Posted in Whathaveyou on September 18th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Brew-loving Italian heavy rockers Humulus will release their next album, The Deep, in Feb. 2020 through Kozmik Artifactz. Sounds like something that’s going to happen way, way in the future when we have flying cars and colonies on Alpha Centauri and not-at-all a rising tide of right wing fascism? Well, it’s like five months from now, so unless we’re in for the most condensed stretch of awesome progress ever — and not to play the cynic but I’m guessing we’re not — it’ll probably just be more of that rising tide thing. The good part, however, is new Humulus. Keep up. Also, it’s happening on Kozmik Artifactz, which seems like a fair jump for the Bergamo/Brescia three-piece, who’ve worked with Kozmik-offshoot Oak Island Records in the past, including for 2017’s Reverently Heading into Nowhere (review here), as well as with Taxi Driver Records.
Drummer Massimiliano Boventi had some cool stuff to say about The Deep, so you’ll find below what he sent to me. They did some light touring for the last record, so I’d expect no different this time out:
Humulus – The Deep
Our new LP will be out in february 2020 for german label Kozmik Artifactz Records. The title will be “The Deep”.
We started working on this record less or more one year ago between tours and gigs around…one fun fact : when we met the first times for take decision about the direction of the new songs we said like “let’s try to compose shorter songs”, maybe just for make something easier to listen for more people…so not too much later the first 2 songs were ready, the first was 9 minutes long the second 15 minutes — so in a totally spontaneous and natural way we realized that this is our direction… we love to jam and make different atmosphere during our rehears and the result is that we can’t cut our songs.
So I can say the one of the detail of the new record is that more than in the previous one songs are more and more a mix between doom and stoner rock riffs and psychedelic and trippy atmospheres…
For the first time there will be also an acoustic song in the record.
As the last works (Reverently Heading Into Nowhere and Walrus EP) this record was recording during this summer at Indiebox Music Hall in Brescia by Giovanni Bottoglia.
Humulus is: Andrea Van Cleef: guitar, voice Giorgio Bonacorsi: bass Massimiliano Boventi: drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 14th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Holy shit this looks like a good time. Don’t get me wrong, I post about a lot of festivals all over the place and often say the same, but if you’ve got two minutes and 45 seconds — and if you make it to the end of this run-on-ass sentence, let’s face it, you do — go ahead and check out the recap video at the bottom of this post of last year’s Elav Stoner Open Air in Bergamo, Italy. I know it’s edited together to look cool and I know rocking out in slow motion is universally awesome and blah blah blah, but even so, look at that space. Look at the vibe. Look how relaxed everything seems, everybody just having a good time, downing some beers and watching killer bands play. What the hell is life about if not that very thing?
That was the first edition of the festival, and it’s grown significantly since. Elav Stoner Open Air 2018 features Bergamo’s own beer aficionados Humulus in a returning role, and alongside them are the likes of Mars Red Sky, Samavayo, Sonic Wolves, Papir playing a special jam set and a regular set, Belzebong, Weedpecker, Da Captain Trips and more. Just absolutely killer. I don’t want to say “job well done” before it happens and jinx anything, but seriously, this looks like an incredible time. It’s free to get in if you can get there, and it’s three nights of killer shows back to back to back. I’m sorry I won’t get to see it, but I’ll look forward to the video after the fact.
Lineup info and links follow here, as seen on the social medias:
ELAV STONER OPEN AIR FESTIVAL 2018
13-14-15 September 2018
@ Birrificio Indipendente Elav (Comun nuovo – Bergamo, Italy)
\\\\ FREE ENTRY ////
LINE UP:
Gio 13 ::: Da Captain Trips + Sonic Wolves + Samavayo Ven 14 ::: RAIKINAS + Papir (jam set) + Humulus + Mars Red Sky Sab 15 ::: The Black Lodge + Dead Man’s Blues Fuckers + Weedpecker + Papir + BelzebonG
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 17th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Beer-guzzling Italian heavy rockers Humulus might be a little late for Oktoberfest, but one imagines they’ll find plenty to keep their livers busy with anyway as they trek through Germany next week on a Noisolution-booked six-day jaunt supporting earlier-2017’s Reverently Heading into Nowhere (review here). The band offers a quick check-in ahead of the run, and it turns out they’ve almost completely sold through the first pressing of their second long-player, and though more are reportedly 200 more on the way, if you happen to be in the path of the tour and want a copy, now would seem to be the time to pick it up. Fair enough.
Reverently Heading into Nowhere was released through Taxi Driver Records and Oak Island Records. Here’s that update from the band, some cool art and the dates for next week’s stint:
Humulus – Humulus Germanicus Tour
We really can’t wait to hit the road and have a blast in this 6 days tour in Germany. In the past we had 2 shows in Germany (one at Keep it Low in 2015) and were always very nice situations. When our last LP came out it was well reviewed by German magazines and blogs and our German label (Oak Island Records) and promoting agency (Noisolution) are doing a great work with us. We really expect to having good time, nice shows and meet old and new friends.
We have only few copies left of our last LP in limited edition vinyl for this tour… then new 200 copies will be repressed by the label in black version and they will be available from spring 2018. So don’t be shy German people: come to our shows, enjoy our music, and grab the last copies of our R.H.I.N.O.
20.11.2017 – Munich, Rumours 21.11.2017 – Wiesbaden, Kesselhaus w/ The Flying Eyes 22.11.2017 – Düsseldorf, District 6 23.11.2017 – Berlin, Jägerklause Berlin w/ Dead Kittens 24.11.2017 – Jena, Kulturbahnhof Jena w/ Nap 25.11.2017 – Ulm, Kradhalle
Tour is booked and promote by Noisolution
Humulus is: Andrea Van Cleef: guitar, voice Giorgio Bonacorsi: bass Massimiliano Boventi: drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 6th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Pretty impressive lineup that Italian heavy rockers Humulus have put together in conjunction with Elav Brewery for what’s being called Elav Stoner Open Air 2017, with Monkey3 and Karma to Burn headlining and performances locked in from Humulus themselves as well as Toner Low, My Sleeping Karma, Monte Nero, Ride Paranoia, Elepharmers and Bangarang. It’s a two-night affair, and one assumes that since it’s actually being held at the brewery itself it’ll be as much a party as it is a show, but all the better for the heavy and psychedelic vibe that seems to be the event’s ultimate aim.
Four bands tomorrow, five on Saturday. I know it’s kind of a crapshoot to think you’re going to be able to make it out to this one on such short notice if you didn’t already plan to go, but consider this notice at least that cool stuff like this is happening somewhere on the planet. On the most basic level, ideas like this one seem worth supporting to me. It looks like a good time.
Fest info follows, as run through a major tech firm’s translation matrix from its original Italian:
Elav Stoner- Open Air Festival
The Brewery opens the doors for the Stoner event of the year.
Friday 7 and Saturday, July 8, 2017 will arrive in the year of the ELAV STONER OPEN AIR FESTIVAL at #Bergamo, a two-day stoner music with nine bands, between national and international, which will alternate on stage with: Psych-Stoner , Psychedelic vibrations, garage, rock and some blues notes …
The billboard took shape under the artistic direction of the Humulus, power trio Psych-Stoner of Brescia / Bergamo. Guest star of Karma to Burn, US trio that with their rock instrumental stoner will explode the stage!
Friday, July 7
MONKEY3 (Switzerland) Psychedelic vibrations, stoner rock slides with a twist prog, instrumental music that invites to travel through the mind. During a 14-year career, Monkey3 has released 6 albums. Over the years, the Swiss quartet played everywhere in Europe, taking part in the best festivals: Roadburn, Hellfest, Desertfest, Burg-Herzberg, Freak Valley …
HUMULUS (Italy) A power-trio Psych-Stoner set up in 2009. Their first album of the same name comes out for Go Down Records in December 2012. In 2015, after a change of training, the Humulus are ready to write new songs; An EP of 3 songs entitled “Electric Walrus EP” sees the light in October 2015. 2016 is a year full of important concerts and new ideas for new songs that will compose the new LP entitled “Reverently Heading Into Nowhere.”
ELEPHARMERS (Italy) Stoner rock band from Cagliari, two guitars with heavy tuning, battery and voice. The sound of the trio brings with it the teaching of the Black Sabbath, the “cosmic” blues of the 60s and 70s, the groove of the stoner of the ’90s. The Elepharmers sound continues to have a sabbatical matrix, but with respect to the first album the songs are longer and more dilated, there are more instrumental parts and the arrangements are richer, thanks to the presence of acoustic guitars and synth arrangements and hammond By Matteo “Baro” Paper.
Bangarang! (Italy) Quartet with a loud rhythm, a strong ironic vein and the lyricism of the sampler that becomes a sort of “virtual singer”. The Bangarang Concert! Is littered with voices, noises, quotes, and dialogues around and inside the songs. In 2016 the Bangarang! Come back with a new work in the studio: ten tracks that go to create RELIGION CATODICA, an album that tells the many aspects of Italian television, for good and for evil, and which leads to the extreme consequences of the fusion of the power of a schizophrenic power trio And the quotation of the sampled voices.
Saturday, July 8
KARMA TO BURN (USA) With their rock instrumental stoner they are ready to blow up the stage! For more than 20 years, the US trio proposes a rock stoner that is for all such lovers a solid and historic reference point; With their latest EP “Mountain Czar” Karma To Burn propose another wave of what they like to call “Mountain Rock” … and we are ready to make us invest in this mountain of increasingly aggressive and rhythmic riffs .
MY SLEEPING KARMA (Germany) Aschenburg’s rock psychedelic German group, with 4 studio albums behind and a lot of live experience. With their new album “Moksha” and a series of live sold out across Europe, My Sleeping Karma arrives at the Brewery together with their instrumental rock, a real journey out of the mind: hypnotic atmospheres, engaging guitar riffs and a Massive dose of rock that never breaks.
TONER LOW (Netherlands) Band Doom Stoner who released the third album “III” in April 2013 on Bilocation Records / Kozmik Artifactz and Roadkill Rekordz. The band features a rock stoner characterized by very low and rhythmic obsessive frequencies typical of the doom, which live become a real space trip.
MONTE NERO (Italy) The Monte Nero project is a unique Distinct Music Moloch. After 15/20 years of ripening in various cellars, dance halls and stages throughout Italy, some operative musicians from rock band Bergamo (Gea, Spread, In The Howling Storm) are transferred to the BDC Room by Stefano Locatelli To spend another two years of maturing. Then, when the elements have reached full maturity, they blend together to create rock songs with a rich, intense aroma and full and round flavor.
RIDE PARANOIA (Italy) A rock band from Brescia, born in 2014, is the meeting between the two completely different music companies. Claudio, Davide, Andrea and Marco are part of The Credo band, which has been active since 2006, the fifth element of the band is Giovanni, eclectic guitarist, formerly a member of the French Wine Coca and Waiver. The result of this sound fusion has given rise to the sound of the Paranoia Ride, explosive mix of stoner, garage, rock, embellished with a touch of electro.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 7th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
After locking in releases through Oak Island Records and Taxi Driver Records for the LP and CD pressings, respectively, Italian heavy rockers Humulus have newly unveiled the cover art and tracklisting for their forthcoming second full-length, Reverently Heading into Nowhere. Those who’ve followed the band will note it’s of an animalized theme with their prior EP, 2015’s Electric Warlrus (review here), and their 2012 self-titled debut album before that, but to take it one step further, we can see the quote below from drummer Massimiliano Boventi potentially coming to fruition in the tracklisting itself.
My basis for comparison there is the fact that Humulus‘ Humulus — now five years old — had nine songs and Reverently Heading into Nowhere, which is out March 24, tops out at six. Entirely possible the record’s just shorter overall, but in light of what Boventi says about following-up the EP, I’d expect it means the cuts themselves are somewhat longer, allowing for that more psychedelic feel to take hold. Boris from Monkey3 showing up for a guest spot is also a pretty good sign of that direction.
Either way, we’ve got a while to go before we find out, but you can check out the art and so forth below:
Humulus – Reverently Heading into Nowhere
Release date is fixed for 24th march (vinyl and digital for Oak Island Records and CD for Taxi Driver Records). The vinyl will be in transparent green and white w/ pink/purple splatter, strictly limited.
Tracklisting: 1- Distant Deeps Or Skies 2- Catskull 3- Anachronaut (feat Boris from Monkey3) 4- The Gold Rush 5- The Great Hunt 6- Rama Kushna
First gigs: 14th april @ Lio Bar (Brescia, Italy) 17th april @ Clock Tower Pub (Treviglio – BG, Italy)
“So… the new record is recorded at Indiebox Music Hall in Brescia,” says Massimiliano Boventi, “and all the tracks are passed into an analog tape before been mixed and mastered. These new six tracks are the spontaneous sequel of the sound of our last EP (went out last year). Humulus sound becomes more and more a mix between psychedelic dispositions and heavier doom stuffs.”
Andrea Van Cleef: guitar, voice Giorgio Bonacorsi: bass Massimiliano Boventi: drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 27th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Italian trio Humulus have locked in a CD release for their upcoming second album, Reverently Heading into Nowhere, through Taxi Driver Records. Set for this Spring, the CD will coincide with a vinyl through Kozmik Artifactz-distributed imprint Oak Island Records, and it follows Humulus‘ 2015 EP, Electric Walrus (review here), on which they blended organ-laced ’90s-style alternative sensibilities with harder push on songs like “Glider” and incorporated psychedelic vibing on the extended opener “Red Star, Winter Orbit.”
What that means they might do on the record, well, I suppose it could go any number of ways. We’ll just have to see when we get there. This one’s been in discussion for a while at this point, so it’s good to see some forward progress.
From the PR wire:
TDREC new release: Humulus in CD
Taxi Driver Records announces the release of the CD version for the new album titled “Reverently Heading Into Nowhere” by Italian psych-stoner power trio Humulus in Spring 2017.
Humulus formed in Brescia/Bergamo (Italy) in 2009. After the release of their first album in 2012, cool collaborations as the production of their eponymous black stoner IPA brewed from 2014 together with ELAV Independent Brewery, the release of an EP in 2015 and many live shows, the band is very proud of this new work which sounds greatly psychedelic and heavy. LP version of “Reverently Heading Into Nowhere” will be curated by German label Oak Island Records.
Cover artwork and tracklist will be revealed in the next weeks.
“So… the new record is recorded at Indiebox Music Hall in Brescia,” says Massimiliano Boventi, “and all the tracks are passed into an analog tape before been mixed and mastered. These new six tracks are the spontaneous sequel of the sound of our last EP (went out last year). Humulus sound becomes more and more a mix between psychedelic dispositions and heavier doom stuffs.”
Andrea Van Cleef: guitar, voice Giorgio Bonacorsi: bass Massimiliano Boventi: drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 29th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Even as the label’s reach continues to grow, Heavy Psych Sounds keeps one foot firmly planted in its native Italian underground. In Jan. 2017, it will release the second full-length from Bergamo speed-rocking three-piece The Clamps, who, formerly aligned with countryman imprint Go Down Records, issued their debut, Deadly Kick for a Fat Fucker, in 2013. The new album is titled Blend, Shake, Swallow, presumably in reference to the band’s preferred method of consuming protein powders — I don’t know that, but it’s the world I want to live in — and though no audio has surfaced from it yet, you can find the artwork around if you’re not up to your quota yet today on cartoon tits. They’re never hard to find.
Announcement of the signing follows, including a teaser of tour dates to come. Dig it:
The Clamps – Blend, Shake, Swallow (Heavy Psych Sounds)
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Records & Booking is stoked to announce a new band signing: THE CLAMPS
The Clamps band was born Bergamo in 2012, when Ben, former guitar and vocal of the Winter of Souls, and Bely, former bass and vocal of the Jolly Power, began jamming together to make some rock’n’roll. They soon got the right groove and the heavy dirty sound they had in mind; the only thing missing was a drummer to beat hard and rough on the drums. Few weeks later, Marcy, former drummer of the Hypnotic Hysteria, joined the band. The line-up was done, essential and powerful. Fat guitars, distortions, screams, hard beats on the drums: tons of ideas came out, and riffs soon turned into songs.
The Clamps were ready to share the stage with bands such as Hookers, El Camaro, The Sewergrooves, Valient Thorr, Los Fuocos, Gonzales, Nashville pussy, Wild eyes, and more, and in summer 2013 entered the studio to record their first album DEADLY KICK FOR A FAT FUCKER, twelve tracks of a vicious fat sound squeezing stoner, speedrock, punk and rock’n’roll. The future is still to be written. Stay tuned and rock on!
The second album BLEND, SHAKE, SWALLOW is out in January 2017 for HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS RECORDS.
The Clamps will hit the road soon to promote the new album ..stay tuned!
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 3rd, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Italian heavy rockers Humulus will release their second long-player, Reverently Heading into Nowhere, next year. It’ll be out on Oak Island Records, the emergent Bilocation Records offshoot also responsible for recent offerings from Nightstalker, Swan Valley Heights and Spaceslug. No date determined as yet, but if you told me it was Spring 2017, I’d believe it. Following up last year’s Electric Walrus EP (review here), the band spent this past Halloween weekend holed up in IndieBox Music Hall in their native Brescia to put the album to tape, even bringing in Monkey3 guitarist Boris for a guest spot, so while there’s probably still work to be done mixing or mastering, it seems like the basic tracks are finished, which, you know, is an important step.
The band sent the following background and comment along the PR wire:
Humulus is a Psych-Stoner power trio from Brescia/Bergamo (Italy), formed in 2009. Their first self titled album is released by Go Down Records in December 2012. The ten tracks of this first work fully reflect the stoner attitude of the band and their aggressive sound that is best expressed during their live shows.
In 2014 another great project, made of love and passion, sees the light: beer! Humulus produce their eponymous black stoner IPA, brewed in collaboration with ELAV Independent Brewery. In 2015, after a change in the line-up, Humulus are ready to write new songs. A 3 songs EP called “Electric Walrus EP” sees the light in October 2015. The new Ep shows the new attitude of the band: more psychedelic and more dynamic than before. The EP release is immediately followed by a series of new live shows, including the gig at the Keep It Low Festival in Munich, that confirm the tightness and power of the renewed line-up. 2016 is full of live gigs, and new songs are written and played on big and small stages.
The new LP “Reverently Heading Into Nowhere”, more psychedelic AND heavier than ever, will be out next Spring, to mark Humulus’ debut with the German label Oak Island Records.
“So… the new record is recorded at Indiebox Music Hall in Brescia,” says Massimiliano Boventi, “and all the tracks are passed into an analog tape before been mixed and mastered. These new six tracks are the spontaneous sequel of the sound of our last EP (went out last year). Humulus sound becomes more and more a mix between psychedelic dispositions and heavier doom stuffs.”
Andrea Van Cleef: guitar, voice Giorgio Bonacorsi: bass Massimiliano Boventi: drums
