Posted in Whathaveyou on March 18th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Set for the weekend of Oct. 18-20 and (I think?) celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first Desertfest Belgium, which was held in 2014, the 2024 edition of the Antwerp-based Desertfest has made its first lineup announcement, anchored by Fu Manchu and Russian Circles and featuring a host of others ranging in both geography and style. From the fluid textures of REZN and classic melodic prog rock of Mondo Drag to the reunited Scorpion Child, Bongzilla‘s singularly stoned crust and the expansive riffery of Stoned Jesus, whose Mother Dark complement to early-2023’s Father Light (review here) is awaited, it’s a well-rounded bill even before you account for heavy psych rockers Seedy Jeezus and bluesy ’70s traditionalists Child making the trip from Australia, the latter on the heels of Heavy Psych Sounds reissuing their catalog, the expansive sounds of Messa, and so on.
That it looks like a cool time isn’t really a surprise. Desertfest Belgium has developed a character of its own as the flagship Fall Desertfest in Europe, and while I’ve never been, I always look forward to seeing what it brings to the seasonal cohort of heavy festivals. Already we know REZN will be on tour with Russian Circles, as that was announced last week too, but it’s likely more tours will come from Mondo Drag, Ritual King and others below that haven’t been revealed yet if they’re even at this point finalized. In addition to the usual daydreaming-about-travel, I find thinking about these things and imagining tours and who might have new records out by the time October gets here to be a particular kind of nerdy joy.
The announcement, as per social media:
It’s that time of year again! It’s with great pride and excitement that we announce the first names for DF24! 👁️
Confirmed for Desertfest ANTWERP are: Fu Manchu Russian Circles Stoned Jesus Bongzilla Scorpion Child MESSA Wolvennest Mondo Drag Seedy Jeezus CHILD REZN Ritual King The Abbey Lethvm RRRags Crouch Kara Delik
Three days of delirium and heavy delight are surely awaiting us all in Antwerp!
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Some new names from Belgium’s Down the Hill Festival for the 2024 edition, bringing familiar parties like UK psychedelic novamakers Gnod and Mojo and the Kitchen Brothers, who you might remember were picked up last year by Lay Bare Recordings ahead of releasing their Mojo’s Heavy Cream LP this past Fall. The latter outfit — the one with the longer name, just to be clear — are making a return appearance after kicking things off in 2023, and Dutch heavy psych/classic rockers Rrrags are back for a second time as well, supporting their 2023 album, Mundi, also as it happens on Lay Bare.
Joining them and rounding out the list of five in this announcement — with seven names still to be unveiled as you can see on the poster below — are Desmond Dandies and Large Plants. The former are Belgian-based heavy garage-psych rockers with a strong current of later-’60s classicism running through last year’s 57 Heaven made modern through its still-organic production, and the latter is the acid-folk/neofolk-informed solo-project of UK songwriter Jack Sharp, formerly of Wolf People.
I’ll tell you honestly I hadn’t heard either Desmond Dandies or Large Plants before seeing their names here, and although when I started this post I intended just to put the Gnod stream at the bottom, I ended up with a player for each band because once I actually listened to them I couldn’t leave anybody out. That speaks to me of a lack of filler, which is something further to be appreciated about Down the Hill. Headliner still TBA. I wonder if it’ll be High on Fire, maybe Brant Bjork? This summer is packed front to back with tours in Europe, so the possibilities are vast, though if it had been Greenleaf or Rotor, I’d still think it was awesome.
The following was posted on socials:
It’s time for the weekend, so let’s add 5 more bands to next summer’s edition.
With GNOD you will dive head and body first into a powerfully new psychedelic maelstrom full of possibilities, we don’t think they need further introduction.
Large Plants started as a solo recording project for Jack Sharp, the singer and guitarist for Wolf People, characterized as psych rock, with a folkier, proggier and more fantastic feeling.
2nd time RRRags at Down The Hill, influences come from the heavy and psychedelic seventies with bands such as Grand Funk Railroad, Stooges, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. This band also performs live with a blend of long, instrumental jams and heavy, catchy songs. In short, a party not to be missed for the true psych head!
Desmond Dandies, heavily inspired by the sound of the 60’s and all its side streams, they instinctively reproduce a genre that can’t be put into boxes. Live sets vary every show, pushing their musical limits, but always characterized by solid harmonized vocals, tight guitar riffs, and energetic rhythm section.
Mojo & The Kitchen Brothers, also the 2nd time playing DTH, last edition they opened the fest, now we give them a later spot, their catchy tunes, proggy riffs, deafening drums, roaring basslines and spacy, triple-guitar jams take the listener on a Janus-faced journey through the limbo between past and present.
Line up so far: Greenleaf, Rotor, GNOD, Zone Six, B R I Q U E V I L L E, Large Plants, Full Earth, Vandal X, Doodseskader, Fuzzy Grass, RRRags, TAKH, Kozmotron, Desmond Dandies, Cuberdon, Mojo and The Kitchen Brothers and CRANC
And of course our DJ’s Cosmic Masseur, 7” of Riffs and Coconaut.
Tickets are selling fast!
Write it down into your agenda… the end of August, awesome party in Rillaar, aka Down The Hill.
Posted in Questionnaire on November 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Rob Zim of Rrrags
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I play the bass. As a teenager the only videotape I had was the Who’s Tommy (apart from some porn of course). I must have seen it at least 100 times. Entwistle’s enchantingly playful and creative bass lines made me play the bass. I remember every single note, I wish I had half his talent.
Ron from Rrrags has been a long time friend and I played in several bands with him before. We always went to the Roadburn Festival and stayed over at our friend Bidi, who is unfortunately not with us anymore, through whom we met Rob Martin. We decided to jam together and the satisfying outcome was the base for Rrrags. It is fun to play with Rrrags since there is a lot of space for improvisation and every concert is an adventure.
Describe your first musical memory.
Roger Glover’s ‘All you Need is Love and Understanding’ was, I believe, the first animated videoclip in the early/mid seventies when I was about three years old. When it was on television I pushed my face to the screen and immersed in the music and visuals. There was a singing frog, I loved it so much. Only 30 years later I found out the singer was Ronnie James Dio, which was also the first metal concert I went to as a teenager. That was weird.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
As a musician, playing Hellfest for 10.000 people was cool. But playing an improvised 75 minute Kraut/jazz/psychedelic jam session for a few hundred people on the Roadburn 2022 festival with my friend Ron from Rrrags and Ingvald and Ask from Kanaan was a highlight in my career. We had played two nights with Rrrags already and I was already home and all my gear loaded out when they phoned me to come back and do the gig. The audience was pretty baked from three days Roadburn and it went down very well, a full house was really digging what we did. Of course we did not record it, even though we were prompted by Roadburn’s house recording technician Marcel van der Vondervoort. We still forgot and maybe it is better like this, probably in the memory it’s better than the reality haha.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I have hardly any principles and and can relativize almost anything but my belief in evolving intelligence is tested on a daily basis.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I don’t think art progresses to a higher level. Rather it meanders parallel to life and changes and reshapes accordingly. I have the feeling that art is quite immersed in daily life at the moment. Advertisement videos are weirder than video art 30 years ago and a lot of street art is more exiting than modern art in galleries. It is easy to express yourself, due to software like GarageBand and photoshop/illustrator and AI filters and apps on the smartphone. Art is utilitarian and not idealistic. It doesn’t lead to a better life or something.
How do you define success?
I think to be successful is to get recognition, for being good at doing what you are passionate about. This can start already on a tiny scale, with few people.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Anything of U2. I have an allergy.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I explored all of the arts I am interested in quite extensively already and kind of did what I wanted to do. That is quite a relaxing situation to be in. No Ambition, No Frustration is my motto. I just want to make and play music but that is nothing I did not do yet.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
For me the Only function of art is to levitate one’s mind somewhere where there is no troubles and challenges, only ecstasy. Art does that, it can make you forget about all your problems. Especially music since it hits you unconditionally, it needs no explanation or context. For me music is the highest form of art.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I look forward to my next voyage. Don’t know yet whereto it will be but I love travelling.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Fall incarnation of Into the Void, held in Leeuwarden, took place on Sept. 30 with Alabama Thunderpussy, Howling Giant and scores of others, and that had been announced in April, so there’s a fitting symmetry to unveiling the initial lineup for Spring 2024 even as the autumnal festival season in Europe continues to play out. Look for Truckfighters, Mars Red Sky, Skraeckoedlan, Black Rainbows, Endonomos and Acid Mammoth to be out and about in Winter 2024, as the Dutch fest will be early on the circuit and probably a launch point for tours, and with Netherlands natives like Ter Ziele, Rrrags and Onhou, the regional underground is supported as well. Feb. 24 is the date and there are reportedly three more acts to add.
No, I don’t know who they are, but you might have fun trying to guess based on who has records out now and in the early going of 2024. No shortage of names on that list. But you’ll notice that Endonomos from Austria and Onhou aren’t included in the text of the announcement but are on the artwork, so don’t ask me who’s gonna play when. February is four months out. I’m sure by the time the fest happens it’ll be sorted. Everybody calm down in the meantime.
Lots to dig here, so get diggin’:
After a successful first edition of Into the Void in Rockcity Eindhoven, of course, a second edition can’t be missed. (#128640#) On February 24, 2024, the Effenaar will be submerged once again in a swamp of stoner, sludge and doom.
In this edition we welcome the following bands: BLACK RAINBOWS, Truckfighters, ️ Mars Red Sky,️ Acid Mammoth, SKRAECKOEDLAN, TER ZIELE and RRRags. The final 3 bands including the headliner will be announced soon.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you’re thinking, “Hey wait, wasn’t Into the Void just in January?” then first of all, kudos on keeping up, and yes, it was. That was Eindhoven, this is Leeuwarden, and if these Netherlands cities aren’t familiar, if these festivals keep happening almost certainly they will be. Into the Void Leeuwarden 2023 is set for Sept. 30 — all-dayer; nice — and has just announced its first 12 bands.
Yeah, crazy right? First 12 bands? It’s one day! How many more bands can there be? The headliner is still TBA, but with Alabama Thunderpussy leading the charge, they’ve brought on The Atomic Bitchwax, Yawning Man, REZN, Samavayo, The Machine, Howling Giant, Fire Down Below, Heavy Temple, Rrrags, Onhou and Moan, and that looks like a hell of a day to me. Shit, pick any four and that’s a good night alone.
I wanna know if Howling Giant and Heavy Temple are going to tour Europe together. It’d be the most adorable heavy rock export package of the year, hands down. For that alone I want it to be true. Charm offensive.
Anyhoozle, it’s another one for the Alabama Thunderpussy reunion, and a return trip for the Bitchwax that I think is TBA. Shit, put them on tour together too! Man, I’m booking gigs all over the place today. While we’re at it? I’d pair Samavayo and The Machine for a run too. And you don’t think Yawning Man and REZN wouldn’t be a good show? Come on.
I guess the underlying message is this lineup looks pretty good. Here it is as per socials:
Alabama Thunderpussy exclusive reunion show at Into the Void Leeuwarden
The first 11 names for Into the Void Leeuwarden are known. On September 30th Alabama Thunderpussy will host an exclusive Dutch reunion show at Into the Void. It’s the first time since 2008 that the band is back on tour, and despite their death, the Americans are still loved for their legendary live shows.
The Americans are taking Into the Void because as many as seven of the twelve are from the United States. Next to Alabama Thunderpussy that’s the atomic bitchwax, yawning man, REZN, heavy temple, and howling giant.
The (legendary) headliner is also from the US of A and we will announce it soon.
The Machine and Rrrags and the Groninger bands Onhou and Moan are from home. The Germans of Samavayo and the Belgians of Fire Down Below complete the line up for now.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
That’s a hell of a lineup for a birthday party. As you no doubt figured, GockelScream #3 is the third edition of the festival, which is based somewhere — no, I don’t know where — near Dresden in Germany and has an international pull enough to get Heavy Psych Sounds denizens like Duel and Geezer on board during their European tours, as well as to supplement with acts like Cities of Mars, Acid Rooster, Bantoriak, Poland’s Black Smoke and so on. It’s a two-dayer, so let’s assume that the birthday presumably for somebody, perhaps even Gockel, from ElbSludgeBooking will be duly celebrated. In screaming fashion.
If you’re in the region and able to attend, it’s a private festival (then why the press?), so you need to reach out to ElbSludge and ask them where to go, when, how much it costs, and so on. In my mind, that only makes this cooler. A rager with some good friends in the who-knows-where, righteous tunes, laid-back hangs, yeah. That’s about my speed.
Here’s the details that are public:
“In 2022 the notorious booking crew ElbSludgeBooking from Dresden/East-Germany will host the 3rd edition of its Stoner Rock festival „GockelScream“. What started as an excessive birthday party evolved into a proper fest with a special selection of international bands from Stoner to Doom, from Sludge to Krautian Psychedelia. This year will feature illustrious musical presentations by touring bands as Geezer, Duel and Cities of Mars and one-off shows by RRRAGS, Speck and Black Smoke. The whole line-up is of highest caliber, accompanied by a psychedelic light crew, massive PA, good food and German Punkerbier at a very special location, just 30 minutes east of downtown Dresden. If you dig the Stoner scene in its pure and cozy DIY-form this one’s for you. “.
Full line-up:
GEEZER (US) DUEL (US) RRRAGS (NL) CITIES OF MARS (SWE) ACID ROOSTER (GER) CANNABINEROS (GER) BANTORIAK (IT) SPECK (AUT) ANDROMEDA SPACE RITUAL (POL) BLACK SMOKE (POL) KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON (GER) ALLIGATOR RODEO (GER) ACACIA & MAGNOLIA (GER)
All the details like admission fee and the exact location are only available after writing to gockelscream@elbsludge.de.
Well, I’m starting an hour later than I did yesterday, so that’s maybe not the most encouraging beginning I could think of, but screw it, I’m here, got music on, got fingers on keys, so I guess we’re underway. Yesterday was remarkably easy, even by Quarterly Review standards. I’ve been doing this long enough at this point — five-plus years — that I approach it with a reasonable amount of confidence it’ll get done barring some unforeseen disaster.
But yesterday was a breeze. What does today hold? In the words of Mrs. Wagner from fourth grade homeroom, “see me after.”
Ready, set, go.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Horisont, Sudden Death
With a hefty dose of piano up front and keys throughout, Gothenburg traditionalist heavy rockers Horisont push retro-ism into full-on arena status. Moving past some of the sci-fi aspects of 2017’s About Time, Sudden Death comprises 13 tracks and an hour’s runtime, so rest assured, there’s room for everything, including the sax on “Into the Night,” the circa-’77 rock drama in the midsection of the eight-minute “Archeopteryx in Flight,” and the comparatively straightforward seeming bounce of “Sail On.” With cocaine-era production style, Sudden Death is beyond the earlier-’70s vintage mindset of the band’s earliest work, and songs like “Standing Here” and the penultimate proto-metaller “Reign of Madness” stake a claim on the later era, but the post-Queen melody of “Revolution” at the outset and the acoustic swing in “Free Riding” that follows set a lighthearted tone, and as always seems to be the case with Horisont, there’s nothing that comes across as more important than the songwriting.
Scourge of the seven seas that German nautically-themed funeral doomers Ahab are, Live Prey is their first live album and it finds them some five years removed from their last studio LP, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (review here). For a band who in the past has worked at a steady three-year pace, maybe it was time for something, anything to make its way to public ears. Fair enough, and in five tracks and 63 minutes, Live Prey spans all the way back to 2006’s Call of the Wretched Sea with “Ahab’s Oath” and presents all but two of that debut’s songs, beginning with the trilogy “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” and switching the order of “Ahab’s Oath” and “The Hunt” from how they originally appeared on the first record to end with the foreboding sounds of waves rolling accompanied by minimal keyboards. It’s massively heavy, of course — so was Call of the Wretched Sea — and whatever their reason for not including any other album’s material, at least they’ve included anything.
Let’s assume the title High Protein might refer to the fact that Dutch/Belgian power trio Rrrags have ‘trimmed the fat’ from the eight songs that comprise their 33-minute sophomore LP. It’s easy enough to believe listening to a cut like “Messin'” or the subsequent “Sad Sanity,” which between the two of them are about as long as the 5:14 opener “The Fridge” just before. But while High Protein has movers and groovers galore in those tracks and the fuzzier “Sugarcube” — the tone of which might remind that guitarist Ron Van Herpen is in Astrosoniq — the stomping “Demons Dancing” and the strutter “Hellfire,” there’s live-Deep–Purple-style breadth on the eight-minute “Dark is the Day” and closer “Window” bookends “The Fridge” in length while mellowing out and giving drummer/vocalist Rob Martin a rest (he’s earned it by then) while bassist Rob Zim and Van Herpen carry the finale. If thinking of it as a sleeper hit helps you get on board, so be it, but Rrrags‘ second album is of unmitigated class and straight-up killer performance. It is not one to be overlooked.
There’s stoner roll and doomed crash in “New Body,” drone-laced spoken-word experimentalism in “Blood and Butter,” and post-punk angular whathaveyou as “Halloween Bolson” plays out its nine-minute stretch, but Viscerals — the third or fourth Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album, depending on what you count — seems to be at its most satisfying in blowout freak-psych moments like opener “Reducer” and “Rubbernecker,” which follows, while the kinda-metal of “World Crust”‘s central riff stumbles willfully and teases coming apart before circling back, and “Crazy in Blood” and closer “Hell’s Teeth” are more straight-up heavy rock. It’s a fairly wide arc the UK outfit spread from one end of the record to the other — and they’re brash enough to pull it off, to be sure — but with the hype machine so fervently behind them, I have a hard time knowing whether I’m actually just left flat by the record itself or all the hyperbole-set-on-fire that’s surrounded the band for the last couple years. Viscerals gets to the heart of the matter, sure enough, but then what?
Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong answer the stoner-sludge extremity of their 2018 debut, One Earth One Bong (review here), with, well, more stoner-sludge extremity. What, you thought they’d go prog? Forget it. You get three songs. Opener “Goddamn High” and “Weedcult Today” top 15 minutes each, and closer “Monk’s Blood” hits half an hour. Do the quick math yourself on that and you’ll understand just how much Earthbong have been looking forward to bashing you over the head with riffs. “Weedcult Today” is more agonizingly slow than “Goddamn High,” at least at the beginning, but it builds up and rolls into a pace that, come to think of it, is still probably slower than most, and of course “Monk’s Blood” is an epic undertaking right up to its last five minutes of noise. It could’ve been an album on its own. But seriously, if you think Earthbong give a shit, you’re way off base. This is tone, riff and weed worship and everything else is at best a secondary concern. Spend an hour at mass and see if you don’t come out converted.
No doubt that at some future time shortly after the entire world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a glut of releases comprised of material written during the lockdown. Peruvian four-piece Rito Verdugo are ahead of the game, then, with their Post-Primatus four-song EP. Issued digitally as the name-your-price follow-up to their also-name-your-price 2018 debut, Cosmos, it sets a 14-minute run from its shortest cut to its longest, shifting from the trippy “Misterio” into fuzz rockers “Monte Gorila” (which distills Earthless vibes to just over three minutes) and “Lo Subnormal” en route to the rawer garage psychedelia of “Inhumación,” which replaces its vocals with stretches of lead guitar that do more than just fill the spaces verses might otherwise be and instead add to the breadth of the release as a whole. Safe to assume Rito Verdugo didn’t plan on spending any amount of time this year staying home to avoid getting a plague, but at least they were able to use the time productively to give listeners a quick sample of where they’re at sound-wise coming off the first album. Whenever and however it shows up, I’ll look forward to what they do next.
Signed to Cruz Del Sur Music as part of that label’s expanding foray into traditionalist doom (see also: Pale Divine, The Wizar’d, Apostle of Solitude, etc.), Dublin’s Death the Leveller present an emotionally driven four tracks on their 38-minute label debut, the counterintuitively titled II. Listed as their first full-length, it’s about the same length as their debut “EP,” 2017’s I, but more important is the comfort and patience the band shows with working in longer-form material, opener “The Hunt Eternal,” “The Golden Bough” and closer “The Crossing” making an impression at over nine minutes apiece — “The Golden Bough” tops 12 — while “So They May Face the Sun” runs a mere 7:37 and is perhaps the most unhurried of the bunch, playing out with a cinematic sweep of guitar melody and another showcase for the significant presence of frontman Denis Dowling, who’s high in the mix at times but earns that forward position with a suitably standout performance across the record’s span.
It isn’t surprising to learn that the members of Fall River, Massachusetts, five-piece Marrowfields come from something of an array of underground styles, some of them pushing into more extreme terrain, because the five songs of their debut full-length, Metamorphoses, do likewise. With founding guitarist/main-songwriter Brandon Green at the helm as producer as well, there’s a suitably inward-looking feel to the material, but coinciding with its rich atmospheres are flashes of blastbeats, death metal chug, double-kick and backing growls behind the cleaner melodic vocals that keep Marrowfields distinct from entirely traditionalist doom. It is a niche into which they fit well on this first long-player, and across the five songs/52 minutes of Metamorphoses, they indeed shapeshift between genre elements in order to best serve the purposes of the material, calling to mind Argus in the progressive early stretch of centerpiece “Birth of the Liberator” while tapping Paradise Lost chug and ambience before the blasts kick in on closer “Dragged to the World Below.” Will be interesting to see which way their — or Green‘s, as it were — focus ultimately lies, but there isn’t one aesthetic nuance misused here.
Dätcha Mandala present a strong opening salvo of rockers on Hara, their second album for MRS Red Sound, before turning over to all-out tambourine-and-harp blues on “Missing Blues.” From there, they could go basically anywhere they want, and they do, leading with piano on “Morning Song,” doing wrist-cramp-chug-into-disco-hop in “Sick Machine” and meeting hand-percussion with space rocking vibes on “Moha.” They’ve already come a long way from the somewhat misleading ’70s heavy of opener “Stick it Out,” “Mother God” and “Who You Are,” but the sonic turns that continue with the harder-edged “Eht Bup,” the ’70s balladry of “Tit’s,” an unabashed bit o’ twang on “On the Road” and full-on fuzz into a noise freakout on closer “Pavot.” Just what the hell is going on with Hara? Anything Dätcha Mandala so desire, it would seem. They have the energy to back it up, but if you see them labeled as any one microgenre or another, keep in mind that inevitably that’s only part of the story and the whole thing is much weirder than they might be letting on. No complaints with that.
If you’ve got voices in your band that can harmonize like guitarists James Draper, Shane Linfoot and Mike Zoias, I’m not entirely sure what would lead you to start your debut record with a four-minute instrumental, but one way or another, Sydney, Australia’s Numidia — completed by bassist/keyboardist Alex Raffaelli and drummer Nathan McMahon — find worthy manners in which to spend their time. Their first collection takes an exploratory approach to progressive heavy rock, seeming to feel its way through components strung together effectively while staying centered around the guitars. Yes, three of them. Psychedelia plays a strong role in later pieces “Red Hymn” and the folky “Te Waka,” but if the eponymous “Numidia” is a mission statement on the part of the five-piece, it’s one cast in a prog mentality pushed forward with poise to suit. Side A capper “A Million Martyrs” would seem to draw the different sides together, but it’s no minor task for it to do so, and there’s little sign in these songs that Numidia won’t grow more expansive as time goes on.
So I guess this is the episode where I play Sleep‘s Dopesmoker in its entirety. I’ve wanted to play a full record for a while now, mostly because that’s how I like listening to stuff at home, so I figured if I’m going to do a thing, I might as well go completely over the top with it, which I’m pretty sure is also what Sleep said when they recorded that album in the first place. Works for me.
Some good new stuff in there too. I like Orsak:Oslo‘s new EP a lot, and that Empress track that premiered here kind of stuck with me. The Kairon: IRSE! is weird and I find that delightful, especially coming out of Slift and Rrrags, both of which have gotten far less coverage around here than they deserve. Kind of a fucked Spring/early Summer. Sorry. Doing my best. And I figured new-ish Goatsnake and new Brimstone Coven were good to lead off. Can’t really miss, right?
But anyway, “Dopesmoker.” It’s fucking “Dopesmoker.” I don’t know if I’ll play other full albums, make it a thing I do on the show, but it was fun this time and that’s good enough for one episode.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmeradio.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 06.26.20
Goatsnake
Breakfast with the King
Breakfast with the King b/w Deathwish*
0:04:57
Brimstone Coven
The Inferno
The Woes of a Mortal World*
0:04:29
Orsak:Oslo
057 Passage
Skimmer EP*
0:05:16
Empress
Lion’s Blood
Premonition*
0:09:39
VOICE TRACK
Rrrags
Dark is the Day
High Protein*
0:08:01
Slift
Lions, Tigers & Bears
Ummon*
0:13:18
Kairon: IRSE!
An Bat None
Polysomn*
0:06:04
VOICE TRACK
Sleep
Dopesmoker
Dopesmoker
1:03:31
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is July 9 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
