abacus 5/17/2016 7-inch, A Library
destructive split from UK juggernauts: moloch from Leicester start of feral and drag themselves through the sludge like a dull blade through flesh, Closure out of Leeds plod and stomp but explode in sporadic bursts of powerviolence and grime. mud hurling, vomit choking goodness; now spit
abacus 5/17/2016 12-inch, A Library
LA-based Crowhurst, experimental black/sludge metal / noise/ambient project centered around Jay Gambit, has been incredibly prolific over the past years, pumping out multiple releases per year since 2012. here is his first release on Greh Holger’s label Chondritic Sound and featuring a diverse blend of instrumentation; the mixture of synths, electronics, flute, guitar, and field recordings combine to produce a truly haunting and psychedelic ambiance. at the beginning, hollow Ghosts linger on the periphery until Claustrophobic emptiness consumes, black metal guitar swells devoid of form but tone still hovering on the sonic horizon. Marfan offers a calming respite of overlapping organ textures as side A closes. the foreboding coalescence of Siren builds doom clouds like a looming storm and Dance a shadow draped bridge leading to the industrial noise visions of Modern Life. this album figures more firmly in the noise/ambient realm, which makes sense for its place on the label, but is only a sliver of the sonic offerings Gambit puts forth.
abacus 5/17/2016 12-inch, A Library
a name as mundane and obvious as it can be, but simple enough to reveal its most base form: under a sweltering LA hills morning, Touch curator Mike Harding pairs with sound artist Mark Van Hoen complementing each other on a mix of modular synth, short wave radio and field recordings. plodding diamond-cut drones shimmering in opaque luminescence, subtle melodies tread through almost viscous murk; tonal beads glisten in the beckoning heat, the hazy soundscape blurs as waves of harmony lap against rhythmic apparitions and disappear into the breath of dusk. on the B-side conversational hallucinations narrate the intangible outer world, drowned out by the piercing repetition of inner existence; inaudible lapses mid-way through make the beaming resolution all the more proud. from masters of the drone form, as beautiful and inviting as it is alienating; sure to brighten the early lights of dawn and darken the mood of dusk alike.
Max Level 5/16/2016 A Library, CD
Sometimes all it takes is a little dose of RLLRBLL to make everything OK. Here’s a nice new four track EP to hold us over until… well, who knows what– one can never tell what this band will do next, musically speaking. But RLLRBLL is always a trip worth taking. They continue to cover a lot of stylistic ground for a three piece. To wit:
Trk 1 is dreamy and hypnotic, with bass and drums holding things down while spacey vocals and odd keyboard sounds float in and out.
Trk 2 is a power ballad with a soft intro, and then when the band crashes in it’s a whole other thing. Lyrics about seas and tides and monsters and then I don’t know what.
Trk 3 is distorted and great, built on a chugging, almost heavy metal type of riff.
Trk 4 is an abstract industrial piece with one of those warped muddmakr-style mixes. No vocals.
Louie Caliente 5/16/2016 12-inch, A Library
Gloomy, haunting, and beautiful soundscapes from Thomas Martin Ekelund. These three tracks go way beyond depressing, into full blown anguish accentuated with layers of hopelessness and despair. Slow throbbing electronic pulses, fuzzed out guitar drone, longing synth loops, and faint raspy echoing beats.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Louie Caliente 5/16/2016 A Library, CD
Atarixic Ataxia is a Violin + Electronics duo of Nicole Pizzato and Dominic Dufner. The tracks on Sea Shadows are multi-layered, usually starting with a simple theme and growing to a sonic blast as the layers multiply and the distortion builds.
The violin and electronics are a nice juxtaposition and are used quite differently in each track. Sometimes the violin is on top, soaring and screeching over a bed of throbbing rumbles. On other tracks, the relationship is inverted, with beeping, buzzing, and grinding noise taking place over looped rhythmic violin lines.
Track 2 was recorded live and is my personal favorite.
Overseen by San Antonio’s Abe Epstein — who had a hand in at least five other labels at the time — Dynamic ran for a little under three years in the mid 1960s, and put out in excess of 20 singles over its lifetime. Artists featured on the label include The Tonettes, Don & The Doves, Willie Cooper & The Webs, and Little Jr. Jesse & The Tear Drops. The closest the label came to a hit was 1966’s “No Time For You”, performed by four-piece Commands. FCC FREE. Low riding and faith keeping.
mouthbreather 5/11/2016 A Library, CD
angry industrial knife fight. members include Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), Mike Williams (Eyehategod), and Sanford Parker (Minsk). punishing vibrations, muddy pissed of preaching peaks out of the mix at times, generally suffocating itself with energetic beats, guitar riffs, and a hint of saxophone.
easy to swallow, despite the jagged texture
mouthbreather 5/11/2016 7-inch, A Library
experimental pirate radio station operated by Big City Orchestra out of the Bay Area. field recordings, happy/sad drinking songs, consumerist worship all contained on this pretty blue 7″. NPARRR (National Pirate Radio) gives us lo-fi yum, coupled with boot-thumpy, folk instrument driven, shanties.
included is a cd of air checks of 16 tracks, with some great tunes and field recordings that didn’t make the EP. ??put it on continuous and feel the breeze in yer nethers.
Hemroid The Leader 5/11/2016 A Library, CD
5 song cycle from Georgian composer Giya Kancheli (JEE-uh Kahn-CHEL-ee). A Georgian Orthodox Christian, Kancheli left the Soviet Union after 1989, relocating to Belgium. Exile is the theme here.
Kancheli says, “When a person goes into a church, synagogue or mosque where there’s not service going on, there’s a special kind of silence. I want to turn that silence into music.”
Stillness. Sacramental reverb. Maacha Deubner sings a boylike soprano. Long tones, pre-classical ornaments. The strings, winds, and voice blur and smear in an agonizingly restrained klangfarbenmelodie. Denial of the flesh. A ceremonial tone pervades throughout.
abacus 5/11/2016 12-inch, A Library
blast off to the furthest reaches of outer-dimensionality with these Finnish trippers: cyclical cataclysmic transformations of metal, kraut/prog, jazz, thrash, psychedelia. the album art says it all: stare into the abyss of nothingness and open up to brilliant colors. black metal to be sure, but not the least bit bleak- they recorded this with an indiepop/shoegaze producer to bring an entirely different aesthetic. don’t get me wrong though, this is heavy as fuck and got all the tortured screams and blistering riffage to satisfy your angst, just that there’s a lot more going on: time signatures galore and layers upon sonic layers of beauty. the most intense and illuminating DMT trip you’ll ever have.
billiejoe 5/11/2016 A Library, CD
Metal. I don’t know where they are from. They sound like folky metaly vocals, shreddy guitar, doomy drums, and noisey moments. Oaklander Scott Kelly of Neurosis is on guitar and vocals. Chicago noiser Sanford Parker on machines and keyboard.
— Billie Joe Tolliver
billiejoe 5/11/2016 A Library, CD
Extremely prolific and talented local droner.This album is peaceful and strong like thunder. You will hear pops, thunks, winds, strums, hums, and sparkles. The soundtrack to a film about wood nymphs. But better.
— Billie Joe Tolliver
Cousin Mary 5/11/2016 12-inch, Soul
Recorded live at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, Mahalia Jackson’s stunning voice goes straight to your soul. She sang in church, had a hit “Movin’ on up” in 1948, hosted a show on CBS radio starting in 1954, and later went on to sing at JFK’s inauguration and at Martin Luther King’s funeral. Fine gospel style piano and organ and bass accompaniment. Often considered the greatest gospel singer of all time and I would not argue with that. You might try “I’m going to live the life…” if you are not familiar with Ms. Jackson.
abacus 5/11/2016 A Library, CD
a trapdoor to dementia, twisted hallucinations from German avant-artiste Martin Lang supported by screams of anguish from Flesh of L and bass blasts from Euer Gnaden; lonesome wrangler black metal alternately depressive ambient and brown-acid-soaked caterwauling; fumbling instrumentation broken by maniacal sortie of shrieking decapitated guitars and headswollen synths. a spectacle of mental collapse and decomposition; a barefoot walk on a carpet of shattered mirrors, each fragment reflecting distorted images of the self. evocative voyeurism lashing out at tortured platitudes and mindless quotidian.
Cousin Mary 5/11/2016 12-inch, Jazz
Pacific Jazz was known for cool West Coast jazz and released 12″ albums from 1955 to 1957 – this was the third. Chet Baker’s trumpet is in fine form in this live recording from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and is joined by terrific side men. I especially liked Line for Lyons, Headline, and Russ Job.
After Charlie Parker worked with Baker on the West Coast, he went back to New York and told musicians “There’s a little white cat on the coast who’s gonna eat you up”.
Louie Caliente 5/10/2016 12-inch, Hip Hop
Raw punk hip-hop mix-tape from Mykki Blanco, aka Michael Quattlebaum. Heavy industrial beats and pounding synths. Distorted grinds and gritty samples. Think Death Grips with less anger and more bounce.
Excellent rapping by Mykki and a cast of friends, including Cakes da Killa, Cities Aviv, and Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre).
First and last tracks are instrumental. FCCs on almost all others.
Louie Caliente 5/9/2016 12-inch, A Library
Cold, industrial, haunting noise from Danish artist Frederikke Hoffmeier, aka Puce Mary. A slow, throbbing baseline permeates each track, while heavy machinery crashes and thuds around you. Synths shriek and drone, and alarm bells ring.
Listening to this album feels like being trapped in a sinking submarine, bumping and scraping past rocks. Waves of claustrophobia, panic, and hopelessness.
Four of the eight songs have lyrics, sometimes screamed and processed beyond recognition, other times spoken with a crisp chilling monotony.
Kai Sync 5/8/2016 A Library, CD
Delightful Japanese contemporary mix-up-everything electronic music from Ytamo, a Japanese experimental artist/producer with a very quirky and playful production style that takes Japanese culture and converts it into a playful and insightful product. This is shimmering sound waves, bubbly rhythms and unexpected twists, sometimes annotated by her innocent lullaby singing. Feels like a problem-free Japanese future. The ambience is keyed into the right levels so it does not become a sleep inducer. I actually thought about Miyazaki movies such as Tottoro while listening to the tracks. It fuses serenity with organic action and gives plenty of avenues for personal interpretations. Avant music. Subarashi.
Kai Sync 5/8/2016 12-inch, A Library
The experimental electronic musician Alex Barnett’s album is minimalist beat music with cinematic aspirations. Barnett is from Chicago and Midwich is a label specializing in releasing midwest underground electronica artists. Barnett’s background is dark ambience and drone noise. However, this album is more introspective but uplifting cinema electronica; according to him the focus for this album was the themes of consciousness. It’s about machine personalities, functions and malfunctions of the mind, painted as sonic material. The material is spacious, no need for millions of autocorrected MIDI notes. The drum machines slap, hack and twack in multidimensional directions. No pattern is holy. There’s a haunted and surreal feeling about this album. It might even be used for low budget sci-fi or horror projects. Some industrial techno even crawls into the mix. Perfect for late night radio spots.
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