No Eyed Bird

9 of 12 tracks remixed from the group’s 1996 Songs of Love and Hate album. This vinyl is a 2008 re-release/ re-master of the 1997 Earache Records original album. Inspired by the UK band Killing Joke, England’s Godflesh began in 1988 as a duo with guitarist/ singer/ electronic programmer Justin Broadrick (currently in Jesu) and bassist Ben Green. Later they added live drums with member Ted Parsons (Swans, Prong, Jesu). Drummer Bryan Mantia (Primus, El Stew, G’n’R, Buckethead) is the credited drummer for this album only, and first studio drummer on a Godflesh release. Robotically precise industrial drumming style, barkingly livid vocals, trance like looped bass lines, lo-fi at times recording, & infinite dub layers shredded through keyboards and your choice of favorite mid-90’s pedal effects. Exploding bass drum heads and bang on a can cymbals live drumming from Bryan Mantia rescue the album.

-johnny darko

Hair Police is a NOISE/PSYCH group out of Lexington, Kentucky featuring members Mike Connelly (Wolf Eyes), Robert Beatty (Burning Star Core), and Trevor Tremaine (Burning Star Core). Droning screams, alarm sounding keys, distant drums, and slowly sideways pick scrapes equate to a nightmare of analog terror. Side B is sounds of sullen sunken ship exploration using radiation detectors and underwater saws. The drums leave us and amp tones distort like a trip down a conveyor belt. The final track is an array of lost signals against a constantly swinging rusty gate.

-johnny darko

Funky first series of instrumental beats by newly signed artist James Pants. This set follows the success of his single Ka$H, which came out in Aug. ’07. In a style similar to Madlib, or Peanut Butter Wolf this Spokane, WA artist hits on everything from electro to soul. Many lo-fi moments with lonely hand claps, finger snaps, early hip hop sampling & retro keyboards from the very start of the album. Dreamscape sounds as Pants mans the drums, & keys. Most of the album programmed on the JP-8000 (crudely drawn on the cover of the album along with fake sticker marks and pressed record stains on the back of the jacket) with mixing and scratching layered in by James as well. Some jams are like slowed down B Boy music with ancient sounding vocals “yeah” and “come on”. At the end of side one, there’s even a tribal beat track with sleigh bells and some oscillated vox.

Four Songs & Ten Inches of the infinite underworld. Seattle is back on the map thanks to warm and fuzzy analog snail-tempo electro tripsperimental drone. Halloween is everyday for members Slicing, and Grandpa whose work never forgets to include a steady beat beneath the psychedelic layers of effects-laden guitars, feedback and illiterate ramblings. And that covers only the first two tracks on the A side. The B-side follows no rules, nor beat and is noisy like an autistic brain seizure. Think of any Japanese B horror movie, layer all their soundtracks and you’ll soon be opening up for slicing G. Dental drills, blister filled embolisms, and botched abortions as a giant mecha-warrior defends his title as world leader against the forces of wind, earth, fire, water and heart.

-johnny darko

Mr. Oizo, is smart if anything, signing with the explodingly famous Ed Banger records, run by the former manager of Daft Punk. Not that Mr. Oizo needs any boosting from the label’s success of MTV acts like Justice, because Mr. Oiza, aka French music producer (and recent filmaker) Quentin Dupieux has been making international hits since 1999 when he had electro beats featured in Levi’s commercials. He’s been cleaver enough to remix Scissor Sisters, & Cassius, and on this release, he reworks the track “Do It At The Disco” by Gary’s Gang, calling his work Patrick122. Dupieux has a sickly dry, yet immature sense of humor, much like Wesley Willis with a prior track called “Last Night a DJ Killed My Dog” and an upcoming track for his new album called “Bruce Willis is Dead.” This disc is electro disco loopy magic, narrated by a robotic voice, the self-declared reincarnation of Michael Jackson. “Transexual” is slightly dark and mysterious underneath its pop beat hard candy shell. Inside is something even scarier. It’s a whole race of A sexual, bi sexual transsexuals, and dare I even say, the final evolution of human sexuality, TRI-sexuals!

-johnny darko

Sorry, there is no sax as the cover art alludes, but plenty o’ speedy tempo, guitar sliding NO WAVE action by this Vancouver BC trio. A-tonally amped, shouting, gorilla style drum spasmatics. The vocals are rhythmically in tune with the drums and other parts of the song rather than offering and steady melody. Check out the included liner notes for you fill typewriter typo lyrics about guns, knives and snakes on one side, and a barrage of band live show posters on the other. During the last few years Shearing Pinx have shared the stage with Gay Beast, Animal, Twin, Lightning Bolt, Health, and Leviathans to name a few. They have an upcoming tour in April of 2008 with headliners AIDS Wolf. Overall, the Pinx sound is anti dance pop music for people who still wanna dance. Powerful screams quickly become trippy instrumentals as side A ends, with side B picking off right in the middle where they leave off. Some howling guitars, play tone plucking, silly slides sonically sweet stuff from Erin Ward (guitar), Jeremy Van Wyck (drums), Nic Hughes (vox/guitar), and Nic’s own label, Isolated Now Waves.

-johnny darko

Big hole, white label vinyl, limited, live performance by former Wolf Eyes member Aaron Dilloway and John Wiese of (Sunn O))) back in 2006 in the UK at a place known as Chislehurst Caves. These man-made caves stretch 22 miles long under the eastern suburbs near London, used for such things as mining chalk & flint, they were also used to shelter the Brits during WWII air raids. Even more interesting, the caves are speculated to have been used by the ancient Druids and also by the Romans and Saxxons. From this very rich background it would seem there was little left to accomplish until more recently when the caves began to be used as a music venue. Bowie, Pink Floyd, The Stones, and Hendrix have all played there, and now too have ear-piercingly experimentalists Dilloway and Wiese. Art noise meets electronic crunch. Three untitled tracks totaling over 8 minutes of pure noise in possibly one of the nosiest settings imaginable. Imagine sounds of Satan vs. television fuzz in a battle with loop pedals plummeting asunder with each attack. Frequencies so high they may reinvent hearing by broadening the spectrum of the human ear. Later sounds resemble background tones of the Atari 2600 game Wizards of War. Loopiness to the point of near locked groves, but leave your patience at the door as no track even reaches 5 minutes in length, distance or circumference.

-johnny darko

Beautiful Baltimore instrumental duo of Nathan Bell of Lungfish and Arbouretum’s David Heumann. Drifts out and outer into subconscious subspace, 10 strokes above par. Recorded in Kentucky, these men of rock envision a dustbowl full of baritone and orbital spirit guitars, the bowed banjo, and amplified kalimba. If that’s not enough for your tripp into oblivion then your momma taught you wrong, and listen for the sexy trumpet smattered all over the B-side cut Ephaphatha. Themes of flooded spaces with secret hide outs and endless network of sprawling wires like rays of the sun, Human Bell takes elements of Godspeed You Black Emperor and strips them down to the soul. Much like them, it may be difficult to remember much of the melody after even multiple spins, however like their theme, they aim isn’t set to stun. Moody and morose, most build-ups perish as they build, quite opposite of powerfully moving music. Could very well be a good theme to a slow escape, or a lukewarm flood lifting you out of your seat and into the ocean ever so gently, and then leaving you there to float away. Like the best moments in life, enjoyable during the ride, but lost forever after the moment is gone.

-johnny darko

Limited press drone dream split between A side Cloudland Canyon of Germany and Midwesterners Mythical Beast. Instrumental track for the kraut droners on the front, while the flip features seductively sad vocals by Mythical Beast’s female lead singer Corinne Sweeney. Haunting and minimal with no drums, she is backed by guitarist Jeremiah Cowlin, and bassist Aaron Hawn. Very serious and depressed sounds without the look at me emo attitude of the mainstream. Slow and steady vintage sounds fill every crack with Sweeney’s low slumbering notes. Mythical Beast will be performing in the Not Not Fun SXSW showcase along with Pocahaunted & Robedoor March 20th 2009. Cloudland Canyon is an analog duo of early-era drone, mixing tribal beats with simple repetitive but building nowave vocal drones over 70’s kraut guitar much like psychsters Ash Ra Temple and Embryo. The only sad part is that they only contributed one track to this split, and it’s also at 45 RPM. Ignoring the lo-fi elements of the recording, their classic sound is massive and methodical, like a trance dance into sacrificial volcano. Faust and German Oak fans will like their work, which has also been released on the Holy Mountain and Kranky labels.

-johnny darko

Bienvenidos a Miami as Will Smith would say, yet somehow this trio didn’t hear him and dumped a blown out garage band in your lap full of cute art J. K. Rowling-esk lightning bolts, robots assembled out of the remnants of The Brave Little Toaster and as promised, bunnies. Drumstick hits tap out the start of this recently made OOP 7” delivers the robotic electric side of the bunnies. Loopy varying speed vinyl sounds with vocoder vocals and rock loops like Trans Am if someone made them record on a 4-track. The 2nd track features a short punk track with snotty Vandals style lyrics about how its “not about my sweater, not about my shoes…. I’m wearing beautiful pants”. Glad to know life is so simple over in Florida. Flip this over to find subtle psych behind bass driven lo-fi garage like slower instrumental Clash meets a druggier instrumental version of The Cure. Fun times ten as the album ends with some planned or unplanned cell phone to speaker interference. With all the choices of sound directions to go in, the Bunnies leave you wondering if in the future they’d rather open up for Abe Vigoda, Moldy Peaches, or Justice.

-johnny darko

The misguided trio who is actually a 5-piece has done it again, but this time on 12 inches of fury. Monkey Power Trio gets together once a year and spends a few days writing and recording original songs. Their 2007 release “House of the Mechanical Sun” is actually made up of 2 recording sessions from 2005 and 2006, which took place in Minneapolis and Oregon. They decided to ditch cover art and have commandeered old Beatles, Hitchcock and kids record jackets for the limited to 150 release I was fortunate to come across. As usual the bands songs are all a bit off and many from the Oregon session are accompanied by a fancy song flute. Their rap song ‘Another Year’ puts them in the indie Weird Al realm. ‘Meaty Girls’ may get a chuckle out of your gut but I still think NOFX did the fat girl praise better. I like Monkey Power Trio’s more innocent songs, like ‘Hop On The Monkey Bus”. Its like those Six Flags commercials where someone so stupid and creepy looking is dancing and flailing their arms so maniacally that you can’t help but wanna join them. Tracks like ‘Little Billy Oshin’ just plain scare me. Do they have something against Billy Ocean? I wouldn’t want that fuceker living in my foreskin! His “Jewel of the Nile” soundtrack hits were enough for me. It’s too bad this isn’t a cd, since it flows well from start to finish. Perhaps all guilty pleasures include vinyl in some way shape or form. Oh yea, “I live in the suburbs, I drive everywhere, my back always hurts and I’m losing all my hair” sounds like Happy Monkey Trio is content in Orwellian 1984.

Split Seattle dual-duo 7-Inch with the heavy gritty industrial strength drone of Sparkle Girl (Kurt D, & Jim E.) on the A side. Their track Hexis fuzzes out to near silence like explosions in space breaking the needle with such heavily distorted bass shaking and vibrating in your chest. A ghastly snowstorm of metal chains and barbed wire to then just end abruptly. Side B is Slicing Grandpa playing a stoner doom-ish hypnotic rawk track. Lo-fi recording and experimental sounds keep it real and out of the any metal genre, but you won’t get a sense of their true sound from this track. I still like it.

2002 Swiss Metal Grind label release from two Germanic bands: CROPMENT & VAGINAL INCEST. Only 333 vinyl pressed, but these two are fully evil. Cropment (Switzerland) = Death Metal (David-guitar/drum machine, Sebastian-vokills, Sascha-bass). Vaginal Incest (Germany) = Porn-Grind (Rene-vocals, Stephan-guitar, Adrian-bass/guitar, Claudio-drums. Vaginal Incest squeezes 6 tracks on the B-Side, with titles like “I vomit cuntslime” and “ejaculation during rectal knife fuck” bloody sewer bubbling lo-fi vocals over drum machine perfection. (don’t all metal drummers wish to secretly be a drum machine). Paying tribute to heroes Deicide & Cannibal Corpse, Cropment eats you away with dueling grunts and screams much like Cradle of Filth. They’re also playing Netherlands Braindead Fest Apr. 28. ‘08 for those looking to bake the beast.

The Vinyl Project is 79 sound byte tracks commenting on various political issues in the USA such as the prison system, lesbianism, black power, capitalism, poverty, terrorism, Native Americans, Vietnam War, the police state, Chicanos, the KKK, segregation and corporate media. The clips also point out the problems with the USA’s power over other nations carried out through brute force, war and domination over the world. The release is out of San Francisco and has a California/ Bay Area focus to it. Speeches by key people such as Noam Chomsky, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Howard Zinn. The first and last tracks are songs sung by the Black Panther Kids. The vinyl also features clips by the Earth Liberation Front. The clips are surrounded by a few seconds of silence and may be hard to find quickly, but its sole purpose is for DJ sampling. The focus of the bulk of the clips is on African American rights and racism. It would be nice to have track times next to each track as some are minutes, and others a few seconds.

This is a self-titled limited split 7” (33rpm) EP limited to 500 copies featuring Yellow Swans and The Goslings out on Not Not Fun Records as part of the bi-monthly Bored Fortress 7” series. The Yellow Swans untitled track is like a police chase on acid. You can sort of hear the sirens coming after you, but you can’t get all the sticky honey out of your ears. The guitars are freaky and cool and the scraping, static textures fit well with the vinyl. This side of the record ends without warning. So that was your warning. The Goslings track ‘Saw-Horse’ features demented, echoing, female vocals and a simple electronic drum beat in the background with haunting keyboard bass tones as well as slow hitting cymbals. It’s a much slower yet complex track with tempo changes, almost unexpected on a Yellow Swans release. You can buy the record here from The Goslings website.

Third release in a series called The Social Club, and debut album for Taketo Shimada and Tres Warren (from Psychic Ills) and their group Messages. Tone generated sounds are creepy and could serve ad good background songs or ambient soundtrack pieces. It is too bad this is only a 7-inch as the tracks leave room for development. On the first track entitled ‘Destination’, sounds echo over a humming bass, leaving you standing at the end of a tunnel that leads to your nightmares. Creepy buzzing slowly rolls up your toes and down your spine. A drum signals the end and a fuzzed out guitar acts like the alarm of awakening. The B-side ‘Glades’ bobs up and down with like a merry go round descending into a pit, screwed deeper into the ground with each turn. Like an engine with an unsteady idle, the repetition feels like a broken machine working hard but not steady as it was intended. Before this broken machine should end comes a fuzzy electro beat to add enormous depth to the album as a whole. Released by The Social Registry, you can pick up a copy from them here.

-johnny darko

“We could have an orgy in the birdbath baby” (Soap Bopper) Perhaps Ned just suffers from an acute case of Aviant-philia, as seen in this lyric from ‘Soap Bopper’. Someone better explain to them that 99% of birds live in socially monogamous pairs. Ned is a 4-piece experimental electro-rock group out of Oakland, CA and always left unclassified in that unknown 1% other category. Since Oaktown it basically the breeding grounds for hybrid music, its no wonder this band blends sounds so well. The tracks fuse funk, pop and electronic music with new wave style vocals. While I read the band would be liked by fans of Beck, Primus and The Locust, I found their actual sound similar sound to Xiu Xiu (actually more like the pre-Xiu Xiu band IBOPA), Mr. Bungle and Santa Cruz’s Estradasphere (who also mixes their rock with electronic 8-bit/ vintage keyboard sounds).

The A-side ‘Soap Bopper’ is manic yet pulsating, regular and dynamics free. Like a Halloween dance party minus the “trying to be scary” scary sounds. It starts of with some noise and then rolls into a cool keyboard intro. Ned always seems to know the right nostalgic analog sound to stream over their simple electronic drum beat. The B-side ‘Omaha’ is an all electronic playground featuring sounds you’d normally hear from a Commodore 64. The track ends with a abstract vocal noise loop that at first sounds like a locked grove but flows to the end of the vinyl where it abruptly cuts off. (very reminiscent of Sergeant. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, era Beatles.)

Ned doesn’t make it easy to find their material.
You either have to email the band on their myspace or hunt down their first release Coloring Book on cdbaby.

-johnny darko