Posted in Whathaveyou on February 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In 2001, the three members of Buenos Aires heavy rockers Los Natas released their self-titled debut as Santoro, collaborating with frontman Jose “El Topo” Armetta, known for his work in the more metallic/aggressive Demonauta and Massacre. I guess after the record, both parties — the trio and Armetta — went back about their business, but there was a second album started in 2005, and now that’s been released as a five-songer EP called Delta Krieg Commando that hints at where the sophomore outing might’ve gone had it been completed.
It’s special to hear now in no small part because Los Natas seem to be the last band who ever existed not reuniting (even The Beatles put a song out last year), and so having Sergio Chotsourian, Walter Broide and Gonzalo Villagra together on a yet-unheard recording — even one that so raw — is welcome. After this, Chotsourian — now of solo work, Ararat, Soldati, BRNO, South American Sludge Records and various other projects and collabs — and Armetta would work together in the nascent, post-metallic outfit Venosidad (this post from 2009 links to their MySpace; fun), but at least nothing was ever made public. Who knows, maybe there are more CDRs in whichever box Sergio found these. Life’s short and mostly miserable. You gotta take what you can get.
And of course it hasn’t been that long since Chotsourian‘s latest solo release as Sergio Ch., as the single “Shesus Christ” (posted here) arrived in December. I’d point out that he’s working on new songs, but why even? He’s always working on new songs. That’s how you do this. Constantly.
Hail South American heavy:
new release! santoro ep “delta krieg commando” recorded circa 2005 3 unreleased songs + 2 songs in their original master cut
it was meant to be santoro’s second album, but never [finished]. i finally undusted the cdr master tapes and blew it out. los natas + el topo (local metal legend from bands massacre and dragonauta).
1. El Rey Del Miedo 05:35 2. the Warrior 03:25 3. Pompeya Drag Queen 05:33 4. Barridos Por El Viento 04:16 5. El Collar Del Perro 06:13
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Patricio Claypole at Estudio el Attic. Artwork by Sergio Ch. Produced by Patricio Claypole. South American Sludge Records.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Maybe I’m crazy, but with the headphones on and Sergio Chotsourian backing his own strum with a bit of keyboard to anchor the measures of the song, I get just a little bit of the Rolling Stones in “Shesus Christ.” Not enough to be a defining feature or some such, but I’m not sure that’s something I’ve ever encountered in his output before. At this point, expecting anyone other than Chotsourian to define his own work — the odd cover aside — would be a misstep as regards the Buenos Aires-based figurehead of South American heavy, whose tenure in Los Natas helped unfurl a generation of other acts and whose solo output has grown into a stylistically open interpretation of emotional and atmospheric ideas that still, somehow, you can get away with calling folk.
One never knows quite what to expect — and at the risk of repeating myself, that’s the fun of it — and in part for that, and in part because he does what he does, Chotsourian is someone for whom and for whose work I have a deep respect. Obviously I came to the catalog through Los Natas, but that’s the beginning of a world waiting to be explored, and he’s only grown more adventurous in sound since that band was laid to rest. He’s also busy as well. Soldati have a recent collection I’m pretty sure. There’s always a steady stream of Natas reissues — even capitalism has its upsides — and Ararat are back at it as well. All this concurrent to solo stuff makes Chotsourian a singular figure in the heavy underground the world over. It’s not just about being prolific, or having longevity, or trying different styles. It’s all of that and the will behind the creative growth that I find inspirational.
The song is at the bottom of this post, both the Bandcamp stream from which you might be inclined to launch your own excursion into the Sergio Ch.-sphere, and the video that was put together by the man himself. Because after everything else, of course.
Please enjoy:
SERGIO CH. – SHESUS CHRIST [S.A.S. 128]
SERGIO CH. – GUITARRA, KEYS & VOCALS
GRABADO, MEZCLADO Y MASTERIZADO EN DEATH STUDIOS POR SERGIO CH. ARTWORK POR SERGIO CH. PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Ever prolific and experimental, Sergio Chotsourian — aka Sergio Ch., as I know you know — will digitally release his latest solo album, The Red Rooster, on Oct. 14 through Spotify, Bandcamp, etc. That’s next week, which I also know you know. Vinyl is set to follow for the nine-tracker early next year in continued collaboration with Interstellar Smoke Records, and of course Chotsourian‘s own South American Sludge imprint has a hand in putting it out as well.
As, frankly, it should. You’ll note Chotsourian — who earlier this year surprised with an unexpected fourth Ararat album, Volumen 4 (review here), and whose pedigree includes not only that band and his solo work, but also Brno, Soldati and, once upon a time, South American desert rock trailblazers Los Natas — plays all the instruments on the song “El Manantial” that’s streaming below ahead of the new record’s release, and recorded it. Self-sufficiency is nothing new for him, either in terms of aesthetic or the practicalities of writing, performing and producing music.
“El Manantial” has a pretty bass-heavy sound that puts it in my mind in alliance with Ararat‘s general feel. I don’t think it’s a song that band has done, but it’s tempting to add a “yet” to that, since Chotsourian has certainly bled material over from one project to another, sometimes resulting in a completely different listening experience. I have said “why do I recognize this?” many times through the years. Generally, there’s a reason.
I’ve paid respect to Chotsourian‘s general ouevre over the last, I don’t know, 20 years now?, and no regrets, but I’ll note that especially as he’s opened new avenues for expression in solo work and collaborations, including those with his own family, his breadth as an artist has likewise flourished. One more thing I know you know: the same cannot be said of everybody who was once signed to Man’s Ruin. As an artist, he is unto himself.
So here’s a bit about the track and, of course, the track, which is why we’re here in the first place:
ADELANTO DEL NUEVO DISCO DE SERGIO CH. – “THE RED ROOSTER” GRABADO, MEZCLADO Y MASTERIZADO EN DEATH STUDIOS POR SERGIO CH. ARTWORK POR SERGIO CH. PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH.
Posted in Reviews on January 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Getting to the halfway point of a Quarterly Review is always something special. I’m not trying to say it’s a hardship reviewing 50 records in a week — if anything it’s a relief, despite the strain it seems to put on my interpersonal relationships; The Patient Mrs. hates it and I can’t really fault her for that since it does consume a fair amount of my brain while it’s ongoing — but some days it comes down to ‘do I shower or do I write’ and usually writing wins out. I’ll shower later. Probably. Hopefully.
But today we pass halfway through and there’s a lot of killer still to come, so plenty to look forward to either way. The day starts with an old favorite I’ve included here basically as a favor to myself. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Sergio Ch., La Danza de los Tóxicos
Comparatively speaking, La Danza de los Tóxicos is a pretty straightforward solo offering from Soldati/Ararat/ex-Los Natas frontman Sergio Chotsourian, whose ealrier-2021 full-length, Koi (review here), featured both of his children, one rapping and one joining him on vocals for a Nine Inch Nails cover. Perhaps it’s in reaction to that record that this one feels more traditionalist, with Chotsourian (aka Sergio Ch.) still finding 11 minutes to drone out instrumentalist style on closer “Thor Hammer” and to sample Scarface at the start of “Late Train,” but in his guy-and-guitar ethic, a lot of this material sounds like the roots of things to come — Chotsourian has shared songs between projects for years — while keeping a balance between exploratory vibe and traditional structures on pieces like “Skinny Ass,” “La Esquina” and “88.”
Coated in burl and aggressive presentation as well as the occasional metaphors about stellar phenomena and hints/flourish of Latin rhythm and percussion, Titanosaur‘s fourth long-player, Absence of Universe, sees multi-instrumentalist, producer and vocalist Geoff Saavedra engaging with aggressive tonality and riff construction as well as the various instabilities of the moment in which the album was put together. “Conspiracy” feels somewhat self-explanatory from a lyrical standpoint, and both opener “The Echo Chamber” and “Shut Off the Voices” feel born of the era in their theme, while “So Happy” seems like a more personal perspective on mental health. Whatever a given song’s subject throughout the nine-track/42-minute offering, Saavedra delivers with a heavy rock born out of ’90s metal such that the breakdown in “So Happy” feels natural when it hits, and the rush of finale “Needed Order” seems like an earned expulsion of the tension so much of the record prior has been building, incluing the chugging force of “I Will Live Forever” immediately prior.
Future Fossils would seem to take its name from the idea of bringing these tracks together in some effort toward conservation, to keep them from getting lost to time or obscurity amid the various other works and incarnations of Insect Ark. The first three songs are synth-only solo pieces by Dana Schechter, recorded in 2018, and the final piece, “Gravitrons,” is a 23-minute live improvisation by Schechter and then-drummer Ashley Spungin recorded in New York in 2016. The sense that these things might someday be “discovered” as one might unearth a fossil is fair enough — the minimalism of “Gypsum Blade” has space enough to hold whatever evocations one might place on it, and while “Anopsian Volta” feels grounded with a line of piano, opener “Oral Thrush” seems more decidedly cinematic. All this of course is grist for the mill of “Gravitrons,’ which is consuming unto itself in its ambience and rife with experimentalist purpose. Going in order to have gone. As ethics go, that one feels particularly worth preserving.
Sludge and grind come together on Denver trio Never Kenezzard‘s The Long and Grinding Road, and through what seems to be some modern metallurgical miracle, the album sounds neither like Carcass‘ Swansong nor Dopethrone. After the pummeling beginning of “Gravity” and “Genie,” the interlude “Praer” and the subequent channel-panning-screamer “Ra” expand an anti-genre take as bent on individuality of sound as they apparently are on clever wordplay. “Demon Wheel” has a genuine heavy rock thrust, and “Slowburn” and the looped clock noise of “11:59:59” provide buffers between the extended cuts “Seven Statues” (11:31) and “The Long and Grinding Road” (14:55) itself, which closes, but by then the three-piece have established a will and a way to go wherever they want and you can follow if you’re up for it. So are you? Probably. There’s some underlying current of Faith No More-style fuckery in the sound, something playful about the way Never Kenezzard push themselves into abrasion. You can tell they’re having fun, and that affects the listening experience throughout the purposefully unmanageable 57 minutes of the album.
There’s a thread of noise rock that runs throughout Godlike Supervision, the debut full-length from Munich-based four-piece The Kupa Pities, and it brings grit to both the early-Clutch riffing of lead cut “Anthology” and the later, fuzz-overdose “Queen Machine.” It’s not just about aggression, though there’s some of that, but of the band putting their own spin on the established tenets of Kyuss-style desert and Fu Manchu-style heavy rocks. “Black Hole” digs into the punkish roots of the former, while the starts-and-stops of “Dance Baby Dance” and the sheer push of the title-track hint toward the latter, even if they’re a little sharper around the edges than the penultimate “Surfing,” which feels like it was titled after what the band do with their own groove — they seem to ride it in expert fashion. So be it. “Black Hole” works in a bit of atmosphere and “Burning Man” caps with a fair-enough blowout at the finish, ending the album on a note not unfamiliar but indicative of the twists The Kupa Pities are working to bring to their influences.
A newcomer trio, London’s Warpstormer brings together guitarist Scott Black (Green Lung), drummer Matthew Folley and bassist/vocalist Richard J. Morgan (ex-Oak), and their aptly-titled first EP, 1, presents four bangers of unrepentantly brash heavy rock and roll, channeling perhaps some of earlier Orange Goblin‘s boozy-wrecking-crew vibes, but on “Ride the Bomb” digging into post-hardcore and metal as well, the abidingly aggro sense undercut by a quiet stretch holding its tension in the drums as well as the drunken quiet start of “Devourer,” which gets plenty bruising by its finish but is slower in procession certainly than were “Here Comes Hell” and “Storm Caller” at the outset. They’re in and out and done in 19 minutes, but as what otherwise might be a demo, 1 gives a look at where Warpstormer are coming from and would seem to herald future incursions to come. I’ll take it. The songs come across as feeling out where the band wants to be in terms of sound, but where they’re headed, they’re headed with due charge.
Génesis Negro perhaps loses something in the audio-only experience. To wit, while Ricardo Jiménez Gómez is responsible for all the music on the album, it’s the illustrations of Antonio Ramírez Collado, bringing together in Blake-esque style mysticism, anatomy, and ideas born of research into early Christian gnostics, that serve as the root from which that music is sprung. Instrumental in its entirety and including a reprint of the article that ties the visuals and audio together and was apparently the inspiration for exploring the subject to start with, its 43-minute run can obviously offer the listener a deeper dive than just the average collection of verse/chorus songs, and no doubt that’s the intention. Some pieces are minimal enough to barely be there at all, enough to emphasize every strum of a string, and others offer a distorted tonal weight that seems ready to interpret any number of psychedelic spiritual chaos processes. If you want to get weird, Ricardo Jiménez y Antonio Ramírez are way ahead of you. They might also be ahead of themselves, honestly, despite whatever temporal paradox that implies.
Tracks like “Leaves,” “Blood Boils Hot,” and “Thunder” still rock out a pretty heavy classic blues rock vibe, but Swedish outfit Children of the Sün — as the title Roots would imply in following-up their 2019 debut, Flowers (review here) — seem to dig deeper into atmospheric expression, emotive melodies and patience of craft in the 13-track/44-minute offering. From the the mellow noodling of “Reflection” at the start, a piano-led foreshadow for “Eden” later on, to the acoustic-till-it-ain’t “Man in the Moon” later on, the spirit of Roots feels somewhere between days gone by and days to come and therefore must be the present, strutting accordingly on “The Soul” and making a pure vocal showcase for Josefina Berglund Ekholm, on which she shines as one has come to expect. There are moments where the vocals feel disconnected from the instrumental portions of the songs, but where they go, they go organically.
Is that flute on “Planexit,” the opener and longest track (immediate points), on Planexit, the latest outing from London-based grunge-informed heavy rockers Desert Clouds? It could well be, and after the somewhat bleaker progression of the riffs prior, that escape into melody comes across as well-placed. The band are likewise unafraid to pull off atmospheric Nick Cave-style storytelling in “Wheelchair” and more broodingly progressive fare in “Deceivers,” leaving the relatively brief “Revolutionary Lies” to rest somewhere between Southern heavy, early ’90s melodicism and a modern production. Throughout the 45-minute LP, the band swap out various structural ideologies, and while I can’t help be immersed in the groove and bassline of “Deceivers,” the linear build and receding of the penultimate “Pearl Marmalade” feels no less essential to the impact of the record overall. Behold a band who have found their niche and set themselves to the task of refining its parameters. As ever, it works because songwriting and performance are both right on.
Comprised of Clement Pineau (drums, kamele n’goni, vocals, percussion), Idriss Besselievre (vocals, guitar, sanxian), Paul Adamczuk (bass/guitar, keyboard) and Margot GuilbertGondhawa bring forth a heavy psychedelic cultural sphere throughout the still-digestible six tracks and 37 minutes of Käampâla, with the French trio’s penchant for including instrumentation from Africa or Asia alongside the more traditional guitar, bass, drums, keys and vocals resulting in a lush but natural feeling psychedelia that seems to be all the more open for their readiness to jam outside whatever box expectation might put them in. The title-track feels like Mideastern prog, while the subsequent “Assid Bubu” shreds out an echoing lead over a slow-roller of a stoner-jam nod. Their willingness to dance is a strength, ultimately, and their inclusion of these arrangement elements, including percussion, comes across as more than dabbling in world music. They’re not the first to look beyond their effects pedals in manifesting psych rock, but there’s not a lot out there that sounds like this.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 15th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Amid a slew of others in the works, recent and forthcoming, across an ever-increasing range of projects, Buenos Aires-based experimentalist/heavy songwriter Sergio Chotsourian — aka Sergio Ch. — released his latest solo full-length, Koi (review here), in June through his own South American Sludge imprint. The album came out at the end of June, and already to coincide Chotsourian has produced five videos for its songs, with the gravelly “Lirium” — premiering below — as the sixth. To say the guy is in a productive period is to put it mildly, but over the last five or six years, that’s just kind of how it’s become for the former Los Natas frontman, whose work in Ararat, Soldati, with the label, and on his own has made him a staple and a figurehead of the Argentine and greater South American underground.
If you can keep up with his work, congratulations. I do my best in that regard, but after 25 years since the first Los Natas record, Chotsourian sets perhaps a more ambitious pace than ever. The clip for the closing track from Koi, a cover of Nine Inch Nails‘ “Hurt” featuring his daughter, Isabel Ch., came out just a couple weeks ago — his son Rafael features at the end of the prior song, “El Gran Chapparal,” as well; no video yet — and “Lirium” follows in a kind of visual meditation that’s fitting for the track’s descending piano line and throaty vocal, a folkish feel but richly atmospheric with backing drones adding an ethereal presence. That piano line is different when you actually listen, but it takes me back earliest Ararat, and I remember it being striking when 2009’s Musica de la Resistencia (review here) showed up with “Dos Horses,” so strikingly different from what would turn out to be the last Los Natas album, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (review here), despite arriving just a couple months later and sharing different interpretations of its songs.
Perhaps that’s emblematic of the ongoing creative conversation Chotsourian is having across with work with the various sides of his own process. He’s done plenty piano/synth/etc. since, of course, and songs show up on one solo record, then find their way morphed onto another, or redone as a Soldati or Ararat track, or wherever the whim suits. That lack of predictability makes his output more exciting to hear — again, for those who might be able to keep up — but it’s just as much the restlessness that is his own as well as any particular sonic element or interpretive method. The expressive need.
You’ll find “Lirium” premiering below. I’ve also included “Hurt” and the Bandcamp stream of Koi, for good measure.
Enjoy:
Sergio Ch., “Lirium” official video premiere
VIDEO OFICIAL DEL DISCO DE SERGIO CH. – “KOI” PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH. VIDEO REALIZADO POR SERGIO CH.
isabel & Sergio Ch., “Hurt” (Nine Inch Nails cover) official video
Hey, how was your weekend? You won’t be surprised to learn mine was full of tunes, which I mark as a win. While we’re marking wins, let’s put one down for wrapping up the longest Quarterly Review to-date in a full 11 days today. 110 releases. I started on July 5 — a lifetime ago. It’s now July 19, and I’ve encountered a sick kid and wife, busted laptop, oral surgery, and more riffs than I could ever hope to count along the way. Ups, downs, all-arounds. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.
This day was added kind of on an impulse, and the point I’m looking to emphasize is that you can spend two full weeks reviewing 10 albums a day and still there’s more to be had. I’ve learned over time you’re never going to hear everything — not even close — and that no matter how deep you dig, there’s more to find. I’m sure if I didn’t have other stuff scheduled I could fill out the entirety of this week and then some with 10 records a day. As it stands, let’s not have this Quarterly Review run into the next one at the end of September/beginning of October. Time to get my life back a little bit, such as it is.
Quarterly Review #101-110:
King Woman, Celestial Blues
After the (earned) fanfare surrounding King Woman‘s 2017 debut, Created in the Image of Suffering, expectations for the sophomore outing, Celestial Blues, are significant. Songwriter/vocalist Kris Esfandiari meets these head-on in heavy and atmospheric fashion on tracks like the opening title-cut and “Morning Star,” the more cacophonous “Coil” and duly punishing “Psychic Wound.” Blues? Yes, in places. Celestial? In theme, in its confrontation with dogma, sure. Even more than these, though, Celestial Blues taps into an affecting weight of ambience, such that even the broad string sounds of “Golgotha” feel heavy, and whether a given stretch is loud or quiet, subdued like the first half of “Entwined” or raging like the second, right into the minimalist “Paradise Lost” that finishes, the sense of burden being purposefully conveyed is palpable in the listening experience. No doubt the plaudits will be or are already manifold and superlative, but the work stands up.
Mythic Sunship are a hopeful vision for the future of progressive psychedelic music. Their fifth album and first for Tee Pee Records, Wildfire offers five tracks/45 minutes that alternates between ripping holes in the fabric of spacetime via emitted subspace wavelengths of shredding guitar, sax-led freakouts, shimmer to the point of blindness, peaceful drift and who the hell knows what else is going on en route from one to the other. Because as much as the Copenhagen outfit might jump from one stretch to the next, their fluidity is huge all along the course of Wildfire, which is fortunate because that’s probably the only thing stopping the record from actually melting. Instrumental as ever, I’m not sure if there’s a narrative arc playing out — certainly one can read one between “Maelstrom,” “Olympia,” “Landfall,” “Redwood Grove” and “Going Up” — and if that’s the intention, it maybe pulls back from that “hopeful vision” idea somewhat, at least in theme, if not aesthetic. In any case, the gorgeousness, the electrified vitality in what Mythic Sunship do, continues to distinguish them from their peers, which is a list that is only growing shorter with each passing LP.
I said I was going to preorder this tape and I’m glad I did. Morningstar Delirium‘s half-hour/four-song debut offering is somewhere between an EP and an album — immersive enough to be the latter certainly in its soothing, brooding exploration of sonic textures, not at all tethered to a sonic weight in the dark industrial “Blood on the Fixture” and even less so in the initial minutes of “Silent Travelers,” but not entirely avoiding one either, as in the second half of that latter track some more sinister beats surface for a time. Comprised of multi-instrumentalists/vocalist Kelly Schilling (Dreadnought, BleakHeart) and Clayton Cushman (The Flight of Sleipnir), the isolation-era project feeds into that lockdown atmosphere in moments droning and surging, “Where Are You Going” giving an experimentalist edge with its early loops and later stretch of ethereal slide guitar (or what sounds like it), while closer “A Plea for the Stars” fulfills the promise of its vocalists with a doomed melody in its midsection that’s answered back late, topping an instrumental progression like the isolated weepy guitar of classic goth metal over patiently built layers of dark-tinted wash. Alternating between shorter and longer tracks, the promise in Morningstar Delirium resides in the hope they’ll continue to push farther and farther along these lines of emotional and aural resonance.
Somewhere between spacious goth and garage doom, Russia’s Lunar Funeral find their own stylistic ground to inhabit on their second album, Road to Siberia. The two-piece offer grim lysergics to start the affair on “Introduce” before plunging into “The Thrill,” which bookends with the also-11-minute closer “Don’t Send Me to Rehab” and gracefully avoids going full-freakout enough to bring back the verse progression near the end. Right on. Between the two extended pieces, the swinging progression of “25th Hour” trades brooding for strut — or at least brooding strut — with the snare doing its damnedest by the midsection to emulate handclaps could be there if they could find a way not to be fun. “25th Hour” hits into a wash late and “Black Bones” answers with dark boogie and a genuine nod later, finishing with noise en route to the spacious eight-minute “Silence,” which finds roll eventually, but holds to its engaging sense of depth in so doing, the abiding weirdness of the proceedings enhanced by the subtle masterplan behind it. Airy guitar work winding atop the bassline makes the penultimate “Your Fear is Giving Me Fear” a highlight, but the willful trudge of “Don’t Send Me to Rehab” is an all-too-suitable finish in style and atmosphere, not quite drawing it all together, but pushing it off a cliff instead.
Sludge and narcosadistic doom infest the six-track Espectrofilia from Mexico City four-piece Satánico Pandemonium, who call it an EP despite its topping 40 minutes in length. I don’t know, guys. Electric Wizard are a touchstone to the rollout of “Parábola del Juez Perverso,” which lumbers out behind opener “El Que Reside Dentro” and seems to come apart about two minutes in, only to pick up and keep going. Fucking a. Horror, exploitation, nodding riffs, raw vibes — Satánico Pandemonium have it all and then some, and if there’s any doubt Espectrofilia is worthy of pressing to a 12″ platter, like 2020’s Culto Suicida before it, whether they call it a full-length or not, the downward plunge of the title-track into the grim boogie of “Panteonera” and the consuming, bass-led closer “La Muerte del Sol” should put them to rest with due prejudice. The spirit of execution here is even meaner than the sound, and that malevolence of intent comes through front-to-back.
Kudos to Van Groover on their know-thyself tagline: “We’re not reinventing the wheel, but we let it roll.” The German trio’s 10-track/51-minute debut, Honk if Parts Fall Off, hits its marks in the post-Truckfighters sphere of uptempo heavy fuzz/stoner rock, injecting a heaping dose of smoke-scented burl from the outset with “Not Guilty” and keeping the push going through “Bison Blues” and “Streetfood” and “Jetstream” before “Godeater” takes a darker point of view and “Roadrunner” takes a moment to catch its breath before reigniting the forward motion. Sandwiched between that and the seven-minute “Bad Monkey” is an interlude of quieter bluesy strum called “Big Sucker” that ends with a rickity-sounding vehicle — something tells me it’s a van — starts and “Bad Monkey” kicks into its verse immediately, rolling stoned all the while even in its quiet middle stretch before “HeXXXenhammer” and the lull-you-into-a-false-sense-of-security-then-the-riff-hits “Quietness” finish out. Given the stated ambitions, it’s hard not to take Honk if Parts Fall Off as it comes. Van Groover aren’t hurting anybody except apparently one or two people in the opener and maybe elsewhere in the lyrics. Stoner rock for stoner rockers.
There is not much to which Buenos Aires-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sergio Chotsourian, aka Sergio Ch., is a stranger at this point. In a career that has spanned more than a quarter-century, he’s dipped hands in experimentalist folk and drone, rock, metal, punk, goth and more in varying prolific combinations of them. Koi, his latest full-length, still finds new ground to explore, however, in bringing not only the use of programmed drum beats behind some of the material, but collaborations with his own children, Isabel Ch., who contributes vocals on the closing Nine Inch Nails cover, “Hurt,” which was also previously released as a single, and Rafael “Raffa” Ch., who provides a brief but standout moment just before with a swirling, effects-laced rap tucked away at the end of the 11-minute “El Gran Chaparral.” If these are sentimental inclusions on Chotsourian‘s part, they’re a minor indulgence to make, and along with the English-language “NY City Blues,” the partial-translation of “Hurt” into Spanish is a welcome twist among others like “Tic Tac,” which blend electronic beats and spacious guitar in a way that feels like a foreshadow of burgeoning interests and things to come.
Less than a year removed from their debut full-length, At the Bottom of the Sea, Croatian five-piece Achachak return with the geological-opposite follow-up, High Mountain. With cuts like “Bong Goddess,” “Maui Waui,” they leave little to doubt as to where they’re coming from, but the stoner-for-stoners’-sake attitude doesn’t necessarily account either for the drifty psych of “Biggest Wave” or the earlier nod-out in “Lonewolf,” the screams in the opening title-track or the follow-that-riff iron-manliness of “”Mr. SM,” let alone the social bent to the lyrics in the QOTSA-style “Lesson” once it takes off — interesting to find them delving into the political given the somewhat regrettable inner-sleeve art — but the overarching vibe is still of a band not taking itself too seriously, and the songwriting is structured enough to support the shifts in style and mood. The fuzz is strong with them, and closer “Cozy Night” builds on the languid turn in “Biggest Wave” with an apparently self-aware moody turn. For having reportedly been at it since 1999, two full-lengths and a few others EPs isn’t a ton as regards discography, but maybe now they’re looking to make up for lost time.
It’s almost counterintuitive to think so, but what you see is what you get with mostly-instrumentalist South African western/psych folk duo Rise Up, Dead Man‘s self-titled debut. To wit, the “Bells of Awakening” at the outset, indeed, are bells. “The Summoning,” which follows, hypnotizes with guitar and various other elements, and then, yes, the eponymous “Rise Up, Dead Man,” is a call to raise the departed. I don’t know if “Stolen Song” is stolen, but it sure is familiar. Things get more ethereal as multi-instrumentalists Duncan Park (guitar, vocals, pennywhistle, obraphone, bells, singing bowl) and William Randles (guitar, vocals, melodica, harmonium, violin, bells, singing bowl) through the serenity of “The Wind in the Well” and the summertime trip to Hobbiton that the pennywhistle in “Everything that Rises Must Converge” offers, which is complemented in suitably wistful fashion on closer “Sickly Meadow.” There’s some sorting out of aesthetic to be done here, but as the follow-up just to an improv demo released earlier this year, the drive and attention to detail in the arrangements makes their potential feel all the more significant, even before you get to the expressive nature of the songs or the nuanced style in which they so organically reside.
Yeah, that whole “silence” thing doesn’t last too long on Moving Through Silence. The 51-minute debut long-player from Brugge, Belgium, instrumentalists Atomic Vulture isn’t through opener “Eclipse” before owing a significant sonic debt to Kyuss‘ “Thumb,” but given the way the record proceeds into “Mashika Deathride” and “Coaxium,” one suspects Karma to Burn are even more of an influence for guitarist Pascal David, bassist Kris Hoornaert and drummer Jens Van Hollebeke, and though they move through some slower, more atmospheric stretch on “Cosmic Dance” and later more extended pieces like “Spinning the Titans” (9:02) and closer “Astral Dream,” touching on prog particularly in the second half of the latter, they’re never completely removed from that abiding feel of get-down-to-business, as demonstrated on the roll of “Intergalactic Takeoff” and the willful landing on earth that the penultimate “Space Rat” brings in between “Spinning the Titans” and “Astral Dream,” emphasizing the sense of their being a mission underway, even if the mission is Atomic Vulture‘s discovery of place within genre.
To call the guy prolific doesn’t even really do justice. Sergio Chotsourian, frontman of Soldati, formerly of Ararat and Los Natas, has already in the last year overseen the release of a box set of his first three solo albums done under his chosen moniker Sergio Ch., as well as a trilogy of solo singles, the debut of the trio BRNO (review here) late in 2020 and more. He’s got more waiting to come out too. “Desde el Adentro” was first posted in April and already he’s got a new song on the South American Sludge Records Bandcamp page in the seven-minute instrumental take on BRNO‘s “You Are the Moon” re-dubbed “Soy Luna Soy God.” I have a tendency to admire work ethic, and Chotsourian‘s creative pulse beats fast.
“Desde el Adentro” is a partial departure from his solo fare. Not for being produced, recorded, performed and topped with cover art by Chotsourian himself so much as by pushing deeper into South American folk stylings than he’s gone since his first solo record, 1974 (review here). The progression of his craft in the five-plus years since has been toward an experimentalist blend of drone, electric and acoustic guitar topped generally but not always with his vocals, and “Desde el Adentro” is comparatively minimal. Guy-and-guitar. It may be that Chotsourian will rework the song in some form down the line — it could end up anywhere and for all I know it already has and there’s another recording in the can waiting to come out on one or another album-to-be — but for now, the mostly-subdued, contemplative feel suits the melody well and plays to a traditionalism Chotsourian often engages but rarely so directly.
I’ve done any number of premieres for Sergio Ch. and his bands over the last however long. Simple reason is I believe in what he’s doing. I dig it, and though I’ve followed his career for the better part of two decades at this point, he still manages to offer up surprises on the regular. This is one of them.
So please enjoy:
Sergio Ch., “Desde el Adentro” official video premiere
VIDEO OFICIAL DEL SINGLE DE SERGIO CH. – “DESDE EL ADENTRO” VIDEO REALIZADO POR SERGIO CH.
SERGIO CH. – DESDE EL ADENTRO [S.A.S. 118]
SERGIO CH. – GUITARRA & VOCALS
GRABADO, MEZCLADO Y MASTERIZADO POR SERGIO CH. EN DEATH STUDIOS ARTWORK POR SERGIO CH. PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH.
Drone folk has kind of become the bread and melted butter of Sergio Chotsourian‘s solo work as Sergio Ch., but the new 10-minute single “Manto Negro” brings the two sides together in especially coherent fashion. Atop waves of organ and minimal guitar lead lines about four minutes into the proceedings, the vocals are a procession unto themselves; melodic and downtrodden-feeling without melodrama. I’d be surprised if this is the last incarnation this song will have, since Chotsourian has a tendency to revisit material and offer different interpretations through various recordings and outfits — his current trio, Soldati, released their debut album, Doom Nacional (review here), amid the global panic of Spring 2020 — and there seems to be plenty of ground to explore here. As it is, however, the immersion is palpable.
The song cycles through twice and makes short work of the 10 minutes it consumes. Organ is constant, but the guitar comes and goes, trading off with the vocals. Self-recorded, mixed and mastered, not to mention released, “Manto Negro” is a solo effort in the purest sense, and it has an intimacy to coincide.
…I’m gonna be honest with you. I firmly believe that the only reason you don’t hear Chotsourian‘s name in the same breath as people like Dylan Carlson is because he’s from Argentina. I’m not trying to belittle Carlson‘s history or Earth in saying that, but if Sergio Ch. was working in English and was a white dude from wherever, people would be lining up to fawn over his shit, critics included. I can think few songwriters in a heavy sphere who have a mindset as genuinely open and forward thinking as he does. Sorry, that’s just how I see it. He’s a key figure in South American heavy, and South American heavy is some of the world’s finest.
I got all wound up. I’ll take a deep breath and count to four. You enjoy the track:
Sergio Ch., “Manto Negro” official video
VIDEO OFICIAL DEL SINGLE DE SERGIO CH. – “MANTO NEGRO” PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH. VIDEO REALIZADO POR SERGIO CH.
[S.A.S. 115]
SERGIO CH. – GUITARRA, PIANO & VOCALS
GRABADO, MEZCLADO Y MASTERIZADO POR SERGIO CH. EN DEATH STUDIOS ARTWORK POR SERGIO CH. PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH.
