Vampillia - Alchemic Heart

(Important, 2011)

It feels gullible, over the course of 25 minutes, to fall for the singular crescendo, like I'm thirteen years old again and I'm listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor!, taking that exclamation point at face value.  Is that right?  We were gullible?  Or juvenile--was it that: we were buying into the manipulative theatrics of a lengthy arc, like we were hysterical girls and they were Tiger Beat boys.  I can't help though, even now, getting chest-swells from a well-composed build and release.  Alchemic Heart taps into that: an unapologetic sense of the unavoidably apocalyptic.  And, to these ears, they pull it off.  No, lets not be timid: they totally pull it off.  Probably because they're Japanese.  And look!  Look what I found out after the fact!  They wrangled in Jarboe, and Merzbow!  Credentials!  And a new record collaborating with Nadja!

"Sea"

LSD March - Under Milk Wood

LSD March
Under Milk Wood
(2009, Important)
RIYL = Boris, Ghost, Acid Mother Temple

LSD March has, apparently, been a longtime psych rock import from Japan. I never knew, and as a result I seem to be a much lesser person than I otherwise could’ve been. So this, Under Milk Wood, with its black and white visual palate and its broken down psych folk branches, its beautiful, haunting Japanese cadence, is simply contorting me into another world completely. Some place with a rain of crows and crows’ feathers. A blackened air backlit by a white, hot sun. It’s a desert type atmosphere, arid and austere, mangled leafless trees perched about and barbed wire fencing, rusted and bent. When they pull out the electric guitar, let it buzz hard into the air, everything burns slow and flat. It’s simply an experience. An enveloping, Jimi Hendrix screwed and twisted into a Japanese horror film, or something. Whatever it is, I’m loving it.

-Thistle

72.

Kurt Weisman
Spiritual Sci-Fi
(Important, 2008)

Kurt Weisman is a weirdo. I mean, you can tell by his choice of cover art, right? We've given that cover art a lot of crap since this album was released last year, but we have also given the music for which it represents a proportional amount of praise, and for good reason. As much as the cover may want you to think, "well, this is just bad weird," (Sassigrass still won't listen to him because of it) the truth of the matter is that Kurt Weisman represents the best most innocently creative "good weird" there is. That's why I love him.

-Thistle

Kurt Weisman - Spiritual Sci-fi

Kurt Weisman
Spiritual Sci-fi
(01.2008, Important)
Verdict = Futuristic weirdo pop is so so good

Listening to Kurt Weisman’s Spiritual Sci-fi is an otherworldly experience. Clustered with both madness and beauty, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anything as odd and affecting as this album. I pushed the album onto Wooly Mammal a couple days ago and last night, after what I assumed was his first listen to the album, I got this random text message(way after “lights out” time around these parts) that read “Spiritual Sci-fi oh my heck!” I am not quite sure exactly what the text meant, but I am assuming that since Wooly was willing to break some of his personal cuss boundaries by using the word ‘heck’ that he was fairly impressed. Full of chirping, whirling, humming electronics, listening to Spiritual Sci-fi feels a lot like what it must be like to wander through an open air insect house from Mars. However, this ain’t no noise record, though it is pretty difficult to really say what this record is for sure. Underneath the aural mess that Kurt launders about the album’s eight tracks are some of the most affecting songs I’ve heard in recent memory. With melodic turns that will bring you to your knees and a beyond-falsetto voice that seems to embody the wide-eyed inner child that makes life worth living, it is no wonder that Weisman is so successful. Literally, album centerpiece and namesake “Spiritual Sci-fi” contains some of the most beautiful musical moments that I have ever heard. It is really breathtaking. There is just something really personal about the album. The fact that Weisman spent ten years toiling away at the thing is telling of meticulous nature of every little pop and whistle scattered across the album. An absolute essential of this or any year.

-Mr. Thistle

Kurt Weisman - Spiritual Sci-fi

Dan Friel - Ghost Town

Dan Friel
Ghost Town
(05.2008, Important)
Verdict = A bombastic anthemic electronic noise party

Whether with his band, Parts & Labor, or on his own, something about everything Dan Friel touches seems to end up awesome, loud and glorious. On Ghost Town, his solo debut, Friel molds vociferous, noisy electronics into victorious pop anthems that seem to expand your lung capacity with utter freshness. It is a giddy, mind melting affair to be sure. The kind that can drive you mad and leave you frothing at the mouth. Friel seems to know the boundaries of his signature sound, limiting Ghost Town to eight succinct tracks of noise pop. I think anything more might provoke spontaneous combustion due to its sheer overbearing awesomeness. No these eight simple tracks are the perfect amount for normal human capacities. Just enough to get you sweaty and happy and seeing life just a little differently, Ghost Town packs the perfect punch. While the album is by no means a rock record (at least in the more conventional sense of the term), Friel’s touch is unmistakable and shares much with his work with Parts & Labor. For those who loved the noisy, soaring aesthetics of Parts & Labor but couldn’t quite get past the mediocre vocals, Ghost Town is a godsend. And for those of you who hate Parts & Labor (if there is such a person) or couldn’t care less, Ghost Town is both un-hate-able and un-“meh”-able. Give up, Dan Friel has created an entire party that can fit in a compact disc or 12” vinyl, who are you to try and avoid it? Watch out because hearing this album is simultaneous with becoming obsessed with it.

-Mr. Thistle

XBXRX - Sounds

XBXRX
Sounds
(08.2007, Important)
Verdict = Above Par Noise Rock Improvisations

Hanging up their spazz rock blitzkrieg momentarily, Sounds documents XBXRX dipping their toes into noisy improvisation. Wholly instrumental, Sounds follows the band as they burn through seven tracks of deafening squalor, enhancing the depth of their already toothy bite. I guess I should retract my opening statement. This is definitely spazzy and most certainly rock, however, gone is the structure that could once allow their tracks to be differentiated as “Songs.” Now, a new level of drug induced jazz has been added to the mix, so while it may be immediately recognizable as XBXRX, it is still perfectly conceivable that it a product of their making. The whole experiment is anchored on its incredible percussion. The drums flow forth like a waterfall of drum sticks, cymbals and drum sets all crashing together as they plunge into a sea of instruments below. Swelling, subduing and then swelling again, the album avoids some of the pitfalls of similarly cacophonous free noise rock albums by allowing you periods with which to breathe. Even so, this isn’t a crossover album by any means and would probably fail to be a necessary staple for most. For me however, in light of a recent push to avoid the sterility of the avant, the album still holds sway. There is enough rock among the smattering schizophrenic garble to insight repeat listens for purposes beyond anything intellectual. Which is to say: if you’re not moving to this record, you are listening to it wrong.

-Mr. Thistle

XBXRX - "Infancy of Millions Pt. 1"

Birchville Cat Motel - Seventh Ruined Hex

Birchville Cat Motel
Seventh Ruined Hex
(11.2007, Important)
Verdict = Above Average Mind Essplode!

I have recently began an infatuation with the game Guitar Hero (I am still waiting to give Rock Star a try) and ever since rocking that plastic key-tar have gone about imagining how cool it would be to have an indie version of the game rife with songs from Black Mountain, Deerhoof, Sunset Rubdown and the like. Surely if your any fan of the game and this blog you have thought the same thing. Well, after listening to Birchville Cat Motel’s Seventh Ruined Hex, I am convinced that this would be the final track, if conceivably translatable to those color coated keys, the most difficult track on the game – the track provided in the duel with the devil. On Seventh Ruined Hex, Birchville Cat Motel is an avant gardist’s guitar hero. Secondary to that, BCM maintains my favourite band name ever…yep, I’m pretty sure it is my very favourite, so, I suppose that counts for something. If you are unfamiliar with BCM, the New Zealand sound annihilator is beyond prolific (Seventh Ruined Hex is his third full length CD released in 2007) and while not as well known on these shores, is incredibly versatile and consistent. Seventh Ruined Hex is not for the faint of heart, this is the type of screeching guitar/noise that kids have always wanted to blast to infuriate their Puritan parents. Still, deep in the squall there is a definite soul infused with tremendous fortitude of control over his careening isle of sound. A perfect long form rock album for those who need it turned up past 11.

- Mr. Thistle

Birchville Cat Motel - "Bee" sample

Axolotl - Memeory Theatre

Axolotl
Memory Theatre
(2007, Important)
8.5/10

In a genre of music where tracking down limited release CDRs and Vinyl can make collecting music constantly disappointing, Karl Bauer (aka Axolotl) has made things easier for the rest of us. Memory Theatre collects tracks from several of his recent CDR and Vinyl releases that have since gone out of print and compiled them here on what is sometimes a rarity in his field, an actual CD. Memory Theatre does not disappoint either. Bauer’s excursions as a multiple instrument distorting, fuzz drone artist has nary released a bad composition in his budding noise career. The beauty of Axolotl is his ability to turn hills of distortion into transcending states, and waves of clatter into beauty. This collection sees a variety of attacks from Mr. Bower ranging from percussive noise overhauls to dripping caves of ambiance. All in all, Memory Theatre is a superb introduction to Axolotl and, thanks to Important, his most widely available release yet.

-Mr. Thistle

Axolotl – "Chemical Theatre" excerpt