Dude, what’s with the fucking wolves? Wolf Eyes, Wolfmother, Patrick Wolf, Guitar Wolf (who is awesome), Wolf Parade (who is not awesome), Sea Wolf, Peanut Butter Wolf, Howlin’ Wolf, AIDS Wolf, and lest we forget Peter Wolf and my personal favorites…
Wolf Blitzer (of The Situation Room fame, when not hosted by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, not to mention can double as an excellent metal band name)
Law & Order executive producer Dick Wolf (not to be confused with wolf dick, which is entirely different). DOINK DOINK:
and, of course, three wolves havin’ a howl, coming to a state fair or dance party near you…
So yep, the Wolf is everywhere, and this shit’s beginning to confuse me. Add Wolf People to the fray. However, it’s worth mentioning and perhaps self-evident that Wolf People is a rather amazing band – amazing enough to make me (almost) completely forget about my aversion to wolves, both in project names and in real life encounters.
Two things you need to know about Wolf People. First, flutes. Second, Wolf People are completely out of the loop of what’s en vogue right now. This is good classic psychedelia, and some of the best interpretations of the genre since Dungen. No glo-fi, no beats, no poorly realized garage slop, no hype – just complex, ornate, soaring acid rock and electric folk – respectfully retro, yet with a contemporary sheen that shines brightly. Nothing complicated to read into with Wolf People, this is just how rock and roll is supposed to sound.
I’ve had a shit morning thus far, but discovering and listening to Wolf People put me in the right headspace. Despite having yet to set foot in the states (they come to us from merry ole England), they just scored a distribution deal with the practically flawless Jagjaguwar label. Their debut full-length, Tidings, hit selves February 23. Hit up the sample below, and hear more at the group’s Soundcloud.
For fans of: Dungen, Fairport Convention, Kurt Vile, The Pretty Things
Louisville’s Phantom Family Halo adds another page to archtype-laden book of rock folklore. Right before their long-awaited grand statement to the world drops, the sprawling 2 LP Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die, and they begin their nationwide vision quest with Russian Circles, the band’s auxiliary drummer, Tony Bailey, suddenly passed away. As an esteemed and prolific member in the local music community, the news sent shock waves through the city. However, the band did not utter a word about it publicly. Phantfamlo never discusses peripheral information in any capacity, even when directly relating to the people in the band, and they’ve always kept things close to the chest. Undoubtedly this adds to their mystique. Monliths, despite its foreboding mood, is congruent to this attitude. The grainy, dry psychedelia found within evokes both an intimacy and mystery not often found in this genre. If you knew nothing else about them, you’d probaby be baffled as to who they are, where they came from, and what they want from you. They probably like it that way. Phantom Family Halo doesn’t float above the horizon line like the flower power groups do – they’re standing behind you.
Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die is a bold, majestic record that’s viscerally formidable and fresh – a crafty stew of swampy acid rock, haunting soundscapes, immense space, a slight gothic flavor, and eternal heaviness. Five songs in is a track called “Dec 2012,” and I’ll be damned if I can find a better brain-burning soundtrack for the apocalypse.
Opener “Blackouts and Runaways” truly makes use of playwright Bertolt Brecht’s assertion of “The past inside the present,” citing that “the rapidity of change and the increase of knowledge in the modern world have forced us to see history in a new light: not as a finalized past but as a process in which the new continuously transfigures the old.” Without sounding pretentious and wanker (I promise you I’m not going in this direction), Phantom Family Halo has synthesized this idea to great effect. “Blackouts and Runaways” meshes conventional garage rock/harsh vintage psych and hauntological retro-futuristic electronic flourishes to create art without a time stamp, a warped perception of what rock music used to be (as we understand it), and a proclamation that fears the future. In other words, it’s fucking heavy, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album – an body of work that’s chronologically ambiguous yet sonically pointed.
The motorik 10-minute opus “Monoliths” scares the shit out of me. It’s the sound of someone looking into your window after dark, donning a masquerade facepiece and wielding a nine inch blade, making your balls retract ten-fold. No one has written more paranoid krautrock saturated in impending doom. “Third World War” is nothing but pure mindfuck. A twinkling, bucolic melody carries you through over a minute of serenity before pure menacing proto-metal and a blanket of vehement, Link Wray-style reverberated vocals dicks you in the dick. And yet, songs like “Alive and Well” peak out from around the corner – a playful, aurally credulous three-minute ballad that mixes a bit of Boards of Canada atmospheric synths with orchestral samples that, aside from the melodic vocals, wouldn’t sound out of place on Aphex Twin’s Richard D James album.
There’s a surprise at every corner. And while the instrumentation can be somewhat sparse and rigid, each movement through the album’s massive 18 songs reveals strata of mysterious sounds, cavernous imagery, and lush evil. Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die an invigorating and exciting listening, while at the same time, provokes your eyes to constantly dark around for predators all the while. It’s weird and it’s awesome. It’s the heat-induced forest fire ruining the hippies’ fun during the summer of love. Most importantly, Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die does not easily fit in any genre or subgenre, acting more as an anthropomorphic, mercurial, growing beast that is certainly one of the most profound statements out of Louisville in years and, and in my opinion, one that holds up well against any given heavy hitter in the experimental rock field. Get lifted.
Phantom Family Halo’s Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die is available now on beautiful vinyl or in digital download format courtesy of Karate Body Records.
For fans of: Six Organs of Admittance, Fever Ray, Spiritualized, Boris
As some footnotes to the review above, why don’t you go on and have a real taste yourself. Here is some video of “These Flowers Never Die” from their show at Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge last July that I went to and had a sweet time. Of course, sadly, this footage is some of Tony’s last. But, tour’s still on. I’ll post those dates closer to their leave after the holidays.
I feel like a doof for being completely un-fucking-aware that Nothing People dropped a doosey of a jam hive earlier this year until I read Joel Hunt’s review in LEO and got stoked. Late Night is a definite departure from Anonymous. The sound is richer – less spastic and noisy – and straddles the median between tremolo-saturated acid rock and shoegaze. Sure, the tone of this equation sounds like a drugged-induced exercise, but Nothing People keeps the songs focused and concise. This is a group that truly loves and understands Piper at the Gates of Dawn, creating a definitive post-millennial primer for more ominous trips down the rabbit hole.
For those unfamiliar, Nothing People, as a reference point, is Sonic Youth for Hawkwind fans. Despite the general downtempo movement of the group’s repertoire, there’s a subtle punk ethos/urgency that runs under the thick layers of reverb, knob tweakin’, and fuzzy psychedelic haze. And like all the aforementioned collectives, the line between what is improvised and what is intentional is quite blurry. I love it.
Late Night gets things started off brutally. Dig the swamp boogie of “Stuck in the Mud,” with its swinging rhythm and funky low end, or the subterranean sludgy summoner of stoner rock demons and kraut rock pulsars that is “It’s Not Your Speakers.” From there, the mood changes drastically, staring with “Pushing the Buttons,” a beautiful, windswept, desolate dirge that might invoke paranoia in the less hearty of us. “1-11″ stacks backwards samples and crossbreeds those dudes with gorgeous harmonies that, if I had my way, would’ve ended up in one of the Lord of the Rings movies (maybe the part in The Two Towers when Treebeard is all like “fuck ya’ll” and starts a riot). “Another Rattle” should please fans of Wooden Shjips, showcasing thick atomic age analog organs and a dusty, low key, heavy groove (courtesy of the new, uncredited former Monoshock keyboardist). “Janet” is what you hear right before you die, I think.
The album ends with the title track, and it’s actually a cover of the Syd Barrett’s “Late Night” (the same one that Belong beautifully reinterpreted last year). Nothing People adopts a more nauseating angle, with syrupy and sick synthesizers that cultivate a real woozy effect.
Nothing People tackle a myriad of approaches to brain melting rock/psych/post-punk/noise, and in doing so, upped the ante from their debut Anonymous. Late Night is a richly satisfying listening experience and a must-have release for any psych fan. Look for it on the year-end list. I hope Nothing People sells 5 million records.
Late Night is available now courtesy of S-S Records. Nothing People is (are?) also on MySpazz.
For fans of: Wooden Shjips, Dead Meadow, Indian Jewelry, Bardo Pond
I halfway feel like no further elaboration outside the title of this entry is needed. But whatever, this is a music blog, so let me sHaRe mY feeLinGs.
I’ve heard for a couple of years that I need to see Phantom Family Halo. Like, everyone I know has told me I need to see them. So, instead of doing either Forecastle or Lebowski Fest last weekend, I opted to spend my money at Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge with the yokel locals to catch Phantom Family Halo’s opening set Saturday night for new Temporary Residence signing and stalwart Louisville boys Young Widows.
Is it cool to describe a show as trenchant? Phantom Family Halo were trenchant. For the uninitiated, Phantom Family Halo formed from the mighty and mysterious local freak folk collective Sapat and The For Carnation. Obviously, these guys are heavy hitters.
A large projection of, for the most part, some visual pastiche of anthropology films illuminated the stage and the band, which included two drummers and a guy whose sole function was to create insane noise from his keyboard and Boss SP-303. PFH were extremely loud, and while listening to their recorded stuff right now, are still extremely uncategorizable. Loosely speaking, Phantom Family Halo function as a psychedelic band. However, their live show is anything but navel gazing. The group becomes a breathing, menacing behemoth purveying nasty, swampy, ultra-distorted acid rock with a rhythm and vocal section closer to the urgency of a punk tent revival, like 154-era Wire informed by Six Organs of Admittance (or perhaps its the other way around).
Phantom Family Halo is awesome. I mean, if Julian Cope is stoked on the record, you know it’s good:
I’m also right blown away by the catchy and compelling all-purpose psychedelia of THE LEGEND OF BLACK SIX by power trio The Phantom Family Halo. I say ‘all purpose’ because this stuff is useful and should be available by the vat on prescription, because it’s good for the mental health. I say power trio, but this lot are greedy motherfuckers with a hefty set of auxiliary members. The sound is totally reminiscent of that 1970 period when no fucker could control the number of overdubs, and these guys pass through every stage from The Youngbloods and Kalackakra to a kind of Amon Duul PARADIESWARTS DUUL-informed take on David Voorhaus’ White Noise project via early (very early) Chrome on their way to the proto metal of ‘Electric God In Your Galaxy’.
If they come to your neck of the woods, make haste to see them. Their web presence is at good ol’ MySpazz.
