While U Wait: Cool Videos

Forked Tongue

Thurston and Byron unleashed the new Bull Tongue on the world this week and its nothing Apples and Heroin addicts don’t already know (smart bunch they are). Figured I’d throw my hat in the ring and give y’all a glimpse at cool stuff from around the world.

Hot off the press, the new Pink Reason 7” on Trick Knee Records keeps Kevin DeBroux’s white-hot streak going with three live staples committed to wax. All songs retain the lo-fi recording feel with a touch of goth on the B-Side and the gothic spreading like an oil spill. Not as great as the Throw it Away 7” but, then again, “By a Thread” blows all those songs out of the water with DeBroux’s best Ian Curtis backed by Royal Trux’s rhythm section circa Veterans of Disorder. The seven-inch also includes the live show-commencing “The Devil Always Wins,” an acapella tune with a killer sing-a-long bar-shanty feel. Go throw $3 at Trick Knee before these babies reach the eBay zone.

Black Velvet Fuckre retains their flawless streak with a seven-inch from Touched that bursts through speakers with four crazed, dark ’77-style punker jams infiltrated by skronk guitar solos. “Backscratcher” builds to a psychotic fist-pumper with little shards of violent guitar in the interludes. Slams around the room and makes you watch it bleed until it becomes a subdued ‘60s garage song. And that’s just the B-sides. A shit-hot smoker from one of our favorite labels. Sounds like Richard Hell’s Heartbreaker tunes with personnel from Mars intervening every now and then. Available from S-S or Fusetron

Speaking of old punkers, Skulltones just released a Church Police 7” with unreleased demos of a surprisingly good fidelity. The band is situated somewhere between Circle X and Flipper on the hardcore spectrum and their songs exploit the horrific monotony of everyday life. Their “Oven is my Friend” cut for the first Maximum Rock’n’Roll comp still inspires goons worldwide to end their lives because they will never create something of such a raggedly beautiful ilk. The thuggish ass blaster is in a limited edition of 300.

New Lou Reed album is tits. Buy it in four months when amazon gets flooded with used copies and lowers the price to $0.01 plus shipping. I doubt Mr. Reed needs any more money, man.

This week’s double dose of inspired witness comes from Jelle Crama’s Puik label, who bring us a long-time comin’ (?!) reissue of the Ray Pacino Ensemble’s “Be My Lonely Night” and “Golden Greats” on double-LP. These dudes create weird lo-fi muses on something-or-another with awesome world music acustic guitar boogie. Like the Sun City Girls but Sweedish and…weirder. Never thought I’d say that but these gypsy folkers bring insane romper-room ruckus to back porch strumin’. Sleeve art by Crama depicting a balloon and a vagina with teeth. Limited to 323, so act soon.

Someone please release a handful of live Royal Trux albums from their inception through 92 and make Neil Hagerty (speaking of vaginas with teeth) cry. Dude obviously needs someone to show him how to play exciting music again. Maybe he'll get the hint if Drag City just starts releasing that pile of unreleased Trux stuff Hagerty traded for smack back in the day. We know Hand of Glory was just the tip of the iceberg.

A&H faves The New Flesh return with “Dog” b/w “Memory Scrap,” a single that adds a subtle yet still volatile vocal element to the mix. The result retains the venomous post-hardcore nature of past releases but reserves the screaming for unbearably painful thoughts. Same slow prodding rhythms and plenty of dissonance and feedback edgings to go around. As with all New Flesh releases, crack a beer, play it loud and make sure nothing expensive is in the room. Snag one from Human Conduct.

Also in New Flesh orbit, a fantastic tune on Tiger Tongue Pussy Cactus: Terminal Fantasies for Malefic Youth, a four-way split from Hospital Productions, who also put out a killer new AHLZAGAILZEHGUH album and a one-sided live freak-out by the New Blockaders. Robert Inhuman lends throat-peeling screams to the factory of rowdy march around death pyre, while the Propert-Donnells-Weaver rhythm section flog the corpse of Will Shatter with drop d jabs and slow, unraveling feedback. Also on the comp, Air Conditioning hit sheet metal with a mic, molest a bass with a drill and provide a soundtrack to exploding airplane flight patterns with jet-fuel noise. Vegas Martyrs drop an okay emotive black metal tune and the god-awful Coughs make an unexplained appearance.

The new These are the Powers 7" may sound like minimal Krautrock from the early '70s but it also comes with a press release, an advertisement for the album (I already purchased it, asshole) and about a thousand other advertisements for the band's label (which shalt not be mentioned herein) that aren't stickers or promo CDs. C'mon guys, is this necessary? Did your managers put the band together for you? I know at least one of you ascends to us from those rabble rousing Urban Outfitter models Liars, an "experimental" band that pushes boundaries already well expanded upon, but tell the A&R dudes to save the press gestapo for the full-length, which hopefully comes out soon. Find it yer self.

Just got an LP in the mail from Kris Abplanalp, the man behind Black Velvet Fuckre, Valley of Ashes, Sapat and Virgin Eye Blood Brothers, and it’s a winner by Kark, brimmed with mind-bending free jazz jams and psychedelic grooves. In part of the jam, the stand-up bassist breaks into a groove reminiscent of the bassline from Black Sheep’s "The Choice is Your's." The twisting At times, it seems like some sort of structure, or a skeletal outline, gels the jam together but it could just be seasoned musicians reading each others’ movements. A loose and creepy free-jazz monster crawls out of the B-side and slithers into the listener’s brain, nestling into the frontal lobe and creating silhouettes of 15^th century bearded maidens in the mist. A wacky LSD-spiked cocktail jazz beast then saunters through the mist only to be slaughtered by the eternal free-jazz fire-holders. What frequency are these guys on anyway? Tap me in and turn me on. A thrilling, nasty LP for those of you who enjoy audio simulations of the hallucinogenic experience. This just in: Kark's membership numbers around 50, which is amazing considering how tight the structure of improvisation is on the record. The compositions change moods and texture on a dime without any New Weird American meandering. In fact, the record doesn't sound like New Weird American anything, as the 50 people on the record exhibit a level of competence above stoned bliss.

Available from those stupid bastards at HP Cycle, who also put out great albums by Maniac’s Dream and Ceylon Mange but oppose real challenging avant-garde music. Hell, buy it from Fusetron or Eclipse.

Those Huston oil swamp monsters from Rusted Shut graced the stage at AS220 in Providence last Saturday and ripped those RISD trust-fund kids a new one with a primordial blend of sludge and nihilism. After Snake Apartment’s awesome set of slow '90s Amphetamine Reptile hardcore with Gregg Ginn riffs, Rusted Shut took the stage in front of a dispersed crowd of about 20. Through equipment failures and an unresponsive sound man, the men toughed it out and transformed their songs into choppy no-wave ooze. Pissed Jeans headlined the gig and destroyed the place with a career-spanning batch of tunes packed into a 25-minute set. PJ guitarist Bradley Fry was the star of the night, abusing his guitar and our ears with noise-soaked riffs pumped out of a Sunn setup turned to 12.

Hey Rusted Shut, when’s the long-rumored Load Records album coming out? 2013? Load head honcho Ben McOsker just sent a care package filled with new and soon-to-be-released goodies. Already on the “nice” list this year with a left-field album of psycho psychedelic free-jazz from Hetero Skeleton and a thick batch of tar melodies from Air Conditioning, the label continues to expand its palate with fantastic new releases from Clockcleaner and Sword Heaven. For Babylon Rules, Clockcleaner slows down its punk rock attack with an emphasis on the rock and continues to delve into stalker-lyric territory. Think Down-era Jesus Lizard under the influence of Flesh Eaters and you’ll come close to this three-piece’s sound. Meanwhile, Sword Heaven pummel with their metal-scraping slave-core ode to the Swans circa 1983. On Entrance, the neanderthals flesh out scarring dirges with the crack of the whip and a blitzkrieg of stings from tin wasps. Lovely

Back in the world of hippie-ish sounds, I keep forgetting to mention X.O.4’s fantastic Cataracts, a mind-melting symphony of guitars played with forks and drones constructed from cheese wheels, toothpicks and glue. Side 1 begins with a few rings and dialogue between extra-terrestrials then rockets to distant galaxies that comes back into orbit somewhere near an aboriginal Asian tribe celebrating the season of the Yak before exploding into a million free-noise cubes. Side 2 welcomes the listener with a revving motorcycle engine before grabbing the girl, sitting her on the back and traveling through a vast sound desert with a percussive dialogue. Also features inverted Martian dance-core, Tibetan axe meditation and chants to butt-rock gods. Guitar hero Bill Nace continues to construct new pathways to the subconscious with guitar work. Right now, someone in Northampton spraypaints "Nace is God" on a Smith dormitory. Check out all his projects and solo work. This smoker happens to be on Ecstatic Peace, who inexplicably just came out with a cassette featuring same-sounding scum screams from every schmoe in Los Angeles. Stick to Northampton hippie-core, Moore. P.S. Hurry up with the Poor School reissue already. Jeeeez, guy.

all the unlinked releases are probably available from Eclipse or Fusetron.

So long and happy listenin from yer pal S. Kobak.

Ideas of Pure Fire

Anyone can produce art that looks or sounds or is bad. That's democracy! (Something I, myself, have never endorsed.) However the term avant garde should be reserved for those who do not imitate the past. Trying to recapture a fantasy past is not building for the future.

-Scott Foust, "Democracy!"

In an era where it seems like every meat-head with a set of guitar pedals and a synthesizer cranks out hate-fuzz while screaming about raping/disemboweling young girls into a megaphone, it's nice to know room still exists for beautiful musical experimentation. Two albums floating around headquarters for the past month capture a raw creative energy and add to the musical dialog instead of borrowing from or building upon it. Both albums approach music from different angles and carve a new path into the vast music lexicon. It should come as no surprise both artists retain a close association with Scott Foust's Anti-Naturals crew, a close-knit group of artists constantly stretching the boundaries of art and, hell, even the avant-garde. The records, Graham Lambkin's Salmon Run and Idea Fire Company's The Island of Taste, radiate with new approaches to sound and executions of composition.

Without giving too much away, as I am currently working on an article about Graham and his wife Adris Hoyos' artwork, I can safely say Lambkin constructed an album the likes of which you, well-seasoned reader, probably never heard before. Lambkin's Salmon Run contains 13 songs chopped and screwed by our man Graham. The tracks sound like Lambkin-selected Starbucks compilation with a twist, raging from operatic vocal exercises to ambient drone to musique concrete. Lambkin inserts trademark quirks like running water, slowed voice, conversation snippets and sound effects imitating everyday life, the goal being to intrude upon a work of art. The resulting tunes, each rearranged to shed any overwhelming semblance to the original, work like a photograph, artfully presenting a scene that already exists. Framing dictates what will stay and what gets erased. Color injections or cell painting smeared by an artist skew the viewer’s sense of history and origin as much as Lambkin’s sound intrusions.

Bits and pieces of Lambkin’s previous artistic strides are strewn throughout Salmon Run. Poem (for Voice & Tape), Lambkin's first recording for his KYE imprint, explored voice-as-drone technique, wherein Lambkin slows the human voice to the point of incoherence therein creating a natural point of meditation. Most of his albums flow with the sound of running water and use the river of sound as a post-modern guitar solo. As with The Shadow Ring’s I’m Some Songs and, to a lesser extent, Lindus, Salmon Run furthers the use of Lamtronix vocal effects, albeit with a hallucinatory approach. At least, I believe Lambkin employs this tool on “The Brendan Drill” but it’s hard to tell, given the nature of the sonic stew at hand. Lighthouse's impressions of audible emoting and interruptions within songs are apparent on a number of compositions; most strikingly on "The Currency of Dreams," a violin piece with Lambkin mock-weeping, walking around and fiddling with his watch in the forefront. The entire album criss-crosses the mind's sensory avenues with unintentionally psychedelic sound combinations.

Scott Foust leaves no traces of previous ventures on The Island of Taste. The short time lapse between 2005’s Stranded and The Island of Taste would suggest haste, as it took seven years to follow-up 1996’s classic Anti-Natural, but listening to the album suggests a delicate consideration for sound placement. It also suggests a pinnacle for Foust’s ever-evolving compositional ear, as it is possibly Foust’s most finely-tuned and well-planned piece of art to date. It resonates long after a soft implosion ends the record, as does all magnificent artwork.

A decade ago, Foust and co. constructed a work as beautiful and complex as The Island of Taste with 1996's Anti-Natural. The album, allegedly widely denounced back upon release, now stands as a critical hallmark. The Wire even featured it in "The Primer: Noise," the magazine's take on essential "noise" albums. Each composition on Anti-Natural explores a few singular sound constructions, not so much in a droning manner but with a sound sculptor's eye for beauty and form. The repetitious nature on many of the tracks engrosses the listener with a methodology that rings less meditative but just as contemplative as a drone. I digress, as all IFCO's albums contain this level of quality but each approaches it with a different technique. For instance, Explosion in a Shingle Factory, Foust and company's "puzzle piece" of found sound and rearranged sunshine, channels this beauty in a more conventional-yet-unconventional manner with a psychedelic slither and crazed compositional delivery.

As with the other four IFCO albums, The Island of Taste follows no particular path but its own. One could never anticipate Foust's next move. Foust made a great leap from Stranded to The Island of Taste. But, wait, one can always expect a stylistic departure from any one IFCO record to the next. So, I guess one can feasibly anticipate his next move. Whereas Stranded explored similar territory as Anti-Natural, it is, by no means, Anti-Natural II. Stranded explores bleak, futuristic synth-scapes and mind-warp vocal/minimal electronic movements. The Island of Taste delves into the past with one foot in New York in the '60s ambiance and another in the bleak industrial dissonance of Changez Les Blockeurs. The album resonates as a distinct IFCO creation, however, as it consistently buzzes and whirs full of a life.

"Land Ho" begins the recording with minimal industrial atmospherics and scraps of creaking feedback building gray visions, thus, presenting the motif of man-made desolation. Both the title track and "Like Old Days" employ natural field recordings and piano but ultimately generate an unsettling feeling, with the former peaking some scraping metallic sounds through its ivory strikes. These two tunes use a sort of natural-as-frightening technique similar to Wordsworth poems. In the nearly three minutes it takes "Bitter Victories" to shimmer in the daylight, the mood shifts to hopeful with glistening, ethereal minimalist texture.

The soul-crushing gauntness of "Lost Victories" fuses the natural and the man-made, spawning an eerie mind-fuck with low piano notes and horrific scrambled-voice-and-radio-waste fuzz. "Heroes of the Last Barricade" sprawls forth with pouring rain and a metallic see-saw sound providing a backdrop for female ghost shanties. In writing, it appears the composition will chill the listener but it produces an enlivening effect, easing the listener. "Last Man...Last Round..." ends the album with another fusion of resonating low piano strikes and factory sounds. This time around, the swarming dissonance filling the gaps between piano strikes but regimented to the background. Eventually, the swarm flies into a more prominent place but still battles for supremacy with the piano, succumbing to a soft implosion to end the record.

One can muse about the battle of light and dark, the record’s imposed commentary on the Bush administration or the thousands of other interpretations this record may birth in the listener’s mind. Fact is, no one, save for Scott Foust, knows the true meaning of the record but the vast amount of interpretations the record subjects itself to signifies its greatness.

In their blurb about Idea Fire Company's Anti-Natural, The Wire wrote: "Foust constantly provokes contradictory emotions, making you feel one way by using a sound or mode associated with its opposite." While I still do not feel Anti-Natural functions in this mode, The Island of Taste certainly does. Along with Salmon Run, it is an album of unrequited beauty and grace. Both albums are difficult and will likely polarize audiences, as any great art should, but both are ultimately rewarding, engrossing experiences that will change one's perception about art, as true avant-garde statements should.

Note: Salmon Run is available directly from the KYE label on eBay. The Island of Taste is not yet available but will be soon through Swill Radio. In the meantime, grab up all the IFCO records in existence and, if you don't like 'em, give 'em to a friend.

Check out Fifteen Credibility Street, the Anti-Naturals Web zine.

Week in Rrrock

As many readers know, I listen to a lot of music. Too much. A lot of it amounts to indulgent turds but light always shines through the release pile. I don't focus on the negative, however, as too much exists in the world already. Besides, why chat about something bad when so many good sounds surround you. Without further ado, here's a look at the rotation this week.

Smegma's 33 1/3 (Important, 2007) unfairly dominates speaker-time. In thirty-plus years of existence, the band never varied its attack. The album at hand largely employs a similar tactic as their Tim Kerr records but that method never proved boring. Turntables, rock guitars, reeds and wacky whistles still provide the template for the band's bewildering psychedelic improv. Both sides of 33 1/3 contain heavy, thoughtful grooves and virtually no filler. Long live LAFMS.

The heaviness of Ex-Cocaine's Esta Guerra (Siltbreeze, 2007) shoots point blank at the brain and leaves a mess of stream-of-consciousness thought in its wake. The feedback-friendly Montana hippies construct an epic beast of a guitar album with their sophomore effort. Even the tribal drum solo entrances the listener. Sadly missing is a type-written anecdote about sled dogs and Montana Freemen. Ramirez rocks, maaaannnnn!

I never purchased the first Cheveu 7" because of the band's French name. Actually, I never purchased it because everyone kept yapping about the band last summer. Siltbreeze this and DIY that. "Well, if they remind people so much of the old Siltbreeze bands, how come they're not on Siltbreeze?" I thought. I purchased the new 7" from S-S the other day after much debate and the single rocks. The A-side, "My Answer is Yes," bounces like a classic downer garage song better than anything on Nuggets. A psychotic vocal and guitar bridge transforms the song into Devo in a robot insane asylum. "Lola Langusta," the B-side, reminds me of early Flamin' Groovies with it's twang guitar rhythm and greaser attitude.

Also never wanted to check out the hyper-prolific noise mongers in Fossils but last week I discovered they made a split cassette with classic Canadian sound-molesters Nihilist Spasm Band on Wintage, the label that gave us the fantastic Mouthus/Women in Tragedy split. NSB's side rocks with their trademark free-range death-rock improv. It's always great to hear anything the guys crank out, especially when they're on the ball. Both tunes also feature post-Fugs retard vocals/poetry we love these Canuks for. But...wait for it....Fossils actually cream NSB with long-form improv heavily-indebted to Airway and the Doo-Dooettes (didn't want to say L.A.F.M.S. again...oops). Fuzzy tape experiments warp already fantastic sessions and horrific, wonderful guitar antics. Twisted keyboard excusrions and drugged-out feedback blitzes. Guess I better ready the wallet. BASTARDS! Why do you have to perform so WELL?

Clockcleaner destroyed AS220 with their noisy snot-punk last night. The band use guitars as dissonant noise makers and the bass as a killer riff generator. Each tune stretched into a sludge-noise black hole and the show ended with the band's take on The Breeders' "Divine Hammer," the noisiest and loudest thing I heard all night. The lead singer also made out with a good-looking girl in front of her boyfriend and hit beer cans into the crowd with a bat before leaving the stage. Great guy. I always liked the group's debut, The Hassler, but the band called it garbage. Got the new record on Richie last night and it smoked a hole in my psyche this morning. Helluva damn single with "Frogrammer" providing an infectious garage-y groove and "Early Man" conveying some psychotic desires in the metal confines of a mental asylum isolation booth. Also on the bill at AS22o were Breathing Fire, a sludge band with sick power violence breakdowns, and Brain Handle, an energetic throwback to mid-80s hardcore. Check Fusetron for availability.

I enjoyed the Deathroes set leagues more than the Religious Knives set at this year's No Fun Fest but enjoy the Religious Knives 12" more than the Deathroes full-length. Whereas Deathroes let their sound build to a bloody apex at No Fun, they begin at the bloody apex on their full-length. Sixes usually builds an unsettling feeling until it explodes with murderous rage but, joined by Gerritt, the two battle for harsh supremacy. The result is a mixed bag with moments of sheer brilliance and mundane stretches. Side B outweighs Side A with a sputtering sound bomb in the making transforming into a virtual crime scene with blown eardrums strewn about. In all, definitely an act to watch. However, Religious Knives slay with two psychedelic white boy dub tunes. "Luck" starts with a few emerging chords and organ sounds creating an unsettling hallucinogenic feeling as in Pink Floyd's "Echoes." Intensity never buds and, instead, a sense of invigorating dark-thought meandering swells. A sorrowful prayer kicks in two-thirds of the way through the jam, adding a mournful chant to the bluesy dub. Dark psych moods continue with "In the Back," a scratchy tale of cracked-voice madness. Heavy, heady head trips both available from No Fun Productions.

Slicing Grandpa's Chaos Midnight contains the band's most professional artwork to date with a glossy sleeve depicting a shadow stalking a girl. The glossiness spreads to the record, which blends all Slicing Grandpa's primal sludge elements into a Swans-like dirge. Their junkyard rhythms are oddly missing but weirdness still penetrates the goth fuzz. Both sides feature actual well-defined tunes and the usual Butthole Surfers-meet-L.A.F.M.S. lunacy. Could be a new direction for the band or just a sign of them using the studio as an instrument. Either way, highly recommended. In an edition of 500. I'll bet one pops up somewhere near you.

Pissed Jeans' Hope for Men sounds better on vinyl, as does Pink Reason's Cleaning the Mirror.

Not Not Fun put out the second best guitar fuzz album of the year with Heavy Winged's We Grow (see above Ex-Cocaine record for first). Now, self-professed "death jazz" mongers Ettrick kick out the jams with Feeders of Ravens. While the band certainly does not freak speakers with layered skronk like Borbetomagus, they sound like Albert Ayler imitating a No-Wave band with Ed Wilcox at the skins. How exactly does chaotic-but-structured soul pair with soulless structured chaos? Very well. Matter-of-fact, wouldn't mind listening to this band for the majority of the day. EXCELLENT!

Finally, a change of pace with future Sub Pop darlings Tall Birds' Action 7" on Shake Appeal. The single presents two swell rock songs that command ass shaking, both reminiscent of guitar-heavy rockers from Big Star's #1 Record. Terminally great garage-pop with a twist of glam. Well-constructed and catchy-as-hell. The reformed New York Dolls wish they could write these two tunes. Hell, David Johanssen wishes he could write this tune in '74 (Thunders probably could). Look around. Available everywhere for the next few weeks then on eBay for upwards of $30 in a month.

Weird World of Wold

Armageddon Shop, 436 Broadway, Providence, is one of the best record stores in the Eastern United States. The tiny store contains a huge selections of real "alternative" musics from black metal to hardcore to noise to lo-fi basement rock. One could spend hours digging through crates of $1 records or hardcore 7"s from Providence rippers of yore. The knowledgeable clerks always help you find what you seek. At times, they even introduce the customer to great new artists.

Last time I ventured to the store, a strange, lo-fi, almost psychedelic slab of black metal blasted from the speakers. The captivating sound caught me by surprise. I held a slab of vinyl I'd just picked up in my hands, pondering the cover with a paused mind. I asked the clerk what we were listening to and he replied, "Wold." I couldn't understand what he said and he wrote the name on a business card. In a High Fidelity, "Watch me sell three copies of the Beta Band's First Three EPs" moment, the clerk sold me on the first two Wold records. Well, I purchased them afterwords because of a severe lack of funds while in the store. Ended up buying The Fixx reissue LP.

Wold are rarities in the black metal underground: total non-conformists. Wold exist on that dark tract of the metal spectrum inhabited by Xastur, Leviathan and other home-recorded, one man projects. Unlike their one-man-band peers, Wold contains three members: Opex on "battle strings and death marches," Obey on "scourge" and lyricist Fortress Crookedjaw on vocals and "devices." They also seem more interested in mysticism than suicide or the devil. They speak like anarcho-punks in Profane Existence. In a May 2007 interview with metal magazine Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles (BWBK), Crookedjaw said, "At the end of the day, Wold couldn't give a fuck...Wold isn't part of 'black metal' which promotes priestly rules and slave morality. We carry the flame of an alien artistic sentiment." The band conveys influences beyond Darkthrone and feel no need to paint their faces. They create dark black-stained shoegaze metal with psychedelic and noise passages. To top it all off, they hail from a dark region called CANADA.

Wold's debut, L.O.T.M.P., injects a heavy dose of ambient horror organ textures into the usual buzzsaw guitar patterns. The record contains certain black metal-isms like screeching vocals and claustrophobic production but its sound ventures into My Bloody Valentine territory. The one-dimensionality of four-track production works for Wold, creating dark psych from amorphous instrument mixing. Tunes like "Invocation by Water" and "Tending thy Grounds" invoke pure black metal insanity but are stripped of any redundancy with head-trip guitar lines and airy organ blending with death-howl vocals. "Invocation by Earth," "Invocation by the Air" and "Invocation by Eye" resemble power electronic compositions with their dark under-layers, shouted vocals and abrasive dissonant sound patterns. Ultimately, Wold proves genre is a useless method when trying to convey their sound to others, as the band walks a tight rope between many types of extreme and outsider music. The band put it best in the BWBK interview. "Wold straddles many classifications," Crookedjaw said. "Wold's sound is comprised of many factional categories and formal constructions. Largely ignored upon its release, the record should prove a "lost classic" when audiences finally catch up with it in 2024.

Screech Owl, the band's 2007 release, works off its predecessor's base and delves into an even more atmospheric avant-metal. The disc begins with "An Habitation of Dragons and a Court for Owls," which showcases Crookedjaw's vocals amongst a back-beat of a thousand skipping black-metal tunes. "Ray of Gold" and "Nervosa" provide more nuclear holocaust blasts of challenging black metal, the latter containing one of the thickest bass lines ever committed to tape. The band taped "Windmill" at such a high volume it pulsates objects on top of speakers and blurs into one labyrinthine sound. The title track rocks with a fast, vaguely psychedelic guitar line akin to a Kevin Shields reworking of Nirvana's "Territorial Pissings." "The Field Hag" utilizes a calming keyboard line with an eerie resonance as a forum for Crookedjaw's William Bennett imitation.

Ambient noise passages mark the real treasure on the spellbinding disc. "Gather Under Her Shadow" loops a keyboard clip a la William Bashinski, peppering it with a hammering oscillation until Crookedjaw begins casting his spell. Another jack-hammered ambient composition, "A Sword Becomes Red with Fury," plays out with no vocals, perfectly demonstrating the band's ugly beauty. The twelve-minute "Undying Fire of Urian" ends the disc with a repeating keyboard prism that disintegrates into a sludgy hiss. The song hints at the innovation to come from this killer trio. Lookout world.

Both discs are available from Profound Lore Records, a label that seems to be quietly becoming the next innovative metal powerhouse. Southern Lord, beware.

Notes:
Armageddon Shop is celebrating its sixth anniversary in grand style on June 6th at AS220 in Providence with sets from Pissed Jeans, Rusted Shut, Snake Apartment and some insane local metal/hardcore/whatsits. I'm there.

Keiji Haino jammed with the Doo-Dooettes and the tapes weren't released until 2001. I didn't know this session existed until last week. The album, Free Rock (PSF Records, 2001), features one, 34-minute jam that never looses focus or energy. In fact, it gains a dark intensity and builds to a meltdown then ends with a group of abstractions. Haino grinds his axe like yesterday's psychedelic skronk master, not today's self-indulgent demi-god. Los Angeles Free Music Society-isms abound (warped turntable samples, vocal manipulations, cartoon soundtracks, art rock, free-jazz, hippie post-punk). Bad trip music, for sure. I'd like to hear some more jams from the Doo-Dooettes vault. Don't hold back, Recchion! Also on the LAFMS front and released around the same time, three fantastic 7"/CD combos from the Cortical Foundation.

Last Visible Dog has been promising the new Terminals album for a few months now. Also waiting on Strawberry Jam by the Animal Collective, as their live shows grow increasingly more experimental/abstract yet catchy.

Nate Boone-Adcock reads this blog.