I knew I wanted to start the show with Fuzzy Lights and I knew I wanted to end with Iceburn. Putting together the in-between was where the adventure happened here. I included some stuff still rippling out from the Quarterly Review last month — that’s you, Expo Seventy, The Black Heart Death Cult, LáGoon (also Iceburn) — as well as some more that’s been kicking me around and covered here in the few weeks since one way or the other, like Healthyliving, Horte, The Angelus, Guhts, Hippie Death Cult, Ouzo Bazooka, Kadabra, Ealdor Bealu and Acid Magus. Top that off with The Otolith covering “Would?” and it’s a pretty cool progression of sound and style. There’s a lot to dig here. If you listen, I hope you dig it.
And if you don’t listen — and I don’t have numbers to back this up but in my head no one ever gives a crap about anything I do except me; there are pros and cons to this position — and you’ve made your way to this post anyhow, I hope you take the here’s-a-list-of-bands-you-might-want-to-check-out-cue and hear something you might not have otherwise heard. That’s pretty much what I’m here for.
Either way, thanks for listening and/or reading. I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 08.06.21
Fuzzy Lights
Songbird
Burials
Expo Seventy
Echoes of Ether
Evolution
Healthyliving
Below
Until / Below
Horte
Pelko karistaa järjen
Maa antaa yön vaientaa
VT
LáGoon
Skullactic Visions
Skullactic Visions
The Black Heart Death Cult
Trees
Sonic Mantras
Ouzo Bazooka
Monsters
Dalya
Kadabra
Settle Me
Ultra
Acid Magus
Conscientious Pugilist
Wyrd Syster
VT
Hippie Death Cult
Circle of Days
Circle of Days
The Angelus
Hex Born
Why We Never Die
Ealdor Bealu
Isolation
Spirit of the Lonely Places
Guhts
Handless Maiden
Blood Feather
The Otolith
Would?
Alice in Chains Dirt: Redux
VT
Iceburn
Dahlia Rides the Firebird
Asclepius
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Aug. 20 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
We proceed onward, into this ever-growing swath of typos, lineup corrections made after posting, and riffs — more riffs! — that is the Quarterly Review. Today is Day Four and I’m feeling good. Not to say there isn’t some manner of exhaustion, but the music has been killer — today is particularly awesome — and that makes life much, much, much better as I’ve already said. I hope you’ve found one or two or 10 records so far that you’ve really dug. I know I’ve added a few to my best of 2021 list, including stuff right here. So yeah, we roll on.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Spelljammer, Abyssal Trip
To envision an expanse, and to crush it. Stockholm three-piece Spelljammer return five years after Ancient of Days (review here), with an all-the-more-massive second long-player through RidingEasy, turning their front-cover astronaut around to face the audience head on and offering 43 minutes/six tracks of encompassing largesse, topping 10 minutes in the title-track and “Silent Rift,” both on side B with the interlude “Peregrine” between them, after the three side A rollers, “Bellwether,” “Lake” and “Among the Holy” have tripped out outward and downward into an atmospheric plunge that is a joy to take feeling specifically geared as an invite to the converted. We are here, come worship with us. Also get crushed. Spelljammer records may not happen all the time, but you won’t be through “Bellwether” before you’re saying it was worth the wait.
A deceptively graceful second LP from Melbourne’s The Black Heart Death Cult, Sonic Mantras pulls together an eight-song/45-minute run that unfolds bookended by “Goodbye Gatwick Blues” (8:59) and “Sonic Dhoom” (9:47) and in between ebbs and flows across shorter pieces that maximize their flow in whether shoegazing, heavygazing, blissing out, or whatever we’re calling it this week on “The Sun Inside” and “One Way Through,” or finding their way to a particularly deadened meadow on “Trees,” or tripping the light hypnotic on “Dark Waves” just ahead of the closer. “Cold Fields” churns urgently in its 2:28 but remains spacious, and everywhere The Black Heart Death Cult go, they remain liquefied in their sound, like a seemingly amorphous thing that nonetheless manages to hold its shape despite outside conditions. Whatever form they take, then, they are themselves, and Sonic Mantras emphasizes how yet-underappreciated they are in emerging from the ever-busy Aussie underground.
Tetra is the third long-player from Milwaukee’s Shogun, and in addition to the 10-minute “Delta,” which marries blues gargle with YOB slow-gallop before jamming out across its 10-minute span, it brings straight-shooter fuzz rockers like “Gravitas,” the someone-in-this-band-listened-to-Megadeth-in-the-’90s-and-that’s-okay beginnings of “Buddha’s Palm/Aviary” and likewise crunch of “Axiom” later, but also the quiet classic progressive rock of “Gone Forever,” and the more patient coming together of psychedelia and harder-hitting movement on closer “Maximum Ray.” Somewhat undercut by a not-raw-but-not-bursting-with-life production, pieces like “Buddha’s Palm/Aviary,” which gives over to a sweeter stretch of guitar in its second movement, and “Vertex/Universal Pain Center,” which in its back end brings around that YOB influence again and puts it to good use, are outwardly complex enough to put the lie to the evenhandedness of the recording. There’s more going on in Tetra than it first seems, and the more you listen, the more you find.
Keeping up with Nadja has proven nigh on impossible over the better part of the last two decades, as the Berlin-by-way-of-Toronto duo have issued over 25 albums in 19 years, plus splits and live offerings and digital singles and oh my goodness I do believe I have the vapors that’s a lot of Nadja. For those of us who flit in and out like the dilletantes we ultimately are, Luminous Rot‘s aligning Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff with Southern Lord makes it an easy landmark, but really most of what the six-cut/48-minute long-player does is offer a reminder of the vital experimentalism the lazy are missing in the first place. The consuming, swelling drone of “Cuts on Your Hands,” blown-out sub-industrialism of “Starres,” hook of the title-track and careful-what-you-wish-for anchor riff of “Fruiting Bodies” — these and the noisily churning closer “Dark Inclusions” are a fervent argument in Nadja‘s favor as being more than a sometimes-check-in kind of band, and for immediately digging into the 43-minute single-song album Seemannsgarn, which they released earlier this year. So much space and nothing to lose.
Welcome to punishment as a primary consideration. Indianapolis death-doom four-piece hold back the truly crawling fare until “Perverted Reflection,” which is track three of the total seven on their debut full-length, Upon a Throne of Jackals, but by then the extremity has already shown its unrepentant face across the buried-alive “Final Spasms of the Drowned” and the oldschool death metal of “The Altar.” Centerpiece “Invert Every Throne” calls to mind Conan in its nod, but Shroud of Vulture are more about rawness than sheer largesse in tone, and their prone-to-blasting style gives them an edge there and in “Halo of Tarnished Light,” which follows. The closing pair of “Concealing Rabid Laughter” and “Stone Coffin of Existence” both top seven minutes and offset grueling tension with grueling release, but it’s the stench of decay that so much defines Upon a Throne of Jackals, as though somebody rebuilt Sunlight Studio brick for brick in Hoosier Country. Compelling and filthy in kind.
Towards Atlantis Lights, When the Ashes Devoured the Sun
Ultra-grueling, dramatic death-doom tragedies permeate the second full-length, When the Ashes Devoured the Sun, from UK-based four-piece Towards Atlantis Lights, with vocalist/keyboardist Kostas Panagiotou and guitarist Ivan Zara at the heart of the compositions while bassist Riccardo Veronese and drummer Ivano Olivieri assure the impact that coincides with the cavernous procession matches in scope. The follow-up to 2018’s Dust of Aeons (review here), this six-track collection fosters classicism and modern apocalyptic vibes alike, and whether raging or morose, its dirge atmosphere remains firm and uncompromised. Heavy lumber for heavy hearts. The kind of doom that doesn’t look up. That doesn’t mean it’s not massive in scope — it is, even more than the first record — just that nearly everything it sees is downward. If there’s hope, it is a vague thing, lost to periphery. So be it.
It has been said on multiple occasions that “space is the place.” The curiously-capitalized Colorado outfit ASTRAL CONstruct would seem to live by this ethic on their debut album, Tales of Cosmic Journeys, unfurling as they do eight flowing progressions of instrumental slow-CGI-of-the-planets pieces that are more plotted in their course than jams, but feel built from jams just the same. Raw in its production and mix, and mastered by Kent Stump of Wo Fat, there’s enough atmosphere to let the lead guitar breathe, certainly, and to sustain life in general even on “Jettisoned Adrift in the Space Debris,” and the image evoked by “Hand Against the Solar Winds” feels particularly inspired given that song’s languid roll. The record starts and ends in cryogenic sleep, and if upon waking we’re transported to another place and another time, who knows what wonders we might see along the way. ASTRAL CONstruct‘s exploration would seem to be just beginning here, but their “Cosmos Perspective” is engaging just the same.
Vienna-based sludgedrivers TarLung were last heard from with 2017’s Beyond the Black Pyramid (discussed here), and Architect continues the progression laid out there in melding vocal extremity and heavy-but-not-too-heavy-to-move riffing. It might seem like a fine line to draw, and it is, and that only makes songs like “Widow’s Bane” and “Horses of Plague” all the more nuanced as their deathly growls and severe atmospheres mesh with what in another context might just be stoner rock groove. Carcass circa the criminally undervalued Swansong, Six Feet Under. TarLung manage to find a place in stoner sludge that isn’t just Bongzilla worship, or Bongripper worship, or Bong worship. I’m not sure it’s worship at all, frankly, and I like that about it as the closing title-track slow-moshes my brain into goo.
Somewhere in the great mystical expanse between Kalispell, Montana, and Kansas City, Missouri, two practicioners of the riffly dark arts meet on a field of battle. Wizzerd come packing the 19-minute acoustic-into-heavy-prog-into-sitar-laced-jam-out “We Are,” as if to encompass that declaration in all its scope, while Merlin answer back with the organ-led “Merlin’s Bizarre Adventure” (21:51), all chug and lumber until it’s time for weirdo progressive fusion reggae and an ensuing Purple-tinged psych expansion. Who wins? I don’t know. Ripple Music in releasing it in the first place, I guess. Continuing the label’s influential split series(es), Turned to Stone Chapter III pushes well over the top in the purposes of both acts involved, and in that, it’s maybe less of a battle than two purveyors joining forces to weave some kind of Meteo down on the heads of all who might take them on. If you’ve think you’ve got the gift, they seem only too ready to test that out.
“Life Grinder” begins with a sample: “I don’t know if you need all that bass,” and the answer, “Oh, you need all that bass.” That’s already after “Sea Sick Six” has revealed the Montreal-based trio’s sans-guitar extremist sludge roll, and the three-piece seem only too happy to keep up the theme. Vocals are harsh, biting, grating, purposeful in their fuckall, and the whole 28-minute affair of Winterized is cathartic aural violence, except perhaps the interlude “666,” which is a quiet moment between “Broken Bones” and “Black Snail Volcano,” which finally seems to just explode in its outright aggression, nod notwithstanding. A slowed down Ramones cover — reinventing “Pet Sematary” as “Red Sematary” — has a layer of spoken chanting vocals layered in and closes out, but the skin has been peeled so far back by then and Seum have doused so much salt onto the wounds that even Bongzilla might cringe. The low-end-only approach only makes it more punishing and more punk rock at the same time. Fucking mean.
I’m trying to break my own rules a little bit. Every now and again, it’s a decent exercise to try to change things up. I kind of did the same last ep, by starting out with a bunch of classic doom. There’s still a lot of new music here — the Snail is out today, and that and The Black Heart Death Cult and Howling Giant are all new too, as well as the Conclave, Papir, Witchrot and, relatively speaking, Dopelord. So yeah, plenty of new stuff there.
But there were a couple other things I wanted to talk about — PostWax is one, Maryland Doom Fest is another. So you get Dopelord for that, as they were recently announced for PostWax, and SubRosa, whose offshoot The Otolith will also feature in the vinyl subscription service. And in addition to Howling Giant, there’s the block that starts with Conclave you can see in the playlist — Yatra, Molasses Barge, Horseburner and Sasquatch — all of whom have been confirmed for MDDF this Halloween weekend. Sadly not Papir, though that would also rule.
And between those, I guess I just had Goatsnake and Truckfighters on my mind and decided to throw them in. Who’s gonna argue? I suppose I’ll find out in the Gimme chat later on.
Thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 04.30.21
Snail
Draining White
Fractal Altar
The Black Heart Death Cult
Goodbye Gatwick Blues
Sonic Mantras
Howling Giant
Understudy
Alteration
VT
Dopelord
Dark Coils
Reality Dagger
Goatsnake
What Love Remains
1
Truckfighters
Con of Man
Mania
Witchrot
Million Shattered Swords
Hollow
SubRosa
Despair is a Siren
For This We Fought the Battle of Ages
VT
Conclave
Haggard
Dawn of Days
Yatra
Blood Will Flow
Blood of the Night
Molasses Barge
Holding Patterns
A Grayer Dawn
Horseburner
The Oak
The Thief
Sasquatch
Just Couldn’t Stand the Weather
Maneuvers
VT
Papir
01.20.2020 #3
Jams
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is May 14 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 25th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
In case you’ve forgotten how the world works, reality isn’t polite enough to wait for one global crisis to end before the next one begins, and though the media cycle spotlight worldwide may have moved on to brighter, shinier travesties, the fallout from Australia’s wildfires earlier this year is still being felt and will be for many years to come. Ecosystem damage like that doesn’t disappear in a day. Particularly when humans are involved. We suck at that stuff. Good destroyers, bad rebuilders.
Anyhoo, there are those who do what they can, and among them stand organizations like WIRES and the Australian Red Cross, who are the beneficiaries of Copper Feast Records‘ new compilation out March 27, titled Hidden Noise. Australia’s one-of-a-kind environment and wildlife can’t be replaced, or cloned by futures usses, and the planet needs that ecosystem and those animals now. And not to mention the cost to humanity too in lost homes, livelihoods and lives. If a comp with killer tracks by killer bands gets any dollars — Australian or otherwise — to those causes, then that’s only a good thing.
So here’s the info:
Copper Feast Records – ‘Hidden Noise’ Charity Compilation
The world is on fire. Australia is on fire. Things will not get better until things change.
In late 2019 and early 2020, Australia was ravaged by bushfires which have destroyed vast expanses of its unique natural environment, pushing some species to the verge of extinction and causing the loss of many lives, livelihoods and homes. As our way of giving back, 100% of the profits from ‘Hidden Noise’ will be going to charity.
‘Hidden Noise’, a compilation from Copper Feast Records, showcases unreleased tracks from some of the best ‘hidden’ psych rock and stoner rock bands that Australia has to offer. In addition, a small number of previously released tracks from even more amazing bands completes the compilation.
Some of the artists that have contributed brand new songs include Planet of the 8s, Turtle Skull and The Black Heart Death Cult. We also have new mixes of existing tracks from the likes of Sleeping Giant and Narla.
The compilation title ‘Hidden Noise’ takes on a variety of different meanings in relation to this project. These are all Australian bands that are massively deserving of a greater following than they currently receive. Their music may be somewhat hidden for now, but I urge you to explore them all further. Albums, singles and even demos can be found on each band’s own Bandcamp page with links provided below.
‘Hidden Noise’ also references how at-risk persons and families have found their voice lost when requiring assistance before and after the bushfire crisis affecting the country. This is in addition to the vast number of wildlife voices that go unheard at this time as humans exploit their habitats causing their destruction.
Last but not least, the compilation title is in reference to the media obstruction and government inaction all over the world regarding climate change and the crisis affecting not only Australia, but every country in the world as a result of this.
We need change. Please enjoy the music and be a part of it.
Thank you to all the artists above for their contribution and support to this project. Thank you to Carl Saff for ensuring such a broad-ranging sound compiled into one record sounds cohesive. Thank you to you, the listener, for your support.
Posted in Reviews on March 21st, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Day four of the six-dayer. Head’s a little reeling, but I’m not sure any more so than, say, last week at this time. I’d be more specific about that, but oddly enough, I don’t hook my brain up to medical scanners while doing reviews. Seems like an oversight on my part, now that I think about it. Ten years later and still learning something new! How about that internet, huh?
Since I don’t think I’ve said it in a couple days, I’ll remind you that the hope here is you find something you dig. There’s a lot of cool stuff in this batch, so that should at least make skimming through it fun if you go that route. Either way, thanks for reading if you do.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Electric Octopus, Smile
It’s been about two months since Electric Octopus posted Smile, so they’re about due for their next release. So, quick! Before this 82-minute collection of insta-chill jams is out of date, there’s still time to consider it their latest offering. Working as the four-piece of Tyrell Black and Dale Hughes — both of whom share bass and guitar duties — drummer Guy Hetherington and synthesist Stevie Lennox, the Belfast improv jammers rightfully commence with the 25-minute longest track (immediate points) “Abberation” (sic), which evolves and devolves along its course and winds up turning from a percussive jam to a guitar-led build up that still stays gloriously mellow even as it works its way out. You can almost hear the band moving from instrument to instrument, and that’s the point. The much shorter “Spiral,” “Dinner at Sea, for One” and closer “Mouseangelo” bring in a welcome bit of funk, “Moth Dust” explores minimalist reaches of guitar and ambient drumming, and “Hyperloop” digs into fuzz-soaked swirl before cleaning up its act in the last couple minutes. These cats j-a-m. May they do so into perpetuity.
Onto the best-albums-of-2019 list go San Marcos, Texas, trio Crypt Trip, who, sonically speaking, are way more Beto O’Rourke than Ted Cruz. The three-piece have way-way-upped the production value and general breadth from their 2018 Heavy Psych Sounds debut, Rootstock, and the clarity of purpose more than suits them as they touch on ’70s country jams and hard boogie and find a new melodic vocal confidence that speaks to guitarist Ryan Lee as a burgeoning frontman as well as the shredder panning channels in “To Be Whole.” Fortunately, he’s backed by bassist Sam Bryant and drummer Cameron Martin in the endeavor, and as ever, it’s the rhythm section that gives the “power trio” its power. Centerpiece “Free Rain” is a highlight, but so is the pedal steel of intro “Forward” and the later “Pastures” that precedes six-minute closer “Gotta Get Away,” which makes its transport by means of a hypnotic drum solo from Martin. Mark it a win and go to the show. That’s all you can do. Haze County is a blueprint for America’s answer to Europe’s classic heavy rock movement.
A bit of Tull as Love Gang‘s flute-inclusive opener “Can’t Seem to Win” skirts the line of the proggier end of ’70s worship. The Denver outfit and Dallas’ Smokey Mirror both present three tracks on Glory or Death Records‘ Split Double EP, and Love Gang back the leadoff with “Break Free” and “Lonely Man,” reveling in wall-o’-fuzz chicanery and organ-laced push between them, making their already unpredictable style less predictable, while Smokey Mirror kick off side B in particularly righteous fashion via the nine-minute “Sword and Scepter,” which steps forth to take ultra-Sabbathian ownership of the release even as the filthy tone of “Sucio y Desprolijo” and the loose-swinging Amplified Heat-style megashuffle of “A Thousand Days in the Desert” follow. Two bands in the process of finding their sound coming together to serve notice of ass-kickery present and future. If you can complain about that, you’re wrong.
Very much a solid first album, Heavy Feather‘s 11-song Débris & Rubble lands at a run via The Sign Records and finds the Stockholm-based classic heavy blues rockers comporting with modern Euro retroism in grand fashion. At 41 minutes, it’s a little long for a classic-style LP if one measures by the eight-track/38-minute standard, but the four-piece fill that time with a varied take that basks in sing-along-ready hooks like those of post-intro opener “Where Did We Go,” the Rolling Stones-style strutter “Waited All My Life,” and the later “I Spend My Money Wrong,” which features not the first interplay of harmonica and lead guitar amid its insistent groove. Elsewhere, more mellow cuts like “Dreams,” or the slide-infused “Tell Me Your Tale” and the closing duo of the Zeppelinian “Please Don’t Leave” and the melancholy finisher “Whispering Things” assure Débris & Rubble never stays in one place too long, though one could say the same of the softshoe-ready boogie in “Hey There Mama” as well. On the one hand, they’re figuring it out. On the other, they’re figuring it out.
Five full-lengths deep into a tenure spanning a decade thus far, Faith in Jane have officially entered the running to be one of the best kept secrets of Maryland heavy. Their late-2018 live-recorded studio offering, Countryside, clocks in at just under an hour of organic tonality and performance, bringing a sharp presentation to the chemistry that’s taken hold among the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Dan Mize, bassist Brendan Winston and drummer Alex Llewellyn, with Mize taking extended solos on the Wino model throughout early cuts “All is All” and “Mountain Lore” while the trio adds Appalachian grunge push to the Chesapeake’s flowing groove while building “Blues for Owsley” from acoustic strum to scorching cacophonous wash and rolling out the 9:48 “Hippy Nihilism” like the masters of the form they’re becoming. It’s not a minor undertaking in terms of runtime, but for those in on what these cats have been up to all the while, hard to imagine Countryside is seen as anything other than hospitable.
Lafayette, Indiana’s The Mound Builders last year offered a redux of their 2014 album, Wabash War Machine (review here), but that was their last proper full-length. Their self-titled arrives as eight bruiser slabs of weighted sludge/groove metal, launching with its longest track (immediate points) in the 7:30 “Torchbearer,” before shifting into the outright screams-forward pummel of “Hair of the Dogma” and the likewise dry-throated “Separated from Youth.” By the time they get to the hardcore-punk-via-sludge of “Acid Slugs,” it’s not a little heavy. It’s a lot heavy. And it stays that way through the thrashing “Star City Massacre” and “Regolith,” hitting the brakes on “Broken Pillars” only to slam headfirst into closer “Vanished Frontier.” Five years later and they’re still way pissed off. So be it. The four-formerly-five-piece were never really all that gone, but they still seem to have packed an extended absence’s worth of aggro into their self-titled LP.
It’s a fluid balance between heavy rock and progressive metal Terras Paralelas make in the six inclusions on their debut full-length, Entre Dois Mundos. The Brazilian instrumentalist trio keep a foundation of metallic kickdrumming beneath “Do Abismo ao Triunfo,” and even the chugging in “Espirais e Labirintos” calls to mind some background in harder-hitting fare, but it’s set against a will toward semi-psychedelic exploration, making the giving the album a sense of refusing to play exclusively to one impulse. This proves a strength in the lengthier pieces that follow “Infinito Cósmico” and “Do Abismo ao Triunfo” at the outset, and as Terras Paralelas move from the mellower “Bom Presságio” and “Espirais e Labirintos” into the more spaciously post-rocking “Nossa Jornada Interior” and the nine-minute-plus prog-out title-track that closes by summarizing as much as pushing further outward, one is left wondering why such distinctions might matter in the first place. Kudos to the band for making them not.
The Black Heart Death Cult, The Black Heart Death Cult
Though one wouldn’t accuse The Black Heart Death Cult of being the first cumbersomely-named psych-rocking band in the current wave originating in Melbourne, Australia, their self-titled debut is nonetheless a gorgeous shimmer of classic psychedelia, given tonal presence through guitar and bass, but conjuring an ethereal sensibility through the keys and far-back vocals like “She’s a Believer,” tapping alt-reality 1967 vibes there while fostering what I hear is called neo-psych but is really just kinda psych throughout the nodding meander of “Black Rainbow,” giving even the more weighted fuzz of “Aloha From Hell” and the distortion flood of “Davidian Dream Beam” a happier context. They cap with the marshmallowtron hallucinations of “We Love You” and thereby depart even the ground stepped on earlier in the sitar-laced “The Magic Lamp,” finding and losing and losing themselves in the drifting ether probably not to return until, you know, the next record. When it shows up, it will be greeted as a liberator.
I’m pretty sure the Sami who plays drums in Orbiter is the same dude playing bass in Roadog, but I could easily be wrong about that. Either way, the two Finnish cohort units make a fitting complement to each other on their two-songer 7″ single, which presents Orbiter‘s six-minute “Anthropocene” with the hard-driving title-track of Roadog‘s 2018 full-length, Reinventing the Wheels. The two tracks have a certain amount in common, mostly in the use of fuzz and some underlying desert influence, but it’s what they do with that that makes all the difference between them. Orbiter‘s track is spacier and echoing, where “Reinventing the Wheels” lands more straightforward in its three minutes, its motoring riff filled out by some effects but essentially manifest in dead-ahead push and lyrics about a motorcycle. They don’t reinvent the wheel, as it happens, and neither do Orbiter, but neither seems to want to do so either, and both bands are very clearly having a blast, so I’m not inclined to argue. Good fun and not a second of pretense on either side.
Space is the place where you’ll find Boston improvisationalists Hhoogg, who extend their fun penchant for adding double letters to the leadoff “Ccoossmmooss” of their exclamatory second self-released full-length, Earthling, Go Home!, which brings forth seven tracks in a vinyl-ready 37 minutes and uses that opener also as its longest track (immediate points) to set a molten tone to the proceedings while subsequent vibes in “Rustic Alien Living” and the later, bass-heavy “Recalled to the Pyramids” range from the Hendrixian to the funkadelicness he helped inspire. With a centerpiece in “Star Wizard, Headless and Awake,” a relatively straightforward three-minute noodler, the four-piece choose to cap with “Infinitely Gone,” which feels as much like a statement of purpose and an aesthetic designation as a descriptor for what’s contained within. In truth, it’s a little under six minutes gone, but jams like these tend to beg for repeat listens anyway. There’s some growing to do, but the melding of their essential chemistry is in progress, and that’s what matters most. The rest is exploration, and they sound well up for it.
Posted in Radio on February 4th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Good show. I had fun, anyway. I cut the voice breaks for this one while The Patient Mrs. and her mom took The Pecan out to the grocery store, but the breaks nonetheless worked out to be maybe a minute longer than usual and that gave me a little rant time. Right before I played Goatsnake, which was the “new classic” choice cut for this episode, I went off about doing my dishes as rock and roll. As usual with words coming out of my mouth, the idea was kind of half-represented, but what I was talking about was the notion that your love of music should be a part of your life, not something separate from the rest of it. If you love music, it shouldn’t be something you segregate from the rest of who you are — something you sneak off to a dive bar to partake of — it should be a part of your everyday. I cut radio voice breaks while running the dishwasher. It’s a part of who I am.
How fortunate I have this post to explain the half-formed notions I don’t have the wherewithal to properly express vocally. Huzzah.
Anyway, if you got to listen, I tried to set this one up with a good flow from front to back plus a couple stark contrasts in the second hour. The break is between Graven and SubRosa, contrary to what the playlist says, but I liked that transition anyhow, and I think you can see early on that the focus is on some boogie with a sense of atmosphere. I talk up the Green Lung record again, because, well, it’s worth talking up, and dig into a few other things that I think are killer, including that Mount Saturn EP, which is likewise right on. And then I dip back from new music to play SubRosa’s “The Mirror” from their SubDued: Live at Roadburn 2017 release, because it’s a song I sing to The Pecan when I put him down for naps and have just about every day since he was born some 15 months ago. Fun stuff.
If you missed the show, it airs again tomorrow at 9AM Eastern at http://gimmeradio.com
And if you dig this and want to hear more of The Obelisk Show, Gimme of course has their archive set up that you can sign on for at a reasonable price and dig into a bunch of various kinds of metallurgy.
Okay, here’s the playlist. Thanks to reading and/or listening:
The Obelisk Show Ep. 09 – 02.03.19
Straytones
Dark Lord
Beware, Dark Lord! Here Comes Bell-Man*
0:04:07
Green Lung
Let the Devil In
Woodland Rites*
0:05:02
BREAK
Geezer
Spiral Fires Pt. 1
Spiral Fires*
0:05:50
Seedium
Mist Haulers
Seedium*
0:09:15
Crypt Trip
Wordshot
Haze County*
0:04:22
Cloud Catcher
Beneath the Steel
The Whip EP*
0:04:45
Heavy Feather
Waited All My Life
Debris & Rubble*
0:03:10
Mount Saturn
Dwell
Kiss the Ring*
0:07:08
BREAK
Goatsnake
Mower
I + Dog Days
0:06:05
The Black Heart Death Cult
Davidian Beam Dream
The Black Heart Death Cult
0:05:50
Crystal Spiders
Tigerlily
Demo*
0:05:37
Swallow the Sun
When a Shadow is Forced into the Light
When a Shadow is Forced into the Light*
0:07:26
Graven
Backwards to Oblivion
Heirs of Discord*
0:06:15
SubRosa
The Mirror
SubDued: Live at Roadburn
0:04:43
BREAK
Electric Octopus
Mouseangelo
Smile*
0:12:58
Tia Carrera
Early Purple
Visitors/Early Purple*
0:16:28
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs every other Sunday night at 7PM Eastern, with replays the following Tuesday at 9AM. Next show is Feb. 17. Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 16th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
The self-titled debut from Melbourne, Australia’s The Black Heart Death Cult was originally slated for release sometime around the middle of last year, and it may indeed have seen a digital issue around that time. Or, you know, any other time between 1966 and now. Or, you know, at least one or the other. It’s spaced out, I guess is the point. I don’t know if the band self-released it first or not, but Oak Island Records has it out on Friday on vinyl, and there’s little question in listening to it that that’s what the band has intended all along. If it was streaming, it’s since been taken down, but it’ll be worth your time to search out either physically or in the digital ether when it comes to it. Which, again, it will on Friday. Or it did in 1996. Screw it, time is a meaningless construct anyway. Fuzz on.
Release details from the PR wire:
The Black Heart Death Cult release mesmerising debut 18th January on Oak Island Records
Melbourne psychedelic drone rock sextet “The Black Heart Death Cult” are super fuzzed about releasing their self-titled debut LP on German psych label Oak Island Records. It has been a labour of love, recorded over a sprawling 2 years with production from Ricky Maymi of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Welcome to the sonic bazaar! “The Black Heart Death Cult” debut LP is a beautifully constructed piece of gloomy verb-soaked psych rock that shifts seamlessly between tracks & styles and a real 60’s sensibility of melody underpins it all to reveal some deft song writing, skillful musicianship & quality production. Droney psych mantras, sonic opiates & space-glazed kaleido fuzz jams for the all too new dark age. Generous application of the volume dial is recommended.
The album is a brooding, gloomy beast that never sits still as it trips effortlessly from the one chord sitar-sling of “Setting Sun” to flute filled space rock of “She’s a Believer” then the wall-of-verb gloomgaze of “Black Rainbow” to the psy-folk interlude of “The Magic Lamp” before bringing the jams with “Aloha from Hell” & that’s just the A side.
The B side is heavier & jammier with the spaced out instrumental “Rainbow Machine”, speaker smashing bass fuzzed “Davidian Dream Beam”, the fantastical flute-filled “Seven Gods” before completely exploding into deep space with the closer “We Love You”.
The Black Heart Death Cult hope you enjoy the ride!
The Black Heart Death Cult will be released on limited edition heavyweight vinyl on the 18th January on Oak Island Records. Limted to 300 copies total pressing: 200 on clear vinyl and a special Kozmik Mailorder edition in 100 transparent green!
Available as Limited Edition Vinyl
Release Date: 18th January 2019
VINYL FACTZ – Plated & pressed on high performance vinyl at Pallas/Germany – limited & coloured vinyl – 300gsm gatefold cover – special vinyl mastering
TRACKS 1. Setting Sun 2. She’s a Believer 3. Black Rainbow 4. Seven Gods 5. Rainbow Machine 6. The Magic Lamp 7. Davidian Dream Beam 8. Aloha from Hell 9. We Love You
The Black Heart Death Cult are: Sasha L Smith – Guitar & Vocals Bill Patching – Guitar Andrew Nunns – Drums Deon Slavieros – Bass Gab Potochnik – Keys
