Posted in Whathaveyou on March 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Last week, Majestic Mountain Records sent word of a tribute in the works to Saint Karloff bassist Ole Sletner — aka Ole Karloff — who passed away in 2021. In a similar spirit, the band themselves have now released the live album, Interstellar Voodoo, Live in Oslo, playing their 2019 sophomore full-length, Interstellar Voodoo (review here), in its entirety. In addition, Saint Karloff have been added to the Majestic Mountain Records Fest Oslo (MMR Fest), which is set for this June, and the band will once again render the album in full.
Hard to argue with either the intent or the realization. Interstellar Voodoo, Live in Oslo presents the studio record across two side-long parts that, sure enough, originally came out as a second LP with the deluxe edition of the album-proper. Making the tracks available digitally, with art of their own, seems like a fair enough move. The show was Feb. 29, 2020, at Blitz, and it sounds pretty right on. You were looking for something to spend seven Euro on today? Alright then.
News of the release came from social media:
Saint Karloff – Interstellar Voodoo, Live in Oslo
Majestic Mountain Records Fans!
We promised we had an amazing announcement for you today, and here it is!
The mighty Saint Karloff have released Interstellar Voodoo, Live in Oslo on Bandcamp for your listening pleasure in honour of the late, great Ole Karloff.
It will be available on all digital platforms soon!
Interstellar Voodoo, Live in Oslo is a very special live recording made at Blitz with the incredible Corny Henry on the keys from that absolutely magical, legendary evening back in February 2020 with HAZEMAZE and Jointhugger as support.
This was the very last show with bass player Ole Karloff and if you were there, you felt the power of that evening and know how incredible the atmosphere was.
If you were not, this is your chance to play it loud and experience the breathless wonder as we did, in your very own home.
Listen here: https://saintkarloff.bandcamp.com
Previously only available on vinyl with the Deluxe Repress Edition released last year. Interstellar Voodoo, Live in Oslo was recorded by Hugo Alvarstein at Blitz, February 29, 2020.
Mixed By Saint Karloff and mastered by Joona Hassinen of Studio Underjord. Reimagined artwork by Spectral Ecstasy.
In addition, we are elated to announce that Saint Karloff will play Interstellar Voodoo in its entirety once again, at Majestic Mountain Fest // Oslo.
Prepare to be taken to space with Saint Karloff and the incomparable Corny Henry once again!
We cannot wait to once again experience this masterpiece with all you beautiful people in June.
Don’t sleep on those tickets, this is going to be one festival you do not want to miss. Get your passes from the link on the event page!
We have so much more to come for you, keep those eyes peeled! Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support of what we’re throwing down. All the love to you, fine people of the Majestic tribe!
Ole Forever STP
Saint Karloff was: Mads Melvold – Guitars and Vocals Ole Sletner – Bass Adam Suleiman – Drums Corny Henry – Keyboards
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 9th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Majestic Mountain Records has been busy behind the scenes putting together a tribute to Ole Sletner, bassist of Saint Karloff, who passed away of cancer last year. The first song, with Spain’s Wild Fuzz Trip taking on the title-track of Saint Karloff‘s 2019 debut, Interstellar Voodoo (review here), has been posted, and it’s one of apparently eight tracks that will feature on the homage-minded compilation due to release hopefully sometime later this year. I did not know Sletner personally, but there’s no question his death had a marked effect on the heavy underground in Saint Karloff‘s native Oslo and beyond, as Wild Fuzz Trip‘s hailing from Iberia would also seem to confirm.
I’m not sure of the release date or the title or who else is taking part in the tribute, but, well, this is a good song and I have friends who’ve passed away who I still miss — you probably do too if you’ve been alive for more than 15 minutes — so I felt like posting this wasn’t out of line. We’re all humans out here, trying to do our best.
From social media:
Dear Majestic Mountain Records Friends-
We begin our week with a very special day, one that is bittersweet but extremely important for all of us. Exactly two weeks ago marked the one-year anniversary since Ole Karloff was taken from this corporeal realm.
Today, we celebrate his consummate humility, quiet generosity, the lasting influence of the blinding talent he possessed. Today we celebrate the existence of a truly special human being, taken too soon on what would have been his birthday.
We promised to do everything we could to keep his memory alive forever and our resolve to that goal has not been diminished. As such, we kick off a week of Gräs Olle/STP and Saint Karloff related news and celebration, starting now.
We are very pleased to bring you news of a Saint Karloff covers album due out on wax (with the full Majestic treatment of course) this year. Eight tracks, eight incredible bands paying tribute to and covering Saint Karloff tunes in each their own style, and we cannot wait to share it with you all. Today, we see the digital release of the first track from the album, an incredibly special and soulful rendition of an excerpt from Interstellar Voodoo by the insanely talented Wild Fuzz Trip who have included their own arrangements on the outro. Vocals by Iago Pico with drums by Suso Valcarcel. Mixed and mastered by Iago Pico at Pouland Studios with cover art by Manu Seoane.
You can experience this insanely beautiful tribute here: https://wildfuzztrip.bandcamp.com/track/interstellar-voodoo and streaming all over the web: https://pontana.lnk.to/k1rWJ2
The Gräs Olle project goes strong and next, we will bring you an update about that! To round out the week, we have some extremely exciting Saint Karloff related news coming to you on Friday.
To all those who have shared your sentiments about Ole, who have celebrated his life in your own ways, sent birthday wishes and especially those who have supported the Gräs Olle project, we thank you humbly from the bottom of our hearts. It is our sincere mission to keep Ole’s legacy alive so that it will be felt forever in legions of fans and musicians who encountered Ole’s work with Saint Karloff, and to bring new awareness to Saint Karloff and Ole’s magic. Your support helps us to accomplish that goal.
Today, let’s raise a glass and celebrate the life of our fuzz brother, the one and only Ole Karloff.
We love you and miss you so much, Ole. Happiest of birthdays to you in the infinite.
We love you Mads and Adam, and we send our deepest wishes for the joys and quirks of his memory to comfort you, Ole’s family, and friends.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 30th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Cheers to Norwegian doomers Saint Karloff on making a studio documentary and avoiding having it basically be fodder for comparison to Spinal Tap. A rare dodge on the part of any band. The Oslo-based three-piece will begin a round of shows in February supporting their 2019 sophomore full-length, Interstellar Voodoo (review here), and they’ll be joined in the endeavor by countrymen garage heavies Magmakammer, making for a two-band complement that I have no doubt will be received with approving nods by all in their presence. This brand of riffing will do that, and each act has their own spin.
I was kind of hoping for some video interview footage in the documentary, and it’s the album playing (in full) over studio clips with info and background spliced in, making for an interesting, cool and not-at-all Tap excuse to revisit the record. You think that’d be easy but it’s not if you’ve ever done an interview.
Dates and that video follow, as per the PR wire:
Norwegian Occult Rockers SAINT KARLOFF announce European Tour with Magmakammer | Share Recording Session Documentary for INTERSTELLAR VOODOO
In association with The Doomsday Agency and hot on the heels of an impressive 2019, Doom Rock’s rising superpower, Saint Karloff, take to the road next month for a European tour with fellow Norwegians, Magmakammer.
Having made their mark on the international heavy music scene in 2018 with the release of their debut album, All Heed the Black God, the band continued to raise their game with newer, heavier and more complexly psychedelic material on last year’s Interstellar Voodoo, their follow-up album released on Majestic Mountain Records.
To showcase exactly what went into the recording, the trio have released a unique video documenting and detailing the very recording session that produced the album’s epic one-track conclusion. Soundtracked in full of course, by the album itself.
“This is a music video and documentary hybrid of our time recording our second album,” explains guitarist/vocalist, Mads Melvold. “It was recorded Easter 2019 and released in the autumn of that same year. People have reached out to us and asked us about the making of Interstellar Voodoo, and with this video we try to answer these questions. What you see is the actual recording. The whole thing was filmed and edited and it contains information and anecdotes on the whole process from start to finish.”
Released last year on Majestic Mountain Records, copies of Interstellar Voodoo are now sold out but you can purchase the album digitally, directly from the band (here) ahead of their tour, which kicks off in Norway next month. For the full list of dates and venues see list and tour poster below:
Posted in Reviews on January 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
We begin Day Two of the Winter 2020 Quarterly Review. Snow on the ground fell overnight and the day ahead looks as busy as ever. There’s barely time to stop for sips of coffee between records, but some allowances must be made. It’s Tuesday after all. There’s still a lot of week left. And if we can’t be kind to ourselves in the post-holiday comedown of wintry gray, when can we?
So yes, pause, sip — glug, more likely — then proceed.
I don’t usually play favorites with these things, but I think today’s might have worked out to be my favorite batch of the bunch. As always, I hope you find something that speaks to you.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Dommengang, No Keys
Driving heavy psych and rock meet with spacious Americana and a suburbanite dreaminess in Dommengang‘s No Keys, the now-L.A. trio’s follow-up to 2018’s Love Jail (review here). It is a melting pot of sound, with emphasis on melting, but vocal harmonies and consistently righteous basslines like that in “Stir the Sea” act to tie the nine component tracks together, making Dommengang‘s various washes of tone ultimately the creation of a welcoming space. Early cut “Earth Blues” follows opener “Sunny Day Flooding” with a mindful far-outbound resonance, and the later “Arcularius – Burke” finds itself in a linear building pattern ahead of “Jerusalem Cricket,” which reimagines ’70s country rock as something less about nostalgia than forward possibility. Having come far on their apparently keyboard-less journey, from the breadth-casting verses of “Stir the Sea” to the doomy interlude “Blues Rot,” they end with “Happy Death (Her Blues II)” which sure as hell sounds like it has some organ on it. Either way, whether they live up to the standard of the title or not is secondary to the album’s actual achievements, which are significant, and distinguish Dommengang from would-be peers in atmosphere, craft and melody.
Though they don’t do it nearly as often as they did between 2012 and 2015, every now and then Boston’s Ice Dragon manage to sneak out a new release. Over the last few years, that’s been a succession of singles, but Passage of Mind is their first LP since 2015’s A Beacon on the Barrow (review here), and though they’ll always in some part be thought of as a doom band, the unassuming organic psychedelia of “Don’t Know Much but the Road” reminds more of Chris Goss‘ work with Masters of Reality in its acoustic/fuzz blend and melody. The experimentalism-prone outfit have been down this avenue before as well, and it suits them, even as members have moved on to other projects (Brass Hearse among them), with the seven-minute “One of These Days” basing itself around willfully simplistic-sounding intertwining lines of higher and lower fuzz. There are moments of serenity, like closer “Dream About You” and “Sun in My Eyes,” but “The Sound the Rain Makes” is more of a blowout, and even the darker vibe of “Delirium’s Tears” holds hits melody as top priority. Hey guess what? Here’s an Ice Dragon album that deserves more attention than it’s gotten. I think it’s the 12th one.
Oslo’s Saint Karloff squash the high standard they set for themselves on their 2018 debut, All Heed the Black God (review here), with the 41-minute single-song long-player Interstellar Voodoo, basking in bluesy Sabbathian grandeur and keeping a spirit of progressive adventuring beneath without giving over entirely to self-indulgent impulses any more than one could as they careen from one movement to the next in the multi-stage work. With vinyl through Majestic Mountain Records, tape on Stoner Witch Records and CD through Ozium Records, they’re nothing if not well represented, and rightly so, as they veer in and out of psychedelic terrain in exciting and periodically elephantine fashion, still making room for classic Scandi-folk boogie on side A before the second half of the track stomps all over everything that’s come before it en route to its own organ-laced jammy meandering, Iommi shuffle and circa-’74 howl. As a new generation of doom rock begins to take shape, Saint Karloff position themselves well as earlier pursuers of an individualist spirit while still drawing of course on classic sources of inspiration. The first record was encouraging. The second is more so. The third will be the real tell of who they are as a band.
The jangling guitar strum in centerpiece “Lucid” on Witch Trail‘s The Sun Has Left the Hill (Consouling Sounds) has the indelible mark of classic rock and roll freedom to it. One wonders if Pete Townshend would recognize it, or if it’s too far blasted into oblivion by the Belgian trio’s aesthetic treatment across The Sun Has Left the Hill‘s convention-challenging 29-minute span, comprising seven tracks that bring together a heavy alternative rock and post-black metal vision marked by spacious echoes and cavern screams that are likewise tortured and self-assured. That is to say, there’s no mistaking the intent here. In the early intensity of “Watcher” or the shimmering and more patiently unfolding “Silent Running,” the Ghent three-piece mark out their stylistic terrain between bursts of noisy chaotic wash and clearheaded execution. The six-minute “Afloat” hisses like a lost demo that would’ve rewritten genre history some 25 years ago, and even in closer “Residue,” one can’t help but feel like Witch Trail are indeed looking to leave some lasting effect behind them with such forward-thinking craft. Sure to be a shock for those who take it on with no idea of what to expect.
Shortly before Love Gang are halfway through the opening title-track of their debut album, Dead Man’s Game, just when you think you might have their blend of organ-laced Radio Moscow and Motörhead figured out, that’s when Leo Muñoz breaks out the flute and the whole thing takes a turn for the unexpected. Surprises abound from the Denver foursome of Muñoz (who also handles organ and sax), guitarist/vocalist Kam Wentworth, bassist Grady O’Donnell and drummer Shaun Goodwin, who find room for psychedelic airiness amidst the gallop of “Addiction,” which doesn’t seem coincidentally paired with “Break Free,” though the two don’t run together. Love Gang‘s 2016 self-titled EP (review here) had a cleaner production and less aggro throb, and there’s some of that on Dead Man’s Game in the peaceful melody of “Interlude,” but even seven-minute closer “Endless Road” makes a point of finishing at a rush, and that’s ultimately what defines the album. No complaints. Love Gang wield momentum as another element of inventive arrangement on this encouraging first long-player.
‘Tis the stuff of battle axes and severed limbs, but it’s worth noting that three of the six inclusions on Firebreather‘s second LP and first for RidingEasy Records, Under a Blood Moon, have some reference to fire in their title. The follow-up to their brazen 2017 self-titled debut (review here) starts with its longest track (immediate points) in the nine-minute “Dancing Flames,” then follows immediately with “Our Souls, They Burn” and launches side B with the eponymous “Firebreather,” as the Gothenburg trio of Mattias Nööjd, Kyle Pitcher and Axel Wittbeck launch their riffy, destructive assault with urgency that earns all that scarred land left in its wake. The High on Fire comparison remains inevitable, perhaps most of all on “Firebreather” itself, but Firebreather have grown thicker in tone, meaner in approach and do nothing to shy away from the largesse that such a sound might let them convey, as “Our Souls, They Burn” and in the volume surges of closer “The Siren.” Under a Blood Moon is a definite forward step from the first LP, showing an evolving sound and burgeoning individuality that one hopes Firebreather continue to hunt down with such vigilance.
Presented through Stolen Body Records, the debut long-player from French trio Karkara purports to be “Oriental psych rock,” which accounts for an Eastern influence in the overall sound of its seven-track/41-minute run, but there are perhaps some geographical questions to be undertaken there, as “Camel Rider” and others show a distinctive Mideastern flair. Whatever works, I guess. At its core, Crystal Gazer is a work of psychedelic space rock, brought to bear with a duly open sensibility by guitarist/vocalist Karim Rihani (also didgeridoo), bassist Hugo Olive and drummer/vocalist Maxime Marouani as seemingly the beginning stages of a broader sonic adventure. That is to say, the stylistic aspects at play here — and they are very much “at play” — feel purposefully used, but like the foundation of what will be future growth on the part of Karkara as a unit. Will they progress along a more patient and meditative path, as “The Way” hints in some of its early roll, or will the frenetic winding of closer “Jedid” set their course for subsequent freakouts? I don’t know, but Karkara strike as a band who won’t see any point to standing still creatively any more than they do to doing so rhythmically.
Information is limited on Circle of Sighs, and by that I primarily mean I don’t have any. They list their point of origin as Los Angeles, so there’s that, but as to the whos and whats, wheres and so on, it’s a mystery. Something tells me that suits the band, whose four-track debut EP, Desolate, gracefully executes a blend of melodic downerism with more extreme elements at play, melodic vocal arrangements offset by screams in the closing title-track after the prior rolling groove of “Burden of the Flesh” offered a progressive and synth-laden take on Pallbearer-style emotive doom. Acoustics, keyboard, and a clear use of multiple singers give Circle of Sighs‘ first outing a kitchen-sink feel, but one can only admire them for trying something new at their (presumed) outset, and the catchy chug of “Hold Me, Lucifer” speaks to more complex aesthetic origins than the simplistic subject matter might lead one to believe. The outlier is the penultimate nine-minute cut “Kukeri,” which broods across its first three minutes in a manner that would make Patrick Walker proud before unfolding the breadth of its lumber and arrangement, harmonies and screams and the first real showcase of more extreme impulses taking hold in its second half — plus strings, maybe — which “Desolate” itself will build upon after a bookending acoustic close. There’s some sorting out to do in terms of sound, but already they show a readiness to push in their own direction, and that’s more than it would seem reasonable to ask.
Way out west, Chris Allison of the band Lord Loud is taking on psychedelic shimmer under the ostensible solo moniker of Floral Fauna, but the situation of the project’s 11-tracker debut LP, Pink and Blue is more complicated in personnel and style than that, melding fuzzy presence, classic ’60s surf-tone, rampant hooky melody and ready-to-go-anywhere-as-long-as-it-works pop experimentalism together in a steaming lysergic cauldron of neo-yourface-ism that’s ether blissed enough to tie funk and ancient R&B to cosmic flow together in a manner that feels like an utter tossoff, like, hey, yeah man, this kind of thing just happens all the time here. You know, no big deal on this wavelength. Mellow dreams in “Great White Silence,” a spacey ramble in “Velvet and Jade” and the echoing leadwork of “Red Anxiety” continue the color theme from the opening title-track, and the record caps with “Herds of Jellyfish,” which at last brings forward the vocal harmony that the whole album seems to have been begging for. Cool debut? Shit, man. It’s 36 minutes of straight-up psych joy just waiting to bring you on board. Legal psilocybin now.
There are a couple things you can figure on in this wacky universe, and one of them is that German imprint World in Sound knows what it’s doing when it picks up a classic heavy rock band. Silhouettes is the second long-player the label has released from woefully-monikered Aschaffenburg-based four-piece Vvlva, and indeed in the upfront boogie of “Cosmic Pilgrim” or the more progressive unfolding of pieces like “Tales Told by a Gray Man,” the centerpiece “Gomorrah,” or the longer “Night by Night/The Choir” and “Dance of the Heathens,” which seem to bring the two sides together, there’s enough vintage influence to make the case once again. Like the more forward thinking of their contemporaries, Vvlva have brought this modus into the present when it comes to production value and clarity, and rather than sound like it’s 1973, they would seem to be making 1973 sound like them. Whether one dives in for the early hooks in “Cosmic Pilgrim” or “What Do I Stand For?” or the fuzzy interplay between the solo and organ in the maddeningly bouncing “Hobos,” there’s plenty in Silhouettes to demonstrate the vitality and continued evolution of the style.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 13th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Oslo’s Saint Karloff are working at a good clip coming off their 2018 debut, All Heed the Black God (review here), in that it’s barely been a year since that release came out and already they’ve got a split and a new full-length due this Fall. The split is with Devil’s Witches and it’s out Sept. 6, and not quite a month later, on Oct. 4, they’ll issue their second long-player, Interstellar Voodoo. It’s set to be issued through Majestic Mountain Records, Ozium Reords and Stoner Witch Records, which is nice because, you know, the more the merrier when it comes to promotion.
These cats played Esbjerg Fuzztival earlier this Spring, and I’d expect much of their summertime has been spent coordinating making both these offerings come out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they took to stages in early 2020, to at least get back out and promote late-2019’s wares.
Nothing on that yet, and no audio from Interstellar Voodoo, but here’s the album announcement from the PR wire:
Rising Norwegian Occult Rockers Saint Karloff to unleash monolithic, one-track album, Interstellar Voodoo, this October on Majestic Mountain Records
Hot on the heels of a sold-out split from two of doom’s rising superpowers, the recently formed Swedish label, Majestic Mountain Records, is psyched to announce the release of Interstellar Voodoo; the brand-new studio album from Norwegian occult-rockers, Saint Karloff.
Having made their mark on the international heavy music scene in 2018 with the release of their debut album, All Heed the Black God, the band has continued to raise their game with new material that is far heavier, more psychedelic and complex than anything they’ve ever done before.
All Heed the Black God was inspired by 70s heavy blues bands like Black Sabbath and early Pentagram (official) and allowed the band to fuse this vintage sound with modern day stoner rock to create a sound indebted to world of today and the music of yesteryear.
With the impending release of Coven of the Ultra-Riff in September, a limited edition split with fellow riff worshippers, Devil’s Witches, Saint Karloff – featuring Mads Melvold (Guitar, Vocals), Ole Sletner (Bass) and Adam Suleiman (Drums) – are a mounting force to be reckoned with. And as you’ll hear from the progressive, one-track multiverse journey that spans the whole of Interstellar Voodoo, they’re unlikely to slow down for anyone, anytime soon.
“Interstellar Voodoo has been a labour of love, written and recorded to fill a void in our collective souls,” explains bassist, Ole Sletner. “To put this much devotion into something experimental is a bit scary, but luckily we have a label who believes in us. We are eternally gratefull to Marco Berg at Majestic Mountain Records for stepping up to the challenge of releasing our blood, sweat and tears on vinyl.
Interstellar Voodoo by Saint Karloff is released on 4th October through Majestic Mountain Records with pre-order beginning on 30th August.
Saint Karloff’s split with Devil’s Witches – Coven of the Ultra-Riff – is released on 6th September 2019.
Artist: Saint Karloff Release: Interstellar Voodoo Label: Majestic Mountain Records Release Date: 04/10/2019 Format: Vinyl (Majestic Mountain Records), CD (Ozium Records), Tape (Stoner Witch Records)
