SALVATORE Luxus (Glitterhouse) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We can't belive how tough it is to keep this in stock. So frustrating because we love this band so much and all of their other records are seemingly out of print. But we just managed to get another big batch of these in, but they probably won't last long...
Yes, at last! The new Salvatore is here! We've been trying to get this, their fifth album, for AGES. For whatever reason, these imports were tough to come by, but finally we've got 'em. And now that it's booming through our stereo here at the store, we know that it was worth the wait. First off, the love of Neu! still beats strongly in the hearts (and, um, beats) of these mostly instrumental Norwegian post-rockers. That motorik percussion propulsion that we love. Instant hypnosis in other words. Which means that they're still very much of the "Circle-ular" persuasion, leaning towards the likes of Tortoise and Trans Am too. Tortoise's John McEntire did the mix, in fact (and contributes drum machine on one track, "Brugata"). That's alongside drums, guitar x 2, organ, bass, "bassdrones", xylophone, vocoder, "sitter" (sitar?) -- and each track has a slightly different, usually expansive line-up of musicians and instrumentation. The bass and percussive elements are always quite strong, of course, but Salvatore still manage to make their music quite delicate too -- and although Luxus remains on the lighter side of Salvatore's output (the "poppier" path they've followed since 2002's Fresh), there are certainly bolts of electric darkness and grit shivering through these tracks, especially on the scarily reverberating "Fluxus"...while the combination of female vocals, strings, and "fake balaban" (presumably the middle-eastern sounding horn we hear) on the ten-minute-plus title track is simply gorgeous, not scary or dark at all. Speaking of balabans, Luxus establishes that ethnic influences are definitely a part of Salvatore's sound, something that they have in common with krautrockers Can, doubtless another inspiration of theirs. So, for fans of Can, Circle, Neu!, Tortoise, etc. Salvatore has produced another winning album, that we're so glad to finally have, to share with you.
MPEG Stream: "Hefe"
MPEG Stream: "Brugata"
MPEG Stream: "Luxus"

SALVATORE Tempo (Racing Junior) cd 14.98
About time we listed this -- we had limited quantities of the import version of this but now the latest from this Norwegian sensation has gotten a domestic US release. Yay we say 'cause Salvatore is a solid AQ fave. Like Finland's Circle, they're a sort of instrumental, psychedelic post-rock band who do a lot with repetition, riding the motorik Neu! krautrock rhythm into the 21st century. Indeed, the easiest description we can muster of their recent output is Circle + Tortoise = Salvatore. Take a listen and do the math yourself. Super pretty, super hypnotic stuff. Recorded in 2002 in Chicago by none other than Tortoise's John McEntire, Tempo follows on from Salvatore's previous album Fresh with more airy, dubby grooves. Supposedly they're done a live recording with ex-Can vocalist Damo Suzuki on the mic, which makes a lot of sense! Hope to hear that some (future) day... While we wish that Salvatore's first two, darker/heavier albums were still available, the "poppier" style of Fresh and now Tempo is quite enjoyable too.
MPEG Stream: "Easy"
MPEG Stream: "Tempo"

SALVATORE, K The Counterfeiter (Siwa) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
K Salvatore is an unspecified permutation of the modern-day, free-noise hippy collective The No Neck Blues Band. The Counterfeiter is the fourth album from this side project and is a sprawling loose improvisation for quiet horn flutter, wild flute trills, occasional guitar growl, and a clatter of semi-tonal wooden blocks against contact microphones (thereby following up K Salvatore's previous 'pipe fight' albums with a 'wood fight'). The production is purposefully coarse with the building flurries of K Salvatore's wild actions occasionally peaking out the analog recordings. Think Scratch Orchestra without any Fluxus conceptualisation, Amon Duul with less drum circle mantras, or Zoviet France completely stoned and lacking their trademark production work and effects. Or it could be our beloved Thai Elephant Orchestra, if they had been listening to Albert Ayler records instead of Thai temple music their whole lives. And, Siwa have outdone themselves with the super elaborate silkscreen work on the cover of this vinyl-only release!!!

SALVATORE, K. Ashmadai (Fusetron) 2lp 22.00
The newest release from this mysterious two man No Necked side project. A darkly damaged and demented abstract drone folk freakout. Soundiing not surprisingly like NNCK through the looking glass. A tripped out warped sonic funhouse of squiggly synth noodling, warbly wah guitar, haunting creaks, sporadic rhythmic clatter, dreamy blissy acoustic guitar strum, cicada like clicking minimalism, all wrapped up in thick layers of rumbling fuzzy ambience. Occasionally melodic fragments drift by, or bleeping blooping electronics surface, but for the most part. Asmadai is a mystical musical mystery in the form of warm muted underwater warble. So great. Another No Necked offshoot that can seem to do no wrong.
Two thick slabs of 45 rpm wax, housed in a gorgeously designed thick black and white sleeve.
And as with most things like this, VERY LIMITED!

SAMAEL Above (Nuclear Blast) cd 13.98

SAMAEL Ceremony of Opposites / Rebellion (Century Media) cd 15.98
These Satanic Swiss metallers' last full album before the the beginnings of their "techno" metamorphosis (a transition which first yielded the amazing Passage disc, before several disappointing follow-ups), reissued with the pre-Passage Rebellion ep added on. A now value-added black metal classic.

SAMAMIDON All Is Well (Bedroom Community) cd 15.98

RealAudio clip: "Sugar Baby"

SAMARAI CELESTIAL Isis Sun (Carrot Top) cd 14.98
Former Sun Ra Arkestra drummer chants and plays electronic finger drums, among other things, and wears a gold cape given to him by Mr. Ra. At a 1995 show in New York, his electronic drums temporarily refused to work, so he gamely chanted a single phrase whilst fixing the thing. Reminded me of the time Rick James was playing "Super Freak" on Solid Gold and one of the synthesizer's legs partially collapsed. Panic crossed his face but he played on.

SAMARTZIS / ENGLISH One Plus One (Room 40) cd 15.98

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Mort aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
Since the late '80s, having spent time in the avant-noise project Gum, Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis has been exploring the technological residue that most sound engineers spend lifetimes trying to eliminate. Not surprisingly, indeterminant buzzings, electrical disturbances, crossed wire interference, tape hiss, and the surface noise of vinyl are the current source materials for Samartzis' electro-acoustic compositions. While there have been plenty of examples involving the tactility of technological residue with as many conceptual agendas (e.g. Loren Chasse's "Hedge Of Nerves," C.M. von Hausswolff's "An Operation of Spirit Communication," Christian Marclay's "Record Without A Cover," etc.), Samartzis has developed a unique signature that favors a clincally precise compositional technique that is typically affiliated with the Raster-Noton and 12K camps of electronic music. However, within those tightly controlled sets of sound, Samartzis allows for all of the haptic blemishes and residual sounds to continue unchecked by any controlling mechanisms.
Recorded as part of Staalplaat's stellar "Mort Aux Vaches" series of radio broadcasts for VPRO radio, these three lengthy pieces may be Samartzis' best work to date. While many of the sounds (i.e. miniature clatterings, run-out groove vinyl crackle, and irritable strains of gossamer feedback) have been recycled from previous recordings, Samartzis has greatly improved upon the contextualization of those sounds, providing an open-ended arena for a number of phenomenological events and metaphoric disconnects.
While maintaining the same packaging principles as all of the earlier "Mort Aux Vache" releases with a single tri-folded piece of paper holding the cd in place with a brass fastener, the paper in question is a beautiful iridescent, 'shark-skin' paper.
MPEG Stream: "Variable Resistance"
MPEG Stream: "Soft And Loud"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Soft And Loud (Microphonics) cd 15.98
The Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis has been working out the details of his Soft and Loud concept through various sketches which have been released on the Grain and Variable Resistance compilations, as well as in his contribution to the Mort Aux Vaches Staalplaat series. The source material and some of the compositional strategies tie all of his Soft And Loud pieces together, but it quickly becomes clear with this disc that Samartzis at last has fully realized his ideas of the surgical articulations of tactile aural phenomena within temporally linear progressions. In other words, he melds the ideas of INGRM's musique concrete (especially Luc Ferrari) to the pristine electro-glitch aesthetics of Raster-Noton and 12K (especially Carsten Nicolai and Richard Chartier). However, Samartzis is not purely a formalist, for there is a sense of metaphor and introspection that is evident in his work. All of the material found throughout the Soft and Loud pieces is from field recordings that Samartzis made on several trips to Japan. These compositions speak with a hyper-reality of his own reflections upon Japan's incredibly complex culture. In particular, Samartzis concentrates on the unique dialogue between the artificial and the natural. Set against a stark backdrop of empty silences, Samartzis' composition is pinpricked with tactile events: cracklings, sinewave mantras, pneumatic crunches, nauseatingly happy pachinko themes, a maudlin Japanese flute much like Akio Suzuki, etc.
Even though some of the same materials have been presented before, it's unusual to have the opportunity to witness the progression of piece of music such as this. So many times, a composition stands as a monument to the genius of the musician; not so here, for Samartzis has worked out all of the blemishes and false starts (perhaps even encouraging them!) under the critical ears of a listening public. So what I'm trying to say is that even if you already have the earlier parts to the Soft And Loud series, it's well worth picking up this highly recommended album!
MPEG Stream: "Soft and Loud part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Soft and Loud part 4"
MPEG Stream: "Soft and Loud part 5"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Unheard Spaces (Microphonics) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis is essentially presenting two bodies of work on Unheard Spaces, both of which are connected through the relationship between sound and emptiness. The first suite for Unheard Spaces is called "Absence And Presence" and opens with an abusive scrape across a cello announcing something of new direction for Samartzis. The pristinely crafted electro-acoustics which culminated in the dynamic Loud & Soft album have been replaced on the first half of Unheard Spaces with a series of spacious, yet expressionist clattering improvisations between Samartzis (electronics and field recordings), David Brown (guitar), Sean Baxter (drums), Anthea Caddy (cello), Thembi Soddell (electronics and field recordings), and Michael Vorfeld (percussion). However, Samartzis introduced one hell of a detour to the typical improvisational context: as he asked the participants to re-record what they had performed during the improvised session by memory and without the benefit of hearing what any body else was doing. The strategy is much more of a conceptual conceit that certainly adds to the randomness of the clusters of spluttering guitar, squealing sinewave oscillations, and tumbles of percussive improvisation.
The second half of Unheard Spaces (also called "Unheard Spaces") is something of an homage to the work of the late, great composer Luc Ferrari, whose cinematic musique concrete compositions brought an unnerving psychosexuality to his decentered collages. Perhaps less inclined for the lurid aspects of Ferrari's work (at least here, there's plenty of grotesqueries to be heard on his early Gum project of turntablist damage), Samartzis concentrates on the very subtle sounds within the urban landscape, Venice's landscape to be exact. The echoes from the various canals and antiquated passageways comprise the bulk of Samartzis' field recordings, with a healthy dose of watery sounds just to make sure you didn't forget this was Venice. What's clearly missing is the hustle and bustle of the city itself, as Samartzis has surgically removed almost all of the direct human presence. While the sound of cars and boats provides activity in the composition, the human voice is never the direct focal point; rather it's the elegant refractions of sound emerging from a labyrinth of a city. An impressive duality of improvisation and manipulated field recordings that would have easily been the jewel in INA-GRM's crown had this been recorded thirty years ago in Paris.
MPEG Stream: "Absence And Presence 02"
MPEG Stream: "Unheard Spaces 07"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Windmills Bordered By Nothingness (Dorobo Limited Editions) cd 14.98
For those who have paid attention to the Microsound and Phonography online lists, much has been made about the certainty some pundits place upon the categorization and divisions between the computer based Microsound genre and the field recordist based Phonography. An argument of similar rhetoric raged in the '60s between the German school of electronic music and the French school of Musique Concrete, but there were a couple of Swedish composers (Rune Lindblad in particular) who saw the advantage of both compositional models working harmoniously. Melbourne based composer Philip Samartzis holds a comparable postion as a relative outsider to these primarily European / American discourses; and thus has been able to synthesize elements from both field recording manipulation and the generative models of computerized sound construction. "Windmills Border By Nothingness" is his second solo CD, after recording a couple of hard to find noise-junk albums as Gum (which may get reissued sometime in the future through 23five). Samartzis' title of this 39 minute composition is indicative of the numerous punctuations of silence that bracket all of the events housed within. Unlike the practitioners of low-volume compositions (Gunter, Roden, Chartier, etc), Samartzis punctures sound with silence rather than playing the notions of audibility. Rushing waters, scraping improv guitar work (possibly from fellow Aussie David Brown), repeated metallic clangs, the hushed clickery of run-out grooves, indeterminant creakings, tense rattles from electronic vibrations, and strident granular synthesis are splattered across the stereo field with silences as breathing room. A very nice recording.
RealAudio clip: "Windmills Bordered By Nothingness excerpt 1"
RealAudio clip: "Windmills Bordered By Nothingness excerpt 2"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP & RASMUS B. LUNDING Touch Parking (Synaesthesia ) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Outside of their sporadic collaborations, Rasmus B. Lunding and Philip Samartzis exist in vastly different quarters of the avant-garde, as the Danish Lunding is best known for tinkering with programmable Lego constructions as the basis for composition and installation, where the Australian Samartzis wields his digital operating theatre with the precision of a skilled surgeon. The alliance which forged Touch Parking could be described as the Second Annual Transoceanic Summit for Giddy Robotic Engineers and Texturally Inclined Post-Turntablists. Both artists bring all of their tricks of the trade to the table (e.g. purposefully artificial DSP effects, microsonic explosiveness, theatrical drop outs, variable spatialization, divergent polyphony, etc.), and actually balance out each other's strengths, as Lunding's sense of humour works well with Samartzis' expertise in abstraction. Touch Parking resolves itself as a Mobius strip of surfaces, with the complex collages of electro-acoustic events colliding into each other and emerging in an inscrutable rebus of semiotic dead-ends and idiosyncrasies. Goodiepal's artwork on this picture disc replete with S&M cheesecake illustrations and pinstriped Rune stones further complicates the ecstatic absurdities for the album.

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP / SACHIKO M Artefact (Dorobo) cd 14.98
Philip Samartzis is an Australian electro-acoustic composer, who had gone on a tour across Japan a few years ago and through his travels developed some interesting relationships with a number of likeminded composers in Japan. After working with onkyo minimalist Kozo Inada, Samartzis has joined up with the incredibly prolific Sachiko M for this limited release through Dorobo. Sachiko M offers her signature high end sinewaves and closed-circuit squeals from a sampler with an empty memory bank feeding back upon itself, yet Samartzis breaks up her unwavering tones with jarring slabs of static and bursts of low end noise, sounding much like recent output from Zbigniew Karkowski. Quite good!
RealAudio clip: "Interference"
RealAudio clip: "Corruption"

SAME SEX DICTATOR From Beneath You It Devours (Longway) lp 10.98
Hard to not dig a band described as "deep space power violence", which is fine, cuz we dig the shit out of this. The debut full length from this two piece from Seattle, who like many heavy duos before them, make a sound much bigger than their lineup would suggest. And yeah, that whole deep space power violence thing actually seems pretty accurate, the band flitting from churning chugging heaviness, rife with gnarled riffage and bellowed vox, to spaced out synth driven minimalism, even stretching out into weird woozy ambience, and they're at their best when they cram all of that stuff together, like on "The Shocking Discovery", with its tribal drumming, and squelchy synthy electronics, it's spaced out and psychedelic, until the riff comes in, then it gets heavy fast, before slipping back into something WAY more hushed: minimal drumming, a loping two note bass melody, all wrapped in feedback, until some howled vox starts bringing it all back in, getting more and more anguished, the drums getting busier, then some seriously thick bass buzz bursts in, and the song explodes like a progged out power violence Ruins, the song slipping effortlessly from part to part, tempo to tempo, hence the progginess.
The songs are all super varied, sometimes blossoming into some weird sort of bass driven spaced out psychedelia, but just as often some sort of lumbering downtuned doom, or electronic synthy drift, or super intricate post punk power prog, the various power violence elements holding all the disparate elements together, those vocals, the murky grinding low end, but the cool thing, is, when they're at their heaviest, there's still some weird spacey shit going on, and when they're getting all psychedelic and spaced out, there some serious heaviness happening simultaneously.
Some seriously rad twisted heaviness, way recommended for anyone into, well, anyone into twisted heaviness. Which we're imagining is a whole lot of you...
MPEG Stream: "The Shocking Discovery"
MPEG Stream: "Get Out Of My Dreams And Into My Trunk"
MPEG Stream: "The Redeadening"

SAMHAIN Box Set (Evilive) cd 63.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally available again, but for now only in box set form.
Everyone knows Samhain were cool, and that at least the first 3 records are essential (and they are of course included here) so we will focus on the other stuff. The box also includes the "Final Descent" cd as well as an unreleased double live cd. Also included is a pretty cool live video and the Samhain comic book (although it seems more like a comic pamphlet, being all of 8 pages). So far, if you don't have these records, it all seems like a pretty sweet deal. Except...all of the cds are packaged in simple cardboard, promo-style sleeves. No jewel cases or booklets. Kind of shoddy. And for some reason, this all comes packaged in a HUGE box, most of which is taken up by some sort of plastic 'space-taker-upper' and not actual stuff, which means it takes up extra, valuable space in our cramped apartments. Suitable for Danzig's ego, not our shelves. So aside from the lame packaging, if you do not have these records already, we say, go for it.

SAMHAIN III November Coming Fire (Evillive) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Reissue of Danzig's post-Misfits pagan goth-punk classic. Unfortunately, there are no liner notes, no lyric sheet, no bonus tracks, no extra photos. Gotta get the box set for all that extra stuff. Originally released in 1986, features the classics "In My Grip", "To Walk the Night", and the haunting reworking of the Misfit's anthem "Halloween II".

SAMIYAM Return (Hyperdub) 12" 12.98

SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA Klossa Knapitatet (Silence) cd 17.98

SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA Maltid (Silence) cd 17.98

SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA s/t (Silence) cd 17.98
The very first album by Swedish prog-rock gurus Samla Mammas Manna finally reissued by Silence. Originally released in 1971 and recorded at their home studio (as were all of their albums come to think of it) the Chickenhouse. Founded and led by multi-instrumentalist Lars Hollmer, the group was at the fore front of a creative explosion of music in Sweden -- along with AQ faves Trad, Gras Och Stenar -- that was unfettered by meddlesome music industry hands and the aesthetic expectations that dictated the actions of much of their European contemporaries to the South West. The complex yet accessible Swedish prog-rock of Samla was as much informed by the traditional folk music surrounding them and even jazz as it was mainstream rock. Though some regard this album as "crude", not being quite as slick as the later "Klossa Knapitatet" for instance, there's more of a charm to the rough hewn edges here (if you can even call them rough.) Personally I find some of the later Samla recordings often border on the Grateful Dead side of things in their solo happy forays. The first exciting thing to note about this album, speaking of Grateful Dead, is that there's NO guitar. Huzzah! Just bass, drums, percussion, occaisional vocals and loads of (what we now call vintage) electric piano. The whole seems a bit like a Swedish interpretation of soul filtered through the theme to Cheers; off kilter, but not obtuse. As a bonus to this reissue Silence has added two extra tracks from the original recording session that didn't make it onto the original album.
RealAudio clip: "Slade Till Santori"
RealAudio clip: "Flickan I Skogen"

SAMMES, MIKE & THE MIKE SAMMES SINGERS Music For Biscuits (Trunk) cd 16.98

SAMOTHRACE Life's Trade (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
For fans of the heavy, it has been a pretty good year! Cough, Thou, Trees, The Wounded Kings, Asva, et. al. And it just seems to keep getting better and better. Here's one of our latest slow, low, doooooomed-out faves, brought to us by the ever-reliable, ultra-heavy 20 Buck Spin label. Samothrace offer up 4 long tracks of mournful, slo-mo sludge on their debut full length Life's Trade. This not-so-merry band of black stone wielders hail from Lawrence, Kansas but recorded this in Chicago with producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, Buried At Sea, Indian, Minsk, Rwake, Nachtmystium... he knows his heaviness!). They're not the first band to employ emotive loud-soft dynamics, post-rock style, but they do it quite well, and it sounds fantastic, this whole album exuding utter dismal despair. And, hopefully, provoking some form of catharsis. Everything - the guttural vokills, the effects-blanketed guitars - are weary, weeping, wailing lamentations echoing across the Midwestern prairie, finding common cause with our favorite funereal doom from Finland, British doomdeath of the '90s like My Dying Bride, and fellow sludge lords like Atavist and Ocean. Not bad company to keep, if not clinically depressed.
Sometimes it seems that bands move too far away from metal and get into some kinda mediocre, boring post-rock middleground. Like -- fuck, dude, where's the metal? However, Samothrace manages to stay heavy even while incorporating other elements. The thing is, it's not metal with something else thrown in, they take other things and make them metal. At times it's quite pretty and melodic. It's like His Hero is Gone (Fifteen Counts of Arson era) mating with the gorgeous new works by Earth. There's many long, exquisite stretches of mellowed out beauty, calm and quiet, to lull the listener before being bulldozered by fat fuzzed riffage in a more metallic, stoner mode, which sometimes flows into some sweet, Iommi-envious soloing. Samothrace's loping lethargy and mopey melody is such that even at its most crushing, the band's music still seems suffused with the sunset's psychedelic twilight rays, or perhaps radiates its own comforting warmth, somehow. If that speaks to you, grab a copy, spark one, and turn it up. You'll want this one loud. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "La Llorona"
MPEG Stream: "Cacophony"

SAMOTHRACE Life's Trade (20 Buck Spin) 2lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For fans of the heavy, it has been a pretty good year! Cough, Thou, Trees, The Wounded Kings, Asva, et. al. And it just seems to keep getting better and better. Here's one of our latest slow, low, doooooomed-out faves, brought to us by the ever-reliable, ultra-heavy 20 Buck Spin label. Samothrace offer up 4 long tracks of mournful, slo-mo sludge on their debut full length Life's Trade. This not-so-merry band of black stone wielders hail from Lawrence, Kansas but recorded this in Chicago with producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, Buried At Sea, Indian, Minsk, Rwake, Nachtmystium... he knows his heaviness!). They're not the first band to employ emotive loud-soft dynamics, post-rock style, but they do it quite well, and it sounds fantastic, this whole album exuding utter dismal despair. And, hopefully, provoking some form of catharsis. Everything - the guttural vokills, the effects-blanketed guitars - are weary, weeping, wailing lamentations echoing across the Midwestern prairie, finding common cause with our favorite funereal doom from Finland, British doomdeath of the '90s like My Dying Bride, and fellow sludge lords like Atavist and Ocean. Not bad company to keep, if not clinically depressed.
Sometimes it seems that bands move too far away from metal and get into some kinda mediocre, boring post-rock middleground. Like -- fuck, dude, where's the metal? However, Samothrace manages to stay heavy even while incorporating other elements. The thing is, it's not metal with something else thrown in, they take other things and make them metal. At times it's quite pretty and melodic. It's like His Hero is Gone (Fifteen Counts of Arson era) mating with the gorgeous new works by Earth. There's many long, exquisite stretches of mellowed out beauty, calm and quiet, to lull the listener before being bulldozered by fat fuzzed riffage in a more metallic, stoner mode, which sometimes flows into some sweet, Iommi-envious soloing. Samothrace's loping lethargy and mopey melody is such that even at its most crushing, the band's music still seems suffused with the sunset's psychedelic twilight rays, or perhaps radiates its own comforting warmth, somehow. If that speaks to you, grab a copy, spark one, and turn it up. You'll want this one loud. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "La Llorona"
MPEG Stream: "Cacophony"

SAMOTHRACE Reverence To Stone (20 Buck Spin) cd 10.98
Four years on since their 20 Buck Spin debut Life's Trade, and these formerly Midwestern, now Northwestern postrockish doomlords (and lady) aren't any happier. Nor are they any faster or poppier, quite the opposite. Instead of the four long songs found on their previous opus, now on this album we're presented with but two. Of course, they fill up the whole compact disc (or both sides of the vinyl), clocking in at 14:19 and 20:29. And they're as heavy and slow as they are long - although, first track "When We Emerged" barrels along at a fairly decent place, in parts, before concluding with an extended feedback/drone/distortion fadeout.
Our review of Life's Trade was particularly evocative, we think, at one point where we said: "Samothrace's loping lethargy and mopey melody is such that even at its most crushing, the band's music still seems suffused with the sunset's psychedelic twilight rays, or perhaps radiates its own comforting warmth, somehow". So we'll repeat that sentiment here, it applies to this one too. Again, Samothrace somehow mold a thing of beauty from ugliness and misery. Anguished, throat-torn, seemingly wordless vokillizations find sustaining strength in the band's own massive slo-mo groove, perfect for spaced-out headbanging. Amidst the sludge, the guitar soloing gets kinda classic, majestic. At its most glorious, we're thinking Thin Lizzy at 16rpm or something. Heavily recommended heaviness, especially for fans of the likes of Yob and Elder!
MPEG Stream: "When We Emerged"
MPEG Stream: "A Horse Of Our Own (exerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "A Horse Of Our Own (exerpt 2)"

SAMOTHRACE Reverence To Stone (20 Buck Spin) lp 15.98
Four years on since their 20 Buck Spin debut Life's Trade, and these formerly Midwestern, now Northwestern postrockish doomlords (and lady) aren't any happier. Nor are they any faster or poppier, quite the opposite. Instead of the four long songs found on their previous opus, now on this album we're presented with but two. Of course, they fill up the whole compact disc (or both sides of the vinyl), clocking in at 14:19 and 20:29. And they're as heavy and slow as they are long - although, first track "When We Emerged" barrels along at a fairly decent place, in parts, before concluding with an extended feedback/drone/distortion fadeout.
Our review of Life's Trade was particularly evocative, we think, at one point where we said: "Samothrace's loping lethargy and mopey melody is such that even at its most crushing, the band's music still seems suffused with the sunset's psychedelic twilight rays, or perhaps radiates its own comforting warmth, somehow". So we'll repeat that sentiment here, it applies to this one too. Again, Samothrace somehow mold a thing of beauty from ugliness and misery. Anguished, throat-torn, seemingly wordless vokillizations find sustaining strength in the band's own massive slo-mo groove, perfect for spaced-out headbanging. Amidst the sludge, the guitar soloing gets kinda classic, majestic. At its most glorious, we're thinking Thin Lizzy at 16rpm or something. Heavily recommended heaviness, especially for fans of the likes of Yob and Elder!
MPEG Stream: "When We Emerged"
MPEG Stream: "A Horse Of Our Own (exerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "A Horse Of Our Own (exerpt 2)"

SAMPS s/t (Mexican Summer) lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You think Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti is weird, wait until you hear APHG offshoot Samps, who basically take all the fucked up retro FM radio-ims and tweaked yacht rock tropes of Ariel Pink, and tosses it all into a blender, chops it all up, twists it into crazy head spinning shapes and spits them back out in the form of the most fucked up, drug addled seventies coke party disco dance freak out you've ever heard.
From fat fuzzy funked out basslines, to stuttery sampled vocals, to blown out AM radio melodies, to record crackle crusted synthfunk grooves, to cheesy MTV style new wave pop, to creepy jittery collages of slap bass, wah wah guitar, fuzzy synth and electronic drums, but Samps fuck it all up, piling on layers, looping samples, sometimes into full on blown out blissed out almost shoegazey sounding sheets of ethereal buzz and shimmer, but just as often into some sort of stumbling, lurching, unfunky, eighties pop-funk free for all. It's cheesy as all get out, but it's so tweaked and twisted and fucked up, that it basically becomes a sort of low brow high art, a dizzying psychedelic sampledelic mash up that in some weird way transcends all the references, and creates something pretty bad ass out of the musical detritus we've all tried to leave behind.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, comes with a download coupon, we're not sure we can get more of these once they're gone...
MPEG Stream: "Wizard Sleeve"
MPEG Stream: "Hyperbolic"

SAN AGUSTIN Triangulation (Hoof and Mouth Blues) (Table Of The Elements) 12" 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Part one in the Table Of The Elements' label series of super limited one sided 12"s, comes from the relatively unknown Georgia ensemble San Agustin, a three piece free-rock-minimalist-noise-improv outfit that takes the propulsive rhythms of post rock, deconstructs them and wraps them in dense clouds of shifting drone, with occasional NNCK tribalism and Dead C-ish clatter. Really beautiful. They also have a 3 cd set on TOTE if this 12" strikes your fancy. Gorgeous woodcut image silkscreened in glow-in-the-dark ink on clear vinyl in a clear sleeve. So nice. And SO LIMITED!

SAN UL LIM 2 (World Psychedelia) cd 16.98
Number 2 from this fab Korean '70s psych-pop outfit, circa 1978.

SAN UL LIM s/t (World Psychedelia Ltd) cd 17.98
First album from 1977 by this South Korean group of three brothers who began to play together while attending their university. Apparently the three, completely disconnected from the greater Korean rock scene, were most inspired by the likes of Australian rockers AC/DC, but lacking the right equipment or technical know-how couldn't replicate their sound. Whether this is factual or not the music of San Ul Lim, it must be said, sounds absolutely nothing like AC/DC; rather, they sound a lot more like Turkish psych faves Erkin Koray, Haramiler, Mogollar, et al. In fact, the second track on this album shared a space next to some of those very Turks on the Love, Peace & Poetry: Asia collection and despite the fact that their tune had been recorded as much as ten years later than some of the others, they sound as if they could have been cut in the late 60's. San Ul Lim, while ostensibly a trio -- with the eldest brother on guitar, the youngest on drums and the middle playing bass -- either did some over-dubbing work or had another un-named member playing keyboards. Small oversight maybe, but the keyboardist has as big a role as the eldest bro when it comes to carrying the solos for the group using a broad array of synths -- a harpsichord farfisa patch being popular -- and electric pianos. On many of the groups songs it seems like they just gave the keyboardist cart blanche to just solo through the entire tune. The bass playing of the middle brother is equally spirited. Not content to merely playing his role in the rhythm section and keeping harmony going, he has a tendency to keep busy with fast moving scale fragments and melodies. It's all almost too much for the youngest on drums to keep up with at times! Definitely something that anyone who dug the HE 6 reissue reviewed recently (or the Shin Jung Hyun disc reviewed on this list) and wants to further explore the Korean '70s psych scene ought to check out for sure. Likewise if you haven't yet delved into these sounds from SK but like the other international psych sensations we've brought you before...
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"
MPEG Stream: "Track 7"
MPEG Stream: "Track 8"

SANCTUM On The Horizon (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
Following up their recent split with Oakland's Stormcrow, this warlike Seattle-based crew of crusties drop their full-length for 20 Buck Spin. And it's the sound of a whole lotta new ones being torn! Angry, crushing metallic mayhem. Guttural vox over churning, deathly guitars n' battery. Inspired by the likes of Bolt Thrower, Unleashed, Extreme Noise Terror and Amebix, they do their influences proud, carrying the banner of "War Crust" high, following their own marching orders into the meatgrinding artillery barrage and resulting bloody red mist that their music creates.
Packaged in a nice cardboard mini-LP-style gatefold sleeve, adorned with black and grey grim graphics. We count AT LEAST twenty-three obvious skulls and/or severed heads on stakes in the artwork. The disc also includes seven bonus tracks taken from two earlier vinyl ep releases.
MPEG Stream: "In The Shadow Of Death"
MPEG Stream: "Last Breath"

SAND The Dalston Shroud (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00
Wow, were we completely surprised by this record! We all remember not really being that into the UK's Sand when we first heard them a few years ago. But then it seems like maybe they underwent some sort of serious sonic transformation. Gone are almost all traces of their dance-y path. Sure some of the rhythms on the Dalston Shroud could still fill up the dancefloor, but their whole electronic / techno / dance / funk vibe has been transformed into some sort of fuzzed out industrial garage rock stomp.
Their past is littered with remixes and performances for dance troupes and providing alternate soundtracks for films and performing with a who's who of techno heavyweights, but we have to say this new direction is seriously kicking our ass.
The opener is a groovy fuzzy punk rock jam, all angular guitar and HUGE throbbing basslines, moaning horns, buzzing synths and pounding drums. It almost sounds like Interpol doing space rock. Maybe Hawkwind if they formed in NYC in the last several years. Fuzzed out and spacey, but pulsing and relentlessly groove. The second track is a buzzing industrial garage funk electro work out, with FAT fuzz bass and weird sung/spoken vocals and a throbbing beat. The rest of the record manages to meld the two sides of the band, their groovy side, and their freaked out psych rock side, resulting in a sound like some impossible cross between Spacemen 3, Jesus And Mary Chain, old Ministry, Loop, Swans, Hawkwind and with maybe just a little of that Manchester sound swirled in.
Occasionally the band dips back into their electronic bag of tricks resulting in weird free jazz funky breakdowns, or blissed out Shadow style downtempo grooves, but they always return to the riff, and said riff is usually wrapped in thick swirls of delay and echo and all sorts of other FX. Sand are like a gas masked, camouflaged krautrock krew piloting some space rock dancefloor, drifting through the galaxy, directly into the sun.
MPEG Stream: "Kenodki"
MPEG Stream: "Doctor Crop"
MPEG Stream: "The Dalston Shorud"

SANDBERG, SARA Fairlane (Double Ears) book 5.98
The first book from world wanderin' gal Sara Sandberg! Prior to this 95-page fictional work, she's penned a number of zines including The American Girl and Double Ears. An SF punk-pop girl at heart, Sara writes of "the history of one car". That's right, the life and times of one Ford Fairlane! Four decades riddled with encounters involving punks, car thieves, farmers, and much much more. And I can't and won't tell you any more 'cause I'm actually right in the middle of it (page 45 to be exact).

SANDBLEISTIFT, MILAN / AIDAN BAKER / RELAPXYCH.0 Saite An Saite (Licht-Ung) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's a three-way split, presented as 'a string based compilation.' Yup, the guitar is the centerpiece to these experimental smears and dronescapes, starring Aidan Baker, Licht-Ung label boss Milan Sandbleistift, and Relapxych.0 (an upcoming Swedish laptop trickster, or so we assume). Sandbleistift's gauzy drones hover above a thick amplifier hum, coupled with metal-on-metal scrapes, electrical interference directed into the pick-ups, and spidery textures that wiggle into the mix as he plucks away at the bridge of his guitar. Imagine Keith Rowe recording for Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. This is a pretty good track; but to be honest, it's Aidan Baker who steals the show on this album. Even with his esteemed catalogue of ethereal ambience and doomdronedirge excursions, "One Step Ahead, One Step Behind" is pretty exceptional. A desolate guitar melody repeats throughout the entire track, alluding to the doom of Nadja had he kicked on the distortion pedals. But without, there's a sadness which permeates the track, accompanied by ghostly flickers of complimentary drones, flanging bursts of static, and a slow-burning roar of distant distortion that eventually consumes the entire piece. So good! Relapxych.0 holds his own in creating a series of guitar-meets-the-laptop abstractions that looks to Fennesz and Tim Hecker for inspiration, and does a pretty good job in the way of an homage. Limited to a mere 300 copies; and it remains to be seen, if any more will be made available to us!
MPEG Stream: MILAN SANDBLEISTIFT "Seymour In Der Huette"
MPEG Stream: AIDAN BAKER "One Step Ahead, One Step Behind"
MPEG Stream: RELAPXYCH.0 "Insomniactivity"

SANDBOX TRIO / BETH CUSTER Nocturnalis (self-released) cd 13.98

SANDERS, KARL Saurian Meditation (Release) cd 14.98
Solo record from the guitarist of death metal geniuses Nile. Not what you might be expecting. Think all the 'Asian/Eastern' interludes from Nile records, all new agey with some very questionable vocals/lyrics. Ugh. A bit cheesy. Not sure what Sanders (and Release/Relapse) was thinking. Definitely worth checking out for it's WTF value, but even diehard Nile obsessives will be hard pressed to find a reason for having this in their collection.
MPEG Stream: "Awaiting The Vultures"
MPEG Stream: "Luring The Doom Serpent"

SANDERS, PHAROAH Deaf Dumb Blind (Impulse) cd 16.98

SANDERS, PHAROAH Elevation (Impulse) cd 12.98
First time on cd outside of Japan for this early '70s album from Coltrane contemporary and torch-bearer Sanders, a free jazz saxphone legend in his own right. As you might expect, it's a disc both meditative and groovy, with a strong spiritual vibe and definite African/Nigerian influences, as on the uplifting "Ore-Se-Rere" which features lots of rhythmic percussion and vocal chant, or the 14 minute "The Gathering". The title track is also quite a lengthy number, 18 minutes long, of which quite a few are occupied by spurts of hard-blowing outside improv skronk, which you'll also find in "The Gathering" expressively wailing to a downright scary extreme. This was one of Sanders' last albums for the Impulse label, issued in 1974, and has much to recommend it to fans of his other Impulse sides. Herewith the recording details, like we're the DJ on a jazz radio station...
Personnel: Pharoah Sanders (vocals, soprano, tenor saxophone, shaker, percussion, bells); Joe Bonner (vocals, wooden flute, cow horn, piano, harmonium, percussion); Calvin Hill (vocals, bass guitar, tambora); Lawrence Killian (vocals, congas, percussion, bells); John Blue (vocals, percussion); Sedatrius Brown (vocals); Michael White (violin); Michael Carvin (drums, percussion); Kenneth Nash, Jimmy Hopps (percussion). Recording information: The Ash Grove, Los Angeles, California (09/1973); Wally Heider Studio, San Francisco, California (09/13/1973).
MPEG Stream: "Elevation"

SANDERS, PHAROAH Izipho Zam (Sunspots) cd 16.98

SANDERS, PHAROAH Jewels Of Thought (Impulse) cd 15.98

SANDERS, PHAROAH Live At the East (Universal (Japan)) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SANDERS, PHAROAH Tauhid (Impulse) cd 12.98

SANDERS, PHAROAH Thembi (Impulse) cd 15.98

SANDERS, PHAROAH Village of The Pharoahs / Wisdom Through Music (Impulse) cd 16.98
We have a trifecta of free jazz "twofers" this week from way deep down in the Impulse catalog. Check out the reviews elsewhere on the list for Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. While the Coltrane features two of our favorite titles from her, the Ayler and Sanders releases are from albums we're less familiar with, or at least hadn't reviewed before, but have been psyched to (re-)discover. While perhaps not the best place to be introduced to these artists, these records reward those seekers of the overlooked deep cuts without the hefty collector/import price!
Village of The Pharoahs is from 1974, and while that may be a late year for most cosmically-minded free jazz (most jazz at the time was hurtling towards fusion), this record does not disappoint. Fans of classic Sanders records like Thembi and Karma will find lots to love in the opening three part title suite. Sitars, piano, clattering percussion, and chanting vocals evoke a majestic marching groove rife with drama as soon as Sanders comes in with his elliptical eastern horn phrases, culminating later in a hypnotic three part tribal chant breakdown. Deeper spiritual vocalising permeates the short track, "Myth" as well, before building onto the long-form piano-led meditation "Mansion Worlds". The final two tracks, "Memories of Lee Morgan" and "Went Like It Came" venture more into Blute Note territory as he eulogizes the late trumpeter with a wistful pastoral piece that also includes flute and piano, then ends the album with a kind of rollicking skronky blues bop with a soulful female vocalist.
That last track would probably read as a bit out of place on the album proper, but paired up with 1972's Wisdom Through Music, that kind of hard stylistic change-up is a perfect segue into one of Sander's more diverse outings. Opening with the energetic "High Life", Sanders channels the exuberant vibe of percussive African horn music followed by the celebratory and soulful "Love Is Everywhere". The title track that follows brings us back into cosmic mode with harp trills, tampura, and majestic waves of droning reeds, followed by the lyrical string excursion of "The Golden Lamp" and the final long-form vocal incantation, "Selflessness". Quite Stunning!
MPEG Stream: "Village of The Pharoahs Part One"
MPEG Stream: "Memories of Lee Morgan"
MPEG Stream: "Wisdom Through Music"
MPEG Stream: "Selflessness"

SANDERSON, PHILIP Reprint (Anomalous) cd 14.98
A wonderful piece of history precedes the reissue of this recording by the British pioneer of DIY electronics and cassette culture, Philip Sanderson. Having manufactured a number of cassette-only releases from 1978 - 1981 through his label Snatch Tapes, Sanderson devised the rather cynical ploy of recording under the moniker Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey to see if labels like Rough Trade, Cherry Red, or Fast Product might take the bait of women artists producing abstract electronic music. It's the same dodgy yet brilliant ploy recently used by San Francisco's Ziegenbock Kopf to market themselves as gay leatherboys. Unlike ZK, Sanderson got so far as to get a Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey track on the intriguing Cherry Red compilation entitled "Perspectives and Distortions" alongside The Virgin Prunes, Eyeless In Gaza, The Lemon Kittens, and Robert Fripp. The charade was up when Cherry Red made an offer to Claire and Susan to release an album and wanted to meet the two. Upon learning of the ruse, Cherry Red decide to pull out of the deal instead of continuing the masquerade. It's a shame that it had to come to that as Sanderson had produced a really amazing record of low-tech Cluster-inspired electronic bubblings, although Cherry Red's reaction is an understandable one. Regardless, Sanderson shrugged it off, issued the recordings as "Reprint" through Snatch in 1980, and thankfully 23 years later re-released it on CD through Anomalous Records.
The album begins convincingly enough in regards to the Claire and Susan mythology as Sanderson has employed the vocal talents of a woman simply identified as Nancy in an ethereal collage of her voice cycling through a mantra of tape delay effects. Yet that is the only reference to anything distinctly feminine on the record, as Sanderson completes the record with variations and repetitions of clattering electronics corroding into grimy noise and smeary tape hiss, not unlike Chris Carter's productions for Throbbing Gristle and less structured than Sanderson's work as the Storm Bugs. Sanderson's liner notes describe the record as "academic rigour married to an inverted pop art aesthetic. For whereas pop art incorporated the cheap intoxications of consumer culture into the supposed lofty rooms of high art, here was an attempt to incorporate the form of high art into the low brutality of DIY electronics." Well stated! It's probably not for everybody, but with the proliferation of CD-R labels doing the exact same thing 20 years later, "Reprint" is a historical gem.
MPEG Stream: "Bright Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Under Press of Sail"

SANDERSON, PHILIP Seal Pool Sounds (Seal Pool) cd 16.98
It's been a very, very long time that Philip Sanderson has released anything new. Up until Seal Pool Sounds, the last recordings for Sanderson date back to 1982! During the late '70s and early '80s, Sanderson had been very active in the Britian's DIY cassette culture, producing music as the Storm Bugs (with Steven Ball) and as Susan Thomas & Clare Vesay (whose fictional femininity caused a minor bout of controversy between Sanderson and Cherry Red records). He also collaborated frequently with David Jackman who at that time had yet to form his seminal drone-scrape project Organum. Many of these recordings emerged on Sanderson's own Snatch Tapes; and some of those original cassettes have slowly been reissued in recent years. In the mid-'80s, Sanderson made a stylistic jump to film and installation, offering an explanation as to his whereabouts during all those years.
Within the murk, hiss, and Frankensteinian electric constructions of his early work on Snatch, there was a peculiar and perverse sense of humor in Sanderson's work. On Seal Pool Sounds, he allows the playful aspects of that sense of humor to occasionally emerge with these much cleaner squiggles, jolts, and drones of electronic sounds. Alternately, a plaintive melancholia hangs upon other abstracted tones and broken rhythms, ending up sounding like more primitive constructions from Mika Vainio's solo work, those Microstoria albums, and even Manhatten Research era Raymond Scott.
MPEG Stream: "Pilot Light"
MPEG Stream: "Flume"
MPEG Stream: "Left Them Down"

SANDHY & MANDHY Para Castukis (Lion Productions) cd 14.98
Lion Productions once again dig deep into super obscure international psychedelia of the '60s and '70s to bring us this amazing gem. Sandhy & Mandhy were an Argentinian duo who hit the scene almost as fast as they disappeared. Recording only one album in 1967, and doing it in just three hours. With no grand hopes of fame and fortune, their label pressed a mere 110 copies for the group to have at gigs they played. Years later those copies would fetch crazy amounts of money. Which is not surprising once you hear the music, cuz it's so damn good.
Mixing both the dreamy and rocking elements of psychedelic pop, their sound was in a very similar vein and spirit to their contemporaries in nearby Brazil where the Tropicalia movement was just beginning. From moments of fuzz guitar to melt-worthy vocals, this is a record that covers a lot of ground, and does it so well. It really does sound like some awesome mix of Caetano Veloso and Os Mutantes.
Finally we all get to hear the magic of this album made over forty years ago. There are also five bonus tracks, that for some of us are reason enough to grab this, as their awesome lo-fi covers of The Doors and Marianne Faithfull/The Rolling Stones are pretty damn irresistible. We're totally digging this!
MPEG Stream: "Quisera Olivdarte"
MPEG Stream: "Lluvia"
MPEG Stream: "Barco De Cristal (Crystal Ship)"

SANDOVAL, HOPE & THE WARM INVENTIONS Bavarian Fruit Bread (Nettwerk) cd 13.98
Last list out we made Hope Sandoval's first record in over eight years our Record Of The Week. That record was in fact the follow up to this, her first full length after the dissolution of Mazzy Star, who clearly were one of the most important and influential bands of the '90s. Sadly this record had been out of print for years, but with the release of her breathtaking new record, Bavarian Fruit Bread has finally been reissued and that's beyond good news, as this is pretty much the pinnacle for hazy, dazed out and dreamy songsmithery, a suite of sound that both lulls and caresses, transporting you to a place that is somewhere between the clouds, the fog and that half awake/half asleep hypnogogic state. In fact we know a few people who have had some really amazing/healing moments with this record during a period of infirmity and under heavy medication, the perfect soundtrack, as if it were designed to play over and over and give such hazy relief, a glorious sonic painkiller, musical codeine, the kind of record that takes you to a beautifully numb and comforting place. We also plenty of folks who cite this as their absolute go to 'make-out' record, which makes perfect sense, as every note is permeated by a smoky sensuality that truly is intoxicating. If you missed this the first time around we can't stress enough what a stunning and achingly beautiful record this is. An absolute must have!
MPEG Stream: "Suzanne"
MPEG Stream: "Feeling of Gaze"
MPEG Stream: "Butterfly Mornings"

SANDOVAL, HOPE & THE WARM INVENTIONS Through The Devil Softly (Nettwerk) cd 13.98
Before Cat Power, Beach House, Grouper, Edith Frost, Christina Carter, Valet, Marissa Nadler, Tara Jane O'Neil, El Perro Del Mar, Isobel Campbell, Brightblack Morning Light, etc.... there was Hope Sandoval.
Beginning with her work in seminal and influential slowcore dream pop legends Mazzy Star, Sandoval's trademark dazed and hazy vocals have inspired countless other bands and performers, her gorgeous languid purr and the dark swirling sounds surrounding it were no doubt an intoxicating influence, and as fantastic as so many of those Mazzy acolytes are, there is just something so magical, otherworldly and trance inducing about the original. After Mazzy Star called it quits, Sandoval released both an ep and a full length under her own name, that full length, Bavarian Fruit Bread, was easily as dreamy, seductive and enchanting as anything that Mazzy Star had ever created.
It's been over 8 years since that album came out and we've heard very little from the elusive and mysterious chanteuse (other than rumors of a proposed Codeine reunion, with Sandoval on vocals, how amazing would that have been!!). She lives right here in the Bay Area, and performs now and again, sometimes with like minded music makers, sometimes on her own, she even made an appearance a while back on Vetiver's great debut record. Now finally, almost a decade since her last proper record, we have this completely chilling and utterly beautiful record, that proves it was well worth the wait, the record at once immediate and intimate, but also with the feel of something meticulously crafted over many long dark nights.
Immaculate, lush, warm, melancholy, seductive, sensual, sexy, smoky... words only begin to scratch the surface when describing the intensity and emotion, the depth and and delicate beauty of Through The Devil Softly.
The music here is again, a perfect match for Sandoval's gorgeous vocals, dark and lush and seductive and hypnotic, which comes as no surprise since her band The Warm inventions is comprised of some incredible players, including her main musical coconspirator, Colin O Ciosoig of My Bloody Valentine, who co-wrote several of the songs as well as being the Inventions' drummer.
Through The Devil Softly is a record that even on first listen sounds timeless, and ageless, a record that will no doubt seep into your heart, and soul, and play on and on, a constant companion, a musical balm that will soothe and comfort, ease you when you are uneasy, wrap you in warmth as you dream the day away, and lift you into the air as millions of memories, thoughts and desires infuse your body and mind. Simply breathtaking!
MPEG Stream: "For The Rest Of Your Life"
MPEG Stream: "Fall Aside"
MPEG Stream: "Blanchard"
MPEG Stream: "Thinking Like That"