DEAD C, THE Eusa Kills / Helen Said This (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Eusa Kills originally came out in 1989, and makes it the Dead C's fourth proper full length (maybe 6th, hard to tell with the band's convoluted discography) and finds the band in full on song mode, with a somewhat improved production, which definitely suits them. Years later, the band would release a single called The Dead C. Vs. Sebadoh, the title a joke obviously, but even 5 years early, when Eusa Kills came out, the band did in fact sound quite a bit like Sebadoh at moments, dark and brooding, sort of rocking, melodic but a bit off kilter, especially on record opener "Scarey Nest", which is a dead ringer for some lost Sebadoh B-side, with a killer main hook, simple solid drumming, wistful sort of sad boy vocals, the guitars alternatingly jangly and corrosive. After a 43 second Butthole Surfers style abstract drum / guitar crunch jam with distorted vocals and a lumbering tempo, the band slip right back into more dark jangle, a minor key guitar unfurling, a shuffling military snare, more weary crooned vocals, it is easy to see why lots of folks refer to Eusa Kills as the Dead C's 'songs' record. Most of the tracks are 2 or 3 minutes, poppy and jangly, the whole record clocking in at a lean 36 minutes, the exceptions being the 6 minute "Phantom Power" which begins as an extended abstract jam, all simple solid drumming and jagged guitar, but then the vocals drift in all ghostlike and the sound is transformed into something much poppier, and the 7 minute "Maggot", which is probably the heaviest of the bunch, with its grinding guitars, it's lurching drum part, and the super distorted Buttholes style processed vox, but even then, there's a definite pop sensibility at work, although a bit obscured. The rest of the shorter tracks tend toward the pop-ish, whether it be pounding noise drenched indie rock, moaning slow motion Jandek style sprawl or the gorgeously languid hushed folky jangle that finishes off the disc.
Also included is the Helen Said This 12" originally released around the same time. Not quite as songy as Eusa Kills, but enough that the two fit together perfectly, an extension of Eusa's twisted jangle, muddled pop smithery, warm wooziness, and occasional cracked heaviness.
Totally recommended, and essential for all fans of fucked up music. And heck, even fans of not-so-fucked up music. This just might be the Dead C record you can handle. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Scarey Nest"
MPEG Stream: "Alien To Be"
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Power"

DEAD C, THE Harsh 70's Reality (Stillbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is IT. One of the most perfect slabs of abstract free rock ever set to tape. Yes, noise rockers, this is where it all started. Originally released way back in 1992, about five years into their recorded career. Long out of print and finally available again. We're of the mind that the Dead C never made a bad record, but of their entire recorded output, Harsh 70's Reality continues to be our all time favorite. Most of the vestiges of pop that showed up in their past records, the legacy of their NZ pop heritage, were jettisoned or at least transformed into something much harder, much weirder. The pop remained, but drastically altered, more often twisted and tangled, buried or burned, a soft glowing core barely visible through the Dead C's abstruse ambient noise. Truly hard to describe, there are guitars and drums, but Harsh 70s Reality never really rocks, it does however manage to be heavy and psychedelic and dense and droney all at once. Blissful, tranquil, harsh, jagged, dreamy, dark, atonal, an impossible collision of sounds and emotions. This may be noise rock, but it's not precisely noisy, nor rock. By this point, the Dead C were channeling Cale and Conrad and Maclise and the Taj Mahal Travellers as much as any rock or noise outfits.
This is immediately evident on the opening track here, the 22 minute "Driver U.F.O.", a massive dirgescapes of angular guitar, clanging and keening, a sound that hinted at the noise to come, their future trajectory, headed for sonic worlds even further out. A world first visited here, of strange little abstract chordal figures, not riffs per se, just strange smears of sound repeated over and over, totally mesmerizing, but completely alien, sheets of guitar noise, big slabs of metal percussive clang, creepy wheedly little melodies, lots of drone and drawn out streaks of feedback. Sounds almost like the first musicians ever, musical cavemen, suddenly stumbling upon a stage full of amps and drums, and curiously exploring, discovering all the strange ways the different instruments can be poked and prodded and struck to create an abstract and gorgeous primitive din. This is divine dronemusic. A clattery atonal dronescape. If you took this first track, stuck it on a crappy cd-r, made up some crazy name, Black Tomb Resurrect or something, added some xeroxed cover art, and sent out a handful to the Wire and Eclipse and Volcanic Tongue, made sure it was limited to 100 copies, you would have indie hipsters shitting themselves to get copies, buying copies on eBay for $100. It's that prescient. Either that or the current breed of noisemakers are not hiding their Dead C obsession AT ALL.
The shorter tracks here do actually 'rock'. Sort of. As much as a jagged smear of super distorted crumble and crunch can 'rock'. "Sky" sounds like the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" covered by Reynols, a stumbling rock drum beat beneath a white noise riff, all crumbly distortion and blown out fuzz, and some strange sort of crooned vocals drifting in and out. "Suffer Bomb Damage" is a haunting keyboard drone, all off key lo-fi casio wheeze and reverb spring percussion, very reminiscent of NZ legends Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos. "Love" sounds like the Velvet Underground fronted by Jandek, covering the MC5, lurching fuzzy garage stomp with damaged guitar and weary drawled vocals. "Constellation" is some long lost Velvet Monkeys joint, an East Village folkfuzz jam, throbbing and saturated in dense distortion and wrapped in thick sheets of druggy droney guitar swirl, all wrapped haphazardly around a cracked pop hook. The record ends on a truly strange note, a sort of fuzzy folk drift, warm acoustic guitars are picked and strummed, a mournful lament, crowd sounds and occasional bursts of distorted fuzz, as well as a brief stretch of wailed anguished vocals and a few splatters of snare drum, but for the majority of the nearly ten minutes of "Hope", we drift lazily through a murky world of soft muted guitars and sad, mumbled vocals. So lovely. A most perfect noisefolk elegy. It's hard to understand how the hell this record ended up here, drifting dreamlike and swathed in murky folk, especially after the 20+ minutes of face melting freaked out abstraction of "Driver U.F.O." Or the blown out deconstructed noiserock in between. But that's exactly what makes the Dead C so special. This is exactly where it had to end up. Where you were meant to emerge. It seems like an impossibly confusional journey, an improvised exploration. And it is. But taken as a whole, Harsh 70s Reality is exactly as it was meant to be. Perfect. Perfectly imperfect. A world of noise that slips from sound to sound, taking many forms, many guises, a world where letting fuzzy folk guitars and soft vocals wash over you is not all that different than letting a wall of crumbling guitar grind and feedback freakout collapse and bury you alive. Two different sides of the same glorious noise.
MPEG Stream: "Driver U.F.O."
MPEG Stream: "Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Love"

DEAD C, THE Harsh Seventies Reality (Siltbreeze) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long overdue reissue of one of this Kiwi band's best albums, but there's one track missing that was on the original vinyl, so don't go selling your lp just yet...

DEAD C, THE New Electric Music (Language Recordings Three) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Newest Dead C record released on their own Language Recordings label and expectations are HIGH since that last double Dead C cd was so amazing. We all went to see the Dead C live a few months ago, many of us for the first time, which is actually when we first discovered this new Dead C record, and to be honest we were WAAAAAY disappointed. Some didn't even stay for the whole set [although some did and actually dug the concert quite a bit!] Rambling, scattershot, clumsy percussion, noisy but not really all that inspired. Lots of aimless on stage wandering and interband discussions MID-SET!!! But you gotta cut them some slack, improvised music is really hit or miss, and relies as much on the audience's perception as it does the band's performance, and that's what makes it so exciting. So we weren't sure what to expect from the new record. A couple of folks had expressed their diappointment with 'New Electric Music', but we are happy to report, while it's a lot different than the self titled double cd, it's still a GREAT Dead C record. 'NEM' starts off with six minutes of burbling barely audible low end, pulsing and creeping, like a thick fog. Track two launches into a primitive rock and roll cave-stomp, simple propulsive drumming pins down whirls of white noise and chaotic rumble. The next two tracks veer more towards the traditional Dead C sound with track three a crumbling avalanche of guitar skronk and fluttery percussion, squalls of noise and waves of rumbling drone, and track 4 a sort of Jandek of the South Seas, with mumbled distant vocals over a loose free-twang framework. The final 30 minute track is gorgeous and if you ever had any doubts about the 'C being at the top of their game, this track should silence non believers. A rumbling, low end drone-scape with a metronomic burst of feedback that sets the whole thing into an hypnotic , almost-industrial rhythm. While in the background, electronics and unrecognizable guitar creaks and swells, rumble and soar and wrap the relentless one-beat rhythm in a coarse blanket of grit. As the track progresses, the background sounds intensify, threatening the rhythm but never quite overtaking it. So gorgeous. Probably one of the best things they've ever recorded. Dead C fans will not be disappointed and those unfamiliar could do worse than starting their education here!
RealAudio clip: "Repulsion"
RealAudio clip: "Killer "
RealAudio clip: "Hush"

DEAD C, THE Patience (Ba Da Bing) cd 13.98
We always have trouble knowing what to say about a new record from legendary New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. They don't come very often, but when they do, it's kind of a big deal. We know it will be amazing. We just don't know how. Which is probably what's kept this band so exciting and vital for so many years.
Equally adept at crafting strange muted noise drenched pop songs, as they are sprawling expanses of chaotic abstract sonic experimentalism, we really can't think of a Dead C record that we don't love. And with most bands, nearly 25 years into their career, the later era records, no matter how good, almost always pale in comparison to the early ones, the ones made when the band were hungry, and young, and full of piss and vinegar, rebellious and angry, wanting to make us much noise as possible, and piss off as many people as possible. But somehow, with the Dead C, while their sound has definitely changed, in some ways dramatically, we have to say, we actually do like the new records just as much as the old ones. They're still noisy, occasionally poppy, rhythmic, dense and intense, they're just different, as they should be, 30 releases and 2 decades on, and Patience is no different, a sprawling fantastical songsuite of hypnotic rhythms, swirling ambient noise, murky melodic drift, album opener, the 16 minute Empire, is a gorgeous hazy psych jam, meandering mesmerizing, the drums pounding away through an ever shifting cloud of grinding super distorted heavily effected guitarnoise, the result is a sort of psychedelic krautrock, a weird mash up of German Oak and High Rise maybe, the sound appropriately lo-fi, but still somehow lush and loud, about midway through, the band pulls apart the various elements of the first half, the guitars unfurling in hazy streaks of burnished melody, the drums even more minimal, offering up strange scattershot bits of cymbal crash and snare shuffle, before stumbling back into forward motion, like a blissier more mellowed out version of what came before, the drums again motorik, but the noisy guitar squalls a bit softened, a little dreamier, as the song marches lazily to its conclusion.
There are two shorter tracks next, the brief interlude of "Federation", with its swirling cymbal sizzle, and murky churning guitar thrum, and then the more proper song lengthed "Shaft", which tempers some intense blown out guitar damage, with a beat that almost sounds electronic, thumping and jittery and surprisingly groovy, a perfect foil for the roiling crunch and rumble and screech all around, but for a band with a record called Patience, they've been known to not have much, and in that spirit, terminate the strangely groovy jam and transform it into something way more loose and free, a huge billowing wall of tangled guitar, of swirling feedback, and grinding scraping amp punishment, which somehow, doesn't sound harsh or noisy, just hypnotic and far out.
Finally, the band bliss out into the smoldering epic closer "South", loping mumbled low end melodies, wreathed in everpresent amp buzz, while over the top, guitars pulse, and streak, and shimmer, the guitars growing more restless and animated, offering up gorgeous chunks of fragmented melody, of truncated riffage, textures and overtones, whirs and crunches and howls, all the while the track pulses along hypnotically. Eventually the drums lurch into the fray, offering a chaotic, unpredictable rhythm, with which the rest of the band counters an incredible array of freaked out psychedelic guitar weirdness, finally, the drums lock in, and it's like a crumbling noiserock This Heat, strange high end squiggles, thick blasts of chordal rumble, plenty of static and hiss, the track pounding away, until finally the drums retire, leaving a sky full of squiggly super distorted high end, which then too dissipates, leaving, a churning minimal riffscape, pulsing, and heaving, and still surrounded by that ever present amp buzz, before just ending abruptly. Incredible as always.
Okay, so maybe we DO know what to say.
MPEG Stream: "Empire"
MPEG Stream: "South"

DEAD C, THE Patience (Ba Da Bing) lp 14.98
We always have trouble knowing what to say about a new record from legendary New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. They don't come very often, but when they do, it's kind of a big deal. We know it will be amazing. We just don't know how. Which is probably what's kept this band so exciting and vital for so many years.
Equally adept at crafting strange muted noise drenched pop songs, as they are sprawling expanses of chaotic abstract sonic experimentalism, we really can't think of a Dead C record that we don't love. And with most bands, nearly 25 years into their career, the later era records, no matter how good, almost always pale in comparison to the early ones, the ones made when the band were hungry, and young, and full of piss and vinegar, rebellious and angry, wanting to make us much noise as possible, and piss off as many people as possible. But somehow, with the Dead C, while their sound has definitely changed, in some ways dramatically, we have to say, we actually do like the new records just as much as the old ones. They're still noisy, occasionally poppy, rhythmic, dense and intense, they're just different, as they should be, 30 releases and 2 decades on, and Patience is no different, a sprawling fantastical songsuite of hypnotic rhythms, swirling ambient noise, murky melodic drift, album opener, the 16 minute Empire, is a gorgeous hazy psych jam, meandering mesmerizing, the drums pounding away through an ever shifting cloud of grinding super distorted heavily effected guitarnoise, the result is a sort of psychedelic krautrock, a weird mash up of German Oak and High Rise maybe, the sound appropriately lo-fi, but still somehow lush and loud, about midway through, the band pulls apart the various elements of the first half, the guitars unfurling in hazy streaks of burnished melody, the drums even more minimal, offering up strange scattershot bits of cymbal crash and snare shuffle, before stumbling back into forward motion, like a blissier more mellowed out version of what came before, the drums again motorik, but the noisy guitar squalls a bit softened, a little dreamier, as the song marches lazily to its conclusion.
There are two shorter tracks next, the brief interlude of "Federation", with its swirling cymbal sizzle, and murky churning guitar thrum, and then the more proper song lengthed "Shaft", which tempers some intense blown out guitar damage, with a beat that almost sounds electronic, thumping and jittery and surprisingly groovy, a perfect foil for the roiling crunch and rumble and screech all around, but for a band with a record called Patience, they've been known to not have much, and in that spirit, terminate the strangely groovy jam and transform it into something way more loose and free, a huge billowing wall of tangled guitar, of swirling feedback, and grinding scraping amp punishment, which somehow, doesn't sound harsh or noisy, just hypnotic and far out.
Finally, the band bliss out into the smoldering epic closer "South", loping mumbled low end melodies, wreathed in everpresent amp buzz, while over the top, guitars pulse, and streak, and shimmer, the guitars growing more restless and animated, offering up gorgeous chunks of fragmented melody, of truncated riffage, textures and overtones, whirs and crunches and howls, all the while the track pulses along hypnotically. Eventually the drums lurch into the fray, offering a chaotic, unpredictable rhythm, with which the rest of the band counters an incredible array of freaked out psychedelic guitar weirdness, finally, the drums lock in, and it's like a crumbling noiserock This Heat, strange high end squiggles, thick blasts of chordal rumble, plenty of static and hiss, the track pounding away, until finally the drums retire, leaving a sky full of squiggly super distorted high end, which then too dissipates, leaving, a churning minimal riffscape, pulsing, and heaving, and still surrounded by that ever present amp buzz, before just ending abruptly. Incredible as always.
Okay, so maybe we DO know what to say.
MPEG Stream: "Empire"
MPEG Stream: "South"

DEAD C, THE Repent (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Live!

DEAD C, THE s/t (Language) 2cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Dead C is the stalwart collective of free noise / avant rockers from New Zealand comprised of Bruce Russell (member of A Handful of Dust and boss of the Corpus Hermeticum label), Michael Morley (aka Gate), and Robbie Yeats, beloved of Bananafish readers and Siltbreeze junkies everywhere. We thought that perhaps their day had passed but, think again, they've gone and created a superb new album! This new, long awaited release is a sprawling double cd that finds them in the least-rock space they have ever occupied. Recorded over the past 5 years, this album is saturated in a langurous humidity produced by guitar feedback scrapes, ring modulation, and the buzzing din of improperly balanced amplifiers.
Disc One is the noisier of the two, dominated by the epic 33 minute "SpeederBot" which passes from militant percussive stabs into twin tremolo guitar feedback, similar to the controlled chaos found on their masterful "Harsh '70s Reality" album. But Disc Two is where this eponymous Dead C release really shines. Sort of like an analogue version of Main, or like a Raster record coming in badly on a shortwave radio, full of erratic hissing and eerie static. The trio striates the slow motion hypnodrone of sampled guitar feedback (yup, the lo-fi mirror version of My Bloody Valentine) with creaky little events. It's apparent that all of the recent drones from New Zealanders like Lovely Midget, RST, and Surface of the Earth have definitely made huge impact on the Dead C. They've picked up the gauntlet and, after a few years in their lonely NZ laboratory, have again come up with something that can be only called Dead C music (more so than it can be called rock or anything else). Adventurous, idiosyncratic, fantastic.
This is as recommended as it limited (to 500 copies and may not see a repress, sorry). Buy now or cry later!! (as we like to say.)
RealAudio clip: "One Night"
RealAudio clip: "Realisation con Slider"

DEAD C, THE The Damned (Starlight Furniture Co.) cd 13.98
The new Dead C record starts out with a bang, the likes of which we haven't heard from them in a while. A rock song. That's right, a rock song. Albeit a noisy, squealing, writhing squall of a rock song. Big simple drums lead the march, with a crunchy fuzzy riff, swathed in layers of feedback, and vocals, that's right, singing, WAY up in the mix too. Chaotic and propulsive, a bit like the Swell Maps maybe. But even more fucked sounding obviously. Fear not, soon we're back on more familiar footing, with an almost ambient track, spare and ghostly, a droning thrum with strange clicks and hums buried in cave-like reverb. Sounds like tape hiss, but as it might occur in nature. Things get awfully noisy shortly thereafter, with a wild and free blast of stumbling percussion and more feedback than two guys should be able to produce. But then it's time for another surprise, as things get really moody and melodic, with some dreamy, sort-of space-rock (or as close to space rock as the C get) with mumbled vocals, a hypnotic bass line, and ear piercing guitar klang. Like AQ faves Circle broadcast through a shitty car stereo with only one speaker. The final proper track is a twenty minute krautrockish jam, but done as only the Dead C can, more feedback and confusion than groove, more hiss and fuzz than riff, more noise than melody. The record finishes off with a recording of highway traffic that sounds like it could actually *be* the band's music, which is why they're so amazing, right?
MPEG Stream: "Truth"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphere"

DEAD C, THE The Dead Sea Perform M. Harris (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) lp 14.98
One of two new installments in Ba Da Bing and Jagjaguwar's ongoing vinyl reissue campaign of perhaps one of THE greatest noise rock bands ever, New Zealand's Dead C, who unlike many (most?) of their contemporaries, were perfectly capable of mixing stumbling downer pop with full on room clearing cacophony, muted minimal sonic abstractions and crunchy riff heavy drone rock, without sounding like anyone but themselves.
And as far as oft referenced bands around aQ, it's no surprise that Dead C gets name dropped in so many reviews, in many ways, they are the archetype for modern noise rock, for subversive outsider post rock, whatever you want to call it, Dead C were and are the masters, and these reissues should make that abundantly and utterly clear. And just might put into perspective how 'original' and 'groundbreaking' a lot of the current flavors of the noise rock month really are.
The Dead C Perform Max Harris are the first ever recordings from the Dead C, recorded during their very first month as a band, originally released as a cassette limited to a mere 21 copies, later, multiple versions and edits were tacked on to the group's Dr 503 record, but this is the first time these two tracks, these two different version of the 'same' track, have been available together, unedited, since that tape. First time on vinyl too.
The sticker references Swell Maps and Crazy Horse, and you can definitely here some of that in these tracks, as well as 13th Floor Elevators, and the Velvet Underground but whatever influences inspired this psychedelic noise rock blow out, well, they were summarily obliterated and reinterpreted and spit out in this damaged and cracked and gloriously fractured incarnation, resulting in a sound that is hard to reference beyond simply the Dead C themselves, already helping create a sound that would go on to define the sound of the NZ underground, several weeks into what would be a 20+ year career.
"With Help From Max Harris" is a sprawling drone rock epic, beginning with a chaotic outpouring of wild rhythmic tribalism, tangled billowy guitar buzz, reverbed vocals buried in the mix, a fucked up production, lo-fi, but still somehow powerful and intense, but after a few minutes, the songs slows it down, dials it back, and becomes this strange spaced out strange of minimal hypnorock, repetitive and mesmeric, very krautrock / space rock, but way more abstract and loose and free, a glorious wash of sound, that could have gone on for another 15 minutes, and hell it probably did, we'll never know cuz it just cuts off abruptly, and for all we know the band played on and on and on.
"Beyond Help From Max Harris" is definitely the same song, but it's different enough to keep it interesting, but similar enough to satisfy that urge we had for the first track to continue on forever. "Beyond..." is a bit more hi-fi, just a bit, but the guitars are sharper, more jagged, the bass more of a presence, the quite parts even more quiet but the guitar adding all sorts of strange percussive harmonics, lots of crumbly amp buzz, furious in-the-red bursts of crunch and glitch, the vocals way less present, it ends up sounding like a less song-y version of the first track, more abstracted and free, still totally hypnotic and mesmerizing, just way more raw and feral and fucked up. GENIUS!
As mentioned above, this is the first time on vinyl for these tracks, and it's the first time they've been available together and unedited since that original cassette. Pressed on nice thick vinyl, in a swank black and white sleeve, includes a download card so you can cram this noisy bliss onto your hard drive.

DEAD C, THE The Whitehouse (Siltbreeze) cd 10.98

DEAD C, THE The Whitehouse (Siltbreeze) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD C, THE Trapdoor Fucking Exit (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We kind of wish distros and labels would do house cleaning more often. A few lists ago we got copies of a couple super rare long out of print Birchville Cat Motel releases, then a few weeks ago one of our distributors found a secret stash of the long out of print Skullflower cd IIIrd Gatekeeper (Allan and Andee's favorite btw) and this week Tom, the mighty overlord of the Siltbreeze empire, cleaned out his basement and found a dusty little pile of this legenday NZ freenoisepop gem from the godlike Dead C, Trapdoor Fucking Exit. We pounced on them immediately as this is most definitely one of our all time favorite records, and a record so subtly influential, that without it, you could pretty much wipe the entire modern noise rock slate squeaky clean. Sure, the Skaters and Wolf Eyes and The Grey Daturas and the Yellow Swans would all be around, but they'd probably sound more like jangly indie pop the grinding free noise weirdness. For if anyone deserves the credit/blame for launching a thousand bands that perform sitting on the floor twiddling knobs, it's the Dead C. But wait! The Dead C were no knob twiddlers, no they were a goddamn bonafide rock band. Bass, drums, guitar, but with the most basic of instrumentation, they were able to conjure up totally inhuman and unholy squalls of sound. And this was not just noise, the Dead C, at least in the beginning, crafted soft focus, ultra personal pop songs stripped to the bone, the musical flesh peeled off, leaving a rickety percussive framework, draped with mumbled crooned sad boy vocals, all totally wrapped in dense billowy clouds of guitar swirl and thick streaks of fluttering feedback. The ultimate corrosive, deconstructed, detuned, angular, abstract, noise / pop / rock hybrid.
A bit like other bedroom NZ bands of the time, but with that fey 4-track dreaminess completely drenched in lo-fi hiss and grit. Song structures totally subverted, almost like the Chills with a full frontal lobotomy and a airplane hanger full of amps or a clan of cavemen attempting to play the Clean's greatest hits. Elsewhere, the crooning vocals are replaced by distant Gregorian style chanting, serene and ghostlike, but still buried under luxuriously lo-fi washes of ultra murk. Trapdoor Fucking Exit is a confusional crawl of machine gun snares, grinding guitars, slow burn instrument rumble, careening, stumbling rhythms, chaotic ambience, claws-on-concrete guitar scrabble, drum splatter, feedback freakout, but all seemingly effortlessly harnassed into some strange, haunting, detuned and damaged indie noise pop. The Dead C would eventually ditch the pop element almost altogether, concentrating more on texture and sound, but for a brief moment, way back in 1990, the diametrically opposed sound worlds of lo-fi bedroom pop and corrosive free noise freakout collided and formed a brilliant and briefly blinding burst of glorious pop flecked free noise beauty. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
And remember this is waaaay out of print, we got a handful from the Siltbasement and we're not sure how many more there are lurking in corners or in old boxes, so we figure once these are gone they are probably gone for good.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Mighty"
MPEG Stream: "Krossed"

DEAD C, THE Tusk (Siltbreeze) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Highly anticipated album from New Zealand's Dead C (Bruce Russell, Robbie Yeats, and Michael Morley), masters of controlled chaos.

DEAD C, THE Vain, Erudite And Stupid - Selected Works: 1987-2005 (Ba Da Bing!) 2cd 11.98
All right, while Andee is the biggest Dead C expert here at Aquarius, we're ALL fans of New Zealand's long-running noise rock geniuses. And since he took responsibility for writing the extensive and effusive reviews we've published in recent weeks for the repressings / warehouse finds of The Dead C's Harsh 70s Reality and Trapdoor Fucking Exit albums, I (Allan) thought I'd step up and take over reviewing this brand new release, which is in fact a sort of "best of" anthology selected and compiled by the band themselves, featuring 22 tracks spread over two compact discs, spanning their career to date. Not being as much of an expert as Andee, but still a fan (I've got a few of their albums, and would have more but missed out on some releases when I wasn't as 'hip' to this band as I am now), this 2cd is just what I needed: a primer of sorts on this sometimes confusional, confounding, and obscure-but-important band. And as far as reviewing goes, what's to review? THIS SHIT IS ESSENTIAL! End of story. It's an ideal introduction for newbies and even the most dedicated Dead C fanatic will want it as well. Even if you've collected every last rare tape or vinyl track from these guys it's still nice to have a few of 'em on cd.
You'll hear how The Dead C trio of Michael Morley, Robbie Yeats, and Bruce Russell blazed their own unique path through the down under underbelly of indie-rock experimentation, pushing the boundaries of (between?) noise and rock in their New Zealand laboratory. True originals, appreciated at first only by a hardy few (themselves, mainly, as well as the likes of Sonic Youth). Their deliberately lo-fi, song-subverting, willfully 'wrong' music-making was and is perhaps an acquired taste. We'd venture to guess though that at this point, few regular AQ customers would have less than positive reactions to The Dead C's seasick lurchings, to their sounds of droning flybys from UFOs made out of straw, and feedback stomp and damaged thrash. No complaints about caustic liquids somehow coursing through guitar strings, amps, and ears. Thumb up to their hazy hints of melodies, buried beneath solid static storms of guitar distortion, or their moments of quietly emotive indie-pop prettiness in the NZ tradition, left to rust and decay.
The tracks are arranged chronologically, from "Max Harris" off their 1988 Flying Nun album DR503 starting off the first disc, to the track "Truth" taken from The Damned released in 2003 that ends the second disc. Disc one might be considered a survey of their "songier" era, going up to about 1992's Harsh 70s Reality, while disc two deals with material from 1994 on that saw them becoming less of a particularly noisy indie-rock band and more of truly abstract, improvising noise band, still with some rock and pop elements weirdly woven in. The tracks selected comprise both some "greatest hits" (things we'd have picked too, for sure) and some total rarities from long-deleted cassettes and limited vinyl-only releases, like the Clyma Est Mort LP, The Operation Of The Sonne LP, the Xpressway Pile-Up cassette comp, and the Helen Said This mini-LP, among others. Actually most of these tracks are rarities, in the sense that a lot of their '90s cds on Siltbreeze like The White House and Repent, and even more recent albums like the incredible self-titled double disc on Language Recordings from 2000 are out of print now too. There's two tracks from Harsh 70s Reality, but strangely enough nothing from Trapdoor Fucking Exit, by the way.
The thick cd booklet contains essays, in ascending order of non-fictional detail, from Seymour Glass of Bananafish mag, Tom Lax of Siltbreeze, and Nick Cain of Opprobrium fanzine. And there's track-by-track commentary from Bruce Russell as well, adding to the "primer" value of this release. It may be true that this band's stuff takes a while to "get". Years maybe. But this crash course gives a great head start.
The blurb sticker on the front of this proclaims The Dead C as "the GREATEST noise/drone rock band of all time" and we really might not have any argument with that at all! It goes on to suggest that fans of Wolf Eyes, SUNNO))), Lightning Bolt and Growing would/should dig The Dead C quite heavily. Probably true as well. The implication being, though, that fans of those bands wouldn't have heard of The Dead C before. Perhaps -- and if that's the case, and that's you, you definitely should check this out!!! We'd probably go on to say that as much as we enjoy all those bands, The Dead C is much closer to our hearts for sure...
MPEG Stream: "Hell Is Now Love"
MPEG Stream: "3 Years"
MPEG Stream: "Tuba Is Funny (Slight Return)"
MPEG Stream: "Bitcher"

DEAD CAN DANCE Aion (4AD) cd 13.98

DEAD CAN DANCE s/t (4AD) cd 16.98
Perhaps more so than the revolving door project This Mortal Coil, there was no other band in the '80s that embodied the 4AD sound more so than Dead Can Dance. Their labored, heavily orchestrated songs hinged upon a dark, neo-romantic reading of medieval leitmotifs and Renaissance melody with plenty of Celtic flourishes tossed in for good measure. Firmly linked to the Dead Can Dance sound were the voices of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry - the former epitomizing an ethereal swoon counterpointed by the latter's exacting baritone. Their first album found the two Australian transplants living in London and showcasing much more of their Australian post-punk roots than on later albums. Gerrard had recorded a couple of singles with her unfortunately forgotten band Microfilm, and Perry had a stint in a band called The Scavengers.
Joy Division and 154-era Wire were the springboard for much of Dead Can Dance's ideas on this album through the bass-driven post-punk songs dappled with spectral guitar work and primitive electronic underpinnings. If it weren't for the instantly recognizable twin vocals from Gerrard and Perry (the latter of whom carries the bulk of this album), Dead Can Dance's debut could be mistaken for anything that would have come out on Factory at that time. Hints of their more well-known orchestrated sound appear on this album in the form of some hammered dulcimers and tribal percussion spiralling around their songs. Altogether, it holds up surprisingly well.
On this reissue, 4AD has repackaged the album in a cardboard gatefold with a nicely cleaned up / remastered version of the album, which had always suffered from a murky sound. However, they left off the Garden Of Earthly Delights EP, which had been included on previous cd versions of this album. Whoops!
MPEG Stream: "The Fatal Impact"
MPEG Stream: "The Trial"
MPEG Stream: "Musica Eternal"

DEAD CAN DANCE Spiritchaser (4AD) cd 15.98

DEAD CAN DANCE The Serpent's Egg (4AD) cd 13.98

DEAD CAN DANCE Wake (4AD) 2cd 15.98

DEAD CHILD Attack (Quarterstick) cd 14.98
Last year when we reviewed this Louisville band's debut ep, we said we'd delay discussion of the whole "false/hipster/irony metal" thing until a later date, if/when they unleashed a full-length. Well here it is. So here we go. Some "true metal" folks on poseur patrol are gonna balk at a band playing '80s influenced thrashy metal with high pitched vox, that happens to include dude from Slint and Tortoise in it (Dave Pajo, no stranger to this issue 'cause of his stint in Early Man), plus others of similar indie rock pedigree... but we think that's kind of cool. IF they're not just taking the piss, but are in fact saying "hey we really do like metal, maybe we were too 'alternative' for it for a while back there but now we realize the folly of our ways and we're gonna fuckin' rip!!"
What we can agree on is that it would be annoying if a band like Dead Child got popular 'cause of their non-relevant, non-metal scene connections, while other bands playing the same style of music can't get the time of day. (Like, if this starts selling, folks also better start coming in looking for Slauter Xstroyes reissues...) But then again, why bands get popular often has very little to do with merit anyway! We went over some of this ground in our recent review of The Sword's Gods Of The Earth. And Dead Child aren't even popular like that, yet. So, let's judge stuff by what it sounds like, not what bands people were in or who goes out to their shows.
As to that (what it sounds like) well it IS metal. Heck the singer sounds a lot like Gerrit Mutz of Sacred Steel (yelping with that same Jello Biafra warble in there somewhere) and you can't get much more metal than that. Their songs are ultra-riffy, almost monotonously so, but crunchy and catchy enough, and the singer's got style to help 'em stick in your ear. They reprise one track from the ep ("Never Bet The Devil Your Head", our fave from that disc) and come up with a bunch of other similarly wicked tunes. In the hipster metal debate, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and headbang away without further worries.
We also realize that if Dead Child were a "NWOFHM" band from Finland, the work of our pals in Circle, like Steel Mammoth or Tractor Pulling, we'd have no qualms at all, and be quite impressed, though of course they'd also be a lot weirder. The song titles here certainly align with that sort of thing: "Black Halo Rider", "Rattlesnake Chalice", "Wasp Riot"... could easily be something Krypt Axeripper would think up.
MPEG Stream: "Twitch Of The Death Nerve"
MPEG Stream: "Eye To The Brain"

DEAD CHILD s/t (Cold Sweat) cd ep 10.98
Five songs in just under 17 minutes from this new Louisville retro-metal act. Sorta mid paced thrashy, straight-ahead headbanging fare. Crunchy guitars, not much lead playing though, just lots of stiff riffing. They sound a lot like The Sword or Early Man, actually. Got that can't-quite-place-it-heard-it-before-but-still-sounds-good '80s derived thing going on. Our favorite track is "Never Bet The Devil Your Head" wherein the vocalist pulls off some nice raspy screams. "I Will Live Again" is also pretty good, more of a doomy number. So, this lil' disc might not be a bad thing to throw on as the soundtrack to the next couple cans of cheap American beer you quaff.
Oh... did we mention that one of the guys in the band is named Dave Pajo? That's right, the Slint, Aerial M, Papa M, Tortoise, Zwan, etc. Dave Pajo... suddenly we realize another reason why Dead Child remind us of Early Man! (Pajo briefly played bass for 'em). Well this is just an ep, so let's not get all embroiled in thee whole ole false/hipster/irony metal argument right now fer goshsakes...maybe when/if they do a full-length we'll let rip on that subject. Along with Pajo, Dead Child also contains members of The For Carnation, Crain, Anomoanon, Shipping News, and Phantom Family Halo, fyi. Heck if these indie rockers want to play metal, why not? Just as long as we don't start selling more of these than we do of, say, Skeletonwitch or Sacred Steel.
MPEG Stream: "Never Bet The Devil Your Head"

DEAD ELEPHANT Thanatology (Riot Season) cd 16.98
Record number three from this Italian noise rock / stoner doom power trio, and weirdly enough the first one of their records to get reviewed on the aQ list. Weird because these guys are amazing and are right up our (and presumably your) alley, a killer twisted hybrid of classic Sabbathy metal and more modern noise rock, downtuned Neurosis-y sludge and spaced out psychedelic dronemetal, a la countrymen Ufomammut. Opener "Bardo Thodol" starts out with a riff that's a dead ringer for Sleep, of course these guys add some chanted monk-like vocals, the vibe droned out and psychedelic, and when the rest of the band finally kick in, the sound is EPIC, massive, and heavy as fuck, a crushing mathy doom sludge dirge, the vocals alternating between a monstrous bellow and a wild feral shriek, the churning riffage and damaged drum pound laced with a surprising amount of melody, and all sorts of strange sounds in the background, that sound like bells and singing and other mysterious field recordings, which are apparently actual recordings of Italian funeral marches, super dramatic, especially when the band cuts out completely, leaving just the mournful wail of distant horns, draped over a strange hushed soundscape of backwards drones and muted muddied effects, the band slowly building back up again, and launching anew into another onslaught of pound and pummel, of soaring metallic heaviness.
The rest of the record unwinds in a similar fashion, the lumbering doomic heaviness tempered with long stretches of vocal drones, of spidery psychedelia, bursts of spazzed out math metal, of grinding noise rock frenzies, finishing off with the epic 16 minute two part closer, the first part of which is a gorgeous stretch of ambient minimalism, all tinkling melodies, barely there rhythms, distant swells, soft squalls of psychedelic guitar, swirling drones, and a deep rumbling buzz, that slowly builds into the second part, a feedback drenched, stop start noise rock blow out, soaring synths over crushing crashing chords, delirious drum pound and wild howled vox, a weirdly tripped out abstract psychedelic finale.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "On The Stem"
MPEG Stream: "A Teardop On Your Grave / Downfall Of Xibalba"

DEAD FADER Corrupt My Examiner (3BY3) cd 15.98
If only all electronic music sounded this sick, so heavy and distorted and twisted! From the same label that brought us Cloaks' Versus Grain records, a big favorite around here with it's noisy, chaotic, industrial crunch, Dead Fader do something similar, taking a root sound that's equal parts dubstep, electro, and that sort of synthy heavy Ed Banger stuff, and then cranks it WAY up, the beats are thick and distorted and crumbly, the synths are thick and fuzzed out and also WAY distorted, there's noise all over the place, rumble and buzz and whir and skree, feedback, glitched out damage, but all woven into super funky fucked up grooves, it's like some modern electronic record given an old school DHR makeover, reminds us a lot of Fever, for those of you who remember them, their record maybe one of the heaviest most distorted sort-of-hip-hop records ever.
The label compares Dead Fader to Burial playing through Slayer's backline, which isn't really that far off the mark, the sounds here are in-the-red, blown out, there are distorted almost black metal vocals buried in the mix, streaks of feedback, the beats and synths careen wildly, panned super hard, swinging from speaker to speaker, it's dizzying and relentless, dark and dense, abstract and freaky, with weird bursts of Goblin-y prog, thick pulsing synths, creeping monklike chanting, flurries of skitter and stutter, crumbling walls of electronic sound that are practically metal in their timbre and intensity, but for all its crunch and pummel, all its ferocity and aggression, and fucked up weirdness, it still manages to be melodic and groovy, funky and fun, the sort of dancemusic that we always wished existed, and it makes even the most intense jams and block rockin' beats from folks like Daft Punk or the Basement Jaxx or the Chemical Brothers or whoever sound downright flaccid.
Electronic record of the year? Quite possibly...
MPEG Stream: "Autumn Rot"
MPEG Stream: "JBE Zorg"
MPEG Stream: "No Thief"

DEAD HATE THE LIVING Shock And Awe (Hyperrealist) cd 14.98

DEAD INSIDE s/t (Target:Earth Productions) cd 14.98
Found a few of these tucked away in the closet, just four copies of 2007's self titled full length from this now defunct Belgian black metal horde, which features members of Gotmoor, Paragon Impure, Verloren, and a bunch of others.
While this is definitely black metal, it's more on the 'black 'n' roll' side of the grim black spectrum, meaning that blasting beats and buzzing riffs are wound into more rock arrangments, the band sounding like a filhty crusty D-beat juggernaut, serving up crushing slabs of double bass driven downtuned chug alongside Entombed style melodic black metal, lumbering deathmarch style midtempo plod, twisted chaotic noise rock and full on muddy and murky blackend buzz-drenched heaviness. Killer.
MPEG Stream: "The Devil's Haven"
MPEG Stream: "Synthetic Terrorist"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Inside"

DEAD KENNEDYS Milking The Sacred Cow (Manifesto) cd 9.98

DEAD LETTERS SPELL DEAD WORDS Lost In Reflections (Killer Pimp) cd 11.98
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "This Room Seems Empty Without You"
MPEG Stream: "Lost & Losing"
MPEG Stream: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS 11 Instances Of Dead Letters + Words (Ideal) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS A Line : Align (Mystery Sea) cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Found a stash of these in the back room. Lucky thing too since these Mystery Sea discs are limited to 100 copies, AND they're amazing, so you get one more chance you lucky bastards, don't blow it:
This is the first time we've reviewed anything by Swedish dronescaper Thomas Ekelund, aka Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, which is weird as folks around here are big fans. It's not for lack of releases, he's been pretty prolific, it just one of those things, so many releases, artists, records, so little time.
Well, we aim to change that all right now, with this, the latest from Ekelund, a limited cd-r released on night-ocean-drone label Mystery Sea, and Ekelund's sounds here sound right at home. Three looooong tracks, the first, ultra minimal, it takes minutes to get going, but once it does, it's a fantastic expanse of ultra minimalism, so minimal in fact that much of it borders on Francisco Lopez territory. But turn it up, and listen close, and Ekelund's soundworld will reveal itself to you. A washed out murmur, peppered part way through with footsteps, the sound of metal on metal, some sort of random field recording, of men working, the clang and clatter overshadowing the whispery sounds beneath, but by the end of the first track, those whispery sounds have built into growling swells, thick smears of muted melody, crumbling and almost industrial sounding when paired with the grind and creak of the workmen.
The second track starts off in a similar fashion, strange super close mic'd sounds, thumps and scrapes, crinkles and cracks, over a super busy microscopic dronescape, all hisses and whirs and little bits of almost invisible melody, but it doesn't take long for that track to also swell into something dense and thick, high end tones rest atop a pulsing sea swell like drone, the low end fading out leaving a strangely dreamy high end shimmer, eventually fading out and leaving just those strange clunks and scrapes and that whirling swirling whisper beneath.
The closing track is a continuation of track two, in fact, they all sort of fit together into one sprawling soundscape, but the closer remains murky and minimal, a subtle scraping floating on a thick, but soft and smeared low end rumble, it's only in the last minute or two that other sounds join in, strange twinkles and glimmers, like laying on the ocean floor and watching bits of sunlight slowly make their way through the swirling blue grey sea.
Amazing packaging too, full color tray card, numbered, the booklet a half booklet, leaving half of the cd face exposed. Very striking.
And as always LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "At Keiller's Park (Summer 2006)"
MPEG Stream: "At Keiller's Park (Fall 2007)"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS Lost In Reflections (Ideal / Fang Bomb / Release The Bats) lp+7" 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! This recent Record Of The Week now on lp, lp AND 7" to be exact, as it was too much music to fit on a single lp. Fancy packaging, thick vinyl, very swank, and of course very limited!
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "This Room Seems Empty Without You"
MPEG Stream: "Lost & Losing"
MPEG Stream: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive"

DEAD LUKE Meanwhile.... In The Midwest (Moon Glyph) lp 11.98
We first caught Dead Luke's name on an older Zola Jesus album, back when it was all about the murk, grit and lo-fi griminess of her sound. Wisconsin was home to both artists at the time; but she soon left for Hollywood on a meteoric rise for goth-diva fame, and Dead Luke stayed behind inoculating himself from Midwestern boredom with his spring-reverb saturated, outsider psychedelia. With a name like Dead Luke, you might half expect a suitably depressive lo-fi goth thing (especially with a couple of singles on Sacred Bones along with that former connection to Zola Jesus); but Dead Luke's downer vibe is the result of being a stoner rather than an occultist, with his awesomely lazy psychedelic numbers that channel 13 Floor Elevators through the heavily sedated period of Spacemen 3. Contemporarily speaking, this album plants itself right between the rockabilly minimalism of Dirty Beaches and the shambolic retro-blast of Thee Oh Sees. Dead Luke tangles those archetypal blues chords and strutting basslines with overblown fuzz, lo-fi crunch, and swampy spring-reverb excess, with his songs always devolving out of the verse / chorus structure of the song and into a hypnotic groove rippling with melodic yet droned-out organs, as a nod to the Perfect Prescription era bleariness from Spacemen 3. He even does an old Bo Diddley number in "I'm A Man," albeit all mumbled and narcotized. "Paranoia Is A Flower Of The Mind" must be an ode to the side effects of altered states, even as the song is a sprawling, ramshackle number of drugged out American psychedelia. Yeah, it's that good. No download code, though.

DEAD MACHINES Futures (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 11.98
Man, as someone who works with computers a LOT, I was listening to this record while thinking about what "dead machines" means to me and hmmm... wish they titled it Fan Works, Won't Boot Up.
And even though that's sort of a joking title, it would actually describe what this noise-scape record sounds like.
On an artistic level, there is something genuinely nice here. Very little variances in overall sound level and track length make this seem almost like some sort of stilted dialogue amongst a sea of dying machines. Or very similar to the background white noise folley from Blade Runner.
Dead Machines is actually a magical New York noise couple: John Olsen (Wolf Eyes) and Tova O'Rourke (Wooden Wand, Vanishing Voice). Parts of this album remind us of SF's own Patrick Mullins from Burmese who creates aural apolocalypses in the same vein, using a multitude of electronics and sound manipulation.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

DEAD MACHINES Live at Tzompantli (Eclipse) lp 14.98

DEAD MACHINES / DAMION ROMERO / JOHN WIESE Friday the Thirteenth (Anarchymoon Recordings) 2lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With a lineup like that you'd probably be expecting some sort of ear splitting noise free-for-all. A blasting batch of brutality designed to melt your speakers into little black puddles, to send your neighbors diving for the phone to call the cops, the sort of N O I S E that is gloriously and literally unlistenable. Well, in this case, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
In fact all four sides of this quadruple live set, are downright listenable, if not actually lovely here and there. An epic 4 sided dark ambient dronefest, that while hitting the spot for the usual suspects, will definitely also appeal to the drone minded among you as well as the Earth / SUNNO))) dronedoomdirge obsessed.
John Wiese of Bastard Noise and about a million other projects starts things off not with a bang, but a rumbling whir, a slowly unfurling blanket of crumbling fuzz and hiss, muted minimal ambience rife with pulsing low end and thick rivers of black shimmer. This is dark ambience more than noise, strange disembodied melodies, drifting all ghost like, haunting and surprisingly pretty, but without ever losing its overall bleak and ominous vibe. Definitely the best thing we've heard from Wiese.
So at this point we sort of expected Dead Machines to kick it up a notch, and they do, sort of. Beginning with a grinding symphony of buzzing analog synths and fuzzed out feedback, but that quickly gives way to a very Wolf Eyesian industrial ambient wasteland, clang and rumble, creaking and crumbling clatter, barely there dreamlike whir, distant high end melodies, downright blisssful before a coda of thick buzz and roaring damaged noise (but even then, it sounds really fuzzy and washed out)
It's up to Romero then, to get things good and noisy, but surprise surprise, Romero follows suit, offering up maybe the most tranquil and drone-y set of the bunch, thick undulating low end throb, overtones shifting and beating against each other, sounding like a doom metal Phill Niblock. Gorgeous and dreamy but still dark and menacing.
The final track, taking up all of side 4, features this fearsome foursome, Romero, Wiese and the two Dead Machines, teaming up for an epic and one would assume chaotic and noisy collaboration, but once again, we're thrown a serious curveball. Instead of all four piling up on top of each other and making a huge loud mess, they deftly intertwine their sounds into a subtle dark drift. Only once exploding into a full on noise drenched onslaught, spending most of the time rumbling and whirring and weaving a dense and dreamy world of dark drones, and mysterious sonic shapes. Really fucking awesome.
Double lp, pressed on THICK black vinyl, packaged in super elaborate, three color silkscreened fold over sleeves and LIMITED TO 515 COPIES...

DEAD MACHINES, THE Human Brain Wasting Syndrome lp 15.98

DEAD MAN Euphoria (Crusher) cd 21.00
We kinda think that when we're reviewing a band's eagerly awaited new album, for instance their follow up to a debut we really liked, that it's not entirely unreasonable for us just to say, hey, please go read our review of that first record (or provide a brief summary, like in this case: awesome Swedish time trippin', '70s sounding stoner psych prog a la Dungen, Elope, Witchcraft) and then for us to go on to say, this one is ALSO awesome, so if you liked that one get this, and if you haven't heard either, get both! If you like this retro-'70s sort of thing, that is. Reasonable, right?
Dead Man's Euphoria is maybe a bit mellower than their self-titled debut, certainly much closer to the sun-dappled poppiness of Elope than to the Sabbathy proto-metal heaviness of Witchcraft. But it could definitely appeal to those into the moody folkiness -and- progginess of the latter.
They're still big time '70s throwbacks, they look and sound like bunch of long haired ol' hippies. Back to the land types, doing their thing out on some farm / commune someplace. Definitely a lazy, hazy, rustic vibe here, quite a bit Grateful Dead-y in point of fact. Some tracks are long (8, 9 proggy minutes for "The Wheel" and "Rest In Piece") while others breeze by in under two or three minutes. There's acoustic guitars and backporch bluesy bits (the singer asking someone for some lemon-squeezin' in "A Pinch Of Salt" ferinstance), and an overall placid, summery feel. Real pleasant, but ofttimes melancholic too. The vocals, particularly when handled by the guy with the wavery, breathy, close-to-tears voice, are quite emotive. (Those could be tears of joy though, the album's called Euphoria after all.)
And that's not to say that Dead Man don't heavy it up with the guitars now and then, they do, some swinging hard rock riffage certainly is heard, but this is mostly much lighter and gentler than you might be used to from the more doomy likes of Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard... out of that Swedish '70s lovin' scene, Dead Man do the least to live up to the more evil implications of their name! But for melodiousness and progginess and flutey folkiness they're holding their own. We like!!
FYI, this will supposedly be getting a domestic cd release in June, we've just learned. Also they should be coming over to the US for a tour this fall, cool!
MPEG Stream: "Today"
MPEG Stream: "The Wheel"
MPEG Stream: "Light Vast Corridors"

DEAD MAN Euphoria (Crusher) lp 22.00
We kinda think that when we're reviewing a band's eagerly awaited new album, for instance their follow up to a debut we really liked, that it's not entirely unreasonable for us just to say, hey, please go read our review of that first record (or provide a brief summary, like in this case: awesome Swedish time trippin', '70s sounding stoner psych prog a la Dungen, Elope, Witchcraft) and then for us to go on to say, this one is ALSO awesome, so if you liked that one get this, and if you haven't heard either, get both! If you like this retro-'70s sort of thing, that is. Reasonable, right?
Dead Man's Euphoria is maybe a bit mellower than their self-titled debut, certainly much closer to the sun-dappled poppiness of Elope than to the Sabbathy proto-metal heaviness of Witchcraft. But it could definitely appeal to those into the moody folkiness -and- progginess of the latter.
They're still big time '70s throwbacks, they look and sound like bunch of long haired ol' hippies. Back to the land types, doing their thing out on some farm / commune someplace. Definitely a lazy, hazy, rustic vibe here, quite a bit Grateful Dead-y in point of fact. Some tracks are long (8, 9 proggy minutes for "The Wheel" and "Rest In Piece") while others breeze by in under two or three minutes. There's acoustic guitars and backporch bluesy bits (the singer asking someone for some lemon-squeezin' in "A Pinch Of Salt" ferinstance), and an overall placid, summery feel. Real pleasant, but ofttimes melancholic too. The vocals, particularly when handled by the guy with the wavery, breathy, close-to-tears voice, are quite emotive. (Those could be tears of joy though, the album's called Euphoria after all.)
And that's not to say that Dead Man don't heavy it up with the guitars now and then, they do, some swinging hard rock riffage certainly is heard, but this is mostly much lighter and gentler than you might be used to from the more doomy likes of Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Graveyard... out of that Swedish '70s lovin' scene, Dead Man do the least to live up to the more evil implications of their name! But for melodiousness and progginess and flutey folkiness they're holding their own. We like!!
FYI, this will supposedly be getting a domestic cd release in June, we've just learned. Also they should be coming over to the US for a tour this fall, cool!
MPEG Stream: "Today"
MPEG Stream: "The Wheel"
MPEG Stream: "Light Vast Corridors"

DEAD MAN s/t (Crusher Records) cd 21.00
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
MPEG Stream: "Goin' Over The Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Haunted Man"

DEAD MAN s/t (Crusher) lp 21.00
Hey, now on vinyl, Dead Man's first record, to go along with their new album (see nearby)... What we said about the cd version:
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
MPEG Stream: "Goin' Over The Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Haunted Man"

DEAD MEADOW Feathers (Matador) cd 10.98
Dead Meadow time again, ah it's always so nice. It's like being told it's time to take an afternoon nap, a *heavy* nap that is, wrapped in the warm comfort of Dead Meadow's vibrations. DC's Dead Meadow are throwbacks to an earlier age, when bellbottoms and bongs were the order of the day and bands played 'head' music... Kitsch that might be now, but damn they're good and we can all use a good nap once in a while, 'specially one that'll let us do a Rip Van Winkle in reverse and wind up spending a blissed out afternoon in 1969, y'know? It's all very very stoned, Dead Meadow spacing-out more than ever before over the course of this 57 minute cd/double lp. More dreamy than heavy this time out, really, I mean it is "heavy, maaan" heavy, but not as Blue Cheery as before (or maybe they've gotten into the latter, less-well-known, mellower Blue Cheer LPs). Even with the addition of a second guitar player to the line-up, Dead Meadow are now more light and drifty than lugubrious and dirgey. Hypnotic as always, but the thudding riffs are taking a back seat to the melodies here, rustic hippy sundappled hazy smoke melodies. And it's a beautiful thing. I mean, don't worry, they've still got their Sleep's Holy Mountain moments but we think their Pink Floyd tendencies are getting the upper hand here. I guess they called it Feathers for a reason. But we're pretty sure that if you liked their last album Shivering King, you'll like this!
MPEG Stream: "Let's Jump In"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"

DEAD MEADOW Feathers (Matador) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dead Meadow time again, ah it's always so nice. It's like being told it's time to take an afternoon nap, a *heavy* nap that is, wrapped in the warm comfort of Dead Meadow's vibrations. DC's Dead Meadow are throwbacks to an earlier age, when bellbottoms and bongs were the order of the day and bands played 'head' music... Kitsch that might be now, but damn they're good and we can all use a good nap once in a while, 'specially one that'll let us do a Rip Van Winkle in reverse and wind up spending a blissed out afternoon in 1969, y'know? It's all very very stoned, Dead Meadow spacing-out more than ever before over the course of this 57 minute cd/double lp. More dreamy than heavy this time out, really, I mean it is "heavy, maaan" heavy, but not as Blue Cheery as before (or maybe they've gotten into the latter, less-well-known, mellower Blue Cheer LPs). Even with the addition of a second guitar player to the line-up, Dead Meadow are now more light and drifty than lugubrious and dirgey. Hypnotic as always, but the thudding riffs are taking a back seat to the melodies here, rustic hippy sundappled hazy smoke melodies. And it's a beautiful thing. I mean, don't worry, they've still got their Sleep's Holy Mountain moments but we think their Pink Floyd tendencies are getting the upper hand here. I guess they called it Feathers for a reason. But we're pretty sure that if you liked their last album Shivering King, you'll like this!
MPEG Stream: "Let's Jump In"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"

DEAD MEADOW Got Live If You Want It (The Commitee To Keep Music Evil / Bomp) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine) is a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).
RealAudio clip: "Rocky Mountain High"
RealAudio clip: "Lady"

DEAD MEADOW Got Live If You Want It (The Commitee To Keep Music Evil / Bomp) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fitting for a band that harks back to the days when vinyl was king, here's the LP version of "Got Live If You Want It" (or maybe "If Yo Want It", which appears on the spine), a surprise live release from a band with only two studio albums to their credit. Now, in the past we've given good reviews to Dead Meadow, really liking their retro stoner rock sound, heavy psychedelia derived from Blue Cheer and other past masters, along with tinges of their modern-day indie rock lineage. But we've always made one caveat: the singer's whiny voice simply sucks. One would hope that live, his nasal drone would be helpfully drowned out by the band's massive amp-abuse. But, on this recording at least, such is not the case. However, like their studio albums, much of this is instrumental anyway, and if you're already a fan, you can deal with this -- you either actually like the vocals (good god!) or have learned to tune 'em out (as I did) and will certainly enjoy wallowing in the spacey, jammed-out, lopingly heavy live Dead Meadow live experience as presented here: over 45 minutes (eight tracks total) of well-recorded versions songs from both of Dead Meadow's LPs, plus two we don't recognize (new tunes perhaps), all as performed live in Hoboken in the winter of 2002. Not much more needs to be said. Those new to the band would be better advised to start with either of their two albums on Tolotta: "Dead Meadow" and/or "Howls From The Hills" -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews. Or, wait 'til next year when they're scheduled to release a new album on Matador! (Where they'll fit in well with the likes of Bardo Pond).

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Tolotta) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" is Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan is one of their labelmates) and it picks right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... Unfortunately guitarist Jason Simon's somewhat whiny (thankfully not ever-present) vocals are still a taste we have yet to acquire, but that's not enough to sink this heavy, hairy beast. The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff...it's power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Xemu) cd 14.98
The second album from Dead Meadow now gets proper reissue treatment from Xemu who also reissued their great debut a few months back. With the recent explosion of stoner psych-rock it's nice to revisit Dead Meadow's beginnings as they are a big part of the recent resurgence of Sabbath inspired rock with smart psych undertones. Recorded in 2001 this has all the ingredients that has made the band an AQ favorite over this past decade. Here's what we said the first time around:
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" was Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's now-defunct stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan was one of their labelmates) and it picked right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff... power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?
MPEG Stream: "Dusty Nothing"
MPEG Stream: "Jusiamere Farm"

DEAD MEADOW Howls From The Hills (Tolotta) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anything recorded at a "mobile mystic gnome studio" has got to be good, right? Well, at least if you're in the mood from some suitably stoned, retro-rocking, Blue Cheer worship from this very heavy and psychedelic Virginia-based band. "Howls From The Hills" is Dead Meadow's second album for Joe Lally of Fugazi's stoner-positive Tolotta label (Spirit Caravan is one of their labelmates) and it picks right up where the first one left off, with weighty grooves, mellow jams, Sleep-worthy guitars, hippie imagery... Unfortunately guitarist Jason Simon's somewhat whiny (thankfully not ever-present) vocals are still a taste we have yet to acquire, but that's not enough to sink this heavy, hairy beast. The wah, the fuzz, the drone, the riff...it's power trio spacerock mayhem galore, spiced with sitar and cello. In the current stoner rock scene, these guys seem just so much more authentic than most. And is that not a great album cover, or what?`

DEAD MEADOW Old Growth (Matador) cd 13.98
Old Growth shows that Dead Meadow have grown oh so very comfortable with their now trademark sound, one that hazily recalls the Black Sabbath/Blue Cheer thud of their early albums, but downplays that sort of heaviness in favor of the mellowed-out, more melodic lighter touch we loved about the dreamy, Floydian-feelin' Feathers, their previous album from 2005.
Maybe they've gotten just a little too comfortable with it, as this new one doesn't push forward too much further, their smoke cloud drifting on to settle over another set of loping, lazy stoner groovage, with whiney vocals mumbled in their usual style. There's a whole lotta psychedelic blues rock guitar, but not so much in the way of heavy riffing. Instead, a lot of this is sorta stripped down, the very first track "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" somehow reminding us of something the White Stripes might do. And it's definitely a "song-oriented" album.
It's probably a 50-50 proposition that fans of Feathers (the album, not the band) will either be well pleased with this or feel sorta blah on it, really depends on how these songs strike you. Some of 'em we really dig. Dead Meadow heads from way back might have been hoping this time for more heaviness, however.
MPEG Stream: "Aint't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)"
MPEG Stream: "The Queen Of All Returns"

DEAD MEADOW Old Growth (Matador) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Old Growth shows that Dead Meadow have grown oh so very comfortable with their now trademark sound, one that hazily recalls the Black Sabbath/Blue Cheer thud of their early albums, but downplays that sort of heaviness in favor of the mellowed-out, more melodic lighter touch we loved about the dreamy, Floydian-feelin' Feathers, their previous album from 2005.
Maybe they've gotten just a little too comfortable with it, as this new one doesn't push forward too much further, their smoke cloud drifting on to settle over another set of loping, lazy stoner groovage, with whiney vocals mumbled in their usual style. There's a whole lotta psychedelic blues rock guitar, but not so much in the way of heavy riffing. Instead, a lot of this is sorta stripped down, the very first track "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" somehow reminding us of something the White Stripes might do. And it's definitely a "song-oriented" album.
It's probably a 50-50 proposition that fans of Feathers (the album, not the band) will either be well pleased with this or feel sorta blah on it, really depends on how these songs strike you. Some of 'em we really dig. Dead Meadow heads from way back might have been hoping this time for more heaviness, however.
MPEG Stream: "Aint't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)"
MPEG Stream: "The Queen Of All Returns"

DEAD MEADOW s/t (Tolatta) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dead Meadow are a retro stoner psych rock power trio playing fuzzed out space-jams in a heavy and rollicking yet still kinda mellow mode. For fans of Blue Cheer and their fellow Tolatta act Spirit Caravan. They're also reminiscent of a more jammed-out, psychedelic Sleep, but with some gentle touches--there's even interludes of acoustic guitar indie-pop. This one grew on us! It's definitely more "out-of-time" than most other stoner rock efforts, harking back not to the arenas of the '70s but to the garages and hippie pads of the late '60s. As such it stands apart from the current legions of Kyuss / Fu Manchu clones. The one weak point, the slightly whiny vocals, hardly matter amid the instrumental majesty of the electric fuzz guitar and bass action that dominates this album!
RealAudio clip: "Greensky Greenlake"