Karry Walker -- [demo]

For some reason this makes me think of sixties folk-goddess Melanie. Part of it has to do with her quirky, highly individual singing style; her manner of singing is hard to describe, but definitely memorable. Actually, a better comparison (and one a bit more likely to resonate with DEAD ANGEL's younger readers) would be to Cindy Lee Berryhill, especially on "On the Roof," which could easily have come from Berryhill's first album. Of course, Walker relies only on her voice and an acoustic guitar....

Speaking of which, she breaks into some nifty (and subtle) slides and squeaks during "Fillmore." If you took her voice away the guitar track could pass for one of John Fahey's slower songs. With her singing over it, though, the effect is more along the lines of early Ida or something like that. The song that bridges these two extremes, "Lipsbury Pinfield," is sort a mix of the two, sung almost country torch style, with rhythmic accents provided by deliberate finger squeaks. An unexpected pleasure, the demo's only real drawback is that at three songs, it's too short. Wah!'

Walking Timebombs -- s/t [Charnel Music]

Finally -- post-Pain Teen dementia from guitarist Scott Ayers! Ha! But in a weird way, it's like the Pain Teens never went away... much of this sounds like very early PT material (obscure cassette stuff, not the Trance discs, which were always the more "accessible" side of the Pain Teens, as hard as that may be to imagine), only updated a bit and recorded with much better clarity and precision. In fact, some of it may BE early PT material -- Scott throws so much weird shit into the mix at every turn that it's not too hard to imagine him including bits and pieces of his past just as a perverse in-joke. Certainly "Been Broken" sounds like it could have been the flip side of "Voluptus," from BEAST OF DREAMS, with its repetitive stepladder riff and droning background guitars, and his patented voodoo swamp-psychadelia is all over the place, just as it always was. For that matter, "What Hope" also sounds like it could have been an outtake from the BEAST sessions, what with its Middle Eastern vibe and swirly guitars hiding behind evil riffs and solid tub-o'-doom drums.

In a way, this is actually less of a "new" solo project than a return to what he was doing in Pain Teens before Bliss began taking a more active role in the tape demolition. As with early PT material, most of these songs don't really "go" anywhere -- they're less about movements and standard chord progressions than they are about finding lots of cool sounds and weaving them all together (i'll bet YOU never thought of juxtaposing bell- like tones with guitar hum, as he does hee at the end of "Airwaves"). But it's also clear he's moved on to new things; check out the ambient-meets- psychadelic-dub sound of "Swarm" or the devolved hip-hop and tortured jazz of "Pikes," which swings as much as it squeaks. Then there's the mellow ambient drone of the closing track "Fade," which sounds a bit like Eno on a Middle Eastern trip (the sitar-sound fixation continues unabated, as you have probably guessed by now).

The bottom line is that Scott Ayers can do no wrong in DEAD ANGEL's book, and if you were hep to the earlier Pain Teens stuff (especially the eccentric cassette material, which i'd still like to see compiled onto CD someday), this hep collection o' riffs and peculiar noises should probably find its way into your pile of listenables. Bonus extra super fly points to Lunatic Fringe for the appropriately cryptic graphics (luv the death-head plastic toy on the back cover)....

This band is technically the brainchild of former Pain Teens guitarist Scott Ayers, but as in that band, the secret weapon is really the singer (this time Sarah Evans, formerly of Mary Tyler Moron). If you're hep enough to WTB to be saying "Eh? Singer?" then you might be interested to know that what began as Scott's solo noiseloop side-project has evolved into a full-on band that now sounds, interestingly enough, like a more psychedelic version of late-era Pain Teens. What you get here then, essentially, is Pain Teens minus the serial killer fixation and augmented with background loops of exotic noise/samples and a wider sonic palette, incorporating country (!) and psych into the fuzz-rock destruction. (It doesn't hurt that PT drummer Frank Garrymartin is providing the beats.)

I'll give it to you straight from the shoulder: every song on this disc (fourteen of them, to be exact) is fucking excellent. This is one of the most solid releases I've heard in years, and by far the most consistent release by anybody in the Pain Teens orbit. If you liked the psych/middle-eastern sound of some of the best tracks from their last album, BEAST OF DREAMS, then you need to track this down right now. Their range is staggering -- they delve into straight-out hard rock ("Junkyard Dog," "Eden"), country folk-blues complete with blinding slide guitar ("Space Country"), raga-style drone ("Parasite"), crazed high-velocity punk ("Dead End Street"), ... and sounds too strange to accurately describe ("Dive," "Full Moon"), tweaked pop ("Velvet"), devolved hip-hop ("Good Thoughts"), and flat-out psychedelia (pretty much everything), and they do all of it equally well. The scary part is that this is technically their first album as a band (there are a couple of other WTB releases that predate this, but those are all actually Scott solo or with bands like Subarachnoid Space and Tribes of Neurot); given this strong start, there's no telling how much more brilliant they'll be a couple of releases down the road. Raise your hipness factor by getting in on the ground floor now or you'll be sorry later....

TMU: Did you ever figure out what anything in the liner notes say? Man, that is the most unreadable font in the world, i still wouldn't know the band's name if you hadn't told me. For all i know they're called Wedgysledge from the clarity of their graphics....

TTBMD: Holy shit! This is great.... The vocals are sick, the drummer is insane, great riffs, black metal that isn't pretentious when using atmospherics.

TMU: This doesn't sound like music played by human beings. Surely no mere mortal has the stamina to sound like controlled explosions at Concorde speed.

TTBMD: Holy shit, the drummer is incredible -- the production is killer! Bloody hails to tUMULT for putting this out! I highly recommend you get your copy of this on double-vinyl gatefold LP. They have two other releases out, and this is the latest.

TMU: I'm fucking impressed. That guitar player must have a drill press installed in his arm sockets. I fear these people. If they dared to steal my bitch i'd be powerless to stop them.

TTBMD: I cannot imagine seeing these guys live.

TMU: These titanic grinding riffs are boring a hole through my skull, mon. This is serious business here. I sure wish you could, like, fucking read the stuff on the cd, though. That's going a little bit too far... maybe it's irony?

TTBMD: Everything is irony.

TMU: I'll bet this will damage my hearing when i get around to listening to it with the headphones. Oooo, cool....

TTBMD: Buy this album! Go to tUMULt and look around -- they have many other great albums as well. Albums by Harvey Milk and soon Skullflower. They deserve your money. Go get this album and GET IT ON VINYL DAMMIT!

I was more than a little stoked to get this in my mailbox. For years (at least since the last Buzzov'en record was released) friends of mine south of the border have been raving about Weedeater. I'd hear stuff like, "They're the best band going man, definitely. You've gotta check 'em out." This was pretty frustrating 'cause even though they did play live, the didn't ever play anywhere near me. And even though there was a demo floating around, I never got a hold of it. So as you can imagine, I had pretty high expectations when I popped this disc into my player. I wasn't let down. Their sound is kind of hard to describe. It's raw but warm. They're mining the same territory as bands like Buzzov'en and eyehategod (which isn't surprising since bass player/singer Dixie Dave played in the last incarnation of Buzzov'en) but they're less abrasive then either of them. There's a bit of a southern vibe, a bit of doom, and a whole lot of punk rock. How about this? Weedeater are to Black Sabbath what Antiseen are to the Dead Boys. Nah. Not quite. Ok, this is a bit better. Weedeater would be St. Vitus to Antiseen's Black Flag. Got it? Good. [n/a]

Ween -- CHOCOLATE AND CHEESE [Elektra]

You know which album I'm talking about here. Yes. The one with the cover of the woman with the gratuitous hooters threatening to escape from a red half-shirt, wearing nothing else but a WEEN wrestling belt. Hardcore weenophiles tell me the real shit is their first album, the inexplicably-named GOD WEEN SATAN: THE ONENESS, but i have a hard time imagining it could be better than this. There are at least four totally brilliant songs on here -- the creepy "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)," the swank instrumental "A Tear For Eddie," the gorgeous pop swirl of "Baby Bitch," and the deranged spaghetti-western soap opera "Buenas Tardes Amigo." The last one is possibly the best song of the album -- maybe the best song of their career -- and comes complete with accurately spooky spaghetti western twang, obnoxious Mexican accents, and hilarious lines (delivered straight, of course) like "Maybe I'd sell you a chicken/ With poison interlaced with the meat." Beyond that, there are plenty of songs that aren't bad in their own right -- usually filled with all kinds of weird instrumentation and demented lyrics -- like "Take Me Away," "I Can't Put My Finger On it," and "Drifter In The Dark." There's even a swell cautionary tale of sorts in the closer "Don't Shit Where You Eat."

Of course, this being Ween -- possibly the most juvenile and infantile band actually worth hearing -- there's a fair amount of irritating, self-indulgent foolishness like "The HIV Song" and "Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?"; although, on the other hand, there's nothing quite so supremely annoying as "Push The Little Daisies (and Make Them Come Up)" from PURE GUAVA (thank God). There are plenty of songs where you have to ignore the fact that the lyrics are either ridiculous, puerile, or just plain stupid and focus on the fact that Gene and Dean are actually pretty hep singers, even when what they're singing is totally worthless. And the playing all over the album is sharp and inspired, so it's possible to forgive them their childish streak. But... what the HELL are they doing on "Voodoo Lady," for God's sake? Talk about annoying....

Interesting... i can see this appealing to Jandek fanatics, maybe, although Weeks is nowhere near as "out there" as the Reclusive One (he's also a better guitarist and singer if you ask me, but that's neither here nor there). He and Jandek both have that same lonesome dude on the edge of the world feel.... Anyway, Greg Weeks is a cryptic guy with an acoustic guitar and a vaguely falsetto voice who recorded all these songs on a four-track over a period of eight days, and they all have that spooky sound you can only get from four-tracks, dig? The sound is very direct, very intimate, very real -- like walking into the room next door and finding him sitting there, plinking away. As for the songs, well, they appear to be mostly about failure and doomed love, which only makes sense -- this is the real folk blues, after all -- but the lyrics are more like romantic street poetry than actual lyrics. A sample, from "One in Ten": "She's spitting blood from the wound on your neck, thank God she's a fighter. But you like 'em young and so drunk they don't stand they totter. How can you live with yourself leading girls like lambs to the slaughter?" The other songs aren't quite so dire, but their sentiments are pretty close....

What i like about this album is how real it sounds, like Weeks just sat down on a stool, fiddled with his guitar until it was more or less in tune, then turned the recorder on and started playing. (Which is probably pretty much how it went, i'm sure.) No attempt at gussying up the sound, no gadgets, no sonic enhancers, no lavish production... just a bummed-out guy and his guitar. Some might sneer and claim these are nothing more than glorified home demos, but the Headless Sno-Cone Girl says, be not deceived: this is the real deal. It's far more real than anything on the radio right now, that's for sure. This is sort of reminiscent of Nick Drake, now that i think of it, in attitude if nothing else... if Nick Drake can be dead so long and still have a such a ludicrously large cult following, why not Weeks? Surely Weeks deserves his own cult....

This disc (actually a co-release with Ptolemic Terrascope) is not Weeks' first, by the way. His first, FIRE IN THE ARMS OF THE SUN, was released on Ba Da Bing in 1999, and now that i know this, i have to track that mofo down and soon. His first disc was apparently a more lavish affair (strings, organ, etc.), and it would be interesting to hear how he sounds in that context. Where BLEECKER STATION is concerned, however, he sounds absolutely fine -- stark, lonesome, doomed... yes... but fine nontheless -- all by himself. Yet another fine example of Keyhole's ongoing commitment to good taste....

Ralf Wehowsky -- 14 [Selektion]

According to the liner notes, Ralf Wehowsky was working on rereleases of his back catalog and, while sifting through piles of tape, became intrigued with the idea of exploring the relationship between earlier and current work and the evolution of sound/ideas. As a result, he returned to fourteen older tracks (only three of which have been released in any other form, apparently) and reworked them; this CD is the result.

There are some interesting things going on here, particularly on tracks like "Tionchor Revised," "Voices Difficiles Mais Belles," "No Easter," "Low Treason," and "Blighter's Tale," but several of the others are a bit too low- key and quite often don't seem to be GOING anywhere. Maybe that's the intended point, but it doesn't do that much for me. "Planhunter" uses what sounds like a backwards organ, among other things, and has an interesting sound. "Azur I" employs the kind of kitchen-sink sound Skullflower favors from time to time, here with a much different purpose (and different results) in mind, while "Azur II" is essentially a chopped-up version of the same, and "Azur III" is an even more foreign treatment of the same subject.

The most interesting thing about the project, however, is the packaging -- the CD comes encased in a slimline jewel box with a blank white cover, along with twelve square sheets of stiff paper, each one containing the song title, year of "construction," and a cryptic charcoal drawing. All of these loose items are contained in a wraparound three-panel, two-side wrapper that is also decorated with similar artwork. The drawings are fantastic and you could actually buy this, throw the CD away, and enjoy the art itself (although that would kind of silly, wouldn't it?)....

Wendel Doesn't Mind -- NEW LIFE [demo]

This is... weird. Really different. There's only two guys here -- Chris Young on vocals and bass and Darren Orchid on guitar -- and their musical attitude is pretty schizophrenic; the tape sounds like they couldn't decide whether to follow in the footsteps of Hammerhead or Laura Nyro, so they tried to do both at once, with extremely offbeat results. Even then that doesn't do their sound justice, but it will have to do for the moment....

Big keys here: Steve Albini produced, so you already know to expect a certain sound, but the band willfully perverts that expectation at irregular intervals. On "It's Fun," the band lurches back and between shrill guitar skronk and quiet, moody picking, with vocals to match. The sound gets a little more haphazard on "Taunt," where the noise factor gets more wildly pronounced. "Just Another Hero" is slow and noisy, conjuring up the image of Big Black colliding with the Melvins (eek!).

This is all kind of interesting, but I have two problems here: 1) the singer is really influenced by the shout and wail school of Big Black, which never did much for me, and 2) a lot of times the songs seem to be spinning their wheels; but that could just be a byproduct of their loosely- structured style. Regardless, they at least don't sound like they're slavishly imitating anyone else, which is a big point in their favor....

This is interesting... this band, apparently largely the brainchild of one Lars Pedersen after he moved on from Holy Toy (also apparently legendary in No Wave circles, although i've never heard of them -- Thurston Moore is quoted raving about them, though, and while i don't care much for Moore's main outfit, his taste has always been good), spent a good fifteen years toiling in the sound-collage junkyard and i... uh... have never heard of them. Wups. Just more proof that it's impossible to keep up with everything, you know? And it's my loss, because this is startling, excellent material. What spooks me is that even though this retrospective (a two-CD set, at that) covers a lot of ground and styles, and collects pieces from seven albums and an archive of unreleased tracks, it all flows on disc as one long organic piece (on the first disc at least, anyway). Which raises the interesting question: did Pedersen and the label assemble this retrospective by grouping the "best" individual pieces from the albums, or did they deliberately pick pieces that would flow well together as a new, lengthier composition? If the latter is true, then this may not actually be a "best-of" selection at all, a scary proposition indeed as it's all first-rate material, leading one to wonder what remains unheard from the obscure (and probably out-of-print) albums themselves....

With sounds so varied and exotic that i'd get a hernia from toting dictionaries in an attempt to describe them and 39 complex tracks across two discs, attempting to go with a blow-by-blow description is probably an exercise in futility (or madness)... so we go for impressions, mon, observations on style, and perhaps a shot at the gesalt, wot wot? Faw... roll the laughing dice, Sam.... First observation: I'm intrigued by the fact that unlike a lot of collage artists, When is heavily into rhythmic possibilities. Where most collage artists just graft lots o' stuff together in some big ambient electrobrew, When has a tendency to weld its eccentric noises and tones onto actual songs with beats (well, some of the time, anyway). "Haxan" is an excellent example, with shifting beds of minimalist percussion enveloped in looped sounds that drift and shift, sort of like middle eastern techno as interpreted by Stockhausen, maybe. Vocals also appear from time to time, a rarity among collage artists (outside of samples)... along with the occasional actual "solo" (both elements, along with that hypnotech beat, appear in "Afterzone"), which makes it hard to categorize When as a strict collage artist... which, i suspect, was entirely the intent (and may well explain why they are obscure -- audiences sometimes have a hard time digesting the works artists, no matter how talented, who wildly hopscotch across genres, and When doesn't so much hopscotch as it purees the entire notion of classifying divisions of music as one might classify genus and phyla). Another thing i like is that just about the time you think you might have some idea of where the man's coming from -- have his "style" pegged -- he shifts to something entirely different. Dissonant sound collages merge into technoish songs that segue into haunted, scraping drones that give way to creepy faux-Gregorian chants augmented by spooky synth drones and snippets of conversation... and as the discs roll on, the scope of Pedersen's vision and reach just keep expanding. Did i mention that Pedersen's command of an apparently limitless musical vocabulary and attention to detail are nothing short of amazing? If Holy Toy was anything like this, i can understand why Thurston got his panties in a wad....

Probably the creepiest moments on either disc come courtesy of the excerpts (usually brief) from the album SVARTEDAUEN (THE BLACK DEATH), based upon related artwork by Theodor Kittelsen depicting the Black Plague of Norway. Demented sounds like a dying calliope, black wind, and percussion like the shuffling footsteps of the doomed fade into lamenting drones and wails. I'd really like to track down a copy of the full album and hear it in its entirety, just based on the short excerpts here. The later material on the second disc (the tracks on the disc, incidentally, are not arranged in chronological order) leans in more a of an electropop direction (sorta), albeit firmly controlled by collage theory. I can't think of a more thorough (and disciplined) merging of collage and pop that i've heard, although there are moments that vaguely remind me of Mauve Sideshow (but then again, i'm not sure they ever qualified as pop by any stretch of the imagination). Bent yet unmistakably pop (no matter how skewed) songs like "Fellini's Hat" clearly reveal, though, that Pedersen's every bit as familiar with the moves of Brian Wilson as he is with the concepts of Stockhausen and the like.

There's so much happening in these songs and so much diversity -- and so much material, period -- that it can be overwhelming. Nevertheless, there's no denying the many levels of artistry and pure craft demonstrated in these songs and snippets. Fascinating, even if it is hard to digest all at once in one sitting. The appeal of the package in general certainly isn't hurt by the beautiful packaging, either. Intensely worth investigating.

More strangeness from Ulver's eccentric label in the frozen tundra. When, if you'll remember, is the collage-derived brainchild of Lars Pedersen of Holy Toy, and this album follows in that tradition with the addition of a concept: as best as i can tell, the songs here are composed of snippets of legendary jazz fragments, or imitations thereof, or homages by various musicians -- i'm not well-versed enough in jazz to be sure one way or the other. On top of that, it appears that other musicians with traditional instruments (mostly percussion and fuzzdeath guitars, violins, that kind of thing) are having a go at it on top of the throbbing, built-up backbone. It reminds me, oddly enough, of Ulver's PERIDITION CITY (not so much in the actual sound -- this is more jazzier than the trip-hop of that album) -- although there are songs like "Flower Jam" that make me wonder what Cheer-Accident would sound like with death metal guitars. The pop sheen and acoustic guitar of "Sunshine Superhead" only confirm what i've always believed about the really top-notch metal musicians -- that many of them could write perfect pop songs if they felt like it. Basically, there's a lot on unconventional approaches to song construction, instrument juxtaposition, and dynamics. I really like the jazz elements used in "The World's Greatest Sorrow" and "Puff Pipe," not to mention their wheels-within-wheels construction. "Ruin Yourself" (a shifting river of free jazz built around the endless repetition of percussion and vocal elements) is even further devolved into something noisy and chaotic in "Ruin Mix," while the album's ending track (the last one listed, anyway) "Too Much Hello and Goodbye Again" is an absolutely gorgeous pop-folk song that would have fit perfectly on one of the Beatles' more experimental albums.

This would probably be a godawful, unlistenable mess if Pedersen weren't so genuinely brilliant and unpredictable, and if he weren't backed by really exceptional musicians and programming. As it is, it took me several listens to be able to figure out what the hell they were doing, and even know parts of it make me think of my continued impression of John Coltrane's later albums ("I just know any minute now it's going to dawn on me why this is brilliant; too bad it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense quite yet"). There's also a lot of repetition happening -- always a plus for me, but apparently a real aggravation for a lot of people. It also helps immensely that, as with all other Jester releases, it's well-packaged and impeccably recorded (the inclusion of jazz records for the back cover graphics is a nice touch). A fine bit of cryptic istening for the adventurous.

Lars Pedersen returns with a swell concept: lyrics taken from the stories in Abu-Abd Allah Muhammed Gahsjigari's ARABIAN NIGHTS, with Arabic music to match. But Pedersen's Arabic stylings are filtered through Beatlesque harmonies circa ABBEY ROAD and often totally Western song structures at times, and the result is mesmerizing to hear. On songs like "Goose, Goose" and "The Night Empty of All Stories," Arabic motifs and counterpoint riffs are repeated endlessly, snippets of the story are repeated in hypnotic fashion, and melodies wind through the carefully-constructed pieces like a floating procession of sound. The album as a whole greatly resembles an exotic soundtrack (which it might well be, for all I know). Shades of reggae crop up on "Cost of Pleasure," while countryish guitar (and a stuttering ambient-noise intro) provides the backbone of "Daughter of Brightness." The title track is a pulsing groove rendered in rhythmically varied clusters of instruments and frosted with horns, sounding like an after-midnight jam between jazz, r+b, and Arabic musicians. The entire album is a great-sounding and complex assembly of moods and styles riding over an Arabic sensibility, and frequently mesmerizing, always invigorating. More brilliance from Pedersen and Jester Records.

Woo hah... this CD is waaay too complex to even attempt to summarize in a piddly review, but i'm gonna try anyway, after which you should check out the band's site for more info. The basic poop is that the two main members, Eddie Katz and Paul Read, formerly of Vauxdvihl -- apparently a really swell prog-rock band -- are now generating sine waves somewhere in Australia under this new name. The band itself encompasses many genres, including ambient, dance, industrial, goth, and probably a few that haven't been invented yet. Obvious influences would include Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson -- but there's liberal use of sampling more germane to recent industrial bands, nods to classical music and the goth tangents of the 4AD roster, heavy processed guitars, and a wildly unpredictable melange of sounds and effects throughout the piece. Needless to say, given that this is basically progressive rock, everything is played really well and the production is stellar. The CD design and artwork is flatly stunning -- the CD is impressive just for the ornate packaging alone, a baroque collection of stylish images that effectively complement the equally baroque musical movements. Clearly these are not skatepunk idjits out on a lark; they are deeply mysterious and i'm not sure i know what it all means, but i'm pretty sure they're serious, whatever it is.

As for the music itself -- it's largely a large, flowing piece that has been broken down into moderately more digestible movements, some of which center on heavy drums and guitars, others on neo-classical synth stylings, and some on pure ambience. Samples and found dialogue are woven in with cryptic lyrics to present a complicated meditation on greed, man's lust for power, the conflicting words of religion and science in collision, and man's place in the cosmos. I think. Like i say, it's complicated. One of the things i like is that unlike a lot of bands obsessed with these things, they don't appear interested in making an overt (and didactic statement); rather, they tend to unearth revealing samples of dialogue on the subjects at hand and leave it to the listener to interpret the meaning. Another thing i like is the unity between the movements -- a recurring keyboard theme runs throughout the entire album -- and the effective use of Arabic stylings (vox on one tracks, drums on another). Their use of samples is far more relevant and well thought-out than with most sample-heavy bands, and the samples aren't ones you've heard before (trust me). Obviously they get bonus points for avoiding the obvious.

True to the prog-rock standard, this is a tiered concept album -- the entire disc is broken down into six general parts, each of which is further divided into individual songs (one in the shortest, ten in the longest); while the tracks are sequenced as separate entities on the CD, realistically one flows into the next -- it's meant to be heard as one large piece, not as individual songs. Between the bizarre nature of the samples, density of sounds, and relative complexity of the arrangements, this turns out to be one of those albums you could listen to for eons and still find something new with each listen. For prog-heads, this disc is a rare find. It might even attain legendary status eventually, who knows? It's certainly strong enough for that to be possible. Fans of the synth-heavy prog movement are strongly urged to check this out, even if it is from Australia and on a tiny label (thus difficult to find). At the very least, you can get it fromthe band themselves at their own website. It's worth the effort, believe me.

The Whip were Jarred Warren and Scott Jernigan (ex-Karp) along with Joe Preston (ex-Melvins, Thrones). The music is what you'd call sludge-rock. It's thundering, majestic, and brutal -- kind of a midway point between the Melvins and High on Fire. Unfortunately, drummer Scott Kernigan lost his life in a boating accident this past summer, so this may be all anyone will hear of them. It's a shame because they had recorded an album that would have blown some minds. This is definitely something you should check out. [n/a]

Whitehouse -- BIRTHDEATH EXPERIENCE [Susan Lawly]

The first Whitehouse album on CD, o boy! Nowhere near as savage as some of the later stuff (like 100 MURDEROUS PASSIONS with Nurse With Wound, a "listening experience" that will probably permanently damage your hearing); mostly "pink noise" with lots of spacy noises, echo-plated vocals, and the usual Bennett rantings about nasty sex, pain and pleasure, and how he's essentially the center of the universe (well, he never comes right out and SAYS it, but the implication is THERE). Still, this is not bad for a debut (using modified synth equipment, no less), and while it sounds kind of tame now (particularly in comparison to the likes of Merzbow or Anal Drill), I'm sure it must have seemed really "out there" in 1980. Bennett sounds great on the pink-noise rumble of "mindphaser," chanting "THE AGONY -- the ecstasy!" and not much else. The trademark Whitehouse" ugly throbbing rhythm shows up in "rock and roll" as synths chirp and burble in the background (not that this could ever be mistaken for pop music) and Bennett delivers his rant from somewhere in the background as well. The other pink noise track, "coitus," is more static (literally); it hisses without interruption as a sordid sex scene (?) unfolds in the background, but otherwise there's not much happening and it's not even all that loud; the "concept" track "birthdeath experience" is even quieter -- in fact, it's total silence. I dunno.... this is OK, but if you want violent, vicious noise, this is not the place to be....

Whitehouse: HALOGEN [Susan Lawly]

Ouch. Talk about extreme and painful... these guys are clearly masters of the genre. This music is closer to pure white noise, driven by harsh electronics and unspeakably grating sounds designed expressly to mutilate your inner ear. While the lyrics are hard to discern among the sonic filth, judging from the patently rude sentiments that float up from time to time, I think it would be safe to say that this record is not even remotely politically correct.

"Lightning Struck My Dick" features what sounds like extremely dominant/submissive behavior, rude phrases, and general unsavoriness lurking within a wall of noise that sounds rather like what small animals must hear in their last moments before being shredded under a lawnmower. "Movement 1994" is even harsher, an (apparently) instrumental track that sounds like the snow on late-night TV misappropriated as a rhythm track, punctuated by intermittent noises of varying unpleasantness.

In "Dictator," a hypnotic synth-pulse anchors the track while scraping, crunching noises wander in and out at will, as the singer howls and rants, swathed in angry static. The centerpiece of the album, though, is the title track, a long one (nearly twelve minutes) that opens with shimmering, chirping sounds, almost ambient in style, before eventually seguing into a harsh and choppy rhythm that chugs along like a steamroller for a good six or seven minutes before breaking into a stop-and-start mode, where the steamroller sound inches along a few short bursts at a time before kicking back into full, insistent gear again. The entire song cuts off abruptly in the middle of a riotous display of dissonance, screaming, shouting, and grating chug-riffing; it's followed by the album's brief coda, a snippet of electronic frippery that, while inconsequential on its own, is somehow the only sensible end to such a brutal, unrelenting exercise in gruesome sonic excess.

White Zombie -- ASTRO CREEP 2000: SONGS OF LOVE, DESTRUCTION, AND OTHER SYNTHETIC DELUSIONS OF THE ELECTRIC HEAD [Geffen]

With a title like that, it has to be good! Well, it does give the album a lot to match, and Rob and co. follow through with a bang! The newest outing from Zombie is by far the best, rivalling my favorite Zombie release (the NIGHTCRAWLERS remix EP) for time in the CD player. Highlights on this disc -- most of it! There aren't any real throwaway tracks. My favorite: "Super-charger Heaven." Hell, with lyrics like "Jesus lived and died in a cheap motel/ at the end of Route 66" and the chorus "devilman!", you can't go wrong. For those of you that have heard the radio track "More Human Than Human," buy the CD anyway. The rest of it is much better than that track. Samples galore, the same churning guitars you've come to expect, and Rob growling away like a blues singer who's smoked three cartons a day. A must have for any into standard industrial fare. [bc]

White Zombie -- SUPERSEXY SWINGING SOUNDS [Geffen]

So White Zombie got the bright idea to take their last album, have it remixed by various remix gods, and issue it as a brand-new CD -- a brilliant concept or sheer fucking laziness? You be the judge! As it happens, the resulting CD is an interesting beast (assuming, of course, that you liked ASTRO CREEP 2000 in the first place, i suppose). They get bonus points right off the bat for the cheesy 50s-style pinup pix and the faux-50s inner sleeve, and the remix names are pretty hilarious as well. NIN remix choke-holder Charlie Clouser clocks in with three remixes -- "Electric Head Pt. 2 (Sexsational After Dark Mix)," "More Human Than Human (Meet Bambi in the King's Harem Mix)," "El Phantasmo and the Chicken-Run Blast-O-Rama ("Wine, Women and Song Mix"), and "Real Solution No. 9 (Mambo Mania Mix)" -- the best of which is the crazed, cut-to-shreds robot cluster-bomb treatment of "MHTH," in which the riffing becomes even more mechanical than before. Others called on board to tinker with the ASTRO CREEP 2000 tapes include the Dust Brothers ("Grease Paint and Monkey Brains (Sin Centers of Suburbia Mix)" and "I'm Your Boogie Man (Sex on the Rocks Mix)"), P.M. Dawn ("Blood, Milk and Sky (Miss September Mix)"), The Damage Twins ("Electric Head Pt. 1 (Satan in High Heels Mix)"), and Machine ("I, Zombie (Europe in the Raw Mix)" and "Super-Charger Heaven (Adults Only Mix)"); most of the remixing essentially consists of stripping tracks away to more sparse skeletons, then replacing the original beats with something considerably more fucked-up and flying in new weird noises and cryptic shit. The results are... ah, twisted. The best remixes are of "Grease Paint..." (which develops a perverse swing not found in the original) and "Super Charger Heaven" (where the turbocharged guitar falls away to a clattering superfunk beat before everything roars back in on the choruses), but they're all fairly disturbed and full of weird stuff happening at the fringes. How badly you need this depends on your slavish devotion to WZ, of course, but it's definitely one of the better remix projects out there. Let the cheesecake quotient be your astrological guide, brothers and sisters.

Wilkes Land is the endless region of the Antarctic (hi Shirley!) named for one of its first explorers, a region so flat and barren that you can supposedly see the curvature of the earth on the horizon. I've never been there so i wouldn't know, although i kind of like the idea. Wilkes Land is also a guy from Tulsa, Oklahoma who combines treated guitar and field recordings (some of which have been altered through tape manipulation, software programs, and the new -- to me, anyway -- treatment method of leaving cassettes out in the sun) to construct sweeping ambient soundscapes. He displays a black sense of humor that i like by naming his songs after classic rock tracks (for instance, the opener of the way is called "Wish You Were Here"; the final track is "I Can See For Miles"), but rest assured, these songs have absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to their namesakes (although it's entirely possible that they includes samples from said songs, not that you'd ever recognize them if that's actually true).

Much of the material here, oddly enough, reminds me of Austere, even though it's being created with guitars rather than keyboards. As with that band, Wilkes Land has the good sense to keep the barren, droning soundscapes largely clutter-free, creating tracks that invite comparison to infinite panoramas. Sometimes, as on "Season of The Witch," the initial drone sound is gradually augmented by other sounds (also of a droning and ambient nature), but they rarely "go anywhere" and don't so much build as hang there, effectively bracketing the soundscape into discrete movements and preventing them from becoming monotonous. The strategy keeps the songs from becoming boring or redundant, but the unobtrusiveness of the mutant instrumentation keeps the material well within the parameters of true ambient sound. "China Grove" ratchets the sound barrier up a tad through the use of piercing drones, but still remains well within the definition of ambient; "White Rabbit" moves into somewhat psychedelic territory, with a bed of drones and a swirling mass of phase-shifted, reverb-heavy loops drifting like ghosts through a forest of wind. Here i start to think of Mauve Sideshow, especially when the sound of what might be reverb-drenched crickets begins to turn up. Strange and exotic sounds, loops that come and go... the sounds of infinity on the prowl....

The sound recedes again into pure ambience with "Lowrider," another collection of rumblings and swirling drones that wouldn't have been out of place on a Zenflesh compilation, and essentially a reprise of the opening track "Wish You Were Here." The final track, "I Can See For Miles," is parceled out in true, strict stereo separation, an interesting concept for a reviewer who hears in mono. I wonder what's happening over there on the right side? Switching the phones back and forth reveals that he may have run the track forward on one channel and backwards on the other... hard to say. Regardless of what he's done, the result is waves o' drone that drift from one speaker to the other in extreme ambient fashion. Sleepy sounding music (once again, shades of Zenflesh). Fine sleepy sounds, at that.

Devotees of Austere , Zenflesh, or ambient sound in general might well wish to contact this jolly man who leaves his tapes out to warp in the sun for the purpose of hearing said goodies. Yeti rock!

The Dave Williams Project -- GARDEN VARIETY [self-released]

This foursome is from Georgia (everyone's in Georgia all of a sudden, except for the ones in Boston, natch) and ply a particularly wholesome brand of neo-hippy romanticism that sort of reminds me of a cross between Lobo (remember them? no? email me and i'll enlighten ye) and Dan Fogelberg. Three guys (one of whom looks like Fabio's long-lost brother, no kidding; betcha he's the main man here and that he has no problem finding dates for Saturday night) and one gal (credited with "backing vocals, congas, shakers, tambourine, feminine touch") crafting semi-folk songs for the eternally lovestruck. Sort of like all those weepy-eyed teenage heartthrob pop-metal bands who hold so much appeal for hopelessly romantic teenaged girls, only with considerably more taste in playing and no pointy guitars or fuzzboxes. This... this must be what normal people listen to! People who aren't impressed by guitarists capable of approximating the sound of dying lawnmowers or exploding jets! People who get impatient with hearing a twitchy drone for 45 minutes! You know, suburban types with carefully manicured lawns....

All of which sounds like I'm getting ready to knock the band, but really, i'm not. There's nothing wrong with this band. Granted, it's not exactly my cup of tea -- i'm a bit too much of a bitter nihilist to really get behind TDWP's yearning romanticism -- but i don't have difficulty imagining that other less alienated types would like this. The band plays well and with a complete lack of instrumental overkill, which is sort of refreshing in an age where every idiot with a guitar seems determined to prove his impeccable mastery of hideously complicated minor key harmonic Hungarian scales and the like; plus the guitar solo in "Need" is pretty swell. Usually when you see a band named after one of the members, what you end up with is that player's sound pushed way in front and the rest of the band in back, but that's not the case here; the musicians all play together in a very balanced format. For that matter, this self-released cassette sounds better than some major-label releases i've heard lately. Obviously they were paying attention in the studio....

So, for the record: there are five songs ("When Morning Comes," "Breathe," "Three Weeks," "Need," and "Destiny"), mostly about romance or fulfilling one's mystical destiny and other similarly life-affirming themes, recorded in electric versions on one side and acoustic versions on the other, although the band's electric performance is understated enough that there's not a lot of difference between the two versions. If you're looking for positive, happy music by people who aren't tangled in webs of egocentric puffiness, this would be the tape for you.

Rumbling, noisy waves o' sonic filth like the droning dead -- here's a disc that could have appeared on Zenflesh. Particularly the wildly overmodulated first track, "transmissions from skyway blvd. (flying high)," which is perpetually on the verge of disintegrating into crunching speaker death. The second track is even more painful, with high-pitched screaming noises wavering from speaker to speaker and all sorts of sped-up, screeching sonic trash and breaking glass plowing through the explosions of sound. Ouchie! A handful of repeated and distorted soundblocks form the bedrock of "cityscape cacophony," which is every bit as jagged and rude as its name suggests. By this point it's pretty obvious that William X's roots lie in cut-up power electronics (and that he likes his waves of sound as loud as possible). He lowers the volume a tad on "transient suffrage delay," but it's still solidly in the musique concrete tradition -- lots of overlapping sounds and screeches and noises adding up to something that would really annoy your mother. "22548000" sounds like a metal riff from a skipping CD that's been gruesomely "altered" in tone, then overlaid with lots of other machine sounds. They (the guys behind this fearsome exercise in power-noise are Bryan Day and Jorge Castro) get positively ambient, though, on the final track ("drifting through the phosphenes"), which sounds sort of like one of the tracks from Castro's album (reviewed earlier in this issue) filtered through a noise-o-tron. There's a beat of some kind buried down in the waves, although i hesitate to claim its actually drums -- judging from the rest of the album, it could be anything. It's good to see that the power-electronics genre is still alive and well, although now i probably can't hear anything....

Willow Wisp -- THE BUILDING UP AND BREAKING DOWN OF MATTER [MDG Records]

Well, i must admit that just seeing this when it arrived in my mailbox made me a bit... ah... NERVOUS. They're from Hollywood, judging from the photos they have obviously seen too many Marilyn Manson shows, and the whole package sort of reeked of cheesiness... but after hearing the disc, i've modified my opinion enough to consider that maybe they're just a death- metal answer to Bauhaus. (Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your opinion, i guess, but hey, i LIKED Bauhaus, even when they were so goofy and pretentious they made laugh until i peed myself. At least they had a sense of humor. And if they didn't, that just makes it funnier.) They look like a cross between Emperor and early Motley Crue, but sound like Type O Negative with a wah pedal and an even bigger Wagner fixation. They appear to be about as equally influenced by Hendrix (does every band in Cali own a wah pedal?) as by guttural death-croak black metal, and maybe the Beach Boys too (it's a pop thang). I'm still not sure how much i actually LIKE this, but any band that manages to sound like early Sisters of Mercy AND Whiplash (what the hell ever happened to them, anyway?) has a measure of my respect.

So. Tunes. They have some. They are all fairly different, so my original estimation of Motley/Manson clones was obviously way off the beam, since those two bands know a grand total of three songs (the dirty one, the creepy one, and the radio-friendly one) that they just crank out over and over again. Willow Wisp at least manages to offer a fair amount o' variety: one song they sound like Bauhaus with Peter Steele singing through an octave divider, on another they sound like pop gussied up with overwrought Wagnerian synths (actually, those are all over the album), on yet another they sound like hyperactive death metal... plus they have a great drone sound happening on "Attempting to Communicate with the Spirits."

So let's see, between they way they look and their attitude (the guitarist likes to mutilate himself with a razor onstage; i guess he likes Morbid Angel) i just KNOW there's something on here designed to offend... let's see... gotta read the lyrics, God damn this tiny type, they know too many words... oooo, listen to the tinkly piano part on "The Hurting," these guys can actually play their instruments, DEAD ANGEL adds bonus points... oooo, look, I FOUND IT! Not one, but TWO of them: "The Moon is Rather Full, A Rape Victim's Revenge" and "Sodomized by God." The former bears a passing resemblance to one of Type O Negative's slower dirges circa BLOODY KISSES, only with lyrics about a rapist sodomizing some poor woman only to end up being crushed by the slavery of narcotics -- imagine, a quasi-death metal band that believes in karma, will wonders never cease? The latter is pure blazing meltdown death metal with really offensive lyrics that you'll never understand thanks to the satanic-belch vox (but that's why they print the lyrics, right? Let's look... "The priest went berserk / Sodomizing his recently baptized daughter / Vehemently tearing her rectum / Fecal matter dripping from the anal slaughter," hmmm, i wonder if they're on Tipper's Christmas card list?). It makes me suddenly realize how huge a debt Zeni Geva owes to early American/British speed metal. I betcha Null's heard of Whiplash....

So are they gothic? I think so. I think they're also sort of black metal and a lot of other things. This is interesting. Not necessarily something i'd sit around listening to all day (i like my metal obscenely slow these days, you know), but certainly credible enough for what it is. Certainly a hell of a lot more interesting than anything else i've heard out of Cali lately. Plus i know they have a sense of humor, for they include a really humorous phone call from an overly eager (if not real bright) fan at the end of the disc. How can you not like grown men who are not only willing to look ridiculous in public, but have enough panache to have a sense of humor about it? That's what the world needs, mon, more metal bands with a sense of humor....

I would gather Wolf is part of the wave of DIY singer-songwriters who are doin' it for themselves (Ani DiFranco, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Cindy Lee Berryhill, etc. come to mind), but her style is less aligned with punk in any form or fashion and more in the vein of seventies ballad rock. This makes me think more of albums by Fleetwood Mac, Bonnie and Delaney, and Roberta Flack than anything else. (And then there's that cover of the Beatles' "She Loves You" -- she has taste, yes....) This is the kind of mellow soft rock that went out of vogue when punk and noise took over everything. This is what you need for days when everything has started to sound like the Melvins (and not even good Melvins at that). Since i worship TUSK (truly one of the only double-albums of the seventies to actually need to be more than one LP) and still think Roberta Flack beats the pee out of anything nu-metal will ever have to offer, i naturally think this is a good thing. (Those residing in the "out-there" wing of Castle Monotremata may find this a bit too "mainstream" for their tastes, but that's their problem, not mine.) She does have a hippie sensibility that chafes at my eternal nihilism at times, true, but she makes up for it with gorgeous diva vox. She also writes swell songs and plays all the instruments equally well (there's plenty of fine guitar in particular on this album), and that goes a long way toward dispelling any perceived new-age kiss of death.... I don't even know if a market exists for an album like this anymore, when all the media outlets are disposed toward fuzzrock, metal, or anything but pure ballad pop, but if one still exists, this should find an appreciative audience....

Women of Sodom -- BOOTS [Pussy Kitty Records]

Yip yip, scary women! Oooo! Depraved offerings from a collection of nasty women in leather and fishnet, with songs about sadomasochism, water sports, lesbianism, and other equally wholesome fare, accompanied by a sexually explicit booklet -- and let's not forget the enema nurses, woo woo.... Women of Sodom are a Boston band whose somewhat technoish music is only one weapon in what is apparently a full-scale performance art S&M simulation. Fortunately, the music is not disposable, as is usually the case with these things (think Genitorturers, etc.); while the synth sounds are occasionally cheesy, yes, and the drums just don't have the heft DEAD ANGEL desperately craves, the songs are pretty sharp. They favor a lot of sampling -- "Manwich," "Nightmare on Dyke Street," and "Watersports" (all of which exist here in two different forms) are particularly sample-heavy -- but they are also capable of generating a serious wall-o-synth and are pretty swell singers too (check out the lush heaviness of "Boots" for proof). "The Doctor Song" is pretty amusing (lyrics about humiliation and publicly- administered enemas), while "Behind the Door" is just plain heavy (not to mention extremely nasty). This is mondo cool stuff, assuming you have an interest in the whole S&M thing, and i have no doubt their live show is a true spectacle to behold... i'll have to check it out when i eventually get up to Boston full-time....

Dunno how punk these guys really are, but they sure do swing. They sound like a garage band (and it sounds like it was recorded in their garage, not that there's anything wrong with that, right?) playing trash-rock -- mostly surf and rockabilly -- with jazz chords and fuzzy li'l amps that make the guitars sizzle with a bad-ass attitude. Maybe this is what the Oblivians would sound like if they could actually play and had the good sense to keep their mouths shut most of the time. Or maybe they're the American Yatsura. Either way, they gots themselves a lotta spring in their walk and they rock the house, dig? This would make a good party record. About half the album is "studio" tracks and the rest is live (including the live versions of a few of the studio tracks along with newer ones); the difference in sound quality and performance in both cases is so minimal you probably never would have known if I hadn't told you. So you might as well start forgetting it right now and just concentrate on their hip-shakin' grooves and natty rhythms, don't you think? Oh, one last thing: every song title incorporates the band's name ("Theme of Wonwon," "Wonwon Killer," "Sunset Wonwons," etc.) -- the only thing you can do, really, when you have a name as good as Wonwons and you're the original punk super stars....

Works on Blue -- STRAIGHT TO MY HEAD [Aorta Inc.]

Well, this is kind of interesting... a vaguely "alternative" outfit whose guitarist sounds as equally influenced by the likes of Main and maybe even Band of Susans as he is by whoever it is that's currently responsible for heavy rock these days. It makes for a weird sound that's hard to pigeonhole (to say the least). On "Big, Brother" the guitarist, who also provides the vox (he's John Frazier, btw) moves from floaty Main-type guitar frippery to thunderous primate chords to squealy distortion that would make Robert Poss pround to chink-chink strumming to Van Halenish solo squiddling to an ending of Hendrix-styled wah-solo weirdness that segues into the next song. The scary part is that it actually flows pretty seamlessly, no small feat; theoretically it shouldn't be possible to roll so much stuff into one style, but Frazier somehow manages it. Must be a sharp guy.... At any rate, The two guys behind him Jay Arnholt (drums) and Mark Eggerts (bass) work hard to keep up with him, and while it occasionally threatens to spill dangerously out of control, they manage to keep it all together.

The drummer gets to step forward on "Woody" (and yes, it's probably about what you think it's about, although the lyrics are so opaque and cryptic that it's really hard to tell, a point in their favor... i like bands when they get cryptic, mon), where he comes up with a reasonably impressive semi-funk thing while the other two work off his mojo. "Dirty" is probably the one i like best, tho; it opens with ominous, watery, echoed-beyond-belief guitar that almost sounds like a pipe organ, then subterranean bass notes and a lurching drum enters and gradually picks up speed. Coolness. The solo section gets a wee bit too hyperactive for my taste, but that's an aesthetics thing, i guess....

The last one (well, there's a "hidden" track), "The Flood," rocks a bit harder than the others, and on this one the bass is at the forefront, but it's merely okay. The real promise here is on the hidden track that immediately follows, which is just a long catalog of insanely fucked-up guitar efx looping, weirdly processed vox, muted bass and drums marching away in the background... it shows serious signs of imagination at work. A warped and peculiar imagination, this is true, but hey, creativity isn't necessarily SUPPOSED to make sense, dammit.... At any rate, while they probably fare better (and come across more forcefully and coherently) live, this disc holds the promise of an intriguing future. Worth your time to investigate, provided you don't harbor an irrational hatred of flaming guitar pyrotechnics.

Jack Wright (cheeping, tweeting sax and clarinet) and Bob Marsh (furiously scrabbling violin and cello, and processed voice) come together here to create improvisational music with a flowing sensibility, one whose sounds are designed to vividly evoke the sounds of the avian world. Their contribution gets off to an ambitious start on "Birds in the Hand," the opening track, in which the sounds of flight, the beating of wings, chirps and birdcalls, and more are reproduced solely through the use of an alto sax, cello, and processed vocals. "Plight of the Mocking Birds," recorded at the same time as the opening track, working the same territory with a soprano sax this time around. The alto sax returns again on "Magpie Pie," in which Wright and Marsh take turns mimicing each other, dancing around each other's lines, with Marsh barking unintelligbly over the top. Most of these are extended improvisations going over the ten-minute mark, and "When Pigs Fly" is the longest at 13:40, during which time they build and fade, working up to amusing honking contests. This time Wright's tool of choice is a contra-alto clarinet, and it sure makes for some good shrieking.... The one studio track here is "Tweet-tweet, Twitter-twitter-squawk," whose title is most indicative of the sound, in which processed laughter and fits of amusement wind are matched by the contra-alto clarinet again, and this time in Marsh's hands, a violin. All of the material is clear and uniformly well-recorded, and the performances are lively, and at times even genuinely inventive. A fine addition to the growing canon of recorded improv.