The 15th release from Vulpiano Records is a compilation of tracks from Richey Hackett. We hadn;t heard of him either, but now we do and you should too. This UK-based independent artist (in every sense of the term, handling all of the songwriting, instrumentation, vocals, recording, and producing of his works) has somehow been flying under the radar since 2007. Vulpiano Records is proudly releasing a compilation of the best songs from his catalog, An Introduction to Richey Hackett. The closing remark on his MySpace profile - “Pop music is dead. And I have come to revive it. Enjoy.” sums up much of his mission; the creation of catchy tunes need not leave out thoughtful lyricism, which has become increasingly abundant in his works over time.
An Introduction to… is a monument to his changes and growth over time; Wrath's optimistic instrumentation blended with sentiments of distress, Empty Out the Room's dark plod embellished with rather memorable guitar bits; and the pseudo-folksy, chugga-chugga rhythm Coming Home.
His whole catalog is available for free on Last.fm, with another album coming down the pike in summer 2010.
1. You Have, You Want, You’ll Get (Kicking & Screaming, 2008)
2. I Found My Little Habit (…That I Shall Be Tomorrow, 2009)
3. Wrath (Looking into the Dark E.P, 2008)
4. Sixteen (…That I Shall Be Tomorrow, 2009)
5. Getting Worse (Awkwardly Mobile, 2007)
6. Think Like A Shrink (Suddenly, 2007)
7. By And By The Way (Richey Hackett, 2008)
8. No One Hears Me (Suddenly, 2007)
9. Sad (Kicking & Screaming, 2008)
10. Touch (…That I Shall Be Tomorrow, 2009)
11. Empty Out The Room (…That I Shall Be Tomorrow, 2009)
12. Morning Report (Kicking & Screaming, 2008)
13. Coming Home (Richey Hackett, 2008)
14. Last Chance At Keeping It All Together (Conversations With Myself, 2007)
15. And No Darkness In My Heart (…That I Shall Be Tomorrow, 2009)
This weeks Fast and Furious Friday Feature is right back up on the Fast and Furious with Nuclear War Now! Production's Ares Kingdom. It's an all out metal fest. Not even sure which genre this fits in - Death, Black, Thrash - it's got elements of all. Their website is offering free downloads of the album opening Incendiary and Descent of Man, so you can take those and ejoy at your leisure but for now, we wanted to post this beast of a track up:
Life Of Leisure has just been relased on CD by Mexican Summer and to mark the occassion there's a new video to one of the most beautiful tracks from the whole chillwave movement. Still playing both these albums a lot - heavy rotation, and moreso as the weather heats up. It's going to be a cliche of our times, but it's the truth.
Ernest Greene, as Washed Out, is on a higer level and in a more finely attuned headspace to the rest of the artists in this genre when it comes to creating that sun baked energy sapping shimmertone heatwave euphoria that only summer can provide. Summer, and this song:
Just in time for his set at the Freebutt tonight - and our DJ set at the Penthouse above - here's the new track ‡PREYOUANDI∆ and suitably hallucinatory video from the luminous mind of Daniel Lopatin.
Continuing this weeks (accidental) garage rock theme we bring news that Austin TX psychedelic noiseniks Woven Bones just dropped their debut 12" album In and Out and Back Again on Chicago's Hozac Records with this video as a preemtive firestorm to set you alight in advance (unless you got it already). It's probably going to sell out as quickly as their previous four 7"s but this time it's almost twice the size! No doubt a band this fierce is deserving of a bigger slab of shellac.
The Inn-Sect - Let Me Tell You About the Things I Need
Nurse with Wound & Stereolab - Trippin' With The Birds
Acid Eater - Road Of Ecstasy
Birchville Cat Motel - 55,000 flowers for the hero
Iibiis Rooge - How To Make A Flower
Whirling Hall Of Knives - Untitled
Boris with Merzbow - Rainbow
Peter Wright - River Lea Time Lapse
Planetary Assault Systems - Surface Noise
Inner City - Ahnonghay (Dave Clarke Mix)
Drexciya - Red Hills Of Lardossa
Various Artists - Chain Reaction 02 A1
Demdike Stare - Ghostly Hardware
Sun Araw - Beams
Teenage Fanclub - Baby Lee
Beak> - I Know
The Majority - One Third
Thors Hammer - I Don't Care
Here's the third mix in our continuing series, and it's a pretty special one, especially if you're into Garage Rock.
This mix coincides with the release of John Dwyer’s Nth record release as Thee Oh Sees, but that’s just coincidence. I started this almost a year ago, got sidetracked, and now I've managed to come back and finish it - Just in time for Warm Slime. Still, I make it sound easier than it was to track all this stuff down. The internet offers gratuitous providence at the best of times, but even so, tracking down some kind of recorded output from each of the bands within the man’s hyper-prolific trajectory has been pretty difficult – I even turned up the listing ‘Owes Rick Money (Thief)’ which I’m pretty sure isn’t a band and some kind of in-joke I’m not privvy to. There’s also something called Darkthrone that I could never find, but as far as I’m concerned that’s just Fenriz and Nocturno Culto and I’m happy to leave it at that; though if Dwyer was to pop up on their next album playing flute I wouldn’t be surprised. Only Superpit truly eludes me. From all I can find they might have been his high school band with only a couple of practices to their name let alone any recorded output.
So what this compilation features is 19 tracks from 16 bands including a couple of alternate monikers for the same group, plus a couple of live duets and a load of interview samples that hopefully colour in the character of the man a little further outside the boundaries of the music. Buckle up.
To expound on each group with dates, members and discographies would be gratuitous and detract from the kinds of spontaneity, creativity and chaotic artistry that a career spanning Doom through Garage Rock to Teutonic Electro alludes to.
So here’s to him – Keep on crushin’ Dwyer!
Thanks for downloading. Enjoy!
Tracklist:
Yikes - Carol Ann (Whoa Comas - Blood Bomb, Kill Shaman)
Pink & Brown - Messy Bessy, Get Undressy (Shame Fantasy II, ToYo/Load)
Here at Not For Resale we love a good netlabel - quality free music is always welcome round our place - so what happens if that music also comes with some awesome artwork and a tidy horizontally slidy website? Well, we blow our top that's what.
Beko Records - http://www.beko-dsl.com- is a singles label offering free downloadable releases from a range of genred artists and they have a nice line in 2D block colour sleeve designs too.
Prettypretty artworks and lots of great releases; Memoryhouse, Wild Safari, Idiot Glee, Hanging Coffins – all cool! And loads more too, all free.
They have just released their first split single, called Beko Box 1, featuring Modern Witch, Mater Suspiria Vision and Madame O und Ihre Kopffilm Bande (XH of Mater Suspiria Vision and Cosmotropia de Xam)
The Mater Suspiria track is as you'd expect; Layers and phases of heavy reverb ghost drone delay strung up and freaked out to the max - same goes for the Cosmotropia collaboration too. But it's the Modern Witch track Cinema that breaks the mould and sends chills down the spine. It's utter genius. A dark groove locked down into a twisting cycle that shifts into some hi-frequency atmospheric spaces. It's a lot more hi-fidelity than their previous releases,and certainly a lot more 'House'. This is the sound of Witch House developing into a more interesting dimension. Between Balam Acab and this track, the next phase of this genre may well be happening right now.
We have another special DJ set coming up at The Penthouse for the night that Oneohtrix Point Never and Tomutonttu play - we have been invited to do this because he is playing which we're pretty psyched about - thanks Freebutt guys! We'll be playing some suitable accompaniment to the tone of the night – although regular readers of our blog will know how far we like to stretch our interpretation of ‘suitable’!
Creep is a two piece 'Rape Gaze' band with two female members - Lauren Flax and Lauren Dillard (not the one from Telepathe) Together they are desecrating chart material to produce their eerie malevolent ambience. They have recorded tracks featuring Romy of The xx on vocals and have a release due out around now on Robin from 20 Jazz Funk Greats' label Tri Angle Records.
Here's news straight from the Three Lobed mailout of the imminent new Heavy Winged LP. One of our all time favourite bands that we totally dropped the ball on interviewing a couple of years back. We did the interview, but never got to editing down the 16 page transcripts of it, so never wrote the feature. Shame on us. Here's a video of them playing in a old firestation, to show you why we are in their thrall:
Anyway, their latest album involves the entirely new concept of a recording studio and overdubs and is out on 15th June. More from TLR:
Heavy Winged has continued to stretch their leathery, scarred, er,
wings and grow since their last release for Three Lobed Recordings,
2008's "Alive In My Mouth." From that time to the present the group
has ventured to release three complete albums ("Spreading Center,"
"Shaking, Waking" and "The Thinner The Air"), and a full-length
collaboration with Inca Ore, each displaying a few additional
wrinkles to Heavy Winged's sonic palette. While these additions to
the band's distorto-electro-bombast may be most apparent to those who
have closely tracked their total output, "Fields Within Fields," their
latest and, all hyperbole aside, greatest album to date, displays the
band's grand developments in a fashion apparent to even casual outside
observer. Every great band has that one totally assured statement
album. For Heavy Winged, it is "Fields Within Fields."
The band was determined to make "Fields Within Fields" into a
significant part of their discography from the very outset. In
October 2009, the band decided to enter the 5D Studios in Brooklyn to
engage in what would be a first-time experiment - recording in a multi-
track studio with overdubs planned from the session's start. Prior to
this experience the band's entire catalog was centered on displaying
their ferocious live spirit. Having already proven themselves to be
adept at creating grand and heavy statements in an improvised, one-
take-only setting, they felt that were ready for the challenge of
being both improvisational and composition-minded. The band hunkered
down for the session and even brought in some friends to help augment
the Heavy Winged vibe. Their time in 5D yielded the two dark fruits
which combine to form "Fields Within Fields."
Brutal and hard, "Among The Maori" leads the album off and encompasses
the entire first side of vinyl. The track opens with a slow,
deliberate fade into Jed Bindeman's tribal drumbeat. This beat may
start controlled but the track's velocity and volume continue to
accelerate, eventually turning "Among The Maori" into a highly tuned
jet engine. Ryan Hebert's guitar playing is exceptional throughout,
beginning with an initial prolonged banshee-like wailing and slowly
building and fully giving way to a fantastically cranking and grinding
post-metallic din by the track's conclusion. "Among The Maori" stands
out among the band's entire catalog as perhaps their truest moment.
The album's second side is fully dedicated to the drone doom opus "The
Hum Of The Universe." "The Hum..." adds Bob Jones on viola to the
band's three piece lineup. The results of this pairing are epic and
haunting. Jones' viola couples nicely with Brady Sansone's low-end
work to create a churning sound vortex that will pull you in and
release you only when the stylus reaches the run-out groove. "Fields
Within Fields" is a powerful and assured statement, one that strongly
rings "death to the new flesh - long live Heavy Winged's drone!"
“Fields Within Fields” is pressed on RTI vinyl and housed within a
textured old-style Stoughton tip-on sleeve bearing new artwork from
Rebecca Carlisle-Healy. The album will be accompanied by a download
coupon for DRM-free MP3s of the album. This one will be released on
June 15 but copies pre-ordered from Three Lobed will ship as soon as
they are on hand in advance of that date (likely mid-May). “Fields
Within Fields” is from a one-time pressing of approximately 1000
copies and costs $15 postpaid in the US, $19.00 to Canada and $26
postpaid to all non-US, non-Canadian locations. Copies of “Fields
Within Fields” pre-ordered by May 15, 2010 have the option of being
accompanied by "Infinite In Every Direction," a glass-mastered CD
(TLR-079) presenting an additional thirty-plus minutes of studio
material (including a long studio droner featuring a guest appearance
from White Hills' Dave W.) that is not available for individual
purchase. Add $2.50 to the aforementioned prices during the pre-order
phase to obtain this bonus CD. Ordering information is available here
- www.threelobed.com/tlr/tlr078.html
Here's the video to accompany the release of this split 7" between oOoOOand White Ring on Emotion Records. Directed by Dan Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never, Skyramps and Games. The low fi digital aesthetic is a little cruder than Lopatin's musical tones but it suits the track.
Seems to be a good time to post this, even if I wanted to make it a bit better like. I just wanted to get there first! A couple of threads are asking for this to be the answer, so here it is in a thread of its own, and quite rightly so.
BEHOLD! Your genre for the year: WITCH HOUSE
and your bands (in alphabetical order):
///▲▲▲\\\
//TENSE//
▲
†‡†
oOoOO
Gr†ll Gr†ll
Mater Suspiria Vision
Modern Witch
PWIN▲▲TEAKS
tearist
twYIYZoNe
WHITE RING
Ghost Drone, Spectral Pop, Were House – Ready yourselves for some supernatural genres for the rest of the year. The Summer will be dominated by this occult oriented downtempo chopped and screwed italo-house sort-of-extension-of Chillwave. There’s a bit of variation in these bands sounds – some straighter electro rock, some totally abstract, sampled and degraded into noise, but there are distinct central themes that make it a genuine happening.
Geometrical, upper/lower case and punctuation riddled band names. A reference or inclusion of sigils, symbolism, talismanic and/or ritualistic adornment…and by extension of this, a sense of –
Mystery.
Remixing – Chillwave might have had a few remixes and remixers, but this is next level. 80’s tracks and modern pop are the main sacrificial lambs of this genres and they are being eviscerated down to their essential elements in order to be recast as ghostly, demonic apparitions of their original forms. It’s a bit nepotistic in that respect, Mater Suspiria Vision seems to be the go-to guy for Ghost Drone edits involving an awful lot of reverb.
Women – Nearly all these bands involve female members or collaborators. By definition it is a genre that necessitates the inclusion of women (Witch) yet is not actually defined by sex as such. This is massive, seriously. Riot Grrrl was all about the Grrrl aspect, as in Girls doing the Rioting. This is not, it so subtley dependant on femininity it doesn’t need to force the issue. I didn’t really explain that as concisely as I realised it the other day, but that’s the gist.
Finally – where do you go to get it? The locus of the genre is DISARO Records in Houston. Go see their myspace for links to all these bands, downloads, images and more:
The key release for the genre should be the White Ring 'Roses'/ oOoOO 'Seaww' Split 7", out on Swedish Emotion label - http://eeemotion.se/ - it has White Ring's epic blackened down happy hardcore with a really chilling feral screech for a lyric set against oOoOO's slowly unfolding horror show of pitched down vocals and eerie drone. As a release it backs the dancey side with the post-club comedown track really well and these are easily my two favourite tracks of the genre, if not the year. They're up there.
One of my all time favourite most ridiculous bands ever released an anniversary best-of a little while back; compiled by Izedis (vocals and bass player of the band) in 2009 to celebrate their 9th year. It was released by Xul Creations last month as a free digital download. You can get it here:
Enbilulugugalmake some kind of horrorcore power electronics form of black metal. There's not much buzzing trance, more ferociously blown out industrial noisegore and as such, seem to be pretty hated amongst a lot of black metal fans - their Metal Archives page has only 3 average scores of 33%, 75% and 30%. Still, one suspects they couldn't give a forty-fingered nun-fuck as this career(ing) best of should attest to, what with song titles such as Vomitous Orgy of Mutilated Catholic School Girls and Slicing the Blood Clotted Cunt of the Rotting Virgin AngelSlut and albums called things like NunTwat Armageddon.
Plus the artwork for Cultivating Goat Vomit attests to something not totally sincere either:
AMAZING!!
They have a whole host of albums and split eps lined up for the next year, so if you like this - and why the hell wouldn't you? - then you won't have to wait long for the next fresh release of goatserpent obsessed satanic filth to come rolling along.
Remember that kind of IDM/Power Electronics crossover stuff that was massive (read pretty niche and small actually, but you know, that is massive) a few years ago (probably about 5...10.....15.......it's a bit hazy); stuff like Knifehandchop, DJ Aneurysm, Kid606 (when he wasn't being soft), Shitmat. Think they called it breakcore. That kind of killer cut up shrill stuff. It's still kicking it. Out in the Solomon Islands, alledgedly, but we're not totally sure we believe that. I stumbled across this guy Skullcaster on MySpace (Mind your eyes though, his page might make them bleed a bit) - first amazing myself that I still use myspazz to stumble around on, and them more amazed after I pressed play on the track Wreckaniza. I loved it so much I asked Skullcaster if we could give it to you and he said yes, so here it is for your binaural disintergrative pleasure:
The new album will be called Skinwalker and will be a remastered collection of previous tracks from split eps and demo cassettes, plus a few new tracks such as this one, Reptoids, that has been furnished with visuals from the black psychedlic mind of Mater Suspiria Vision. Psychedelic Black Metal meets Witch House. Last year's Megafauna could well be considerd a heralder of Witch House with its blackened occultified hypnagogia but this looks like the full melding of styles. This year just keeps getting better and better! More hybrid genres like this one please.
After releasing MegafaunaHoly Mountain are set to release this second album due for release in the Autumn. In anticipation of that; feast your eyes, ears and fourth mind on this:
When A Train Hits A Truck is a band that happen to have a couple of DiSers in them. There's only three of them mind, so that's most of them. No fucking about, just rocking out and it feels good to have the raw wind of a pure rock demo in my hair again. Sounds like Dananananakyroyd, Sex Pistols, Andrew WK, and a load of other hooky twin vocalled jump-up shout-along fist pumping bands that have fuelled many a good time. They even have a cheeky Zeppellin riff thrown into the path of Mine To Destroy.
This is an interesting one, as befits this interesting juncture we find ourselves at as the subgenre eddies of Chillwave and Witch House spin off into different shapes, some remingling and others whirling further from the motherpool that is Hypnogogic Pop. 80's + cognitive dissonance = 2010. Sharing a similarity in ambience to Ducktails with their languid tropical shimmertone that sits them firmly in the Chillwave camp there is also a malevolence in the way PWIN ▲▲ TEAKS dismember and recast radio hits of the 80's that is one of the gory signatures of Witch House. That and the geometry in the name. Sympathetic sampling is one of Chillwave's central tenets, but over on the darker side its more about the torturing, like some kind of payback for all those times trapped with the radio tuned to a local Golden Hits. Their top friends on myspazz are Kria Brekkan, Washed Out, Disaro and How I Quit Crack. There's some kind of coordinates for you there.
Here's two tracks to celebrate and demonstrate the fork in the road that we're getting to chose a route down.
First, take I Will Always Love You - a remix, reworking or ritual sacrifice (whichever way you want to spin it) so profoundly simple, sinister and unnerving the Master Butcher would be proud to hang it in alongside his greatest love songs. Check the way the track gets sucked into a dismal vortex around the 4 minute mark, then pops back out into it's parallel dimensional form of euphoria. Beautiful freaky. Then listen to Beach Bubble and just lay back and relax as it's soporific heatwave fans out over your body slowly brushing across your skin in waves of lilting intensity as the clouds gently shade the colour of its rays.
What unholy coven raised fresh hell is this?! New single, A Drowning from How To Destroy Angels, the new solo project from Trent Reznor, getting remixed by Mater Suspiria Vision? The year just keeps getting darker and creepier by the minute!
This Friday's Fast and Furious Friday Feature belongs to Tearist. Los Angeles based duo of William & Yasim who fall into the impending genre of Witch House by virtue of their darkened electro and penchant for being a little bit scary - see Yasmine's provocative dancing as evidence. Not quite the smashing-kids-in-the-face-with-a-headstock that we saw from Crystal Castles , but still, they do actually smash stuff loop it and kick it into their live sets, so that's taking things to the next level if you ask us.
NFR absolute current favourites (jointly with loads of others of course, but they're up there!) Sleigh Bells have put out a free track from their upcoming album Treats due out on May 11th on Mom + Pop Records. They also play the Concorde 2 at Brighton's Great Escape Festival on Saturday 15th May
Until then; tease yourself senseless with this official free track Tell 'Em DOWNLOAD
Type Records have just posted a new podcast of 'modern electronic music' from Yellow Swans' Pete Swanson. Immediately dense, psychedelic and all consuming there are as many vody rockign beats as there are cable thick strands of fuzz und drang. Incredible stuff.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Star Garden
Operative – Pulse
Rene Hell – X.O. Lucifer
C Section 8 – Music Box
Bulbs – Channels
Miracles Club
Mouthus – Where the Bridge Was Found
BORG – Track 1 from IA!
Axolotl – track 2 from Of Bonds In General
Angel Rada – Carillion
Golden Retriever – Canonic Horizon
Nerve Net Noise – Smoke From Past
Caboladies – Caught In Cradle Fly Paper
Pete Swanson – Work In Progress
N. Just N. For fans of codeined down, crawling tempoed DJ Screw style warped hallucinatory beats and time-stretching vocals. Haunted hip-hop? Witch Hop?!?!
Everything, in its own form of ritual and seance, is going occult this year.
Winter Drones is the other band from Leon Dufficy of Hush Arbors. They formed around 2006, so they're not new and this video is a couple of years old, but it;s all we have to preview their new cassette Blood in the Coffin out now on SexBeat Records. Bongs Dream Pt.2 was also featured on the Menagerie compilation on Blackest Rainbow Records - another one of our favourite labels. All good company.
The languid kraut groove of Neu, with a bit of Wooden Shjips style bluesy drugginess. The sound features a lot of gently controlled feedback to give it the ethereal dream/drone pop air of Deerhunter. All that, then there's the graven shadow of Stiff Wizard, featured on the SexBeat 002 compilation - it's a stomping fuzzed up monster of a track that roars out of the speakers with no small amount of malice in it's stride. If you never got that comp you can get a taster of it on the MySpace page. But for the here and now you can have Scene Through, a far more sedate affair that still flows really deep.
