Posted in Whathaveyou on February 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
What more do you need to know? It’s a Castle live record. It was recorded in 2017, which makes it before 2018’s Deal Thy Fate (review here) and after 2016’s Welcome to the Graveyard (review here), and a point at which the band were positively nomadic. Tours on top of tours on top of outs.
With a succession of drummers to and through the lineup around bassist/vocalist Liz Blackwell and guitarist Mat Davis — on Deal Thy Fate, it was Chase Manhattan, which sounded like a fake name then and still kind of does — the hard-charging, originally-Canadian two-piece nonetheless presaged the “true metal” movement by at least half a decade and did it heavier, cooler, and more interesting than most out there trying to pretend it’s 1983 or whenever it was that anything might’ve conceptually mattered. They received a fraction of the hype they deserved in so doing.
The thing about Castle, though: they’ve always been a live band. Accordingly, if you’ve ever seen them you likely don’t need me to tell you One Knight Stands: Live in NY will be one to catch, and word a new studio album in the can is a bonus considering 2018 was six years ago now. Not the longest stretch being discussed today between records, but not nothing. Blah blah blah, something about ‘due’ and then some half-clever segue to the PR wire:
CASTLE: Announce Live Album Preorder; New Studio Album Revealed
Heavy metal doomsters CASTLE are pleased to announce the release of their first official live album “One Knight Stands: Live In NY”.
Recorded during CASTLE’s Welcome To The Graveyard Tour in Brooklyn, NY on September 18, 2017, the 10 track album draws on songs from each of the band’s first four albums and captures the three-piece at the height of their road hardened power.
“We’re happy to finally put this out as a document to all the miles travelled and time spent playing night after night”, the band states. “We think this album is a pretty accurate snapshot of the band onstage; no overdubs, no edits, just live and loud and we thought it would be cool to share that”.
One Knight Stands: Live In NY is available for preorder from the band’s own newly formed imprint, Black Wren Records on limited edition vinyl as well as digital. Additionally, the band has released an advance streaming single “Hammer And The Cross (Live)”.
European pre-orders through Ván Records can be found here: http://van-records.com/Castle-One-Knight-Stands-Live-In-NY-lim-12-LP_1
CASTLE “One Knight Stands: Live In NY” Tracklist 1. Black Widow 2. Down In The Cauldron Bog 3. Hammer And The Cross 4. Flash Of The Pentagram 5. A Killing Pace 6. Corpse Candles 7. Temple Of The Lost 8. Dying Breed 9. Evil Ways 10. Total Betrayal
CASTLE have also recently completed recording their newest studio album. Recorded and mixed during October and November of 2023 at Rain City Recorders in Vancouver, BC with producer Jesse Gander (Anciients, Brutus, 3 Inches Of Blood), the as-yet-untitled album will mark the band’s sixth, and follows 2018’s Deal Thy Fate and 2016’s Welcome To The Graveyard.
More details about the new studio album will be announced in the coming months including album title, tracklist, artwork and release date.
CASTLE was forged in San Francisco in 2009 and released its debut full-length, In Witch Order, via Germany’s Ván Records in 2011. The album brought light to the newly-formed band and earned them “Album Of The Year” honors from Metal Hammer Norway. Shortly thereafter, CASTLE joined the Prosthetic Records roster in North America and released both their critically-acclaimed sophomore album Blacklands, which led to a Canadian JUNO nomination for “Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year”, and 2014’s follow-up, Under Siege.
Since the release of its first album, CASTLE has maintained a relentless tour schedule, performing over six hundred shows worldwide alongside the likes of The Sword, Conan, Intronaut, The Skull and Pentagram, among many others. The group has appeared at numerous underground music festivals including Roadburn, the London and Berlin Desertfests and recently completed its first-ever tour of Japan.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I guess probably if you’re Ruben Romano, and you’ve done the thing since the thing started doing in bands like Fu Manchu, Nebula and The Freeks, the thought that you might make a record, send it out to a bunch of people as a gift, and have someone send back a proper mastered version might seem normal. I’m going to speculate that upwards of 99 percent of the current earth population would never experience that kind of thing — someone just being like, “oh hey, thanks for album; I finished it for you” — but maybe you and I should go make friends with Sacha Goepel, who regifted the mastered version of Romano‘s first solo LP, The Imaginary Soundtrack to the Imaginary Western Twenty Graves Per Mile, which ended up being released this past Friday.
Would the release have happened if not for Goepel‘s fortuitous efforts? Maybe, but probably not right now. Those familiar with The Freeks‘ psych-prone take on heavy blues will find Romano‘s own work prone to some similar meandering, but he’s not kidding with the whole ‘imaginary soundtrack’ thing here, as at least some of the instrumentalism provided — and I heard the record for the first time this morning, so bear with the accordingly superficial impression — has a score-ish feel, but Romano doesn’t quite fully take himself away from verse/chorus structures either. I’m doing a Quarterly Review at the end of the month — BECAUSE DAMN YOU I WILL OBLITERATE MY CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THIS HEAVY ROCK AND ROLL — and it’ll be in there. Might call it …Twenty Graves Per Mile though. Only so many words to fit in a review.
Here’s the story from Romano himself via the PR wire. You know that’s just my email, right? Right?
Okay. Good:
Ruben A Romano – ‘The Imaginary Soundtrack To The Imaginary Western’ Twenty Graves Per Mile’ OUT NOW on Freek Flag Records
Freek Flag Records and “Mastering Engineer” Sascha Goepel have paired up to assimilate a major Apollo 11 mission with the launching of this rocket-size full-length. Prior to its humble public release on the first Bandcamp Friday of 2024, Ruben opted for a discreet unmastered prescreening to a select few as a “Holiday Greeting Gift” and it was Sascha Goepel who returned the gift fully mastered, bringing to light the clarity of Romano’s greatest escape from LA yet. While tumbleweed stirred, Twenty Graves Per Mile crept off into wild abandonment, stretching past the first song, “Load The Wagon” and on into its reprise. Stonerocks’ magic drummer blazed his own trails through canyon country on this round coming off as a sundering soundtrack that’s been soundproofed and thoroughly examined before released to the masses on midnight.
Ruben recorded the imaginary “film score” , in and out of his home studio as well as rehearsal room in between practices with The Freeks; another band of Ruben’s who are a blast from the outer space rock past. Much of the inspiration behind Ruben’s conquest is to mesh imagery with harmony. ‘The Imaginary Soundtrack To The Imaginary Western’ is an authentic, balanced composition hinting towards Ruben’s Latin lineage and somewhere along the lines of entrancing love songs about the pioneering westward expansion, more so than a spaghetti western that critics are calling it. It is structured around the envision of a memoir set to cinematic splendor.
Freek Flag Records, which is the headquarters to Ruben Romano’s heart, has released all the “The Freeks” full-length albums digitally as well as hard copy versions of some within its house. The label is flying its freek colors once again and coming out of the closet in order to digitally release this record. Ruben Romano (who has more than completed his rock’n’rock homework) has ten solid tracks delegated for the release. Cassettes are expected to surface later through Northern Haze, while Ruben’s other side hobbies demonstrate his super-sonic-to-the-max video art directing.
This record will go down as another album notch under Ruben’s belt and discographic career. All homophonic compositions were written, recorded, and produced by the drummer turned composer. Instruments used in the recording range from guitar to synth, harmonica to drum tracks, as well as murchunga jaw harp together with minimal chorus lines, all created by a master who needs no master class let alone in any furthermore introduction.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 6th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Man, this shit smokes. Did you hear Zack Oakley‘s Fall 2021 solo debut, Badlands (review here)? If not, I’ll kindly, in a spirit of friendship, recommend you do so ahead of the arrival of Kommune I, Oakley‘s somewhat counterintuitively titled (at first) second full-length. Set to release March 2 through Oakley’s own Kommune Records, with “Look Where We Are Now” and closer “Demon Run” featuring that were each previously released as singles — the latter accompanied by a Nina Simone cover — Kommune I brings five tracks loaded with reminders that the reason you can’t find all the nerdiest and thus best prog, heavy rock, funk, psych, jazz and/or Afrobeat — yes, so Demon Fuzz — records used out there in stores is because Oakley has so obviously bought them all and absorbed their contents through some kind of magical osmosis that uses technology I don’t understand and so I’ll just have to call either “magic” or “talent.” Whichever you choose, Kommune I is loaded with both.
Oakley (ex-Joy, Pharlee, Volcano; he sat in with Earthless last month for a set; that feels like it should be a line on the CV) also has a band together, and his own studio/rehearsal space — Kommune Studios — where the live-sounding album was captured. This seems to me like he’s setting himself up for a longer-term dig-in here as regards solo fare rather than passing the time between other ‘band’ outings, and in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if live shows from the Zack Oakley Band became more of a thing over time, as the energy in Kommune I from “We Want You to Dance” (a direct address to an audience at the start) feels entirely geared for the stage even as the songs themselves take on different facets of Oakley‘s songwriting.
The PR wire brought info, but what you really want is the songs. Those are at the bottom. Release show is March 2 at Casbah in San Diego. Behold:
“Kommune 1” is the 2nd full length album from San Diego multi-instrumentalist, engineer and producer Zack Oakley.
The record explores gang vocal harmonization, bass and drum polyrhythms found in afro-beat and latin jazz, walls of sound produced by dueling twin guitar lines harmonizing against Fender Rhoades and B3 counterpoint, earth tones of harmonica and a wide range of world-music hand percussion set to a backdrop of kinetic psychedelic energies supplied by droning, echoing and modulating theremin and synthesizers. This record showcases a live band versed in improvisation while making playful use of stressed harmony and the ability to execute tight arrangements with razor sharp clarity. Lyrically, Kommune 1 modulates between the political (We Want You To Dance), existential (Hypnagogic Shift, Demon Run), science fiction (Further) and the dance party relief of the mid-album lysergic funk of “Look Where We Are Now.”
Kommune 1 finds its glue in the recording workflow; all five tracks being recorded in DIY fashion in the band’s rehearsal room in San Diego. The room, dubbed “Kommune Studios,” is a cozy, windowless affair stacked with vintage drum sets, amplifiers and synthesizers at the heart of which lies a late 70’s 24-track Trident recording console. The room itself represents creative freedom, as well as freedom from any outsider expectation and the insular comfort to follow any creative impulse to its fruition or naught. The tunes were recorded and mixed in the last few months of 2023 and are indicative of a band humming with inspiration and captured on specifically curated analog gear in the comfortable surroundings of their rehearsal headquarters.
The album is aptly named Kommune 1 as the first album recorded in the band’s homegrown studio.
Track List: 1.) We Want You To Dance 2.) Further 3.) Look Where We Are Now 4.) Hypnagogic Shift 5.) Demon Run
Personnel: Zack Oakley – vocals, guitar, percussion, tracking engineer, mix engineer, producer Cory Martinez – vocals, guitar, synth, tracking engineer Peter Cai – vocals, bass Travis Baucum – vocals, harmonica, theremin Garret Lekas – vocals, keys, synth Justin De La Vega – vocals, drums Jody Bagly – B3, rhoades Tim Lowman – flute
Release show for Kommune 1 is at @casbahsandiego on Saturday March 2nd. Excited to play the new record start to finish for the first time. Got an insane crew together for this one! @wildwildwets @freshveggiesmicrobrass and @operation_mindblow meet us there!
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 6th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Holy shit. I’ve been expecting word of Brume‘s next record for a minute now, both because they’re playing Desertfest London and because I’m generally a dork and keep up with their socials, but hearing the surge of emotion in the chorus of lead single “Jimmy” from their new album, the soaring and stately, commanding vocal reach of Susie McMullan and the patient unfurling of the song behind, well, golly, that’s striking. If Brume‘s third album, which arrives as they mark a decade’s tenure, is to be a moment of arrival for them, that would only be consistent with 2019’s Rabbits (review here) and their 2017 full-length debut, Rooster (review here).
I was fortunate enough to see Brume at Desertfest New York 2022 (review here) and so got to experience the now-four-piece’s dynamic with McMullan, guitarist/vocalist Jamie McCathie and drummer Jordan Perkins-Lewis bringing Jackie Perez-Gratz (Grayceon, sit-ins with Neurosis and so on) in to add textures of cello and vocals. After that, and listening to “Jimmy,” I have perhaps unreasonably high expectations for Jimmy — which isn’t coming out until frickin’ May!; boo — that come coupled with a firm sense of surety they’ll be met.
From the PR wire:
BRUME drop first video single ‘Jimmy’ and details of new album “Marten”
Bay Area goth-doom quartet BRUME have chosen the opening track ‘Jimmy’ from their forthcoming new full-length “Marten” as the first video single. The band’s third album is scheduled for release on May 3, 2024 via Magnetic Eye Records. The album pre-sale is now available athttp://lnk.spkr.media/brume-marten
BRUME comment: “I wrote ‘Jimmy’ in the voice of an angry wife married to a middle aged rockstar who has emotionally retreated from fame, family and his former self”, singer and bass player Susie McMullan lets on. “We all fall in love with the same characteristics that eventually drive us nuts. I bet falling in love with a famous artist exacerbates that.”
—
BRUME (pronounced ‘Broom’) are living proof that California is not all sunshine and easy living. The San Francisco-based quartet organically blends doom metal, goth, and indie rock into a sometimes monolithic, sometimes delicate blend of heaviness that resides firmly on the darker side.
After a decade of sultry sounds and hair-raising crescendos, BRUME push sonic experimentation and delightful genre-bending even further on their third full-length “Marten”. The expansion into a four-piece with the addition of Jackie Perez Gratz on cello and vocals has opened a cosmos of new possibilities that the Californians determinedly explore. Weaving soaring melodies over melancholic doom pop generates songs that are equally intimate and haunting yet also massive and crushing.
BRUME originally formed as a trio in 2014 when guitarist Jamie McCathie from Bristol, England began making music with bass player and vocalist Susie McMullan from Baton Rouge, Louisiana after discovering a shared passion for both trip-hop and sludge. The addition of Jordan Perkins-Lewis on drums completed the line-up with his rich and experimental style of drumming, and set the stage for the band’s recordings.
The trio quickly gained momentum with their doom metal albums “Rooster” (2017) and “Rabbits” (2019), the former being named ‘Album of the Year’ by The Ripple Effect and the latter earning the top spot on Wonderbox Metal’s ‘Best of 2019’ list. BRUME also left their mark onstage, appearing at Desertfest London in 2017 and Desertfest New York and SXSW in 2019, along with many more shows on both sides of the Atlantic.
On third album “Marten”, BRUME perfectly balance the melancholic power of the cello with forceful vocals and dueling guitar conversations. The complex mood swings that seamlessly move from sensuous and restrained to soaring and explosive found a perfect producer in Sonny DiPerri (EMMA RUTH RUNDLE, LORD HURON, PORTUGAL THE MAN). With the right engineer behind the board, the San Franciscans adopted a songwriting approach that emphasised poetry and lyrics rather than starting with a riff. This way of working uncovered a more vulnerable side of the band.
With “Marten”, BRUME take a bold step toward their musical future by challenging first themselves and now listeners to move from comfortable spaces toward more challenging, less familiar destinations.
Tracklist 1. Jimmy 2. New Sadder You 3. Faux Savior 4. Otto’s Song 5. How Rude 6. Heed Me 7. Run Your Mouth 8. The Yearn
Guest musician Laurie Shanaman – additional vocals on ‘How Rude’ and ‘Heed Me’
Posted in Reviews on February 6th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Five years on from their debut EP, Dying on the Mountain (discussed here), it still feels a little weird that Big Scenic Nowhere are an actual band, never mind sounding more established with their core lineup, more progressive and more distinct as an outfit from their other collaborations than they ever have. They might rightly be called a supergroup with drummer Bill Stinson (Yawning Man, Yawning Balch, etc.), guitarists Gary Arce (Yawning Man, Yawning Balch, Yawning Sons, Ten East, Dark Tooth Encounter, Zun, WaterWays, some new band he’s got going with Pia from Superlynx, on and on) and Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, Slower, Yawning Balch, Sun and Sail Club, ex-Minotaur, etc.) and vocalist/keyboardist Tony Reed (Mos Generator, Twelve Thirty Dreamtime, Constance Tomb, Stone Axe, etc.), though the term has fallen out of favor as these things inevitably will, but Big Scenic Nowhere‘s third full-length, The Waydown, is an accomplishment and realization of the band as themselves and shouldn’t be thought of otherwise.
While the project started as a lost Arce demo (discussed here) with completely different goals, and have always been open to guest appearances, Big Scenic Nowhere have featured plenty between 2020’s Vision Beyond Horizon (review here) and 2021’s The Long Morrow (review here) — at the start it wasn’t clear who was actually in the band, so that’s solidified as well — and The Waydown brings sit-ins from returning keyboardist/organist Per Wiberg (Spiritual Beggars, ex-Opeth, solo, etc.), guitarist Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie, The Cure), as well as former Hall & Oates keyboardist Eliot Lewis on the included Hall & Oates cover, “Sara Smile.”
Those other contributions from Wiberg and Gabrels and are spread throughout the seven-track/39-minute long-player, delivered as ever through Heavy Psych Sounds and meld with those of the band itself, but it’s Big Scenic Nowhere‘s own performances that are the highlights. I’m not even sure if it’s Reed or Balch on bass on a given track, but as much as it’s the two guitars at the forefront when considering the band, “Summer Teeth,” the slower but hypnotically hooky centerpiece “Bleed On,” and the mellow-rolling, seven-minute closer “100” — which bookends with the also-seven-minute “The Waydown” at the outset — are much bolstered by the low end, with Stinson‘s drums (or maybe Reed‘s, depending?) as the solid foundation beneath the explorations taking place.
Because while The Waydown is perhaps the most song-oriented Big Scenic Nowhere have yet been and it brings the core group into focus in no small part because of the unifying factor of Reed‘s vocals, it is still based on and carved out from jams, the band’s core process rooted in getting together for a time, banging out as much improvised or thought-of-a-part whathaveyou as they can, and sending the files home with Balch to be edited and carved into songs after the fact. It’s a heady way to do it, but it has allowed for a sense of progression in the band even as most of their material to-date has come from a single multi-day session. And on The Waydown, whether it’s the righteous creeper riff of the penultimate “BT-OH” or the declarative arrival of the first lines in “The Waydown” after the brief and comparatively minimal ambient intro, the carving, cutting, pasting and shaping results in a decisively and purposeful-seeming progressive feel.
“Sara Smile” is a departure, obviously, with Reed shifting into a gentler, soulful vocal on the cover taken from 1975’s Daryl Hall & John Oates and the band tackling an arrangement that’s something kin to a heavy/desert interpretation of AOR, but in the post-chorus-takeoff melancholy of “Summer Teeth,” the harder-landing fuzz in “Surf Western” in the midsection riffing and how it changes back to shimmer for the verse, and even the dreamy vibe brought to “100,” there’s an attention to detail in The Waydown that tells you the songs have been worked on and, considering the depth, loved, before arriving in their final forms as presented, and that thoughtfulness in composition — even if it comes after the moment the actual music was made — and consideration of atmosphere while building same isn’t to be discounted. That Reed and Balch are also studio engineers kind of makes the band possible as they are now, as Reed‘s home in Washington State and the rest of the band’s in Southern California is a distance crossed by craft, Balch getting parts set in a branched collaboration with Reed adding vocals and maybe keys or drums, and so on, which makes Big Scenic Nowhere multi-tiered as regards creativity when one considers Balch‘s other direct partnership in the band, with Arce on guitar.
And what about Gary Arce? Is the man whose guitar made the desert sing an afterthought on The Waydown? Hardly. As Reed steps forward in lead-singer fashion, Arce‘s signature tone is what lends the proceedings their lightness, making the atmospheres of “Bleed On” and “100” possible and speaking to the improvisatory roots of the songs themselves. I’m not sure “Surf Western” would exist as an aural concept let alone the actual track on the record if it weren’t for Gary Arce, and the subdued standalone strums after three minutes in — in the drawdown right before the big riff circles back with a wallop — Big Scenic Nowhere remind that a goodly portion of their emotional resonance comes from the string section, even if that too is changing with the highlight stretches of bass as noted.
Is The Waydown the best Big Scenic Nowhere record? Yes. It feels like it’s the most vivid manifestation of their project yet as distinct from other outfits — which is saying something considering Yawning Balch is literally Yawning Man… wait for it.. plus Balch — and the intention with which it sets itself to the work of craft has become a key aesthetic component in a way that is likewise the band’s own. More importantly, it’s also the mostBig Scenic Nowhere record in its contemplations, its dynamic turns and changes in volume or mood, and the resulting definition of the personality for the entire outfit. Yeah, it might still feel a little weird that they’re a band at all — to wit, I’m not sure they’ve ever played live — but they most definitely are, and never quite so engrossing a band as right now.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In the interest of framing a discussion, we’ll call it the debut album from Brant Bjork Trio being recorded this week by the three-piece in California. But really, it’s not the first record Brant Bjork and Mario Lalli have made together, and it’s not the first record that Brant Bjork and Ryan Güt have made together — it’s just the first time the three of them are together under this configuration. Güt, on tour with Bjork and Nick Oliveri as part of Stöner, I’m pretty sure drums on the upcoming Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers release, and there was no shortage of crossover jamming on that tour between Stöner and Lalli‘s emergent project, spearheaded aside from his tenure with Yawning Man or Fatso Jetson.
So familiar-enough dudes, but with new songs. I guess they need to get it all done as soon as possible because in March it’s back on the road. First they’re in South America, then Australia, then Europe this Spring for three Desertfests and Sonic Whip in the Netherlands and more besides, including club shows with Ruff Majik (who also have new stuff in the works) and Monkey3 (who have a new record on Napalm out in March). A summer or September album release doesn’t seem unreasonable to anticipate, all the more since Brant Bjork Trio have already been confirmed for Rock im Wald (end of July) and Hoflärm in Germany and SonicBlast Fest in Portugal this August, which speaks of more European touring to be announced for later in the year.
Here are all the tour dates I could find. Note they were also at Planet Desert Rock Weekend in Las Vegas this past weekend. I assume the eventual LP will be on Heavy Psych Sounds, but you never know until you get the ‘X-person who’s signed to Heavy Psych Sounds signs to Heavy Psych Sounds’ news announcement. Always fun, those. Anyhoo:
Heading into the studio this week to capture these tres hombres grooving a righteous batch of new tunes !
In March we head out to rock in South America and Australia ✌🏽🎵🙏 good times roll on ⚡️⚡️⚡️
Brant Bjork Trio SOUTH AMERICAN TOUR 2024 !! 06/03 Casa de Salud Concepcion Chile 07/03 Metronomo Santiago Chile 08/03 Casa Aurea Sao Paulo Brazil 09/03 Uniclub Buenos Aires Argentina 10/03 Plaza Mateo Montevideo Argentina
Brant Bjork Trio w/ Full Tone Generator Get DOWNunder ! 28/03 – Barwon Club Geelong 29/03 – Frankston Singing Bird Studio 30/03 – Gasometer Hotel Melbourne 31/03 – Crown & Anchor Hotel Adelaide 03/04 – The Basement Canberra 04/04 – Dicey Rileys Wollongong 05/04 – Marrickville Bowlo Sydney 06/04 – Mos Desert Clubhouse Gold Coast 07/04 – Panthers Port Macquarie NSW
Sound of Liberation proudly presents: BRANT BJORK TRIO – EURO 2024 TOUR 10.05.24 (NO) Oslo, Desertfest 11.05.24 (NL) Nijmegen, Sonic Whip 12.05.24 (DE) Cologne, Club Volta * w/ monkey3 14.05.24 (DE) Hamburg, Bahnhof Pauli 15.05.24 (DE) Bielefeld, Forum 16.05.24 (BE) Sint-Niklaas, De Casino * w/ monkey3 17.05.24 (UK) London, Desertfest 18.05.24 (FR) Wasquehal, The Black Lab 19.05.24 (FR) Nantes, Le Ferrailleur 20.05.24 (FR) Paris, Backstage By The Mill 22.05.24 (DE) Aschaffenburg, Colos-Saal * w/ Siena Root 23.05.24 (CH) Aarau, Kiff * w/ Ruff Majik 24.05.24 (DE) Munich, Feierwerk * w/ Ruff Majik 25.05.24 (DE) Erfurt, VEB Kultur * w/ Ruff Majik 25.05.24 (DE) Berlin, Desertfest 28.05.24 (NL) Amsterdam, Melkweg
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 31st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In addition to announcing this tour, Los Angeles doom metallers Early Moods have also specifically named the hometown date at Permanent Records Roadhouse as the release show for their impending sophomore full-length following-up their 2022 self-titled debut (review here), which was also on RidingEasy. An April 20-ish release, then? They wouldn’t be the only ones out there laying claim to Friday, April 19, but I’m more concerned with the what rather than the when of their next offering, since that’s invariably the part one would be hearing.
I’m not sure what I want from a second Early Moods full-length. I’d be cool if they had some radical jump in sound, like they did the first album, toured, and figured out what they wanted to be, or a continuation of the thread from the first. They were nothing if not purposeful there; I’m not sure what might lead them to some kind of redirect, let alone how they might actually pull that off. That is, I’ll take it as it comes, when it comes, and be glad I got the chance to hear it.
This won’t be the last tour they announce. I’m hoping they do Europe in the Fall and knock everyone on their ass:
[NOTE: I had the album release as April in the header and RidingEasy corrected me to say it would be March, so now it’s March. The release show is still April 20 as per the band. Fair enough.]
EARLY MOODS – Tour Announcement!
We’ll be hitting the road this March/April in support of our new album! Select dates with our friends in @morbikon Tickets are on sale now:https://linktr.ee/earlymoods
Sat 3/16 – Ojai, CA @ Deer Lodge Sun 3/17 – Phoenix, AZ @ Yucca Tap Mon 3/18 – Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar Tue 3/19 – El Paso, TX @ Rosewood Fri 3/22 – Houston, TX @ Hell’s Heroes Tue 3/26 – Savannah, GA @ Wormhole* Wed 3/27 – Wilmington, NC @ Reggies* Thu 3/28 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro* Fri 3/29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie (early) Sat 3/30 – Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus* Sun 3/31 – Boston, MA @ Middle East* Tue 4/1 – Albany, NY @ Fuze Box* Wed 4/03 – Youngstown, OH @ West Side Bowl*# Thu 4/04 – Columbus, OH @ Ace Of Cups* Fri 4/05 – Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary* Sat 4/06 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid* Sun 4/07 – Indianapolis, IN @ Black Circle (matinee)* Mon 4/08 – Chicago, IL @ Live Wire* Tue 4/09 – Cudahy, WI @ X-Ray Arcade* Thu 4/11 – Lawrence, KS @ Bottleneck Fri 4/12 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive Sat 4/13 – Salt Lake City @ Aces High Sat 4/20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Permanent Records Fri 4/26 – Oxnard, CA @ Mrs. Olson’s
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Dark Tooth Encounter‘s Soft Monsters was released in 2008 through Lexicon Devil, and is one of any number of projects in the oeuvre of guitarist Gary Arce of Yawning Man, who around this period was also collaborating with UK prog instrumentalists Sons of Alpha Centauri as Yawning Sons for the first time, as well as getting Yawning Man together as a touring act — they’d release Nomadic Pursuits (review here) in 2010 and enter more of a traditional-band existence rather than the vague-desert-legend status they’d enjoyed prior — demoing with Big Scenic Nowhere, who are now a real band much different than that demo, jamming with Ten East for the first two LPs in 2006 and 2008, collaborating with Hotel Wrecking City Traders out of Australia, on and on. I think even the Zun demo happened right around then too.
Arce‘s not exactly hard up for projects these days either, between Yawning Man actively releasing and touring, Yawning Balch bringing a similar lineup plus Bob Balch of Fu Manchu for two LPs in 2023, and a new LP on the way next week from Big Scenic Nowhere, which also has Arce and Balch paired, and whose drummer, Bill Stinson, also plays on Dark Tooth Encounter‘s Soft Monsters and holds the jams together in both Yawning Man (until last year) and the two Yawning Balch albums.
And I could be wrong about this, but I don’t think Stinson was in Yawning Man circa 2008 (original drummer Alfredo Hernandez played on Nomadic Pursuits), but Yawning Man also weren’t as active as they would be a few years after the fact, so while I’m not sure exactly how Dark Tooth Encounter happened, it might just have been a step-aside for Arce to work with Stinson alongside Ten East, whose second album, The Robot’s Guide to Freedom, surfaced concurrent to Soft Monsters.
Is that weird? Well, a little, but listening to Dark Tooth Encounter, it makes a little more sense since the mission on Soft Mirrors — seven songs/39 minutes, as if “ready for LP reissue” could be an actual runtime — is also a bit of a sidestep from either Yawning Man or Ten East. Mario Lalli — Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man, lately Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers and the Brant Bjork Trio — sits in on bass for centerpiece “Radio Bleed,” but handles guitar on side A’s “Weeping Pines” and the finale “Engine Drone,” both of which have a subtle touch of the West Coast speaking to the East as regards ideas of ‘Southern’ in rock, Lalli and Arce‘s guitars allowing different textures to take hold than in, say, even the melancholy layers of keys and guitar in the penultimate “Hyper Air,” which feels prescient of All Them Witches in its full-room spaciousness, or opener “Alloy Pop,” wherein Arce (on guitar and bass) and Stinson (on drums and more drums, but always with class and a willingness to rest in a part while the guitar fleshes out) set the course for what Soft Monsters will be.
Part of that, as with most of Arce‘s work, comes from post-rock and post-punk more than the psychedelic subset of heavy with which Yawning Man are often lumped. Dark Tooth Encounter offers this with a feel that’s more worked on and structured, while still instrumental — though, is that a yell in the fade of “Alloy Pop?” did someone turn on a table saw? — giving a sense of the jams likely to have spawned the material in the first place but at the same time building more on top of those jams and refining them to be ‘songs’ in a verse/chorus sense; Arce is no stranger to proliferating instrumental hooks, and Dark Tooth Encounter takes advantage of its opportunities to showcase that in “Honey Hive,” with Stinson‘s snare accenting the rhythm of the guitar or the psych-jazz of “Deep Sleep Flower,” with Arce on keyboard, bass and lap steel in addition to standard guitar, the necessary layering process of which has me wondering which was recorded first, the bass or guitar.
Either way, “Deep Sleep Flower” resonates with more tonal heft than much of Soft Monsters, and that seems to be by design. Compared to the spaces left between the slow strums of “Weeping Pines,” on which Scott Reeder (currently Sovereign Eagle; see also Kyuss, Fireball Ministry, The Obsessed, Goatsnake, and Across the River with Mario Lalli and Alfredo Hernández [also later of Kyuss], who were kind of a precursor to Yawning Man and desert rock more generally in the mid-1980s; the Across the Riverdemo tape is the stuff of legend) takes up bass as Lalli moves to guitar.
Reeder also contributed to Ten East. Nobody’s a stranger here, and nobody sounds like one. That’s to the advantage of Soft Monsters generally, since as an instrumental offering it’s inherently going to benefit from the chemistry between the players involved; to be found in ample supply through “Radio Bleed” at the album’s center, spacey and weirdo proggy and so irrevocably desert hued in no small part because Arce and company have set those associations forward in the genre to start with. Maybe it’s a footnote or a one-off, but one might have said the same thing until just a few years ago about Big Scenic Nowhere, and that band came to be something completely different than when the name first showed up.
So maybe at some point there will be another Dark Tooth Encounter, but I’d expect if so, at least if it were to happen somewhere amid Arce‘s already-detailed list of current projects — which I’m just going to go out on a limb and say is incomplete — it would also take a different form than on Soft Monsters, since Arce, Lalli and Stinson spent most of the 2010s as Yawning Man. But one never knows — anything, ever — and neither Stinson nor Lalli are ‘in’ Yawning Man at the moment, so perhaps bringing Dark Tooth Encounter back in some form at some point would be a way to reignite that collaboration among the many others all these players past and present. You won’t hear me predict. You will hear me recommend this one for a Yawning Man or hypnotic-instrumental fan looking for a fix or a post-rocker looking for a bridge to something of heavier tonal presence. In other words, as always, I hope you enjoy.
Thank you for reading.
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If you tuned in last Friday, you probably caught the bit at the end where I talked about my laptop getting busted. Kid fell off the side of the couch — she runs on furniture when she gets an idea; it’s not something we encourage, but it’s something we live with, because theoretically you want a kid to be excited about ideas and movement is part of how she processes things intellectually and emotionally — and landed on my computer while also dumping my full iced tea cup on the same computer. Somehow she didn’t get wet, I assume because all the tea actually went inside the laptop, as if by now-is-the-time-for-this-thing-to-die magic.
A week later, I have perspective enough to see it could’ve been much worse. The Pecan wasn’t hurt; that’s always a plus. The laptop was going on six years old; it had a cracked case, couldn’t run unplugged, keys got stuck, on and on. Crucially — this is the one that makes it okay — the repair guy I use (TelStar Computers, Denville, NJ; a local small business I’m glad to support) was able to save the data on the hard drive, so I have that ready to go. From there, the hardest part has been accepting that because I’m using our own money rather than glut from the life-affirming crowdfunding campaign that got me that now-ex-laptop after I was robbed in the UK in 2018, I have to settle for a smaller screen with less desktop real estate to organize records, and give up an internal optical drive along with other bells and whistles. Still, a new laptop will allegedly be here on Tuesday, and I can’t look that gift horse in the mouth. I am privileged to be able to get another computer at all — the emergency backup Chromebook I call ‘Little Red’ is fine to visit, but nowhere I want to live — and I thank The Patient Mrs. for her getting-my-ass-in-gear efforts and her price-comparison research. My new one will be a Lenovo, which somehow makes me feel like a businessman. Expect copious corporatespeak, all synergisms and disruptional action assets and whatnots.
But this was kind of a bumpy, by-the-seat-of-my-pants week and I guess I made it through. I have a bio project for a death metal band (frickin’ a) to bang out this afternoon, so I’m going to leave it there and go immerse myself for a little bit in pummeling, bludgeoning extremity, and that’ll be a lot of fun I have no doubt.
Monday, a Sundrifter premiere. Tuesday I think a full-album stream for The Black Flamingo, though I need to check that. Wednesday I’m doubled up with premieres for Goat Major and a full-album stream for Troy the Band. Thursday is a full-album stream for Kariti, and next Friday I want to review the Guhts record, though it might be Monday, Feb. 5, before I get there. Either way, that’s what’s in my notes for next week, plus news posts, other videos that come up and whatever else catches the eye.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. We’re in Connecticut tomorrow and are having company (like a double-playdate/brunch? oof, adulthood) on Sunday, so it’ll be busy, but I’m around if anyone needs me for anything. Don’t forget to hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff.
