#17, NOVEMBER 2004



by Larry "Fuzz-O" Dolman

You know, I get a lot of records in the mail, and I'd say that most of 'em are CDRs. The way technology has gone, that's only natural for independent music, and I try to give all CDRs a fair shake, but it's just never as nice as getting a vinyl LP in the mail. When it's on vinyl, you just know it's probably going to be good, or at least carefully considered, which CDRs almost NEVER are, even when they ARE good.
      Now if this primitive/outsider sax/drums/electronics LP by Klondike & York had been a CDR, I would've still really liked it, but having it pressed onto vinyl with a cool-ass color cover, well, as Al Pacino would say, "Forget about it!" It's top-notch! It's essentially a sax and drums free jazz duo, one Chad Stockdale on sax and one Nate Beier on percussion, with a lot of heavy blowing and space-out time-keeping, but I'm tempted to not call it free jazz. I mean was The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing free jazz? No, it was psychedelic saxophone, and so is The Holy Book.
      And, to help sew it up as something 'other', there's also some synthesizer on here. It's not credited to any one musician, the word just floats in the space right after the credits. This is pretty much what the synth does on the record too, it just sort of mysteriously appears now and then. Trippy silk-screened labels too. Actually, the whole LP, from the home-recorded vibe to the shadowy appearance to the Northern California return address, reminds me of when the first Six Organs of Admittance LP appeared and left blown minds in its wake. There may still be time to get your mind blown, but I really doubt there are any more than 500 of these floating around, so hurry up and e-mail weirdforest@yahoo.com to see what's going on.

Last issue, I had only heard of this record, but that's how the Blackjack label always was for me. I never owned any of their records, I just knew the label from the hand-drawn ads they took out in mags like Muckraker and Bananafish. ("Wanna play pirate?," anyone?) Even now all I have is a Monoshock 7-inch I bought used for a couple bucks last year, but I would pay at least five bucks for a copy of this album, the one I'm reviewing, Liquorball Fucks The Sky. Hell, I'd pay $6.99, but for now I'm borrowing it, and it's a pretty mutant sound. Side one: Amorphous lurch by rock guitars that seems to go on quite awhile until the drummer saves the day . . . sort of . . . and the band finally settles into a riff . . . sort of. The singer is great, and he really ties the forlorn jamming together with vocals that are both funny and scary. Julian Cope describes his style as like an "E.T. Gollum"; he sounds to me like a really good black metal singer, and as improvised black metal this is much better than the Abruptum CD I bought two years ago (even though it's not technically black metal, I know, I know).

GRADY RUNYAN of MONOSHOCK and LIQUORBALL: Jeez, top that look, will ya . . . . very Emmett Grogan . . .

ANGUS MACLISE: The Cloud Doctrine 2CD (SUB ROSA)
Let's see if I can nail it . . . . okay, Coltrane + 1/5(Theater of Eternal Music)+ Xenakis + Philip Whalen/Gary Snyder + (xyz) = Angus MacLise. Naw, forget it, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. One thing that does make sense is that I, having named this magazine after an Angus MacLise song, would have purchased all three of the recent archival Angus MacLise releases via the Quakebasket organization, Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (1999), Brain Damage In Oklahoma City (2000), and Astral Collapse (2003). And indeed I did. However, I must confess that when this 2CD set, The Cloud Doctrine, came out not on Quakebasket but on an unaffiliated overseas label, I hesitated to buy it. As an import 2CD it was slightly expensive, and I feared some of the material from the Quakebasket releases would be repackaged on it.
      Well, I finally just bought it anyway because I couldn't resist, and I'm glad I couldn't. Not only is none of the Quakebasket material repeated, but everything on here is mind-blowing. Disc one has six tracks, two of them trio monster jams that run in the 26-30 minute zone. The style on these is basically extended improvised jazz spiritual, Coltrane but without the tune at the head, as played by Caucasian street-freak visual artists. On "The First Subtle Cabinet," Angus just plays cimbalum, backed by Tony Conrad and Piero Helcizer on combinations of drum, voice, guitar, mandola, slide, flute. Their backing is so discreet that it works as a cimbalum solo piece, and MacLise is constantly inventive and driven, even throughout 26 minutes. About halfway through, I actually had an audio-hallucination that I was hearing the music within some hairy genius birdwatcher as he finds the inside of a piano in his attic and shakes out all the dust and cobwebs until small birds and less identifiable critters start to scurry and vacate. (Among other destinies.)
      "Thunder Cut" is even longer and it's Angus on cimbalum, drum, and "tamburine," while Tony Conrad plays "horn, violin, reed organ drone, thunder loop, drone," and Conrad's wife Beverly Grant Conrad completes the trio on "drum." Don't let the title fool you, it's again a deceptively quiet piece, until you turn it up and the quietly desperate tones slowly drill themselves in. Conrad's closing one-note clarion call is a real chiller, sad and lonely but calm, the dark side of minimalism, music as a still and infinite repose, a deathdream of one sound and one silence stacked one on top of the other, forever, like two colors on a modern art canvas, for six minutes on tape.
     There's only one long cut on Disc Two and that's 28 minutes of solo electronics by Angus, which is a whole 'nother kettle, proto-harsh psych electronics AT THEIR BEST (in my smitten opinion). Oh, there's also a 19 minute track of Angus reading the "Universal Solar Calendar," "place and date unknown" (and 10 more minutes of Angus reading his gentle trippy poetry on Disc One). Other points of interest on Disc Two are 4 minutes of organ/drum jam with wife Hetty MacLise (remember that killer Angus/Hetty track on Brain Damage In Oklahoma City?) and 3 minutes of another Tony Conrad trio, this time rounded out by some guy named John Cale. And, really, that's not even everything sprawled across these two discs! Recommended, for both newcomers and completists!

New burnt-noise Brooklyn rock duo. Not exactly original, and I'm sure a lot of reviews will mention Harry Pussy and Sightings like this one just did, but mere originality is not essential here, as something about this record just feels good, from the negative-image charcoal-scrawl cover art right down to the last monster-prov sprawl-note of the seven tracks within. These guys can really get the 'sheets of sound' going, and in fact there is something original about these sheets, once you get wrapped in one. Another feather in Psych-o-Path's steadily enlarging cap.

NAUTICAL ALMANAC: Rooting For The Microbes CD (LOAD)
They've been around forever setting and inspiring a particular scene and lately, along with others in said scene, they're starting to get more attention. As far as "today's noise music" goes, it couldn't happen to better people. They're a freak-flag today's noise music couple who were at ground zero (Ann Arbor circa 1993), and now they live in Baltimore where they're defining a new urban pioneer lifestyle that the lifestyle mags simply aren't even gonna get to. So the mystique is building, all to be thrown into the wind by this release. Not because it isn't good, because it's absolutely definitive. It's just that some of the more classicist folks who're discovering 'em might not be ready for just how devil-may-carelessly this group approaches things. It's their highest profile release ever and it sounds like all the material was conceived and recorded it in a couple hours. Free-form fast-moving junk-noise, quite harsh, that indeed sounds like what rooting for microbes might sound like if the process was really, really confrontational. Track 1, "Mind of Sharp Mind Fractured/Fractions," is a short bee-scream polarizer, then track 2, "Exterior Beaten Bluntly, Clumpy, Stumpy," has wasted vocals that I believe talk about "chokin' my cock." Track 4, "Reason: Mythology Built Upon Physickall Vortextualation Step Side Step Steep Side Step," might be the craziest one yet, and I just realized that neither track 2 or track 4 have Twig on 'em, just Carly and other guests. 4 does have Jim Drain, though. In fact, each track has at least one guest out of a pool of 10 others that appear on the album.
        It's this kind of on-the-fly multifaceting that makes them a must-see live band, and they've been on tour for months at a time, so they know it's a worthwhile effort. First and foremost, go see 'em live, and if you're interested in buying a record, maybe wait until you can pick one out at the show. They've done a lot of releases, mostly on handmade CDR, and they're all fine interchangeably, set apart by the great artwork, which is usually freakazoid hand-made dayglo stuff. The Microbes artwork isn't hand-made, but it's really good, in a surprisingly soft kind of way, complete with calligraphy and esoteric symbols. (Hippies. Just kidding, the front cover drawing actually reminds me of Paul Klee, and I'm pretty sure he was NOT a hippie.) But really, I don't know how often I'm gonna pull it out, because it'll just make me wanna see 'em live. OH SHIT! Here I am talking about how great they are live, and I just realized that RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE THEY'RE PLAYING TWO BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE! And I'm sitting here glued to a computer writing about them instead of actually going to see them. At least I'm listening to their album, albeit not much louder than the baby monitor I'm also listening to. But if I didn't have a baby, I'd totally be there, man! (Here's a review that was posted online of the show Fuzz-O is talking about -- 150 people showed up!)

If you put this loud and crazy 8-song cassette on and listen from a safe distance it might just sound like another post-screamo attempt by a band to 'blast' their way 'out' of the usual metaphorical 'prison', but take a few steps closer and there are some wicked pulsating depths. For one thing, there's some real low-end to the music, like the same horrible sludge that Sleep worked with on Dopesmoker except now it's coming at you with serious velocity, like the difference between the attackers in Night of the Living Dead (1968) and the attackers in Shivers (1975). What's more, the singer isn't just screaming because that's what he's supposed to, he's screaming like he's being TORTURED, or at least, to source their band name, convulsing into gory pieces just like Barry Convex in Videodrome (1983).

With their second album, No Doctors have come closer to achieving the impossible task of fully representing on record what they do live. The self-titled debut (secretly double) LP on Freedom From was heavy and kicked some shit and repeat listenings do reveal a lot going on underneath the shitkicking surface, but it just wasn't as immediately crazy as the live shows. Well this 'un IS pretty much as crazy as the live shows, and I'm thinking it's because it was recorded while the band was on the run, smack in the middle of a month-long tour, far from Minneapolis and Evanston, deep within the wilds of Baltimore, high on Tarantula Hill, at Diamond Eyes studio, by none other than James Twig Harper (Nautical Almanac) and Chiara Giovando (sometimes Nautical Almanac). Not surprisingly, the result sounds very live and as 'in the moment' as a deer caught in headlights, complete with all the screeching and crashing. Hunting season indeed! I'm sure a few people will hear this harried vibe and sniff that "it sounds like shit" but I think THEY sound like shit, because regardless of fidelity the message is clear: No Doctors are one of the few new American psycho-blues acts that can hold a candle to the memory of Pussy Galore.
      One prime example is
the rousing second track and de facto album opener, "Campaign Special," in which the trademarked vein-popping No Docs blues holler rides a very high-powered 'industrial' backbeat, demented raunch guitar lines writhing and howling around it, occasionally separated by a brat one-note-three-times horn riff that I was humming all day long, like in the bathroom. This harmolodic swarm, two guitars and high-energy saxophone freaking out over the heavy-duty rhythm section, continues throughout the album. Track #6, "No Doctors," follows one of the Blastitude Rules of Rock -- that any band who names a track after themselves is automatically great. I actually recognize this cocky number from live shows way back in 2001. Another song I recognize from shows is #9, "Sharkskin Blues," which, I'm happy to say, is the epic jam they were closing their mid-2002 performances with. Back then, I wrote a suitably impressed review of one of these shows, which you can refer to here. You'll notice that I thought the live version of "Sharkskin Blues" was 15 minutes long, but on record it clocks in at just under 6 minutes -- I knew they were playin' mind-tricks on me with those crazy live shows! Cansafis's lead vocal uses at least 120% of his capabilities to produce the kind of possessed howl that only the most spirited blues/soul/church shouters get into, and usually not until the utter climax of the song; it is with that intensity that Cansafis STARTS the song, and it only increases from there. The lyrics about "going down to the water / going down to sea" help along that gospel vibe too.
      Anyway, I could go on -- let's just say that Hunting Season does justice to the No Doctors live frenzy, and that I give it five-and-a-half stars! (*****1/2) (Great cover art too -- I liked it so much I made it my background tile!)

"This here compact document includes our first three concerts in full length -- unedited and unprocessed -- our entire live history up 'til now." Top-notch album of pure classic harsh noise. First of all, it's on CD instead of CDR so you know it's a cut above. Second of all, the players are Lasse Marhaug, and he's kind of famous, along with Tore Honoré Bøe, also of Norway's (kind of famous) Origami Republika collective. Third of all, it comes with an apropos and satisfying manifesto/history of noise, which I quoted from to begin this review, and am going to continue to quote from at length, shamelessly: "TNM was started on a direct request from those who want to drown themselves in sexy and pure noise cascades instead of the jellyfish squeeks [sic] and beeps the media has defined as being noise. [. . .] It is simply the core of what rock'n'roll should be about, namely unlimited energy output." Right, because noise is indeed a form of rock'n'roll, and We Shall Provide is truly an album that rocks, in every sense of the world.

THE NORDIC MIRACLE: Because every girl is crazy about a sharp-dressed man.

I wasn't sure how this one was gonna play out -- at first I thought it was a CD by a metal band, just because it had the word "CARRION" in the title and some possibly metal cover art. Then I looked at the back cover, which has a picture of a huge synth patch bay, so I was like, "Alright, it's a one-man synth record!" Then I opened it up and saw a picture of some sort of Boba Fett robot looking dude, as well as the words "San Francisco, CA" in the liner notes, and I was like, "Oh SHIT, it's some no wave robot dance party bullshit." (Sorry to generalize like that San Fran, it's just this image I have, I'll get over it.)
      Well, the truth is it's none of those things. It's actually kind of an experimental drum 'n' bass album. And as such, it's good, with gnarly distorto tones and a good amount of both energy and atmosphere. I've said it before, I feel unqualified to critique this type of hard techno music -- it always sounds fine to me. And herein might lie the problem -- will I continue to pull this good techno disc out for spins when I already hardly ever pull out my great techno discs by Aphex Twin and Expose Your Eyes et al?

NOXAGT: The Iron Point CD (LOAD)
Nox-ate? Nox-ag-ate? Anyway, I didn't think I was ready for another Noxagt album so soon, but The Iron Point is really good. These guys might just be the most solid band in the world. Of course, "solid" isn't always a big compliment -- in fact, when describing a band, it's often a cop-out, like when you say a band is "really tight" or has "a lot of energy." But these guys aren't just solid, the sound they make is a solid (as in definitely not a gas or a liquid). The irony is that the heavier they get, the more their style seems to be some sort of ambient-core, but just before you speak it out loud the rhythm section comes in with another post-post-post-post-Bonzo anchor-stomp and instead you ask, "Holy shit, is that really just one bass guitar and a viola?" Also notable is the way they incrementally build on the sound of the first album, adding startling vocals by an old Norwegian man to one track, and doing a Pearls Before Swine cover with another. Name producer Billy Anderson returns and again makes them sound every bit as huge as they apparently actually are, and liner note writer Stefan Jaworzyn also returns, and his contribution is really funny, whether you like post-Meltz switcheroo/misinfo Dada/Smartassa moves or not!

Scott "Wino" Weinrich has been the front-man in several doom metal bands, most notably St. Vitus and The Obsessed. Both are legendary, but I had not yet heard the latter. So, particularly in the wake of Arthur's Wino Weinrich cover story a couple weeks ago, I decided to pick up their 1994 major label album The Church Within. My first listen took place early in the morning at work, and I must admit that I had some trepidation . . . mainly because the graphics are straight-up post-80s terrible! (Fortunately, like mid/late-period SST releases, they are unintentionally terrible, which makes them refreshing.) I was not too impressed by the music on first pass either -- heavy riffs, sure, but the production was kind of flat, the performance kind of ham-fisted.
      Still, something about it called me back, and a few hours later, after lunch, I got it out again and gave it another spin. My boss -- also a St. Vitus fan -- walked by and said "Who's this? Sounds like Living Colour. Late period Living Colour." And he had a point. I took it home, considered not keeping it, but on the third listen it magically started to blossom into a powerful album. Liability became an asset; in the absence of noticeable production, nothing is left but the songs, plain and simple. I was forced to pay attention to Wino's lyrics and singing, and eventually realize just how pitch-perfect and razor-sharp his voice is. This, in turn, made me really listen to the band's playing, and realize that it is just as pitch-perfect and razor-sharp as the voice.
      And, as the band plays on, I start to feel their slow precision as a heroic musical effort to create a much-needed time for reflection, an oasis of calm within -- not apart from, but within -- the force and chaos of the heavy metal modern world. Wino speaks in simple phrases that either turn more enigmatic or make more hard-scrabble sense, depending on which way the words accumulate ("Now the strongholds they are vanquished / By the cold arm of decision / But there's hope you won't surrender / To the brigade of repetition"). But, no matter how enigmatic, his lyrics are always rooted in the life of the common man: "I want to make you feel good, inside this cold world's scene / Cause living day to day gets downright obscene / I need a touch of everything / We've lost touch with everything," or "Falling down, falling hard / Cannot hide these living scars / It takes your life just to learn / You can never stop / The world turn." From a distance it sounds like fantasy metal, but the more you listen it starts to sound political. "It's hard to believe but no proof is needed / Of the cruelty of man's deeds / Cauldron of hatred, festering horror / The anger of chaotic confusion..."
     The band's great achievement is to stay so ascetically focused and sharp in the face of chaotic confusion, their only capitulation coming in the form of Wino's occasional guitar solos, short and manic and nutty, the one intentional flaw on the otherwise smooth surface, carefully controlled and compartmentalized. So yeah, interesting album -- but its pleasures are not simple.

PHARAOH OVERLORD: The Battle Of The Axehammer (Live) CD (LAST VISIBLE DOG)
Pharaoh OVERLOAD is more like it. Actually, there's something kind of sedate and sedentary about this music, even as it crushes with heaviness. They're a hard rock band from Finland that plays one riff for ten minutes at a time with vocals that are so occasional and weird-mixed that you don't even notice 'em 'til the third or fourth listen, as The One Riff just keeps on churning around and around, eventually slipping back inside itself and creating concentric circles, which is appropriate because Pharaoh Overlord is a side-project of the acclaimed Finnish psych/space/trance-rock group Circle. The album really is live, in front of an audience of what sounds like about 7 people, but things like audience participation and energy aren't what matter to the Overlords -- it's more just the cyclical nature and changing same that is THE (heavy-ass resin-coated stoner-sludge) RIFF.