Posted in Whathaveyou on August 3rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
For my money, which I just might spend on this reissue, Pelican‘s Australasia (discussed here) is one of the best heavy records of all time. If you narrow those parameters to instrumental releases, it only moves higher up the list. Issued through Hydra Head, it broke ground for heavy atmospherics in a way that continues to resonate, and as one of series of reissues through Thrill Jockey Records (more info here), this reissue follows a stint for the band in Europe that included a headline slot at Freak Valley 2022 (review here) in Germany that I felt lucky to be able to witness. Guess that saves you the trouble of reading the review, which I’m pretty sure no one was going to do anyhow.
The release date is Aug. 19 and the vinyl is colored to the cover’s theme — always classy, I think — with preorders up through Bandcamp. I have to imagine that if these don’t go beforehand, they will by the time the band plays a weekender in September that includes a stop at Post Festival in Indianapolis. I’ve never been to X-Ray Arcade in Cudahy (unless it’s the old Blue Pig), but I’ve hit Pyramid Scheme in Michigan before, and that place is fabulous. But really, anywhere Pelican are showing up is where you want to be.
From the PR wire:
Pelican announces deluxe reissue of their classic debut album Australasia Out on August 19th, 2022
Featuring never-before released material from the era, remastered audio by Josh Bonati, and expanded artwork
Original guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec has rejoined the quartet, reinstating the band’s original lineup
Following a headlining European tour including sets at Dunk! Festival, Freak Valley Festival, and Hellfest, Chicago/Los Angeles quartet Pelican have announced the first of their Thrill Jockey reissues, Australasia, out on August 19th. The deluxe reissue will feature remastered audio by Josh Bonati and bonus material, including a never-before shared track, a live recording of the album’s title track from the era of the album’s release, a remix by James Plotkin, and artwork by ISIS/SUMAC/Hydra Head founder Aaron Turner.
Pelican’s debut album Australasia, originally released in late 2003 by Hydra Head Records, is a landmark record in the shifting tides of heavy music that took place at the turn of the millennium. 20 years since its release and with several sold out represses, Australasia is a proven essential for any listener exploring the bounds of rock music. Following the release of the band’s auspicious self-titled EP, Australasia’s singular integration of melodic complexity and tremendous density redefined conceptions of what constituted “heavy.” Pelican’s unique manipulation of atmosphere and dynamics seamlessly alchemized their disparate influences beyond metal into music grand, mercurial and utterly sublime, worthy of the album’s namesake.
Billowing clouds of strange serenity give way to tectonic riffs. Hypnotic rhythms chug at the precipice between doom and euphoria. Guitarists Trevor Shelley de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec twirl soaring harmonies around the roaring thunder of bassist Bryan Herweg and drummer Larry Herweg. Throughout the album, the quartet move as one like a glacier, awesome and forever imbuing the landscape with their mark. Australasia stands as a pioneering work, unmatched in the level of unbridled beauty and devastation.
Pelican will be playing a handful of Midwest shows this September, including a headlining set at Indianapolis’s Post Festival.
Pelican tour dates Sep. 9 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme Sep. 10 – Indianapolis, IN – Post Festival at The Vogue Theatre Sep. 11 – Cudahy, WI – X-Ray Arcade
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 24th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Holy trinity? Maybe it would be if the rest of Pelican‘s discography wasn’t also so good. Still, you won’t hear a bad word from me about Australasia (discussed here), and I still remember the first time I listened to follow-up The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw was at a gate at Chicago O’Hare airport waiting for a connecting flight to Austin, Texas, for SXSW a couple rows away from Sanford Parker, to whom I was too shy to say hello. I have a million stories like that, about not talking to people. More than ever, it seems.
City of Echoes was badass too, crunchy and defying-expectations-of-escapism and all. But the additional cool news to go with the remasters that Pelican‘s upcoming European tour will include founding member LaurentSchroeder-Lebec is certainly welcome, though Dallas Thomas was killer as well. Truth of the matter is I guess I’ll take Pelican as they come. It is my deep hope to be able to catch them at Freak Valley Festival. If that doesn’t happen, well at least I’ll have more stories of not interacting with humans.
Hoo-mans.
Here’s word from the PR wire. Listen to Pelican today:
Thrill Jockey to reissue three essential albums by Pelican:
Australasia
The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw
City of Echoes
Deluxe vinyl reissues throughout 2022-2023 will include rarities, unreleased outtakes, demos and remastered audio
Pelican touring Europe this Spring with original lineup
Thrill Jockey are proud to reissue acclaimed and innovative classic albums by Chicago/Los Angeles quartet Pelican: Australasia (2003), The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw (2005), and City of Echoes (2007). The trilogy is streaming now and will be issued on deluxe vinyl editions throughout 2022 and 2023. The reissues will include a bevy of bonus material comprising rarities, unreleased recordings, long out of print singles & EPs and more. Each album will feature painstakingly remastered audio by Josh Bonati as well as deluxe artwork that recreates the classic artwork expanded to include unseen images sourced from the band’s archive.
Pelican have announced a European tour this spring, including their return to headlining Dunk! Festival, as well as rescheduled appearances at Hell Fest, Freak Valley Festival, and a handful of headlining shows. Following the departure of long-standing guitarist Dallas Thomas, the band will be joined on upcoming dates by founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, reuniting the classic Pelican lineup behind their first three albums.
Pelican is a dreamlike art-metal institution, a band whose kaleidoscopic melodies and ocean-dredging riffs have now hypnotized audiences for more than two decades. Emerging from the frozen tundras of Chicago, Pelican were early adopters in blending majestic repetition with sludge metal’s skull-vibrating bluster, adding their own singular sense of keening emo-psychedelia and heavy-metal motorik. Since then, their prismatic instrumental mesmerism has rippled across six critically acclaimed studio albums, been featured in television and film, and influenced countless bands in their wake.
Pelican tour dates May 28 – Ghent, BE – Dunk! Festival June 12 – Vienna, AT – WUK June 13 – Linz, AT – Kapu June 14 – Dudingen, CH – Bad Bonn June 15 – Karlsruhe, DE – Jubez June 16 – Netphen-Deuz, DE – Freak Valley Festival June 17 – Strasbourg, FR – La Laiterie June 18 – Clisson, FR – Hellfest
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
A raven clutching at pearls is the lead image of Australasia‘s new digital single “Perdere,” and it’s not too hard to imagine where they’re coming from with that. Every time I see someone on the social medias mourning the long passage of time without shows and/or expressing the hope that things can be what they were, as though the nigh-universal trauma of 2020-2021 never took place, it seems likewise that there’s a bird of death carrying off the memory of what was. Italy went through some hard shit. We all did. And by “we,” I mean the species.
“Perdere,” as noted below, translates to English as “to lose” — recall À la recherche du temps perdu — and is the first outing from Australasia since a two-songer in 2019 that followed on from their 2015 EP, Notturno (review here). Those who’ve heard them before or who might at least surmise from the fact that they take their moniker from Pelican‘s record of the same name will probably already guess that there’s an atmospheric focus in “Perdere,” perhaps a wistful, longing kind of feel, and well, you’d be right. The intention seems to be to release however many tracks as singles before presumably compiling them in some fashion, but as a leadoff for that, “Perdere” is intriguing and immersive.
“Perdere” (Italian for “to lose”) is the first piece of a series of singles, which will be published over the next few months, based on the concept of “Perdere e Ritrovare” (To lose and find again). A cycle where negative and positive events follow each other, leaving hope for the future does not fail, even at a time, like the present, when we look at it with so much uncertainty.
Musically, it’s a track centered around the sound of clean guitar that deflates into heavily distorted moments where the voice of a vintage RAT takes center stage. The riffs and arpeggios follow each other, ferrying the listener towards the final catharsis.
The artwork, created by illustrator Sara Fasolin (@sarabaun.art), depicts a magpie (also present in other Australasia covers), collector of forgotten objects or objects taken away from human beings.
The album was recorded and mixed at Last Floor Studio (@lastfloorstudio) by Francesco Barletta.
Label: Golden Morning Sounds
Lineup: Gian Spalluto – Guitar, Bass, Synth Giovanni Cilio (@giovacilio) – Drums
Posted in Reviews on January 6th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Well, this is where we hit and pass the halfway point. It’s been a good week so far. Busy, but good. I hope you’ve found something that you dig or agree with or whatnot. I know it’s kind of hard to dig through 10 releases at once, but even if you see cover art that strikes a nerve, going with that impulse is rarely a bad idea, particularly when the level of commitment involved is clicking play on a Bandcamp player to get a taste. Pretty wide range today, so let’s dig in.
Quarterly review #21-30:
Corrections House, Know How to Carry a Whip
Since they made their debut as a unit in 2013 with Last City Zero (also on Neurot), the don’t-call-it-a-supergroup Corrections House – vocalist Mike Williams (Eyehategod), guitarist/vocalist Scott Kelly (Neurosis), saxophonist/vocalist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Bloodiest) and programmer Sanford Parker (Buried at Sea) – have spread their bleak gospel of totalitarian industrial vehemence to audiences in the US and Europe. Their second offering, Know How to Carry a Whip, is bolder sound-wise and retains a very human, punk rock core with Williams’ sneer playing off Kelly’s gutturalism on “White Man’s Gonna Lose” and nearly goes goth in doing the same with Lamont in the later “When Push Comes to Shank,” but across the 45-minute span, the songs remain in the key of abrasion, and ultimately that’s what most unites them. As noisy as closer “Burn the Witness” gets, I can’t help but think of the acoustic, Lamont-led centerpiece “Visions Divide” as the bleakest moment of the record, twisting folkish conventions into a dystopian soundscape, but Williams’ spoken drug-poetry on “I was Never Good at Meth” provides stiff competition.
Lush in its arrangements and doling out extreme measures of melancholy across its 56 minutes, Antimatter’s sixth album, The Judas Table (on Prophecy Productions), brings sonic depth to bear in rich textures of electric and acoustic guitars, keys, and the strength-through-fragility vocals of remaining founder and songwriter Mick Moss. The group’s last offering, 2012’s Fear of a Unique Identity (review here), pushed them into fuller tones, and an early cut like “Killer” builds on that, but the crux of The Judas Table is in subdued and brooding pieces like “Little Piggy,” remorseful and seething in kind as it moves through an acoustic-led arrangement marked out by strings and a sense of grace. “Integrity” asks the question, “What’s the point if no one else has any?” and sets a depressive run through one of the record’s grader builds, but Antimatter are hardly contained to one style here, as the New Wave inflection on “Can of Worms” or the rumbling apex of highlight “Stillborn Empires” demonstrate.
Not to be confused with their Swedish countrymen who operated under the same moniker and whose lineup included a post-and-pre-Candlemass Messiah Marcolin, Stockholm’s Colossus play a decidedly progressive blend of Peaceville-style doom and metal, the trio of guitarist/vocalist Niklas Eriksson, bassist Peter Berg and drummer Thomas Norstedt adding a near-immediate inflection toward the epic via Primordial-style vocal patterning on opener “Yehi Aour/Wanderers” that holds for much of their 48-minute sophomore outing, The Breathing World (on Perennity Records). “Darkling Root” and more so the chugging “Fuga Mundi” delve into blackened fare in the guitar, but it’s just one of an array of genres in Colossus’ arsenal and in the case of the latter, soon enough complemented by Opethian prog noodling and soulful vocalizing. These turns, which more often than not happen in an instant, are a great strength of The Breathing World, but would fall flat without the crisp, confident delivery the band provides leading to the grand sprawl and long fade of 10-minute closer, “The Silent City.”
One thing we’ve learned about Twin Earth Records thus far into the long-established label’s recent surge of activity is that it knows tone when it hears it. Thus comes treading Bastard Lord out of Buffalo, New York, whose four-song self-titled debut was initially self-released and remastered for a CD issue, rumble-fuzzing a murky Sabbath worship that oozes from the amps of bassist/vocalist David Braymiller and guitarist Mike Hermann – hard to tell at times in 13-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Cimmerian” where the one instrument ends and the other begins – and set to a suitable plod by Jeremy Coupe’s drumming. It’s little surprise when they pay homage to “Snowblind” in “Wormwood,” but the psychedelic edge in Braymiller’s vocals – drowned in effects, buried in the mix; both appropriately so – gives Bastard Lord a personality of its own the holds even into the faster closer “Into the Sea,” a Toner Low-style lysergic depth unflinching through that song and “Summoner” before it as Bastard Lord emerge from the mire with their intentions clear.
One might be forgiven for entering into Monocluster’s self-titled, self-released debut album with an expectation for traditional stoner rock, between the band’s moniker and album cover – and if that’s what came through in playing the 35-minute, five-track outing, I very likely wouldn’t complain – but the German-language four-piece subtly veer into and out of spacier interludes in cuts like “Dantes Inferno” and “8 Stunden” and the later “Ich Atme” pushes even further along those lines, jamming out vast and echoing over a foundational bassline that holds the track together before it stops outright and resurfaces with Monocluster’s most righteous single nod. Centerpiece “Straße” demonstrates a touch of Colour Haze influence as well, but on the whole the Cologne four-piece seem headed in a different direction, and as the 10-minute closer “12 Minuten” ranges farther and heavier than everything before it, I’m only more intrigued to find out where they might end up. Heavy psych that’s not afraid to tighten up and make a more pointed impact when it feels one is needed.
I have two reasons for writing a review of Valley’s Sunburst EP, and they are both ridiculously simple. Yes, the Swedish five-piece were featured in two podcasts (one here, one here) and mentioned in the roundup of 2015’s best short releases – however, reviewing Sunburst now gives me another excuse to put it back on and it gives me something to fall back to later when I’m praising the crap out of whatever they do next and want to link a past review. Simple reasons. If you haven’t yet heard the 2015 debut outing from the Stockholm post-heavy rock instrumentalists, basked in the warm, organic psychedelia of “Tunguska” and “Kiro” or the peaceful folk-jam of “Dream Shooter, Golden!” and the tense-and-release percussion and sample-topped progressive course of “Picture Puzzle Pattern Door,” then you have quite simply missed out. I’m sure plenty have and plenty more will liken it to a desert sound – in no small part because of the cover art – but the smooth melodicism goes beyond landscape here and is made to be appreciated regardless of climate or locale.
An edge of Northeastern aggression is unmistakable at the core of Shatner’s 20-minute self-released six-track EP. Based in Boston, the tree-piece boasts guitarist/vocalist Jim Healey (Black Thai, We’re all Gonna Die), bassist/backing vocalist Jesse Sherman (We’re all Gonna Die) and drummer Rob Davol (Cocked ‘n’ Loaded), and so a touch of anger isn’t unexpected given the personnel – even Healey’s acoustic work has brooding tension underlying – but if “Special” and “Black Market Liver” are variations on an ongoing theme, they’re of consistent quality in terms of songwriting, and the Thin Lizzy cover “Bad Reputation” is positioned well just past the halfway point to add variety amid a slew of potent hooks. Not their first time working together, but Healey and Sherman’s voices complement each other well on “Dead in Your Eyes” and “Death Reheated,” and with the solid foundation that Davol provides throughout, Shatner’s EP is an encouraging start to what’s hopefully an ongoing development.
Harvested, sometimes manipulated samples and synthesized textures permeate Notturno, the mostly-instrumental second album from Italian atmospheric project Australasia. Comprised solely of Gian Spalluto, it’s somewhat more surprising that songs like the cascading “Lumen” and “Kern” are able to conjure such full-band progressions, but layering was bound to be a factor one way or another in Australasia’s approach, so if it’s Spalluto’s vision at play, so be it. Sonically, the impression of much of the material – including the guest-vocalized centerpiece “Invisibile” – winds up somewhere between the dystopian ambience of Red Sparowes and the brighter aspirations of post-black metallers Alcest, but songs like “Haxo” and the closing title-track, a (mostly) solo piano piece, have a cinematic edge as well. Rather than play one side against the other, Spalluto brings them together in one overarching flow that engages conceptually and sonically throughout a nine-track/39-minute course that willfully refuses to acknowledge a line between post-rock and post-metal.
Synth ambience and distorted severity meet head-on with the second full-length from Swedish post-metallers The Moth Gatherer, The Earth is the Sky (on AgoniaRecords). Produced over a two-year span with Karl Daniel Lidén (Greenleaf, VAKA, etc.), it punishes intensely on “The Black Antlers” with no less underlying fluidity than it had on the quietly atmospheric “Dyatlov Pass” preceding, the four-piece of bassist/vocalist Alex Stjernfeldt, guitarist/vocalist/programmer Victor Wegeborn, guitarist Ronny Westphal and drummer Svante Karlsson finding a place sound-wise that swaps between peaceful and threatening, delving into extreme progressive metal and electronica in kind on “Attacus Atlas” while setting up the consuming, gradual push of 11-minute closer “In Awe Before the Rapture,” which seems in conversation with the synth of the earlier “Probing the Descent of Man” in creating a layered structure of sound, while also attempting to marry the various impulses displayed throughout. Familiar to a degree, but immersive in its bringing earth and sky together.
You might wonder just what kind of neighborhood it is that would pair “The House that Dripped Blood” next door to “House of Warlocks” – perhaps that street is on the “Island of Lost Souls” – but then you probably wouldn’t get the crux of Memphis heavy punk foursome Super Witch’s debut full-length, Super Witch Has Risen, which has tales of horror front to back, “Spaceship Cadillac” notwithstanding. The Tennessean outfit dip into garage grunge on “Night of the Hunter” and stomp out call and response and Melvins chug on on “The Need,” show some more patient swing on “Smash Your Own Face,” but it’s “Army of Werewolves” and the opening “Super Witch Has Risen” that tell the story of the band’s intent more than the semi-swirl of “Smash Your Own Face” or the all-the-way swirl of closer “With the Lights Out,” as satisfying as the closer is in pulling off a rare feat – psychedelic punk. Split between two recording sessions, there are some changes in sound throughout, but it would take a supernatural force to derail Super Witch from their underlying purpose.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 9th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Italian heavy post-rock solo-project Australasia will issue its second album, Notturno, on Sept. 18 through UK-based imprint Apocalyptic Witchcraft. The record follows Australasia‘s 2013 debut, Verterbra, and keeps a naturally dark focus according to the label and multi-instrumentalist Gian Spalluto. Both the artwork and a newly-unveiled teaser would seem to back that up, though as one might expect for something in this style, there’s plenty of spaciousness to be heard as well in what Australasia crafts.
You can hear for yourself in the teaser, which follows the art, info and preorder link below, all culled one way or another from the PR wire:
Australasia new album & teaser
Italian blackened Post-rock artist Australasia will release a new album titled “Notturno” next September 18th via the UK based label Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings. The new record blends post-rock with black metal elements, shoegaze and vintage electronica patterns for a deep journey into the darker side of nature.
the album will be released in a limited edition digipak format.
Australasia is an evolutionary musical project led by multi-instrumentalist Gian Spalluto. Its music evokes emotion and paints vivid pictures for the mind’s eye, transporting the listener far beyond where his physical being is left standing.
Australasia’s music reflects a childhood spent listening to Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks, followed by a youth in extreme metal and heavy psych bands that led to a passion for shoegaze, post-rock and Blade Runner-era synthesizers.
These different components are not simply juxtaposed each other but come together in a unique blend where different souls “Notturno” is Australasia’s second full-lenght recording. It represents a musical and evocative journey through moonlit landscapes made of dreamy mellow guitars, finely carved distorted riffs and retro synth cascades.
The album tells the night side of nature and its magnificence, above the misery that humanity left behind.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 18th, 2013 by JJ Koczan
Pelican‘s debut, Australasia, turns 10 this year. I think if this album showed up in my mailbox today, I probably wouldn’t call it innovative, but I also think the main reason that’s true is because so many bands have tried so hard over the last decade to sound like this record. It’s one of those “change your opinions” albums that I think has gone a long way toward defining “heavy” in its wake, either through people who’ve heard it or people who’ve heard bands who’ve heard it. In any case, bit of a classic in waiting.
Tomorrow night Neurosis play the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn and I’m going. To be honest, the pre-show anxiety is already riding high. What if I get there and can’t find parking? What if I get there and can’t get in? What if I get there and all the pictures I take suck? What if I get there, everything’s going really smoothly and then Neurosis gets on stage, points at me and goes, “This guy’s an asshole and his blog sucks and because of that, we’re not gonna play ‘Raise the Dawn.'” We live in a universe of infinite possibilities and any of this could happen. Probably less so the one where I flatter myself into thinking I’m a blip on Neurosis‘ collective radar, but definitely that one about the parking.
Pending some such disaster, I’ll have a review of that show on Monday, and then Monday night is the Corrections House supergroup kicking off their tour at the Saint Vitus bar in Brooklyn and I’ll be hitting that as well. Then, on Thursday, Graveyard roll through Philly and I’m slated to go to that, so expect much hyperbole to come about all of those. Also hoping to have a review of a new CD/LP reissue of Crooked Hook‘s demo before the week’s end and Gozu too if I can make that happen.
In addition to the Neurosis gig — which has consumed much space in my mind for the latter half of this week — this weekend I’m also planning on putting together a couple emailers that have been waiting and also considering a few phoners I want to put together. I’m decently caught up on reviews (much as I ever am) and it’s time to get back to interviewing people and start getting some opinions about records from the people who actually made them. Quite a novel thought.
If you’ve been a regular checking in on The Obelisk Radio, you probably noticed this week that the service has been shit, and intermittent shit at that. The company that hosts the stream has been getting a DDOS attack and I’m told that means my stream gets interrupted. No one’s going after The Obelisk Radio specifically, but just the server that hosts it and probably a million other online radio stations happens to be one of the lucky ones. Fortunately, Slevin is diligent in his keeping up with it and we hope to have the whole thing cleared up by next week. I still found time to update the playlist over the last couple days with another 35 or so records, so we’re not completely destitute.
Hope you have a great and safe weekend, and if you’re going to the Neurosis show, I’ll probably be the jerk annoying you with my stupidly large camera bag, so please feel free to say hi while you throw an elbow. See you on the forum and back here Monday for a resumption of shenanigans.
