Heavy Deeds

Sun Araw - Heavy Deeds (2009) on Not Not Fun Records

1. Heavy Deeds
2. Hustle and Bustle
3. The Message
4. Get Low
5. All Night Long
[Bonus] Hey Mandala!




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Sun Araw is pretty hip right now, Heavy Deeds made it onto a surprising number of “Best of 2009” lists (mine included). Sun Araw is one of the most original/innovative artists I’ve heard as of late. I’m probably overstating things, as his music is arrestingly simple, but that’s the beauty of it.

Sun Araw is the solo project of Long Beach musician Cameron Stallones, who plays guitar for Magic Lantern. What draws me Sun Araw is this overwhelming sense of humidity to the music. I’m not one to use meteorological terms when it comes to describing music, but if you give it a listen I’m fairly certain that “humid” is as close to hitting the nail on the head as it comes. You can try to break the music down to its components: the gnarly guitars, the commanding, perpetual bass, the never-ending organs, the trippy vocals, but in actuality what you have is fairly simple; funk music.

This isn’t a modern update of the funk of the 70s. What Stallones has captured on Heavy Deeds is like a faded polaroid; a personal, nostalgic memory of an essence. Everything is oversaturated, and bleeds into everything else. The vocals are so drenched in effects, you’d be lucky to make out a single line of words per song. But that doesn’t matter in the least, as their emotion is clear as day.

A certain amount of patience is required with these songs, you have to let them consume you. It’s pretty easy to let that happen with the thick bass. This is my rip of the CD, which features a bonus track that was originally the Sun Araw side of a 12" split. It doesn't really fit with the album, it actually does a great job at disrupting the flow. I just couldn't exclude it however. The CD is limited to 500 copies, the LP to 600 copies.

Move over Sufjan Stevens

The Residents – Arkansas (2009) on Ralph America

1. Nobody is Listening
2. The Bunny Boy
3. Sad Saint John
4. The Butcher Shop
5. Memories For Sale
6. Two Clown Paintings
7. The Black Behind
8. My Brother’s Skin
9. Save the World
10. Circe

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Somehow this slipped through the cracks. 2009 was the year the Residents embraced the digital distribution model, where they quietly, yet eagerly released their back catalogue, archives, and unreleased material through their very own digital download store. Arkansas never surfaced on said store, but was made public in a meager edition of 500 CDs, that sold out during the pre-sale.

Arkansas is the third album that has surfaced as part of the Bunny Boy Project. The core of the project was an episodic web series, about a man of questionable mental health searching for his brother, who mysteriously disappeared. In response to the web series, the band crafted The Bunny Boy, an album that saw the band returning to their zenith of musical achievement, their disturbingly surreal albums of the late 70s and early 80s. The Bunny Boy fell short however, as it still latched onto the highly narrative story telling of 21st century Residents.

As the “b-side” album to The Bunny Boy, Arkansas succeeds where its predecessor fails. The songs on Arkansas where cut from the original album, are alternate recordings, or where written for the world tour of The Bunny Boy. In this context, they lack a strong narrative that would subvert the fantastic compositions (which was the case with the original album). The lyrical content truly feels dream like. The music is eerily synthetic, and uncomfortably open. Unlike The Bunny Boy, Arkansas actually approaches Duck Stab territory. Don’t get me wrong, the band isn’t trying to relive past success, the songs on Arkansas sound remarkably fresh, and manage to not sound like experimentation.

I don’t understand why this is so limited. Arkansas stands out as one of the stronger Residents albums, especially from those of the last decade. I’d love to see them continue in this direction, but I doubt they will, as they’re always reinventing themselves.

Winter

Subtle – Winter (2002) self-released

1. 12/21/02 12:00-12:37am

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The third installment of the Four Seasons. Winter is the one outlier. The entire EP is a single improvised session. The experience is extremely desolate, aligning it much closer to it's namesake than the other EPs. This also makes it the most challenging of the seasons. Aside from being completely free-form, Subtle toys with preconceptions of live improvisation, using samples & field recordings. Percussive elements are impossible to identify, including whether they're sampled or not.

The one constant is Alexander Kort's cello. It's the glue that binds the track together. The band remains highly restrained, slowly building up a dialogue. The hesitation doesn't lift up until the second half of the recording. The keyboards are terribly low in the mix, but if you turn up the volume you uncover a wealth of electronics, adding much more to the improvisation. From here on out the days only get longer.

Destructo Swarmbots

Destructo Swarmbots – Clear Light (2007) on Public Guilt

1. Banta
2. Phases
3. Fireberry
4. Sipping On The Fog

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This is massive. Celestial. The closest any human being can come to replicating NASA’s Voyager Recordings. Destructo Swarmbots is the project of Mike Mare. Sometimes there’s another guy involved, it’s difficult to say really, since Destructo Swarmbots is painfully inept at disseminating information via the internet.

Mike Mare is currently in dälek. dälek’s Alap Momin mixed Clear Light, while James Plotkin mastered it. Mare recently collaborated with Isis guitarist Mike Gallagher to create a gem of an album, aptly named, Amigos de la Guitarra. You’d think with such high profile associates, more people would be aware of Destructo Swarmbots and his guitar wielding ways.

Alter Egos

3-2-1 Activate!/Tub Ring - Alter Egos (2007) self-released

1. 3-2-1 Activate! - Eraser
2. 3-2-1 Activate! - Now It's Got a Hold of Me
3. Tub Ring - This Is The Sound
4. Tub Ring - Touch

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Here's a picture of 3-2-1 Activate!:


now here's a picture of Tub Ring:


Let me explain: Tub Ring fell apart in 2006. At the time the band was without a drummer, then their guitarist & bassist left, leaving the core duo Kevin Gibson & Rob Kleiner. They managed to replace the missing members, but used this high turnover to explore a different musical side.

3-2-1 Activate! (god what a horrendous name) is a band that explores the poppier, more conventional tastes of Kleiner & Gibson. The "same group of people being two different bands" is not anything new, but it's a concept that isn't very popular, mainly because it's confusing as all get out, regardless of how well you try to explain it.

Things do get pretty confusing however, because the band really didn't know what to do with their new persona. During all this regrouping & creating a new band, Tub Ring was writing and recording a new album, The Great Filter. Instead of using 3-2-1 as a vehicle for their poppier output, they just incorporated the more traditional song structures and catchy hooks into The Great Filter. The result are 3-2-1 songs that show up on the Tub Ring album. There's even an iTunes single by Tub Ring, that's actually a 3-2-1 song. Instead of clearly diving the two bands, they just mashed them together.

This split CDr, which was handed out at the CD release show for The Great Filter, only adds to the confusion. As a split, it clearly delineates between the two bands, but you'd never guess that from listening to it. "Eraser" conveys what 3-2-1 was going for. It's straightforward. Too much so, it's pretty bland, and verges on sounding contrived. "Now It's Got a Hold of Me" sounds like Tub Ring however, nothing very "pop song" about it. The Tub Ring songs are fantastic, they're infinitely more energetic and dynamic than anything on The Great Filter. The split is worth it for "Touch" alone (T.S. Elliot references never hurt either). As a whole, the split doesn't sound like two different bands. It sounds like Tub Ring for the most part.

I'm not forgetting any cover art, there isn't any. It simply comes in a paper sleeve. Fans were pretty upset with The Great Filter, since the 3-2-1 influence really detracted from what makes Tub Ring so great. This actually upset the band, and now they have something to prove, which they intend to do with their next album, which they just finished recording.

Heroin + Dub

De Facto - Légende du Scorpion à Quatre Queues (2001) on Modern City Records

1. Legend of the Four-Tailed Scorpion
2. Mattilious Creed
3. AMkHz
4. Hoxadrine (Live)
5. Muerte Inoxia
6. Vesica Pisces (Live)
7. Cordova
8. 120E7 (Original Version)
9. Exit Template

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Not that I've ever done smack, but this album tastes like heroin. It's trippy. Not in a psychedelic sense, but in a spacey, detached, opiate sense. De Facto ceased to exist when band leader Jeremy Michael Ward died of a heroin overdose in 2003. They started, however, as a side project of At The Drive-in, with most of their output taking place in 2001, as At The Drive-in was self-destructing (i.e., more hard drugs).

This album brings the dub, and heavy. This is one of a few of the albums that I own, out of hundreds, that requires turning the bass down. And of those few albums, this is the one I have to turn the bass down the most. I've never heard an Ampeg ever sound this thick & heavy. The entire album was recorded live to cassette, so the fidelity can only be best described as having "tape grain." While it may not be high in production values, it's perfectly fitting for this dub. The melodicas, (which duel at times) with their drugged, high pitched warbling, are captured beautifully, with no distortion or clipping. As I've mentioned the bass is a heavyweight, not to be messed with. If you can find Legend of the Four-Tailed Scorpion on vinyl, the bass is hefty enough to compromise foundations.

De Facto recorded everything live, so the two live tracks from a 2001 tour of Europe sound no different than any of the others. Actually that's a bit of a lie, they're the strongest tracks on the album. That's only due however, to the energy of their performance. Ikey Owens' keyboards on "Hoxadrine" is probably the highlight of the album, as is Jeremy Michael Ward's sound manipulation two thirds of the way through "Vesica Pisces."

If anything needs to be reissued as a boxset, it's the De Facto discography. Each release was issued by a different label, most of which have long since vanished. I'd say "all of which," except I'm unsure about the France-based Modern City Records. They still have a website up, but it hasn't been updated for over two years.

A live version of "Cordova" can be found on the sister album, Megaton Shotblast. Super high quality studio recordings of "Vesica Pisces" & "120E7" are on the single, 456132015.

Flying Low

Carla Kihlstedt and Shahzad Ismaily - Flying Low (2004) self-released

1. Einsamall
2. Shutters
3. Long Walk Home
4. Dishes in a Red Dress
5. Farrage
6. Apology Knot
7. Flying Low
8. Crone
9. Stitch
10. Carriage
11. Muir Waltz
12. Long Walk Home, II
13. From Here, It Is Quiet
14. Dolmen
15. Dish in a Red Dress, II
16. Flock
17. Andast

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Carla Kihlstedt and Shahzad Ismaily, when filled out with Marika Hughes, make up the delightful 2 Foot Yard. This album however, sounds nothing like that band. If anything it most resembles Kihlstedt’s Tin Hat Trio (now just simply Tin Hat,) but that’s still quite a stretch. Kihlstedt is probably best known for her role in the art rock performance group Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, as their resident violinist. Shahzad Ismaily is most active with the conspiracy loving Secret Chiefs 3. What these two multi-instrumentalists have recorded is one mixed bag:

Flying Low was written for Jo Kreiter and Flyaway Productions’ 2001 premiere of “Maybe Grief is a Good Bird Flying Low”— a contemporary dance piece about the ways in which women deal with grief.

In other words, Flying Low is the soundtrack to a modern dance piece. The result isn’t quite cinematic, that’s much too grandiose a term, but it’s definitely visual. The music has enough space incorporated within it to let motion & movement breathe, to augment it if you will. Since the music was written to aid a visual element, it doesn’t easily leave an impression. So it’s easy to dismiss Flying Low as having very little depth to it, which is a huge mistake. The album has plenty of ambient moments, and simplistic instrumentation, but giving it your undivided attention it will expose a rich complexity in timbre and a wide array in exotic tones. Not only are both musicians multi-instrumentalists, but the instruments they use are one of a kind. I’m not kidding. Kihlstedt uses a homemade “trumpet violin,” which she uses in many of her projects, Tin Hat & SGM included. A violin is married with the horn of a trumpet, which sounds like the ghost of a violin emanating from a giant gramophone. Other, less unique instruments utilized are Chinese banjo (which sounds exactly like you’d think), zither, and bass harmonica (think harmonica, but larger than a brick). Flying Low has plenty of ambient moments, soundscapes, and at times builds up to resemble French jazz. Yet it never remains on any element long enough to be defined by it. There is practically never a break, as it flows from one track to the next, enforcing the album’s fluidity, and reminding you that it is in fact a soundtrack.

The entire recording was produced and engineered by SGM member, and all around audio guru, Dan Rathbun, at his Polymorph Recording Studio. To say the production (both in terms of audio & packaging) is “top notch,” would be an understatement. The album comes in a hand folded, mucus color card stock, with graphics silk screened by Kilhstedt herself. The ink is a glittery magenta, which is infinitely more elegant than it sounds. Included with the album is an actual bird feather. When I purchased this many years ago, it was described as “very limited” in quantity. While the packaging is strictly DIY, the CDs themselves are legitimately printed, so I’d guess the album is limited to a couple or few hundred copies.

NASA Voyager recordings (UPDATE)

Eight months ago I posted this mighty fine gem. Five half-hour tracks. It's the only thing I've posted on this blog so far that I myself haven't ripped & uploaded. I wasn't happy with the fact that the first three volumes were 320 kbps while the last two were only 128 kbps. That's why I stick to my own rips, as a way of quality control.

While the quality of those last two volumes wasn't ideal, I couldn't not share the links, as they were some of the most hauntingly beautiful sounds I've ever heard. Luckily I just stumbled across better links, these here are all .flac

Symphonies of the Planets Vol. 1
Symphonies of the Planets Vol. 2
Symphonies of the Planets Vol. 3
Symphonies of the Planets Vol. 4
Symphonies of the Planets Vol. 5

MAXIMUM VOLUME YEILDS MAXIMUM RESULTS

Sunn O))) - Oracle (2007) on Southern Lord

i/1. Belürol Pusztít
i/2. Orakulum
ii/1. HeliO)))sophist

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zwwmx0tyiz5

Don't let the tracklisting fool you. This beast is two discs and clocks in at a hair over 80 minutes. This is probably my favorite Sunn O))) release, recorded around the same time they collaborated with Boris. (Atsuo handles drum duties on the first disc.) The first track originally appeared on some compilation of songs featuring Buddha Machines, the second track was written for an art instillation performance, and the final track, the second disc, is an "audial collage" of live performances from Europe from July 2005.

"Belürol Pusztít" is, hands down, my most favorite Sunn O))) track ever. Not only does it employ a Buddha Machine, but it also features Joe Preston on jackhammer. As ridiculous as that sounds, the jackhammer works phenomenally. Attila Csihar does his signature vocals on each track, but subtly stands out on the epic "HeliO)))sophist," where he really flexes his vocal range, sounding even more inhuman than he does on disc one. He subsides midway through the collage, where the guitars duel in a manner reminiscent of the GrimmRobe Demos, then returns to close out the disc.

This version of Oracle is limited to 2000 copies. There is a 12" version of 7777 copies that omits "HeliO)))sophist." The vinyl version, when purchased directly from Southern Lord, comes with a "misprinted" copy of the CD, which is identical to this version, except it lacks the second disc. ("HeliO)))sophist" is listed on the tracklisting, hence the misprint.) I'm unsure of how many copies of the single CD version there are. I'd fully endorse the vinyl version, but it's a massive shame that "HeliO)))sophist" is so exclusive. As a collage, it really is a step above your typical live Sunn O))) recording. & heads up, the mp3 tags might be a tad mixed up in terms of disc numbers.

Pardon the shlock

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