Posted in Whathaveyou on August 30th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
You know, I guess maybe it was Roadburn that put me on to all-lowercase atmospheric heavies healthyliving, as the band played their first show ever at the rightly venerated Dutch festival; a singular honor for an underground act of any stripe. And you know what else, that shit would be the first line in my bio too. Pretty much forever.
And when it came to the record — that being their debut, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief (review here) — I dug it a lot. It’ll be on my year-end debuts list, I look forward to the next one, on and on. Listening to it again as I write this, I’m glad to be revisiting it, though that makes it sound like it’s been forever and it only came out a few months ago. Weird living in an utterly saturated market in which somehow nobody makes any money.
This isn’t the longest UK tour you’ve ever seen, but they’re going from Glasgow to London the next night, so respect for the seven and a half hours in the car that day, though if I was tour managing we’d cut out of Glasgow asap after the show and start the drive south, stop somewhere cheap but not too creeper if possible for the night and pick up in the morning. Actually, if I look at the four shows, it’s kind of a wild routing, starting in the southwest UK on the inland coast, heading north for successive nights in Manchester and Glasgow and then swinging all the way down to London the last night, further south than was Newport, if not by much, but considerably further east. It’s not even close to the craziest shit I’ve ever seen, but neither would I call it easy.
The PR wire brought details, links, dates, all sorts of fun stuff:
healthyliving announce UK tour w/ Dawnwalker
Following on from their debut live performance at Roadburn in Tilburg this year and recent set at the inaugural edition of Core. in Glasgow, doomy noise/post-rock act healthyliving will embark on a co-headlining UK tour alongside post-metal band Dawnwalker in December.
healthyliving, the transnational collective across Scotland, Spain, and Germany, released their debut album, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief, in April of this year, garnering significant critical acclaim. Joining them on tour is London-based Dawnwalker, lauded for their unique blend of prog and post-metal. Dawnwalker is currently on tour supporting their 2022 album, House of Sands, their darkest and most human to date. Together, the bands offer up a series of nights of unique heavy and emotive music with handpicked supports for each show.
healthyliving + Dawnwalker December UK Tour: 07 Dec – Le Pub – Newport (w/ Goat Major) 08 Dec – Retro Bar – Manchester (w/ Deathbloom) 09 Dec – The Flying Duck – Glasgow (w/ Cwfen) 10 Dec – The Black Heart – London (w/ Codex Serafini)
healthyliving is the project of long-time collaborators and friends Scott McLean (Ashenspire, Falloch), Stefan Pötzsch and Amaya López-C (Maud the moth). Having worked on various musical projects together for years, their artistic and personal connection coalesced organically and fuelled a small transnational collective across Scotland, Spain and Germany. healthyliving emerges to honour this natural connection; something which is reflected in the simplicity, rawness and immediateness of their approach to songwriting. Artistically, the band draws from the beauty and horror of the mundane to create a kaleidoscopic and evocative musical world that commutes across genre borders.
Hey there and welcome back to the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review. Today I’ve got another 10-record batch for your perusal, and if you’ve never been to this particular party before, it’s part of an ongoing series this site does every couple months (you might say quarterly), and this week picks up from yesterday as well as a couple weeks ago, when another 70 records of various types were covered. If there’s a lesson to be learned from all of it, it’s that we live in a golden age of heavy music, be it metal, rock, doom, sludge, psych, prog, noise or whathaveyou. Especially for whathaveyou.
So here we are, you and I, exploring the explorations in these many works and across a range of styles. As always, I hope you find something that feels like it’s speaking directly to you. For what it’s worth, I didn’t even make it through the first 10 of the 50 releases to be covered this week yesterday without ordering a CD from Bandcamp, so I’m here in a spirit of learning too. We’ll go together and dive back in.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Smokey Mirror, Smokey Mirror
Those in the know will tell you that the vintage-sound thing is over, everybody’s a goth now, blah blah heavygaze. That sounds just fine with Dallas, Texas, boogie rockers Smokey Mirror, who on their self-titled Rise Above Records first LP make their shuffle a party in “Invisible Hand” and the class-conscious “Pathless Forest” even before they dig into the broader jam of the eight-minute “Magick Circle,” panning the solos in call and response, drum solo, softshoe groove, full on whatnot. Meanwhile, “Alpha-State Dissociative Trance” would be glitch if it had a keyboard on it, a kind of math rock from 1972, and its sub-three-minute stretch is followed by the acoustic guitar/harmonica folk blues of “Fried Vanilla Super Trapeze” and the heavy fuzz resurgence of “Sacrificial Altar,” which is long like “Magick Circle” but with more jazz in its winding jam and more of a departure into it (four minutes into the total 7:30 if you’re wondering), while the Radio Moscow-style smooth bop and rip of “A Thousand Days in the Desert” and shred-your-politics of “Who’s to Say” act as touch-ground preface for the acoustic noodle and final hard strums of “Recurring Nightmare,” as side B ends in mirror to side A. An absolute scorcher of a debut and all the more admirable for wearing its politics on its sleeve where much heavy rock hides safe behind its “I’m not political” whiteness, Smokey Mirror‘s Smokey Mirror reminds that, every now and again, those in the know don’t know shit. Barnburner heavy rock and roll forever.
Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows, Hail to the Underground
The moral of the story is that the members of Melbourne’s Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows — may they someday be famous enough that I won’t feel compelled to point out that none of them is Jack; the lineup is comprised of vocalist/guitarist Tim Coutts-Smith, guitarist Jordan Richardson, bassist Liam Barry and drummer Josh McCombe — came up in the ’90s, or at least in the shadow thereof. Hail to the Underground collects eight covers in 35 minutes and is the Aussie rockers’ first outing for Blues Funeral, following two successful albums in 2018’s Hymns and 2021’s The Magnetic Ridge (review here), and while on paper it seems like maybe it’s the result of just-signed-gotta-get-something-out motivation, the takes on tunes by Aussie rockers God, the Melvins, Butthole Surfers, My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division (their “Day of Lords” is a nodding highlight) rest organically alongside the boogie blues of “Roll & Tumble” (originally by Hambone Willie Newbern), the electrified surge of Bauhaus‘ “Dark Entries” and the manic peaks of “Eye Shaking King” by Amon Düül II. It’s not the triumphant, moment-of-arrival third full-length one awaits — and it would be soon for it to be, but it’s how the timing worked with the signing — but Hail to the Underground adds complexity to the narrative of the band’s sound in communing with Texan acid noise, country blues from 1929 to emo and goth rock icons in a long-player’s span, and it’ll certainly keep the fire burning until the next record gets here.
Minimalist in social media presence (though on YouTube and Bandcamp, streaming services, etc.), Sardinian one-man outfit Noorag — also stylized all-lowercase: noorag — operates at the behest of multi-instrumentalist/producer Federico “WalkingFred” Paretta, and with drums by Daneiele Marcia, the project’s debut EP, Fossils, collects seven short pieces across 15 minutes that’s punk in urgency, sans-vocal in the execution, sludged in tone, metallic in production, and adventurous in some of its time changes. Pieces like the ambient opener “Hhon” and “Amanita Shot,” which follows headed on the quick into the suitably stomping “Brachiopod” move easily between each other since the songs themselves are tied together through their instrumental approach and relatively straightforward arrangements. “Cochlea Stone” is a centerpiece under two minutes long with emphasis rightfully on the bass, while “Ritual Electric” teases the stonershuggah nuance in the groove of “Acid Apricot”‘s second half, and the added “Digital Cave” roughs up the recording while maybe or maybe not actually being the demo it claims to be. Are those drums programmed? We may never know, but at a quarter of an hour long, it’s not like Noorag are about to overstay their welcome. Fitting for the EP format as a way to highlight its admirable intricacy, Fossils feels almost ironically fresh and sounds like the beginning point of a broader progression. Here’s hoping.
With the notable exceptions of six-minute opener “Era” and the 8:36 “Uhtceare” with the gradual build to its explosion into the “Stones From the Sky” moment that’s a requisite for seemingly all post-metal acts to utilize at least once (they turn it into a lead later, which is satisfying), Sweden’s KOLLAPS\E — oh your pesky backslash — pair their ambient stretches with stately, shout-topped declarations of riff that sound like early Isis with the clarity of production and intent of later Isis, which is a bigger difference than it reads. The layers of guttural vocals at the forefront of “Anaemia” add an edge of extremity offset by the post-rock float of the guitar, and “Bränt Barn Skyr Elden” (‘burnt child dreads the fire,’ presumably a Swedish aphorism) answers by building tension subtly in its first two minutes before going full-barrage atmosludge for the next as it, “Anaemia,” and the closing pair of “Radiant Static” and “Murrain” harness short-song momentum on either side of four minutes long — something the earlier “Beautiful Desolate” hinted at between “Era” and “Uhtceare” — to capture a distinct flow for side B and giving the ending of “Murrain” its due as a culmination for the entire release. Crushing or spacious or both when it wants to be, Phantom Centre is a strong, pandemic-born debut that looks forward while showing both that it’s schooled in its own genre and has begun to decide which rules it wants to break.
Healthyliving, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
A multinational conglomerate that would seem to be at least partially assembled in Edinburg, Scotland, Healthyliving — also all-lowercase: healthyliving — offer folkish melodicism atop heavy atmospheric rock for a kind of more-present-than-‘gaze-implies feel that is equal parts meditative, expansive and emotive on their debut full-length, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief. With the vocals of Amaya López-Carromero (aka Maud the Moth) given a showcase they more than earn via performance, multi-instrumentalist Scott McLean (guitar, bass, synth) and drummer Stefan Pötzsch are able to conjure the scene-setting heft of “Until,” tap into grunge strum with a gentle feel on “Bloom” or meander into outright crush with ambient patience on “Galleries” (a highlight) or move through the intensity of “To the Gallows,” the unexpected surge in the bridge of “Back to Back” or the similarly structured but distinguished through the vocal layering and melancholic spirit of the penultimate “Ghost Limbs” with a long quiet stretch before closer “Obey” wraps like it’s raking leaves in rhythm early and soars on a strident groove that caps with impact and sprawl. They are not the only band operating in this sphere of folk-informed heavy post-rock by any means, but as their debut, this nine-song collection pays off the promise of their 2021 two-songer Until/Below (review here) and heralds things to come both beautiful and sad.
Even before Vermont freak-psych two-piece MV & EE — Matt Valentine and Erika Elder, both credited with a whole bunch of stuff including, respectively, ‘the real deal’ and ‘was’ — are nestled into the organic techno jam of 19-minute album opener “Free Range,” their Green Ark full-length has offered lush lysergic hypnosis via an extended introductory drone. Far more records claim to go anywhere than actually do, but the funky piano of “No Money” and percussion and wah dream-disco of “Dancin’,” with an extra-fun keyboard line late, set up the 20-minute “Livin’ it Up,” in a way that feels like surefooted experimentalism; Elder and Valentine exploring these aural spaces with the confidence of those who’ve been out wandering across more than two decades’ worth of prior occasions. That is to say, “Livin’ it Up” is comfortable as it engages with its own unknown self, built up around a bass line and noodly solo over a drum machine with hand percussion accompanying, willfully repetitive like the opener in a way that seems to dig in and then dig in again. The 10-minute “Love From Outer Space” and nine-minute mellow-psych-but-for-the-keyboard-beat-hitting-you-in-the-face-and-maybe-a-bit-of-play-around-that-near-the-end “Rebirth” underscore the message that the ‘out there’ is the starting point rather than the destination for MV & EE, but that those brave enough to go will be gladly taken along.
Israeli trio The Great Machine — brothers Aviran Haviv (bass/vocals) and Omer Haviv (guitar/vocals) as well as drummer/vocalist Michael Izaky — find a home on Noisolution for their fifth full-length in nine years, Funrider, trading vocal duties back and forth atop songs that pare down some of the jammier ideology of 2019’s less-than-ideally-titled Greatestits, still getting spacious in side-A ender “Pocketknife” and the penultimate “Some Things Are Bound to Fail,” which is also the longest inclusion at 6:05. But the core of Funrider is in the quirk and impact of rapid-fire cuts like “Zarathustra” and “Hell & Back” at the outset, the Havivs seeming to trade vocal duties throughout to add to the variety as the rumble before the garage-rock payoff of “Day of the Living Dead” gives over to the title-track or that fuzzier take moves into “Pocketknife.” Acoustic guitar starts “Fornication Under the Consent of the King” but it becomes sprinter Europunk bombast before its two minutes are done, and with the rolling “Notorious” and grungeminded “Mountain She” ripping behind, the most unifying factor throughout Funrider is its lack of predictability. That’s no minor achievement for a band on their fifth record making a shift in their approach after a decade together, but the desert rocking “The Die” that closes with a rager snuck in amid the chug is a fitting summary of the trio’s impressive creative reach.
Following-up their 2017 debut, Stoner Circus, Austrian trio Swanmay offer seven songs and 35 minutes of new material with the self-issued Frantic Feel, finding their foundation in the bass work of Chris Kaderle and Niklas Lueger‘s drumming such that Patrick Àlvaro‘s ultra-fuzzed guitar has as strong a platform to dance all over as possible. Vocals in “The Art of Death” are suitably drunk-sounding (which doesn’t actually hurt it), but “Mashara” and “Cats and Snails” make a rousing opening salvo of marked tonal depth and keep-it-casual stoner saunter, soon also to be highlighted in centerpiece “Blooze.” On side B, “Stone Cold” feels decidedly more like it has its life together, and “Old Trails” tightens the reins from there in terms of structure, but while closer “Dead End” stays fuzzy and driving like the two songs before, the noise quotient is upped significantly by the time it’s done, and that brings back some of the looser swing of “Mashara” or “The Art of Death.” But when Swanmay want to be — and that’s not all the time, to their credit — they are massively heavy, and they put that to raucous use with a production that is accordingly loud and vibrant. Seems simple reading a paragraph, maybe, but the balance they strike in these songs is a difficult one, and even if it’s just for the guitar and bass tones, Frantic Feel demands an audience.
“Death will come swiftly to those who are weak,” goes the crooning verse lyric from Garden of Ash‘s “Death Valley” at the outset of the young Edmonton, Alberta, trio’s self-titled, self-released debut full-length. Bassist Kristina Hunszinger delivers the line with due severity, but the Witch Mountain-esque slow nod and everybody-dies lyrics of “A Cautionary Tale” show more of the tongue-in-cheek point of view of the lyrics. The plot thickens — or at very least hits harder — when the self-recorded outing’s metallic production style is considered. In the drums of Levon Vokins — who also provides backing vocals as heard on “Roses” and elsewhere — the (re-amped) guitar of Zach Houle and even in the mostly-sans-effects presentation of Hunszinger‘s vocals as well as their placement at the forefront of the mix, it’s heavy metal more than heavy rock, but as Vokins takes lead vocals in “World on Fire” with Hunszinger joining for the chorus, the riff is pure boogie and the earlier “Amnesia” fosters doomly swing, so what may in the longer term be a question of perspective is yet unanswered in terms of are they making the sounds they want to and pushing into trad metal genre tenets, or is it just a matter of getting their feet under them as a new band? I don’t know, but songs and performance are both there, so this first full-length does its job in giving Garden of Ash something from which to move forward while serving notice to those with ears to hear them. Either way, the bonus track “Into the Void” is especially notable for not being a Black Sabbath cover, and by the time they get there, that’s not at all the first surprise to be had.
Checking in at one second less and 15 minutes flat, “The Bends” is the first release from Milwaukee-based three-piece Tidal, and it’s almost immediately expansive. With shades of El Paraiso-style jazz psych, manipulated samples and hypnotic drone at its outset, the first two minutes build into a wash with mellow keys/guitar effects (whatever, it sounds more like sax and they’re all credited with ‘noise,’ so I’m doing my best here) and it’s not until Sam Wallman‘s guitar steps forward out of the ambience surrounding at nearly four minutes deep that Alvin Vega‘s drums make their presence known. Completed by Max Muenchow‘s bass, which righteously holds the core while Wallman airs out, the roll is languid and more patient than one would expect for a first-release jam, but there’s a pickup and Tidal do get raucous as “The Bends” moves into its midsection, scorching for a bit until they quiet down again, only to reemerge at 11:10 from the ether of their own making with a clearheaded procession to carry them through the crescendo and to the letting-go-now drift of echo that caps. I hear tell they’ve got like an hour and a half of this stuff recorded and they’re going to release them one by one. They picked an intriguing one to start with as the layers of drone and noise help fill out the otherwise empty space in the instrumental jam without being overwrought or sacrificing the spontaneous nature of the track. Encouraging start. Will be ready when the next jam hits.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s relevant news and all that, but you’ll pardon me if I take a second to feel good posting about Healthyliving as the trio look to follow-up their 2021 two-songer Until/Below (discussed here), because my first instinct was to not. The reason for that was, well, it looks like their impending debut, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief, is going to be pretty well hyped, and that kind of thing is generally a turnoff. However, when the below press release came through and I did my usual shrug and ‘well this is too cool for me,’ I took a breath and reminded myself that that attitude is bullshit and that it usually does nothing more for me than to make me miss out on good music. So I took a listen to the track they’re streaming — you can hear it at the bottom of the post — and here we are.
So maybe it will be too cool for my ass in the end — it don’t take much — but at least I didn’t let that stop me from hearing it. Hype comes and goes. Good music lasts longer. I’ll try to get a review going somewhere along the line for Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief, even if it’s the Quarterly Review after the next one, and I’m sure with the heaps of critical plaudits headed their way mine will be sub-drop-in-bucket level, but screw it. I’m just glad I get to hear it.
Art, copious narrative, links and song follow, courtesy of the PR wire:
HEALTHYLIVING TO RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM; SONGS OF ABUNDANCE, PSALMS OF GRIEF, ON THE 7TH APRIL
FIRST TRACK, “GALLERIES”, OUT NOW
THE BAND SHALL PLAY THEIR FIRST EVER SHOW AT ROADBURN 2023
healthyliving is the project of long-time collaborators and friends who met through the European underground metal scene – Amaya López-Carromero (Maud the moth), Scott McLean (Falloch, Ashenspire) and Stefan Pötzsch. Having worked on various musical projects together for years, Amaya, Scott’s and Stefan’s artistic and personal connection coalesced organically and fuelled a small transnational collective across Scotland, Spain and Germany.
Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief is their concise and direct debut full-length album, funded by Creative Scotland and will be co-released on the 7th April by the band and LaRubia Producciones, followed by a debut live performance at the prestigious Roadburn Festival in Tilburg.
Of the first track, “Galleries”, lyricist Amaya says, “Scott made an amazing video for it, using some clips I had taken from our rehearsal space in Germany during one of our first rehearsals. The lyrics on the song make reference to this physical space and building, and what it signified for us at that time; mostly new beginnings, hope and choices to be made in our lives – not just at band level. I think the video is deeply significant.”
Artistically, the band draws from the beauty and horror of the banal to create a kaleidoscopic and evocative musical world which commutes across genre borders. The album, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief, covers “everyday emotions which are apparently unrelated and mundane” but were chosen for their ability to represent common ground we all share as humans. Indeed, the band themselves describe their music as the soundtrack to “digesting our humanity”, coming to terms with the hopes and fears we all share.
A nocturnal haze of guitar layers lap like mammoth waves, as healthyliving taps into something primal and transfixing with their hypnotic sound. Amaya’s eerie and cosmic vocals sit atop the storm, leaving the listener to find pure human vulnerability and emotion in frequently turbulent and unfettered vocal turns.
Vocalist Amaya expands, “The magic of musical composition/songwriting for me lies in its capacity to create worlds outside of reality where both performers and listeners can explore and process things. A sort of microholiday from everyday life or an exciting meditative state, so I hope that we can share this experience with anyone who listens to the album.”
healthyliving honour this natural connection; something which is reflected in the simplicity, rawness and immediateness of their approach to songwriting. “Whenever an idea was found to be inspiring the whole song and structure needed to be written and finished within the same session.” says guitarist Scott. “Going back to work on it later or changing it was not allowed.” It’s a testament to the band’s conviction in instinct over pre-planning. Stefan confirms – “I’m into things being quite straightforward and intuitive despite the distance between us.”
Amaya continues, “All of the lyrics were written using free-association of the music with memories, or emotions that popped into my head in a dream-like manner.” She continues, “I titled “To The Gallows” first, as a summary of the main and oppressive feeling of the song; being stuck in a seamless feedback cycle of abuse that keeps repeating itself in a sisyphus-like vein. “To The Fields” has an opposing energy, invoking growth, vulnerability and hope.”
The Scottish community from which the band mainly operate (and where Scott and Amaya still reside) is clearly of utmost importance to the band. The three members of healthyliving appear in other Scottish musical projects – Ashenspire, Falloch, Maud the moth, All Men Unto Me – are included. “The community has taken a really long time to form and it’s amazing that now there is so much going on around it.” says Scott. “The best thing is being able to create such a wide variety of music with close friends. There is something happening nearly everyday in relation to our little community of musicians which is really incredible and exciting.”
Amaya adds, “Feeling part of an artist community is absolutely crucial to survive long term and have any chance of thriving as an independent artist. When I lived in Madrid, I would go to lots of local shows and felt a relevant part of the scene there, even if there were not many opportunities for us regarding international activity or funding. It was slightly heartbreaking having to start again from 0 when I moved to the UK. Although I stayed in contact with all my friends back in Spain it took me a long time to find my footing again and the right people with a shared vision here in the UK.”
Stefan adds “lest we forget the connection I feel as a friend and fellow musician to Amaya and Scott.” He adds this answer from his home in Germany, “It feels really effortless and rewarding.”
Amaya concludes, “I love connecting people together, and collaborating with others, so I am hoping to build something across the two countries; a mega-scene defined by shared interests and motivations rather than by geographical location.”
SONGS OF ABUNDANCE, PSALMS OF GRIEF TRACK LISTING: 1 – UNTIL 2 – DREAM HIVE 3 – GALLERIES 4 – TO THE FIELDS 5 – TO THE GALLOWS 6 – BLOOM 7 – BACK TO BACK 8 – GHOST LIMBS 9 – OBEY
Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief was recorded at Chamber Studio, Edinburgh, engineered by Graeme Young (DVNE, Idlewild), produced and mixed by Scott McLean and mastered by Brad Boatright (The Armed, Sleep, Stranger Things OST).
