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Top 10 January 13, 2013
NoTe: as always all of my top 10s are non-hierarchical!
Here’s a whole new batch of favorites culled from the seven inches, CDs and cassettes I’ve accumulated over the last few weeks. Enjoy!
Bush Tetras – “Too Many Creeps” b/w “You Can’t Be Funky” (7”, 99/Stiff reiss. by ROIR)
Arriving too late to see the Bush Tetras in Manhattan last month sucked, but running into Lucas Cooper, inheritor and papa figure of the ROIR family left me as always stoked about life and clutching some rad piece of vinyl. In this case it was the re-ish of two of the Tetras’ dancefloor killers from 1980 and 82. Every NYC nowave band has seen their wave crest again recently as new generations discover the sound, and now it’s the Bush Tetras turn with this choice little 7” appearing alongside a never released full length recorded in ‘98 just released on the intrepid Reach Out International Records. Hopefully I’ll get my mitts on the LP soon but for now what can you say? This is my favorite type of song from that era, sparse, weird but above all danceable. Two giant numbers from an almost criminally underappreciated, pioneering band that is finally getting get their due!
Bugskull – Hidden Mountain (Cassette, Shrimper)
I stumbled on Bugskull one day while on the Seabus in Vancouver over a decade ago, listening to CITR on the ol’ Walkman radio. Their sound always stuck in my mind as a quite unique and gorgeous thing and I’ve always kept my eyes out for releases, assuming that they had dissipated long ago in the netherworld of obscurity. To my delight, I chanced upon a recent cassette release in a shop in the Lower East Side and snapped it up right away. Hidden Mountain is a bit of a departure from what I recall earlier from earlier releases, perhaps a mite less experimental in nature but still casting a really cool psychedelic skein all over some sweet little acoustic songs. There’s a real nature trip on this tape, hearkening to some Meddle era Pink Floyd or maybe a more psych-ed out Pinetop Seven or Elevator. Either way it’s a beautiful reverie, with synth swishes and noises blooping organically around the mix, little sonic animals that play thru the solidity of the languid and sparse picking and singing. There’s a dash of Red House Painters at work here too but ultimately more surreal than maudlin. A real gem!
Il Dance Avec Les Genoux – Aranchno-Botanique (CDR, Independent)
Great and brief little album by a Montreal band that doesn’t seem to play live that often which is a shame! Mixing all the best elements of krautrock and no-wave and adding a trippy layer of dub, psych garage and prog, you can hear all the influences at work, but as with the best music they’ve managed to weave a deft and strange new tapestry with old threads. The songs are short, transportive and to the point, working as dancefloor material as well as headphone blissout. Syncopation galore and really nice production make this a promising indication of hopefully more music and shows to come from this great new band!
Natural Child – “Mother Nature’s Daughter” b/w “Bodyswitchers Part II” (7”, Jeffery Drag)
Neil Young ’s spirit is certainly jizzed all over this rad slab by yet another good band from Nashville, on the sick Jeffery Drag label, who is seemingly on fire with sick albums dropping all over the place. Pulling some of the best Crazy Horse riffs but within their own steez, the A side slow burns with quiet intensity until it just EXPLODES around the two minute mark, becoming a fuzz fueled jam-fest. Epic. Paring shit down just to a bassline and harmonized vocals showcases the dynamic skill and then builds up again with that crazy whooping sound that you hear on every 13th Floor Elevators track driving things to a second peak. The flip is a moodier, more plodding track that spins lazily around a spooky motif and sustains that midnight crawler pace until the very end when things ramp up to a harmonized guitar jammy jam again. Great little 7” that also comes with a pack of their own brand of rolling papers, which were much appreciated and are almost gone. (1 ¼ width.. ambitious!)
Félin / David and the Woods – Félin / David and the Woods (CD, Cuchabata)
Having already given scads of appreciation to the awesome psych/shoegaze project “David and The Woods”:http://www.bigtakeover.com/recordings/david-and-the-woods-the-peace-den-cuchabata I was pretty chuffed to grab a copy of this new collab between Philippe Guérin and Cuchabata honcho David Dugas Dion. Quite simply, two acoustic guitars, two voices and two powerful songwriters meshing their styles perfectly on this limited run CD. There doesn’t seem to be an online version, so I’ll have to link a live session for youse. Earnest without being insipid, these songs are transportive and enveloping, alternating English and French lyrics and carrying with them a timelessness. Little strands of Simon & Garfunkel, a touch of Harmonium and maybe a little CSNY at work. I can’t overemphasize how good these guys’ voices sound together, they harmonize effortlessly, as if they were siblings. The songs tumble by, warming the soul like a good hickory log fire. It’s a really hard task making bare-bones acoustic music sound fresh and not tedious and overwrought. Restraint really works for them and underlines the songs with a toughness that the likes of Iron & Wine can pull off effortlessly. An absolute classic that I wish every one could get their hand on. Lead track “Ma Soeur Ma Soeur” should be played on repeat for a night while some of the re-workings of D&TW songs from The Peace Den are pure gold.
Hasil Adkins – “Get Outta My Car” b/w “Shake That Thing” (7”, Norton)
Man what can you say about Hasil Adkins that ain’t been said? The champion of feral rock n roll rednecks everywhere, I chanced upon this slab of rockabilly apocrypha recently and it’s every bit as down-home as you’d expect, including some ear-piercingly shrill harmonica playing and a sudden key change, y’know for whatever reason. I almost prefer the B side, for it’s dryer, snappier production, it’s a real booty shaker!
The Great Sabatini – The Royal We (Cassette, Sludgehummer)
Montreal’s most outside-thinking metal band, The Great Sabatini have put out a fantastic full length recently, Matterhorn which I’ll get to soon, I hope. This cassette makes real a formerly internet only companion piece to the aforementioned full length. There is no angle from which this band cannot attack the sagging fortress of metal without sounding like they invented it themselves. Thick, evilly in all the right places and eternally surprising, The Royal We fucks with time, expectations, the definition of “heavy”, with -playfulness, aplomb and a fully realized aesthetic. For a track like “Tiny Kingdoms” to be only on this cassette release should indicate the sheer songwriting prowess of this behemothic band. Full power to satisfy your craving for heavy by a band that is holding up the vanguard and waving that tattered flag for all it’s worth, like fucking kings.
Norvaiza – Cremation Ground (Cassette, Independent)
Former leading light of psych/twee rockers The Winks, Todd Macdonald ’s latest project Norvaiza is, natch, centered around the mandolin. There is a nicely moody cabaret feel to some of these songs, surprising in all the right ways, with some quick left turns and tasty enmeshing of jazzy pointillism and kitchen-sink percussion propelled by Macdonald’s mastery of the mandolin, hallucinant lyrics and solid songwriting. Tracks billow and explode to peaks, to drift back down, propelled by the deftly chosen instrumentation. A unique and finely crafted bunch of songs by an off-kilter talent.
Rat King II – Killer Haze Records Compilation (Cassette, Independent)
New Brunswick has flung forth a swatch of great music every few years, over the decades the sleepy towns of Fredericton, Moncton and Sackville have put forth some trailblazing and challenging bands like Rhume, The Exploding Meet, Eric’s Trip, Elevator and Rock Plaza Central. Today, there’s a fresh crop of enthusiastic weirdos spewing forth rad sounds. This wave of awesome is captured perfectly on Sackville-based Killer Haze’s new comp, Rat King II. Every track and band owns on this rad little tape, one of my recent faves, “Astral Gunk”:http://www.bigtakeover.com/recordings/astral-gunk-astral-gunk-independent make a super strong showing, Yellowteeth kick out the jams on their monstrous and hissy “BFF” and new favorite The Mouthbreathers wax Inbreds-ian on the super catchy tune “Pedestal”. Seriously, buy this jam, apply it to your ears, repeat. X10.
Feefawfum – Visibility Is Credibility (Digital single, Independent)
Wow, where the hell did these guys come from all of a sudden? I know nothing about them except that I love what I hear. Some sort of jazzy spazzmath psych mess with a vocalist who reminds me strongly of Arrington de Dionyso from Old Time Relijun. Pointillistic, deceptively complex, framework smashing hallucinations, I can’t wait to hear more from feefawfum!
