Archive for April, 2015

Interview: Boris

Thursday, April 30th, 2015

There’s no one else like Boris.

The Japanese noise icons last visited Australia in 2012, where they their third record, the droning opus that is 2000’s Flood, in full. But such is the prolific nature of Boris recording career that they’ve released three new records since then, starting with their 18th record, Präparat, in 2013, followed by their latest record, Noise, in June of 2014, as well as the fourth and final instalment in The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked cycle.

Though Boris have built much of their legacy on an aesthetic rooted in noise rock, the trio have a Bowie-like tendency for reinvention, flirting with doom, shoegaze, sludge metal and drone in their near-two decade career. Yet Noise might be their most diverse — and, perhaps surprisingly, accessible — release to date. In spite of what the record’s title may suggest, Noise shows Boris at their most melodic, embracing the harmonious along with the dissonance that runs throughout their discography. More than anything, Boris are about adaptation, change and progress.

Here, guitarist and vocalist Takeshi discusses over email the creative process, the live show and the future of Boris.

You’ve been releasing records through Sargent House since 2011 – how has your experience with them as a label compared to your time with Southern Lord?

Takeshi: Whenever Boris work on new music we have always been conscious of its freshness. Since the day one we worked with Sargent House we could find another output, direction, connection with new people as well as unknown music. It has been great and healthy to be working with them.

Last time you played Australia, you were playing one of your most well-regarded albums, Flood, in full – are there any plans to revisit Pink as it turns 10 this year, or are you purely focused on new Boris music?

10 years have passed since the Pink release? I totally forgot about that. Well it may be hard for us to play an old album in its entirety for the show unless we have particular reason or concept to do. Nothing is more than great to play new songs and sound which is being updated day by day, and we’d prefer that.

The compelling thing about Boris is the diversity in your body of work, from the Earth-inspired doom of your early work to your fascinations with sludge, psych, shoegaze and doom to Noise, probably your most melodic and varied work to date. What is it that drives that evolution of sound from album to album?

Simply we have just enjoyed our music. ‘Good music is good’ and as far as it still means ‘heavy’ for us it doesn’t really a matter whatever genre or category has. We have our own signature sound that only three of us can make and it will never end.

You’ve collaborated with some highly influential artists in the world of drone, noise and rock – from Sunn O)) to Ian Astbury to Merzbow and Keiji Haino. Who are some other dream collaborators you’d like to work with?

Collaboration will not happen unless there is significance or necessity. It all depends on an encounter or certain opportunity, if there is no mutual communication each other on musical lever then that is going to be one-way and ‘everyone is acceptable’ for us, which doesn’t mean fruitful. Luckily enough Boris have met lots of great artists like a destiny, we have respected collaborators each other before we worked together. Our latest collaboration is with ENDON, who is one of the most updated extreme bands in Tokyo. If there is significance and necessity then that will lead us to another opportunity for collaboration.

In an interview with The Quietus last year, you talked about the Tokyo soundscape and the vitality of noise as a part of the Japanese psyche, saying that “noise is Japanese blues.” Was that something you realized when Boris was forming, or did it become apparent later on?

That was recognized me when Boris toured outside Japan for the first time. The more I encounter other cultures and customs and with seeing Japanese culture objectively from outside of Japan, the more I realize that is crucial. Of course it is so loud in downtown of every city, though so many massive noise and unnecessary voice information are flooded everywhere in Japan and no one says it is noisy and makes any complaint against it. On the other hand authorities are very strict with low frequencies inside of clubs or db-limit at open-air show here. It seems to be more comfortable for me when I have been in western countries, cities have more quiet spot everywhere. In general it tends to be considered that Japan or Japanese people respect and prefer silence or calm but I think they are just patient, or try to be, with whatever it sounds so loud or noisily.

With such a vast discography, how will you approach your live show on this tour in terms of designing a setlist and ensuring there’s a satisfactory representation of new and old material?

Basically Boris play the latest songs for the show though it is pretty hard to decide setlist, in order to have both new and long-term fans enjoy shows at once. For our own headline show we can play longer set with various sides of our musical aspect and direction, and for residency show like 2 days in each city which is enabling us to show totally different set both days. Boris have always tried to play enjoyable set not only for our audience but also for us.

Noise will be almost a year old by the time you come to Australia, and you have a reputation as a highly prolific band when it comes to recording – is there another Boris album coming soon?

Yes, we are currently focusing on recording and studio work. During the Live Noise Alive world tour to support Noise, we have found new and particular vision and concept for the next album. It is pretty exciting to devote ourselves to working on it. I hope this one is worth for you to wait for.

Boris “Live Noise Alive” Australia Tour

Brisbane — Crowbar — Wednesday May 27

Sydney — Newtown Social — Thursday May 28

Sydney — Newtown Social — Friday May 29

Melbourne — Corner Hotel — Saturday May 30

Adelaide — Fowler’s Live — Sunday May 31 (all ages and licensed)

Perth — Rosemount Hotel — Monday June 1

Tickets from Oztix and the venues.

METZ — METZ II

Wednesday, April 29th, 2015

Nothing highlights the disconnect between underground and popular music like articles on the death of rock and roll. Even mainstream luminaries like Alice Cooper and Billy Corgan, who you would at least expect to try and stay in touch, seem to think that indie pop and EDM are the only music that’s inspiring the young. Guitar music, they suggest, is dead. As anyone who reads this website on a regular basis would understand, this is a ridiculous assertion, but the new METZ album proves it once again. Forget the sub-genres and the noise influences for a moment: at its heart, METZ II is a rock album. The sound is powerful, urgent, and abrasive, mixing punk, noise, and grunge with occasional gothic undertones. They’re a young band, relatively speaking; while their members are in their early 30’s and far too old for traditional rock and roll, their sound is youthful and original, drawing its influences predominately from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This is only their second album, and they’ve been together for less than a decade, so you can hardly say they’re old or out of touch. And yet, here they are, producing hard-hitting, unashamed, and threatening guitar rock in 2015. If you’d only paid attention to mainstream music journalism, you could be forgiven for seeing them as an anomaly. But this year has been full of innovative new guitar music. METZ are far from alone.

METZ II continues the devastating aural assault delivered by their self-titled 2012 debut, with ten tracks of innovative, aggressive noise rock that’s not only subtle and avant-garde but energizing and fun to listen to. It feels like the logical progression of not just noise and punk, but rock music itself: a shout of defiance to anyone who suggests, even for a minute, that the genre has lost any of its force or cultural relevancy. Opening track ‘Acetate’ begins with a broken, bassy guitar riff and digital glitches, leading into a chaotic musical maelstrom that pulls you in immediately and doesn’t let go. The shouted, overdriven vocal line manages to heighten the intensity, making for a passionate, immersive wall-of-sound with a power travels wonderfully through your speakers, but makes you yearn to experience it from the mosh pit even more. This is followed by the buzzing, glitchy post-punk of ‘The Swimmer’, with a relatively long intro that makes the song hit even harder when it comes, and the riff-heavy modern grunge of ‘Spit You Out’, carving pop melodies out of technical, broken-sounding dissonance and noise. METZ share a bit of Swans’ talent for managing tension, interspersing their overwhelmingly heavy music with bursts of silence, glitches, or guitar distortion; seconds of respite that make the brutal aural beatdowns even more abrasive when they come. ‘IOU’ channels early Joy Division with its ‘Warsaw’-inspired opening riff, increasing the tempo and adding clashing drums, multi-vocal shouting and layers of guitar distortion to enhance its effect, and ‘Landfill’ is a structurally traditional rock song with weird melodies, wall of noise guitar riffs, and frenzied shouting: an abrasive deconstruction of a pop song that’s not only ridiculously heavy, but melodically interesting too. And all of it takes place at this machine-gun tempo that leaves you hungry for more and gasping for air. It’s an intense and exciting experience.

The entire album is violent and decayed. Almost every track is bombastic, powerful, and musically inventive: and even the sounds of apparently broken amps and digital glitches are beautifully captured and controlled. The whole record is less than 30 minutes long, but it lingers long after you hear it, like the taste of an exquisite glass of wine. A lot of this is down to the final track, ‘Kicking a can of worms’ , where the droning, psychedelic soundscape builds to a brutal crescendo across its four-minute runtime, ending in static noise and sudden silence. It’s the perfect conclusion and the combination of noise, silence, and subtle song-writing makes you want to put it on again almost as soon as it ends.

In short, METZ II is a fantastic album. It transcends their 2012 debut on almost every front: technical skill, variety of sounds, and sheer, musical intensity. That’s a big call for anyone who heard their first release to make, but somehow METZ have deserve it. While music like this is still coming out, and not from pre-established mega acts or aging alternative heroes, it’s impossible to say the genre is dying or even close to its end. This is youthful, passionate, devil-may-care rock and roll taken to its logical extreme. It’s music like this that our decade will be remembered for by generations to come. Not EDM or Meghan Trainor: blistering, energetic, alternative music, bubbling to the surface from a vibrant underground. Cooper and Corgan need to dig a little deeper. METZ are the future of rock.

METZ — METZ II

Wednesday, April 29th, 2015

Nothing highlights the disconnect between underground and popular music like articles on the death of rock and roll. Even mainstream luminaries like Alice Cooper and Billy Corgan, who you would at least expect to try and stay in touch, seem to think that indie pop and EDM are the only music that’s inspiring the young. Guitar music, they suggest, is dead. As anyone who reads this website on a regular basis would understand, this is a ridiculous assertion, but the new METZ album proves it once again. Forget the sub-genres and the noise influences for a moment: at its heart, METZ II is a rock album. The sound is powerful, urgent, and abrasive, mixing punk, noise, and grunge with occasional gothic undertones. They’re a young band, relatively speaking; while their members are in their early 30’s and far too old for traditional rock and roll, their sound is youthful and original, drawing its influences predominately from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This is only their second album, and they’ve been together for less than a decade, so you can hardly say they’re old or out of touch. And yet, here they are, producing hard-hitting, unashamed, and threatening guitar rock in 2015. If you’d only paid attention to mainstream music journalism, you could be forgiven for seeing them as an anomaly. But this year has been full of innovative new guitar music. METZ are far from alone.

METZ II continues the devastating aural assault delivered by their self-titled 2012 debut, with ten tracks of innovative, aggressive noise rock that’s not only subtle and avant-garde but energizing and fun to listen to. It feels like the logical progression of not just noise and punk, but rock music itself: a shout of defiance to anyone who suggests, even for a minute, that the genre has lost any of its force or cultural relevancy. Opening track ‘Acetate’ begins with a broken, bassy guitar riff and digital glitches, leading into a chaotic musical maelstrom that pulls you in immediately and doesn’t let go. The shouted, overdriven vocal line manages to heighten the intensity, making for a passionate, immersive wall-of-sound with a power travels wonderfully through your speakers, but makes you yearn to experience it from the mosh pit even more. This is followed by the buzzing, glitchy post-punk of ‘The Swimmer’, with a relatively long intro that makes the song hit even harder when it comes, and the riff-heavy modern grunge of ‘Spit You Out’, carving pop melodies out of technical, broken-sounding dissonance and noise. METZ share a bit of Swans’ talent for managing tension, interspersing their overwhelmingly heavy music with bursts of silence, glitches, or guitar distortion; seconds of respite that make the brutal aural beatdowns even more abrasive when they come. ‘IOU’ channels early Joy Division with its ‘Warsaw’-inspired opening riff, increasing the tempo and adding clashing drums, multi-vocal shouting and layers of guitar distortion to enhance its effect, and ‘Landfill’ is a structurally traditional rock song with weird melodies, wall of noise guitar riffs, and frenzied shouting: an abrasive deconstruction of a pop song that’s not only ridiculously heavy, but melodically interesting too. And all of it takes place at this machine-gun tempo that leaves you hungry for more and gasping for air. It’s an intense and exciting experience.

The entire album is violent and decayed. Almost every track is bombastic, powerful, and musically inventive: and even the sounds of apparently broken amps and digital glitches are beautifully captured and controlled. The whole record is less than 30 minutes long, but it lingers long after you hear it, like the taste of an exquisite glass of wine. A lot of this is down to the final track, ‘Kicking a can of worms’ , where the droning, psychedelic soundscape builds to a brutal crescendo across its four-minute runtime, ending in static noise and sudden silence. It’s the perfect conclusion and the combination of noise, silence, and subtle song-writing makes you want to put it on again almost as soon as it ends.

In short, METZ II is a fantastic album. It transcends their 2012 debut on almost every front: technical skill, variety of sounds, and sheer, musical intensity. That’s a big call for anyone who heard their first release to make, but somehow METZ have deserve it. While music like this is still coming out, and not from pre-established mega acts or aging alternative heroes, it’s impossible to say the genre is dying or even close to its end. This is youthful, passionate, devil-may-care rock and roll taken to its logical extreme. It’s music like this that our decade will be remembered for by generations to come. Not EDM or Meghan Trainor: blistering, energetic, alternative music, bubbling to the surface from a vibrant underground. Cooper and Corgan need to dig a little deeper. METZ are the future of rock.

Noiseweek: Chelsea Wolfe, Lycia, Sumac and Tyranny is Tyranny

Friday, April 24th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

New book alert: Drag City are releasing a collection of posters from the Louisville punk scene that birthed the likes of Slint and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Though never as celebrated as a music capital the way Seattle, Nashville, New York or Chicago ever were, the Kentucky city played a pivotal role in the development of noise rock, hardcore and its others — names like Rodan, Squirrel Bait, June of 44, and more recently, Young Widows, Waxeater and Watter. Titled White Glove Test, the book brings together poster art from 1978–94 and is available for purchase at the Drag City website.

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Seems like tribute records from the 90s are the new reunions. There’s currently crowdfunding campaign to finance a cover of Helmet’s debut Meantime, with contributions from KEN mode, Kings Destroy and The Atlas Moth among others. The starting goal is pretty low at $5,000 and as of writing a little over 40% of the way towards its target. Head over to the Kickstarter campaign page if you’re keen to throw some coin.

READ

How Much is Music Really Worth? | Pitchfork

“Putting the debates about artists’ income from Spotify, Pandora, and their ilk in a broader historical context, it becomes clear that the money made from a song or an album has clearly decreased over the last several decades. What’s equally clear, though, is that the value of music is almost as subjective financially as it is aesthetically; the economics of music, it turns out, is more dark art than dismal science.”

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Join The Chant? Pop’s Endlessly Problematic Relationship With Politics | The Quietus

“There’s a sense, some reckon, of heads-down expediency among today’s generation, that however tousled their hair may be or serrated their ‘indie’ guitar stylings, they are aspirational rather than countercultural. Is there even such a thing as the ‘counterculture’ anymore, outside of the dreams of 40-and-50-somethings brooding wistfully over their large vinyl collections? What has become of the insurrectionary spirit of rock’s halcyon years, before postmodernism set in and hip ironicism usurped an older, angrier spirit of authentic rage? Where is the Doc Marten energy of the old days, of rock music as soundtrack to petrol bombs and stand-offs with cordons of crewcut police?”

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The Man Who Broke The Music Business | The New Yorker

“From 2001 on, [Dell] Glover was the world’s leading leaker of pre-release music. He claims that he never smuggled the CDs himself. Instead, he tapped a network of low-paid temporary employees, offering cash or movies for leaked disks. The handoffs took place at gas stations and convenience stores far from the plant. Before long, Glover earned a promotion, which enabled him to schedule the shifts on the packaging line. If a prized release came through the plant, he had the power to ensure that his man was there.”

LISTEN

Lycia — Silver Leaf

I first heard of Lycia when the late Type O Negative frontman Peter Steele described the Arizona outfit’s music as the most depressing he’s ever heard which is lofty praise from the drabbest of the drab four. Now a duo, Lycia remained largely dormant for the first decade of the 21st century before resurfacing in 2010. “Silver Leaf” is one half of a forthcoming split release with Black Mare through Earsplit, and it seems Steele’s description still holds true; if you start your morning with the tides of reverb that envelop Mike VanPortfleet’s stark incantations, you’re useless for the rest of the day.

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Tyranny is Tyranny — The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Tyranny is Tyranny first came to my inbox about six months ago with word of their ambitious concept album, Let It Come From Whom It May, based on American writer and critic Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of The United States. Rarely is protest music infused with such a vivid aesthetic — in this case, a vivid and violent sound somewhere between mid-west emo and Fugazi (Russell Emerson’s vocal delivery falls right in the middle of Ian Mackaye marching orders and Guy Picciotto’s attitudinal rebel yell. Tyranny’s latest record takes on Naomi Klein’s breakdown of disaster capitalism,The Shock Doctrine, and this time their adaptation is better produced and rich with guitars that convey vulnerability and power all at once. Extra props for this being the only record on Bandcamp tagged Zinn-core.

WATCH

Sumac — Thorn in the Lion’s Paw (Live)

As much as I’d love an ISIS (the band) reunion, it almost seems unnecessary. Between Old Man Gloom, Zozobra, Mamiffer and now Sumac, the members of the late post-metal vanguards are producing some of the most exciting heavy music in the world. Sumac is the youngest of those projects, having just released The Deal through Profound Lore earlier in the year. This video from one of their first shows ever back in March in Vancouver showcases how utterly gargantuan a three-piece can be. That’s Turner on vocals and guitar, Baptists’ Nick Yacyshyn on skins and Brian Cook of Russian Circles / Botch / These Arms Are Snakes fame on bass. This is the most crushing thing you’ll hear all week.

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Chelsea Wolfe: ABYSS album trailer

Your Sargent House Gush of the Week features the first taste from the fifth album of the new Noir Queen. This excerpt is easily the heaviest Wolfe’s ever sounded, and the visuals of a chiaroscuro California show the limitless potential of her cinematic world. Abyss is slated for a summer 2015 release.

Anger Management: Stimulatör

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

Every fortnight, we check in with all things heavy on RTRFM’s Critical Mass show.

This week’s band comes to us courtesy of the highly influential and excellent Band Of The Week blog, curated by the mighty Fenriz! This blog shines a light on some excellent underground bands and has showcased bands such as Ghost and Beastmilk in their early days.

Quote from the man himself: “Lars himself sent me this. it is without bass guitar as of yet but I was blown away, very good rock ‘n’ roll/metal/punk at first and then when the last part starts…it got EPIC! PERFECT!”

Stimulatör come from Lübeck, Germany. That’s all I can find about this band information wise, but perhaps Lars could be from Red Harvest? Mystery aside they have produced a tasty slice of punked up, black-n-roll. The guitar tone reminds me a bit of Rebel Extravaganza era Satyricon (and oddly the band Virus also). And then at the 2:15 mark things get very epic with an awesome outro of melodic tremolo riffage. Superb, and the real kicker is that this early mix has no bass yet!

A nice fuzzed out bass rumble would really be the cherry on top of this. Can’t wait to hear the finished product and more songs.

Critical Mass airs every Wednesday from 9PM (GMT+8) on RTR FM 92.1 in Perth, Australia.

Akhlys — The Dreaming I

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

The French record label Debemur Morti Productions continues to release gem after gem. With acts such as Blut Aus Nord, Year Of No Light, and now the iconic and reformed Norwegian band In The Woods… on their list, their taste appears impeccable. The label’s latest release serves to reinforce this view, unleashing the darkest nightmares of Nightbringer’s Naas Alcameth in their sonic form through another project of his: Akhlys. The Dreaming I, out on April 20th, is Akhlys’ new expression of oneiric visions. Inspired by the dreams of their creator, the songs are consuming works of grandiose intensity and epic dark atmosphere.

It would seem the key delineation between Nightbringer and Akhlys would be found within what inspires the music and lyrics. Knowing what Naas Alcameth has to say about this makes it clear; however, there is more to it than that alone. Akhlys’ birth was clearly borne of dark ambient ambitions. On this second release, black metal erupts savagely from the soporific and dominates. Whilst the ambient style may be scaled back on this occasion, it remains a vital form within the overall effect of the record. This mesmerising, dreamlike flow between the styles is something that distinguishes Akhlys from Naas’ other projects. Through their combination, what the styles have in common is highlighted with fantastic outcomes.

Akhlys’ first release was an opus in two seamless parts, Supplication. On The Dreaming I, the five songs could pass again as one epic piece. Each song can stand alone as a magnificent piece; but, for all that quality, piece by piece does not compare to the experience of taking in the full record in one transportive, jaw-dropping listen. The ambient passages heighten the surreal and hallucinatory quality of the record’s atmosphere, drawing you in deep and far from the waking world. The black metal is of the absolute highest quality. In its most lethiferous and explosive moments, The Dreaming I places the genre in a position that is as good as it has ever been, ambitious and instrumentally masterful with a production that unleashes all of the nightmarish detail, hiding nothing from the listener. Have a listen to “Consummation” and tell me it is not one of the very best black metal songs you have ever heard. I dare you.

The number of high quality black metal releases coming out of late is becoming something of a blur. Even so, The Dreaming I stands out. It is bound to be a favourite amongst those who are fans of Naas Alcameth’s other work and those who seek out black metal’s more cerebral and imaginative efforts. The album’s polish and flawless performance should rightly attract plenty of admirers from metal fans outside of the black metal scene. It is a record of great atmospheric scope, transpiring as a thoroughly engaging journey from start to finish. Naas Alcameth should be proud of what he has done here; but, no doubt his search for stylistic balance within the Akhlys project and deeper spiritual expression overall will drive him on to try and achieve something even better. That is one hell of a scary, but wonderful, thought.

Noiseweek: Record Store Day, David Bowie, El Ten Eleven, Weedeater and more

Friday, April 17th, 2015

The sights, sounds and words of the week in noise.

NEWS

Tangled Thoughts of Leaving’s Yield to Despair comes out today. You can stream and buy it on Bandcamp and see them play The Bakery one last time before its closure to launch the record. Expect this album to be rank highly on all of our best-of lists this year, and expect this show to be gargantuan.

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The BBC is reporting that David Bowie is working on new material for a musical stage adaptation of The Man Who Fell To Earth, the 1976 sci-fi film about an alcoholic alien in which Bowie had a starring role. Though Bowie is not slated to appear on stage, he’s said to be closely involved in the production, which is set to debut in New York in December.

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High on Fire have announced the title and release date for their 7th LP: it will be called Luminiferous and it will be released on June 23. The announcement was accompanied by the following mini-treatise from riffer-in-chief Matt Pike:

“We’re doing our part to expose The Elite and the fingers they have in religion, media, governments and financial world downfall and their relationship to all of our extraterrestrial connections in the race to control this world. Wake up, it’s happening. All while we stare at a socially engineered lie we think of as normalcy. Unless we wake from the dream, there will come true doom.”

READ

A Pressing Business: tQ Goes Inside A Czech Vinyl Plant | The Quietus

“Since much of digital music technology is helmed by a crop of multi-billion dollar companies, with millennial branding and self-styled demi-gods for CEOs, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the marketing strategies and modes of consumption for a medium like vinyl are concerns for a comparatively sluggish underground; a physical product that’s barely changed for generations, yet discussed on panels, in clubs, in record shops, on loop. The companies who supply them, too, must be similarly small-time affairs. But the year-on-year growth of the market recently has been remarkable. The Official Chart Co. noted that 2014 was the first year since 1996 in which sales in the UK reached the one million mark and, according to Nielsen Music, sales in the US alone increased 52% on the year previous to hit an impressive 9.2 million in 2014. And just this past week, the Official Chart Co. also launched the weekly Official Vinyl Albums Chart and Official Vinyl Singles Chart, for the first time in the company’s history.”

Meredith Graves: Pussy Power | Dazed Digital

“That people who have been hurt and people who have been marginalized deserve to be heard. That’s really the first and most striking similarity that comes to mind. In my perfect world, the prevailing ideology would be ‘do what you can to make the world better, to make your life better.’ I have now been in many countries where young kids have come up and said they were inspired by me because I came forward as someone who survived abuse and has suffered from mental illness. You can survive the cultural conditions that have fought to suppress you. I have lived through a horribly abusive relationship. I have struggled my entire life with extreme depression and mood disorders. And now, after a year of traveling the world and talking to people about it, I’m here in a place where I can facilitate the survival of others. Survival is an option, and once you can get to the point where you are above water, if and when you’re feeling up for it, you can reach your hand back and pull someone else up.”

Are You Even Real? Identity and Music in the Digital Age | Pitchfork

“This February, Father John Misty released I Love You, Honeybear, a pretty folk album that doubles as an exposé of our generation’s subconscious. Critics have zoned in on “Bored in the USA”, a mournful white-guy ballad accompanied by laugh track—an apt and self-justifying touch. But the lyrical crux within the album is “Holy Shit”. The song grandly reels off a chain of personal and political ruptures—revolutions, holocausts, incest dreams, original sin—which all emphasize the album’s driving concept: the unbearable heaviness of Josh Tillman’s love for his wife. After he’s tried on many rock-star guises—the chauvinist, the lothario, the “changed man”—it’s in “Holy Shit” that Tillman’s shape-shifting character crystallizes. Honeybear doesn’t just fuck with authenticity; it shows how, when our everyday frames of reference disorient us, our identity fractures, and we grasp for a toehold in the familiar.”

LISTEN

HEADS. — HEADS.

Last week we previewed the second track from Berlin noise rock trio HEADS.’ blistering debut and now Heart of the Rat Records are streaming the EP is streaming in full. It’s a lethal dose of concentrated, unapologetic and frankly ugly pigfuck with hints of Shellac, The Jesus Lizard, Young Widows et al. And it’s bottom-heavy, too; the record hits its stride in the bubbling tension of Black River and Foam before climaxing with the understated and disturbing The Voynich Manuscript. Difficult listening, as it should be.

Weedeater — Claw of the Sloth

North Carolina’s weed metal innovators return with this expectedly filthy cut from their forthcoming, where “Dixie” Dave Collins sounds like he’s singing through a throat tube or gargling cough syrup as he growls over some of the trio’s muddiest riffage to date. The album is called Goliathan and it’s out on May 19 through Seasons of Mist.

WATCH

Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld — The Rest of Us

Director Dan Huiting looms like a voyeur as his camera tilts, tracks and intrudes in this new clip from the forthcoming Stetson/Neufeld collaboration out through Constellation Records at the end of the month. Rarely do music videos match the mood of their companion sounds so well, let alone when the subject matter is so abstract. Repeat viewings recommended.

A Place to Bury Strangers — Now It’s Over (Live on KEXP)

The Loudest Band in New York are also The Most Well-Lit Band on Tour, bringing a collection of strobes and disco-balls to their in-studio appearance for a Seattle radio station. Oliver Ackermann is pretty much a robot when his voice is filtered through that many vocal processors, and the trio chose the most claustrophobic cut from their Transfixiation for a their decidedly claustrophobic performance.

El Ten Eleven — Nova Scotia

The latest video from post-rock’s most pragmatic duo is playful and serene like much of their back catalogue, juxtaposing live footage with sun-washed scene of a pair of kids frolicking and raising hell. The cut comes from the For Emily EP from early last year. Now can someone please bring these guys to Australia?

LISTEN: The ethereal jazz of MazzSacre’s +

Thursday, April 16th, 2015

The latest release from the venerable Polish label Instant Classic — who introduced us to the likes of Merkabah, Kapital and the THAW / Echoes of Yul collaboration — is perhaps their most challenging yet. MazzSacre’s + is about as far removed from easy listening as a record could be, yet there are still moments of beauty and great pleasure interspersed throughout the sprawling and schizophrenic acid jazz safari from Jerzy Mazzoll, the driving force behind the MazzSacre name.

+ is built around the seven deadly sins, and despite the experimental rigor of Mazzoll’s compositions, there’s a consistency to the chaos of this record. “Gluttony” is almost relaxed in its light percussion and slow progressions that verge on making brass instrumentation sound synthetic, while “Greed” is a bloated and excessive romp, dizzying in its climax before fading into the comparative calm of “Sloth”. This is movement music for the most twisted of contortionists. If David Lynch needs a new composer, he need look no further.

+ is available from April 16 on Bandcamp.

Wire — Wire

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015

2015 has largely been the year of the revival, with new albums from Sleater-Kinney, Gang of Four, and The Monochrome Set, even the return of 90’s mall goth legends Jack Off Jill and Marilyn Manson. It seems like almost every indie artist that’s fallen off the radar is coming out with new material this year, with varying degrees of artistry and crossover success. While English post-punk band Wire don’t exactly fit the mold, their newest album, the self-titled LP out on Pinkflag at the end of the month, seems to express a similar desire for rebirth and revitalisation. Stylistically, the music is a logical continuation of the psychedelic post-punk of 2013’s Change Becomes Us, with a darker, simmering energy and denser instrumentation. It walks the line between harking back to their old material and taking on more contemporary influences. It’s the sound of a working band who are trying not only to continue their own unique, historic formula but to allow for radical alterations too. It is, in short, a remarkable achievement, and one of the stronger albums of the year.

Opening track “Blogging” comments on the internet to the sound of urgent, modern post-punk, taking a path well-trodden on recent releases by similarly inspired old-school heavyweights like Nick Cave and Morrissey, but spinning it in a new direction, arguing that in our interconnected secular society, consumer technology and the internet are becoming a religion in and of themselves. This is followed by the devastating orchestral shoegaze of Joy Division-esque track “Shifting”, about the unexpected break-up of a long-term relationship, and the yearning narrative of “Burning Bridges”, combining psychedelic rock with post-punk revival to create an astonishing work of melancholic beauty. The narrative lyrics, coupled with the carefully constructed inter-textual instrumentation have an almost hallucinogenic effect, similar to the tracks on the latest album from The Monochrome Set. But Wire differentiates themselves by their better use of universal themes and a broader, more contemporary musical palette. While The Monochrome Set largely relegated themselves to twee or nostalgic lyrics drawing most of their inspiration from the musical past, Wire seem to be a little more in-touch with what’s going on in the modern world, going almost out of their way to reference current trends in music and society. The difference is enormous, making for a similarly high quality, but vastly more inclusive sounding album.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Wire have always been a forward thinking band. From their early experiments with electro pop and synthesizers to their notoriously difficult live album Document and Eyewitness from 1981, the band have never shied away from making shocking, unexpected musical innovations. This new album is really no exception to the rule. But probably the biggest, broadest, and most exciting change comes with the final track “Harpooned”, which is almost Swans-like in its intensity. The band refer to it as the heaviest song they’ve ever written, but it’s also one of their most melodically interesting. It’s a combination of wall-of-noise guitar distortion, subtly evolving melodic work and stirring monotone vocals, combining their traditional sound with metal and no-wave influences. It’s a triumphant conclusion to the album, and a promise that even greater things are still to come.

Gang of Four and The Monochrome Set need to pay attention. This is a perfect example of how to do a 70s-inspired post-punk record in 2015. It breaks new ground while still sounding exactly the way that you’d expect. More than just a simple revival or extension of their sound, Wire’s new album proves they’re still capable of producing powerful, exciting and relevant music, while providing hope for an even brighter future yet to come. If you’ve never heard the band before, now is your chance to be amazed, and if you’re a fan already, you will be pleased with both the stylistic continuation to their previous work, and the exciting implications of their new material. As always, Wire fail to disappoint. It’s impossible to recommend this album highly enough.

Craig’s List: Trevor Deep Jr.

Tuesday, April 14th, 2015

Every fortnight, RTRFM’s Craig Hollywood brings us a little taste of what to expect from Tuesday’s Full Frequency…

The mysterious Trevor Deep Jr announces the release of a 2×12” project on the HPTY label. Featuring seven tracks and coming out on limited vinyl, as well as 50 copies on cassette tape, the release is further testament to his skill of crafting deeply emotive sounds, and it will be released in May 2015.

Inspired by the likes of Larry Heard and Moodymann, Trevor Deep Jr. has been releasing his own smoked out take on house music since 2011. It has been lifted on labels like Delsin and Nsyde as well as his own outlet and often features a striking sample or memorable chord.

For the people who know what deep house music really sounds like.

Full Frequency with Craig Hollywood airs every Tuesday at 3PM (GMT+8) on RTRFM 92.1 in Perth, Australia. You can livestream RTRFM right here.