot of it, but it’s a project where the editing is almost as much of a character as anyone appearing. Some voiceover, but no real dialogue to speak of. And scenery. Scenery for what feels like forever.

Obviously that’s the idea. And with grainy footage, quirky flourishes and a landscape to work with that’s as unmistakable as the grooves it has birthed, Sabbia runs 80 minutes of tripped-out pastoralia. It wanders in parts — again, that’s the idea — but it’s easy to get lost in its admiration and idolization of the desert, especially if you’re somebody who appreciates that place and the various freaks who’ve emerged from it over the course of the last two decades with a brand of rock and roll that nobody outside has been able to capture in quite the same way. The collaboration between McCabe and Bjork is almost even-sided, but unquestionably one is made fuller by the work of the other.

Being on the other side of the country and given to a certain brand of escapism, I can very easily see paying many return visits to Sabbia, though I’ll say already I’ve gotten my three dollars’ worth out of it and then some. Of course, the whole movie is up on YouTube at this point, so I’ve included it below if you’d like to check it out, with fervent recommendation for tracking down a physical copy so you can get the liner notes from the director and the composer on how their working together came about and what their mission was with the project, etc. It’s about as fitting a representation of the desert as one could ask for:

So here’s an awkward moment for you: I was standing in back of The Purple Turtle at last year’s Desertfest in London, chatting with a couple of the rather sizable film and promotional crew that Cultura Tres brought with them from their native Venezuela (actually they were in Banda de la Muerte, from Argentina, and touring with the band, but I’m creating a narrative, so bear with me here) for the gig and their subsequent touring. Also there was their manager, Vania, in town from Bulgaria. Quite an international assemblage we made. One of the dudes along with Cultura Tres starts taking CDs out of a bag. Thinking he’s setting up a distro with a pile of CDs on the merch table, I’m immediately stoked out of my brains to see the cover above for what has turned out to be Los Natas‘ swan song release, 2011′s Rutation — an album that wasn’t released outside Argentina and one that at that point I’d already been trying for the better part of a year to get my grubby mitts upon.

“Holy shit!” I said with my usual amount of play-it-cool subtlety, “I’ll take that one.” Dude gave me the “uh…” look and some pitying soul explained to me they weren’t selling those, they’d just brought them from South America for Vania. Feeling as much the fool as ever, I explained the trouble I’d had trying to sort out an encounter between myself and Rutation, which Los Natas released through their own South American Sludge imprint and eventually skulked away to down my weirdness in oversized Newcastles and take pictures of Cultura Tres, who were shooting footage for what would later become their “El Sur de la Fe” video. One of those times where I just have to hang my head and go, “Boy, is my face dumb.”

Actually seeing the disc had the effect of supercharging my search, but to no avail. I tried Oui Oui Records in Argentina, which has distributed Los Natas‘ stuff in their home country since 2003′s Bee Jesus box set a decade ago, as well as a bevvy of worldwide distros North American, South American and European, eBay, Amazon sites from around the globe, etc. At this point, not to toot my own horn, but if I want to find a CD chances are I know where to look. Rutation did not want to be found.

I wouldn’t say I gave up on it, because I have many late-night eBay searches that would indicate otherwise, but it became apparent to me that Rutation was just one of those records I’d have to wait until it found me, rather than the other way around. Sorry, but if I can get a copy of Colour Haze‘s Chopping Machine (and I did), nothing’s totally unattainable, it just needs time. I waited for my time, and lo, right around the Xmas holiday a note comes in on Thee Facebooks from none other than Vania that she’s got a copy of the album for me.

Bless my miserable soul. I felt like I was waiting to adopt a puppy while I stood in line at the post office to pick up the package, sent from Bulgaria (for some reason Eastern European packages always require a signature). My stomach was tight with apprehension, but when I finally got the envelope and opened it, there was the disc. I swear to Robot Jesus there was a glow around it, and maybe it was leftover Xmas music, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t hear a choir singing. It went in the CD player before I even turned the car on, like it would play anyway before I turned the key. Some things just become an immediate priority.

In my reading about the album beforehand, I knew the recordings themselves were old. Rutation was put to tape on a mobile unit in Buenos Aires in 1997, so it would’ve been after Delmar was recorded but before Ciudad de Brahman — well into the time when they were still Natas, before the Los was added — the very heart of their most desert rocking period. Some of these tracks showed up on 1999′s Unreleased Dopes, and according to some sales I’ve seen on eBay, the band had cassettes of Rutation with them when they toured the States in 2000, but the 2011 issue is the first official CD release that I know of, and I couldn’t have been more stoked to finally get to hear it.

Most of the tracks can be traced in different incarnations to Delmar or Ciudad de Brahman. Cuts like “Carl Sagan” and “Meteoro 2028,” arranged here as a desert-delic closing duo, and “Alohawaii” were excellent on the latter record and prove so again here, but the highlight of Rutation somewhat surprisingly is “Adolescentes,” a track I’d never really given much of a second glance on Ciudad, but which shines surrounded by “Siluette” (which I’ve yet to trace to another Natas release) and “Brisa del Desierto,” leading to the aforementioned closers. When they want to, Natas lock into fuzz riffing unrivaled in my experience, and you can hear that in “Polvareda,” but the airier parts of “Paradise” show that even at their rawest, there was room in the band’s approach for more than just riff-led Kyuss-isms.

All told, Rutation is just over 31 minutes long, but it still shows the character of what was then a young trio, and for the kindness of the gesture on Vania‘s part that got the disc from South America to Eastern Europe to New Jersey, I just had to write on it. It’s a gift I know I’ll appreciate for years to come, and if Los Natas really are done, then I consider myself all the more fortunate to have been able to get a copy of their last statement as a band.

It just can’t be a coincidence that the quickie solo in “Eightball,” which is very much about cocaine, sounds like Kerry King on an ’80s Slayer record. Who also would’ve thought that “Who’s got blow/Eightball/Bring it all/Come on” would make for such a catchy chorus? It’s one of about six for six on Lamont‘s 2005 EP, Muscle, Guts and Luck, alongside ripped like “Raise a Little Hell,” and the raucous closing pair “On the Lam” and “Burn it Down.”

You might (you might not) remember I wrote a post about Lamont‘s Thunder Boogie full-length, well, Muscle, Guts and Luck was released in 2005 on Underdogma Records and came into my possession as a gift from longtime Obelisk reader and all-around good dude Mike H., who I’m pretty sure is more O.G. on this site than I am. He found it in a shop in Maine called Bull Moose – apparently a bit of a local chain up that way — and sent it over with holiday-type cheer. Much appreciated, even before I put the thing on and heard the killer Boston-Southern riffing of “Water Me Down,” which, if it showed up today on a Roadsaw or Infernal Overdrive record, would still have me stoked. I guess seven years isn’t that long anyway, but this stuff hasn’t aged a bit.

Muscle, Guts and Luck is only 23 minutes long, so it’s right there in EP territory, but it’s packed anyway. Each track has something killer on offer, whether it’s the aforementioned chorus righteousness, Jase Forney‘s bass-fill excellence on “Raise a Little Hell” and really everywhere else, Pete Knipfing‘s used-to-be-a-punker shouts, drummer Todd Bowman‘s quick changes in “Cannonball,” on which Michele Morgan also adds backing vocals behind Knipfing. ”Cannonball” particularly reminds me of some of the ballsy groove that showed up on what would turn out to be the last album from NY regional favorites Puny Human, 2007′s Universal Freak Out, and it’s not surprising since the two releases share a producer in Andrew Schneider.

According to the Oct. 14, 2005, issue of the Boston Phoenix – because, that’s right, I do research — Forney busted his sternum and a couple ribs and bruised his heart and spleen while working on Lamont‘s tour van around this time, forcing the band to can most of the tour they’d have done around Muscle, Guts and Luck. I’m not sure if bruised muscle, flattened guts and shitty luck were what they were going for with the title, but at least it’s genre appropriate. If you can get your hands on a copy of the EP, either at a Bull Moose like our dear friend Mike H. or anywhere else, consider it recommended listening. The more time I spend listening to these dudes, the more I think a reunion is in order.

Similar to my thinking in going to the Six Organs of Admittance show last Friday, it seemed to me that if I’m going to be living up that way in the next year, I better get used to buying records in Boston. I’d been to Armageddon Shop there before, and I’ve visited the Providence store as well, but a return trip seemed warranted and The Patient Mrs. gave the all-clear, so off to Harvard Square we went.

Like a lot of places, Armageddon seems to be phasing out CDs in favor of donating the room to vinyl, which at this point I can’t even argue with. New records are coming out only on LP and CDs have lost preference to either end of the extreme — i.e. vinyl or digital, or both. Even as someone who would still rather have a CD than a record, I can understand the appeal. So it makes sense. It’s good business. And in the meantime, they still have a whole wall and then some dedicated to mostly used compact discs and I was happy to peruse the space once again while the crew put on the flute-laden tones of the last Blood Ceremony full-length.

I wound up with two discs for my effort, not really on the cheap but not exactly off it either. For $9.99, I got Black Spirit‘s Black Spirit and for $6.99, Endless Skies by Ashbury. The former is an Italian band and an album I posted about earlier this year, full of post-kraut progressive indulgences but not really off-putting or lacking unifying melody. The latter — and I’ll say this honestly — I bought because the art was badass. I looked at the wizard holding up his hand to gather the clouds about the village below, saw that it was a Vintage/Rockadrome reissue and decided there was no way to lose. A safe bet I was comfortable making.

Of the two, Black Spirit‘s album is the older. It came out in 1978, was their only release, and even this Ohrwaschl version is light on info. You get the lineup and the tracklist (inside the liner in what looks like a direct replica of the vinyl sleeve) and that’s pretty much it. The cover art — also righteous, but in a different way than Ashbury – appears twice, on the jewel case and the outside panels of the liner notes, and even under the CD tray as well, not to mention on the CD itself. It’s a lot of purple to live up to, but the music on the album’s five tracks gets driven home with a bluesy feel and some lightly accented vocals, and 12-minute closer “Old Times” is high-grade classic heavy rock that maybe could’ve come out five or six years earlier and been a hit, but I guess was a little behind the times for ’78.

Same applies to Ashbury, come to think of it, except with the Arizona duo they’re playing a kind of proto-metal that, by the time Endless Skies was released in 1983, the genre had moved past. “Vengeance” has a kind of metal-ness to its riff, but a song like “Take Your Love Away” is more Blue Öyster Cult than Judas Priest. Nothing against it, since the guitar playing is ace, the tracks groove and the whole thing has a vibe worthy of its wizard cover, and considering the side-of-the-van-worthiness of that wizard, that’s saying something. To imagine though that the mid-’70s arena melodies of “Madman” came out the same year as the first Slayer record makes it even more fascinating. In any case, I lucked out.

It wasn’t the biggest haul I’ve ever pulled in, not the stack of discs I sometimes come away with, but for the quality of what I got, I’d hardly call it a loss. Two albums that happen to share in being out of place for what they were doing at the time, the math actually works out pretty well. There was never any doubt, but I’m more or less certain that whenever I end up living there, it won’t be the end of my record buying habit. Good to know. If you’re so inclined, check out Armageddon Shop’s website here.

Driving past the homogenized “warmth” of the brick retail chains that have appeared since I was last down on the outskirts of Baltimore’s Fell’s Point neighborhood, I couldn’t help but think of John Brenner from Revelation discussing the inner harbor in that interview that went up last week. These places with all the trappings of economic stimulus except any investment back into the community that hosts them the way feet host blisters. There for a painful while and then gone. Pop.

It was different once I actually got into Fell’s Point. Not that the neighborhood wasn’t gentrified from its working class harbor roots, but that at very least it was actual gentrification, independently owned businesses or at least smaller, regional chains and a most welcome onslaught of pubs, eateries, and other gastro-type decadences. Kooper’s Tavern, where The Patient Mrs. and I had lunch, had tables set up outside selling oysters and recycling the shells for use by — wait for it — other oysters. Seems nobody is immune to the economic ravages of our age. Even the oysters have to buy used.

Fitting that act of conservation would be prelude to a radical haul whose like — in what otherwise might be considered a regular ol’ record shop — I’ve not seen in some time. Sound Garden (no relation) was just down the street from the pub where we ate and several others, and it wasn’t my first time there by any stretch (seems impossible that it would’ve been over three years ago, but I guess that’s why old posts are dated), but I didn’t remember it being quite the trove it was this time around. Walking up the middle of the three aisles, I went past the metal and the midsection divide — I’d come back to the metal, no worries — something strange compelling me forward, and that’s when I saw it:

The Psychedelic section.

Oh yeah, that’s right. The monkey that lives in my head where my brain should be clicked on the dim bulb of his cavernous abode and for a moment I said a prayer to my pagan octopus god that I might win the $300 million Powerball and come back to Sound Garden to purchase every album in the Psychedelic section on principle alone. A mere celebration of the existence of such a thing. Portrait of the mouth, drooling.

What fun I had. Flipping through was like opening presents. I limited myself to two discs about which I knew absolutely nothing but what was written on the eloquent description labels — Truth‘s Truth from 1969 and Escombros‘ Escombros, from 1970. The former is a poppy, folksy thing, not bad but not quite as bizarre as I was hoping based on the cover, and Escombros is a heavier Chilean obscurity that opens with a cover of Hendrix‘s “Stone Free,” so I guessed I was pretty safe in grabbing it. Turns out I was right about that. The vocals sounded mixed too high on my office speakers when I listened, but I expect on a different system, it might not be an issue at all, and there were a couple gems there anyway. Wicked Lady‘s Psychotic Overkill was a welcome find as well, all buzzsaw-this and early-’70s narcodelia that.

I also picked up Goat‘s World Music based on the tarantula-sized hype surrounding. That hype is probably earned, and however problematic I might find European acts copping a feel on some Fela Kuti afrobeat fuzz, they’re hardly the first and they did it well enough. I wasn’t quite enchanted, but sometimes with albums like that I go into it determined not to like them and usually find I don’t. That wasn’t the case with Goat.

In the “I reviewed this and I’m annoyed at buying it” category, the newest ones from Golden Void (review here), Astra (review here) and Six Organs of Admittance (review here) were fodder enough for a grumble, even if Astra and was used. Six Organs was $15 new and the sleeve isn’t even a gatefold. Call me a privileged shit if you want — boo hoo you don’t get free stuff, etc. — but for the time and effort I put into even a shorter review, I don’t think a CD is too much to ask, especially when I know that I’m one of like three remaining motherfuckers who cares in the slightest. Apparently the music industry disagrees. Grumble grumble, man.

One might include the new Neurosis (review here) in that category as well — and the Grand Magus I didn’t even step to this time around — but the fact is on that one I was just being impatient and that a physical promo of Honor Found in Decay would show up sooner or later (it did, today). However, my wanting to hear it right that minute met with such logic on the field of diplomacy and the compromise reached was that I’d buy the digipak edition, because it’s limited and the promo would likely be the jewel case anyway. I never got the digi version of 2007′s Given to the Rising and there’s a little bit of me that still regrets it. That same part is very much enjoying listening to “My Heart for Deliverance” as he types this.

There were odds and ends as well. With Kalas on my brain after The Johnny Arzgarth Haul resulted in another promo, Used Metal paid dividends in the first full-artwork copy I’ve ever owned — and in case you were wondering why I care so much about physical media, that’s how long I remember shit like that — and over in Used Rock, the first Grinderman happened to be situated next to a special edition of 2009′s Grinderman 2, the unmitigated sleaze of which I friggin’ loved at the time, as well as Grails‘ cinematic 2012 outing, Deep Politics (review here).

I wound up with a used copy of Dungen‘s 2002 third album, Stadsvandringar, getting the band confused with Black Mountain, I think because they both used to have the same PR. Thanks a lot, Girlie Action Media circa 2005. I felt a little pathetic when I discovered my error, but I checked out the Dungen and it wasn’t bad, covering some of the same sunny psych folk territory that Barr did on their 2012 sophomore installment, Atlantic Ocean Blues (track stream here), and giving me a new context for not onlyBarr, but a slew of other acts as well. Could’ve been much worse.

Cap it off with a used copy of Lewis Black‘s The Carnegie Hall Performance from 2006 — a stellar two-disc show recorded in the depths of American hopelessness post-Katrina but for the bit about air traffic control — and when I brought it all to the counter, the dude asked me, “Are you local?” I said I wasn’t and he said, “Well, I’m going to give you a discount anyway.” It was much appreciated, regardless of the geography involved, and by the time I left Sound Garden, I was more pleased with the outcome I carried in a red plastic bag than I’ve been coming from a single record store in a long time. Probably since I visited Flat, Black and Circular in Lansing, Michigan, over the summer, and that’s saying something.

My hope is that it’s not another three years before I get back there — appropriately enough, Lewis Black has a whole section early into his show about time moving faster as you age, and he’s absolutely right — but whenever it is, Sound Garden is definitely on the must-hit list for next time I’m in Baltimore. If you want to look them up, their website is here.