Posted in Whathaveyou on December 28th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
I know we’re talking about Desertfest Berlin 2016 here, and that’s right on, but are you looking forward to the new Mondo Drag? You should be. The West Coast psych-proggers have outdone themselves on their upcoming third album — also a debut of sorts; I’ll explain in an eventual review — The Occultation of Light, which is due out Feb. 26 on RidingEasy. There will be much more to say about it before it gets here, and certainly before the band heads abroad to play Desertfest Berlin 2016, Roadburn and presumably other gigs — London doesn’t seem unlikely — but yeah, keep an eye and an ear out, because it’s one you won’t want to miss.
Speaking of London, Pelican were also recently added to that incarnation of Desertfest 2016, along with a great many others, and as the spring fests continue to take shape, it looks more and more like expansive ideals of what’s heavy, from sludge to stoner to doom to post-rock to psych to noise and beyond, have taken full root, and to see the full lineup for Desertfest Berlin 2016, that’s clearly to the benefit of all.
Dig it:
Desertfest Berlin 2016 – PELICAN, ASTEROID, SPIRITUAL BEGGARS, MONDO DRAG added to the line-up!
If you follow us on Facebook, you have probably seen we announced 2 new bands on Thursday: Asteroid and Spiritual Beggars! It’s now time for 2 others… the last ones for 2015: instrumental metal standard bearers Pelican, and heavy psych mavens Mondo Drag!! We hope you like them as much as we do!
We have now unveiled 22 bands (that you can check below), and our 2016 edition looks already amazing! We will be back with news and announcements in mid-January, but meanwhile, order one of the last Hard-Ticket and you’ll get a nice Desertfest beenie for Christmas :)
We wish you all happy holidays!
Regular HARD TICKETS or E-TICKETS can be purchased on our WEBSITE for 85€ + taxes! We were sold out last year about 7 weeks ahead, and we think we may top that this year so DO NOT WAIT if you want to be part of our 2016 edition!
X-Mas Special Offer: By ordering one of the very last HARD TICKETS, you get a free Desertfest beenies! Only 25 left!
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 28th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
The Pretty Things, S.F. Sorrow (1968)
It wouldn’t be right exactly to call 1968’s S.F. Sorrow by UK psych rockers The Pretty Things a lost classic. It’s never really been lost. The album had the misfortune of being released the same week as The Beatles‘ self-titled double-LP (aka The White Album), and while it’s sonic and conceptual breadth is remarkable, it languished commercially as did much of The Pretty Things‘ work since they got their start in the early-’60s, vocalist Phil May and guitarist Dick Taylor founding the band in London concurrent and in relation to membership changes in what would become The Rolling Stones. S.F. Sorrow is the fourth album by The Pretty Things, and bears many of the hallmarks of the psychedelic era in its clever twists of language, lyrical characterizations, Mellotrons, swirling guitars and vocals, and expansive feel. Listening through the tripped-out “Baron Saturday” and “The Journey,” one hears shades of Sgt. Pepper, released just the year before, and an experimentalism that early Pink Floyd is often credited with creating out of thin air.
At very least, The Pretty Things were right in the thick of the psychedelic era’s peak, but S.F. Sorrow is distinguished from its contemporaries both by a prevailing sense of cohesion — say what you want about The White Album, it’s disjointed as hell and too long — and by its musical and lyrical narrative, which takes its central character from birth through a downtrodden life of factory work, war and loss, through an inward spiritual journey that seems only to reveal the emptiness of it all and into the bitterness of old age. It is hardly mild fare, the feel-good hit of Sept. 1968, but S.F. Sorrow has enough scope in its arrangements to match its conceptual heft, the band — May, Taylor, organist/sitarist Jon Povey, drummers Twink and Skip Alan (one, then the other), bassist/pianist/etc. Wally Waller — working under producer Norman Smith and engineer Peter Mew, whose work includes the likes of The Beatles and Pink Floyd and so on. So it is that “Bracelets of Fingers” turns once, twice and again before its three-plus minutes are up without losing its direction, or that “Balloon Burning” bursts with melody to contrast what’s actually happening in the lyrics — the title character’s fiancee is burning alive in a Hindenburg-type disaster — while “Old Man Going” presages both heavy rock grit and progressive inflections in the guitar.
No question the record, which caps with the guitar/vocal “The Loneliest Person” as if to underscore where our hero ends up, is followed by a host of bonus tracks in the video above, is of its era, but it remains distinct within that context. The Pretty Things lineup disbanded by 1970, but have continued throughout the decades since in various forms and at various times — they played Roadburn in 2013 at the day curated by Jus Oborn of Electric Wizard — and released an album in 2015 that was their first in eight years called The Sweet Pretty Things (Are in Bed Now, Of Course…) on Repertoire Records that remained true to May and Taylor‘s commitment to an organic and progressive vision of psychedelic rock, recorded analog through vintage amps and so on.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
—
And if you celebrated, I hope you had a good holiday. The Patient Mrs. and I spent a relatively quiet Xmas Eve at home, which was a pleasant first in the 11-plus years we’ve been married, and the hightailed it down the oh-so-familiar I-95 to New Jersey, first to my family on the 25th and then to hers about halfway back north in Connecticut on the 26th. If I had a quota for Xmas, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t, it’s been met.
I’m expecting a quiet week. I have some reviews I’d like to get done before the year ends — Deville, Dirty Streets, a couple tapes that don’t start with the letter ‘d’ — but the bigger idea is to get everything ready for the Readers Poll results, which will go up on Jan. 1. I also have a list of the year’s best EPs, demos, splits, 7″s, etc., that will be up before Friday, so keep an eye out for that. Should be tomorrow, actually. And anything else that comes along, we’ll see how it plays out. Quarterly Review will be next week. Yeah, it’s after the quarter ends, but pushing it back a week makes life easier for me. I’m willing to wager nobody’s going to break out their wall calendar and file a grievance.
It’s a short week, work-wise, which suits me just fine, but I’ll have at least two posts up on Friday and there’s still way too much to do before 2015 ends, so please stick around. I hope you have a great and safe week, and while you’re bored kicking around with nothing do to over the next five days because it feels like everybody and their cousin is off celebrating the holiday season and you’re stuck in your drab, undecorated, fluorescent-lit office killing time while you wait for a piano to fall on your head — oh wait, sorry, talking about myself again — please check out the forum and the radio stream.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
New York City’s Mirror Queen released their second full-length, Scaffolds of the Sky (review here), earlier this year on Tee Pee Records. Like their 2011 debut, From Earth Below, it basked in influences from classic heavy and progressive rock, and proffered a natural mellowness from a locale built on a foundation of intensity as much as concrete. The album took Mirror Queen to Europe for not the first time, where they toured this summer alongside Danava before returning to play the Tee Pee-affiliated Cosmic Sonic Rendezvous in Brooklyn with Saviours, Witch, The Skull and others.
As they look ahead to 2016, the band has announced that Morgan McDaniel has taken over on guitar alongside founder Kenny Sehgal (formerly of Kreisor). McDaniel takes the role formerly occupied by Phil “Phi Moon” Ortanez, and comes to Mirror Queen via Brooklyn’s The Golden Grass, for whom he handled bass for about the last year, touring in Europe and the US in that time. No word on if there have been any other changes to Mirror Queen‘s lineup, but the band has been through a number of guitarists over the years, including Thomas Bellier of Blaak Heat Shujaa and others.
It seems like a safe bet they’ll head abroad again at some point in the New Year, so worth keeping an eye out for that, and in the meantime, the announcement from the band was quick, and you can find it in its entirety below:
Mirror Queen would like to welcome Morgan McDaniel to the fold. You might’ve seen him at clubs around town playing bass or perhaps running a soundboard, but he’s also a gifted guitarist and an all around good gent! See you all in 2016!
Mirror Queen is: Kenny Sehgal: guitar/vocals Morgan McDaniel: guitar James Corallo: bass Jeremy O’Brien: drums
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
I’m not sure if “Sally del Blues” is a one-off or the beginning of a new project, but the band is billed as Sergio Ch., Villagra y Castello Jr., which is a mouthful if you’re booking the billboard or otherwise involved in marketing, but about as much as many who’ll take it on will need to know, information-wise. Sergio Chotsourian of course has spent the last half-decade-plus in Ararat (he also had a solo album out this year), but prior to that, he fronted one of Argentina’s most landmark trios, Los Natas. This new project — again, if it is a project — reunites Chotsourian with former Los Natas bassist Gonzalo Villagra, and though it’s been a while since that band released an album, if you’ve ever heard any of their stuff (their last outing was 2009’s Nuevo Orden de la Libertad; review here), you know that’s no minor pairing.
Not only does Sergio Ch., Villagra y Castello Jr. bring the former Los Natas bandmates together, but it also features drummer Rolando Castello, Jr., who played in Pappo’s Blues offshoot Aeroblús in 1977 alongside Norberto “Pappo” Napolitano himself. Unsurprisingly, classic heavy rock unfolds on “Sally del Blues,” which reminds of what Chotsourian and Villagra were able to accomplish together tonally in their former outfit and lays it over a solid foundation of a beat from Castello. All three take part in the vocals, at least for a couple shouts (as you can see above in the photo by Santi Sombra, who also made the video), but Chotsourian has the lead through most of the song, and he lays out an effective hook in no time flat.
Whether or not anything comes from the trio after this, I don’t know. The recording of “Sally del Blues” is pretty raw — that’s the idea — but if they headed back in to make a record of this kind of stuff and released it through Chotsourian‘s South American Sludge imprint, I doubt they’d meet much resistance.
Enjoy:
Sergio Ch., Villagra y Castello Jr., “Sally del Blues” official video
Sergio Ch (Los Natas, Ararat) Gonzalo Villagra (Los Natas) and Rolando Castello Jr. (Aeroblues, Patrulha Do Espaco) meet in this unique opportunity to make a musical encounter heavy Blues possible.
Recorded and mastered machine tape in analog form, as was done in the 70s, they recorded a powerful song and possibly iconic for the History of National Rock called “Sally del Blues.”
Recorded and produced by Patricio Claypole at Estudio el Attic Video made by Santi Sombra and Rock in Motion Felix Bunge Music Management
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
You know what sucks about Radio Moscow going back to South America for a third time on a tour presented by Abraxas Events? Nah, I’m pulling your leg. Nothing sucks about it. The news is all good these days from the West Coast power trio, who already this month have recorded a double-live LP that will see release next year on Alive Naturalsound and announced their first tour of Australia alongside Kings Destroy and Melbourne’s Holy Serpent. They’ll sneak the South American dates in before that Aus/NZ run, which is impressive in itself, and play Chile, Uruguay and Argentina before hitting Brazil hard starting Jan. 13.
No fewer than three of the included dates are fests, though really, anytime Radio Moscow shows up, it’s a party. Here’s the announcement from Abraxas and the confirmed multi-continental dates:
Attention friends! The most awaited moment that end of year has arrived! Check it out below the dates of next from Radio Moscow to South America, with that brutal illustration of our friend Victor Bezerra Art! Que presentão de Natal, rapeize!
Radio Moscow South America Tour III: 09/01 – Santiago, CHILE @ Festival En Órbita 10/01 – Montevideo, URUGUAY @ TBA 12/01 – Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA @ Festival Concrete Jam 13/01 – Córdoba, ARGENTINA @ Casa Babylon 15/01 – Floripa, BRASIL @ Célula Showcase 16/01 – Goiânia, BRASIL @ Martim Cererê 17/01 – Brasília, BRASIL @ Teatro Dulcina 20/01 – Porto Alegre, BRASIL @ Divina Comédia 22/01 – São Paulo, BRASIL @ Inferno Club 23/01 – Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL @ HOCUS POCUS Festival 24/01 – Petrópolis, BRASIL @ Cervejaria Bohemia
Radio Moscow (USA), Kings Destroy (USA) & Holy Serpent (Melbourne): Thursday 11th Feb: Auckland, NZ @ Kings Arms Hotel Friday 12th Feb: Wellington, NZ @ Bodega Bar Saturday 13th Feb: Melbourne @ CHERRY BAR w/ Child Sunday 14th Feb: Melbourne @ CHERRY BAR w/ Seedy Jesus Wednesday 17th Feb: Brisbane @ Crowbar w/ Dreamtime Thursday 18th Feb: Sydney @ Newtown Social Club Friday 19th Feb: Canberra @ Transit Bar Saturday 20th Feb: Wollongong @ Yours and Owls Sunday 21st Feb: Rolling Thunder Festival @ Collingwood Town Hall, VIC
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Neurosis will release a special limited anniversary boxed set called Strength and Vision, compiling their 11 albums on LP and CD. Preorders are available now from Neurot Recordings, which will have the release out in April, following the now-three anniversary shows the band will play in March in San Francisco. The box, aside from being gorgeous and among the wiser investments I can think of for any given $275 you might have laying around, gives a staggering look at the career of one the most influential, if not the most influential, heavy bands of the last 30 years, and truly looks to be one of a kind. Couldn’t be more fitting.
As previously announced, Neurosis enter the studio on Dec. 27 to begin recording their next full-length with longtime-producer Steve Albini. Should be interesting to see how they time that release with this one.
The band had the story like this:
NEUROSIS KICKS OFF 30TH YEAR WITH LIMITED EDITION STRENGTH & VISION BOXED SET, PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE NOW
At the beginning of our 30th year as a band, it is our great pleasure to announce STRENGTH & VISION: a limited-edition boxed set of three-decades of our sonic experimentation and steadfast commitment to underground music. We offer this to you — our friends, family, fans and fellow sonic travelers. It is a rare look back at all we have accomplished together.
STRENGTH & VISION is the definitive collection of every NEUROSIS release, limited to 1,300 pieces worldwide. Each high quality box features a magnetic clasp, which allows you to retrieve each record without having to remove the box from a shelf.
Included in STRENGTH & VISION: ALL 11 studio records on 3 LPs and 8 2xLPs LP sleeves with newly adapted designs 106-page book with all original artworks, lyric booklets etc ALL albums on 11 CDs inside the book 1 exclusive Neurosis Strength & Vision embroidered patch 1 exclusive hand-printed poster 1 certificate of authenticity
Full list of albums included: Pain of Mind The Word as Law Souls at Zero Enemy of the Sun Through Silver in Blood Times of Grace Sovereign A Sun That Never Sets The Eye of Every Storm Given to the Rising Honor Found in Decay
Pre-orders are now available through the Neurot Recordings Store. Shipping date for the STRENGTH & VISION boxed set is early April 2016.
NEUROSIS Tour Dates: 3/04/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA w/ Sleep [SOLD OUT] 3/05/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA w/ Shellac [SOLD OUT] 3/06/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA w/ Converge, Negative Approach 4/15/2016 Hat Patronaat – Tilburg, NL *STEVE VON TILL and SCOTT KELLY solo performances 4/16/2016 013 – Tilburg, NL 4/17/2016 013 – Tilburg, NL 8/11/2016 Festa Radio Onda D’Urto – Brescia, IT 8/13/2016 Oya Festival – Oslo, NO 8/20/2016 Motocultor Festival – St. Nolff, FR 8/21/2016 Amplifest – Porto, PT
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Heavy psych rocking German trio Deaf Proof released their latest outing, Blood Red Sky Sessions (review here), earlier this year as a limited tape and will reportedly have it out on vinyl in the first part of 2016, but for their new video, “Death Sounds Angry and Hungry for More,” they dip back to their 2014 debut EP, Death Sounds Angry (review here). Why? Well, there are probably two reasons. Primarily, Blood Red Sky Sessions was more geared toward inviting listeners into the band’s songwriting process — to a degree — and getting a sense of how their material takes shape out of expansive, multi-faceted jams like the 34-minute “Far Beyond the Blood Red Sky,” which, though it had lyrics, was nonetheless instrumentally focused around the chemistry between guitarist/vocalist J. Fredo, bassist JP and drummer Pedro. As it turned out, that was plenty enough to carry it through.
Second, the choice was probably pretty easy for Deaf Proof because “Death Sounds Angry and Hungry for More,” at 6:39, is the shortest song they’ve put out since their second demo, Beyond the Orange Door, in 2013. I bet when you’re narrowing it down to one track or another for a video and your options are under seven minutes or over half an hour, you start to look back and think, maybe, yeah, we can use a song from the last release. And it’s not like the year between has lessened the charm or fuzzy rumble of “Death Sounds Angry and Hungry for More,” the video for which the band notes is a precursor to new material, presumably to be issued in 2016.
That’ll be one to keep an eye out for, and in the interim, the clip emphasizes the low-end rumble at the heart of Deaf Proof‘s grooving. You’ll see what I mean when you watch.
Enjoy:
Deaf Proof, “Death Sounds Angry and Hungry for More” official video
It’s been nearly a decade, since Deaf Proof touched the chord for the first time. During these years they released a couple of demos,the LP “Death Sounds Angry”, the “Blood Red Rky Sessions” tape/ vinyl and played lots of club shows and rocked together with influential bands.
To sweeten the time of waiting for their next output, Herr Potz/ Trashpop(t)ERROR (creative director/ video editor) and the band produced a music clip for “Death Sounds Angry and Hungry for More”, title track of the 2014 output! Enjoy this Christmas present!
DEAF PROOF’s sound can probably best be described as psychedelic stoner rock that creates a very specific and unique atmosphere. The band, which is from Freiburg/Germany, has made a handful of changes concerning their line-up ever since they were founded in 2006. They now consist of J. Fredo (lead vocals/guitar), JP (bass) and Pedro (drums). Since 2013, the band has released multiple highly acclaimed demos, of which “Beyond the Orange Door Demos” (2013) received special attention.
It soon became obvious that DEAF PROOF were aiming much higher than swirling up desert sand and coming up with catchy riffs for their songs. “DEATH SOUNDS ANGRY” (2014 on cd, 2015 on vinyl via KrautedMindRecords) made clear that the band has now reached new heights. “Blood Red Sky Sessions” (limited red tape, vinyl 2016 on KrautedMind) from 2015 is like a documentation of a songwriting and jamming process, which is delivering the listener some kind of a live experience and an inside view. Three different jam sessions take the listener on a psychedelic stoner rock trip in a fuzzy spaceship.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Seems like a few festivals aren’t ready to let the year end quite yet, which is fair enough. Desertfest London 2016 has unveiled a slew of new acts for its lineup — enough to fill a whole other stage and then some — and along with Monomyth, who were previously announced as taking part in Desertfest Berlin as well, the DesertScene crew has seen fit to bring aboard Pelican, Blood Ceremony, Bast, Witchsorrow, Dusertoid, Lionize, impressive upstarts Sunder and others. It was a packed bill before. Now it’s a more packed bill. Funny how that works.
Here’s the latest with Happy Holiday wishes from the PR wire:
Pelican, Asteroid, Blood Ceremony and more added to the DESERTFEST LONDON 2016 lineup!
Jingle bells, jingle bells… The DESERTFEST LONDON promoters have one more treat for you before Christmas, with thirteen more bands confirmed to play the festival in Camden this spring, including the Old Empire Stage lineup that will be hosted at the Electric Ballroom on the Sunday.
Like the previous edition, DESERTFEST LONDON 2016 will broaden its horizon by bringing an alternative darker edge to the lineup. London’s independent promoters Old Empire will thus take over the Electric Ballroom on May 1st, with industrial metallers GODFLESH headlining the stage, plus five fantastically heavy acts including BLOOD CEREMONY, ORANSSI PAZUZU, BAST and WITCHSORROW.
As a mouth-watering addition, ten other delightful acts are added to the weekend, with Illinois legendary dream rock merchants PELICAN, Ukraine’s finest stoner trio STONED JESUS, as well as grooving rock’n’rollers LIONIZE, French proto-rockers SUNDER, UK’s post-doom outfit OHHMS, DUSTEROID, MONOMYTH, BLACK PUSSY and POSEIDON.
– DESERTFEST LONDON 2016 – April 29th to May 1st in Camden, London (UK) Weekend tickets availableAT THIS LOCATION
Current lineup is as follows: ELECTRIC WIZARD – CORROSION OF CONFORMITY w/ Pepper Keenan PELICAN – GODFLESH – CROWBAR – TRUCKFIGHTERS – BLOOD CEREMONY – ELDER – EGYPT – CONAN – ORANSSI PAZUZU – WO FAT – MOTHERSHIP – MONOLORD – ROTOR – ASTEROID – RAGING SPEEDHORN – STONED JESUS – LIONIZE – PLANET OF ZEUS – MONOMYTH – BLACK PUSSY – WITCHSORROW – OHHMS – SUNDER – DUSTEROID – BAST – POSEIDON
