It’s been a while since I’ve opened the great grimoire of doom and inscribed a new entry. I’ve been busier than a kobold berserker with St. Vitus dance. Since we last met (over brimming tankards of dark ale), a lot of new music has been released, and I’ve written up some reviews and recommendations to serve you well on your journey… (more…)
At four songs, Om’s God is Good feels less like a whole album than a brief and tantalizing glimpse at what is yet to come. Om is a band that continues to evolve and explore and on this, their fourth full-length, they stretch out into new territory with new drummer Emil Amos and Steve Albini producing.
God is Good opens with “Thebes,” a 19-minute meditative epic. After a lengthy bass and sitar conversation, Al Cisneros kicks on the overdrive pedal and Amos shows off his chops. A more than capable drummer, his playing has a different “feel” than Chris Hakius’, but still intertwines effortlessly with Cisneros’ driving basslines.
The two-part closer “Cremation Ghat” features hand claps, tabla, tambura, and more sitar drones that float along like fragrant temple incense. Steve Albini has created a very spacious sound, scrubbing away the resiny murk and fuzz that clouded Om’s past works. (more…)
In the spring of 1971, Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten, along with the band Touchstone, produced and performed the music for an off-broadway show at the Circle in the Square in New York City.
The performance was called Tarot and the music was later recorded and released in 1972 on United Artists. The performance and resulting album both fell into obscurity and is now highly sought-after by collectors of rare prog and psychedelia.
Since 2002, Nadja — the Toronto-based duo of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff — have released over 40 full length LPs, split records, singles, CD-Rs and a live DVD. Nadja began as an offshoot of Aidan Baker’s solo career — a place for the darker and heavier sounds he wanted to explore.
Nadja create music that is brutally slow, heavy and deliberate, but with multiple layers of sound — swaths of ethereal shimmer, various reverbed tonalities and feedback. The effect is extremely hypnotic and even downright pretty at times. Like watching a little blue butterfly landing on your wrist as you watch a tall building collapsing over your head.
This year looks to be their most prolific yet, including When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV, a covers album featuring everything from Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask” to a-ha’s “The Sun Always Shines on TV.” There’s even a cover of “Long Dark Twenties,” a Paul Bellini-penned song that originally appeared on the Kids in the Hall Brain Candy soundtrack. (more…)
A little over a year ago, the possibility of a Phish reunion was the stuff of parking lot rumor and message board postings. When they took the stage at Hampton back in March and played those opening notes to “Fluffhead,” 2009 officially became the year of Phish.
Somehow, between jamming with Bruce Springsteen at Bonnaroo and playing consistently sold-out nights, they managed to record a new album with old friend Steve Lilywhite. Joy is their first studio outing since the weary Undermind back in 2004. (more…)
MONOLITH OF DOOM AND DESTRUCTION UNLEASHED UPON THE POPULACE – BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED
The Black Box (Flingco Sound System)
The box had been devised long ago by an evil wizard. Balsax the Cleric placed the mysterious relic on the table and turned some magical switch. In a moment, the sounds of the wizard’s demonic magic filled the air and many of us fell to our knees retching and trembling…
A few years ago, Chinese electronicists FM3 created “The Buddha Machine” – a pocket-sized box that played multiple loops and drones. The Buddha Machine became a worldwide sensation and people bought several machines so they could create layered soundscapes. Even Sunn O))) got into the act with a track on the compilation LP Jukebox Buddha which featured various artists utilizing the machine. (more…)
II.
Kromrod the Fierce wiped the blood from his massive broadsword. The chill fog of the Northern Wastes cleared the fetid dungeon air from his senses. He adjusted his loin cloth and stepped down the stony embankment.
There was a dwelling ahead – a crude yurt made of skins and hempen rope. A woman peered out of the doorway at the swarthy barbarian. Her eyes were as dark as her hair and her breasts as ample as a king’s banquet. The smell of sorcery and some sort of roasted meat was about her.
“Would you…like to…listen to some records…and warm yourself by my fire?” She asked in a slithering tone.
Kromrod grunted a reply, and pushed his way into the smokey darkness of the hut.
The woman presented the barbarian with a curved clay pipe and lit the bowl with a wave of her fingers.
“What is it you seek, barbarian?” she asked, crawling over to a box of crow skulls and LPs.
“I seek a standard.” Kromrod said, exhaling blue smoke from the hash pipe, “Two snakes, coming together, facing each other…but they’re like, one…” He drew heavily on the pipe again. “Like on a shield, or a banner, or the side of a van.”
“Or a bass drum head?” The woman whispered, putting the needle on the record and ripping off her flimsy silken kimono and throwing herself at Kromrod’s heavily muscular form…
Sometimes when I’m listening to the new Gates of Slumber record, I feel like I’m watching an epic sword and sorcery film play out in my mind. Or an especially spirited round of D&D back in the day.
The cover of the power trio’s fourth epic-length album, Hymns of Blood and Thunder, features an obsidian-armored warrior, dealing the death stroke to some wretched goblinoids, while a scantily-clad sorceress babe looks on. Oh yeah, and there are some lightning bolts and crows too. (more…)
“But there was something else tugging at Garcia as 1964 turned into 1965. For one thing, like half of America under the age of 25, Jerry had been seduced by the Beatles, especially their film, A Hard Day’s Night, which depicted life in a rock and roll band as just about the most fun that could be had on planet earth. the Beatles were deliciously irreverent and in-your-face anarchic; untamable gadabouts on an endless lark, always living in a completely different universe than the pitiable straight forces that were constantly trying to control, or at the very least, restrain them…” –from Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson
Grateful Dead – Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” 4/7/85 Philly Spectrum
Grateful Dead – “Day Tripper” 12/28/84 SF Civic Auditorium (more…)
Nick Cave has spent the better part of the past decade reasserting himself in his role as true rennaisance man. After the subdued and stately The Boatman’s Call (1997) and No More Shall We Part (2001), many thought Nick Cave was settling into family life and maturity with grace. Instead, he rallied together his Bad Seeds and launched a salvo of albums culminating in 2008’s joyously raucous Dig, Lazarus, Dig. If that wasn’t enough he started Grinderman, a side band of vitrolic rock of near Birthday Party intensity. He wrote the screenplay and (with Warren Ellis) provided the soundtrack for John Hillcoat’s acclaimed film The Proposition. Why not a novel as well? (more…)
My colleague John Hughes has graciously let me take the wheel today for this edition of Lost in the ’80s.
Fields of the Nephilim were the gothedelic deathrock cowboys of the apocalypse – dressed in cobwebby dusters, cowboy hats, and spurs – they delivered a string of singles and three solid albums before riding off into the sunset. (Sorry!)
To achieve their trail-worn appearance, the Nephs famously rolled around in piles of flour. To dust their dusters, as it were. According to legend, they were late for a gig when a local constable raised an eyebrow at their suspicious sack of King Arthur all-purpose. (more…)
