GUNSLINGERS No More Invention (World In Sound) cd 23.00
Woah. What a surprise! See, the German psych/prog/kraut specialists at World In Sound have been responsible for a lot of cool '60s/'70s reissues and comps (Cold Sun, Modulo 1000, Psychedelic Minds Vol.1...) but they also have released some unfortunately not-so-hot cds by a bunch of modern prog and stoner rock bands doing the retro thing, and well, we haven't reviewed any of those based on the old "if you don't have anything nice to say..." principle. Just not worth bothering. BUT, that was until this disc came along. Like we said, a surprise. This Julian Cope approved (Record Of The Month for August '08 on his Head Heritage website) band has come up with a doozy of debut (?) here, a real humdinger from these Gallic guitarslingers. Featuring Matthieu Canaguier on "thunderbass", Antoine Hadhoannou on "prophetic drums", and most importantly, badass-in-chief Gregory Raimo on "guitar & guitar lighter, yaya preach, feedback", this trio's No More Invention sounds something like the French answer to The Heads, or White Hills, or even Mainliner. Utter aggro over the top distortodelic geetar excess. Frickin' savage. SAVAGE.
Nope, not at all what we'd have expected from World In Sound. Not only have they found a current signing that's good, in fact great, said signing are also a lot more punk than we'd have thought. Heck we bet these guys grew up on Metal Urbain, maybe even Soggy! The rabid vocals are somewhere betwixt Johnny Rotten and Mark E. Smith, babbling indecipherably. They also remind us a bit of the guy from The Trashmen (if "Surfin' Bird" was a raving, epick 12:50 long biker/garage meltdown blowout kraut jam called "Lighter Slinger Festival", ferinstance). Some other song titles, just to whet yer sick appetites: "Into The Garage", "The Beheaded Motorbiker's Head", "Black Dwarf Man", "Gigolo Albinos", and (uh-oh) "Auschwitz Boogie". Nothing holy here. Simply full tilt, fucked up, freaking out-out-out. Don't come looking to Gunslingers for songs and melodies and suchlike. Come looking for the blinding white lighting of FX overloaded, speed freak amp-sploitation, and the rhythm section rough-and-tumble of mainlined rock action energy, and you'll find it. Timeless stuff, heck if this WAS a '70s acid-punk reissue we would be less surprised. Gunslingers could do battle with the likes of Gaseneta, based on what we're hearing here. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Lighter Slinger Festival"
MPEG Stream: "Black Dwarf Man"

GUNSLINGERS No More Invention (World In Sound) lp 28.00
NOW ON VINYL!! Woah. What a surprise! See, the German psych/prog/kraut specialists at World In Sound have been responsible for a lot of cool '60s/'70s reissues and comps (Cold Sun, Modulo 1000, Psychedelic Minds Vol.1...) but they also have released some unfortunately not-so-hot cds by a bunch of modern prog and stoner rock bands doing the retro thing, and well, we haven't reviewed any of those based on the old "if you don't have anything nice to say..." principle. Just not worth bothering. BUT, that was until this disc came along. Like we said, a surprise. This Julian Cope approved (Record Of The Month for August '08 on his Head Heritage website) band has come up with a doozy of debut (?) here, a real humdinger from these Gallic guitarslingers. Featuring Matthieu Canaguier on "thunderbass", Antoine Hadhoannou on "prophetic drums", and most importantly, badass-in-chief Gregory Raimo on "guitar & guitar lighter, yaya preach, feedback", this trio's No More Invention sounds something like the French answer to The Heads, or White Hills, or even Mainliner. Utter aggro over the top distortodelic geetar excess. Frickin' savage. SAVAGE.
Nope, not at all what we'd have expected from World In Sound. Not only have they found a current signing that's good, in fact great, said signing are also a lot more punk than we'd have thought. Heck we bet these guys grew up on Metal Urbain, maybe even Soggy! The rabid vocals are somewhere betwixt Johnny Rotten and Mark E. Smith, babbling indecipherably. They also remind us a bit of the guy from The Trashmen (if "Surfin' Bird" was a raving, epick 12:50 long biker/garage meltdown blowout kraut jam called "Lighter Slinger Festival", ferinstance). Some other song titles, just to whet yer sick appetites: "Into The Garage", "The Beheaded Motorbiker's Head", "Black Dwarf Man", "Gigolo Albinos", and (uh-oh) "Auschwitz Boogie". Nothing holy here. Simply full tilt, fucked up, freaking out-out-out. Don't come looking to Gunslingers for songs and melodies and suchlike. Come looking for the blinding white lighting of FX overloaded, speed freak amp-sploitation, and the rhythm section rough-and-tumble of mainlined rock action energy, and you'll find it. Timeless stuff, heck if this WAS a '70s acid-punk reissue we would be less surprised. Gunslingers could do battle with the likes of Gaseneta, based on what we're hearing here. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Lighter Slinger Festival"
MPEG Stream: "Black Dwarf Man"

GUNTER, BERNHARD brown, blue, brown on blue (for Mark Rothko) (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Inspired by the modernist minimalism of Mark Rothko, Bernhard Gunter presents a rather audible composition (in comparison to his other not so audible records) of his dark gray minimalism in which gossamer fragments of droning sound are situated on the 'trademarked' silences as icy aural floes exposing their textural surfaces under sparse glimmers of lights. Recommended.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Crossing the River (Night Music) (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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Byram once asked the rhetorical question, "What self-respecting composer doesn't have their oevre divided into three periods?" While Mr. Abbott was describing one of the many successes from the late period of Morton Feldman, Bernhard Gunter is a composer who hasn't had a long enough career to break into three distinct periods. However, I would postulate that with the trilogy of "Time, Dreaming Itself," "Then, Silence," and "Crossing The River (Night Music)," Gunter has created enough stylistic differences from his earliest recordings to warrant the claim that he has entered the second period of his life's work.
Where albums like "Un Peu De Neige Salie," and "Details Agrandis" situated barely audible pin pricks of piercing sounds against fields of Promethean silences, that aforementioned trilogy finds Gunter increasing the volume to far more perceptible levels and filling lengthy spaces with fluid passages of gradually building / decaying tonalities. He has proudly exclaimed all of his influences (Xenakis, Rothko, Feldman, Nono, and Bill Viola) through his work, and these pieces clearly show how great an influence Feldman especially has been upon his electro-acoustic minimalism. Gunter has quite literally been extending the slow motion aesthetics of Morton Feldman out of the chamber ensemble and into the language of electronic abstraction.
Gunter still maintains that all of his compositions are the manipulation of everyday sounds, yet these processed elements hold richly complex sonorous qualities that are more in common with oboes, cellos, and church organs than radiator pipes or rustled cutlery.
The problems with the argument that Gunter has entered his second period are obvious: his changes aren't terribly radical in scope, and may merely give evidence to his aesthetic malleability, he hasn't made any grand existential changes in his life that could warrant a profound change in aesthetic; and, of course, Gunter hasn't made such a proclamation.
Regardless of this silly romp into semantics, Gunter has produced his best record to date in "Crossing The River (Night Music)." Thank you for your patience.
RealAudio clip: "Crossing The River (Night Music)"

GUNTER, BERNHARD Details Agrandis (Table Of The Elements) cd 15.98

GUNTER, BERNHARD Monochrome Rust (12K) 2cd 19.98
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"Monochrome Rust" -- which completes the ideas found on Gunter's "Monochrome White" double disc set -- finds Gunter returning to the space of near inaudibility as previously explored on his earlier work in "Details Agrandis" and "Un Peu De Neige Salie." I say near inaudibily, as Gunter has constructed this piece to maintain a consistency through the incredibly tiny crackling of digital shimmer and erratic high end warbling; but at normal listening levels, it is so quiet as to barely assert itself above the hard drive from the computer I'm using to write this review. When the drive powers down every couple of minutes and the sounds of "Monochrome Rust" are left to situate themselves against the background of Valencia Street road noise, this chorus of digital chirps is incredibly complex, building subtle repetitions and orchestrating various swells in density.
Gunter pairs "Monochome Rust" with "Differntial," an equally ephemeral construction that ripples with a vaguely noxious tonal frequency amidst the delicate digital clattering. I'm still much more of a fan of Gunter's recent "Crossing The River," but this is much more interesting than the majority of the Microsound encampment.
RealAudio clip: "Monochrome Rust"
RealAudio clip: "Differential"

GUNTER, BERNHARD Monochrome White (Line / 12K) 2cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The ultra-minimalist Bernhard Gunter created Monochrome White in attempts to simulate the experiential weightlessness that Gunter found within a recent Bill Viola retrospective of his video installations. Gunter conceptualized that this mimesis could take place through a steady spectrum of high frequencies, as if they could "lift it off the ground, so to speak." Monochrome White is just that: a barely wavering, stark white beam of high frequencies. Not bad, but this is certainly not one of Gunter's finer moments. If you're looking for one of his better recordings, check out Time, Dreaming Itself.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Redshift (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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As Gunter's last couple of releases have been dedicated to Xenakis, Feldman, Bill Viola, Rothko, and Luigi Nono, his work could be qualified as a sort of ultra-minimalist portraiture, with each album as a quiet impression of how Gunter remembers and / or has been influenced by those artists. "Redshift" on the other hand had no specific artist in mind, though upon its completion, Gunter associated the work with the astronomical phenomenon of light from the farthest galaxies shifting to the red end of the light spectrum, offering proof of the theories that the universe is expanding. It's nice to see that an artist (especially one within the often stodgy field of minimalism) allows himself the freedom to actually listen to the work after its completion and form a unique association, instead of forcing the sounds of a composition into a predetermined conceptualization. Anyway, "Redshift" combines very quiet, digitally deconstructed textures of something like a glass bottle rubbing over wood or metal along with x-ray impressions of sound fluctuating from deep space. As the composition continues, Gunter incorporates the microtonal two note patterns which had been active in his Feldmanesque masterpiece "Crossing The River."
The second piece "Abscheid" is a wholly different composition of softened orchestral elements, what could be french horn, cello, church organ, and even a few pluckings of a harp, that have been drawn out into lovely darkened drones and sustained tonalities. Very nice.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Then, Silence (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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With the recent reissues from Luigi Nono and Morton Feldman, their influences upon ultra-minimalist Bernhard Gunter appear quite pronounced, mostly through compositional similarities in building slow organic fluctuations, although all three have arrived at a similar timbre through differing methods and instrumentation. Gunter has, not surprisingly, dedicated Then, Silence to both Nono and Feldman, doing his best to hybridize both composers' idiosyncracies into his own quiet aesthetic. As with his more recent recordings, Gunter has resisted his propensity for quietness to the point of inaudibilty. Right from the beginning, Gunters maps out a series of low end processed tones which erupt with a piercing feedback frequency. With this being the loudest element of Gunter's composition (and his whole back catalogue for that matter!), it sets up a gradual decline in volume that persists until the final fade out of the 40 minute piece. While he's probably still composing within the confines of the computer, Gunter has been recently allowing his source material to have more of its own voice, and here a harmonium-esque organ is Gunter's featured instrument along with a variety of Pierre Schaeffer-esque cutlery clinks. A fitting homage to two of the 20th century's great composers.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Time, Dreaming Itself (Trente Oiseaux) cd 17.98
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With all of the sirens, cell phone conversations that need to be directed outside, and ambient street noise, a Bernhard Gunter record with all of the details buried deep within the non-space of quiet shouldn't be able to be heard above the ambient din of Aquarius. Yet, "Time, Dreaming Itself" is an outrageous Gunter record, simply because it's audible. Fragments of organ drone fizzle from complex fields of haziness into delicate detail work of crackling digital minutae. It could be that Gunter's intent has shifted way from allowing his work to slowly build out of silence into a louder volume that captures the listeners attention and then wanes into his more trademarked sub-audibilities!

GUNTER, BERNHARD / STEVE RODEN Japan (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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Minimalist composers Bernhard Gunter and Steve Roden had intended on selling this split CD exclusively on their tour in Japan in November 2001, but became so fond of the recordings they decided to let the rest of the world have access to them as well. Gunter offers very very very quiet musing on the textures of shortwave radio. Beginning with extended silences, Gunter allows for tiny scrapes to come through his shortwave as if some electrical field (like lightning or sunspot activity) were crackling through an empty shortwave channel. Gradually, other shortwave sounds of grounding static and modulating heterodynes filter up through the mix, forming structural loops and delicate fluctuations. Steve Roden temporarily turns away from the extremely minimalist ethos usually found within Trente Oiseaux's tableaux with one of his two pieces being a performance on a zither, being both bowed and plucked. His second piece is far more indicative of the typical ice-floe constructions of Trente Oiseaux, as recordings of the same steel strung instrument have been processed with various computer ring modulators.
RealAudio clip: BERNHARD GUNTER "Particles / Waves"
RealAudio clip: STEVE RODEN "Every Color Moving"
RealAudio clip: STEVE RODEN "Eden"

GURDJIEFF, G.I. Harmonic Development: The Complete Harmonium Recordings 1948-1949 (Basta) 3cd + book 60.00
Oh boy! This is another one of those releases that pushes all of our overwhelming music obsessive buttons, like the Conet Project, The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv 1900-2000 box, the Yahowa 13cd box, the 50 cd Merzbox, the Ayler Holy Ghost box...
Compiled and produced by Gert-Jan Blom of the Beau Hunks, Harmonic Development brings to light the long lost harmonium performances of the fascinating Georg Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) whom some of you will know much better as a thinker and philosopher than a musician. This release consists of a beautifully designed 140 page softbound book filled with tons of photos and historical and personal minutae, accompanied by two compact discs of music in a digipack AND an additional disc of mp3's (that brings the total amount of music to over 19 hours!!) as well as a cool MPEG video of Gurdjieff home movies. Holy crap! So first, who was G.I. Gurdjieff? Well, the simple version is that Gurdjieff was an early twentieth century Russian mystic (and retired hypnotist), who drew inspiration from Sufism, and was fascinated with music. Gurdjieff had composed for piano for some years, but late in life he acquired first a wire recorder, and then a tape recorder, to document his improvisations (his "moosic") on the harmonium, a sort of pump organ, that produces a sound that is rich and full, a sort of lush, wheezing melodious moan, haunting and otherworldly. This collection gathers up recordings from the forties, from the last few years of Gurdjieff's life, and feature loads of intimate performances, several talks, and lots of ambient chit chat. It seems that Gurdjieff would perform a piece, slow and sad and gorgeously dreamy, enveloping all of his listeners in the mood, and when he was finished, he would then crack jokes and make small talk. Many of these performances feature this strange juxtaposition of almost religious intensity, and breezy lighthearted banter, which was somehow another part of his unique world view. We've yet to delve completely into the book, but even on their own, the discs are wonderful and completely mesmerizing, offering up hours of droney, mysterious harmonium music, but all sorts of ambient sounds and snippets of conversations as well, giving these recordings almost the same sort of vibe as the Conet Project, a distant dark mystery, as if these sounds were pulled from the ether, captured from another world and another time. At once recognizable, but at the same time totally alien.
And as you enjoy the hours of recordings, you can peruse the book which contains a preface by Robert Fripp, information on the unearthing and restoration of the recordings, track notes, transcriptions of the talks, as well as recollections of Gurdjieff's final year from a host of friends and students, among them the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright.
MPEG Stream: "1B) New York Numbers #2"
MPEG Stream: "Wire B/1"

GURDJIEFF, G.I. & THOMAS DE HARTMAN Oriental Suite (Basta) 4cd+book 113.00

MPEG Stream: "N1"
MPEG Stream: "N2"
MPEG Stream: "N11"
MPEG Stream: "N21/N21bis"

GUROV, ANDRE New Rap Language (Jazz Fudge) cd 15.98
aka DJ Vadim. "Support the stop R&B killing hip hop movement" it says on the back.

GUROV, ANDRE New Rap Language (Jazz Fudge) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
aka DJ Vadim. "Support the stop R&B killing hip hop movement" it says on the back.

GURU Baldhead Slick & Da Click (LandSpeed) cd 17.98
Guru has one of the greatest voices in rap. Ice Cube's or DMX's are great too, but more mean and scratchy. I mean, when I imagine the devil, he sounds like Ice Cube. But Guru is smooth and effortless and his voice is deep and warm, and his flow is so ridiculous sometimes, like he always has way too much to say to fit it in the verse, but just keeps going and trails off into the next part. And Gang Starr was the shit, but post Gang Starr, Guru, started this Jazzmatazz crap and everything was smoooth and 'for the ladies'. But on 'Baldhead Slick...' The Guru has returned and this time the music is up to it. No smooth jazz, no chillout bullshit, this is hard and weird. The beats are slamming and the vocals are delivered with full force and maximum fury, but without losing the 'smooth'. Essential.
RealAudio clip: "Where's Our Money"
RealAudio clip: "Back 2 Back"

GURU Jazzmatazz: Streetsoul cd 16.98
A new installment in the popular hip hop and soul jazz crossover series created by Gangstarr's Guru. Featuring Macy Gray, Erykah Badu, Kelis, The Roots, Herbie Hancock, Les Nubians, and more.

GURU GURU Essen 1970 (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00
Here's an excellent live soundboard recording from this classic Krautrock power trio, performing at their early, uber-heavy peak. It's all drugged-out, mostly-instrumental cosmic stoner guitar jams, of course. You get versions of "Stone In" and "Der LSD-Marsch" from their spacey first album UFO, and "Bo Diddley" from their anarchic second album Hinten (which hadn't yet been released with this concert took place). Fans won't be disappointed -- it all sounds pretty great considering that these tapes were never originally meant for release, and the Garden Of Delights packaging job is superior as always, with a thick booklet of notes and photos.
Guru Guru have always been one of our favorite '70s German groups, definitely among the heaviest and freakiest in their early days, as documented here. Former free jazzers Mani Neumeier (drums, lots of drums) and Uli Trepte (bass), together with ex-Agitation Free axeman Ax Genrich, went on some heavy psychedelic improv trips yet to be exceeded. Perhaps Caspar Brotzmann heard these guys whilst but a toddler, years before he began his Massaker trio?
RealAudio clip: "Stone In"

GURU GURU Hinten (ZYX) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
2nd album from these heavy krautrock freaks.

GURU GURU Hinten (Captain Trip) cd 27.00
What it is exactly that constitutes "Krautrock" is definitely up for debate. It seems often largely construed to be the insistent, motorik pulses of Neu! and Can. But to limit the genre to just that would be a mistake. Bands like Guru Guru and Ash Ra Tempel were also present, bringing some of the heaviest psychedlia ever recorded. Hinten is the former band's second album, and a classic. Free range guitars grazing on open, organic jams. It is more evidently structured than their debut, UFO, while still retaining an improvisational feel that is as playful as it is crushingly acidic. This is one of both Allan and Cameron's favorites within the genre. Halfway between killer rock riffs and complete psychedelic blow-out. Essential, though an expensive Japanese import in its current incarnation.
MPEG Stream: "Electric Junk"
MPEG Stream: "The Meaning of Meaning"

GURU GURU Hinten (Wah Wah) lp 29.00
This Krautock essential, available on vinyl again for a limited time...
What it is exactly that constitutes "Krautrock" is definitely up for debate. It seems often largely construed to be the insistent, motorik pulses of Neu! and Can. But to limit the genre to just that would be a mistake. Bands like Guru Guru and Ash Ra Tempel were also present, bringing some of the heaviest psychedlia ever recorded. Hinten is the former band's second album, and a classic. Free range guitars grazing on open, organic jams. It is more evidently structured than their debut, UFO, while still retaining an improvisational feel that is as playful as it is crushingly acidic. This is one of both Allan and Cameron's favorites within the genre. Halfway between killer rock riffs and complete psychedelic blow-out. Essential, though an expensive Japanese import in its current incarnation.
MPEG Stream: "Electric Junk"
MPEG Stream: "The Meaning of Meaning"

GURU GURU Kanguru (Revisited / Brain) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
After a few years of unavailability, now this krautrock classic has been reissued again, as a domestically priced digipak on Revisited, as part of their Brain label reissue campaign. This was the 3rd album from Guru Guru, recorded in 1972 with producer Conny Plank, and it was the the last of theirs to really be about the power trio heavy rock (as opposed to the lighter, jazzier stuff they got into later on), and boy do they let it rip on a lot of this. At the same time, Guru Guru's goofier tendencies are also to the fore, as you can see from the picture on the sleeve of a leaping, why-be-normal Mani Neumeier (the drummer), which despite being on the back cover has become one of the iconic krautrock album art images, along with Kraftwerk's traffic cones, Faust's X-ray fist, and Amon Duul II's Shrat-the-reaper...
There's four long songs on Kanguru, none under 10 minutes, one of 'em over 15. And you'll quickly hear why, for instance, Makoto Kawabata and all the Acid Mothers Temple folks are so into this band. Psychedelic freakiness that's HEAVY, yet playful. "Oxymoron" is a trippy groove, featuring treated vocals chanting "smelled like shit, but it wasn't it" (presumably a drug reference). High or not, guitarist Ax Genrich gets let loose to slay it up on his axe, Hendrix-like. "Immer Lustig", "Baby Cake Walk" and "Ooga Booga" also all feature plenty of complex, burnin' guitar/bass/drums interplay, with the latter boasting the doomiest fuzz riffage. Wild stuff, it must have been a blast to see these guys play!
Guru Guru's previous album, Hinten, had a track called "Bo Diddley". Kanguru's songs are also suggestive of primal '50s rock n' roll influences - although stretched waaaaay out, and given a hippified, improvisatory, drugged-up makeover! Hmm, have you ever seen the live video of early Black Sabbath covering "Blue Suede Shoes" on a European TV show? Maybe the Guru guys had seen that too and it got 'em thinking...
MPEG Stream: "Oxymoron"
MPEG Stream: "Ooga Booga"

GURU GURU Moshi Moshi (EFA) cd 14.98
Neumeier's legendary krautrock band returns with a new record for '98, the Japan-themed Moshi Moshi...not a whole lot like their stuff from the early seventies, but inventive and rockin' nonetheless--similar to 1995's Wah Wah.

GURU GURU UFO (Spalax) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Heavy 1970 debut from this Krautrock power trio. Caspar Brotzmann was probably into this band when he was a baby... Very freaky ("Der LSD Marsch") and heavy. One of Allan's all-time Krautrock must-haves.

GURU GURU UFO (Captain Trip) cd 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What it is exactly that constitutes Krautrock is definitely up for debate. It seems often largely construed to be the insistent, motorik pulses of Neu! and Can. But to limit the genre to just that would be a mistake. Bands like Guru Guru and Ash Ra Tempel were also present, bringing some of the heaviest psychedlia ever recorded. UFO is the former band's debut effort. Fans of heavy psych, German rock of the '70s, and free improv jams will consider this absolutely essential. And chances are, those fans already own this, or they simply haven't found a copy yet... here's the currently in print, Japanese mini-LP sleeve version. Repetitive, hypnotic, transcendent. And at the same time jarring. This is a fist full of mushrooms being shoved through the speakers. Embrace it.
MPEG Stream: "Stone In"
MPEG Stream: "Der LSD - Marsch"

GURU GURU UFO (Lion Productions ) cd 14.98
The last time we reviewed a cd reissue of this classic krautrock record, it was an expensive Japanese import. Now, however, it's been given a domestic release by Lion Productions, so now's the time to turn on to it if you haven't already. And if you did spent like $30 for the import, you know the music was worth it. After all, Guru Guru's 1970 OHR label debut UFO is in many ways THEE ultimate in uber heavy druggy freaked out krautrock. A power trio indeed, powered by LSD...
If you're into the heavy freeform psych sounds of bands nowadays, from Earthless to Bardo Pond to Wooden Shjips to Comets On Fire to Acid Mothers Temple (who not long ago actually did an album with Guru Guru's maniac drummer, who's still going strong), then chances are this is one of your favorite records without you maybe even knowing it yet. The distortodelic jamming of Guru Guru's debut provides the template for so much to follow, and does it better than most! If you're like us, you've got a record collection full of stuff from Japan alone that owes a ton to the hirsute heaviness and musical madness of these three German hippies. Indeed, LSD-march takes their name from the last track here, "Der LSD-Marsch". Though they themselves of course owed a debt to Jimi Hendrix...
Guru Guru were acid rock band playing free jazz or vice versa, conjuring a storm of utter amped up whale call guitar feedback and loose lumbering bass-heavy riffage over an exploding minefield of splattering drum-detonations. Plus, trippy electronic interludes, soundscapes constructed with contact mics, tapes, and FX... in fact, the ten and a half minute title track is ALL droning subsonics, noise, scrape, and skree, and could be something by the Dead C, even. Thus, to use a little hyperbole, this album makes Blue Cheer's Vincebus Eruptum sound like a sugary pop sneeze!
Of the original three Guru Guru discs (UFO, Hinten, Kanguru) when they held to the power trio format, this one is the most raw, dense, doomy and destroyed, without so much of the overt humor that lightened up their later releases. Extreme enough to be considered both proto-metal, maybe, and also proto-noiserock. Like we said about this before: "Repetitive, hypnotic, transcendent. And at the same time, jarring. This is a fistful of mushrooms being shoved through the speakers. Embrace it."
Lion, as we have come to expect, does this reissue right, including a thick booklet of liner notes. There's a band history, and also an essay about OHR's Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, complete with extensive discography (from which we hope Lion selects even more records to reissue).
By the way, does anyone have info on who exactly "P. Hinten" is or was? He's quoted on the sleeve here saying "Soon the Ufos will land and mankind will meet much stronger brains and habits. Let's get ready for that." And Guru Guru's second album was titled Hinten. Obviously a big inspiration for these guys, but who is Hinten?
MPEG Stream: "Stone In"
MPEG Stream: "Next Time See You At The Dali Lama"
MPEG Stream: "Der LSD - Marsch"

GURU GURU UFO (Wah Wah) lp 27.00
This legendary krautrock jam finally available again on vinyl!!!
What it is exactly that constitutes Krautrock is definitely up for debate. It seems often largely construed to be the insistent, motorik pulses of Neu! and Can. But to limit the genre to just that would be a mistake. Bands like Guru Guru and Ash Ra Tempel were also present, bringing some of the heaviest psychedelia ever recorded. UFO is the former band's debut effort. Fans of heavy psych, German rock of the '70s, and free improv jams will consider this absolutely essential. And chances are, those fans already own this, or they simply haven't found a copy yet...
Repetitive, hypnotic, transcendent. And at the same time jarring. This is a fist full of mushrooms being shoved through the speakers. Embrace it.
MPEG Stream: "Stone In"
MPEG Stream: "Der LSD - Marsch"

GURU GURU Wiesbaden 1972 (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00

GURUH GIPSY s/t (Shadoks Music) lp 48.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GURUMANIAX Psy Valley Hill ( Bureau B) cd 17.98
Like a blast from the krautrock past, Bureau B brings us the debut album from Gurumaniax. But, unlike a lot of the German label's releases, this ISN'T a reissue - it's a brand new album featuring the two surviving members of krautrock legends Guru Guru, drummer Mani Neumeier and guitarist Ax Genrich. Hence the name, GuruManiAx, get it? Sadly, original bass player Uli Trepte passed away last year, so the trio is rounded out by new bassist Guy Segers from veteran art proggers Univers Zero (with guest Mario Engelter performing bass duties on two of the tracks as well). The final track here is entitled "For Uli T." but it's as if the whole thing is dedicated to his memory, doubtless he'd approve 'cause Gurumaniax is about the closest thing to ye olde Guru Guru as could be imagined, really it sounds like they went way back to the earliest albums by the original trio for inspiration (UFO, Hinten, and Kanguru, circa 1970-72). Dunno if they dropped some acid too, to get into the mood, we wouldn't be surprised...
It's card-carrying krautrock all right, freaky and psychedelic, meandering and mesmeric, mostly instrumental. Psy Valley Hill is full of lengthy, pulsating jams and drifting, echoing FX, with just enough (but not too much) of Guru Guru's trademark goofiness / weirdness (ferinstance, "Telefonladies", with the voices of telephone operators mixed into the music). Much of it is super spacey, with swirling electronics in all the nooks and crannies. Their MO seemingly involves lots and lots of improvisational freedom, yet each song finds structure and identity. Results range from the jauntily spaced-out free-rock-abilly of "Voodoo Touch" to, on the very next track, the chain-rattling abstract soundscape of "Electrosaurus", that could be something by Absolut Null Punkt.
Gurumaniax are good natured and generally mellowed out, but still venturesome, traipsing to the edge of the void and sometimes beyond. The splatter of Mani's percussion and the echoed unfurling of Ax's axe is often slow and steady, even somnolent or sedate, but elsewhere utterly urgent and agitated... Quite obviously, these guys know what they're doing, heck it was about 40 years ago they first started making these sort of sounds, now the bread and butter of bands like LSD-march, Circle, and of course Acid Mothers Temple, with whom the ever-energetic Neumeier has collaborated. And, speaking of Circle, we're really reminded of that Scandinavian band by track four, "Ghost Of Odin", a lazy almost dubbed-out jam, blissfully hypnotic, with occasional quirky vocal mutter, eventually building to a loud, distorted climax... nice!!
Mani is always making records, but it's especially exciting to hear again from Ax, whose last solo album back in 1995, Wave Cut, was quite fine. It's commendable that, without T., they decided not to officially bill this as a Guru Guru reunion. But, listening to it, they certainly could have. Gurumaniax is the real deal. Recommended! And not only to krautrock heads, but also to post rock types who like Tortoise and stuff like that, check this out and see if it's not too hippy for you!
MPEG Stream: "Drumoroto"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceship Memory"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Of Odin"

GURUMANIAX Psy Valley Hill ( Bureau B) lp 17.98
Like a blast from the krautrock past, Bureau B brings us the debut album from Gurumaniax. But, unlike a lot of the German label's releases, this ISN'T a reissue - it's a brand new album featuring the two surviving members of krautrock legends Guru Guru, drummer Mani Neumeier and guitarist Ax Genrich. Hence the name, GuruManiAx, get it? Sadly, original bass player Uli Trepte passed away last year, so the trio is rounded out by new bassist Guy Segers from veteran art proggers Univers Zero (with guest Mario Engelter performing bass duties on two of the tracks as well). The final track here is entitled "For Uli T." but it's as if the whole thing is dedicated to his memory, doubtless he'd approve 'cause Gurumaniax is about the closest thing to ye olde Guru Guru as could be imagined, really it sounds like they went way back to the earliest albums by the original trio for inspiration (UFO, Hinten, and Kanguru, circa 1970-72). Dunno if they dropped some acid too, to get into the mood, we wouldn't be surprised...
It's card-carrying krautrock all right, freaky and psychedelic, meandering and mesmeric, mostly instrumental. Psy Valley Hill is full of lengthy, pulsating jams and drifting, echoing FX, with just enough (but not too much) of Guru Guru's trademark goofiness / weirdness (ferinstance, "Telefonladies", with the voices of telephone operators mixed into the music). Much of it is super spacey, with swirling electronics in all the nooks and crannies. Their MO seemingly involves lots and lots of improvisational freedom, yet each song finds structure and identity. Results range from the jauntily spaced-out free-rock-abilly of "Voodoo Touch" to, on the very next track, the chain-rattling abstract soundscape of "Electrosaurus", that could be something by Absolut Null Punkt.
Gurumaniax are good natured and generally mellowed out, but still venturesome, traipsing to the edge of the void and sometimes beyond. The splatter of Mani's percussion and the echoed unfurling of Ax's axe is often slow and steady, even somnolent or sedate, but elsewhere utterly urgent and agitated... Quite obviously, these guys know what they're doing, heck it was about 40 years ago they first started making these sort of sounds, now the bread and butter of bands like LSD-march, Circle, and of course Acid Mothers Temple, with whom the ever-energetic Neumeier has collaborated. And, speaking of Circle, we're really reminded of that Scandinavian band by track four, "Ghost Of Odin", a lazy almost dubbed-out jam, blissfully hypnotic, with occasional quirky vocal mutter, eventually building to a loud, distorted climax... nice!!
Mani is always making records, but it's especially exciting to hear again from Ax, whose last solo album back in 1995, Wave Cut, was quite fine. It's commendable that, without T., they decided not to officially bill this as a Guru Guru reunion. But, listening to it, they certainly could have. Gurumaniax is the real deal. Recommended! And not only to krautrock heads, but also to post rock types who like Tortoise and stuff like that, check this out and see if it's not too hippy for you!
MPEG Stream: "Drumoroto"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceship Memory"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Of Odin"

GURUS, THE Are Here! (Sundazed) cd 16.98
Does this sound familiar? Middle Eastern tinged psych rock laden with electric oud circa 1967? From Greenwich Village? Sounds like an album we wrote about some years back that we totally creamed over. Cream, as in Disraeli Gears, as in Felix Pappalardi, as in Devil's Anvil. You wanna know something weirder? The Gurus, who's seminal Are Here! album was shelved the same year as the Devil's Anvil's, also got their start at the same cafe in The Village: Cafe Feenjon. Unlike the Devil's Anvil, who were an existing band that was retrofitted through the brilliance of Pappalardi, The Gurus were, in a way, more of a contrivance by Feenjon co-owner Bob Englehardt and music lover at heart, jeweller by trade Ron Haffkine. And while their album Are Hear! might not reach the levels of sonic brilliance of Hard Rock From The Middle East -- none of the members of the Gurus were actually of Arabic decent, merely "fakin' it" -- it's none the less a great album, demonstrating the natural ease with which Eastern melodies fuse so nicely with rock. Along with the sonic resemblance to The Devil's Anvil, The Gurus' sound is peppered with shades of The Monks, and Love, and other good '60s stuff.
MPEG Stream: "Come Girl"
MPEG Stream: "Cry Cry"
MPEG Stream: "Louie Louie"

GUS COMA Color Him Coma (Paradigm Discs) 2cd 16.98
We didn't know too much about this, other than it's a lost eighties recording of turntable manipulation and plunderphonia from a member of Homosexuals related outfit Milk From Cheltenham (the band whose name inspired Stephen Stapleton of Nurse With Wound to name his label United Dairies by the way), but really they had us at turntable manipulation and plunderphonia, and that's just what this is, split into a bunch of short tracks, this plays as a single sprawling dizzying epic, which apparently was born of multiple mixes of a song built from a ROOM SIZED 24 track loop, and it's pretty crazy, sample voices, snippets of orchestras, pounding percussion, woozy strings, the sounds warped and warbly, distorted and a little crackly, booming reverbed pianos, creepy snippets of soundtracks, bleating horns, excerpts from some old language lesson tape, skittery jazz, constantly shifting pitches, lots of warble, the sounds themselves strange, but their condition, and their treatment, including what sounds like manual finger on the record manipulation, is what really makes this so psychedelic and tweaked sounding. Many of the sounds here were unused and remixed excerpts of recordings which would eventually become the title track of the Milk From Cheltenham lp, which according to the label was "a tape collage of the live mixdown of 17 cassette recordings of locked record grooves, simultaneously, with stray radio and an infernal matchbox."
Apparently, the second disc is a collection of recordings discovered while digging through tapes in search of a master for disc one, and plays out much like the first disc with the main difference being a bit of bizarre and primitive drum programming, otherwise, it's another dizzying collection of strange sounds, mysterious voices, sonic snippets, all constantly manipulated and messed with. Although those rhythms somehow make it sound even more fractured and fucked up. Definitely the sort of thing that should appeal to fans of John Oswald, Negativland, Philip Jeck, Otomo Yoshihide, Strotter Inst, LAFMS, Dennis Duck, Martin Tetreault and other tape loop / turntable experimentalists.
Both discs include lengthy bonus tracks featuring yet more material, in this case intended for a never realized second Milk From Cheltenham lp, and while there's a booklet / poster, it doesn't offer much in the way of liner notes...
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "6"
MPEG Stream: "10"
MPEG Stream: "12"
MPEG Stream: "14"

GUS GUS This Is Normal (Warner Bros.) cd 15.98
In Iceland maybe.

GUSSET Ask Dr, Kim cd 15.98

GUSTAFSSON, MATS Windows: The Music of Steve Lacy (Blue Chopsticks) cd 14.98
Jazz head Mats Gustafsson plays the music of Steve Lacy on solo saxophone (tenor & baritone) and fluteophone, plus a piece by Cecil Taylor and a couple tracks of his own creation. As he puts it: "It's wonderful to hear somebody playing something I never heard before on the saxophone. Especially using some of my material as a jumping-off place. I appreciate many things here, but especially the surprise. As they say, Jazz is the sound of surprise."

GUSTAFSSON, MATS / PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE Splatter (Smalltown Superjazz) cd 14.98

GUSTAFSSON, MATS / SONIC YOUTH Hidros 3 (Smalltown Supersound) cd 14.98
Ok, you know what? Let's just keep this review real short and nuts n' bolts. One line about the line-up: improv sax player Mats Gustafsson, who composed this piece dedicated to Patti Smith, teamed up with Steve Shelley, Lee Ranaldo, and Thurston Moore (all on guitar) plus also Loren Connors (guitar, naturally) and David Sackenas (more guitar) and Lotta Melin (audiobox, whatever that is) and the voices of Kim Gordon and Linda Kallerdahl, all live mixed by Mr. Jim O'Rourke. Ok, and another line about the music: arty, noisy, spastic, skronky, electronic, disturbing. Verdict? We especially like the fuzzy fog-horn drone sounds (that's Mats' horn of course) and all the dense guitar textures, but unfortunately we weren't so keen on Kim Gordon's half-way-to-spoken-word-poetry singing, but that's nothing new (and the Patti Smith dedication would make less sense without her contributions). Anyone who likes the really experimental/jazz side of Sonic Youth (including Kim's vocals) oughta dig.
MPEG Stream: "track 3"
MPEG Stream: "track 6"

GUTHER Sundet (Morr Music) cd 16.98
Why hello there! This is something a little different for the usually very dreamy pop-tronica focused German label Morr Music. The Berlin duo of Julia Guther and Berend Intelmann make glistening golden honey pop with nary a pulse, glitch nor click within earshot. Instead the two play it all on guitars, keyboards and drums. What charms the listener most however is Julia Guther's vocals. Her breathy singing reminded us of their labelmates Lalipuna. Fresh, sweet, softly floral, and oh so nice.
MPEG Stream: "Still In This Town"
MPEG Stream: "Trick Or Treat"

GUTTER TWINS, THE Saturnalia (Sub Pop) cd 13.98
There had been rumors circulating about this record for ages. Either that, or it just -seemed- inevitable, these two grunge icons who both went on to redefine themselves long after the bands that made them were long gone, and the scene that spawned them was long dead, finally together. It seemed like a no brainer. Two of the most distinctive voices in rock, both able to conjure up some seriously dark and volatile sounds, emotional, personal, intense, we couldn't actually imagine what this pairing would sound like. Who are we talking about? Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) and Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs).
So does it live up to the hype? Most of the press has been about the personalities, the debauchery, the drugs and alcohol, they did name themselves The Gutter Twins after all, so we would imagine some folks doubted the record would ever get made at all. But here it is, and it's a dark beauty. A lot more lush and heavy than we expected, and thankfully it manages to bring out the best in both Lanegan and Dulli. The songs Dulli sings definitely sound like later era Afghan Whigs, which is no bad thing at all, Lanegan adding some gravity with his whiskey soaked gravely growl. And Lanegan gets to lead the slow smoky crawls, the guitars unwinding all serpentine, organs buzzing and warbling, he just always sounds more at home in a cloud of smoke, barely lit by the corner of a stage, bottle in one hand, microphone in the other.
But there are surprisingly few slow brooders, the drums play a big part, the guitars load and soaring, there are strings everywhere, a few tracks even have programmed drums, but the duo manage to imbue each song with some serious pathos, wrapping them in dark clouds and wreathing them in stale smoke. The production helping make the songs epic, evoking wide open spaces and rain swept highways as much as dark bars and shuttered rooms.
"Circle The Fringes" is all swirling strings, and shimmery FX flecked ambience, beneath strummed minor key steel string guitar and moaning cellos, eventually launching into a sweeping groove, complete with staccato dynamics, wailing guitars, the whole thing ultra intense and pretty dang heavy. "Seven Stories Underground" gets all Tom Waits, haunting abstract percussion, the duo's vocals tangling up in strange harmonies, a slithery brooding drift, that builds to a super dramatic climax, before drifting off darkly. "Front Street" begins with the sounds of birds, a pastoral background for a simple folk fingerpicked guitar, again the two vocalists, their different voices, blending in perfectly unlikely ways, unfurling in tense, moody slow motion, peppered with swells of timpani, and warm whirring organ, and eventually soaring strings.
It's hard to be objective, considering how much we loved the Afghan Whigs and the Screaming Trees, how much we dig the Twilight Singers, and treasure Lanegan's solo records, and fans of any and all of those will most likely love this, but like all great collaborations, it's not merely the sum of its parts, the two obviously draw from each other, discovering things that they don't on their own, the resulting music a sort of sonic push and pull, but it's subtle, the sound cohesive and assured, seemingly the essence of the two personalities, both dark and troubled, and with a certain loner vibe, but together, they manage to create a sort of hopeful sadness, a melancholy warmth, the gorgeous sound of dark rainy nights, but with the promise of a new day to come.
MPEG Stream: "The Stations"
MPEG Stream: "God's Children"
MPEG Stream: "All Misery / Flowers"

GUTTER TWINS, THE Saturnalia (Sub Pop) 2lp 15.98
There had been rumors circulating about this record for ages. Either that, or it just -seemed- inevitable, these two grunge icons who both went on to redefine themselves long after the bands that made them were long gone, and the scene that spawned them was long dead, finally together. It seemed like a no brainer. Two of the most distinctive voices in rock, both able to conjure up some seriously dark and volatile sounds, emotional, personal, intense, we couldn't actually imagine what this pairing would sound like. Who are we talking about? Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) and Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs).
So does it live up to the hype? Most of the press has been about the personalities, the debauchery, the drugs and alcohol, they did name themselves The Gutter Twins after all, so we would imagine some folks doubted the record would ever get made at all. But here it is, and it's a dark beauty. A lot more lush and heavy than we expected, and thankfully it manages to bring out the best in both Lanegan and Dulli. The songs Dulli sings definitely sound like later era Afghan Whigs, which is no bad thing at all, Lanegan adding some gravity with his whiskey soaked gravely growl. And Lanegan gets to lead the slow smoky crawls, the guitars unwinding all serpentine, organs buzzing and warbling, he just always sounds more at home in a cloud of smoke, barely lit by the corner of a stage, bottle in one hand, microphone in the other.
But there are surprisingly few slow brooders, the drums play a big part, the guitars load and soaring, there are strings everywhere, a few tracks even have programmed drums, but the duo manage to imbue each song with some serious pathos, wrapping them in dark clouds and wreathing them in stale smoke. The production helping make the songs epic, evoking wide open spaces and rain swept highways as much as dark bars and shuttered rooms.
"Circle The Fringes" is all swirling strings, and shimmery FX flecked ambience, beneath strummed minor key steel string guitar and moaning cellos, eventually launching into a sweeping groove, complete with staccato dynamics, wailing guitars, the whole thing ultra intense and pretty dang heavy. "Seven Stories Underground" gets all Tom Waits, haunting abstract percussion, the duo's vocals tangling up in strange harmonies, a slithery brooding drift, that builds to a super dramatic climax, before drifting off darkly. "Front Street" begins with the sounds of birds, a pastoral background for a simple folk fingerpicked guitar, again the two vocalists, their different voices, blending in perfectly unlikely ways, unfurling in tense, moody slow motion, peppered with swells of timpani, and warm whirring organ, and eventually soaring strings.
It's hard to be objective, considering how much we loved the Afghan Whigs and the Screaming Trees, how much we dig the Twilight Singers, and treasure Lanegan's solo records, and fans of any and all of those will most likely love this, but like all great collaborations, it's not merely the sum of its parts, the two obviously draw from each other, discovering things that they don't on their own, the resulting music a sort of sonic push and pull, but it's subtle, the sound cohesive and assured, seemingly the essence of the two personalities, both dark and troubled, and with a certain loner vibe, but together, they manage to create a sort of hopeful sadness, a melancholy warmth, the gorgeous sound of dark rainy nights, but with the promise of a new day to come.
MPEG Stream: "The Stations"
MPEG Stream: "God's Children"
MPEG Stream: "All Misery / Flowers"

GUTZEIT, BRENT New Kmocas (BOXmedia) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
I've been seeing Brent Gutzeit's name popping up recently as the guy who will open for any experimental artist who is touring the States... He played with Reynols, Mikael Stavostrand, Oval, and Stillupsteypa. You can certainly see why he's been getting such nice gigs. "New Kmocas" is a recent cd-r release of ring modulating bell tones that continuously drone until tight controlled blasts of noise glitch change the aural scenario. Pretty good stuff, and look for a Mort Aux Vaches and a Meme release. Hopefully all of this work will be as good as this one and won't suffer the problem of too much promotion and not enough thought put into the music.

GUV'NER Spectral Worship (Merge) cd 13.98

GUYANA PUNCH LINE Irritainment (Prank) cd 10.98
Ultra noisy chaotic hardcore from South Carolina featuring ex members of Initial State and In/Humanity. Blazing fast, frenzied and abrasive, shrieking and furious, with a wry, thoughtful/humorous lyrical bent (ala Dead Kennedys or In/Humanity). Great.

GYAATEES I (Captain Trip) cd 17.98
If I understand the liner notes correctly, this is music made by mentally-handicapped Buddhist priests? Regardless, if you're into the psychedelic sounds of other Japanese bands like Ghost, the however-IQ-impaired grooves of these folks may well appeal.

GYAATEES Welcome - Motoharu Yoshizawa Last Live (Captain Trip) cd 17.98
"Intellectually challenged" buddhist priests perform improv with Japanese bass player Motoharu- Yoshizawa.

GYAATEES II Gyaatees Meets Mani Neumeier (Captain Trip Records) cd 29.00
"'Seisou' live as Buddhist priests in the temple, Kouganji, and are considered somewhat pushed out of society as 'intellectually challenged'. With Gyaantees as the nucleus, these 'seisou' perform free improvised music with many other musicians as well. Why improvised performance? Well, the 'seisou' seem to lack the ability to remember the songs and lyrics." -from the liner notes.

GYDJA Umbilicus Maris (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.
Another gorgeous release from Mystery Sea, whose sonic focus is on "night-ocean drones", and more than anything we've heard on MS, Umbilicus Maris by New Zealand one woman drone outfit Gydja perfectly embodies that focus.
Umbilicus Maris is very oceanic, aquatic, even sub-aquatic. The rhythm is tidal, a subtle pulse, a gradual swell, the sounds shift and shimmer like light through water, and of the handful of Mystery Sea releases we've heard, Umbilicus Maris is the loudest and most active. That's in no way to infer that this is anything but drifting blissy ambience. It most certainly is, but the sounds are not lowercase. Not barely audible. Abby Helasdottir, the sole soul behind Gydja, brings the sounds to the fore, they are dark and mysterious, droning and drifting, but they are loud, the listener can hear them, FEEL them, peer inside and around, can experience the sound physically, get lost inside the sound. A pair of headphones is all you need to get sucked under, floating weightless in a strange sun dappled undersea world of sound.
Field recordings (tides, oceans, streams?) are mixed with performances, all processed into some otherworldly soundscape, or seascape. Burbling, shimmering, glistening, glimmering, everything slightly blurry, warped and warbled, multiple layers, shifting and drifting, low end rumbles slowly drift to the surface, where strange sonic skitters and burbles float on the surface, everything drenched in echo and reverb, like some massive undersea cavern, lit only by a single shaft of sunlight, the sounds of dripping water magnified into swirls of sound, distant percussive pings, an ultra abstract undersea dub. So completely warm and dreamlike, headphones like a diving bell, eyes closed, no need to breathe, letting the sound wash over you, slowly sinking to the bottom of some warm sonic sea. Absolutely gorgeous.
And like all Mystery Sea releases, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc numbered, and gorgeously packaged in striking full color artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Earth's Edge"
MPEG Stream: "The Wave, With Red Stain Running"

GYPSYHAWK Patience and Perseverance (Creator-Destructor Records) cd 10.98
All right, another "hawk" band. Lately there's been Freedom Hawk, and Doomhawk. Being somewhat "stoner rock", this is one that should also appeal to the same folks who liked Freedom Hawk. And going way back, maybe even Hawkwind. Though the classic '70s rock band that these guys most remind us of is Thin Lizzy. A LOT. They're overtly, utterly under the spell of Thin Lizzy (a band that's more influential now than ever it seems). The melodic but husky vocals are like a gruffer Phil Lynott, the twin guitars twine together harmoniously in classic Lizzy fashion. And heck, in case we didn't get it, they even do a song entitled "For Those Who Love The Lizz" that not only sounds like Lizzy, but has lyrics that cleverly consist of references to that band's songs, like "the hero and the madman", "renegade boys back in town", "that blue orphanage in the shade", etc., as a tribute to their Irish inspiration! Although, overall, Gypsyhawk are more than a tribute, bringing in elements of garage, doom, punk, prog, and good ol' metal along with the specific Lizzy/Lynott influence.
Turns out, Gypsyhawk vocalist/bassist Eric Harris used to be in blackened thrashers Skeletonwitch, another killer band we like quite a bit. What we heard was that he got kicked out of Skeletonwitch, or otherwise quit the band, while they were on tour. This happened in Los Angeles, and instead of catching a Greyhound bus back home to Ohio where Skeletonwitch are from, though, Harris decided to stay in LA and start his own band there! Which, we gotta say, is a pretty darn rock n' roll thing to do. Thus, Gypsyhawk was born. And they're quite a bit different from Skeletonwitch (whose dual guitars dated from a different era) but equally awesome. For those into more melodic stuff, anachronistically proto-metal, especially so. These guys have the riffs, the leads, the melodic hooks, and the heaviness, to be right up there in the "hawk" band pantheon. Rockin' and majestic stuff that should go down well with fans of Lizzy-lovin' bands like Bible Of The Devil, Hot Fog, Falcon, and Valkyrie.
A fine debut, and it's adorned with fantastic purpley-blue and gold artwork (that looks a bit Erol Otus-y), nicely packaged in a digi (the cd) or gatefold sleeve (the lp). And the vinyl version is limited, there's 200 on purple wax, 200 on half-and-half purple/multicolored splatter, and 100 clear with color splatter, we've got an assortment of the first two.
Hopefully we made it clear, we're stoked on this!
MPEG Stream: "Gypsyhawk"
MPEG Stream: "For Those Who Love The Lizz"
MPEG Stream: "Rebellion On The Western Shore"

GYPSYHAWK Patience and Perseverance (Creator-Destructor Records) lp 14.98
All right, another "hawk" band. Lately there's been Freedom Hawk, and Doomhawk. Being somewhat "stoner rock", this is one that should also appeal to the same folks who liked Freedom Hawk. And going way back, maybe even Hawkwind. Though the classic '70s rock band that these guys most remind us of is Thin Lizzy. A LOT. They're overtly, utterly under the spell of Thin Lizzy (a band that's more influential now than ever it seems). The melodic but husky vocals are like a gruffer Phil Lynott, the twin guitars twine together harmoniously in classic Lizzy fashion. And heck, in case we didn't get it, they even do a song entitled "For Those Who Love The Lizz" that not only sounds like Lizzy, but has lyrics that cleverly consist of references to that band's songs, like "the hero and the madman", "renegade boys back in town", "that blue orphanage in the shade", etc., as a tribute to their Irish inspiration! Although, overall, Gypsyhawk are more than a tribute, bringing in elements of garage, doom, punk, prog, and good ol' metal along with the specific Lizzy/Lynott influence.
Turns out, Gypsyhawk vocalist/bassist Eric Harris used to be in blackened thrashers Skeletonwitch, another killer band we like quite a bit. What we heard was that he got kicked out of Skeletonwitch, or otherwise quit the band, while they were on tour. This happened in Los Angeles, and instead of catching a Greyhound bus back home to Ohio where Skeletonwitch are from, though, Harris decided to stay in LA and start his own band there! Which, we gotta say, is a pretty darn rock n' roll thing to do. Thus, Gypsyhawk was born. And they're quite a bit different from Skeletonwitch (whose dual guitars dated from a different era) but equally awesome. For those into more melodic stuff, anachronistically proto-metal, especially so. These guys have the riffs, the leads, the melodic hooks, and the heaviness, to be right up there in the "hawk" band pantheon. Rockin' and majestic stuff that should go down well with fans of Lizzy-lovin' bands like Bible Of The Devil, Hot Fog, Falcon, and Valkyrie.
A fine debut, and it's adorned with fantastic purpley-blue and gold artwork (that looks a bit Erol Otus-y), nicely packaged in a digi (the cd) or gatefold sleeve (the lp). And the vinyl version is limited, there's 200 on purple wax, 200 on half-and-half purple/multicolored splatter, and 100 clear with color splatter, we've got an assortment of the first two.
Hopefully we made it clear, we're stoked on this!
MPEG Stream: "Gypsyhawk"
MPEG Stream: "For Those Who Love The Lizz"
MPEG Stream: "Rebellion On The Western Shore"