Posted in Whathaveyou on March 18th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Five more names for the 11th edition of Munich’s Keep it Low Festival, set for this Oct. 10-11 as part of an always-busy Fall fest season in Europe. You can see the full lineup as it stands on the poster below — pretty gosh-darn sweet; good to see Colour Haze making their regularly scheduled hometown appearance at the fest; they’re kind of the unofficial house band, which is a major part of the reason I’ve always sweated attending this one — and the latest to be added to the mix are Lowrider, Bongripper, High Desert Queen, Blue Heron and Kanaan.
It’s ultimately a small contingent of the larger lineup, but a lot of fun to consider on its own, from a veteran act like Lowrider who don’t really tour at this point to the delightful contrast between Bongripper‘s malevolent crush and High Desert Queen‘s posi-outreach vibes, the jazzy instrumental prog of Kanaan and Blue Heron‘s imported-from-New-Mexico heavy desert vibes. Again, it’s part of the greater story of the diverse sounds Keep it Low has on offer for 2025, between Graveyard and The Obsessed and Siena Root and Conan, on and on, but emblematic of the whole just the same.
Confirmation came via the PR wire:
KEEP IT LOW FESTIVAL announces HIGH DESERT QUEEN, LOWRIDER, BONGRIPPER & more new band names for 2025!
Keep It Low – THE annual stoner, psych, rock, doom and sludge metal event in the heart of Munich, Germany, has announced new band names for its exciting, 10th anniversary edition in 2025!
High Desert Queen, Lowrider, Bongripper, Blue Heron and Kanaan will be joining previously-announced acts such as Graveyard, Masters Of Reality, Conan, Colour Haze, The Obsessed, Siena Root, Vintage Caravan and many more!
Hosted by Sound Of Liberation (Desertfest Berlin, Up In Smoke, Lazy Bones Fest a.o.), Keep It Low will be taking place between 10. – 11. October 2025 at Backstage.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 10th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Colour Haze first released To the Highest Gods We Know (review here) just as 2014 was rolling over to 2015 — I remember because I couldn’t tell which year to count it as during list time; ultimately I went with 2015, which I think was wrong; not an isolated incident — and while one doesn’t generally think of a band’s 11th full-length as an especially pivotal moment, from the moment it arrived, the five-song outing had a daunting task: following-up 2012’s She Said (review here), which is inarguably the most expansive album of the band’s genre-setting career.
To the Highest Gods We Knowwas purposeful in the direction it took, stripping back what had become a borderline-orchestral sound on the record prior to a band-in-room kind of feel with guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, then-bassist Philipp Rasthofer and drummer Manfred Merwald still looking beyond themselves in terms of arrangements, but basing the songs much more on the root performances of the core trio, though if you read that to mean their dynamic was absent from She Said, that’s not the case. Either way, it is the Colour Haze record that perhaps has the most room to expand.
And it has expanded. As Koglek has done with 2008’s All (discussed here, also here), 2017’s In Her Garden (discussed here, review here), a 2021 revisit to 2003’s Los Sounds de Krauts (reissue review here) and various other remasters, the new take on To the Highest Gods We Know is more than a volume raise and an artwork refresh. There are counterpoints added, arrangements fleshed out, and the songs progressed in a way that highlights the original character of the performances while giving new impressions therefrom. It’s a fan-piece, for sure, but Colour Haze have always encouraged deep listening one way or the other. Basically they’re giving their listenership a chance to get to know their catalog all over again. It’s a terrible time to be a human being, but a good time to be a Colour Haze fan.
Their latest newsletter, complete with order link and the 30th anniversary touring the band will start this week with Mario Lalli and Mathew Bethancourt supporting. That in itself is good news. The album’s also streaming on Bandcamp, so that’s below as well:
30 Years of Colour Haze Tour Dates, To The Highest Gods We Know, T-Shirts, Patches, Pins
Dear friends,
30 Years Tour
After the recent shows have all been such a great pleasure – especially thanks to all who made our 30 Jahre Colour Haze Fest end of December this great party! – we are looking forward to our European tour starting next friday in Vienna! We are in company of our dear friends of Josiah (and for the second half Mathews Hidden Museum playing a best of Josiah, Kings Of Frog Island and Cherry Choke) and the Rubber Snake Charmers with desertrock-pioneer Mario Lalli. Don’t miss us, we don’t come too often! : )
The next in the line of our reworked albums. And this one turned out especially well in my opinion.
After the exhausting production of She Said in 2014 we just intended to make a nice little record in between. Unfortunately it suffered from the hassles around the loss of our studio-place in the end. Completely remixed, in parts with new vocals und little extras here and there To The Highest Gods We Know now became a real highlight in our discography.
The artwork is new as well. The wolf howling to the moon of our intersubjective realities moved on the backside while on the front a beautiful explosion-mandala by Alix Bischoff shows what happens every time when men wants to shape reality by his beliefs, imaginations, concepts and ideas – instead of trying it the other way round once….
Have a listen!
Downloads (equivalent to the vinyl master) are already on. CD and LP are on preorder. The LP has been cut and I’m waiting for the testpressing – it won’t take too long this time….
T-Shirts, Patches, Pins
We finally have patches and pins for your jacket – soon in the shop and at the shows. Shirts are available in new colors. Due to many requests I also reprinted the Elektrohasch shirt – in a nice green!
Liebe Grüße & Best Wishes Stefan Koglek
Tourdates: 14.02. A – Wien – Arena 15.02. PL – Kraków – Hype Park 16.02. PL – Warszawa – Proxima 17.02. D – Leipzig – Werk 2 18.02. D – Hamburg – Knust 19.02. D – Hannover – Faust 20.02. NL – Groningen – Vera 21.02. NL – Nijmegen – Doornroosje 22.02. LU – Esch-sur-Alzette – Kulturfabrik 23.02. F – Paris – Petit Bain 24.02. CH – Genf – L’Usine 25.02. IT – Milano – Legend Club 26.02. CH – Düdingen – Bad Bonn 27.02. CH – Aarau – Kiff 28.02. D – Freiburg – Jazzhaus 01.03. D – Tübingen – Sudhaus
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The festival announcement and info below has been run through a major social media organization’s translation matrix, so I mean, take it with a grain of salt in terms of grammar. I punched up a couple don’t-translate-this words and such, but consider it an introduction to the concept rather than a manifesto laying out broader intentions across a range of years.
And since Tempel Festival — sharing its name with a Colour Haze album from 2006 and set to take place for the first time on Jan. 25, 2025 in that same band’s hometown of Munich — will be happening for the first time, proof-of-concept makes sense. Swan Valley Heights will headline, and the proggy heavy psych trio are joined in the all-dayer bill by Robo, Raging Sloth, Monomanic, Sundog and Miss Mellow.
Hey, a new thing is happening, and it’s happening at a time when there isn’t already a ton of other stuff. Maybe there’s room in the European festival calendar for another name bringing names. Here’s the info:
Tempel Festival 2025 – Enter Heavy Music’s Citadel
Monumental temples around the globe have skyrocketed since human memory. They are a cultural and spiritual expression and a place of gathering at the same time. The Tempel Festival 2025 in the Munich Feierwerk pays tribute to this basic idea, but it is not an ordinary festival. Rather, it unites the city’s diverse musical streams and sets the backdrop for the turbulent descents of Psychedelic Rock, forms the solid foundation for deep-seated Stoner Rock and casts shadow to grim Doom sounds.
An evening that unites several bands from the South of the Republic. An evening celebrating the hard sounds of the city. The Tempel Festival 2025 welcomes the local scene to a crazy journey between spirituality, hard riffs and driving rhythms – welcome to the Tempel!
The high priests of the temple welcome Raging Sloth, Sundog, Swan Valley Heights, Miss Mellow and Robo to the Feierwerk temple.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 2nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A short time after I took the above photo at Bear Stone Festival this past July in Croatia, I stood by the side of the stage with an assemblage from among the media-types brought in to cover the fest. I had been singing Colour Haze‘s praises before the set, as one will, and as a few turned to me with now-knowing smiles, I said flat out they’re my favorite band in the world to watch on a stage.
What’s worse, I think I meant it.
Wildly influential yet singular in their character, the (mostly) German four-piece comprised of guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, bassist Mario Oberpucher, drummer Manfred Merwald and keyboardist/synthesist Jan Faszbender will continue to tour celebrating the band’s 30th anniversary early next year, following up on 2024 dates heralding the same cause. Whatever the reason, get to a Colour Haze gig if you can. There were rumors around of North American touring next year too. I haven’t heard anything solid in that regard as yet, but, well, a boy can hope. Any year you get to see them play is a good one.
Note that El Padre El Don is a new father-son duo from Mario Lalli and Dino Von Lalli, who feature together otherwise in Fatso Jetson. They’ll have desert-mainstay Sean Wheeler (see also Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers) with them for a few dates as well, while no less than UK expectation-destroyers Josiah will provide direct support for the bulk of the dates. You can’t go wrong here.
Dates were posted on socials as follows:
Tour in February 2025:
Colour Haze + Josiah + El Padre El Don (Mario & Dino Lalli): 14.02.25 (AT) Vienna, Arena 15.02.25 (PL) Kraków, Hype Park 16.02.25 (PL) Warszawa, Proxima 17.02.25 (DE) Leipzig, Werk 2 18.02.25 (DE) Hamburg, Knust 19.02.25 (DE) Hannover, Faust 20.02.25 (NL) Groningen, Vera 21.02.25 (NL) Nijmegen, Doornroosje 22.02.25 (LU) Esch-sur-Alzette, Kulturfabrik
Colour Haze + Josiah + El Padre El Don (Mario & Dino Lalli) featuring Sean Wheeler: 23.02.25 (FR) Paris, Petit Bain
Colour Haze + El Padre El Don (Mario & Dino Lalli) featuring Sean Wheeler: 24.02.25 (CH) Genf, L’Usine 25.02.25 (IT) Milano, Legend Club 26.02.25 (CH) Düdingen, Bad Bonn 27.02.25 (CH) Aarau, Kiff 28.02.25 (DE) Freiburg, Jazzhaus 01.03.25 (DE) Tübingen, Sudhaus
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 31st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
That Colour Haze are writing a new album makes me pretty happy, but honestly, I kind of expect at this point that the Munich progenitors of heavy psychedelic rock are always writing at one level or another, moving forward as they go from fest to fest or show to show or the stretches between, just as a part of life. That the plan is to take their time with it, that they’ve “taken on quite something” for it and are letting it unfold as they need to is even more encouraging.
I’m curious as to the particulars of that, of course, whether it’s something about the recording circumstance, or maybe they’re going full-orchestral, whatever it might be, but we’ll find out in due course and they have plenty going on in the meantime, between more festivals upcoming — Palp Festival in Switzerland and SonicBlast in Portugal ahead of Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in Germany and more this Fall, a presumed stop at Keep it Low for the Oct. 11 TBA below, and a 30th anniversary party at the end of December that, well, if someone wanted to fly my ass to Germany for it is a celebration I’d very much enjoy attending — and guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek‘s ongoing catalog revisits.
Details came in the band’s latest newsletter, which you’ll find in blue text below:
Dear Friends,
This year we celebrate 30 years Colour Haze!
As a first anniversary special, selected CDs are available in our webshop for a special price of 6.- Euro (5,04 outside EU).
After 30 years you have something to tell. We want to give you some more information and pictures on our webpage. Apart from more detailed information to our records we are busy writing some articles and stories – about music, instruments, recordings, touring etc. – which we will published one by one at www.colourhaze.de
The new In Her Garden DLP will arrive from factory on August 15th. The downloads at www.colourhaze.de are already the new version. You can listen to the new mixes at our youtube channel.
At the moment I’m reworking our 2014 album „To The Highest Gods We Know“. Besides a more powerful and transparent mix I take the opportunity to improve also the musical side. E.g. I took the slow original album version of „Überall“ in C and speeded it up on the tapemachine so it matches todays much faster live-version in D – some Hammond and the guitar-solo have been added by Jan and me as well. We think this way the album version of Überall is much better now : ) As a little preview you can hear an unmastered mix of Überall on https://www.youtube.com/@colourhaze6383.
Mix of side A is done and side B won’t take too long.
Next will be Live Vol. 4 from the recordings of our recent liveshows and a rework of We Are. And of course we are working on new music. We have taken on quite something for the new album and will take the time it needs. : )
But foremost we’ll play a lot of shows in the next months! After we already had a great time at Desertfest London, Duna Jam, Fusion Festival, Bearstone & Stonerkras (thanks to everybody!) we are looking forward to the upcoming shows – a.o. a first tour to the Balkans with support Smokemaster.
Liebe Grüße & Best Wishes Stefan Koglek
Tourdates:
07.08. – CH – Rocklette / Palp Festival 08.08. – IT – Brescia, Festival 09.08. – POR – Sonic Blast Festival 28.09. – Lohr – Praise The Fuzz Festival 03.10. SLO – Ljubljana – Gala Hala 04.10. SRB – Novi Sad – SKCNS Fabrika 05.10. GR – Thessaloniki – Mylos Club 06.10. GR – Athen – Gargarin 205 08.10. BU – Sofia – Club Mixtape 5 09.10. RO – Bucharest 10.10. RO – Cluj-Napoca – Flying Circus 11.10. tba 12.10. A – Graz – Dom Im Berg – Strom Im Berg 26.10. Dresden – Heavy Psych Sounds Fest 22.11. Regensburg – Alte Mälzerei 29.11. Darmstadt – Centralstation – Psychedelic Night 07.12. Zwickau – Alter Gasometer 28.12. München – Feierwerk – 30-Jahre Colour Haze Fest 2025 03.01. Erlangen – E-Werk 04.01. Duisburg – Bora
Posted in Features on March 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The studio adventures of German heavy psychedelia progenitors Colour Haze are manifold and occasionally more than their share of tragic, but as the band celebrate their 30th anniversary throughout 2024, they’re an essential part of the story. Guitarist and vocalist Stefan Koglek, who is the remaining founding member, has been a part of studio builds and teardowns, recorded in basements and bunkers, and been driven enough toward the band determining their own destiny to end up creating the space itself in which he’d long wished to create. You might recall that around the time of 2012’s She Said (review here), Koglek talked about some of the years’ worth of challenges behind that record alone. As it turns out, that circumstance — while particularly gruesome — was not necessarily an isolated incident.
In addition to a CD sale through his mostly-dormant imprint Elektrohasch Schallplatten and sundry live dates — including SonicBlast Fest in Portugal and Bear Stone in Croatia — that will culminate in an anniversary festival of their own at Feierwerk in Munich this Dec. 28 (further details TBA), Koglek has begun overseeing revisits to past Colour Haze albums at a home studio that, at least for now, he’s willing to call ‘done.’ One might think of the 2021 remix of 2003’s Los Sounds de Krauts (reissue review here) as a precursor to this undertaking, but in terms of the place where the work happens, the already-streaming upcoming 2LP remix and remaster of 2017’s In Her Garden (review here) presents an evolved ideology in its approach to volume, and takes ownership of the material in a way that lets it realize new ideas without actually being all that different.
I’ll just say flat out that if you cherish the original as I do — I hope always to remember dancing with my then-baby daughter to the la-la-las later in “Lotus” — there’s nothing on the 2024 In Her Garden that wants to take that away from you. If the notion of an artist going back over prior output makes you nervous, I understand that. I’m pretty sure there are still folks pissed off Star Wars did a second trilogy at the turn of the century, and I’m not out here to try and belittle or discount anyone’s point of view. Particularly for records toward which one might feel a deep connection, that change can be scary. With the original In Her Garden, Colour Haze united the expanse of the aforementioned She Said with the intentional pushback, go-to-ground organic performance-capture of 2015’s To the Highest Gods We Know (review here), found peace and a place in-between those sides that was memorable unto itself in the listening experience, and cast sun-coated evocations which have continued to resonate in the now-seven years since it came out. Their two-to-date LPs since, 2019/2020’s We Are (review here) and 2022’s Sacred (review here), would not have taken shape as they did without In Her Garden‘s progressive foundation.
Below, you’ll find Koglek detailing the process of going back into the recordings of In Her Garden with a perspective less about volume and more about dynamic. Some pieces have been (partially) rearranged, as with the vocals on “Black Lilly” after the intro “Into Her Garden,” or Jan Faszbender‘s solo in “Lavatera,” but the overarching impression of the music remains serene in its varied movements, and the songs come across with more space, more live energy, and as you can hear in the 11-minute “Islands” and across the span, an underlying tonal crunch that proves well worth highlighting. He calls its sound as “brighter” and “more ‘open,'” and these are assessments with which I can only agree as he, then-bassist Philipp Rasthofer, drummer Manfred Merwald, as well as Faszbender and a host of guest contributors including Mario Oberpucher — who’d take over for Rasthofer on bass in 2021 — present this fresh and refreshing take on the original.
This isn’t an interview, and it’s not an in-studio, but Koglek goes deep in terms of laying out the ideas behind 2024’s In Her Garden and what actually went into making a record that was already so teeming with vitality feel even more alive. Keep your eyes on their website, as they’ll reportedly roll out more background on other albums as the occasion arises. I did some light editing on the text below, but in parallel to the record’s new mix itself, no actual meaning has been changed.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy:
Revisiting ‘In Her Garden’ with Stefan Koglek
…In the summer of 2015, my new control room was ready to work. Now I had a luxurious home studio. While I couldn’t foresee the dynamics starting from the choice of a 2” tape machine as a basic recorder, I have to admit I got intrigued by the reemergence of analogue audio gear. A fascinating world I dived into with passion. Would you stick with drawing watercolor on paper just for economic reasons if it’s your dream to make big oil paintings on canvas?
I think the experiences of your life are more precious than any money you could probably save. I wanted to have gear that I really liked, not just what was doing the job. Even if it was just for the reason that you couldn’t blame the gear for making a poor-sounding record.
I was reasonable enough not to buy overpriced classics, instead choosing esoteric stuff with good value for the money. And with an analogue studio you need a lot of stuff.
Also in my new home studio, I was still missing some tools, equalizer channels, etc., to really do everything necessary or that I wanted. It was still not grown up. And though the room was good now, the monitoring still was far from perfect. Though I wasn’t too happy with the performance of my monitor speakers in the room, my attempts to change this didn’t get much going. But it was much better than before, so I tried to get used to it. I couldn’t improve the situation for another five years.
In 2016, we had enough music for a new album but the garage below my control room still wasn’t converted into the recording space it was initially intended to be.
For the ‘In Her Garden’ recordings, we booked a great sounding, huge 1960s studio room in Munich, which was now mainly used as a rehearsal for a symphonic orchestra. We would have brought all our own recording gear. One week before our sessions, the booking was cancelled by the studio owner.
Though I thought it was clear from the beginning we would rent the empty room during the orchestra’s holiday in a lockout deal, he was shocked to find out we wouldn’t just work from nine to five like the orchestra musicians. First he wanted to double the already whopping 800 Euro per-day price for an empty room, then he cancelled the whole deal.
There we stood, holiday already taken. We tried to find a different studio but in the end had to go down again in our rehearsal room. A new place that was formerly a beer cellar for Oktoberfest. It was four floors below ground, 40 sqm, concrete, low ceiling. The lift had just enough room to squeeze in the Telefunken.
We tried to swiftly treat the room acoustically with what was around, and just as everything was set up and ready for soundcheck, the tape machine stopped working. It turned out that a huge surge hit the poor electric system of the building while we were setting up mics (maybe from a crane being shut off from the build of the nearby Oktoberfest).
The Logic-platines of the tape machine were destroyed – and so was the lift. The latter never got repaired again, and in the end we had to carry the 250 kg Telefunken in pieces up four floors on small stairs. We spent the week that was meant for recording on fixing the recorder. But we got ‘In Her Garden’ in the end, despite the difficult circumstance. And the recordings sounded better than what we got from the previous place.
The Remixes:
In 2020, I had to change to a different press for LPs. For some years, the company I was working with since founding Elektrohasch had trouble with quality and when they raised prices three times within two weeks in the 2020 vinyl rush, it was time to go.
The pressing-tools were mine, since I always had my vinyls cut at a different cutting studio. I expected they could simply be sent to the new factory and I could work there. But surprise: most tools arrived damaged at Optimal Media. A part of the stock of work we’d built up over 20 years was gone overnight. I had to deliver new cuts. That meant I had to deliver the master recordings again.
Sometimes this was impossible.
For ‘Los Sounds de Krauts,’ the original digital masters were in poor 16bit 44.1 kHz on CD-R – you wouldn’t use a 15-year-old CD-R as a master! I also thought the mixes could be improved with hindsight and better gear. At least for that I had the original (digital) multitrack recordings, but it took two years to get all the digital files running again. Mind that – just 15 years and your digital memory might be lost already or only retrieved with great effort or cost, even within the very same system: ProTools on a Mac. Meanwhile, I just put the tapes from ‘To The Highest Gods We Know’ on the machine and simply work with them.
Other records are still in stock, some won’t be reprinted anyway.
But when possible I will take the opportunity to remix the rest of our catalogue step by step. Because the sound could be better. It is a lot of work (and actually not paid) but it’s simply a thing I want to do.
With the home studio, I have the possibility and occasion to work on them again. And there are reasons why I think I can get to better results now:
– Over the years, I’ve learned more about mixing. I have a better idea what I’m hearing and how to achieve things.
– My studio finally has proper monitoring. For the first time since ‘All,’ I can really hear what is going on.
– The studio is complete. I do not miss another Equalizer-Channel if I need one. I’m happy with it, got used to what I have and don’t want different or new stuff. I have a tendency to collect things, but thankfully this always ends at some point. I can complete a collection.
– I have no pressure. I can work relaxed at home on the recordings whenever I’m up to it.
– Foremost, it is now finally fun to work in that place.
‘In Her Garden’ is the first record I mixed and mastered with this new situation. The actual changes in the mixing are not that big – it is still the same recordings and the same person working with the same setup on them. But little changes make quite some difference for my ears:
– First of all I learned to take much more care with levels. In the individual tracks, differences in gain settings are subtle to hear, but the dedicated control over all levels throughout the signal chain leads to a less “choked,” more open-sounding result. Though my console has headroom forever I had to learn how different it sounds depending on how you drive it.
– Where for quite some time I kept the ideal of mixing very “dry” without any additional reverberation on the basic tracks, I’m a bit less dogmatic about such things now and I learned to utilize reverberation better.
– I learned how to take greater care of mixing keyboards and vocals…
– Another benefit for the remix was I didn’t feel the pressure to present a new album and also had more distance to the music and therefore maybe a clearer view – remixing ‘In Her Garden’ was pretty relaxed and happened over the course of seven months.
For my ears all this results in a more “open,” pleasant and relaxed sound. The record is more dynamic and sounds brighter and fuller, even though the equalizer settings actually haven’t changed much. It’s just a bit more on-spot here and there, so the individual signals integrate better.
What was changed on the material? Not much, just in:
– “Black Lilly”: I was never satisfied with how the vocals worked. I had this melody, an idea of the vocal line, but had trouble performing it. That’s part of why we don’t play this song live; I simply can’t sing it well enough in the original key. But the basic track was the best I could achieve. I mixed it much better now so it is not rolling up my toenails anymore. And I added a new lower background voice to help the basic track. I actually like the vocals in this song pretty much now.
– “Lavatera“ – for ‘In Her Garden,’ I had originally hired Jan as a session musician, which led to expanding Colour Haze to a quartet later. The original organ tracks were a swift improvisation. As “Lavatera” was part of the live set for a couple of years, Jan developed a synthesizer solo that fit the song better. I wanted to integrate this solo also, to create a bridge within the record to Jan being a member of the band now.
Another difference is the mastering.
I’m first generation home-computer, and with all the changes since the ‘80s, I’ve experienced digital memory as shortlived and ever-changing. If you’re reading this and you record anything, ever, mind the trouble we had recreating the ‘Los Sounds de Krauts’ data. From an artistic point of view, a physical copy is still the form that should present the results of our efforts.
We got accustomed to so many things, and until ‘In Her Garden’, I had the idea that the digital master was better with a certain amount of loudness. This by far was not as gruesome as during the early 2000s, but as close as possible to the technical limits of digital audio.
Well, one could imagine it simply is not good to drive anything as far as possible to the technical limits. And though mastering engineers might tell you otherwise, my notion is that limiters (tools that cut off signal peaks so the program can be shifted closer to the limit) never do nice things to audio. They limit.
For [remixing] ‘In Her Garden,’ I forgot all considerations of making it loud. It doesn’t matter for the actual result on vinyl anyway. For or me it sounds less “choked” than everything we did before. Only time will tell if this is a better way.
The recording and mix are analogue. I mixdown to 1/4” stereo tape. From there, mastering is basically the translation to digital, but the tools for it are still analogue – a Hi-End valve equalizer to shape the frequency and a Hi-End valve compressor for some dynamic shaping, to “open up” the dynamics rather than to “squeeze” them together. From there it is converted to digital.
This time I didn’t try anymore to get as loud as possible into the digital domain. I accepted the sonically ideal point of the electronics of my mastering converter (if you need to know, I use a Forssell Mada 2a). And the result after mastering 13 songs every now and then over the course of six weeks with all the songs fitting together in loudness and appearance tells me I’m not totally wrong.
For the vinyl cut I changed from DMM to “half-speed lacquer cut”. The digital files are only half as loud now, but I think it sounds better. You have the volume control – use it! :)
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 29th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you’re the type who likes to take care of things early, well, you’re apparently in good company with the Munich-based Keep it Low Festival. The two-dayer fest, which is one of many under the umbrella of Sound of Liberation booking, is held annually in October, and that’s when it’s set to take place in 2024 as well, at Backstage in Munich on Oct. 11-12. Tickets, however, are on sale almost 10 full months early.
Why? I’m not sure, but I have a definite answer in “why the hell not?,” and I find that when I try to answer that question, I come up blank. So yeah, it seems like that’s really early, but on the other hand, why not put tickets for next year on sale while people are at the fest this year? It’s different, I don’t know if it’s been done before, but doesn’t that just make it a new idea, and is that something so terrible to be chasing down in a climate where live music is trying to draw people out of the entertainment hotbeds we’ve built in our homes?
I’ve gotten sidetracked from this lineup announcement, which came out the other day from Sound of Liberation and hints toward Fall 2024 European tours for at least Fu Manchu, Monolord, Truckfighters, Greenleaf, Messa and Psychlona, but I like to keep an eye for how things evolve from year to year and for all I know, Keep it Low has been doing this every year for the last decade (happy 10th anniversary, by the way) and I’m just picking up on it now because, well, I’m kinda slow sometimes, but it stood out to me as something you might not see all the time. And maybe you like to make early travel arrangements. I know I do.
From social media:
KEEP IT LOW 2024 – ⚡️FIRST BAND ANNOUNCEMENT & TICKETS ON SALE!⚡️
Hey Keepers,
we are super excited to present you the first bands for next year’s edition of the Keep It Low festival!🔥
Please welcome:
FU MANCHU TRUCKFIGHTERS MONOLORD GREENLEAF MESSA WOLVENNEST PSYCHLONA APTERA DJIIN ZERRE HECKSPOILER MINDCRAWLER & MANY MORE!
Posted in Reviews on December 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Well, this is it. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do Monday and Tuesday, or just Monday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or the whole week next week or what. I don’t know. But while I figure it out — and not having this planned is kind of a novelty for me; something against my nature that I’m kind of forcing I think just to make myself uncomfortable — there are 10 more records to dig through today and it’s been a killer week. Yeah, that’s the other thing. Maybe it’s better to quit while I’m ahead.
I’ll kick it back and forth while writing today and getting the last of what I’d originally slated covered, then see how much I still have waiting to be covered. You can’t ever get everything. I keep learning that every year. But if I don’t do it Monday and Tuesday, it’ll either be last week of December or maybe second week of January, so it’s not long until the next one. Never is, I guess.
If this is it for now or not, thanks for reading. I hope you found music that has touched your life and/or made your day better.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
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David Eugene Edwards, Hyacinth
There are not a ton of surprises to behold in what’s positioned as a first solo studio offering from David Eugene Edwards, whose pedigree would be impressive enough if it only included either 16 Horsepower or Wovenhand but of course is singular in including both. But you don’t need surprises. Titled Hyacinth and issued through Sargent House, the voice, the presence, the sense of intimacy and grandiosity both accounted for as Edwards taps acoustic simplicity in “Bright Boy,” though even that is accompanied by the programmed electronics that provides backing through much of the included 11 tracks. Atop and within these expanses, Edwards broods poetic and explores atmospheres that are heavy in a different way from what Wovenhand has become, chasing tone or intensity. On Hyacinth, it’s more about the impact of the slow-rolling beat in “Celeste” and the blend of organic/inorganic than just how loud a part is or isn’t. Whether a solo career under his name will take the place of Wovenhand or coincide, I don’t know.
Whatever led Beastwars to decide it was time to do a covers EP, fine. No, really, it’s fine. It’s fine that it’s 32 minutes long. It’s fine that I’ve never heard The Gordons, or Julia Deans, or Superette, or The 3Ds or any of the other New Zealand-based artists the Wellington bashers are covering. It’s fine. It’s fine that it sounds different than 2019’s IV (review here). It should. It’s been nearly five years and Beastwars didn’t write these eight songs, though it seems safe to assume they did a fair bit of rearranging since it all sounds so much like Beastwars. But the reason it’s all fine is that when it’s over, whether I know the original version of “Waves” or the blues-turns-crushing “High and Lonely” originally by Nadia Reid, or not, when it’s all over, I’ve got over half an hour more recorded Beastwars music than I had before Tyranny of Distance showed up, and if you don’t consider that a win, you probably already stopped reading. That’s fine too. A sidestep for them in not being an epic landmark LP, and a chance for new ideas to flourish.
Because Messages From the Mothership stacks its longer songs (six-seven minutes) in the back half of its tracklisting, one might be tempted to say Sun Dial push further out as they go, but the truth is that ’60s pop-inflected three-minute opener “Echoes All Around” is pretty out there, and the penultimate “Saucer Noise” — the longest inclusion at 7:47 — is no less melodically present than the more structure-forward leadoff. The difference, principally, is a long stretch of keyboard, but that’s well within the UK outfit’s vintage-synth wheelhouse, and anyway, “Demagnitized” is essentially seven minutes of wobbly drone at the end of the record, so they get weirder, as prefaced in the early going by, well, the early going itself, but also “New Day,” which is more exploratory than the radio-friendly-but-won’t-be-on-the-radio harmonies of “Living for Today” and the duly shimmering strum of “Burning Bright.” This is familiar terrain for Sun Dial, but they approach it with a perspective that’s fresh and, in the title-track, a little bit funky to boot.
With rampant heavy blues and a Mk II Deep Purple boogie bent, Toulouse, France’s Fuzzy Grass present The Revenge of the Blue Nut, and there’s a story there but to be honest I’m not sure I want to know. The heavy ’70s persist as an influence — no surprise for a group who named their 2018 debut 1971 — and pieces like “I’m Alright” and “The Dreamer” feel at least in part informed by Graveyard‘s slow-soul-to-boogie-blowout methodology. Raw fuzz rolls out in 11-minute capper “Moonlight Shades” with a swinging nod that’s a highlight even after “Why You Stop Me” just before, and grows noisy, expansive, eventually furious as it approaches the end, coherent in the verse and cacophonous in just about everything else. But the rawness bolsters the character of the album in ways beyond enhancing the vintage-ist impression, and Fuzzy Grass unite decades of influences with vibrant shred and groove that’s welcoming even at its bluest.
If you go by the current of sizzling electronic pops deeper in the mix, even the outwardly quiet intro to Morne‘s Engraved with Pain is intense. The Boston-based crush-metallers have examined the world around them thoroughly ahead of this fifth full-length, and their disappointment is brutally brought to realization across four songs — “Engraved with Pain” (10:42), “Memories Like Stone” (10:48), “Wretched Empire” (7:45) and “Fire and Dust” (11:40) — written and executed with a dark mastery that goes beyond the weight of the guitar and bass and drums and gutturally shouted vocals to the aura around the music itself. Engraved with Pain makes the air around it feel heavier, basking in an individualized vision of metal that’s part Ministry, part Gojira, lots of Celtic Frost, progressive and bleak in kind — the kind of superlative and consuming listening experience that makes you wonder why you ever listen to anything else except that you’re also exhausted from it because Morne just gave you an existential flaying the likes of which you’ve not had in some time. Artistry. Don’t be shocked when it’s on my ‘best of the year’ list in a couple weeks. I might just go to a store and buy the CD.
Don’t tell the swingin’-dick Western swag of “Wounded,” but Appalooza are a metal band. To wit, The Shining Son, their very-dudely follow-up to 2021’s The Holy of Holies (review here) and second outing for Ripple Music. Opener “Pelican” has more in common with Sepultura than Kyuss, or Pelican for that matter. “Unbreakable” and “Wasted Land” both boast screams worthy of Devin Townsend, while the acoustic/electric urgency in “Wasted Land” and the tumultuous scope of the seven-plus-minute track recall some of Primordial‘s battle-aftermath mourning. “Groundhog Days” has an airy melody and is more decisively heavy rock, and the hypnotic post-doom apparent-murder-balladry of “Killing Maria” answers that at the album’s close, and “Framed” hits heavy blues à la a missed outfit like Dwellers, but even in “Sunburn” there’s an immediacy to the rhythm between the guitar and percussion, and though they’re not necessarily always aggressive in their delivery, nor do they want to be. Metal they are, if only under the surface, and that, coupled with the care they put into their songwriting, makes The Shining Son stand out all the more in an ever-crowded Euro underground.
An invitation to chill the beans delivered to your ears courtesy of Irish cosmic jammers Space Shepherds as two longform jams. “Wading Through the Infinite Sea” nestles into a funky groove and spends who-even-cares-how-much-time of its total 27 minutes vibing out with noodling guitar and a steady, languid, periodically funk-leaning flow. I don’t know if it was made up on the spot, but it sure sounds like it was, and though the drums get a little restless as keys and guitar keep dreaming, the elements gradually align and push toward and through denser clouds of dust and gas on their way to being suns, a returning lick at the end looking slightly in the direction of Elder but after nearly half an hour it belongs to no one so much as Space Shepherds themselves. ‘Side B,’ as it were, is “Void Hurler” (18:41), which is more active early around circles being drawn on the snare, and it has a crescendo and a synthy finish, but is ultimately more about the exploration and little moments along the way like the drums decided to add a bit of push to what might’ve otherwise been the comedown, or the fuzz buzzing amid the drone circa 10 minutes in. You can sit and listen and follow each waveform on its journey or you can relax and let the whole thing carry you. No wrong answer for jams this engaging.
Young Chilean four-piece Rey Mosca — the lineup of Josué Campos, Valentín Pérez, Damián Arros and Rafael Álvarez — hold a spaciousness in reserve for the midsection of teh seven-minute “Sol del Tiempo,” which is the third of the three songs included in their live-recorded Volumen! Sesion AMB EP. A ready hint is dropped of a switch in methodology since both “Psychodoom” and ” Perdiendo el Control” are under two minutes long. Crust around the edge of the riff greets the listener with “Psychodoom,” which spends about a third of its 90 seconds on its intro and so is barely started by the time it’s over. Awesome. “Perdiendo el Control” is quicker into its verse and quicker generally and gets brasher in its second half with some hardcore shout-alongs, but it too is there and gone, where “Sol del Tiempo” is more patient from the outset, flirting with ’90s noise crunch in its finish but finding a path through a developing interpretation of psychedelic doom en route. I don’t know if “Sol del Tiempo” would fit on a 7″, but it might be worth a shot as Rey Mosca serve notice of their potential hopefully to flourish.
Principally engaged in the consumption and expulsion of expectations, Fawn Limbs and Nadja — experimentalists from Finland and Germany-via-Canada, respectively — drone as one might think in opener “Isomerich,” and in the subsequent “Black Body Radiation” and “Cascading Entropy,” they give Primitive Man, The Body or any other extremely violent, doom-derived bludgeoners you want to name a run for their money in terms of sheer noisy assault. Somebody’s been reading about exoplanets, as the drone/harsh noise pairing “Redshifted” and “Blueshifted” (look it up, it’s super cool) reset the aural trebuchet for its next launch, the latter growing caustic on the way, ahead of “Distilled in Observance” renewing the punishment in earnest. And it is earnest. They mean every second of it as Fawn Limbs and Nadja grind souls to powder with all-or-nothing fury, dropping overwhelming drive to round out “Distilled in Observance” before the 11-minute “Metastable Ion Decay” bursts out from the chest of its intro drone to devour everybody on the ship except Sigourney Weaver. I’m not lying to you — this is ferocious. You might think you’re up for it. One sure way to find out, but you should know you’re being tested.
Do they pilot, a-pilot, do they the dune? Probably. Regardless, German heavy rockers Dune Pilot offer their third full-length and first for Argonauta Records in the 11-song Magnetic, taking cues from modern fuzz in the vein of Truckfighters for “Visions” after the opening title-track sets the mood and establishes the mostly-dry sound of the vocals as they cut through the guitar and bass tones. A push of voice becomes a defining feature of Magnetic, which isn’t such a departure from 2018’s Lucy, though the rush of “Next to the Liquor Store” and the breadth in the fuzz of “Highest Bid” and the largesse of the nod in “Let You Down” assure that Dune Pilot don’t come close to wearing down their welcome in the 46 minutes, cuts like the bluesy “So Mad” and the big-chorus ideology of “Heap of Shards” coexisting drawn together by the vitality of the performances behind them as well as the surety of their craft. It is heavy rock that feels specifically geared toward the lovers thereof.
