Terrors - Lagan Qord (Weird Forest) Somewhere in the cold grey spaces between Amen Dunes and Kurt Vile live the faraway, mournfully woozy guitar ballads of Terrors, the home-recording project of Elijah Forrest, whoever that is (I'd like to know). Lagan Qord is a CD & vinyl issue of 2 years' worth of cassette releases. Check his cover of "God Bless the Child", which sounds almost like John Cale demoing tracks for Nico's Chelsea Girls sessions.(Scott Williams)
Clap - Have You Reached Yet? LP (Sing Sing) The best in Stones-y 1972 glam/garage/punk/rawk, from Manhattan Beach CA. Legit vinyl reissue by the Sing Sing label who also brought us power-pop / first-wave punk gems by Liquid Stone, Straightshooter, De Cylinders. And the bass player's name is Jim Morrison. Audio: "Middle of the Road". (Jason Sigal)
Asian Women On the Telephone - Chelsea Grandpa (self-released) Asian Women on the Telephone? My Lord, what would Yuri Andropov make of this mysterious pseudonym-attired bunch of miscreants? The tracks on this Moscow quintet's Chelsea Grandpa CD-R open up clogged passages in one's 3rd ear by driving a motherfausting caveman club right through it. All the evidence required is on the falsetto-melt of "Scania-Man"/"Commandment 69" and the Flipper meets Can of "High Grade". Recorded live and released without any post-production, the mangled stew seems to emanate from somewhere between a state of visionary mental instability and a healthy sense of the absurd. Just try to get through the damaged guitar/keyboard/drums of "Feeling Round Dance" and the lysergic space portal of "Aspect-Son" without seeing a wood nymph on a tricycle wielding a battle axe. Hopefully this lunatic fringe will invade U.S. shores soon. Judging by AWOTT's video clips, the lo-fi free-psych-noise gurgitation-rock costume-drama is a killer spectacle! Come to think of it, I bet Yuri would be proud. You can download material (several albums worth!) via the Free Music Archive here! (Daniel Blumin)
Various - Play That Beat Mr. Raja Volume 1 (Cartilage) Totally boss French-compiled document of that Tamil film industry's greatest hits between 1977-1984. Well directed and curated assortment of Kollywood dancefloor busters that burst with genre-confusion, rawness and bubbly fun all around while being pulled in three directions by traditional Indian arrangements, Westernisms and the state-of-the-art (for the 80's) production techniques. Most recently Andy Votel's Finders Keepers has issued two volumes of one of the stars of this comp, Illaiyaraaja ("Vikram Vikram" MP3) but there's a wide assortment of greats onboard for this one. Audio: Agni Natchakhram "Raaja Rajathi" (Brian Turner)
Afuche - Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match (Cuneiform) Possibly the last influences you might expect these days to come out of Brooklyn are indeed where the most fertile seeds get planted: Afuche's third disc (and first for Cuneiform) comes with a description sticker affixed to the case that bring up the likes of Zappa and Yes, admittedly not two major components of influence on the block these days. Magma and King Crimson have fared a bit better in injecting themselves into prog's 21st century, and quite often that influence finds itself dosed a bit with some rocket fuel as evidenced in bands like the Zs, Psychic Paramount or Upsilon Acrux. Hence, Afuche strut out their wild and wooly time signatures with a little fried production, but mostly lay back for some live-sounding straightforward compositions that allow for a fantastic array of sideways seepage: afro-cuban experimentalism, bareboned baritone sax, scratchy guitars, JB's-style get-down. Audio: "They're In There". (Brian Turner)
Salyu x Salyu - S(o)un(d)beams - (Toys Factory) Just in time for another Planet of the Apes reboot, Cornelius is back. The name on the album might read "Salyu x Salyu," but the contents are pure Keigo Okayama, in the producer's chair and turning mild-mannered former teen-pop vocalist Salyu into the magnetic center of an immaculate stereo-panned wonderland. After the disappointing blurriness of 2006's Sensuous, the annoying-to-type S(o)un(d)beams returns the Shibuya-kei staple to the unpredictable harmony-laden otherness he accessed so magically on 1997's Fantasma and 2002's Point. If I understood Japanese, I'd probably be more excited by lyrical contributions from Yura Yura Teikoku's Shintaro Sakamoto. Salyu's rich voice ricochets Petra Haden-like amid bleep grids and allows Okayama a reason to get legitimately blue 'n' moody, like the dripping "Hostile To Me." The occasional funk experiment, meh. Still! (Jesse Jarnow)
simple and satisfying surface attractions are a ghostly sweet voice, impeccable arrangements, and a spare folk haunt that Welch and collaborator/beau David Rawlings access effortlessly without sounding
remotely corny. "I can't say your name without a crow flying by," she sings. But it's the songs that kick ass, decidedly new turns of distant, familiar melodies and lyrical themes. The harmonies help. No vinyl version, though. Le sigh. Stream: "Dark Turn of Mind" (Jesse Jarnow)
Juliana Barwick & Ikue Mori - FRKWYS Vol. 6 (RVNG) The new new old thing seems to be to cut yr noise straight-to-plate with a lathe, at least if the recent Arrington de Dionyso/Oneida/The Lights collaboration and this Juliana Barwick and Ikue Mori entry in RVNG's FRKWYS series make for a trend. These new queens of the lathe-wave come with mega-documentation, every pulse of their improvisation captured in audio and video during its creation at the White Columns gallery in New York. But pfft to that. Four pieces, around 10 minutes each, with Barwick's layered, looped voice drifting like translucent signal-flags through Mori's celestial noise is more than enough to make a great improv LP. The pair strike a mood of quietly exploding circuitry, Oort cloud interference, and angelic slivers of vocals and remain there patiently. There are little moments of drama and the occasional jarring glitch interjection from Mori, but there's a lot to get lost in. Stream: "Rain and Shine at the Lotus Pond" (Jesse Jarnow)
Elijah Forrest is also responsible for Lolly Gesserit. Caught him twice recently on tour with Work/Death.
Posted by: N | August 17, 2011 at 11:36 AM