Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Neurosis will release a special limited anniversary boxed set called Strength and Vision, compiling their 11 albums on LP and CD. Preorders are available now from Neurot Recordings, which will have the release out in April, following the now-three anniversary shows the band will play in March in San Francisco. The box, aside from being gorgeous and among the wiser investments I can think of for any given $275 you might have laying around, gives a staggering look at the career of one the most influential, if not the most influential, heavy bands of the last 30 years, and truly looks to be one of a kind. Couldn’t be more fitting.
As previously announced, Neurosis enter the studio on Dec. 27 to begin recording their next full-length with longtime-producer Steve Albini. Should be interesting to see how they time that release with this one.
The band had the story like this:
NEUROSIS KICKS OFF 30TH YEAR WITH LIMITED EDITION STRENGTH & VISION BOXED SET, PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE NOW
At the beginning of our 30th year as a band, it is our great pleasure to announce STRENGTH & VISION: a limited-edition boxed set of three-decades of our sonic experimentation and steadfast commitment to underground music. We offer this to you — our friends, family, fans and fellow sonic travelers. It is a rare look back at all we have accomplished together.
STRENGTH & VISION is the definitive collection of every NEUROSIS release, limited to 1,300 pieces worldwide. Each high quality box features a magnetic clasp, which allows you to retrieve each record without having to remove the box from a shelf.
Included in STRENGTH & VISION: ALL 11 studio records on 3 LPs and 8 2xLPs LP sleeves with newly adapted designs 106-page book with all original artworks, lyric booklets etc ALL albums on 11 CDs inside the book 1 exclusive Neurosis Strength & Vision embroidered patch 1 exclusive hand-printed poster 1 certificate of authenticity
Full list of albums included: Pain of Mind The Word as Law Souls at Zero Enemy of the Sun Through Silver in Blood Times of Grace Sovereign A Sun That Never Sets The Eye of Every Storm Given to the Rising Honor Found in Decay
Pre-orders are now available through the Neurot Recordings Store. Shipping date for the STRENGTH & VISION boxed set is early April 2016.
NEUROSIS Tour Dates: 3/04/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA w/ Sleep [SOLD OUT] 3/05/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA w/ Shellac [SOLD OUT] 3/06/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA w/ Converge, Negative Approach 4/15/2016 Hat Patronaat – Tilburg, NL *STEVE VON TILL and SCOTT KELLY solo performances 4/16/2016 013 – Tilburg, NL 4/17/2016 013 – Tilburg, NL 8/11/2016 Festa Radio Onda D’Urto – Brescia, IT 8/13/2016 Oya Festival – Oslo, NO 8/20/2016 Motocultor Festival – St. Nolff, FR 8/21/2016 Amplifest – Porto, PT
Posted in Features on December 18th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Please note: This list is not culled in any way from the Readers Poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t yet contributed your favorites of 2015 to that, please do.
—
I’ll note right away that this list started out as a top 10. When it came to it, it didn’t seem fair to cut it off. Too much left out. It gets to a point where you look at your list of honorable mentions and it’s like three times as long as your list itself and you realize maybe you should up the numbers and give a few more records their due. So yeah, a top 20 it is.
The temptation with a list like this, especially since it’s dealing with bands working on their first full-length albums (EPs are counted separately), is to think of it as indicative of future movement overall, to try and measure some overarching trend from some of the best outings of the year. I’m not sure that’s a fair approach either to the bands who made these records or to everyone else who might come after, but if we step back and look at what’s presented in the list below, we see veterans resurfacing in new incarnations, new, young groups coming together with classic ideologies, a bit of heavy extremity, psych melding with pop, heavy rock going prog and much more.
What all that tells me is that notions like “underground” and “heavy,” these vague terms that get applied so liberally, are constantly expanding. Whatever their individual sound might be, these bands all pushed ahead an overarching stylistic progression in whatever they’re doing, and like the best of debut albums, they held promise for further growth beyond this already impressive output. It’s less about which seems like an immediate landmark, touchstone, whatever, than it is about what sets up and effectively begins that development going forward, though striking a chord in the present never hurts either.
To that end, here we go:
The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 Debut Albums of 2015
1. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
2. Death Alley, Black Magick Boogieland
3. Cigale, Cigale
4. Kind, Rocket Science
5. Fogg, High Testament
6. Crypt Sermon, Out of the Garden
7. CHRCH, Unanswered Hymns
8. With the Dead, With the Dead
9. Demon Head, Ride the Wilderness
10. Sacri Monti, Sacri Monti
11. Stars that Move, Stars that Move
12. Chiefs, Tomorrow’s Over
13. Sunder, Sunder
14. Ecstatic Vision, Sonic Praise
15. Bison Machine, Hoarfrost
16. Serial Hawk, Searching for Light
17. Cloud Catcher, Enlightened Beyond Existence
18. Khemmis, Absolution
19. Sumac, The Deal
20. The Devil and the Almighty Blues, The Devil and the Almighty Blues
Honorable Mention
By way of honorable mentions, first I have to give a nod to Foehammer‘s self-titled debut EP, which would be on this list probably in the top five if not the top three were it not for the fact that, as noted, it’s an EP. Its list will come. The 2015 release of Horsehunter‘s self-titled on Magnetic Eye was killer as well, but since the album initially came out in 2014, it didn’t seem fair to include it in the list proper.
Releases from Killer Boogie, Snowy Dunes, Sweat Lodge, Planes of Satori, DoctoR DooM, Lasers from Atlantis and Lords of Beacon House (I heard the EP, not the LP) also provided thrills a-plenty, and while I recognize that sounds like sarcasm, please rest assured it’s not. I’m sure there are others, and as always, I reserve the right to tweak mentions and numbers over the next however many days, weeks, years, etc.
Notes
There wasn’t much mystery to this one for me. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth held onto that top spot for most of the year, and it seemed like no matter what came along, the wall of sound that Tad Doyle and company built on that record simply would not be torn down. As oppressive in tone as it is in atmosphere, it was a long-awaited debut that produced devastating results the ripples from which I expect will continue to resonate well into 2016 and beyond.
Brothers of the Sonic Cloth is one example of a veteran presence finding a new home, as several did this year. See also, Sumac with former members of Isis, Ecstatic Vision with players from A Life Once Lost, With the Dead with members of Cathedral and Ramesses coming together for the first time, Kind drawing its lineup from the likes of Roadsaw, Milligram, Rozamov and Elder, and even groups like Sunder, who previously released an album together under the moniker The Socks before abandoning that project in favor of the current one, as well as Sacri Monti, with a member from Radio Moscow in tow, Cigale, who had two members from Sungrazer, Stars that Move which sprang from Starchild, and Death Alley with members of Mühr, Gewapend Beton and The Devil’s Blood showcased how one band flows out of another and out of another, and so on.
That Death Alley debut had charm worthy of its title — which was also my favorite of the year — and showed the potential of that band to set up a real stylistic range going forward. I hope they continue to expand, get a little weird and freaked out and keep that core of songwriting and forward drive that makes Black Magick Boogieland so propulsive. For new bands, Cigale‘s self-titled was beautiful, but would later become tinged with tragedy following the death of guitarist/vocalist Rutger Smeets earlier this year. Not to mention friends and family, his is a significant loss for European psychedelia as a whole, and while that was inarguably one of the low points of 2015, the album itself remains a gorgeous statement.
Young acts like Fogg, Demon Head, Bison Machine, Sunder, Cloud Catcher and even Sacri Monti showcased varied takes on classic heavy, some more into boogie and jams and some looking for something a little rougher edged. Cloud Catcher‘s progressive take was a particularly pleasant surprise, while Sunder‘s psychedelia teemed with melody and a cohesive presence born out of what could’ve been unhinged otherwise. Between these, the heavy riffing of The Devil and the Almighty Blues and Serial Hawk, the formative fuzz of Chiefs, the resonant doom of Khemmis and the righteous traditionalism of Crypt Sermon, the notion of genres and subgenres as an ever-expanding universe seemed to be playing out on a weekly basis.
This, invariably, leads to new extremes, which in turn brings me to CHRCH. Like Foehammer, whose EP is in honorable mentions, the Unanswered Hymns long-player from CHRCH was a bright spot especially for how little light it seemed to let escape its abyssal grasp. They’re an easy bet for a band to catch on because they’ve garnered a formidable response already, but what sticks out to me most about them is the sense of pushing established parameters into fresh territory. What they’ll do in the months and years to come of course remains to be seen — they could break up tomorrow; it happens — but where a group like Primitive Man are almost singularly based on extremity of pummel and brutality (not to take away from them), CHRCH have the space in their sound for a multi-faceted progression, and that’s a huge part of what made Unanswered Hymns so encouraging.
—
I know there were many more debut LPs than these released this year, and even more debuts that were EPs and demos of note and things like that. The reason I single out debut albums for a list is because it’s among the most pivotal offerings a band can make. You’ll never get to release a second debut record. Some bands never live theirs down, some never attain quite the same level again and struggle with it for decades. Either way, it’s no small thing to get a group together and bring it to the point of putting out a first long-player, and that accomplishment in itself, regardless of the results, is worth highlighting.
No doubt I’ve left a few excellent offerings out. I hope you’ll let me know in the comments what debut albums landed hardest with you in 2015. In any case, thanks for reading.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 17th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
It’s an Xmas miracle. Long enough in discussion that it was included in the 2015 Most Anticipated Albums list back in January, the new full-length from Neurosis is soon to be recorded by the band’s longtime producer, Steve Albini, at Electrical Audio in Chicago. Neurosis are famous for tracking albums more or less live, so I wouldn’t expect it to be a lengthy process, and since they’ll invariably be putting it out themselves through Neurot Recordings, there shouldn’t be too much of a gestation period once it’s completed. A March/April release seems like a fair estimate, barring disaster.
The band, who’ll be releasing their next LP as the follow-up to 2012’s Honor Found in Decay (review here), have announced further European live appearances to coincide with their special 30th anniversary shows, which will be celebrated in San Francisco with support from Sleep and Shellac (Albini features in the latter), and at Roadburn 2016 in the Netherlands.
Here’s the latest from the PR wire:
Neurosis enter the studio to record a new album, plus further European shows announced for 2016
Neurosis have confirmed that they shall be entering Electrical Audio Studio again with Steve Albini on 27th December to record a brand new album, their follow up to 2012’s Honor Found In Decay, we eagerly await the results and will follow up with more news early in the new year.
The band have revealed news of more live shows in 2016, this follows shortly after the recent announcement regarding their very special 30 year anniversary performances at Roadburn Festival in The Netherlands, and in San Francisco. All dates are listed below.
Neurosis live Dates: 04/03/2016 – CA, San Francisco – Regency Ballroom – 30th Anniversary Performance *SOLD OUT 05/03/2016 – CA, San Francisco – Regency Ballroom – 30th Anniversary Performance *SOLD OUT 15/04/2015 – NL, Tilburg – Hat Patronaat *STEVE VON TILL and SCOTT KELLY solo performances 16/04/2016 – NL, Tilburg 013 – Roadburn Festival – 30th Anniversary Performance 17/04/2016 – NL, Tilburg 013 – Roadburn Festival – 30th Anniversary Performance 11.08.2016 – IT, Brescia – Festa Radio Onda D’Urto 13.08.2016 – NO, Oslo – Oya Festival 20.08.2016 – FR, St. Nolff – Motocultor Festival 21.08.2016 – PT, Porto – Amplifest
There will be plenty more Neurosis news to report early in 2016 as they continue to mark this monumental milestone.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 3rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Converge playing a doom set assisted by Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Chisholm, Stephen Brodsky and Steve Von Till? After they already played their massively influential Jane Doe album in its entirety for the first time ever? Yeah, that sounds about right for Roadburn. How the fest continues to come up with this stuff year after year is beyond me, but Roadburn 2016 is proving as cornucopia-esque as ever, and there’s still a long time to go before April gets here.
I’ll confess, I’m even more stoked at the thought of Brothers of the Sonic Cloth being added. I missed them when they came through on tour with Neurosis — I should put together a top 20 list of awesome shows I didn’t go to this year because of work and then shoot myself in the fucking face — and they were on my Roadburn 2016 wishlist even before that. An obvious pick, maybe, but necessary in the extreme.
Midnight have canceled, but I’m sure they’ll be replaced with something suitably chaotic, and included in the latest announcement is Black Mountain as well, word about which also came out the other day. Here’s news from the fest:
CONVERGE confirm two special sets for Roadburn 2016
CONVERGE confirm two special sets for Roadburn 2016
BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH, BLACK MOUNTAIN added to the bill
MIDNIGHT cancel European tour including Roadburn Festival
CONVERGE
To celebrate the upcoming 15 year anniversary of their legendary Jane Doealbum, CONVERGE will perform the album in its entirety for the first and last time. The album is considered a classic that defined the metallic hardcore genre as we know it today. This special set is exclusive to the Roadburn Festival and will not be played again anywhere, ever.
CONVERGE will play the Jane Doe album live in its entirety at Roadburn 2016 on Thursday, April 14.
CONVERGE “Blood Moon” is a collaboration between members Jacob Bannon, Kurt Ballou, Nate Newton, and Ben Koller and guest musicians Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Chisholm, Stephen Brodsky, and Steve Von Till. Together as a multi-instrumental group they will create renditions of existing CONVERGE material focusing on the band’s slower, more ambitious work within their legendary catalogue. CONVERGE “Blood Moon” will perform live at Roadburn 2016 on Saturday, April 16.
To find out more about CONVERGE at Roadburn, click HERE
BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH Hailing from Seattle, BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH might be a relatively recent name in our grand amphitheatre of heavy, but they have within their riffs the timeless stuff of greatness, the untraceable ingredient which permeates every band with the ability to quake your bones with the power of sound alone. It’s easy to understand why – the head of this brotherhood is none other than the mighty Tad Doyle, whom anyone over 30 and with a good record collection will instantly remember from the amazing TAD, one of the most metallic and crushing propositions to come out of the 90s Sub Pop wave.
The band has yet to play outside the United States, but they have been sharing stages with the likes of Neurosis and The Body, who will also both be present at Roadburn 2016 and who should give you a hint of what to expect from Tad and his cohorts when the moment finally comes.
To find out more about BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH click HERE
BLACK MOUNTAIN As we announced last week, five years after headlining the Afterburner, acclaimed Canadian psychedelic rock masters BLACK MOUNTAIN will return to Tilburg, Netherlands to perform at Roadburn 2016 at the 013 venue on Thursday April 14.
BLACK MOUNTAIN’s Stephen McBean comments “Roadburn is the teenage wet dream for heavy metal outcasts, the people, the party and of course, the riffs! Black Mountain can’t wait to turn up, turn on and get down with some future right on. Thank you for all the years of face melting!”
To find out more about BLACK MOUNTAIN at Roadburn, click HERE
MIDNIGHT – CANCELLATION It is with great sadness that we have to announce that MIDNIGHT will no longer be playing Roadburn 2016. The band have offered only this statement regarding their cancellation:
“Due to private reasons MIDNIGHT will not be able to play the already announced European tour in April 2016.”
We have been working closely with MIDNIGHT’s European booking agency to see if there was a way around this, but unfortunately it seems there is not, as their entire European tour (club shows and festival appearances alike) for April 2016 have been cancelled.
We – like you – are very disappointed that Midnight won’t be playing the 2016 festival. But please pack your leather jackets, bulletbelts, and facemasks, because you’ll surely need them for the rock ‘n roll juggernaut that will step in as Midnight’s replacement, and which will be announced in due course. Speedfreaks be forewarned.
TICKETING INFORMATION
Tickets to Roadburn Festival 2016 are currently on sale. Three-day tickets are available for 165 Euros (excl. service fees); four-day tickets cost 185 Euros (excl. service fees). Sunday-only tickets cost 39 Euros (excl. service fees). Camping tickets are also available through Ticketmaster. A limited number of single day tickets for Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be announced in the coming weeks.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 23rd, 2015 by JJ Koczan
This news came through the other day, but now that tickets are on sale, I didn’t figure anyone would really mind a retread of the fact that Neurosis have added Sleep and Shellac as openers for their 30th anniversary shows next March in San Francisco. They’ll play two nights at the Regency Ballroom March 4 and 5, doing career-spanning sets that they’ll be taking overseas a month later to perform again at Roadburn 2016. Hard to imagine a career as landmark as theirs being summed up even in two nights, but no doubt that 30 years after the fact, Neurosis know what the hell they’re doing.
And they’re certainly keeping good company. The PR wire has it like this:
NEUROSIS Announces Sleep And Shellac As Support For San Francisco 30th Anniversary Shows; Tickets Go On Sale Tomorrow
NEUROSIS announces the details for the band’s upcoming stateside 30th anniversary performances set to take place in San Francisco this March, including the opening support acts and ticket links.
Passing their thirty-year mark this Winter, NEUROSIS will celebrate this milestone with two stateside performances on March 4th and 5th at San Francisco’s Regency Ballroom, and then two more sets on April 16th and 17th headlining Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands. At these four very special performances, NEUROSIS will deliver a massive two-hour set list, invoking material spanning their entire recorded lineage, from 1987’s Pain Of Mind through 2012’s Honor Found In Decay, with varied set lists at each event. These sets will span the band’s entire career, showcasing the comprehensive evolution, from their primitive beginnings into the seminal, epic outfit of today, as the band’s ever evolving, sonic palette has become a genre-defying template for underground music over the last three decades, avoiding genre classification.
Support for NEUROSIS on Friday, March 4th will be provided by longtime Bay Area comrades and masters of the sonic doom riff, Sleep. Support for Saturday, March 5th will be handled by Steve Albini’s minimalist rock outfit, Shellac, also longtime friends of NEUROSIS through Albini’s involvement in helping capture much of the band’s recorded material since before the turn of the millennium.
Tickets to all of NEUROSIS’ San Francisco and Netherlands 30th Anniversary shows go on sale, Friday, November 20th, at Noon Pacific.
NEUROSIS 30th Anniversary Performances: 3/04/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA 3/05/2016 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA 4/15/2015 Hat Patronaat – Roadburn, Tilburg, NL *STEVE VON TILL and SCOTT KELLY solo performances 4/16/2016 013 – Roadburn, Tilburg, NL 4/17/2016 013 – Roadburn, Tilburg, NL
Posted in Reviews on November 13th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
It had been a few days since I’d gone outside. Seriously. In Chicago for a work trip, I’d been holed up either at the conference I was in town for or the hotel immediately adjacent to it. Dinner had been ordered in three nights in a row, and I’d gone precisely nowhere since arriving in the city on Sunday. Not healthy. Not living right. In the end, it was the phone call from hotel security — checking on the wellness of the room’s occupant, since housekeeping hadn’t been allowed to clean in more than 48 hours — that shamed me into leaving to see Corrections House bandmates Scott Kelly (also Neurosis) and Bruce Lamont (also Yakuza and Bloodiest). Shame sometimes does the trick.
As it happened, they were playing a different hotel, the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, in a space carved out as the “Drawing Room” and decorated in what I can only describe as man-bun living room chic; dimly lit (as the pictures I got will attest — god damn I need a new camera), all things made to look old and comfortable, leather-bound everything, like the Harvard club where people go to talk about how their new app is going to do away with various plights of inequality. “Gamechanging” modern design by making it look like a slavemaster’s parlor. I’m sure it was all very expensive. It looked very expensive. Strange setting for a show.
Not to say that with Misters Kelly and Lamont both playing solo sets — they shared a guitar — it should’ve been in a dive bar. The chair I sat in was perfectly comfortable. It was the second night of the Kelly/Lamont tour, which may or may not be taking the place of a full Corrections House run to support that group’s new album, Know How to Carry a Whip, out on Neurot Recordings, and the plan seemed to be in order: Lamont would play first, Kelly second, and then they’d play together. Not a method entirely dissimilar from the first time I saw Corrections House early in 2013 (review here), but obviously a different sonic context without Sanford Parker‘s beats — likely on his way to the West Coast with Buried at Sea — and without Mike Williams of Eyehategod‘s semi-spoken drug poetics. Worth it to say that nothing felt overly like it was missing once the show got started.
Part of that is probably thanks to Lamont‘s kitchen-sink experimental approach. Surrounded by his saxophone, clarinet, the guitar he was sharing with Kelly, at least two vocal mics and sundry other processors, pedals and effects, he was able to create a wash of droning noise all on his own. Lamont‘s solo album, 2011’s Feral Songs for the Epic Decline, was the basis for some of the performance, but much of what he did was manipulated, echoed, spaced out, and layered into something new. I know Bloodiest have a new full-length coming at the start of 2016 via Relapse, but if Lamont hasn’t considered recording a follow-up solo outing live and putting it out even in limited numbers through War Crime Recordings, his label co-owned by Sanford Parker, he probably should. Some of the most affecting moments came as he tilted his head back and let loose a soulful howl that reminded me of some of the spaciousness he was able to conjure in Yakuza, but the whole set was saturated with creativity and Lamont‘s sense of controlling the chaos was palpable.
The switch to bringing out Scott Kelly was done via an extended saxo-drone and a wave of the hand. Both mics were already set up, and so Kelly came out from the crowd and picked up the guitar. There were a couple songs he played I didn’t recognize — maybe new, maybe covers I couldn’t identify — but his meditative takes on the works of Townes van Zandt are always welcome. He did “Tecumseh Valley” early in the set, but the highlights were cuts from his 2012 Scott Kelly and the Road Home album, The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here). I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for “The Field that Surrounds Me,” but “The Sun is Dreaming in the Soul” did just fine, and particularly following “The Ladder in My Blood” from 2008’s solo album, The Wake. “We Let the Hell Come” provided an intense finish to his solo portion — Kelly rocking back and forth behind the mic in a less neck-dislocating fashion than he might on stage with Neurosis, but definitely with a similar rhythmic sensibility — arriving at its title line after gravel-throated incantations for which he backed off the mic about a foot but that still came through clear in their intent and vision.
A similar wave brought Lamont back to the front. Together Kelly and Lamont offered renditions of Townes Van Zandt‘s “The Rake” and Neil Young‘s “Cortez the Killer,” before finishing off with the Corrections House track “Run through the Night,” taken from their 2013 debut, Last City Zero. Standing side-by-side, Kelly‘s guitar and Lamont‘s sax cast a Morricone-style spell over the room, a hard strum spacious with both adding vocals until Lamont, having layered backing “ooh”s, created a sufficient wash and apex that seemed to swell one voice at a time until appropriately consuming. The studio version of that song gets pretty noisy, but live, it was more melodic, and when Kelly got back on mic to whisper out the last few lines, the multi-layer barrage he cut through made it plain that nothing else would follow. They cut out together and the show was over with a quick plug for merch, which had been placed on a table behind them while they played.
It was raining outside when they were done, so I took a quick cab back to my temporary lair and tried to get a night’s sleep. No dice there, but I didn’t the least bit regret how the evening had been spent, whatever it took to get me out the door.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 26th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
As it happens, I’m slated to be in Chicago for work the night that Corrections House bandmates Scott Kelly (also Neurosis) and Bruce Lamont (also Yakuza) play the second night of their upcoming solo-set tours. I wouldn’t mind seeing Lamont in front of a hometown crowd, and I’d presume that with Corrections House‘s new album, Know How to Carry a Whip, newly released, a decent portion of what they play when they get together on stage will be drawn, one way or another, from that. Plus, it’s Chicago, so Sanford Parker might be there. Sounds like a good time to me.
Should probably see if I’m actually going to be there before I start solidifying plans, but either way, this one seems like a win:
Neurosis’ SCOTT KELLY And Yakuza’s BRUCE LAMONT Join Forces For November Tour Run
Neurosis’ SCOTT KELLY and Yakuza’s BRUCE LAMONT will join forces later this Fall for a special stretch of US live dates. Set to commence November 10th in Detroit, Michigan, the pair will traverse eleven cities, with the trek coming to a close on November 21st in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both Kelly and Lamont will be performing material from their respective solo projects as well as tunes from CORRECTIONS HOUSE.
SCOTT KELLY/BRUCE LAMONT: 11/10/2015 Majestic Café – Detroit, MI 11/11/2015 Drawing Room @ The Chicago Athletic Club – Chicago, IL 11/12/2015 Double Happiness – Columbus, OH 11/13/2015 The Acheron – Brooklyn, NY 11/14/2015 Gorman Bros. Music – Syracuse, NY 11/15/2015 Middle East (upstairs) – Boston, MA 11/17/2015 Kung Fu Necktie (late show) – Philadelphia, PA 11/18/2015 Ottobar- Baltimore, MD 11/19/2015 The Funhouse – Jersey City, NJ 11/20/2015 Alternative Gallery – Allentown, PA 11/21/2015 Smiling Moose (late show) – Pittsburgh, PA
SCOTT KELLY (Neurosis, Corrections House) will deliver his signature hymns of pain, reflection and redemption with tracks off his solo outings — the bleakly atmospheric Spirit Bound Flesh and starkly minimalist The Wake as well as The Forgiven Ghost In Me album, released in 2012 under the moniker SCOTT KELLY AND THE ROAD HOME and tunes from the moving Songs Of Townes Van Zandt collection. With a sound that’s at once soulful, morose and healing few artists can manifest with such devout sincerity, when KELLY sits quietly, with his guitar, there’s rarely a dry eye in the room when he bows out at the end.
Multi-instrumentalist and vocal sorcerer BRUCE LAMONT (Yakuza, Corrections House, Led Zeppelin 2) has performed/collaborated with an array of artists throughout his storied career. On this run, Lamont will be performing versions of some of the material on his 2011-issued debut solo album Feral Songs For The Epic Decline as well as newer/unreleased material. As with his previous solo outings, LAMONT will be executing multiple instruments and a plethora of vocal styles, with an incredibly layered looping system that culminates into some of the most entrancing live solo artist work one could ask for.
In addition, both KELLY and LAMONT will unite each evening following their respective sets to deafen the masses with renditions of various CORRECTIONS HOUSE hymns. CORRECTIONS HOUSE – which features within its ranks KELLY, LAMONT, Sanford Parker (Buried At Sea), Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod) and recently institutionalized minister of propaganda, Seward Fairbury — unleashed their long-awaited sophomore full-length, Know How To Carry A Whip, TODAY via Neurot Recordings. A nine-track, forty-five-minute exercise in sonic indecency, the record was captured by Parker alongside Fairbury in a subterranean bunker complex in Vietnam and dispels a disconcerting air of danger, paranoia and looming defeat marked by an inexplicable sense of catharsis.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 6th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
What’s that you say? Only posting Ufomammut dates as an excuse to nerd out over the Malleus poster, marvel at the thought of seeing them play with Suma and pine about how good they were when I saw them in Brooklyn this past May? I resent the suggestion! Okay, no I don’t, but (1:) that poster is frickin’ rad, and “rad” isn’t a word I break out every day, and (2:) they were so gosh darn good this Spring that I feel like even though it was two seasons ago my ears are still ringing from it. They just completely out-doomed the room. And it was a pretty doomy room.
Awesome. Two needless rhymes in one paragraph. Calling it now — this is the post of the day.
Point is…. that Ufomammut continue to support their 2015 cosmos-basher Ecate (review here), which was released through Neurot Recordings, and that doing so only continues to make them stronger, like the Quickening, except instead of cutting someone’s head off, you put in grueling hours of work and waiting on tour and play for like 80 minutes and then get back to selling merch. So maybe not the Quickening. Did I mention how good they were in May?
The PR wire saves my rambling ass:
Ufomammut on the road in support of their latest album Ecate
Italy’s psychedelic doom masters, Ufomammut, are currently touring in support of their latest album Ecate. On the road for the whole of October, the band have already visited France and shall be performing in the UK and Ireland this week before heading to the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and more.
The majestic trio are known to put on a mind-bending live show, with their skilled interlacing of heavy textures, hypnotic tones and striking visual imagery. Such elements build upon each other, until they forge an all-consuming universe for the listener to lose themselves in. Ecate truly showcases Ufomammut’s mesmerising ability to do this. Here are the remaining tour dates:-
UFOMAMMUT ECATE TOUR
OCTOBER 05. Audio – Glasgow (UK) 06. Voodoo – Belfast (UK) 07. Grand Social – Dublin (IRL) 08. Soup Kitchen – Manchester (UK) 09. Islington Academy – London (UK) w/ Jex Thoth 10. Baroeg – Rotterdam (NL) 11. Desert Fest – Antwerp (BE) 13. Loppen – Copenhagen (DK) w/ Suma 14. SofieHof – Jonkoping (SWE) w/ Suma 16. Korjaamo – Helsinki (FIN) w/ Suma 17. Lutakko – Jyväskylä (FIN) w/ Suma 18. Klubi – Tampere (FIN) w/ Suma 20. Geronimo’s – Stockholm (SWE) w/ Suma 21. Blitz – Oslo (NOR) w/ Suma 22. Babel – Malmö (SWE) w/ Suma 23. Marx – Hamburg (DE) 24. Into the Void – Leuwaarden (NL) 25. Underground – Cologne (DE) 27. Bi Nuu – Berlin (DE) 28. Firley – Wroclaw (PL) 29. Ut connewitz – Leipzig (DE) 31. Bauhof – Pettenbach (A)
DECEMBER 11. Traffic – Roma (IT) 12. Alchemica Club – Bologna (IT)
This tour comes on the back of a great year for the band. Following Ecate’s spring release, which was brought to you by Neurosis’ Neurot Recordings, in conjunction with the band’s own Supernatural Cat Records, the band toured Europe which included appearances at both of this year’s Desertfest events in London and Berlin. Not to be stopped, the band then embarked on their first North American tour which saw their debut at Maryland Deathfest.
Orders for Ecate including limited edition vinyl, CD, shirt, and bundle deals are available. In North America stop by the Neurot Recordings store and internationally click to Supernatural Cat’s store.
Not to say that with Misters Kelly and Lamont both playing solo sets — they shared a guitar — it should’ve been in a dive bar. The chair I sat in was perfectly comfortable. It was the second night of the Kelly/Lamont tour, which may or may not be taking the place of a full Corrections House run to support that group’s new album, Know How to Carry a Whip, out on Neurot Recordings, and the plan seemed to be in order: Lamont would play first, Kelly second, and then they’d play together. Not a method entirely dissimilar from the first time I saw Corrections House early in 2013 (
