Good. It’s been a minute. I was just remarking in a recent post on Joensuu 1685 that I haven’t heard a goddamn peep from ya’llz since that sick eponymous disc dropped on me circa ‘05 and turned my cerebral cortex to Jell-O. Tiny Mix Tapes is reporting that Scandinavian decibel shredders Serena Maneesh have signed to 4AD for a million bucks and will release a new jam hive in March 2010. Good to see you returning to your roots, 4AD! With The Big Pink and St. Vincent, I was beginning to wonder if you guys lost your edge or if there was just some amazing peyote being passed around that made everyone stupid high. Regardless, Maneesh rules. I hope they call their next album All The Big Pink’s Base Are Belong to Serena Maneesh.

MP3 :::
Serena Maneesh – Un Deux

The Big Pink currently enjoy an astounding wave of Intarwebz hype, but I certainly won’t let that affect my opinion of the their debut A Brief History of Love. However, the record itself just happens to suck, all things considered. No, the hype didn’t ruin the listening experience. It just epically blows, hype or not.

Yes, The Big Pink is a true and accurate nod to shoegazing, and yes, I love shoegaze and second-wave shoegaze. However, it’s bad shoegazing, dude. It’s The Jesus and Mary Chain AFTER Darklands. Ya know, when they made rad videos for “Sidewalking” and shit, with, like, their name on a big marquee behind them while the Reid brothers are fuckin’ rawwwkin’ (one of the few unintentional hilarious decisions of the Creation camp). Gross…

There are some worthwhile moments on this album, such as “Velvet,” wherein the band combines their natural pop-centric attitude with truly thick distortion swells and harmonies, coming off more like The Catherine Wheel or The Boo Radleys than, ya know, an even shittier version of Pop Will Eat Itself or somethin’. Maybe The Big Pink could rename themselves Pop Will Shit Itself. That would be poignant. But even if the whole album was packed with songs like “Velvet,” no amount of quality songwriting on A Brief History of Love can make up for “Dominoes.” That song gave me gastric pains. As Jeffrey said while we were listening to the record in the office, “it’s like Jesus Jones goes on a date with Kevin Shields, and JJ tells everyone they slept together, and Kevin is totally embarrassed.” Gotta do better next time, 4AD.

So yeah, this record is doo doo. I’m totally bummed. Gonna listen to the new No Age EP instead for a pick-me-up. Laters.

For fans of:  Jesus Jones, Shitty-period Jesus and Mary Chain, The Jesus (circa Big Lebowski)

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
The Big Pink – Velvet

Three unreleased My Bloody Valentine songs. Three. You know what I know, which isn’t much, plus what you know (Johari Window lolz).  These songs evidently were recorded sometime between Isn’t Anything and Loveless, and for whatever reason, surfaced just last week. If anyone has more info on this, give me a shout in the comments.

The conspiring part of my brain wonders if perhaps these were leaked deliberately to generate excitement for, supposedly, a new album from Kev and the Gang in the not too distant future.

Perhaps the details are menial anyway. All that matters is that “Bilinda Song” rips hard and Xmas came early for Kenny Bloggins this year.

MP3 :::
My Bloody Valentine – Cowboy Song
My Bloody Valentine – Kevin Song
My Bloody Valentine – Bilinda Song

The now defunct Virginia-based Skywave is a name you might not recognize, but their lineage is rather important in the second generation shoegaze (or “newgaze” as it’s sometimes referred) movement. Synthstatic is certainly their best, and I first heard it my freshman year in college in 2003 when we received the record at the ol’ campus radio station. It was the loudest thing I had ever heard at the time, and I think I played a cut off it during my show every week for six months. It might still be the loudest record I own, save for maybe Guitar Wolf, which is just ridiculous. I don’t know, man – point is, it’s real goddamn loud.

Every song sounds as if the mix is utterly and completely in the red – at all times. It’s the type of production that would make most audiophile-sensitive producers shit. Skywave’s wall of sound is downright frightening. Throw “Angela’s an Angel” on your ghetto blaster and feel your tweeters jump about a quarter inch at the 1:22 mark. With that said, rays of light peak through the decibel decimation on sweet dream pop numbers like “Adore,” “Wear This Dress,” and “I Believe.” “Fire” is still my favorite track after all these years, though. That jam is evil.

As per a frame of reference, Skywave is a fine concoction of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s darker moments on Psychocandy, the more bombastic selections off of My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything, and the extremely tight rhythm of any given Echo & the Bunnymen record.

After Skywave split, the former members went on to form two bands you may be more familiar with – A Place to Bury Strangers and Ceremony. If you listen to the aforementioned, however, they both sound just like Skywave, right? Synthstatic is the all-in-one sinister jam hive to own.

I generally don’t do this, since I run a professional music blog, you see, and I always encourage our readers to support the artist. But Synthstatic is out of print and hustlers be tryin’ to flip copies of it for, like, $75. Hell naw; fuck that shit. Kenny Bloggins gon’ give it 2 u: Skywave – Synthstatic (ZIP archive, approx. 68 Mb). Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya.

For fans of:  My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, A Place to Bury Strangers

MP3 :::
Skywave – Fire
Skywave – Angela’s an Angel
Skywave – Adore

…so says the bold proclamation on the backside of Swervedriver’s 1993 album, Mezcal Head.  And while one can only speculate, I’m a firm believer that, sandwiched somewhere between The Rapture and The Temptations, you’d find Swervedriver on JC’s ipod.

My first taste of the band was back in ’91 on MTV of all places. Yes kids, it was back before the advent of the internets and easy access to MP3 downloads and streams. It was also when the “M” in MTV stood for “music” not “mindless” and alterna-VJ Dave Kendall hosted the regular “120 Minutes” program announcing bands with his lispy British accent. “Next up, Swuuuuuhhvdrivahhhhhhh!!” From the kitchen I heard the machine-gun drum riffs opening “Rave Down” and it was the beginning of a 15 year love affair. Of course, as with most love affairs, the sex sometimes got boring and I would occasionally get drunk and wake up to The New Pornographers. But after all this time I still get turned on by the fat-bottomed bassline in “The Other Jesus”…

Landing at Creation Records in the early ‘90s was probably more curse than blessing for the band despite some of the legends spawned by the label. Sheer A&R genius couldn’t keep Creation from bleeding pounds sterling and, after the release of Raise and Mezcal Head, Swervedriver was ultimately flushed by not only Creation but A&M which had distributed the band’s CDs in the US. By the late ‘90s you’d have had better luck finding that Moby Grape first pressing than Swervedriver in your local record emporium. Recorded right before the band was punted into record label purgatory, Ejector Seat Reservation was never released in the US and would become one of those elusive collectibles only available in hand-wrapped cellophane. And in one final kick in the nuts by the record industry, Swervedriver was subsequently signed then sacked by Geffen before it could even release its final studio effort, 99^th Dream. Lesser bands would’ve packed it in.

But enough industry insider bullshit. What about the music you say?

Raise chugs along like a freight train, opening with the sheer muscle of “Sci-Flyer”, dripping with fuzzy wah-wah goodness and a brutish rhythm section that sits heavy on your chest and dares you to breathe. Perhaps the only shortcoming here is Adam Franklin’s lost-in-the-wilderness vocals which simply lack the horsepower to rise above. While the band was often tagged as shoegazer – whether due to its thick layers of guitar or Franklin’s unassuming stage presence – take a listen to something like Sugar’s “What You Want It To Be” and you’ll hear more similarities there than you will in anything by My Bloody Valentine.  The B-side cut “Flawed” borrows from SST-era Dino, Jr but without the trademark slop of Mr. Mascis.

With the band’s follow-up, Mezcal Head, the Swervies slow things down with sprawling epic hypno-drones routinely stretching past the 5 minute mark. “Duel” lives up to its name alternating between growling power chords and delicate arpeggios. It’s the third album, Ejector Seat Reservation, where the band’s sound turns the corner from stock-in-trade tube stack to a Byrds-meets-the-MC5 kinda thing. Jangly guitars, harmonizing and synth cut through the slabs of distortion and Franklin’s vocals actually sound like a feature rather than a bug.

After a decade supported by little more than a couple of modest fan sites and Adam Franklin’s occasional solo work, Swervedriver staged a reunion tour last year and its first three albums have finally been “reissued, reissued, repackaged”.  I caught them last May at Denver’s Marquis Theater and they burned down the house with an ear-splitting show every bit as tight as my last encounter with the band at Slim’s, San Francisco in ‘98.

Back then, as a cash-strapped deadbeat, I wandered up to the modest merch table and could only scrape up $10 toward a $15 shirt. In a rare gesture of rock ‘n roll charity, the grizzled roadie spotted me the difference. My ex now has custody of the shirt, but I still recall the incident as emblematic of a band in it for the long haul. Despite the occasional siren song of the ‘next big thing’, Swervedriver keeps me coming back for more.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  I’m happy to say that this is the first article by new contributor Xavier Van Zandt, an American writer currently on assignment in Tajikistan.  Far out.  He’ll be introducing himself soon, but the dude knows his shit and seems to be nicer than I am.  Look out for more good stuff from him.  Since the Decibel Tolls now has three writers, the names with be included at the end of the article, which presumes that you, the reader, cares which one of us scaliwags waxed intellectual today.

MP3 :::
Swervedriver – The Other Jesus
Swervedriver – Year of the Girl

Sure, the best-of list is already out, but I would be remiss to not take this opportunity to admit missing a few pretty good recordings this year.  New Orleans’ Belong was one of them, and I stumbled upon said artist by way of a time machine.  I was rummaging through a stack of old magazines when I found a copy of Arthur from the summer of 2006 – the one with Brightblack Morning Light on the cover and their interview where they talked about how rad they think nature is.  I had read “Heavy Air” before, a much better title for an article on Belong than the stupid Internet meme I referenced.  However, something really struck a chord with me reading it this time around.  But more on that in a minute…

Belong’s latest is called Colorloss Record.  It dropped a while ago, actually.  But I’m slow at the punch sometimes.  Colorloss Record is a collection of covers, though you probably wouldn’t discern that from just listening.  It doesn’t sound like any of the originals.  Therein lies the power of Belong, covers or originals – Belong appropriates elements of shoegaze, ambient, minimalism, and drone without falling into or sounding like any of the aforementioned genres.  They sound like a pop band through a thick filter, like listening to a neighbor’s stereo.  Really unusual, and pretty exciting.  The volatile surges and swells of balmy, warm analog noise peppered throughout invoke the eroded and washed haze of William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops by way of Kevin Shields.  Despite hailing from a warm and humid climate, I must say that Belong sounds quite majestic as the soundtrack to the silent and cold winter night we’re enjoying here in Louisville tonight.

Belong is Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones, and both gentlemen probably have a lot of love for Tim Hecker, Lichens, and the Goslings.  But on Colorloss Record, they show a love for the likes of Syd Barrett, July, and Tintern Abbey, laying to tape some obscure covers in a completely unrecognizable, sonically aquatic fashion.  Dig “Late Nite” and “My Clown,” por favor.  Yes, the music really is supposed to sound something like the transmission of an extraterrestrial and/or underwater shortwave station broadcasting distant psychedelic pop music, and it’s unabashedly balls to the wall. Totally otherworldly. 

Now, why I decided Belong belongs in my collection (I’m sure this isn’t the first time they’ve gotten such a punishing statement). Turk Dietrich said a couple of things in the interview that really lit a fire for me:

“I think a lot of people’s ears like stuff really loud.  The depth, maybe, that fuzz brings?  You can layer a bunch of noise, something that’s aliasing in a track, it can bury other elements of the track and it kinda makes you pay attention, to work harder as a listener to find the hook in a track.  I think that’s one reason why people love bands that are totally fuzzed out and are not.. it’s a way to make things less obvious, I think.  It reminds me of the effect I get from some Glenn Branca stuff. It’s just like really repetitive for a while, he’s banging on the same chord and then you start to hear different things that maybe weren’t intended to be there.”

Man, it’s refreshing to hear that.  It’s basically the exact same approach to music that I take when I’m writing, as I’ve done with my Meridian Signals project.  It’s really easy to rehash tired rock music.  It happens all the time.  For me, riffs are not enough.  Texture, tonality, detail, intensity – these are the elements that cultivate a rich listening experience.  Melody is better when not as obvious, which is why records can grow on people and catchy songs can wear out easily.  Tweaking certain elements, such as volume or resonant frequencies, to their absolute breaking point can truly reveal remarkable facets within a piece of music.  This is probably why I write and listen to shoegazing in particular, a genre that celebrates the boundaries of sound and layers of ideas, trojan-horsed betwixt major-key harmonies and melodies. It doesn’t have to be challenging to listen to for the music to challenge the preconceived notions of rock and/or pop.  Who cares how incendiary your finger-tap solos are (although my finger-tap solos are pretty incendiary).  Fuck rock and roll, make your music sound awesome!  So to this end, I’m thankful for Turk’s insight, which certainly assisted in me taking extra special notice of what Belong’s been tinkering with lately.  You can grip Colorloss Record here for the right price if you want to get a better idea of what I’m talking about (and Turk, as well).

MP3 :::
Belong – Late Nite
Belong – My Clown

Oh good, glad to see you like my illustration.  Yeah, I had some downtime and wasn’t feelin’ too creative or too much in my graphic design game as far as doing something special for The Decibel Tolls year-end list.  So Lana and I started talking, and it came to us that it would be hysterical to do a collage with people like Bradford Cox eating that Ezra Comma dude from Frankenstein Weekday or whoever, and Franz Ferdinand… stuff like that.  I didn’t have time to add Lil’ Wayne.  And then I had to make, like, the fuckin’ universe as the backdrop.  That’s how we roll here at the Decibel Tolls – no fun, tasteful graphic to designate this article as the accumulative best-of list.  Nope, just crude images of artists I like with their heads detached eating shitty bands.  I’m additionally thrilled that I was able to describe the image even further despite the fact that it’s already annotated.  I rule.

I put some serious thought into this list, and did a bunch of narrowin’ down.  There were other jam hives I was rather infatuated with this year, such as releases from Magik Markers, Burning Star Core, and Vivian Girls.  But I wanted to do just the standard top ten this time around.  No reason to not do things standard every now and again…

10) KOUSHIK – Out My Window

From 7.29.08: Koushik’s Be With compilation was amazing, but a little brief (only one track made it over the three minute mark). That issue is fixed with Out My Window. Lead single “Lying in the Sun” is sunny psychedelia that comes correct and interpreted electronically – kinda like Caribou (Koushik even provided throat duty for some jams on Up in Flames, back in the pre-MySpace days when Danny S was known as Manitboa). However, Koushik remains very distinct, particularly by way of his clam, insanely reverberated vocals. All that was good about Be With is brought to the forefront – the sonically organic, lush, and hazy textures juxtaposed against crashing beats. However, you can tell, with this track alone, that Out My Window is going to showcase a lot more new ideas. Koushik is the latest heir to the Free Design’s throne, as long as that throne has room for some thumpin’ low end. This… this sweet psych slice is so sickeningly good. It’s an IV drip of technicolor beauty. This groove can heal most terminal illnesses.

MP3:::
Koushik – Lying in the Sun

09) THE BLACK ANGELS – Directions to See a Ghost

From 6.30.08 (The first Decibel Tolls post, actually): The Black Angels‘ latest, Directions to See a Ghost, a poignant title encapsulating their increasingly distinct desert-noir dusty psych grooves, picks up right where 2006’s Passover left off. Tom-heavy percussion intros, tremolo-saturated guitar meltdowns, nasty bass rumbles, and Alex Maas’ throat offerings (vocals that, to me, flutter somewhere between Jim James and Gregorian chant) are all still intact from the Passover days. However, Directions to See a Ghost does mature in two distinct ways. First, there’s a very fluid motion to the album, connecting each windswept canticle to the next. By structuring and composing most of the album in a similar vein with slightly altering moods, the Black Angels have created a whole, cohesive work as opposed to simply a collection of songs they dropped off at the studio on the way to the store. Of course, a good psych rock record should have a consistent ambiance as per the clientele since, you know, Beck albums are not the weapon of choice for the 420 LOL contingent. Secondly, the Black Angels have adopted a deeper sense of melody. Dare I say some catchiness abounds in the major-key call to arms “Doves,” the evil-Beatles sitar raga of “Dee-Ree-Shee,” and the funkadelic first movement of “Snake in the Grass.” This newmelodic slant pushes the Black Angels above some of their LSD theater contemporaries like Dead Meadow and Bardo Pond… Ultimately, If you’re going to emulate and lightly interpret bygone music, why not merge the music of the most triumphant groups ever and mold them into one totally epic behemoth? You know, originality often comes at a cost to the listener. Sometimes it works well and makes an urgent statement, but sometimes it doesn’t and is just overly challenging and annoying (Lou Reed and Tony Conrad anyone?). You know exactly what you’re getting with the Black Angels – no frills – just pop on, flip on the iTunes visualizer, take a bong rip, tune in, turn on, and drop out.

MP3 :::
The Black Angels – Vikings

08) SIC ALPS – U.S. Ez

From 10.21.08 This isn’t your father’s unwashable, filthy, no-fi psychedelic rock scuz – Sic Alps twist, creak, and thump, taking you on a cosmically damaged romp through west coast good vibes and future shock trepidation.  The latest, U.S. Ez, has a comfy place on the Siltbreeze roster with the likes of Charlambides, The Dead C, and U.S. Girls. Sic Alps certainly drink from the same goblets as the highest in psych rock royalty, but they also bring the goods to back up their seat at the table… I was casually listening to my iTunes on shuffle whilst engaging in some fast-track multitasking when “Clubbing For $$” came on and I thought “hmm, I don’t recognize this Alexander Skip Spence song.” Both Skip Spence and Alps vocalist Mike Donovan retain a subtle, gorgeous quality through raspy timbre and decimated, hissing melodies, suggesting that both gentlemen have seen the true face of God and didn’t like what they saw. “Gelly Roll Gum Drops” also provokes this same, insane electric folk feel, with a bit of 13th Floor Elevators style celestial boogie and some general Holy Modal Rounders headfuckery tossed in to give this exercise in tape reverb fortitude some serious lift.  I’m also reminded of my favorite work of Neil Michael Haggerty in U.S. Ez, so imagine my elation when I found out they play as his backup band every now and again. The blitzkrieg of fuzz on “Massive Place” might make Mudhoney feel retarded. But enough of comparisons. Comparisons are lame. I’m listening to this record right now as we speak, and all that needs to be said is that it’s so fucking good… I hope Sic Alps sell a billion records.

MP3 :::
Sic Alps – Bathman

07) HIGH PLACES – High Places

Beach House on uppers.  High Places take the hippie thing in a whole new direction.  Whereas Brightblack Morning Light are unabashedly hippie to the point of almost self-parody, High Places keep their love of nature and petuli more subtle.  Very similar to Panda Bear’s Person Pitch, High Places create a veritable tower of power of lush and bucolic sampled layers, all of which are sun-tinged, and some of which lean on that Raymond Scott-esque atomic age quality found in Broadcast’s latter stuff.  Less beat heavy than Panda, however, High Places tear down all walls and allow the fluid hippy trance melodies to flow like urban runoff, letting Mary Pearson’s vocals provide the ropes to keep everything together.  This is undoubtedly the summer jam.  Sometimes those marimba sounding beats come in a little too heavy and everything gets a little too “hey mon, no problem” for me.  No matter, “From Stardust to Sentience” is so grandiose and gorgeous that nothing else is relevant.  “From Stardust to Sentience” is some next level shit.  High Places also gets best album art of the year – what, with the giant pink ghostly baby and the illuminated agrocrag.  Get this album, or else the terrorists will win.

MP3 :::
High Places – From Stardust to Sentience

06) WOMEN – Women

From 10.20.08: I was introduced to Women (that sounds so odd) by a fellow Tiny Mix Tapes writer who proclaimed that Women is prefect for anyone who “gets their dick up to Animal Collective.” I was certainly intrigued after that statement, especially since he said the word “dick.” And while I would concur that the Calgary band sometimes evokes the more menacing material on Here Comes the Indian and Danse Manitee, Women are by no means a knock-off. Whereas Animal Collective has always exuded a playfulness and childlike veneer, here be dragons within Women. The crescendo of the excellently titled “Lawncare” wants to pillage your village and breed with your women (pun intended, motherfucker).  I would also be somewhat remiss to not recognize the pretty spot-on review courtesy of Jagjaguwar’s one sheet: “Sometimes light and spacious, at other times eerie and dense with an ominous weight, this self titled album touches upon Velvet Underground, Swell Maps or This Heat while not really having any obvious precursors – a lo-fi masterpiece cloaked in layers of vibrato and guitar wash.” That’s certainly true, as Women adopt the traditional instrumentation of gritty garage punk and stretch its potential across ’60s Nuggets-ready psychedelia, early ’80s no wave, and contemporary, slightly-askew pop peppered with noise flourishes. You also get a heavy-dose of the elusive hummable anthem with “Black Rice,” Fahey-esque guitar noodling on “Sag Harbor Blues,” and a nihilistic Madchester zeitgeist-meets Boredoms thirsty on bloodlust hodgepodge on “Shaking Hands.” The insanity and panning production on “January 8th” attacks your brain with holy water sprinklers. January 8th, as a fun fact, is David Bowie’s birthday. Women’s “January 8th” sounds nothing like David Bowie.

MP3 :::
Women – Lawncare

05) INDIAN JEWELRY – Free Gold

I had the pleasure of suffering moderate brain damage for a sustained period of time after seeing Indian Jewelry in October of 2005, a few months shy of their debut Inevasive Exotics dropping like hot magma.  They were playing a show with some friends of mine whom I came out to see.  I had never heard of them and offered no expectations.  Dudes started wrapping the stage in hundreds of feet of aluminum foil betwixt multiple strobe lights, animal skulls, fog machines, and a large Lone Star state flag backdrop (certainly a sinister symbol in the middle of W’s second term).  It was total brutality.  And while Inevasive Exotics was an excellent albeit very evil album, Free Gold furthers Indian Jewelry beyond shock and swells of noise, moving away from the mechanical squall of their influences like Suicide or Swans.  Free Gold is rich in hooks and melodies, and they’re not necessarily subtle either.  But Indian Jewelry does not completely abandon their destructive forces.  Just about every track is stacked high with sludge, fuzz, and squelches, and all songs remain unequivocally foreboding.  But the song structures are not freeform anymore, but rather, concise, crafty, and almost, gulp, electric folk.  Free Gold’s midsection is flawless and so cohesive that it almost comes across as a suite, starting with “Walking on the Water,” and ending abruptly with the quite, curveball all acoustic Erika Thrasher track “Everyday.”  Indian Jewelry is doing a rather new thing, as far as creating moods of almost-fright within songs that balance catchiness and chaos.  It’s rather unfortunate that Free Gold has not been more celebrated, but alas, that’s the inherent issue with being ahead of the curve, as it were.

MP3 :::
Indian Jewelry – Nonetheless

04) GROWING – All the Way

From 8.20.08: I’ve seen Growing twice. I witnessed them offer a very competitive opening set for Mogwai. Though there was nothing much to watch, per se, hearing their very warm and resonating drone assault, as suffocatingly prominent as their rapid-fire fractured guitar architecture, over a 8,000 watt PA felt like marching into Mordor. Shit was powerful. Growing has often been described as doom. I don’t really agree. Perhaps it’s because I saw them later at a party cracking wise and crushing Rolling Rock on top of a washer/dryer unit, but mostly because their harmonically complex jam hives sound almost hopeful – vast and assuring – like trying to look over the curve of the Earth. Growing seems to be taking a new direction now, offering a more shimmering, melodic approach, not too far removed from Cloudland Canyon [Bloggins note: see blow]. “Innit” is a big fuzzy bit-decimating tremolo defibrillator. “Green Flag” has a charming, delightful little breathing monster under its surface. This is profoundly good.  Growing likes to rip a big hole in the sky only a couple meters above your dome.

MP3 :::
Growing – Rave Pie Only

03) CLOUDLAND CANYON – Lie in Light

From 8.15.08: About 10 years ago, Art Bell, then host of late night alien and conspiracy theory-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM, aired the frightening urban legend recording “The Sounds From Hell.” It’s an unsettling clip, but also morbidly fun. It’s also completely a hoax (literally speaking, not theologically). The origin of this sound is as follows: Soviet scientists drilled a hole nine miles deep in the heart of Siberia to study plate tectonics. When they hit a heat pocket, their drilling equipment was destroyed, followed by the sound of millions of screaming souls. As any good scientist would do, they whipped out the mics and recorded it…  I tell this anecdote as it relates the feeling I get when I hear Cloudland Canyon, and subsequently, when I feel my face melt off my skull. I don’t believe in hell, but I believe in nine mile deep holes. And at the entrance of such a tremendous cave, portal, the dark and cavernous chasm reaching deep into foreboding stretches beyond our measly surface existence, is the sound of Cloudland Canyon. It’s huge, it’s beautiful, but it’s teeming with trepidation. If they ever make a film adaptation for Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Cloudland Canyon should produce the sound of the ever-expanding house. This is the biggest thing on the planet. Cloudland Canyon, should their discography get too prolific, will knock our planet right off it’s fucking orbital plane.  Fans of Lichens would do well to take notice, as well as folks who like to go get some shit done.

MP3 :::
Cloudland Canyon – You and I

02) HUSH ARBORS – Hush Arbors

From 10.23.08: Hush Arbors, as far as the whole freak folk/New Weird America thing goes (I begrudgingly use this term), has always struck me as the obvious choice for ambassador of the aforementioned movement, as he offers the perfect median point for the disparate sounds found therein. Wood’s take on psychedelic folk demonstrates that it is not necessarily his intent to destroy strong structures, nor is it his intent to play it straightforward and traditional. However, Hush Arbors has gone above and beyond comparison to similar artists. It’s no longer fair to say “this is a great offering from the New Weird America camp,” it’s only befitting to describe this self-titled record as a monumental collection of music that stands up against any album, anywhere. I’m not trying to overhype this really, but Hush Arbors rules so hard. Hush Arbors’ adventurous, wide-ranging sonic paintbrush invokes the past whilst thrusting the very notion of folk rock into future territories. In short, Keith Wood just dropped the type of album that separates the men from the boys…  As a contributing member of Six Organs of Admittance (not to mention Current 93, Wooden Wand, Sunburned Hand of the Man), you certainly hear the familiar Fahey-esque, drone note heavy guitar noodling that defines the Organs’ catalog through each and every track on Hush Arbors. But the riff-heavy structures only accent the music, never existing as the sole focal point. These are well written, melodic, solid songs – simple enough to hum along, layered enough to overload your headphone technology and melt your brain. Also different than Six Organs is that Hush Arbors keeps his weirdness prominent and economical. Whereas contemporaries Ben Chasny and MV & EE like to break down into drone examinations and take lengthy journeys down sunken catacombs, Hush Arbors keeps his ideas contained within fairly concise, brightly colored, accessible songwriting. The album’s rollicking psychedelic folk, with vintage AM radio influences like classic Mayall-style R&B and Byrds-helmed feel good bucolic flourishes, is a shapeshifting exercise in sonically diverse, cosmically dense, warmly welcoming electric folk.  Fuck Chinese Democracy, this is Hush Arbors’ time, as far as I’m concerned.

MP3 :::
Hush Arbors – Gone

01) DEERHUNTER – Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

From 8.27.08 and 8.29.08: What other album released this year has a real legend behind it?  The secret album, the accidental self-inflicted leak of the secret album, the ensuing drama, the strange tours, the countless articles always having to mention Bradford Cox’s physical appearance – not to mention lineup changes, ample shit-talkin’, and general boobish antics.  Trouble finds Deerhunter more than the visa versa, though.  Yet they emerged victorious with a massive, sprawling statement.

Deerhunter exists in this strange chasm between fuzzy sludge and krautrock. Though they don’t sound like Neu or Faust, per se (except for “Slow Swords” perhaps), “Calvary Scars II” and “Nothing Ever Happens” are fiercely motorik. If you were fighting in a medieval battle, but rode high on unicorns instead of steeds and bested your opponent with candycanes versus lances, 4:03 – 7:31 of “Calvary Scars II / Aux Out” is the best battle cry you could have. This track could also act as triumphant shag music (it is Deerhunter’s deontologial duty to please that booty). Shit is crucial.

I like Cryptograms a lot. I sorta like Flourescent Gray. But goddamn, I did not expect Deerhunter to slay me. Twice! I’ve been twice slain! Microcastle in conjunction with Weird Era Cont. is one of the most significant, important releases of this decade, hands down. Neither one is better than the other – they’re one sick unit.

And I now take umbrage with the idea that an album is either pop or experimental. Though I’d like to think that the Beatles’ last four albums debunked that myth, the label-happy world of the blogosphere has again segregated these term, shall we say, “terms” when reviewing music. It’s lazy journalism. Weird Era Cont. is a flawless example of toying with pop structures and creating a soundscape that’s both catchy and mind-melting. You can hum along or you can rip the bong. Each is equally appropriate, and Deerhunter does this with an increasingly recherche panache.

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Calvary Scars II / Aux Out

Post-punk pioneers Wire were oft recognized as a group in a strange nether region – one that was too artsy to be punk, too punk for the art kids.  Wire was angular and minimal, with gorgeous melodies remaining subtle and rewarding.  As such, it makes total sense to extract those under-the-surface pop structures, add dense layers of sound that the band sometimes hinted at, and reimagine this begrudgingly poppy gem as shoegazing, whose artists also tended to be begrudgingly poppy. 

Covers of the song “Outdoor Miner” (from Chairs Missing) spanning ten years or more eventually all ended up on a limited release compilation called A Houseguest’s Wish from the Words on Music label.  Flying Saucer Attack’s reimagining of the song, with a 1995 copyright date, indicates one of the last recordings from the original Flying Saucer Attack before Dave Pearce disappeared for a while. Flying Saucer Attack, as expected, provides the loudest rendition.

Lush’s dream pop interpretation keeps closest to the original structure of “Outdoor Miner,” while Austin neo-shoegaze collective Experimental Aircraft tastefully expands the song into a bombastic, anthemic, hummable wall of sound with a driving groove.  Enjoy this rare treat!

MP3 :::
Flying Saucer Attack – Outdoor Miner
Experimental Aircraft – Outdoor Miner
Lush – Outdoor Miner

I had to go through a labyrinth of amazing old school Geocities websites to find a decent photo of Lush. The mid-’90s was such a golden age for web design, ya’ll. Why don’t designers use wicked animated GIFs anymore? Man… fuckin’ Geocities… oooh weee. I had a Geocities website and it ruled so hard.

Anyway, conventional shoegazing history operates, for all intents and purposes, as follows.  When the “Scene That Celebrated Itself“ collapsed on itself around the same time as grunge (roughly Q3 of 1994) your band did two things: either dismantled or went a very different direction. Lush chose the latter, and released some kinda shitty music toward the end of their career. However, Lush’s Gala compilation, which comprised of the group’s first three EPs collected on one priced-to-own record long before the Beta Band thought of doing it, is not just some of the best dream pop ever recorded – it’s just some of the best rock and roll recorded. Lush, along with Cocteau Twins, established what the 4AD sound was all about.

Few artists truly balanced noise and gentleness, grandeur and intimacy better than Lush did between 1989 and 1992. 1990’s Gala was the introduction of Lush to the world, and 1992’s Spooky, their frist proper album of original material, was just as good. After Spooky, Lush moved toward the more minimal and bubblegum end of the spectrum, riding the wave of the Britpop craze. Lovelife, their final album due to drummer Chris Acland’s tragic suicide, was their best selling, but also furthest removed from anything remotely shoegazing in sound. As such, Lush is often best remembered for “Ladykillers” and stuff like that instead of what the majority of their output sounded like.

No bueno, homes. “Second Sight” is what Lush is about: jangly guitars, sonic cathedral vocals, tinges of psychedelia and punk, and the usual shoegazing flourishes. ”Scarlet” rips so hard that it hurts. It reminds me of how much indie rock sucks this day and age, and how much I bum on my parents for having me in 1984 instead of a decade earlier so I could’ve been around to experience the excellent jams and slackerdom zeitgeist. “Hey Hey Helen” features absolutely gorgeous vocal harmonies on top of a bed of fuzzbox destruction and chorus-heavy examinations underneath the song. It’s an ABBA cover by the way. I don’t want to hear it, I love ABBA. They own. Don’t give a fuck.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and perhaps that’s true. But you sure as hell can identify a shoegazing album by its cover. Is it all luqidy and colorful like Gala? It’s probably shoegaze.

Gala still destroys, and holds up well in not sounding terribly dated as so many early ’90s bands tend to do.  All of the following tracks are found on Gala and originally found on their 1989 EP Scar.  Owning a physical copy of either will cost you a pretty penny (the former goes for roughly $70 on eBay), but you can buy a download of the entire compilation courtesy of 4AD here for the right price.

MP3 :::
Lush – Scarlet
Lush – Second Sight
Lush – Hey Hey Helen

Since setting short or long term goals for yourself tends to keep you focused and away from the dangers of drugs, so as such, it is my short term goal to write a few entries this week digging through my archives. My archives are kept in a fortress outside the city proper and mote-protected.  However, I will share certain gems from these archives on my blog, because sharing is caring. Here’s one from classic UK dream pop outfit Chapterhouse.

So, Chapterhouse’s 1991 release Whirlpool never made a huge, umm, splash in the shoegazing scene, but it was very good. Had they developed these sounds more, expanding on their sonic landscape instead of following-up with a corny, overtly poppy, overly slick, incredibly dated sounding album (1993’s Blood Music), Chapterhouse might have been as recognizable of a name as Ride.

Though Chapterhouse tended to be more poppy than many of their contemporaries, they made quite a statement when they weren’t going for verse-chorus-verse structures and soft guitar sounds.

This… this is a total brain melter. And it’s a rare treat.

“Satin Safe” is shoegazing’s most sinister song.  These guitars are in pain. The song’s crescendo in the third act is scary. I love this because this is one of the few times you hear a wall of sound that is uncomfortably suffocating. You would’ve never seen this coming from Chapterhouse. Unfortunately, this song never made it on Whirlpool during its initial release. I was able to get my hands on the out-of-print Sunburst EP that this trenchant anthem appeared on a few years back.

Like Sarah Palin, this song frightens me.

MP3 :::
Chapterhouse – Satin Safe