Posted in Questionnaire on June 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: Oscar Chamorro (vocals/guitar), Pepo Villena (drums), Ramón Viña (bass) from Electric Monolith
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Oscar Chamorro: I like to think I create worlds. The hard way I guess. Lots of trial, and error.
Ramón Viña: I work as a musicologist, DJ, and I also have a role in this band. Simply because of my love/obsession with music since I was very young, and this is what led me to where I am.
Pepo Villena: A self taught drummer doing his best and I would say thanks to my mom’s patience during my young (and rebel) days I’ve been able to become who I’m right now.
Describe your first musical memory.
OC: Ta, Da, Da, Ta, Taaaaaa. The main motif of Steven Spielberg’s “Close encounters of the third kind”. I believe it was the first film I saw in the big screen, and I was pretty young, so I have a strong attachment to this movie.
RV: The Beatles. My parents used to listen to them all the time, so they are the O.S.T. of my life.
PV: Singing basque christmas carols dressed in typical basque clothes in my neighbourhood, going door to door to earn some money with my friends as a really young kid.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
OC: That’s a hard one, as there are so many… But I can mention a special one. The first time I heard “Come Together” by The Beatles under the influence of LSD. I’ve heard that band plenty of times since I was a kid, but I never listened to them like that once.
RV: Nirvana’s show in 1994 at Barcelona, and all that came during that era, music-wise.
PV: As a performer I would say any of the gigs we’ve played at the disappeared and missed Rocksound, the greatest venue Barcelona ever had. And as an audience there are lots of great memories to choose just one, maybe my first big festival as a kid. Warped Tour on 98 with Bad Religion and The Specials amongst other great bands from that time like C.I.V., Lagwagon or Ignite. Yes, I was a teenage punk rocker!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
OC: Last time I broke off with someone.
RV: When I grow up, I realize everything I’ve been told was a lie.
PV: I was member of the workers council of my company and I’m a member of an anarchist workers union and recently had to quit the job because of the pressures and false allegations from other union members playing in favor of the company and getting rid of all the uncomfortable people on the workers council to do whatever they want with the coworkers.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
OC: To me it leads to a never ending road where I find myself chasing unreachable carrots all over, and over…
RV: It leads to experimentation, and trying new things. Always.
PV: To always keep discovering new ways of expression and boundaries to reach.
How do you define success?
OC: Being able to achieve whatever you want to?
RV: When you do the things you really want to do.
PV: Doing what you love the most for the living and not having to work for anyone but yourself.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
OC: You don’t want to know. Trust me ;)
RV: So many things. I rather not talk about them. hahaha
PV: People with lots of ego turning into others for stupid things or being rude because of their supposed “social status” or whatever. Hateful.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
OC: A full OST.
RV: A business related to musicology or show promoter.
PV: A nice and profitable venue in Barcelona for gigs and rehearsal rooms for all musician friends in our scene.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
OC: To move people by touching their hearts, and minds. I think it is all about feelings at the end.
RV: Make you feel things, and inspire you.
PV: To transmit feelings, experiences or ideas to the audience/viewers/readers/etc. and connect in a way that anything else can.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
OC: A full feature film or a TV series. Cinema is another love of mine. I’ve been poking there for years, too many perhaps, but it all ended in disaster ;) I have nice memories though. Some part inside me stills looking forward to it. Who knows?
RV: I always loved cinema, although I doubt I end up doing any of that. Mi world. and my job, both are related to music.
PV: Have my own farm or at least a little piece of land to grow things there.
Posted in Questionnaire on April 26th, 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: Joan Francesc “Fiar” Monguió of Foscor
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
At my studying years of career, I remember having a conversation with a renewed poet who was explaining to the class the sort of emotional dialogue poetry allowed him to develop. Like an exercise which words were tools for defining the immaterial… I remember asking him why he couldn’t see a way higher tool and resource music than poetry, considering that the immaterial perhaps shouldn’t be defined with words, limited in meaning and scope, because responses to a way higher level of comprehension??
I remember sharing some thoughts with him about that, and how conventions and language must serve humans to define what they don’t know. From that point, I understood why I always felt that music was the path I needed to live…something special having way more to do with an untouchable emotional point of view, than a simple tool for catching a moment.
Music speaks to your guts, heart and more essential emotions, despite someone would call them perverted by the society and education we all have had… Music should only speak to that level of human consciousness, the immaterial one, and allow each of the ones you shared it too, feel it from their very unique nature.
So, Emotional Music is what I like to think I do… or face.
Describe your first musical memory.
As a kid, being at my grandparents’ living room, playing with my hands being an orchestra director. My grandfather was a classical music lover, and probably under three years, I have images of his wall furniture from where he played those vinyls and show me something I’ve always called, intensity.
Call it trauma…or whatever, but there already was a sort of seed that many years after made a spark of love for music shine. Being part of a moment of greatness, something I wasn’t able to explain and understand at that so early age, but once I started seriously to play in bands, came with strength to me.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Interesting…and so difficult to answer though. I honestly don’t give much importance to the past in terms of nostalgia. I have always felt a sort of exciting expectation for what’s yet to come, and having this feeling every day or often, because my sight is onwards and not backwards, means the world to me.
Said that, I guess that this difficulty might come from the different way I live and approach myself to the music experience. As a creator or consumer should mark a difference regarding picking a best memory, and why not the personal moment on each parcel or the Live one perhaps should too. I know…you are just asking me for one best musical memory, but honestly, I cannot set only one when it refers to music.
I think it was “Within The Depths of Silence and Phormations”, in 1995, during a trip to the Basque Country trees one of the most intense experiences with music I’ve ever had…Ok, there was some help of substances that helped to merge us with Nature and ourselves…but this memory still gives goosebumps. There would be a couple of unique moments when listening to a couple of Norwegian Black Metal albumsin a way more lonely way, back in the days, which like nails…are deep inside and would accompany this top.
In terms of Live experience, it’s so difficult to beat the emotion once lived after a memorable concert from your own band. In my case, the best memory might be set during and after the presentation gig of our 2017’s album “Les Irreals Visions” in our hometown with a sold out venue… I’m not lying if I call it one of the best musical memories, because of the spontaneous moment and thrilling development of actions during the time it lasted…and it might be considered like that closure act for a soooo long process, which made that moment even more special and unique.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
More than a belief I should say a way to face things… If I might set how much being involved in band changed a really shy guy like me from 20’s on… after probably 15 years believing I was doing things right in terms of living, moving and developing my band, a big disappointment moment after releasing our 4th album helped me out to because a new profile of person and definitely grow in a much more productive and efficient way.
Let’s say that our relationship with our label and booking agent at that time suddenly ended after them feeling disappointed on the kind of band they thought we were and they truly found. They were kind enough for explaining the lack of attitude and qualities despite the creative one. I remember feeling so bad at that time, like defeated… and of course it meant big issues in the band’s core.
After that, and a really thoughtful period, I remember jumping to an “empty pool” trying to prove myself that I was much better than what the mirror those guys put me in front showed me. It was like a challenge in terms of changing 360º the manners I used to have…probably improve and polish many I already had but didn’t used right…and learn in a really short time what even in more than 15 years I was not capable to realize. I’ll be always grateful for such experience and bad moment for everything that changed on me and allowed me later to live.
I might write many names who are worth mentioning, but I feel this is about ideas, not stories in itself… Anybody in need to know when I’m talking about, simply look for the band we were before and after 2015.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
And artist shall take care of many sources and resources in order to be able to express his ideas and what comes from heart. From the skills and tools he need, to the inspirational seas where feel drowned in ecstasy… progression should lead to be able to express yourself more and better every time you need it.
I’m thinking on progression linked to your own personal development, what I feel should be natural and healthy in terms of creating and expressing something coherent with yourself. Perhaps this personal development is not necessary leading to communicate and connect much better with people, but at least should allow you to feel as much control as possible of your speech and the process and result of what you need to express.
More often, than someone might think, when all of this occurs, progression in terms of music language appears from nowhere…and it is so thrilling.
How do you define success?
Feeling renovated enthusiasm and motivation for the main things you are led by.
Let’s put an example in terms of music… I might mention an album not reaching or receiving the attention and response you would had expected. I am talking about the passion that moves you on to need expressing yourself with music. All the process lived from the first conception act to the very last effort put into layout, lyrics or promotional visuals cannot be dragged because it doesn’t get “results”.
Maximum, it should make you reconsider your way of expressing if what you want is results, but never get down the passion running through your veins. Same thing goes for values which too often and put to test.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The coldness on people that shows no empathy with the others… I’ve seen and see that every day in too much life circumstances, and really hurts and makes me feel fed up of the society I live in. You are probably asking me for a music related topic, but even in this small artistic bubble, this is something I wish I would not see anymore.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
An album with no schedule nor money limitations… Let’s say this in a way more positive way: I would love to create an album or even a way more complex creation, gathering as many artistic disciplines as possible, worked from a total feeling of freedom in terms of time and resources. Looks like there’s always a sort of presence pushing behind when recording music, that would be lovely to make disappear…of course it has to do with the fact that we always have had to deal with such moments among many other life matters and obligations, and probably it may affect to the result.
Every new recording gives me the impression that we are way more efficient, productive and capable to manage everything better than before; but even then, there’s job times to deal with, money limits we cannot afford, etc… That’s the dream I have.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
With no doubt it’s a communicative one…
You might fill that with all the aesthetical theory and philosophy, but in the end art is the main tool we humans have to connect with the immaterial world. There’s no need to define what’s immaterial, but I’m pretty sure each one of your readers may have a very own idea of how defining the immaterial from a social, cultural, religious or simply emotional point of view, something we cannot explain but we need to express. And even more… share, because the act of communication, although being based on a dialogue with ourselves, always translates previous moments into something new…so, knowledge, to keep living.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
My son is 2 years and 8 months old, and beyond the challenging moment that paternity means for someone who lives music the way I live, I’m very much looking forward seeing my son develop himself the way he feels. I would love him to be able to express himself in any artistic discipline…but way more important, I would love to see him growing moved by a healthy passion, and surrounded by life aspects that he feels good with.
Posted in Reviews on January 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Not to get too mathy or anything — stay with me, folks — but today is the day the Winter 2023 Quarterly Review passes the three-quarter mark on its way to 80 of the total 100 releases to be covered. And some of those are full-lengths, some are EPs, some are new, one yesterday was almost a year old. That happens. The idea here, one way or the other, is personal discovery. I hope you’ve found something thus far worth digging into, something that really hits you. And if not, you’ve still got 30 releases — 10 each today, tomorrow, Friday — to come, so don’t give up yet. We proceed…
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #71-80:
Black Math Horseman, Black Math Horseman
Though long foretold by the prophets of such things, the return of Black Math Horseman with 2022’s self-titled, live-recorded-in-2019 EP some 13 years after their 2009 debut full-length, Wyllt (discussed here, interview here), helped set heavy post-rock in motion, is still a surprise. The tension in the guitars of Ian Barry (who also handled recording/mixing) and Bryan Tulao in the eponymous opener is maddening, a tumult topped by the vocals of Sera Timms (who here shares bass duties with Rex Elle), and given thunder by drummer Sasha Popovic, and as part of a salvo of three cuts all seven minutes or longer, it marks the beginning of a more intense extraction of the atmospheric approach to heavy songcraft that made their past work such a landmark, with the crashes of “Cypher” and the strummy sway of “The Bough” following ahead of shorter, even-driftier closer “Cypber.” There’s a big part of me that wishes Black Math Horseman was a full-length, but an even bigger part is happy to take what it can get and hope it’s not another decade-plus before they follow it with something more. Not to be greedy, but in 2009 this band had a lot more to say and all this time later that still feels like the case and their sound still feels like it’s reaching into the unknown.
The names here should be enough. It’s Aidan Baker from heavy drone experimentalist institution Nadjaja (‘and’ in Finnish) Jussi Lehtisalo from prog-of-all masters Circle, collaborating and sharing guitar, bass, vocal and drum programming duties — Lehtisalo would seem also to add the keyboards that give the the titular neon to centerpiece “Neon Splashing (From Your Eyes)” — on a 53-minute song cycle, running a broad spectrum between open-space post-industrial drone and more traditional smoky, melancholic, heady pop. Closer “Racing After Midnight” blends darker whispers with dreamy keyboard lines before moving into avant techno, not quite in answer to “I Wanna Be Your Bête Noire” earlier, but not quite not, and inevitably the 14-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “(And I Want Your Perfect) Crocodile Tears” is a defining stretch in terms of ambience and setting the contextual backdrop for what follows, its howling guitar layered with drum machine churn in a way that’s analogous to Jesu in style but not form, the wash that emerges in the synth and guitar there seeming likewise to be the suddenly-there alt-reality New Wave destination of the more languid meander of “Face/Off.” The amalgam of beauty and crush is enough to make one hope this isn’t Baker and Lehtisalo‘s last get together, but if it is, they made something worth preserving. By which I mean to say you might want to pick up the CD.
While their crux is no less in the dreamy, sometimes minimalist, melodic parts and ambient stretches of their longer-form songs and the interludes “In the Tall Grass” and “Bloom (Reprise),” the outright crush of Sacramento’s Chrome Ghost on their third record, House of Falling Ash (on Seeing Red), is not to be understated, whether that’s the lumber-chug of 14-minute opener “Rose in Bloom” or the bookending 13-minute closing title-track’s cacophonous wash, through which the trio remain coherent enough to roll out clean as they give the record its growl-topped sludge metal finish. Continuing the band’s clearly-ain’t-broke collaboration with producer Pat Hills, the six-song/50-minute offering boasts guest appearances from him on guitar, as well as vocals from Eva Rose (ex-CHRCH) on “Furnace,” likewise consuming loud or quiet, punishing or spacious, Oakland-based ambient guitarist Yseulde in the lengthy, minimalist midsection of “Where Black Dogs Dream,” setting up the weighted and melodic finish there, with Brume‘s Susie McMullin joining on vocals to add to the breadth. There’s a lot happening throughout, loud/quiet trades, experimental flourish, some pedal steel from Hills, but guitarist/vocalist Jake Kilgore (also keys), bassist Joe Cooper and drummer Jacob Hurst give House of Falling Ash a solid underpinning of atmospheric sludge and post-metal, and the work is all the more expressive and (intermittently) gorgeous for it.
Straight-ahead, metal-informed, organ-inclusive classic heavy rock is the order of the day on Wölfhead‘s second album, Blood Full Moon, which is the Barclona-based four-piece’s first offering since their 2011 self-titled debut and is released through Discos Macarras, Música Hibrida and Iron Matron Records. An abiding impression of the 11-song offering comes as the band — who filled out their well-pedigreed core lineup of vocalist Ivan Arrieta, guitarists Josue Olmo and Javi Félez, and drummer Pep Carabante with session players David Saavedra (bass) and Albert Recolons (keys) — present rippers like the Motörhead (no real surprise, considering) via Orange Goblin rocker “Funeral Hearse” as the tail end of a raucous opening salvo, or the later “Mother of the Clan,” but from there the proceedings get more complex, with the classic doom roll of “Rame Tep” or the Jerry Cantrell-esque moody twang of “Everlasting Outlaw,” while “Eternal Stone Mountain” blends keyboard grandiosity and midtempo hookmaking in a way that should bring knowing nods from Green Lung fans, while “The Munsters” is, yes, a take on the theme from the tv show, and closer “El Llop a Dins” takes an airier, sans-drums and more open feel, highlighting melody rather than an overblown finish that, had they gone that route, would have been well earned.
Issued through Argonauta Records, Exodus‘ seven inclusions are situated so that their titles read as a sentence: “Is,” “The Future of Mankind,” “Forced By,” “The King of Monsters,” “Because,” “Everything That Has Been Given,” “Will Be Taken Away.” Thus Leipzig, Germany, instrumentalists Godzilla in the Kitchen‘s second album is immediately evocative, even before “Is” actually introduces the rest of what follows across three minutes of progressively minded heavy rock — parts calling to mind Pelican duking it out with Karma to Burn — that give way to the longest cut and an obvious focal point, “The Future of Mankind,” which reimagines the bass punch from Rage Against the Machine‘s “Killing in the Name Of” as fodder for an odd-timed expanse of Tool-ish progressive heavy, semi-psych lead work coming and going around more direct riffing. The dynamic finds sprawl in “Because” and highlights desert-style underpinnings in the fading lead lines of “Everything That Has Been Given” before the warmer contemplation of “Will Be Taken” caps with due substance. Their use of Godzilla — not named in the songs, but in the band’s moniker, and usually considered the “king of monsters” — as a metaphor for climate change is inventive, but even that feels secondary to the instrumental exploration itself here. They may be mourning for what’s been lost, but they do so with a vigor that, almost inadvertently, can’t help but feel hopeful.
Megalurching post-sludgers Onhou leave a crater with the four-song Monument, released by Lay Bare Recordings and Tartarus Records and comprising four songs and a 41-minute run that’s crushing in atmosphere as much as the raw tonal heft or the bellowing vocals that offset the even harsher screams. Leadoff “When on High” (8:19) is the shortest cut and lumbers toward a viciously noisy payoff and last stretch of even-slower chug and layered extreme screams/shouts, while “Null” (10:39) is unremittingly dark, less about loud/quiet tradeoffs though there still are some, but with depths enough to bury that line of organ and seeming to reference Neurosis‘ “Reach,” and “Below” (11:55) sandwiches an ambient beginning and standalone keyboard finish around post-metallic crunch and not so much a mournfulness as the lizard-brain feeling of loss prior to mourning; that naked sense of something not there that should be, mood-wise. Sure enough, “Ruins” (11:03) continues this bleak revelry, rising to a nod in its first couple minutes, breaking, returning in nastier fashion and rolling through a crescendo finish that makes the subsequent residual feedback feel like a mercy which, to be sure, it is not. If you think you’re up to it, you might be, or you might find yourself consumed. One way or the other, Onhou plod forward with little regard for the devastation surrounding. As it should be.
Less meditative than some of Germany’s instrumental heavy psych set, Bremen’s Fuzzerati explore drifting heavy psychedelic soundscapes on their 47-minute second album, Zwo, further distinguishing themselves in longform pieces like “Claus to Hedge” (13:01) and closer “Lago” (13:34) with hints of floaty post-rock without ever actually becoming so not-there as to be shoegazing. “Lago” and “Claus to Hedge” also have harder-hitting moments of more twisting, pushing fuzz — the bass in the second half of “Claus to Hedge” is a highlight — where even at its loudest, the seven-minute “Transmission” is more about dream than reality, with a long ambient finish that gives way to the similarly-minded ethereal launch of “Spacewalk,” which soon enough turns to somewhat ironically terrestrial riffing and is the most active inclusion on the record. For that, and more generally for the fluidity of the album as a whole, Fuzzerati‘s sophomore outing feels dug in and complete, bordering on the jazziness of someone like Causa Sui, but ultimately no more of their ilk than of My Sleeping Karma‘s or Colour Haze‘s, and I find that without a ready-made box to put them in — much as “instrumental heavy psych” isn’t a box — it’s a more satisfying experience to just go where the three-piece lead, to explore as they do, breathe with the material. Yeah, that’ll do nicely, thanks.
At least seemingly in part a lyrical narrative about a demon killing an infant Jesus and then going to hell to rip the wings off angels and so on — it’s fun to play pretend — Afghan Haze‘s Hallucinations of a Heretic feels born of the same extreme-metal-plus-heavy-rock impulse that once produced Entombed‘s To Ride Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth, and yeah, that’s a compliment. The bashing of skulls starts with “Satan Ripper” after the Church of Misery-style serial murderer intro “Pushing up Daisies,” and though “Hellijuana” has more of a stomp than a shove, the dudely-violence is right there all the same. “Occupants (Of the Underworld)” adds speed to the proceedings for an effect like High on Fire born out of death metal instead of thrash, and though the following closer “Gin Whore” (another serial killer there) seems to depart from the story being told, its sludge is plenty consistent with the aural assault being meted out by the Connecticut four-piece, omnidirectional in its disdain and ready at a measure’s notice to throw kicks and punches at whosoever should stand in its way, as heard in that burner part of “Gin Whore” and the all-bludgeon culmination of “Occupants (Of the Underworld).” This shit does not want to be your friend.
My only wish here is that I could get a lyric sheet for the Britpsych-style banger that is “Costco Get Fucked.” Otherwise, I’m fully on board with Canadian trio Massirraytorr‘s debut LP, Twincussion — which, like the band’s name, is also styled all-caps, and reasonably so since the music does seem to be shouting, regardless of volume or what the vocals are actually up to in that deep-running-but-somehow-punk lysergic swamp of a mix. “Porno Clown” is garage raw. Nah, rawer. And “Bong 4” struts like if krautrock had learned about fuckall, the layer of effects biting on purpose ahead of the next rhythmic push. In these, as well as leadoff “Calvin in the Woods” and the penultimate noisefest “Fear Garden,” Massirraytorr feel duly experimentalist, but perhaps without the pretension that designation might imply. That is to say, fucking around is how they’re finding out how the songs go. That gives shades of punk like the earliest, earliest, earliest Monster Magnet, or The Heads, or Chrome, or, or, or, I don’t know fuck you. It’s wild times out here in your brain, where even the gravity slingshot of “The Juice” feels like a relatively straightforward moment to use as a landmark before the next outward acceleration. Good luck with it, kids. Remember to trail a string so you can find your way back.
Serbian five-piece Tona make their self-titled second LP with a 10-song collection that’s less a hodgepodge and more a melting pot of different styles coming together to serve the needs of a given song. “Sharks” is a rock tempo with a thrash riff. “Napoleon Complex Dog” is blues via hardcore punk. Opener “Skate Zen” takes a riff that sounds like White Zombie and sets it against skate rock and Megadeth at the same time. The seven-minute “Flashing Lights” turns progadelic ahead of the dual-guitar strut showoff “Shooter” and the willful contrast of the slogging, boozy closer “Just a Sip of It.” But as all-over-the-place as Tona‘s Tona is, it’s to the credit of their songwriting that they’re able to hold it together and emerge with a cohesive style from these elements, some of which are counterintuitively combined. They make it work, in other words, and even the Serbian-language “Atreid” gets its point across (all the more upon translation) with its careening, tonally weighted punk. Chock full of attitude, riffs, and unexpected turns, Tona‘s second long-player and first since 2008 gives them any number of directions in which to flourish as they move forward, and shows an energy that feels born from and for the stage.
Posted in Questionnaire on October 5th, 2022 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: Marçal Itarte of Maragda
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I put my efforts to combine my passion for music and mountaineering with my family life and a part time job.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember my brother playing a Metallica cassette everywhere. It was on at home, in the car… One day our mother asked what was that radio show on the radio, because there were no adds, no one speaking… she was driving us to school. It was not a radio show it was The Cassette. Again.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Probably the best memories are that shows that one plays or attends that they end up being magic.
I have a very special memory of a Motorpsycho show so many years ago. At that moment I didn’t know the band yet and I was totally mesmerized, had goosebumps and I was sober. I don’t remember any show ever since where I had that feeling. That one and Tool live in Lisbon was also memorable!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I have always played music or recorded it in the most technical approach, and I was convinced it was the best way to do it. One day I realized I wasn’t doing well, I wasn’t putting to much of my thoughts and not so much of my heart.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I guess it’s a never ending journey of exploration. For some might be refining a certain way to play certain instrument or style, for other maybe it’s experimentation with new ways of expression, or maybe some sort of creative freedom one reaches after many years of creating stuff. At the moment I am feeling motivated into learning drumming and finding new sounds.
How do you define success?
I think something is successful when it meets the objectives you made that for, doesn’t matter if it’s a random casual objective or a very ambitious one. It could be playing drums today, or it could be finishing a song and feeling satisfied with the result. It could also be respecting your decision of having a rest day and actually rest!
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I have seen so many things that I wish I wouldn’t. I am a social worker and I have seen some hard lives and injustice. More personally, I‘d say I wish I didn’t have seen myself in some situations in the past.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would like to build myself a house.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I am not sure if I understand it as a function, or maybe a reason to be, but I like to think of art as a mean of transformation.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I am putting my efforts into a change in my career.
Posted in Reviews on September 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Day three, passing the quarter mark of the Quarterly Review, halfway through the week. This is usually the point where my brain locks itself into this mode and I find that even in any other posts where I’m doing actual writing I need to think about I default to this kind of trying-to-encapsulate-a-thing-in-not-a-million-words mindset, for better or worse. Usually a bit of both, I guess. Today’s also all over the place, so if you’re feeling brave, today’s the day to really dig in. As always, I hope you enjoy. If not, more coming tomorrow. And the day after. And then again on Monday. And so on.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Nadja, Labyrinthine
The second full-length of 2022 from the now-Berlin-based experimental two-piece Nadja — as ever, Leah Buckareff and Aidan Baker — is a four-song collaborative work on which each piece features a different vocalist. In guesting roles are Alan Dubin, formerly of Khantate/currently of Gnaw, Esben and the Witch‘s Rachel Davies, Lane Shi Otayonii of Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Full of Hell‘s Dylan Walker. Given these players and their respective pedigrees, it should not be hard to guess that Labyrinthine begins and ends ferocious, but Nadja by no means reserve the harshness of noise solely for the dudely contingent. The 17-minute “Blurred,” with Otayonii crooning overtop, unfurls a consuming wash of noise that, true, eventually fades toward a more definitive droner of a riff, but sure enough returns as a crescendo later on. Dubin is unmistakable on the opening title-track, and while Davies‘ “Rue” runs only 12 minutes and is the most conventionally listenable of the inclusions on the whole, even its ending section is a voluminous blowout of abrasive speaker destruction. Hey, you get what you get. As for Nadja, they should get one of those genius grants I keep hearing so much about.
El Paraiso Records alert! London Odense Ensemble features Jonas Munk (guitar, production), Jakob Skøtt (drums, art) and Martin Rude (sometimes bass) of Danish psych masters Causa Sui — they’re the Odense part — and London-based saxophonist/flutist Tamar Osborn and keyboardist/synthesist Al MacSween, and if they ever do a follow-up to Jaiyede Sessions Vol. 1, humanity will have to mark itself lucky, because the psych-jazz explorations here are something truly special. On side A they present the two-part “Jaiyede Suite” with lush krautrock rising to the level of improv-sounding astro-freakout before the ambient-but-still-active “Sojourner” swells and recedes gracefully, and side B brings the 15-minute “Enter Momentum,” which is as locked in as the title might lead one to believe and then some and twice as free, guitar and sax conversing fluidly throughout the second half, and the concluding “Celestial Navigation,” opening like a sunrise and unfolding with a playful balance of sax and guitar and synth over the drums, the players trusting each other to ultimately hold it all together as of course they do. Not for everybody, but peaceful even in its most active moments, Jaiyede Sessions Vol. 1 is yet another instrumental triumph for the El Paraiso camp. Thankfully, they haven’t gotten bored of them yet.
True, most of these songs have been around for a few years. All eight of the tracks on Omen Stones‘ 33-minute self-titled full-length save for “Skin” featured on the band’s 2019 untitled outing (an incomplete version of which was reviewed here in 2018), but they’re freshly recorded, and the message of Omen Stones being intended as a debut album comes through clearly in the production and the presentation of the material generally, and from ragers like “Fertile Blight” and the aforementioned “Skin,” which is particularly High on Fire-esque, to the brash distorted punk (until it isn’t) of “Fresh Hell” and the culminating nod and melody dare of “Black Cloud,” the key is movement. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Tommy Hamilton (Druglord), bassist Ed Fierro (Tel) and drummer Erik Larson (Avail, Alabama Thunderpussy, etc. ad infinitum) are somewhere between riff-based rock and metal, but carry more than an edge of sludge-nasty in their tones and Hamilton‘s sometimes sneering vocals such that Omen Stones ends up like the hardest-hitting, stoner-metal-informed grunge record that ever got lost from 1994. Then you get into “Secrete,” and have to throw the word ‘Southern’ into the mix because of that guitar lick, and, well, maybe it’s better to put stylistic designations to the side for the time being. A ripper with pedigree is a ripper nonetheless.
Proggy, synth-driven instrumentalist space rock is the core of what Italy’s Jalayan bring forward on the 45-minute Floating Islands, with guitar periodically veering into metallic-style riffing but ultimately pushed down in the mix to let the keyboard work of band founder Alessio Malatesta (who also recorded) breathe as it does. That balance is malleable throughout, as the band shows early between “Tilmun” and “Nemesis,” and if you’re still on board the ship by the time you get to the outer reaches of “Stars Stair” — still side A, mind you — then the second full-length from the Lesmo outfit will continue to offer thrills as “Fire of Lanka” twists and runs ambience and intensity side by side and “Colliding Orbits” dabbles in space-jazz with New Age’d keyboards, answering some of what featured earlier on “Edination.” The penultimate “Narayanastra” has a steadier rock beat behind it and so feels more straightforward, but don’t be fooled, and at just under seven minutes, “Shem Temple” closes the proceedings with a clear underscoring the dug-in prog vibe, similar spacey meeting with keys-as-sitar in the intro as the band finds a middle ground between spirit and space. There are worlds being made here, as Malatesta leads the band through these composed, considered-feeling pieces united by an overarching cosmic impulse.
Following 12 years on the heels and hells of 2010’s Dusk (review here), San Antonio, Texas, doomers Las Cruces return with the classic-style doom metal of Cosmic Tears, and if you think a hour-long album is unmanageable in the day and age of 35-minute-range vinyl attention spans, you’re right, but that’s not the vibe Las Cruces are playing to, and it’s been over a decade, so calm down. Founding guitarist George Trevino marks the final recorded performance of drummer Paul DeLeon, who passed away last year, and welcomes vocalist Jason Kane to the fold with a showcase worthy of comparison to Tony Martin on songs like “Stay” and the lumbering “Holy Hell,” with Mando Tovar‘s guitar and Jimmy Bell‘s bass resulting in riffs that much thicker. Peer to acts like Penance and others working in the post-Hellhound Records sphere, Las Cruces are more grounded than Candlemass but reach similar heights on “Relentless” and “Egyptian Winter,” with classic metal as the thread that runs throughout the whole offering. A welcome return.
Kind of a sneaky album. Like, shh, don’t tell anybody. As I understand it, the bulk of The Freeks‘ nine-tracker Miles of Blues is collected odds and ends — the first four songs reportedly going to be used for a split at some point — and the two-minute riff-and-synth funk-jam “Maybe It’s Time” bears that out in feeling somewhat like half a song, but with the barroom-brawler-gone-to-space “Jaqueline,” the willfully kosmiche “Wag the Fuzz,” which does what “Maybe It’s Time” does, but feels more complete in it, and the 11-minute interstellar grandiosity of “Star Stream,” the 41-minute release sure sounds like a full-length to me. Ruben Romano (formerly Nebula and Fu Manchu) and Ed Mundell (ex-Monster Magnet) are headlining names, but at this point The Freeks have established a particular brand of bluesy desert psych weirdness, and that’s all over “Real Gone” — which, yes, goes — and the rougher garage push of “Played for Keeps,” which should offer thrills to anyone who got down with Josiah‘s latest. Self-released, pressed to CD, probably not a ton made, Miles of Blues is there waiting for you now so that you don’t regret missing it later. So don’t miss it, whether it’s an album or not.
South Africa-based self-recording folk guitarist Duncan Park answers his earlier-2022 release, Invoking the Flood (review here), with the four pieces of In the Floodplain of Dreams, bringing together textures of experimentalist guitar with a foundation of hillside acoustic on opener and longest track (immediate points) “In the Mountains of Sour Grass,” calling to mind some of Six Organs of Admittance‘s exploratory layering, while “Howling at the Moon” boasts more discernable vocals (thankfully not howls) and “Ballad for the Soft Green Moss” highlights the self-awareness of the evocations throughout — it is green, organic, understated, flowing — and the closing title-track reminisces about that time Alice in Chains put out “Don’t Follow” and runs a current of drone behind its central guitar figure to effectively flesh out the this-world-as-otherworld vibe, devolving into (first) shred and (then) noise as the titular dream seems to give way to a harsher reality. So be it. Honestly, if Park wants to go ahead and put out a collection like this every six months or so into perpetuity, that’d be just fine. The vocals here are a natural development from the prior release, and an element that one hopes continue to manifest on the next one.
Crushing and atmospheric in kind, Poland’s MuN released Presomnia through Piranha Music in 2020 as their third full-length. I’m not entirely sure why it’s here, but it’s in my notes and the album’s heavy like Eastern European sadness, so screw it. Comprised of seven songs running 43 minutes, it centers around that place between waking and sleep, where all the fun lucid dreaming happens and you can fly and screw and do whatever else you want in your own brain, all expressed through post-metallic lumber and volume trades, shifting and building in tension as it goes, vocals trading between cleaner sung stretches and gut-punch growls. The layered guitar solo on “Arthur” sounds straight out of the Tool playbook, but near everything else around is otherwise directed and decidedly more pummeling. At least when it wants to be. Not a complaint, either way. The heft of chug in “Deceit” is of a rare caliber, and the culmination in the 13-minute “Decree” seems to use every bit of space the record has made prior in order to flesh out its melancholic, contemplative course. Much to their credit, after destroying in the midsection of that extended piece, MuN make you think they’re bringing it back around again at the end, and then don’t. Because up yours for expecting things. Still the “Stones From the Sky” riff as they come out of that midsection, though. Guess you could do that two years ago.
I’ve never had the fortune of seeing long-running Dallas trio Elliott’s Keep live, but if ever I did and if at least one of the members of the band — bassist/vocalist Kenneth Greene, guitarist Jonathan Bates, drummer Joel Bates — wasn’t wearing a studded armband, I think I might be a little disappointed. They know their metal and they play their metal, exclusively. Comprised of seven songs, Vulnerant Omnes is purposefully dark, able to shift smoothly between doom and straight-up classic heavy metal, and continuing a number of ongoing themes for the band: it’s produced by J.T. Longoria, titled in Latin (true now of all five of their LPs), and made in homage to Glenn Riley Elliott, who passed away in 2004 but features here on the closer “White Wolf,” a cover of the members’ former outfit, Marauder, that thrashes righteously before dooming out as though they knew someday they’d need it to tie together an entire album for a future band. Elsewhere, “Laughter of the Gods” and the Candlemassian “Every Hour” bleed their doom like they’ve cut their hand to swear an oath of fealty, and the pre-closer two-parter “Omnis Pretium (Fortress I)” and “Et Sanguinum (Fortress II)” speaks to an age when heavy metal was for fantasy-obsessed miscreants and perceived devil worshipers. May we all live long enough to see that particular sun rise again. Until then, an eternal “fucking a” to Elliott’s Keep.
Sometime between their 2017 debut, Jungla (review here), and the all-fire-even-the-slow-parts boogie and comprises the eight-song/35-minute follow-up Ambos Mundos, Barcelona trio Cachemira parted ways with bassist Pol Ventura and brought in Claudia González Díaz of The Mothercrow to handle low end and lead vocals alongside guitarist/now-backing vocalist Gaston Lainé (Brain Pyramid) and drummer Alejandro Carmona Blanco (Prisma Circus), reaffirming the band’s status as a legit powerhouse while also being something of a reinvention. Joined by guest organist Camille Goellaen on a bunch of the songs and others on guitar, Spanish guitar and congas, Ambos Mundos scorches softshoe and ’70s vibes with a modern confidence and thickness of tone that put to use amid the melodies of “Dirty Roads” are sweeping and pulse-raising all at once. The name of the record translates to ‘both worlds,’ and the closing title-track indeed brings together heavy fuzz shuffle and handclap-laced Spanish folk (and guitar) that is like pulling back the curtain on what’s been making you dance this whole time. It soars and spins heads until everybody falls down dizzy. If they were faking, it’d fall flat. It doesn’t. At all. More please.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Barcelona-based instrumentalists Coure have set an Oct. 14 arrival date for their debut long-player, Inversum Nema, through Nooirax Producciones. Preorders are up now, if you’re the type to get such things out of the way, and to coincide with that, the sax-included five-piece have a video up now for the song “Ombra Nero Sunna,” which opens the album.
I already noted the sax — bass sax, to be specific, which on the scale of saxophone probably means it’s heavier — and that’s not to leave out the trumpet. Those two effectively fill space that might otherwise be left to vocals, but one way or the other, the focus in “Ombra Nero Sunna” is on ambience. A post-metallic vibe persists, and that blend is the foundation of the impression being made, whatever instruments and jazzy flourish surround.
Coure released a self-titled EP in 2019, and on the other side of the reality swap, with their lineup fully built out as it would seem they intended, they cast an immediately individual vibe despite whatever familiarities exist, and there’s depth in this lead cut enough to make me believe there’s more depth to Inversum Nema than the simple novelty of its having horn players. To wit, the freakout.
The visual ambience accompanying “Ombra Nero Sunna” further supports that argument, as you can see in the clip below. Not necessarily extreme, but definitely dug-in, and not necessarily universally accessible; they don’t strike as a band looking to hook massive audiences so much as explore and blur the lines between genres. Cool by me, maybe you too if you’re in the right frame of mind. The album info follows, hoisted unceremoniously from the Bandcamp page for the album, where preorders, as noted, are open.
Have at you:
Coure, “Ombra Nero Sunna” official video
First single from Coure’s new album “Inversum Nema” that will be released on october 14th 2022 via Nooirax Producciones
Video created and directed by Roger Creus – https://digitalrowye.com/ All music composed, arranged and performed by Coure
Coure receives its name from the metal copper- /CU/ -and from the latin term Cuprum. In ancient times, copper was valued for its malleability and heat transmission, and currently it is valuable for its energy conduction capabilities.
Coure’s music is also malleable and ever changing, though without losing its driving essence, just like said metal. The band’s personality entails the entangling of Metal structures with Progressive parts where both trumpet and saxophone replace the vocals and create atmospheres closer to Free jazz and improvisation.
This album is our first studio recording with the full band, we’ve added a bass sax to the original line-up, he is driving us into an exciting lost highway towards a post-apocalyptic dystopian future, full of crowded cities with noise and nonsense, people who live underground in search of metal, in their solitude invoke ancient gods that never come.
It’s the fruit of the curse that began in 2020 and plunged us more into slavery, in this album there is concentrated a part of darkness that we have suffered since then.
It is an inverted prayer to the ancient gods that few pay attention to.
We are not believers. Pray with us and enjoy the journey!
No one will come to save you…
Coure are: Rowye (drums) Richie (bass) Ferran G (guitar) Pope (trumpet) Ferran B (bass sax)
Barcelona-based heavy rockers Fuzz Forward posted the single ‘She Comes’ on Aug. 5 and have a needle-on-record (plus some other psychedelic whathaveyou) visualizer to accompany. As to what record is playing, I’m not entirely sure. The mid-paced, mostly mellow ’90s groover — prevailing vibes of Soundgarden, Alice in Chains — has not yet seen a physical pressing that I know of. It follows May’s “Shout to Forget” as a herald of the Spanish four-piece’s sophomore full-length, which is due to release in 2023 with the not insignificant backing of Spinda Records, Red Sun Records, Discos Macarras and Diablero Music Records, but I haven’t heard of that record being pressed yet if it has been — I could be entirely wrong here, of course — but one can hardly call the visual inaccurate since when you put on a record and listen to it, that’s what it looks like. Fair enough.
The song is, of course, the focal point here rather than the video itself, and with Juan‘s coolly crooned lines and the steady instrumental fluidity behind him — live sounding but not overwrought or trying too hard, laid back in the way it wants to be — “She Comes” is about mood and structure alike. Its chorus wants a sing-along, but there’s breadth enough that as it moves through its ultra-grunge midsection into the more spaced-out reaches that follow, the shift is smooth enough to hardly notice it’s happening. This speaks to the intentionality of Fuzz Forward after their 2018 first album, Out of Nowhere (review here), and 2020’s acoustic Revolve EP, the band pushing themselves forward, expanding their sound and progressing as, ideally, they would. In this way, it’s mission-accomplished for the single in building anticipation for the new album — let alone the visual tease for such a thing — when it might surface in the coming New Year.
I asked for a quote about the song, and Fuzz Forward‘s Juan and drummer Marc Rockenberg — the band is completed by guitarist Caio Pastore and bassist Alexander Romero — were kind enough to give background insight on “She Comes” as well as an update on when the next LP, whatever it’s called when it’s actually ready to be pressed, will surface.
Please enjoy:
Fuzz Forward, “She Comes” official visualizer
Marc: “I came up with the idea for the song about four years ago. Wanted to go to some yet unexplored territory for the band with it. Do something different and completely new for us but that at the same time didn’t sound like a total departure from what FF is and sounds like. A song with some of Fuzz Forward’s key elements (like the ’90s influence and riffing) but with a different vibe, atmospheric but not in the spacey sense but more emotionally. I believe we achieved that and I’m very proud with the final result of She Comes.”
About the lyrics Juan says, “SHE COMES talks about inspiration, genius, daemons or the muses, you name it, and tries to describe those moments when music intoxicates our ideas, senses and limbs.”
Marc: “We recorded She Comes and Shout To Forget in two days, with Dani Salat as a producer in his studio. We had been playing these two songs live for quite some time so it was pretty easy and fast. For She Comes we decided to use synthesizers for the first time and that was to intensify the atmospheric part. We then added some layers of noisy guitars and that’s it.”
Marc: “The rest of the album will be recorded and mixed next October and we hope it will be released before the summer of 2023 with Spinda Records, Discos Macarras, Diablero Music Records and Red Sun Records.”
Marc: “We have written a lot of material since our debut album came out in 2018, we have around 30 new songs. We are now in the process of selecting the 10 songs that will make it to the album. We don’t want to do “Out Of Nowhere” part two. We have made a big effort to write the best songs we possibly can and also for them to be different from each other. Our goal is to create a very dynamic album which shows the different sides FF’s has. We don’t want to be stuck with a label, that’s one of the reasons why in 2020 we didn’t hesitate to release an all acoustic ep ‘Revolve’. Some people didn’t expect that and that’s fine. We just want to write songs that we are happy with and we are not afraid to go to wherever they take us to.”
Produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Dani Salat at Dani Salat Studio (Sabadell, Spain) in 2022.
(C) 2022, Fuzz Forward (P) 2022, Spinda Records, Red Sun Records, Discos Macarras & Diablero Music Records
Fuzz Forward: Juan – Vocals Alexander Romero – Bass Marc Rockenberg – Drums Caio Pastore – Guitar
Drawing on decades of progressive rock history, Barcelona’s Magick Brother & Mystic Sister released their self-titled debut full-length in June 2020 through Sound Effect Records and The John Colby Sect. Appropriate for posterity less than the moment of its arrival, perhaps, the record begins with “Utopia,” which works with deceptive efficiency for being so outwardly mellow in order to establish the patterns that much of what follows will inhabit and flesh out.
To wit, the casual swing of the rhythm from drummer/sometimes-vocalist Marc Tena and bassist/guitarist Xavier Sandoval, the jazzy and funk aspects brought to the proceedings from Maya Fernández on flute, and the cosmic undertow of Eva Muntada‘s synth, accompanied by her own non-lyric vocals, a kind of soothing “ahh” over the readily flowing movement. All throughout the 10-song/43-minute excursion, the band toys with these pieces one way or the other.
Muntada moves to keyboard here, Mellotron or organ there, piano somewhere along the line. Rhythms grow more or less insistent. Volume comes and goes, as does guitar and either or both of Muntada and Tena‘s voices, resulting in a rich and encompassing otherworldly, semi-psychedelic pastoralia. Dream-prog.
It is a sound full of nuance and detail that nonetheless ably carries the listener across its span, each piece of the entirety offering something of its own — the percussion in and sustained organ sweep of “Waterforms,” the watery post-Floydian turn of the brief “The First Light,” the flute and bounce of “Yogi Tea” that serves as one of the album’s many reminders of classic prog’s affinity for funk, and so on — but not straying so far as to be disconnected from the whole.
Self-produced with mixing by Tena (who also mastered) and Sandoval, the precision and care with which Magick Brother & Mystic Sister craft and inhabit this world makes it all the more inviting to the audience. They’re not pushing you anywhere, but neither are they leaving you behind. It really is a matter of being invited along with them on this path, complex but organic like walking under a canopy of thoughtfully tangled tree branches and never getting all the way lost.
Their attention to detail and balancing of the mix is essential to the vibe, and in turn, the vibe is essential to the broader listening experience. Clever inclusions like the acoustic strum and cymbal washes in “Waterforms” and the piano and flute interplay in the quiet stretch of “Arroyo del búho” soon met by the creeping bassline, the folkish melodies topping “Echoes From the Clouds” even as the beneath them grows punchier in the track’s subtle volume build, or the Mellotron in “Movement 2” — which like “Waterforms” was released as a standalone single prior to the album — enhance the songs but are neither overwrought nor extraneous feeling.
This at times feels miraculous, considering how much is going on at any given moment, particularly as the hand percussion behind “Movement 2” comes through as so restless and the mellow drifter roll of the subsequent “Love Scene” daydreams into the funkier, penultimate “Instructions for Judgment Visions,” which is instrumental save for its singing flute and midpoint sample, which transitions into a spacious and droning bridge on the way to a jazzy culmination.
But this too is set up through the welcome provided by “Utopia” as voices, flute, guitar, bass, drums and synth combine, swell, recede and lay forth the general dynamic with which Magick Brother & Mystic Sister unfurls. There’s even room for a bit of showy classic guitar soloing. And by the time closer “Les Vampires” — also the longest inclusion at 6:40 — takes the funk of “Instructions for Judgment Visions” not necessarily to the place of’70s horror the title might lead one to believe, but to an open-feeling, breathy la-la-la jam and some Magma-style turns here and there before dropping out to begin its middle movement of Mellotron and flute exploration before again going to ground and letting the rim-click drums and voices carry through the final wash and last fadeout.
It’s as though the band couldn’t decide which part of a song they wanted to finish with, decided to go with all three, and because of the work they’d done over the nine tracks prior to establish a sound able to bend and shape into whatever they want it to express at any given moment, they made it work.
If you’ve got your watch out and you’re waiting for me to tell you how extra-admirable doing such a thing is for a debut full-length, I assure you that particular train is running on time. I’ll confess I don’t know the personal creative histories of the players involved here, but as they come together around these songs, there seems to be a definite ideal for which they are striving, and while their style inherently lends itself to growth — it’s not called progressive rock ironically; it progresses — I have a hard time imagining an ideal conceived that this record doesn’t meet on its own terms.
And the terms are very much its own. One can hear in the melodies and the sundry rhythms throughout lights and shades drawn from the aforementioned Pink Floyd as well as King Crimson, The Beatles, Iberian folk, British folk, funk (have I mentioned funk? don’t you think it’s interesting that prog has always secretly wanted to dance?), and on and on, but what all of that coming together as it does in this material means is that Magick Brother & Mystic Sister take full advantage of the opportunity their first album represents in telling their listeners who they want to be.
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, the actual record, puts its rather significant aural ambitions front and center throughout its amorphous movement, and no matter how much it may seem to meander — and sometimes maybe actually do so — it is always guided by careful and attentive hands. It is music made with care. I would only hope that whatever the band do to follow, and whenever they might do it, that that central ethic is maintained. With that, they make it sound like the rest will just magically fall into place.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Up and down week. I guess most are. Ups: on Wednesday, The Patient Mrs. and I went to see Everything Everywhere All at Once in the theater, which was incredible. As movies go, that’s precisely my kind of absurd genius. And also it wasn’t “dark and gritty” like fucking everything these days, despite featuring a rampage’s worth of violence. I loved it and heartily recommend it. Also up, yesterday was the premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worldsand the season finale of Star Trek: Picard both, and while I’m not all the way thrilled with the way the latter wrapped in terms of some of the characters — I was hoping they’d give Rios a spinoff with Seven, Jurati, Raffi and Elnor — it was at least a satisfying conclusion to the story of the season. Also I streamed the Wo Fat record and the Kungens Män record and got to review Steak and Tau and the Drones of Praise, wrote and posted that Sasquatch album release news, AND time posting my Ufomammut interview to the release date as if to pretend somehow I actually know what I’m doing after 13-plus years of this site. I know. Doesn’t happen often.
Downs: Mostly kid-related, honestly. Dude and I had a bumpy week, right up to this morning getting him dressed for school. He’s been in OT for like two and a half years and the only reason I might not get bit on any given day is because I walk on fucking eggshells and/or give him whatever he wants. And he still tells me I’m terrible and he doesn’t love me pretty much every day, just because he can. And he can. We don’t punish, I actively try to stop myself from raising my voice. I just don’t know why putting on a pair of fucking socks needs to be so hard. I don’t know why I need to feel emotions about it. I don’t know why I need to be kicked. It fucking sucks. Yesterday morning? Sucked. Waiting for the bus? Sucks. This week is teacher appreciation week. Fucking hell. Don’t get me wrong — nobody — nobody — nobody — works harder than teachers and nobody — nobody — nobody — deserves to be billionaires more, but man, I felt like I could’ve used a little of that energy this week too and what I mostly got instead was pain in the ass. We went to Wal-Mart on Wednesday. What a wreck. Pulling shit off the shelves, trying to climb out of the cart. He’s like a fucking steamroller. Unstoppable.
And I feel all that shit. The Patient Mrs. brushes it off, looks at me like I’m an asshole. I can’t. When I have to ask a question five fucking times to get an answer, it’s maddening. So yeah, rough.
Fortunately I had the serene flute-laden prog of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister to clear my head over the last few days and fill it with luscious melody and classic bounce. The Patient Mrs. told me before she wasn’t digging the flute. She doesn’t like psychedelic sax either. Can’t win ’em all. Or sometimes really any.
Next week is Desertfest New York. All along I’ve been thinking it’s the week after, just like all along I’ve been thinking Freak Valley and Maryland Doom Fest are the same week in June when apparently they’re not. Whatever. I’m gonna go see bands. Hopefully hug humans. Take pictures. Write reviews. I will have a fair amount to say about the experience, I think, but I’ll try to keep focused on the thing itself.
Which is to say I’ve already begun the writing in my head.
That is to say, you’re not morally obligated. Sometimes cash is hard to come by, sometimes nothing hits you right. That’s okay too.
No Gimme show this week. Next week will be a special for DFNYC, so keep an eye out. Also next week I’ve got a full stream and review of the Ecstatic Vision going up on Tuesday and a bunch of other cool stuff that I don’t want to jinx by plugging.
Until then, great and safe weekend. Watch your head, hydrate, all that stuff. Back on Monday.
