Posted in Whathaveyou on March 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
When it comes to stuff I’m posting about, I usually have a pretty good idea if something will go over or not. Not so much here. I think Chew‘s “Horses” is a pretty interesting eight-minute run combining three or four different genres minimum that is able to pull itself off simply by doing so. The swagger in the now-this-happens of it, if not necessarily in a showiness for the track itself. It’s the title-track of their third album, and the record is out this Friday, March 11, through reliable purveyors Stolen Body Records, who you always know are up to some fascinating shenanigans, and yeah, I’ve got a certain amount of trust in their taste — not everything is a fit all the time, but none of it is boring — but I also feel like what I’m hearing in “Horses” backs that up.
Maybe you’ll dig it too. Maybe you won’t. Music like this isn’t intended for a universal audience, though I don’t think they’d argue if everybody caught on all at once. Vinyl preorders start next month.
UK and European tour dates, as well as album background and of course the aforementioned video all follow here, courtesy of the PR wire:
CHEW – HORSES (NEW SINGLE)
We are delighted to announce the third album from Atlanta psych experimenters CHEW. Check out out the video for the new single Horses.
We are delighted to announce the third album from Atlanta psych experimenters CHEW. Horses is another leap into the unknown. Another trip through the weird. A wonderfully crafted instrumental album that takes elements of psych, break beat, prog, electronica and much much more. Delve into the world of CHEW.
Chew explain the process of their third album.
Through multiple sessions, the skeleton of HORSES was crafted. Bone by bone by experimental noise freak-out shut-ins. For days at a time, we would lock ourselves in our rehearsal space with no pre-arranged music and tried to incorporate more synthesisers and electronics to establish an atmosphere. Riffs and patterns formed until they resembled songs, eventually polished to purity in live sets until taking their final alchemical shape.
In the summer of 2021, we started production and HORSES was the dream sequence pulled from our heads. Recording dreams is highly experimental and often times resembles the warm, nostalgic warble of the unstable VHS format. We did all we could to salvage the integrity of the original dreams, but we did lose a lot in the process.
In an attempt to refurbish the dream state, we imported more delicious synth, incorporated electronic drums and breaks, and added extreme new flavour with the addition of our friend and multi-instrumentalist Morgan Soltes. Having completed the triptych of 3D EP, A Fine Accoutrement, and Darque Tan, HORSES rides in a new direction for CHEW defining an upcoming era of style and creativity.
Track List 1. Kisouma 2. Horses 3. Holy Fountain 4. If You Are Sensitive To Simulators, Close Your Eyes And The Feeling Will Pass 5. Palo Santo 6. Pseudocide 7. All Operators Will Be On Site 8. Rosette Pattern 9. The Mall
CHEW pushes the boundaries of psychedelic electronic and post-rock with a combination of articulated and monstrously heavy rhythm section work, sample-based analog leads, and discorded psychedelic guitar. What at first seems like a strange mix of concepts quickly pulls you in and immerses you in a controlled chaos of the most melodic kind.
CHEW is
Sarah Wilson: Drums, Electronic Drums, Percussion Brett Reagan: Guitars, Electronics, Sound Manipulation Morgan Soltes: Bass, Synth, Effects
We are doing this one a little different than normal. The album comes out next Friday! The vinyl pre order goes live April 8th and will be very special and very limited. With current wait times as they are we felt this to be the best way to present the album. Especially as the band head out on their postponed EU tour in May/June. Dates below.
TOUR DATES Escape From USA Tour (May/June 2022) 19.05.22 – IT – FANO – CIRCOLO ARCI ARTIGIANA 20.05.22 – IT- SAVONA – RAINDOGS 21.05.22 – IT – VERONA – FINE DI MONDO 22.05.22 – IT – BOLOGNA – FREAKOUT 23.05.22 – SL – ILIRSKA BISTRICA – MKNZ 24.05.22 – AU – SALZBURG – ROCKHOUSE BAR 25.05.22 – CZ – PRAGA – CROSS CLUB 26.05.22 – DE – MANNHEIM – ALTER 27.05.22 – CH – FRIBOURG – LA COUTELLERIE 28.05.22 – CH – CHAUX DE FONDS – CENTRAF TROPIC 29.05.22 – FR – GRANDFONTAINE (Strasbourg) – BRASSERIE DU FRAMONT 31.05.22 – FR – ROUEN – Le 3 Pièces Muzik’Club 01.06.22 – BE – GAND – MUZIEK CENTRUM KINKY STAR 02.06.22 – UK – LONDON – The Victoria, Dalston 03.06.22 – UK – CHELMSFORD – HOT BOX LIVE 04.06.22 – UK – HASTINGS – THE PIPER 05.06.22 – UK – BRISTOL – THE LANES 06.06.22 – FR – BRUXELLES – CHAFF 07.06.22 – FR – ALENCON – Chapêlmêle 08.06.22 – FR – Angoulême – Le Point CaRré 09.06.22 – FR – PARIS – SUPERSONIC 10.06.22 – FR – NANCY – LE ROYAL 11.06.22 – FR – LYON – LE FARMER 12.06.22 – IT – SOLIERA (MO) – NOWHERE
— Written, Produced and Mixed by: CHEW Engineered by: Morgan Soltes Recorded at: Grandma’s Casket at Ember City, West End, Atlanta, Georgia. Mastered By: Benjamin Price Published by: Church of the Abundant Cheeseburger (ASCAP) Video by: Riley Morgan
CHEW is Brett Reagan – guitar/electronics Sarah Wilson – drums/percussion Morgan Soltes – bass/synth bass
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 Whathaveyou on January 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Comprised of two extended tracks, the new Wyatt E. full-length, āl bēlūti dārû, will be out on March 18 as their first offering — and I do mean ‘offering’ — through Stolen Body Records. Between them and their soon-to-be-tourmates Messa, that’s probably two of the bands most poised to make an impression throughout the European heavy underground this Spring. I don’t know who brought them together, but it’s got ‘future-main-stage’ energy all over it, and the mystique/mystical vibes throughout āl bēlūti dārû expand on the ritualized explorations of drone and volume laid forth by the likes of Om and Earth and Zaum, and, wouldn’t you know it, they speak Akkadian. It’s always, always, always a good idea to study languages. One never knows when one might end up in ancient Mesopotamia needing to order a sandwich.
You’re gonna hear a lot of hype on this. In all sincerity, I’ve got the record on right now, today, as I’m typing, and it’s the sort of thing for which headphones were made. At the end of 2022, there are going to be a bunch of people who are all about this band who, this month, had never heard them before. I’m new to the bandwagon too, for what it’s worth. The good news is no one gives a shit about that kind of thing anymore and music is a celebration for time out of time for all time.
Thus, dig in:
WYATT E. to release new album “āl bēlūti dārû” on March 18th through Stolen Body Records; full European tour announced.
Belgium-based oriental doom and drone experimentalists WYATT E. sign to UK powerhouse Stolen Body Records for the release of their anticipated new album “āl bēlūti dārû” this March 18th. The band also announced an extensive European tour with Messa, including two sets at Roadburn Festival. The journey has begun…
Blending droning soundscapes with Middle Eastern instrumentation, Wyatt E. writes the soundtrack of a Pilgrimage to Neo-Babylonian Empire. A journey in the past which leads to ancient Gods, forgotten cities and lost civilizations. In 2015, their debut EP Mount Sinai/Aswan caught the eye of Shalosh Cult, an Israel- based label that released their critically acclaimed debut album Exile to Beyn Neharot in 2017.
Since then, the band went from a band that wanted to remain anonymous to a highly revered live act in Europe and Israel: Desertfest Antwerp, Stoned from the Underground, Smoke over Warsaw, Tales of Doom Basel, Bristol Psych Fest, Red Smoke Festival, Under the Doom Lisbon, Mount Of Artan, Dour Festival, Electric Meadow…
Sealing the Wyatt E.’s long-awaited return, their new album “āl bēlūti dārû” (“The Eternal City” in Akkadian language) features two 19-minute tracks recorded in their Karl-EhmannStrasse studio, then mixed by doom godfather Billy Anderson (Sleep, Om, Melvins) and mastered by Justin Weis at Trakworx. Artowrk was designed by Belgian artist ammoammo. It will be issued on three different limited edition vinyl, black vinyl, CD digipack and digital on March 18th, 2022, with preorder available now via Stolen Body Records and Bandcamp.
The composition of the album results of a challenging use of techniques and instruments never used by the band before: Saxophones, Saz, unusual use of voices, effects and percussions. 2 drum kits have been tracked simultaneously during most of the album to create some sort of messy vibration coming from a huge crowd. A-side “Mušḫuššu” (Name of Marduk’s sacred animal) is a well-balanced track driven by a bass groove & featuring Y. Tönnes on the saxophone, ending up in a traditional acoustic outro. B-side “Šarru Rabu” (“The Great King”) is a military march and shows the band at its best in terms of slowly building up layers to a climax and starting all over again until the final sonic explosion.
Wyatt E. will present the album in its entirety at Roadburn Festival 2022, where they will also perform a special collaborative set with Five The Hierophant and MC Slice.
WYATT E. on tour with Messa: 18.03 Botanique, Bruxelles – BE 19.04 Le Michelet, Nantes – FR 20.04 Glazart, Paris – FR 21.04 Roadburn Festival – NL 22.04 Roadburn Festival (w/ Five The Hierophant and MC Slice) – NL 23.04 TBA, Braunschweig – DE 24.04 Spillestede Stengade, Copenhagen – DK 25.04 Urban Spree, Berlin – DE 26.04 Drizzly Grizzly, Gdank – PL 27.04 Hygrozagadka, Warsaw – PL 28.04 Paon, Krakow – PL 29.04 Bandhaus, Leipzig – DE 30.04 Dudefest, Karlsruhe – DE 01.05 Hirschenek, Basel – CH
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 17th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Seems like everybody wants a piece of French space boogie overlords Slift. In addition to being previously announced for Desertfest in Berlin and London, Astral Festival in the UK, SonicBlast in Portugal, Hellfest in France Kristonfest in Spain, the three-piece were confirmed just yesterday as artist-in-residence to play three sets at Roadburn 2022, one of which will be their consciousness-igniting/already-influential 2020 album, Ummon (review here), in its entirety. In a couple years, when you start to see a bunch of cosmic-ass-shake groups formed circa now, Slift will have been a big part of the reason why.
More so as they take to the streets next year, in Europe and apparently the US as well. All this makes me wonder who’s putting out their next record, but I suppose that’s a question for another press release at another time. Likewise the US tour, which is still to be announced — smart, considering plague and all that — but the list of EU/UK dates is substantial and admirably ambitious. Get yourself freaked out in the universe.
List from social media:
Oï ! Thrilled to announce that we’ll be on tour in EU and US in 2022 !
Slift tour dates WED 9 MARCH Krakatoa Mérignac, France THU 10 MARCH Le Cargo Caen, France FRI 11 MARCH HYDROPHONE – LORIENT Lorient, France SAT 12 MARCH Le Ferrailleur Nantes, France THU 14 APRIL Le Transbordeur Villeurbanne, France FRI 15 APRIL LA CARTONNERIE Reims, France WED 20 APRIL Rotondes Luxembourg, Luxembourg SUN 24 APRIL Glocksee Hannover, Germany MON 25 APRIL MUSIK LOPPEN Copenhagen, Denmark WED 27 APRIL De Casino Sint-Niklaas, Belgium THU 28 APRIL Studio 9294 London, UK FRI 29 APRIL – SAT 30 APRIL Astral Festival 2022 Bristol, UK FRI 29 APRIL – SUN 1 MAY Desertfest London 2022 London, UK TUE 3 MAY Le Trabendo Paris, France FRI 6 MAY Psilocybenea Hondarribia, Spain SAT 7 MAY Kristonfest 2022 Madrid, Spain SUN 22 MAY L’Amalgame Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland MON 23 MAY Cap 10100 Turin, Italy TUE 24 MAY Locomotiv Club Bologna, Italy WED 25 MAY Kino Šiška (Centre for Urban Culture) Ljubljana, Slovenia THU 26 MAY Feierwerk Munich, Germany THU 26 MAY – SUN 29 MAY Desert Fest 2022 Berlin, Germany FRI 27 MAY Vienna Arena / Arena Wien Vienna, Austria TUE 31 MAY Club Volta Cologne, Germany WED 1 JUNE Le Noumatrouff Mulhouse, France THU 2 JUNE Café Charbon Nevers, France FRI 3 JUNE ATABAL Biarritz, France THU 23 JUNE Arènes de Nîmes Nîmes, France THU 23 JUNE – SUN 26 JUNE Hellfest Extended 2022 Clisson, France THU 11 AUGUST – SAT 13 AUGUST SonicBlast Fest 2022 Viana Do Castelo, Portugal
LEVITATION SESSION UPDATE: The records will arrive in January, according to the label. For any information on this subject, please contact them. Thank you very much for your continued support.
Posted in Reviews on October 5th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Somewhere just before I started this Quarterly Review, the contact form on this website was fixed. This, obviously, was a mistake. On my desktop that have come in over the last week and a day are more than enough releases to have continued the Fall 2021 QR for at least two more days, if not longer. That’s just not happening. The music’s been good, but I’ve had both of our family cars break down in the last two days, I’ve been fighting to get a bus to pick my kid up for school in the morning, and waking up at 4:30 to write only seems to result in nodding off while brushing my teeth. Not to mention, as The Patient Mrs. very gracefully doesn’t tell me during these times, I’m a total bitch when I do this. Again, she doesn’t say it. The message though is pretty clear.
So best to quit while I’m… already behind again…
Thanks for reading.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Endless Boogie, Admonitions
Let’s not talk about how Paul Major has cool hair. Or how he’s well known in record-trader circles or whatever else. Let’s talk about Endless Boogie‘s largely-insurmountable 80-plus minutes of jams on Admonitions and how reliable the band have become when one seeks sleek-grooved expanses, not reliant on effects wash and synthesized swirl, but just the rawer guitar, bass, drums, periodic-but-don’t-go-expecting-them vocals. You put on Endless Boogie, you’re gonna get some groove. Pick a favorite between the sides-A-and-C-consuming 22-minute tracks “The Offender” and “Jim Tully” if you want, I’ll take both, and the minimal drone of “The Conversation” and “The Incompetent Villains of 1968” for a bonus. At 5:12 and with vocals, “Bad Call” is about as close as they come to a ‘single’ in the traditional sense — it’s the centerpiece of side B, with “Disposable Thumbs” before and the cool-built funk of “Counterfeiter” after — but if you’re looking for singles you’re missing the point here. The point is to put it on and go. So go, god damn it.
A collection of various pieces — aren’t we all? — by Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt (Electric Moon, Zone Six, etc.), Loop Station Drones may be aptly named in terms of the basic process of creation, but that hardly covers the scope of the release’s 78-minute span, whether that’s the meditative undercurrent in opener “Roadburn Haze,” slightly edited from Schmidt‘s Roadburn Redux appearance earlier in 2021, the 16-bit cosmic soundtracking of “Rolling in Outer Space” (I’d play the shit out whatever game that is on SNES), the moodier breadth of “Die Karawane der Unsterblichen” and “Wastelandgarden” or the motorik pulse of the 17-minute “Dopeshuttle.” Especially pivotal is the closing duo of “Stargate” (14:06) and “One Way” (6:04), which offer serenity and wistfulness, respectively, that bridge a rare emotionality for what according to its title is a simple ‘drone.’ Anytime Schmidt wants to turn this into an ongoing series, that’ll be fine.
Rock for rockers. Berlin four-piece Redscale roll out a scenario in which Clutch and Kyuss and Soundgarden and Truckfighters and probably six or seven other of your favorite heavy rock live acts got together and decided to put down a batch of kickass songs. That’s what’s up. The Old Colossus is the band’s fourth LP, first for Majestic Mountain, and if they spent their first two albums figuring out how to get shit done, well, they sound like it. Things get duly big-sounding on “Hard to Believe” and they go acoustic on “At the End” ahead of the closer “The Lathe of Heaven,” but basically what Redscale do here is identify the boxes needing ticking and then tick the crap out of them. They’re not reshaping the genre, but they’re definitely doing righteous work within it. The rockers will know the rock when they hear it. Everyone else can get bent.
A solo-project of William Randles, also of Durban, South Africa’s Rise Up, Dead Man, the acoustic-led Seven Rivers of Fire brings a sense of outbound ritualism to drone-folk and organic psychedelia with this second self-released offering, Hail Star of the Sea!. I’m not sure if he’s handling all the instruments himself or not, but one is reminded of Om-split-era Six Organs of Admittance throughout the 20-minute “Crossing the Abyss / The Magician’s Journey,” and instrumental pieces like “I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightning” and “Ghost Dance / Sign of the Goddess” and “Ha-Sulam / Drawing Down the Moon” have a current of tension running alongside their largely-unplugged peacefulness. The 76-minute entirety of the outing is best enjoyed in the sun, outside, but whatever the context in which one might visit it in part or whole, the material is evocative of warmth and its swells and recessions effectively call out to the water. Not a minor undertaking, but neither should it be.
What to call it? Wrench metal, because it feels like it’s systemically pulling you apart? Cement metal because of all that crushing? Post-death metal because all that sludge and doom mixed in sure sounds like decay and that’s what comes after? I don’t know. None of my names for anything ever stick anyway — the tragedy of being irrelevant — but London extremity-purveyors Cult Burial offer three-tracks of doom-laced death in Oblivion, with the short outing following-up on their well-received 2020 self-titled debut in an impressively seamless melding of genres, technical leads searing through lumbering riffs, harsh vocals, various barks and screams, populating this dense and pummeling sampler from the nine-minute opening title-slab through “Parasite” and “Paralysed,” and I’d say they save the heaviest for last, but they hammer-smashed the scale to bits because who the hell cares anyway? All this and atmosphere too. Whatever big-timey metal label ends up snagging this band is gonna have a beast on their hands.
German heavy rockers Duster 69 — or Duster69, if you prefer — seem to be testing the waters with their first release in 13 years. Called 2021, the two-songer brings just nine minutes of music in a kind of see-how-it-goes spirit. During their initial run, the outfit with Daredevil Records honcho Jochen Böllath (also of Grand Massive) on guitar released three full-length and splits alongside the likes of Calamus, Rickshaw, The Awesome Machine and House of Broken Promises, and though there’s something unassuming about thinking of “Oppose” and “Remember” as a comeback, it seems more about the band internally figuring out if they still work together as a unit. The answer, of course, is yes, or presumably 2021 wouldn’t see release. The production is rough, but if this is Duster 69 heralding a return in “soft opening” fashion, then something grand may yet be to come.
With Tomasz “Herr Feldgrau” Walczak, now also drumming in Weedpecker on vocals and guitar, Warsaw’s Tankograd present a Soviet-aftermath through a meld of styles that pulls together heavy rock, sludge, death and black metal. Second album Klęska is as likely to find Walczak — joined by drummer Jakub “Herr Stoß” Kaźmierski, guitarist Grzegorz “Herr Berg” Góra and bassist Herr “I Can’t Find His Real Name” Schnitt — harmonizing as engaging guttural growls over blastbeats, nodding riffs, and so on. “Niech Liczą Trupy” seems to willfully take on Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, but this is only after “Za Ofiarną Służbę” and “Nie Dać Się Zarżnąć” have blown genre convention out of the water. Tankograd continue in this fashion through the blues-into-blasts “Hańba” and the mostly-more-doomed “SLAM,” with “Nostalgia” closing out in a manner one can only call progressive for its clearsighted execution of vision. Bonus track “Polska” is anthemic and to translate the lyrics is a lesson in perspective waiting to happen. I’ve heard 70 albums for this Quarterly Review, and plenty of them have mixed styles. I haven’t heard anything else like this in that process.
Something something Salem, Massachusetts, something something witches. Fine. Cheers to Mother Iron Horse, who indeed hail from that storied Halloween tourist destination, on having more in common sound-wise with Doomriders than any tryhard-pagan retro-style novelty acts, and on not pretending to worship the devil despite the theme they’re working with throughout this sophomore LP and Ripple Music debut, Under the Blood Moon. A 37-minute, vinyl-ready-but-is-vinyl-ready-for-it affair that moves between sludge and uptempo heavy rock, there’s little pretense to be found across the eight tracks, even as side B moves through the title-track and into the chuggery of “Samhain Dawn” and the atmospheric-but-for-all-that-screaming-oh-wait-that’s-atmosphere-too “Samhain Night” before the rolling capper “Mass at Dungeon Rock” puts the nail in the proverbial coffin. Cult-themed riffy post-hardcore sludge, anyone? Yeah, probably. Can’t imagine there isn’t a market out there for “Old Man Satan.”
You know that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk & Co. end up carting around this bunch of troublemaking space hippies? And they play songs like “Hey brother let’s get together and have some fun?” Of course you do. One of them was Chekhov’s ex-girlfriend from Starfleet Academy. Anyway, if you’re ever out warping from planet to planet wherever and you encounter space hippies and the songs they play don’t sound like Tel Aviv’s Ouzo Bazooka, you should drop their asses at the nearest starbase. Across the six songs and 34 minutes of Dalya, the Freak Valley veterans plant a garden of cosmic weirdness that’s as much retro spacefunk as it is Middle Eastern psychedelic jam rock, and I don’t care what decade you want to trace it to, if “Kruv” isn’t the sound of the 2260s happening right fucking now, then the future is going to be no less a disappointment than the present. Krautrock would’ve been better off if this is what it had become, and yes, I mean that.
Those who’ve engaged with The Obelisk’s Quarterly Review at some point in the last seven-plus years that I’ve been doing them might understand that when it comes to finishing out, I like to do myself a favor and close with something awesome. Thus it is that the last record here is Pilot Voyager‘s Roadtrip to Fantazery, with four extended heavy psychedelic jams recorded by the Hungarian outfit in July at the Fantazery festival in Ukraine. It’s a full-on spacey blowout, with the trio of guitarist Ákos Karancz, bassist Ádám Kalamár and drummer Anton Ostrometskiy pushing interstellar vibes along an uptempo course charted by the likes of Earthless or Slift on “Dog Bitten Blues” (10:20) before “Dark Flood” (14:55) slows down and gets really vibed out. “Polite Screams and Electrolytes Between Me, Myself and My Pickups” (13:37) evens things out a bit, contrary to what its title might lead you to believe, and offers a highlight bassline late, and “Rare Wolfs of Yasinya” (13:29) builds to something of an apex before letting go, but the truth is if you’re not on board from the outset with Pilot Voyager‘s roadtrip — emphasis on ‘trip’ — it’s only going to be your loss. One way or the other, they’re gone.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 26th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
You ever listen to a band and ask yourself why you don’t listen to them every day forever? That’s me right now and this Ouzo Bazooka record. Sounds like hyperbole, and I guess it is, but the synth-o-psych vibe is hitting me pretty hard this morning and much like the groove of album opener “Monsters” — for which you’ll find a video below — flows into danceable “Million Years of Light” and the delightfully keyboardy instrumental “Alhagamal,” I’m just going to roll with it. Dalya is six new songs, runs a whopping 34 minutes, and is too percussive to really drift, but certainly has that air about it anyway by the time the also-instrumental “Kruv” launches side B and shifts through “It’s a Menace” into the shuttle-launched-from-Tel-Aviv that is “Nine” jamming to the finish — oh, hello bass — Middle Eastern vibes running rampant all the while.
Aug. 27 is the release date from Stolen Body Records, but hell’s bells, go find yourself some preorders and let the dates come and go from now until then. You can worry about the daily habit in the meantime.
We are delighted to announce the release of the first single – Monsters – from Ouzo Bazooka’s fifth album Dalya. Monsters comes out July 26th along with pre orders of the album.
Monster’s has Ouzo Bazooka returning with a fresh but familiar recipe of their own unique blend of east meets west.
The fuzzy oriental riffs cupped with the addictive groove will take you on a mind bending journey from the sweltering banks of the Nile, down to Jaffa beach and around the spice scented alleys of Istanbul on Ouzo Bazooka’s hot rodded magic carpet ride. Check out the new video for Monsters now.
The undisputed champions of middle eastern psych rock return with Dalya, their epic fifth studio album.
Suspiciously smelling like a mix of prohibited substances and powerful homebrewed potions, Dalya manages to effortlessly be a lot of things that, in a similar universe, contradict each other: it is psychedelic but accessible. It is adventurous and creatively free spirited, but also filled with anthems waiting to be discovered. The sound is recognizable, but simultaneously original and an expansion of the band’s wide creative palette.
Dalya consists of 6 long, swirling, hallucination-inducing doses of music to be consumed with your eyes wide shut. But make no mistake – this is still Ouzo Bazooka’s good ol’ sweaty oriental fuzz party. Monsters, the album’s opener, has the anthemic qualities one would secretly hope to find on an Ouzo Bazooka album. It is followed by the sunstroked dubby and dare we say disco-ish Million Years Of Light, continues with the dense and sweaty instrumental pieces Al Hagamal and Kruv and continues to ascend with It’s A Menace towards the spectacular climax that is Nine.
Filled with imaginative, mind bending moments, Dalya is yet another monument in Ouzo Bazooka’s epic sonic journey and a grand new chapter in the band’s story.
Bristol, UK, three-piece Yo No Se release their second full-length, Terraform, on June 18 through Stolen Body Records. It is an album that has precious little time to screw around. Its 11 tracks run a total of 41 minutes, and as the follow-up for 2017’s Soma, it brings together rawness and aesthetic development across songs that appear simple but offer depth of sound and atmosphere alike, and as it pushes through opener “Black Door” — one of the longer inclusions at 4:49 — the stage is set for a punk-derived vibe that recalls Bleach-era Nirvana — Jack Endino mastered here — in its tonal buzz and in the sneer and drawl of guitarist Al Studer, which comes more forward for the unabashed hook of the subsequent “Santa Muerte,” leading to some fuller tonality in “Pilot” and nastier thrust in “Misery,” a momentum quickly built that holds to and through the trippier sway of “Mosquito” and into “Slaughter,” a centerpiece of more drawn tempo but still readily within the reach they’ve established, as well as the themes of general human terribleness that seem to permeate.
No argument, right? Humans? The worst?
Studer, bassist Jason Strickland and drummer Matt Neicho structure side B not entirely dissimilar from the preceding half of Terraform, but the plot thickens. “Hairy Chin” bounces unrepentantly, and “Feast of Lies” feeds a proto-thrash impulse while “Hold Fire” speaks to post-Nebula recklessness, but oh my goodness it’s fun. The brashness, the undercoating of fuckall that runs alongside the songwriting, and the attitude that’s laced throughout, wherever an individual song is headed, brings the two bookended sides — shorter tracks surrounded by longer ones — not enough cohesion to make it predictable but enough so that you’re never going to go any further off the rails than the trio want you to be. There’s a story to tell here after all, and if the horrors of the Bruce Pennington album art don’t hook you — so death metal as they are — the hooks will, and though one hasn’t had the benefit of a lyric sheet, it seems fair to say that the pick-your-dystopia age in which we dwell is not absent from the context of these sonic digs.
The penultimate “Nectar” hits the four-minute mark and is downright patient compared to some of what’s come before, but Yo No Se save their broadest reach for the concluding title-track, a languid rollout moving beyond the prior cut in order to shove Terraform into the band’s outer reaches while still keeping a foot back for the dug-in-dirt tonality that’s been working to their benefit since “Black Door.” I can’t imagine I’m the first to make the Nirvana comparison and I doubt I’ll be the last, but Yo No Se push an edge and nastiness of their own, like they’re pouring water on dust of grunge and calling the mud sludge rock.
You can see the premiere of the “Mosquito” video below, followed by the release info, courtesy of the PR wire.
Get nasty and dance:
Yo No Se, “Mosquito” official video premiere
Yo No Se on “Mosquito”:
“Mosquito is a song about people living off of your hard work. The same people that leave the moment they have nothing more to gain from you. For the video we asked our friend Toby Cameron of On Par productions to film Alex so we could then get Arturo Baston to work his magic over the top.”
Video concept by Alex Studer. Filmed by Toby Cameron of On Par. Animation and edit by Arturo Baston.
Yo No Se return after a 5-year hiatus since their last album, Soma. Their new album Terraform continues on from the dystopian world created in Soma but this time taking the narrative to the stars. Terraform explores the ideas of making a fresh start on another planet but the same problems creep in…. Greed, corruption and hate. Exploring more of a grunge feel along with some hard psych the band recorded with Dom Mitchison (as well as Alex doing guitars and vocals at home), mixed with Ali Chant and mastered again with grunge godfather, Jack Endino.
The band have toured across Europe in support of Soma in the last 5 years and gained a reputation for their loud and energetic shows. The album has 3 drummers under its belt and countless breakdowns on the road. With the pandemic kicking in just as the band started touring, they had plenty of time to finally record (and find another drummer). Terraform is a record 5 years in the making due to sheer bad luck. Hopefully, their luck will change as the band are already working on their follow up record.
The artwork for the cover is by renowned sci-fi artist Bruce Pennington.
Tracklist: 1. Black Door 2. Santa Muerte 3. Pilot 4. Misery 5. Mosquito 6. Slaughter 7. Hairy Chin 8. Feast Of Lies 9. Hold Fire 10. Nectar 11. Terraform
Line up Alex Studer: Guitar, Vocals Jason Strickland: Bass Matt Neicho: Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 13th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
French heavy psychedelic rockers Karkara released their second album, Nowhere Land (review here), last Fall through Stolen Body Records, and this Fall, they’ll take to the road to support it. At least a little bit, with a few shows in France and the UK slated for September and October. Hey, if that’s what touring needs to look like right now, I think it’s pretty obvious touring needs to happen one way or the other, so take what you can get.
The trio recently participated in a live studio session — two songs, 14 minutes; nice — whereby they rightly break out the didgeridoo and do it up right. We live in uncertain times, as you well know since you’re alive, but here’s hoping these shows happen, and all shows happen and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts and I don’t know about Nowhere Land but Toulouse sounds pretty nice to me.
Okay, here’s PR wire stuff:
Karkara Live Session & Tour Dates (Stolen Body Records)
A deafening echo that suddenly speaks out of the dust, conveying all the desolation of an endless landscape up to the sky.
A journey for those who like exotic rock to sound viscerally loud, raw and high gained. To blow up the speakers for good. Fuzzed guitar and Buzzing didgeridoo locked with a sped up drums and cranked bass sound that makes you feel like you are riding a spacecraft at full speed between the dunes.
Created in 2017 in Toulouse, France, the threesome takes its inspiration among different rock genres, from the sweet middle eastern psychedelic rock to the raw shattering sounds of garage fuzz and german krautrock.
Even going so far as to use their favorite atypical instrument – the didgeridoo – the three members of KARKARA, like desert wizards, take pleasure in pushing further the boundaries of the genre and take their audience into a mystical and indomitable world.
TRACKS PLAYED : 1 – Deliverance 2 – Space Caravan
Tour – September 9th – October 2nd Cities : GAP FR ROUEN FR BRIGHTON GB CHELMSFORD GB LONDON GB BRISTOL GB NEW CASTLE GB GLASGOW GB MANCHESTER GB LEICESTER GB
LINE UP : Karim Rihani – Guitar , Vocals , Didgeridoo Hugo Olive – Bass Maxime Marouani – Drums , Vocals
