Posted in Whathaveyou on April 13th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Copenhagen-based psych-informed doom rockers Lucid Grave have signed to Electric Valley Records to release Cosmic Mountain, their debut album. The five-piece released their latest single “Surfer Bat” — which, rest assured, does feature waves of blood — in 2021 as a cassette through Virkelighedsfjern and noted at the time that they were working toward a follow-up to early 2020’s Goddess of Misery, which Cosmic Mountain will of course be.
Obviously their ability to get out and support that first record was stymied by some little thing that you probably heard about that completely uprooted humanity’s former concept of ‘normal’ — what was it called again? — and so it’s unknown just how much time they’ll spend on the road for the new one, but hell, maybe let’s let them get through actually putting the album out before we start with the booking questions. I’m curious how the playful goth in “Surfer Bat” might show up on Cosmic Mountain or if the record might go in a different direction entirely. One way to find out, which at this point is to wait.
From the socials or the internet or wherever:
Electric Valley Records is proud to announce the signing of the Heavy Psych Doom band…
Lucid Grave
Lucid Grave is a dark heavy psychedelic rock band with stoner-doomy tendencies from Copenhagen, Denmark. Their haunting inspiration emerges from the 70’s heavy rock from like Black Sabbath/Coven/Hawkwind, and to the 80’s punk scene like Black Flag/The Nuns. They been described as a tribute to the howling occult cinema from the 80’s. In 2021 they released a single called “Surfer Bat” – A bloody upbeat 70’s heavy Rock inspired song! They went back to the studio in early 2022, to record their first full length album ”Cosmic Mountain”. The album is a journey through your favorite drugs of life, the highs and the lows, being chased through the desert and fighting a haze of demons.
Stay Tuned
Lucid Grave is: Malene (Vocal) Casper, Kriller (Guitar) Jon (Drums) Alex (Bass)
[Click play above to stream Papir’s 7 in full. Album is out Friday on Stickman Records.]
What if, instead of psychedelia being thought of as a means toward escapism, it could be a way to be present in the moment? To put yourself in existence and thus transform it instead of leaving it behind? Papir‘s latest work, 7, follows behind the Copenhagen trio’s 2021 sidestep Jams (review here) and 2019’s VI (review here) and brings the instrumentalist unit to a particularly soothing place in terms of sound. And it would be easy, given the confused and often terrified state of the world in which it arrives, to think of 7 as a vehicle for the listener to at least close their eyes and imagine something else, some version of the escapism noted above, whatever it may be. But across the four extended tracks — the first of which is the longest (immediate points) with “7.1 (Part I-III)” at 19:52, more than 10 minutes longer than anything else — guitarist Nicklas Sørensen, bassist Christian Becher Clausen and drummer Christoffer Brøchmann Christensen could just as easily be looking for a way to exist in the present moment as to leave it behind. Mindfulness as manifest through psychedelic exploration of sound.
I don’t know that that’s the case and I don’t know that it isn’t. Papir‘s trajectory has grown mellower and more informed by post-rock with time — Sørensen‘s guitar taking on various jazzy impulses here with a gentle feel even as the album’s most active, which is unquestionably the second cut, “7.2” — and even the language one might use to describe their tonality, whether the depth of Clausen‘s bass or the drift in the lead guitar notes, the ethereality of the keyboard lines that emerge after two minutes into the track’s total 6:17, all conjures visions of something other than the reality of a band in a room, creating it, or a listener in a room (or wherever), hearing it. I’m not meaning to argue against psychedelia or heavy psychedelia — and Papir have largely left the pressure to be heavy behind them at this point; they’re no worse off for it — as a transformative experience. It can change you, and it can put you someplace other than where you started out, figuratively or literally. But with 7, I find I’m just as much drawn into the course of the record, from the first graceful awakening of “7.1” to Christensen‘s tom work some six minutes in and the longform drone that ensues over the final two of the piece’s three parts, and it’s as much evocative of itself as of any other atmosphere I might want to put it to.
Perhaps ‘grace’ is the defining feature throughout 7. If one thinks of it in the religious context, the sudden act of being ‘saved,’ then there’s another layer entirely to appreciate along with the smooth fluidity of the material throughout the album, but again, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. 7 is never brash, Papir never tip into the bombastic even as much as they did on Jams, and it doesn’t lose its sense of flow when “7.2” brings the drums in after a long absence in the ending sections of “7.1 (Part I-III)” and bids them farewell once more for the eight-minute “7.3” only to have far-off toms punctuate “7.4” in a shifted priority from the ready hi-hat of the opener.
The material throughout is uniformly gorgeous and spontaneous feeling, but each piece has its own life and its own impression to make within the overarching serenity of the whole, whether it’s “7.1 (Part I-III)” seeming to let go as it transitions from its first movement into the second and more synth-driven third, the regrounding effect of “7.2” after all that spaciousness has been cast — a soft, pastoralist jam with keyboard layered over, resulting in a vibrant wash of melody — the seeming standalone-guitar minimalism that builds upward in “7.3” and the long and winding echoes of “7.4” that are all the more resonant for the reaches they leave open, unpopulated.
Take a deep breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. I’m not going to sit here on my couch in front of my laptop, needing a shower, coffee on my breath — present in my moment, for better and worse — and tell you how to listen to Papir‘s 7. Or that, if you want to put your headphones on and use Sørensen‘s weaving drones on “7.3” as a means to divorce yourself from whatever negativity, baggage or tumult you’re living through either on a micro or macro level, that you’re wrong to do so. Shit, I don’t know. You might’ve got the plague. These are traumatic, uncertain times. But to me, the comfort bring offered by Papir doesn’t seem to forget that, or to ignore it. Maybe I’m reading into the proceedings — scratch that, I definitely am — but the creativity so much on display throughout 7, and even the chemistry between the members of the band, the sense of arrangement and subtlety they bring to one track and then another is empathetic more than escapist. They’re here too.
While I’m establishing a great list of things I don’t know — there are so many! — I also don’t know when these tracks were recorded. Maybe it was three years ago, maybe it was in the height of pandemic lockdown. What matters more in the end are the feelings they elicit in the audience now that they’re seeing release, and the fact that they seem to offer a place to be that isn’t separate from the world around so much as working to reshape that into something more quiescent. It’s not about numbing out, but about being there for each other and coming to a kind of aural understanding even just of yourself and your place amid all the chaos. What is it that they’re ultimately saying? I don’t know; there are no words. Maybe it’s okay not to know, and to just be, without knowing. What if the argument Papir are making with these songs is a case for the world that is as much as a world that could be? What if the letting go and the escape are a distraction and the thing to do is hold on tighter to right now because it and each other are all we have and so much is lost so easily?
Posted in Questionnaire on November 12th, 2021 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: Papir
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
It can be a real challenge to define what it is you do, besides the obvious (music – the musical praxis, playing, listening, composing, improvising, whatever you want to call the process of creating something with sound and musical elements). It is probably hard for us to neglect the social aspect of playing together and reacting to each other in a musical context, getting something done (making a record, playing concerts) and learning from it – that is of course very important too. In that sense you could define what we do essentially as “band stuff” – we are primarily a band, a collective of three individuals who happen to play and make music together, which includes all the above-mentioned stuff.
How we came to do it? Besides sharing an early common and serious interest in playing music we had the privilege of being introduced to a good social and musically stimulating environment at a young age, attending music school and hanging out in the local youth club, that had some great facilities (rehearsal spaces for bands, music pedagogues, etc.). That was probably an important part of the foundation of getting inspired to play music and play in a band – to meet other people interested in the same thing, having access to equipment and having adults around who were supportive in what we did.
Describe your first musical memory.
The first musical memory we share, is probably from around 2002, when Christoffer joined Christian and me in the band we played in back then. We had an audition and played a self-made song and then jumped directly into a jammy cover-version of the well-known classic “Mustang Sally.” Don’t recall how it sounded, but I do remember that we all instinctively knew that Christoffer was the right drummer for our band.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
There are a lot of contenders! We still have some very fond memories of the first studio session we ever did back in 2009. That was in the early stages of playing and creating instrumental music together, we hadn’t even played any concerts in this format with this then “new music” and we were still in a process of searching and finding a path to follow. In the context of recording an album of instrumental music it was a very open session musically speaking – perhaps best reflected in the non-released jam material from that session, this can be heard as documented processes that really bear witness to a band wide searching for a path, a music, expressions of something.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
…
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Not sure that we work with artistic progression per se, or to put it in other words: we are not sure we see/hear music as art. Music can probably be seen as an artform, but we don’t think that’s our domain – to create music as art. We mainly work within the terms and elements of music itself, so you can say that we work with musical progression and in that sense it wouldn’t make sense at all to continue creating music if we didn’t have a feeling of progression. So basically, the aspect of progression happens through a kind of learning process. For instance, making a new record is an opportunity to learn something new about music or the “art” of making an album or whatever you are open to take from it and hopefully that leads to a progression in the short or long term. The progression itself can probably lead to anything – theoretically speaking there are no boundaries.
How do you define success?
There is an elemental feeling of success knowing the fact that we can still find the time to meet and play together, when members of the band have full time jobs, kids and all the other adult stuff. Having a record label who continues to release our music, the fact that people still come out to our concerts buy our records and that music lovers like yourself dedicate their time to listen and write about us – all that could be interpreted as a sign of success. There is a lot to be grateful for.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
A drunk, naked musician unknown to us once sleepwalked into our hotel room while we were asleep. We woke up realizing that he was leaning against our bed, mumbling something in a language we didn’t understand. Very weird and shocking experience that we wish we hadn’t witnessed. Or?
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
To have our own recording studio would probably be a dream come true. We could probably create that if we wanted and had the time to do it. And to create a new record is always something special.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
The most essential function of art is to open and expand your mind and senses – to invite you to experience something that is meaningful beyond words and doesn’t necessarily have a function.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
We are looking forward to the next “bandaften” (band night), which is a something we do once in a while – just hanging out together, not necessarily playing music (not that it’s forbidden of course), bowling?, cooking together and drinking a well-considered or not-well-considered amount of IPAs.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 18th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
I’ve been having tech issues all day with the site’s back end and that’s infuriating, so I haven’t even had the chance to check it the new Papir song yet. Surely, if I had, I’d be in a much less smash-my-face-into-the-wall place mentally, but let’s hope that I’m able to get there sooner than later. To the song, that is.
Plenty of bands number their records. Fewer get to 7 as a part of that — also worth noting that not all the Papir LPs are numbered — but the Danish outfit can just keep going as far as I’m concerned. This year they released the aptly-titled Jams, as if to ask what question what more anyone could want. Another record will do fine, thank you. Jan. 14? Great. Something to look forward to when winter seems to be at its deadest.
The PR wire has details and the preorder from Stickman:
Copenhagen Post-Krautrock Trio PAPIR Shares Album Details + Brand New Video!
“7” coming out on January 14, 2022 through Stickman Records!
Copenhagen-based psych and melodic krautrock trio PAPIR has revealed the first details about their forthcoming album, aptly-titled “7”, which is slated for a release on January 14, 2022 via Stickman Records.
On their 7th full-length album, the band dials back their fuzz pedals and returns to the heavily atmospheric soundscapes that define much of their recent work. Many aspects of PAPIR’s music seem to have much in common with the sea – be it a willful association by the Danish trio or not. Their output moves in waves, sometimes fierce and blustery, sometimes gentle and calming, but always performed with unforced, organic talent. Over the course of their 7 full-length albums, the band sways between psychedelic guitar meltdowns and long atmospheric passages with grace and ease. “7”, with its blurred aquatic cover artwork is of course no exception to this rule, and the album is comprised of four long songs that return to calming waters after 2021’s heavier Jams.
But give ear, as the band just shared a first single taken from “7”! Watch the new video, created by Søren Bang Clemmensen, for the song “7.2” here.
Album side A is made up entirely of one 20-minute composition that flows seamlessly from the band’s signature melodic kraut-inspired rock into an ebb and flow of gorgeous ambient soundscapes. Guitarist Nicklas Sørensen’s shows a remarkable versatility, conjuring up a variety of sounds with his guitar that seem hardly possible with one instrument. When drummer Christoffer Brøchmann Christensen and bassist Christian Becher Clausen rejoin on side B, three further blissed-out tracks carry the listener away into their own world. If ambient post-krautrock isn’t yet a genre title, PAPIR should certainly be credited with its invention.
Posted in Reviews on October 4th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Hope you had a good weekend. Hope your bank account survived Bandcamp Friday. I gotta admit, I hit it a little hard, made four $10-plus purchases. A certain rainforest-named mega-corporate everything-distro site has me out of the habit of thinking of paying for shipping, but that comes back to bite you. And if there’s a tape or a CD and the download costs $7 and the tape costs $10 and comes with the download too, what would you have me do? Throw another five or six bucks in there for shipping and that adds up. Still, for a good cause, which is of course supporting bands nd labels who make and promote killer stuff. I don’t mind that.
We’ve arrived at the next to last day of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. It’s a cool one, I hope you’ll agree. If not, maybe tomorrow.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Hour of 13, Black Magick Rites
The history of Hour of 13, 14 years on from their self-titled debut (discussed here) is complex and full of comings and goings. With Black Magick Rites — which was posted for a day in Nov. 2020 and then removed from the public sphere until this Shadow Kingdom release — founding multi-instrumentalist Chad Davis takes over vocal duties as well, charting the way forward for the band as a complete solo-project with seven songs and 43 minutes of lower-fi classic-style doom that bears in its title track some semblance of garage mentality but avoids most of the modern trappings such a designation implies. Satan features heavily, as one would expect. “House of Death” leans on its chorus hard, but opener “His Majesty of the Wood” and the eight-minute “Within the Pentagram,” as well as the payoff of closer “The Mystical Hall of Dreams” seem to show where the long-tumultuous outfit could be headed melodically and in grimly grandiose style if Davis — also of The Crooked Whispers, The Sabbathian, countless others in a variety of styles — wills it. Here’s hoping.
Graceful death. 30 years later, one might expect no less from Finnish funeral doom progenitors than that, and it’s exactly what they bring to the six-song/48-minute Companion. “Calla” sets the tempo for what follows at a dirge march with keyboard adding melodies to the procession as “The Intertwined” continues the slow roll, with drums and piano taking over in the midsection before the full brunt is borne again. “The March of the Four” follows with church organ running alongside the drawn-out guitar movement, each hit of the kick drum somehow forlorn beneath the overlaid growls. At least superficially, this is the Skepticism one imagines: slow, mournful, beauty-in-darkness, making dirty sounds but emerging without a stain on their formalwear. Closer “The Swan and the Raven” is a triumph in this, a revelry-that-isn’t, and “Passage” and even gives the tempo a relative kick, but that and the consuming drama of “The Inevitable” feel within the band’s aesthetic wheelhouse. Or their mortuary, anyhow. Honestly, they know what they’re doing, they’ve done it for a long time, and they don’t release records that often, so there’s an element of novelty just to the fact that the album exists, but if you put on Companion and listen to it, they also sound like they’re taking an entire genre to school. A genre they helped define, no less.
Long-running Swedish doom traditionalists Count Raven are in immediate conversation with their own classic era with the album title The Sixth Storm serving as a reference to their 1990 debut, Storm Warning. Indeed, it is their sixth full-length, and it makes up for the decade-plus it’s been since they were last heard from with a 73-minute, all-in nine-track assemblage of oldschool Sabbathian doom metal, tinged with classic heavy rock and a broader vision that picks up where 2009’s Mammons War left off in epics like “The Nephilims” and “Oden,” the latter the album’s apex ahead of the Ozzy-ish piano/keyboard ballad “Goodbye” following on from the earlier “Heaven’s Door.” Some contemplation of mortality perhaps from founding guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Dan “Fodde” Fondelius to go with the more socially themed “The Giver and the Taker,” “Baltic Storm,” opener “Blood Pope” or even “Oden,” which bases itself around Christianity’s destruction of pagan culture. Fair enough. Classic doom spearheaded by a guy who’s been at it for more than three decades. No revolution in style, but if you’d begrudge Count Raven their first album in 12 years, why?
Something for everyone in Owl Cave‘s Broken Speech, at least so long as your vision of “everyone” just includes fans of various extreme metallic styles. The Parisian one-man outfit’s debut release arrives as a single 43-minute track, led off by the sample “your silence speaks volumes.” What unfolds from there is a linear progression of movements through which S. — the lone party responsible for the guitar, bass, drum programming and other sampling, as there are obscure bits that might be manipulated voices and so on — weaves progressive black metal, doom, industrial churn, noise rock and other genre elements together with a willful sense of experimentalism and uniting heft. Some stretches are abrasive, some are nearly empty, some guitar-led, some more percussive, but even at its most raging, “Broken Speech” holds to its overarching atmosphere, grim as it is, and that allows it to ponder with scorn and melancholy alike before finishing out with a cacophony of blasts and wash leading to a last residual drone.
Sharply executed, uptempo heavy/desert-style rock in the Californian tradition as filtered through a European legacy of bands that spans no less an amount of time, Zeup‘s second EP, Blind, is an in-and-out kind of affair. Four songs, 17 minutes. They’re not looking to take up too much of your day. But the energy they bring to that time, whether it’s the swinging bassline in “Belief” or the initial jolt of “Illusions,” the rolling catchiness of “Who You Are” or the closing title-track’s more Sabbath-spirited stomp, is organic, full, and sincere. In terms of style, the Copenhagen three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jakob Bach, bassist/backing vocalist Morten Rold and drummer Morten Barth aren’t trying to get away with convincing anybody they invented heavy rock and roll, but the stamp they put on their own songs is welcome right up to the capper solo on “Blind” itself. Familiar, but crisp and refreshing like cold beer on a hot day, if that’s your thing.
A drift calls you forward as Dark Bird‘s fourth album (amid many short releases and experimentalist whathaveyous), Out of Line, begins with “And it All Ends Well” and its title-track, the Toronto-based Roan Bateman pushing outward melodically before adding more fuzz to the shroom-folk of “Stranger,” an underlying sense of march telling of the made-in-dark-times spirit that so much of the record seems to actively work against. “Down With Love” is a dream given shimmer in its strum and no less ethereal when the maybe-programmed drums start, and “Undone” is the bummed-out-with-self ’90s-lysergic harmony that you never heard at the time but should have. So it goes en route to the buzzing finale “This is It,” with “Minefied” echoing “Out of Line” with a vibe like Masters of Reality at their most ethereal, “With You” making a late highlight of its underlying organ drone and the vocals that top it in the second half, and “The Ghost” somehow turning Western blues despite, no, not at all doing that thing. 43 minutes of a world I’d rather live in.
I’m not saying they don’t still have growing to do or work ahead of them in carving out their own approach from the elements their self-released debut album, Death Can Change, puts to work across its nine songs, but I am definitely saying that the Toledo, Ohio, duo of M.A. Snyder and Mike Mullholand, who’ve dubbed their project Hope Hole, are starting out in an admirable place. Throughout a vinyl-ready 37 minutes that makes a centerpiece of the roughed up The Cure cover “Kyoto Song,” the two-piece bridge sludged nod, classic heavy rock, progressive doom ambience, stonerly awareness — see “Cisneros’ Lament” — and a healthy dose of organ to result in a genre-blender sound that both chases individuality and manifests it in rudimentary form, perhaps arriving at some more melodic cohesion in the of-its-era closer “Burning Lungs” after rougher-edged processions, but even there not necessarily accounting for the full scope of the rest of the songs enough to be a full summary. The songs are there, though, and as Hope Hole continue to chase these demons, that will be the foundation of their progress.
Newcastle, UK, weirdo solo-outfit Smote released the two-part Drommon concurrent to March 2021’s Bodkin (review here), with tapes sold out from Base Materialism, and Rocket Recordings now steps in for a vinyl issue with two additional tracks splitting up the two-part title-cut, each piece of which runs just on either side of 16 minutes long. Drones and acid folk instrumentation, acoustics, sitars, electrified swirl — all of these come together in purposeful passion to create the textures of “Dommon (Part 1)” and “Drommon (Part 2),” and though it feels more directed with the complementary “Hauberk” and “Poleyn” included, the album’s experimental heart is well intact. Smote will make a stage debut next month, apparently as a four-piece around founder Daniel Foggin, so how that might play into the future of Smote as a full band in the studio remains to be seen. Drommon serves as argument heavily in favor of finding out.
East Coast dudes playing West Coast noise, it may well be that Gristmill deserve points right off the bat on their debut long-player, Heavy Everything, both for the title and for avoiding the trap of sounding like Unsane that defines so, so, so much of Atlantic Seaboard noise rock. They’re too aggro in their delivery to be straight-up doom, but the slower crawl of guitar in “Remains Nameless” and “Glass Door” adds depth to the pounding delivered by the initial salvo of “Mitch,” “Mute” and “Irony,” but the punch of the bass throughout is unmistakable, and though I can’t help be reminded in listening about that time Seattle’s Akimbo went and wrote a record based in my beloved Garden State, the drawn-out roll of “Stone Rodeo” and final nod-into-chug in “Loon” show readiness to encompass something beyond the raw scathe in their work. Yeah, if they wanted to put out like six or seven albums that sound just like this over the next 15 or so years, I’d probably be on board for that for the meanness and more of this debut.
This is a satisfying meat grinder in which to plunge one’s face for about an hour. A Buschemi-chipper. A powdering-of-bone that begins with the lurching of longest track (immediate points) “The Masque” — beginning with an acid-test sample, no less — and moving through “Gleancrawler” and the faster-for-a-while-but-still-probably-slower-than-you’re-thinking title-track, having just consumed half an hour of your life and a little of your soul. Hyperbole? Of course. But these are extreme sounds and extreme times, so fuck it. Melbourne duo Ivory Primarch, throughout As All Life Burns, demonstrate precious little regard for whatever standard of decency one might apply, and the deathly, fetid “Keeper of Secrets” and the keyboard-laced “Aetherbeast” — seeming to answer back to the opener — are self-aware enough to be willful in that, not to mention the fact that they top off with the noise-drone of “Aftermath,” as if to survey the devastation they just wrought, mangled and duly bludgeoned. Nothing sounds cruel enough? Try this.
Posted in Reviews on October 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to Friday. I’m glad to have come this far in the Quarterly Review, and even knowing that there are two days left to go — next Monday and Tuesday, bringing us to a total of 70 for the entire thing — I feel some measure of accomplishment at doing this full week, 10 reviews a day, for the total of 50 we’ll hit after this batch. It has mostly been smooth sailing as regards the writing. It’s the rest of existence that seems intent to derail.
But these are stories for another time. For now, there’s 10 more records to dive into, so you’ll pardon me if I do precisely that.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Carcass, Torn Arteries
The original progenitors of goregrind return in gleeful fashion with their first full-length since 2013’s Surgical Steel. They’ve toured steadily over the intervening years, and Torn Arteries would seem to arrive timed to a return to the road, though it also follows the 2020 EP, Despicable, so make of that what you will. One way or the other, the 10-track/50-minute offering is at very least everything one could reasonably ask a Carcass record to be in 2021. That’s the least you can say of it. Point of fact, it’s probably much more. Driven by Bill Steer‘s riffs and solos — which would be worth the price of admission alone — as well as the inimitable rasp of bassist Jeff Walker, Carcass sound likewise vital and brutal, delighting in the force of “Kelly’s Meat Emporium” and the unmitigated thrash of “The Scythe’s Remorseless Swing,” while scalpel-slicing their way through “Eleanor Rigor Mortis” and the 10-minute “Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment Limited,” which, yes, starts out with acoustic guitar. Because of course it does. After serving as pioneers of extreme metal, Carcass need to prove nothing, but they do anyway. And bonus! Per Wiberg shows up for a guest spot.
Some concerned citizen needs to file assault charges against Copenhagen crushers LLNN for the sheer violence wrought on their third full-length, Unmaker. Comprised of 10 songs all with single-word titles, the Pelagic Records release uses synth and tonal ultra-heft of guitar and bass to retell Blade Runner but starring Godzilla across 39 minutes. Okay so maybe that’s not what the lyrics are about, but you’d never know it from the harsh screams that pervade most of the outing — guitarist Christian Bonnesen has a rare ability to make extreme vocals sound emotional; his performance here puts the record on another level — which renders words largely indecipherable. Still, it is their combination of whiplash-headbang-inducing, bludgeoning-like-machines-hitting-each-other, air-moving weight and keyboard-driven explorations evocative enough that LLNN are releasing them on their own as a companion-piece that makes Unmaker the complete, enveloping work it is.
I’m not sure it’s fair to call something that was apparently recorded five years ago forward thinking, but Smiling‘s melding of post-punk urgency, violin flourish, the odd bit of riot-style aggression, psychedelia and poppy melodic quirk in varying degrees and at various points throughout the debut album, Devour, is that anyway. Fronted by guitarist/songwriter Annie Shaw, Smiling makes a cut like even the two-minute “Other Lives” feel dynamic in its build toward a swelling-rumble finish, immediately shifting into the dreamier psych-buzz of “Forgetful Sam” and the melancholy-in-the-sunshine “Do What You Want.” Yeah, it goes like that. It also goes like the rager title-track though, so watch out. The earlier “Lighthouse” swings like Dandy Warhols, but the closing trilogy of “FPS,” “Take Your Time” and “Duvall Gardens” — also the three longest songs included — showcase a more experimentalist side, adding context and depth to the proceedings. So yeah, forward thinking. Time is all made up anyway.
The track itself, “Flood,” runs all of three minutes and 18 seconds, and I do mean it runs. The Taunton, UK, four-piece of guitarist/vocalists Charlie Dowzell and Tim Kazer, bassist/harsh-vocalist Kynan Scott and drummer Tom Coles offer it as a standalone piece and the track earns that level of respect with its controlled careening, the shouted verses giving way to a memorable clean-sung chorus with zero sense of trickery or pretense in its intention. That is to say, “Flood” wants to get stuck in your head and it will probably do precisely that. Also included in the two-songer digital outing — that’s Flood, the release, as opposed to “Flood,” the song — is “Flood (Young Bros Remix),” which extends the piece to 4:43 and reimagines it as more sinister, semi-industrial fare, but even in doing so and doing it well, it can’t quite get away from the rhythm of that hook. Some things are just inescapable.
Austin’s Holy Death Trio have the distinction of being the first band signed as part of the collaboration between Ripple Music and Rob “Blasko” Nicholson (bassist for Ozzy Osbourne, etc.), and Introducing…, the three-piece’s debut, is enough of a party to answer any questions why. Gritty, Motörheadular riffs permeate from post-intro leadoff “White Betty” — also some Ram Jam there, I guess — underscored by Sabbathian semi-doomers like “Black Wave” and the near-grim psychedelia of closer “Witch Doctor” while totaling an ultra-manageable 33 minutes primed toward audience engagement in a “wow I bet this is a lot of fun live” kind of way. It would not seem to be a coincidence that the centerpiece of the tracklist is called “Get Down,” as the bulk of what surrounds seems to be a call to do precisely that, and if the bluesy shuffle of that track doesn’t get the job done, something else is almost bound to.
Having put Samsara Blues Experiment to rest following the release earlier this year of the swansong End of Forever (review here), relocated-to-Brazil guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters (interview here) debuts the instrumental solo-project Fuzz Sagrado with a three-song self-titled EP, handling all instruments himself including drum programming. “Duck Dharma,” “Two Face” and “Pato’s Blues” take on a style not entirely separate from his former outfit, but feel stripped down in more than just the lack of singing, bringing together a more concise vision of heavy psychedelic rock, further distinguished by the use of Mellotron, Minimoog and Hammond alongside the guitar, bass and drum sounds, complementing the boogie in “Pato’s Blues” even as it surges into its final minute. Where Peters will ultimately take the project remains to be seen, but he’s got his own label to put it out and reportedly a glut of material to work with, so right on.
It’s 10PM, do you know where your head is? Wolves in Haze might. The Gothenburg-based three-piece of vocalist/guitarist Manne Olander, guitarist Olle Hansson and drummer/bassist/co-producer Kalle Lilja set about removing that very thing with their second record, Chaos Reigns, working at Welfare Sounds with Lilja and Per Stålberg at the helm in a seeming homage to Sunlight Studios as reinvented in a heavy rock context. Still, “In Fire” and “The Night Stalker” are plainly sinister in their riffs — the latter turning to a chorus and back into a gallop in a way that reminds pointedly of At the Gates, never mind the vocals that follow — and “Into the Grave” is as much bite as bark. They’re not without letup, as “Mr. Destroyer” explores moodier atmospherics, but even the lumbering finish of the title-track that ends the album is violent in intent. They call it Chaos Reigns, but they know exactly what the fuck they’re doing.
They work a bit of NWOBHM guitar harmony into the solos on “Rehash” and “At Wit’s End,” and the centerpiece “Interlude” is a willful play toward strum-and-whistle Morricone-ism, but for the most part, Louisville’s Shi are hell-bent on destructive sludge, with the rasp of guitarist Bael — joined in the effort by guitarist Jayce, bassist Zach and drummer Tyler — setting a Weedeater-style impression early on “Best Laid Plans” and letting the rest unfold as it will, with “Lawn Care for Adults” and “We’ll Bang, OK?” and the chugging fuckery of the title-track sticking largely to the course the riffs lay out. They make it mean, which is exactly the way it should be made, and even the sub-two-minute “Trough Guzzler” finds its way into a nasty-as-hell mire. Sludge heads will want to take note. Anyone else will probably wonder what smells like rotting.
Oh, that’s just disgusting. Come on now. Be reasonable, Churchburn. This third LP from the Providence, Rhode Island, extremists brings them into alignment with Translation Loss Records and though it’s just five songs — plus the intro “Toll of Annihilation” — and 33 minutes long, that’s plenty of time for guitarist/vocalist Dave Suzuki and company to pull you down a hole of blistering, vitriolic terrors. Where does the death end and the doom begin? Who gives a shit? Suzuki, bassist/vocalist Derek Muniz, guitarist Timmy St. Amour and drummer Ray McCaffrey take a duly mournful respite with “Unmendable Absence,” but after that, the onslaught of “Scarred” and the finale “Sin of Angels” — with Incantation‘s John McEntee sitting in on vocals — is monstrous and stupefyingly heavy. You’ll be too busy picking up teeth to worry about where the lines of one microgenre ends and another begins.
Have riffs, will plod. Voidscapes, the three-song second EP from Las Vegas’ Sonolith lets the listener know quickly where it’s coming from, speaking a language (without actually speaking, mind you) that tells tales of amplifier and tonal worship, the act of rolling a massive groove like that central to nine-minute opener “Deep Space Leviathan” as much about the trance induced in the band as the nod resultant for the listener. Close your eyes, follow it out. They complement with the shorter “Pyrrhic Victory,” which moves from a subdued and spacey opening line into post-High on Fire chug and gallop, effectively layering solos over the midsection and final payoff, and “Star Worshipers,” which slows down again and howls out its lead to touch on Electric Wizard without being so overt about it. At about three minutes in, Sonolith kick the tempo a bit, but it’s the more languid groove that wins the day, and the concluding sample about traveling the universe could hardly be more appropriate. Asks nothing, delivers 21 minutes of riffs. If I ever complain about that, I’m done.
Not that we weren’t going to have anything to talk about otherwise, but to give me a heads up for this interview, Scott Heller — better known to the psychedelic underground as Dr. Space himself — sent me a list of recent and upcoming outings from this and next year. There were more than 30 of them.
Consider that for a second.
I would post the list but I’m not sure they’ve all been announced yet.
Of all the people I’ve met through music — and I have met Heller in-person many times; I consider him a friend and talking to him about music for over an hour the other day was something I did largely as a favor to myself; a similar mentality to that which I approach writing about much of his output — Heller‘s creativity and work ethic is singular. As synthesist and band-leader for Øresund Space Collective, he has spearheaded a school of “totally improvised space rock” that’s grown in influence throughout Europe and beyond, and more recently, monthly jams as a part of the duo Doctors of Space with Martin Weaver of Wicked Lady — who happens to live relatively nearby in Portugal, to which Heller moved some four and half years ago after leaving Denmark — have seen release through Bandcamp in ongoing fashion. He’s meeting up with Weaver today, in fact. No doubt something will come of it.
But that’s barely a chip in the iceberg of his career. Going back to before his time managing Gas Giant and recording every show ØSC play — they’ll be in Oslo at Høstsabbat in a couple weeks — working with former Elder drummer Matt Couto in Aural Hallucinations, putting together his own Alien Planet Trip series of solo releases and collaborations, running the active label Space Rock Productions or contributing to acts like Black Moon Circle, 3rd Ear Experience and Albinö Rhino, among I don’t even know how many others, Heller has a history of writing and documenting his experiences with music that extends across four decades. With an autobiography and a studio build on his property between the two largest mountains in Portugal currently in progress, tour dates upcoming and those 30 offerings in progress or on the way, he simply is one of a kind, and even with so much behind him, is at his most productive ever right now.
I don’t even know how many times I said the word “amazing” in this interview, but it might also be over 30, and none of them were unearned on his part. I’m honored he took the time to talk and amazed he found it.
Please enjoy:
Interview with Scott “Dr. Space” Heller, Sept. 27, 2021
More info on Heller and his many, many, many doings is available at the links.
Doctors of Space, Studio Session July 2021 (2021)
Øresund Space Collective, Fuzz Fest 2021 (2021)
Dr. Space, Dr Space’s Alien Planet Trip Vol. 4: Space with Bass (2021)
Black Moon Circle, The Studio Jams Vol. 1-3 (2019)
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 6th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Lydsyn is the new trio fronted by Uffe Lorenzen, who’s probably still best known as Lorenzo Woodrose of Baby Woodrose fame. The Danish psych figurehead has spent the last several years doing solo releases, but the classic-style of Lydsyn‘s debut single “Kat Ser Kat” suits his songwriting style, and it’s by no means his first time working with Palle Demant — who plays bass in the band and directed the video you’ll find at the bottom of this post — in one capacity or another.
Good vibes persist in the track, and I haven’t heard the B-side at this point, but the 7″ came out on Bad Afro Records (of course) this past Friday so it’s there if you dig what you hear and want to chase it down. I wouldn’t blame you in the least. Clearheaded rock songcraft, no real need for frills, but there’s still a little edge of the trippy. At least enough to make it a good time.
One assumes an album will follow sooner or later, but the single is a good place to start. It came from the PR wire:
Lydsyn – Kat Ser Kat 7” single
Lydsyn is Uffe Lorenzen (Baby Woodrose/Spids Nøgenhat) on guitar and vocals, Palle Demant (The Sledge) on bass and Jens Eyde on drums. The band was originally formed out of boredom due to Covid 19 lockdown and was meant as a backing band that would make it possible for Uffe Lorenzen to play songs from his three recent solo albums live. As several tours went down the drain and was postponed also due to Covid 19 the band kept on rehearsing and ended up making their own material.
“Kat Ser Kat” is the debut single by Lydsyn and it was recorded, mixed and mastered in 14 hours by Flemming Rasmussen at the Sweet Silence studio in June 2021. Both “Kat Ser Kat” and the b-side “Abernes Planet” are exclusive to this single due out September 3rd.
