Posted in Whathaveyou on February 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Having been fortunate enough to see French heavy psychedelic rockers Djiin at last year’s Freak Valley Festival (review here) in Germany as they took to the stage in support of their 2021 album, Meandering Soul (review here), I’ll tell you first-hand that they put on a hell of a show. Yes, part of that is the distinguishing visual presence of a harp up there with them — never mind the corresponding aural distinction when vocalist Chloé Panhaleux actually starts to play the thing — but by no means all of it. Their sound is particularly rich, classic in an of-genre kind of way and fluid even at its heaviest moments. They are a full-range band, the quiet and loud stretches of their work are pulled together by the chemistry of the players and the overarching flow of their grooves.
In other words, cool band, worth catching if you can. They’ll be on the road in France, Germany and Belgium this April, with some slots still open, joined by Decasia in the going. There are some ticket links below — probably more available by now, honestly; the tour was announced a few days ago — and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re playing some new material on the run, which if you’re looking for added incentive to get out of the house, well, there you go.
Info follows from the old-style social media:
DJIIN – SPRING TOUR 2023
We’re excited to reveal the dates of our next tour! Looking forward to getting back on the road alongside our friends at DECASIA with whom we’ll be sharing most of the shows (#129304#)
Big thanks to More Fuzz Booking ❤
(#127912#) Artwork by Lise Goujon
EVENT : 05/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) at Ty Anna, Rennes 06/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) at le lezard bar , Le Mans 07/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) at L’INTERNATIONAL, Paris https://fb.me/e/2FDOuJtW8 08/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) at La Taverne Elektrik, Amiens 09/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) TBA, Lille 11/04 (#127463#)(#127466#) at Maboel in ‘t Gildenhuis , Zottegem 12/04 (#127463#)(#127466#) at Local Autogéré du Borinage – LAB , Mons https://fb.me/e/2C1enDNrc 13/04 (#127463#)(#127466#) at Café Central, Bruxelles 14/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at FZW, Dortmünd https://fb.me/e/5XVgVUrBm 15/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at Oetinger Villa, Darmstadt 16/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at Zollkantine, Bremen https://wanderlust.ticket.io/4ttnehy4/ 17/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at Bar 227, Hamburg https://fb.me/e/3eb2Uhv3F 18/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at Loophole Berlin, Berlin https://fb.me/e/2FJFc2j4z 20/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at Vinyl-Reservat, Göttingen 21/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) OPEN SLOT ! 22/04 (#127465#)(#127466#) at P8, Karlsruhe ! 23/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) TBA 24/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) TBA 28/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) TBA 29/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) at Salem Bar, Bordeaux 30/04 (#127467#)(#127479#) at Barberousse Nantes, Nantes
Djiin are: Chloé PANHALEUX – Singer / Electric Harp Allan GUYOMARD – Drums / Backing vocals Tom PENAGUIN – Guitar / Backing vocals Charlélie PAILHES – Bass / Backing vocals
Posted in Reviews on September 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Today we pass the halfway point of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. It’s mostly been a pleasure cruise, to be honest, and there’s plenty more good stuff today to come. That always makes it easier. Still worth marking the halfway point though as we move inexorably toward 70 releases by next Tuesday. Right now, I just wish my kid would take a nap. He won’t.
That’s my afternoon, I guess. Here we go.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Sons of Alpha Centauri, Push
Never ones to tread identical ground, UK outfit Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborate with Far/Onelinedrawing vocalist Jonah Matranga and Will Haven drummer Mitch Wheeler on Push, their material given relatively straight-ahead structural purpose to suit. I’m a fan of Sons of Alpha Centauri and their willingness to toss out various rulebooks on their way to individualized expression. Will Push be the record of theirs I reach for in the years to come? Nope. I’ve tried and tried and tried to get on board, but post-hardcore/emo has never been my thing and I respect Sons of Alpha Centauri too much to pretend otherwise. I admire the ethic that created the album. Deeply. But of the various Sons of Alpha Centauri collaborations — with the likes JK Broadrick of Godflesh or Gary Arce of Yawning Man — I feel a little left out in the cold by these tracks. No worries though. It’s Sons of Alpha Centauri. I’ll catch the next one. In the meantime, it’s comforting knowing they’re doing their own thing as always, regardless of how it manifests.
The programmed drums do an amazing amount to bring a sense of form to Doctors of Space‘s ultra-exploratory jamming. The Portugal-based duo combining the efforts of guitarist/programmer Martin Weaver (best known for his work in Wicked Lady) and synthesist/keyboardist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective (and many others) have been issuing jams by the month during a time largely void of live performances, and their get-together on July 30 resulted in seven pieces, four of which make up the 62 minutes of Studio Session July 2021. It’s hard to pick a highlight between the mellower, almost jazzy flow and cosmic wash of the 19-minute “Nighthawk,” and the more urgent setting out that “They Are Listening” provides, the more definitively space-rocking “Spirit Catcher” closing and “Bombsheller” with what feels like layers upon layers of swirl with keyboard lines cutting through, capping with a mellotron chorus, but any one of them is a worthy pick, and that’s a good problem to have.
In its readiness to go wherever the spirit of its eight included pieces lead, as well as in its openness of arrangement and folkish foundation, River Flows Reverse‘s first offering, the semi-eponymous When River Flows Reverse, reminds of Montibus Communitas. That is a compliment I don’t give lightly or often. The hour-long 2LP sees issue as part of the Psychedelic Source Records collective — Bence Ambrus and company — and with members of Indeed, Lemurian Folk Songs, Hold Station, on vocals and trumpet and banjo, etc., and a variety of instruments handled by Ambrus himself, the record is serene and hypnotic in kind, finding an outbound pastoralism that is physical as much as it’s swirling in mid-air. “Oriental Western” taps 16 Horsepower on the shoulder, but it’s in a meditation like “At the Gates of the Perennial” or the decidedly unraging “Rain it Rages” that the Hungarian outfit most seem to find themselves even as they get willfully lost in what they’re doing. Beautiful.
Even amid the lumbering noise rock extremity of the penultimate “Heroin,” Kite manage to work in a willfully lunkheaded Melvins riff. Cheers to the Oslo bashers-of-face on that. The second long-player from the Oslo-based trio featuring members of Sâver, Dunderbeist, Stonegard and others sets out in moody form with “Idle Lights” building to a maddening tension that “Turbulence” hits with a brick. Though not void of atmosphere or complexity in its construction, the bulk of Currents is harsh, a punishment derived from sludge-thickened post-hardcore evidenced by “Ravines” stomping into the has-clean-vocals centerpiece title-track, but it’s also clear the band are having fun. Closer “Unveering Static” brings back the non-screaming shouts, but it’s the earlier longest track “Infernal Trails” that perhaps most readily encapsulates their work, variable in tempo, building and crashing, chaotic and raging and lowbrow enough to be artsy, but still given an underpinning of heft to match any and all aggression.
A sophomore full-length from the Chicago-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jessie Ambriz and Jon Slusher, bassist/vocalist Alan Strathmann and drummer/vocalist Quinn Curren, Starless‘ Hope is Leaving You runs a melancholy gambit from the prog-metal aggression of “Pendulum” to “Forest” reimagining Alice in Chains as a post-rock band, to soaring escapist pastoralia in “Devils,” to the patient psychedelic unfurling of “Citizen,” all the while remaining heavy of one sort or another; sonic, emotional, whatever it might be. Both. Cellist Alison Chesley (Helen Money) guests on “Forest” and the devolves-into-chaotic-noise closer “Hunting With Fire,” and Sanford Parker produced, but the band’s greatest strengths are the band itself. Hope is Leaving You isn’t going to be the feel-good hit of anyone’s summer in terms of general mood or atmosphere, but it’s the kind of release that’s going to hit a particular nerve with some who take it on, and I think I might be one of them.
Some 15 years on from their landmark first album, Olympia, Washington’s Wolves in the Throne Room make their debut on Relapse Records with duly organic stateliness on Primordial Arcana, bringing their particular and massively influential vision of American black metal to bear across tracks mostly shorter than those of 2017’s Thrice Woven (review here) — exceptions to every rule: the triumphant 10-minute “Masters of Rain and Storm” — as drummer/keyboardist/vocalist Aaron Weaver, guitarist/vocalist Nathan Weaver, guitarist/vocalist Kody Keyworth and guest bassist/vocalist Galen Baudhuin readily draw together ripping blasts with cavernous synth, acoustic guitar, percussion and whatever the hell else they want across eight songs and 49 minutes (that includes the ambient bonus track “Skyclad Passage,” which follows the also-ambient closer “Eostre”) for an immersive aesthetic victory lap that’s all the more resonant for being the first time they’ve entirely produced themselves. One hopes and suspects it won’t be the last. Their sixth or seventh LP depending on what one counts, Primordial Arcana sounds like the beginning of a new era for them.
London heavy rockers Oak perhaps ultimately did themselves a disservice by not putting out a full-length during their time together. Fin, like the end screen of a fancy movie, arrives as their swansong EP, their fourth overall in the last six years, and is made up mostly of two five-plus-minute tracks in “Beyond…” and “Broken King,” with the minute-long intro “Bells” at the start. With the soaring chorus of “Beyond…” led by vocalist Andy Valiant with the backing of bassist/mellotronist Richard Morgan and guitarist/synthesist Kevin Germain and the shove of Alex De La Cour‘s drums at their foundation, the clarity of production by Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse (Green Lung, Terminal Cheesecake, etc.) and the gang shouts that rouse the finish of “Broken King,” Oak end their run sounding very much like a band who had more to say. If their breakup really is permanent, they leave a lot of potential on the proverbial table.
By the time Los Angeles’ Deep Tomb get into the stomp of the 12-minute finishing track on their four-song/29-minute self-titled, they’ve already well demonstrated their propensity for scathing, harsh sludge. Opener “Colossus” has some percussion later in its seven minutes that sounds like something falling down stairs — maybe those are just the toms? — but it and the subsequent “Ascension From the Devoured Realm” aren’t exactly shy about where they’re coming from in their pummel and fuckall, and even though “Endless Power Through Breathless Sleep” starts out mellow and ends minimalist, in between it sounds like a they’re trying to use amps to remove limbs. And how much of “Lord of Misery” is song and how much is noisy chaos anyway? I don’t know. Where’s the line from one to the other? When does the madness end? And what’s left when it does? The broken glass from tube amps and soured everything.
A band that, sooner or later, somebody’s going to refer to as “heavyweights.” Perhaps it’s happened already. Justifiably, in any case, given the significant heft Poland’s Grieving bring to their riff-led fare on their first LP, built on a foundation of traditionalist doom but not necessarily eschewing modern methods in favor thereof throughout its six component tracks — the three-piece of vocalist Wojciech Kaluza, guitarist/bassist/synthesist Artur Ruminski and drummer Bartosz Licholap are willfully Sabbathian even in the shuffle of “This Godless Chapel” but neither are they shy about engaging more psychedelic spaces on “Foreboding of a Great Ruin,” however grounding the clear-headed melodies of the vocals might be, and the riff at the core of the hard-hitting “A Crow Funeral” would in another context be no less at home on a desert rock record. Especially as their debut, Songs for the Weary sounds anything but.
Heavy blues is at the core of Djiin‘s second album, Meandering Soul, but the Rennes, France, four-piece meet it head-on with both deeper weight and broader atmospherics, and lead vocalist Chloé Panhaleux owes as much to grunge as to post-The Doors brooding, her voice admirably organic even unto cracking in “Red Desert.” With the backing of guitarist Tom Penaguin, bassist Charlélie Pailhes and drummer Allan Guyomard, Djiin are no less at home in the creeping lounge guitar stretches of “Warmth of Death” than in the bursts of volume in opener “Black Circus” or the what-the-hell-just-happened-to-this-song prog jam out that caps the erstwhile punk of finale “Waxdoll.” Clearly, Djiin go where they want, when they want, from the folkish harmonies of “The Void” to the far-less-hinged crushing aggro “White Valley,” each piece offering something of its own on the way while feeding into the immersion of the whole.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 15th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Heavy blues atmosphere oozes, creeps out of the opening track of Djiin‘s new long-player, Meandering Soul, and it’s striking in its volatility in a way that begs further investigation. The Rennes, France, four-piece — don’t try writing their moniker on your phone unless you want to spend some time running in circles of autocorrect — released their debut, The Freak, in 2019 and offer “Black Circus” as a first impression of their second album, which will see release through Klonosphere on Oct. 15 and which is up for preorder now through Bandcamp.
There’s a video to coincide — maybe NSFW? hard to tell — but the song is also streaming if you’re not feeling the visuals, and I think its starker aspects come across well even without the band-and-ritual-in-woods accompaniment. Pick your poison, I guess. In any case, the vibe here was enough to hook me, and since that’s exactly what an opener should be doing, if you’ll pardon, I’ll just go ahead and dig into the rest of the album. Got a Quarterly Review coming up, you know. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find this one in there.
PR wire info follows:
Djiin – French Psychedelic-Stoner Rockers Announce New Album “Meandering Soul”
Reveal New Video For “Black Circus”
French psychedelic/stoner-rock four-piece band Djiin will release their third full-length album “Meandering Soul” on October 15 via Klonosphere Records/Season of Mist.
The follow-up to 2019’s “The Freak” album was recorded by Justin Nicquevert at The Blue Anvil Sound and mixed and mastered by Pierre Le Gac and Nicolas Moreau at Le Garage Hermétique, and features six new songs replete with powerful and fuzzy riffs, thunderous and soulful beats, psychedelic melodies and the enchanting vocals of Chloé Panhaleux.
Meandering Soul is a concept album that presents the story of a tortured mind being and his evil fiends. The listener is going through a trip where he/she will meet many characters and will be surrounded sometimes by dark and frozen landscapes, other times by a hot and mesmerizing desert, or otherwise by oppressing and sensual places. All these elements are sailing on various musical influences.
Influenced by 70’s progressive rock and krautrock bands, doom scene and heavy rock from the glory days of the early Sabbath, as well as other modern references based on the diversity between western and traditional eastern sounds, Djiin crafted a sound of their own, a truly captivating and other-worldly musical universe that will impress fans of Kadavar, Blue Pills and Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats. Pre-orders are now available at this location:https://djiin.bandcamp.com/album/meandering-soul-2
Meanwhile, a music video for leading single “Black Circus” is now playing here.
1. Black Circus 2. The Void 3. Red Desert 4. Warmth of Death 5. White Valley 6. Wax Doll
Engineered by Justin Nicquevert (The Blue Anvil Sound). Mixed and Mastered by Pierre Le Gac and Nicolas Moreau (Le Garage Hermétique).
Djiin are: Chloé PANHALEUX – Singer / Electric Harp Allan GUYOMARD – Drums / Backing vocals Tom PENAGUIN – Guitar / Backing vocals Charlélie PAILHES – Bass / Backing vocals
