This is My Music: Vol 3 (Nashville Skyline)

Warmer Milks Soft Walks (Animal Disguise) CD - One of the sweeter surprises of the last year can be heard among the the stoned roots pop vibes of Soft Walks. Warmer Milks the art slop grunge band takes a breather so that Warmer Milks the vintage/cracked roots ensemble can emerge. The wandering fingerpicking strings of opener "Untitled" give way to the urban-escapism of "Wild Spring." "The Friends" with its drunk harmonies and slacker country blues rhythm seems heavily indebted to psych blues Stones and Neil Young loungin' 'n' scroungin' on the beach. The equally majestic "A Bulb in the Dark" ups the country ante and approximates stoned country pop bliss ala The Silver Jews or Pavement on the "Range Life," and concluding this run of ragged anthems, the epic "Patio Blues," with a rousing sing-along chorus climax that will have you joining in every time. Awesome vintage production by Paul Oldham of Speed to Roam and the legendary Oldham clan.

Donovan Quinn and the 13th Month Donovan Quinn and the 13th Month (Soft Abuse) CD - Mr. Quinn jangled his way into my heart as one half of the Sky Green Leopards and perhaps more potently as the soul contributor to Verdure, whose The Telescope Dreampatterns (Camera Obscura) remains a minor late night classic 'round these parts in terms of stone folk pop transcendence. With his new band the 13th Month the psych touches are not as abundant, but the Dylan love is in full form across a dusty shuffling pop backdrop that should appeal to fans of the aforementioned West Coast folk-popsters, Wooden Wand, MV/EE and the like.


Current 93 Birth Canal Blues (Durtro/Jnana) CD - Here's a fine teaser EP to prepare us for the imminent arrival of Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain, which is guaranteed to kick off another onslaught of patripassionist prophetic folk doom. These four songs land somewhere between Soft Black Stars and Black Ships... and genuinely do the trick with strong melodies, cryptic lyrics, stark musicianship, blistering vocal performances from David and highly psychedelic production. Works for me. Scary at high volumes. None of their Apocalypse folk followers even come close.


Pantaleimon Tall Trees (Abaton) - Really meant to write something about this short CD-R long ago, so better late than never. This time Andrea Degans' support comes in the form of Irish folk droners Plinth for four short songs of minimal chamber folk splendor in just under 11 minutes of levitated pop bliss showcasing Degan's ethereal warm voice to perfection. This is a fitting gem from the always unique Abaton Book Company label and comes with the highest recommendation, in fact. Let the healing begin.

D. Charles and the Helix After Hours (Black Dirt) LP - Had a good ol' time groovin' and grinnin' along to these country psych folksters when I saw them open for Jack Rose in St. Louis last year. D. Charles looks sorta like Doug Sahm and even kinda sounds like him too, though he claimed only to have just discovered Sir Doug when I mentioned the similarity. For fans of Townes, The Band, Flying Burritos/Byrds and outlaw country of every stripe. This was definitely the discovery of the year in '08 for yours truly. After Hours' ramshackle analog production is as much an asset as Charles' otherworldly "how ya doin'?" sunburnt vocals washing over the troubled mind like a warm Summer breeze. Laid back and (mostly) stress free. Apparently this is sold out at the source, but something tells me it's still out there in them racks if ya do the digging.

Daniel Higgs Metempsychotic Melodies (Holy Mountain) CD - This is the followup to the masterful Ancestral Songs offering up four more epic psych folk devotionals that draw from diverse/vast worlds of spiritual/artistic influence to probe the depths of the human heart/soul in word/sound. Daniel Higgs is a national treasure, and may not be for everyone, but fans of Jack Rose, Six Organs of Admittance and Paul Metzger should be aware the Lungfish guru's contributions to noise raga illumination. Dark beauty for the ravaged children of God.

Roy Harper Stormcock (Science Friction) CD - Stunning reissue of one of Harper's very best albums. If you love Nick Drake, John Martyn (RIP), Led Zeppelin and other stalwarts of the Brit psych folk scene, you absolutely NEED this album. Trance-inducing melodies, soul-stirring vocals and sterling folk blues guitar (by Jimmy Page!) that stands the test of time and infinity beyond -- via Harper's own Science Friction label.

Damon & Naomi More Sad Hits (20-20-20) CD - Thanks so much to Damon & Naomi for sending over a promo of the album that started it all way back in 1991 after Dean Wareham unceremoniously sacked the beloved rhythm duo from Galaxie 500. Can't really tell you how well this has aged since its release in 1992 other than I can now safely say it's a little masterpiece of stoned psych folk pop that covers all the bases from chiming acoustic guitars to lidded drone folk and the little cul de sacs in between. Like the above Harper album, comes in a splendid heavy album style package. Definitely one of Damon & Naomi's very best, not to mention a cornerstone of the early '90s American psych underground.

Crow Tongue Ghost Eye Seeker (Dark Holler) CD - Timothy Renner's music has always been as much about healing as seeking, and Ghost Eye Seeker is a broken soul healer if ever there was one. This is mountain music for the third eye, deep space meditations for the the darkest of nights, mystical tones that conjure a new language of light. Just as if you go back far enough in time you find that country and blues and jazz are ultimately the same thing, this feels like a progression in the other direction through myriad stylistic shifts and psychedelic eons to arrive at a place where all is one and it echoes. Another brilliant dispatch from Pennsylvania's Beating Heart and among the very best 2008 had to offer.

Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter Like, Love, Lust, and The Open Halls of the Soul (Southern Lord) 2LP - What a title, huh? This slice of solemn folk pop beauty lives up to its implied promise. Jesse Sykes was last heard (by me) singing the lead vocal to the magnificent "Sinking Bell" on the Boris/Sunn o))) collaboration, and here we get her complete with full band backing playing a kind of lazy almost country pop that sneaks up on the listener and holds tight. Sykes has a haunted whisper of a croon that's plaintive and accessible, but also emanates a slightly warped sadness all its own. Somewhere between Mazzy Star, classic Band, Sister Lovers and heaven and hell resides Like, Love, Lust, and the Open Halls of the Soul.

Wovenhand Ten Stones (Sounds Familyre) CD - Fourth solo effort from David Eugene Edwards (of 16 Horsepower) is a monster of dark, reverberating psychedelic blues and rapturous mountain folk that ultimately comes together into a surging, unique kind of folk rock that's at once tribalist, fierce, hypnotic and otherworldly. Edwards is definitely one of America's most unique "roots rockers" out there. Expecting great things from their live set at SXSW.

Alastair Galbraith Orb (Next Best Way) CD - It's always a good thing when Master Galbraith sends us further musical dispatches from his home in Dunedin, New Zealand. If I have my facts straight Orb is the first solo album from Galbraith since his masterful primitive drone folk opus Cry (Emperor Jones) back in 2000. Otherwise he can most recently be heard in trio with Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson on Belsayer Time (Time Lag), every bit the beauty such a tonal mindmeld would suggest. But when it comes down to it, I fell in love with the music of Galbraith because of the kind of songs found on Orb -- tiny snippets of minimal drone blasts, haunted lo-fi folk confections and weird rock segues all dressed up with tasteful psych effects and odd found sounds anchored at their core by Alastair's unmistakable ghost voice. No one sounds like this guy, but if you go back far enough you can find similar tonal kinship in the recordings of Syd Barrett, Skip Spence, Simon Finn and Nico among a few others (John Cale!). You get it. As essential as it gets.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy Lie Down in the Light (Palace/Drag City) CD - I should fess up here to a bit of lyin' down on the job. I've been a fan of Will Oldham basically since the first moments I heard him way back in '93 or whenever I chanced upon that weird opus, Palace Brothers' There is No-one What Will Take Care of You the first time, and like the best of friends, he's gotten older with me, and grown well beyond me at this point. I'm so behind that this is not even his most recent release. That would be Beware, which just hit the shelves this month. That's a different story, as is his recent collaboration with Meg Baird and Greg Weeks (both Espers) which hatched in '07. Basically, Lie Down in the Light just might be the most consistently thrilling, life affirming, folk pop masterstroke to bear the Bonnie "Prince" stamp since the landmark I See a Darkness. The melodies, the musicianship, the harmonies, Oldham's glorious voice singing lyrics of love, family, sacrifice and heartbreak join together to weave a quilt of undeniable humanism which just happens to be some of the finest American roots music of this or any other decade.

Had a fine ol' time last Tuesday at the No Idea Festival in Ft. Worth. It was the North Texas debut for the esteemed fest curated by Austin percussionist Chris Cogburn. And even though it was on a Tuesday night, and despite a last minute venue change(!), it was a smashing success with a strong turnout. I'm still proud to be a Texan!

Sets included the quiet guitar and laptop compositions of Annette Krebs, both solo and in conjunction with local experimental musicians Michael Maxwell (electronics) and Sarah Alexander (voice/electronics). Solo Krebs merged guitar feedback and field recordings into quiet eruptions of crackle and fuzz that occasionally even gave that loud lady at the bar a run for her money in terms of volume...

With Maxwell and Alexander: the tender interplay...


Jason Kahn (electronics) and Chris Cogburn's (percussion) set was a work of strange wonder with Cogburn's abstract skins and cymbals feeding into Kahn's soundboard, which he then manipulated in a multitude of directions. Kahn began his performance career as a drummer (and played on a few albums by Universal Congress Of for the SST label) before discovering his more abstract tonal side via solo compositions (percussion and electronics) and his label Cut Records. I'm new to the guy but know where he's coming from, as I suggested a tonal kinship to Jon Mueller and Crouton Records which Kahn welcomed. No video sad to say but one sweet pic! Some cute young lady videotaped basically the whole night though...
Kahn also performed in a trio along with Michael Chamey (radio signals) and Nevada Hill (electric viola!) in a super-drone-skree fest that can be witnessed below. Was happy to hear the wiry electronic string scrape smashed up against the whoosh and pulsing groan of vintage electronix during their set...

And that brings me to night-closers Yells at Eels (Steffan Gonzalez on percussion, Aaron Gonzalez on double bass, Dennis Gonzelez on trumpet) plus the great Tatsuya Nakatani on free percussion. I can say firsthand how privileged folks in this crowd felt to be seeing something this cathartic and relentlessly OUT smack-dab in the middle of the Stockyards of all places. This clip is only the second part of what I captured, so it represents a kind of lull compared to the first part of their set, but you can definitely get the gist. This was easily the most furious and straight up free jazz Yells at Eels set I've seen to date, plus a fitting/mindblowing conclusion to a magical night. The effect of the twin percussion with Aaron's see-sawing basslines beneath Dennis's fierce trumpet trills was comparable to a mighty pendulum swinging back forth in a torrential downpour. I don't blame that bald guy sitting beside me for for leaving halfway through the set, but I also wonder if he'll ever realize how lucky he was to be privy to such a dexterous and highly visceral sonic display. I felt it down to my brittle bones. I'm still reeling in that moment, still feeling the furious torment. Just wish I'd been able to upload the first part of this set to Youtube... Fuckin' Youtube!

So there you have it, friends: a night of magic in the heart of pain. A night of rejuvenation. A fount of rebirth. May this cosmic improvisation we call No Idea never end.

People in and around Brooklyn really should to go to this:

Two Documentaries Designed to Bring You Closer to God...

Man on Wire, dir: James Marsh (Discovery Films) - I saw this Oscar winner in the theater, and I can safely say it really is one of my most exhilarating viewing experiences in 2008. Even though we know the outcome going in -- Philippe Petit traversed that mighty gulf between the two WTCs back in the late 70s and lived to tell the story -- every second of this movie feels as if it was happening right now in real time. Recollected commentaries, amazing archival footage and modern day recreations are all edited together seamlessly to describe a great caper in which the culprit wanted nothing more than to kiss the sky. True magic indeed.

Encounters at the End of the World, dir: Werner Herzog (THINKFilm) - Herr Herzog has done it again with this haunted little rumination on Antarctica and its various inhabitants -- above and below the ice -- so seemingly out of step with the rest of the world. What kind of person ends up at the bottom of the world? What kind of penguin traipses off to its certain death? And just what the hell is a neutrino? See this and perhaps find out. Beautiful music, stunning photography and Herzog's own touched narration help make Encounters a keeper for the ages and a must see for anyone who's ever fallen prey to spiritual/physical wanderlust.

Holy shit! Have you people heard of Shrinebuilder? No songs posted yet, but it sounds like they're almost finished with the debut album which will come out on Neurot. Greenings and Salivations!


And: RIP Lux Interior. Sorry to say I never got to see The Cramps live. Their ...Off the Bone LP, a collection of their earliest demos produced by Alex Chilton, is a serious contender for the best pure rock album of all time. For real. Wicked, thumping rawkabilly that defines much more than a generation or an attitude or a scene. This is modern primitivism. I must admit I hate most of their followers, but that's a different story.

CDs are Out!

Now this is all right. Folks with even a passing interest in related activity in and around The Tower Recordings camp (the same fertile soil from which the MV & EE Medicine Show and PG Six originally sprung) will want to make note of this recent announcement from the excellent improvised/drone/folk ensemble, Pothole Skinny. Looks like just about everything they've released and other more recent archival things are available for download via their digital store -- as high quality mp3s in format of your choice -- and the price is up to you the buyer. So be fair, people! Happy downloading!

Li'l late here: Just wanted to express my deep gratitude to MV & EE for playing a beaut of a country blues live set for a very small, rapt audience last Monday at The Lounge on Elm. It was in all honesty the most gorgeous, loud-ass performance I've seen from these kiddos yet. A few hardcore psych blues heads made it out for the festivities, including Captain Groovy (he owns every single MV/EE related CD, LP, CD-R, tape, etc, or so he claims) and his pal Dean, SubKommander Mike and bass guru Aaron G. for what was roughly an hour of blissful psychedelic genre smashing.

This was the sixth gig I'd seen by this mystical duo (including two with The Golden Road at the last Terrastock), and the sparse turnout had me a bit worried but also feelin' kinda moon-kissed and in the now (then). Anytime you can hang out somewhere with MV & EE and not sweat anything more than having enough cash fer the merch and enough whiskey fer the glass, you're doin' all right. The set drew heavily from the new album, Drone Trailer (Di Christina), including a soaring fly-high version of "The Hungry Stones" which married Neil Young and Dino Jr. in a driving hybrid of shuffling acoustic guitars and shimmery lapsteel drone. Also completely mind-blowing -- "Huma Cosm" -- MV's epic free/slow blues number that came off like a cross between Loren Conners and a very drunk Neil Young trapped in 1974. Centerpiece "Solar Mountain" (surely THEE MV/EE EPIC DRONE JAM of recent lunar cycles) was a thing of great beauty and calm that eventually ranneth over with PSF-worthy guitar squalls that had me wondering, what if Keiji Haino sat in with The Dead just once in late 69? The banjo raga climax threw everything into serious stomping frenzy and left us all howling for more, literally. Yeah it was pretty heavy for just two people. It was in fact a sight to behold. Bought 2 tapes, 2 CDs, a little book of poetry called "Plumbers Crack." Hugs were free.

So I think it's pretty well known among the informed and hip-to-me that 2001 is almost my favorite movie, which is just one reason I had to order this beautiful split picture disk from The Music Fellowship:

The Monolith series combines two artists on the same one-sided, reverse-cut LP by hard-panning one recording to the right and the other recording to the left. By adjusting the panning controls on his or her turntable, the listener is free to control the degree to which the two recordings melt into one. Each edition in the series is limited to a one-time pressing of 500 picture disc LPs featuring a Monolith inspired painting by Ned Clayton and includes a CD with stereo mixes, extended versions, and bonus tracks.

Monolith: Earth is the oxymoronic pairing of dreamcore drone legends Windy and Carl and new school leaders of free rock Heavy Winged. Heavy Winged contribute one of their darkest, most oppressive tracks yet. The addition of Windy and Carl's purity creates something entirely different. It's no longer the sound of three bros busting out dark drone metal in some shed in snowy Vermont; it's now the sound of some communal artists busting out epic krautjams in the German hinterland. Primitive, vicious early man meets colossal pristine symbol of higher thought - could there be any better pairing for this Monolith?

I've finally figured it out.

It's not about everyone.

It's about us.

Here's a thoughtful Crawdaddy piece by James Greene Jr. about Ron Asheton and The Stooges legacy.

I didn't get into too many weird movies in '08, aside from a serious appraisal of the works of Lucio Fulci. I'm still a Lost fan as well. It's unconventional for primetime television while still being a weepy soap fest that may have finally jumped the shark with this whole time warping/record skipping plot turn, but hot dog I suppose I'm hooked till the end. Also hooked on the new season of Big Love. More on that later. Movies? The best movie I saw in '08 was probably Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but that actually came out in '07. Otherwise, in no particular order:

1. The Wrestler - Finally Darren Aranofsky finishes what he started by focusing on the little things that add up to a whole lot of pain when you see the physical/emotional toll ol' Randy "The Ram" has endured over the years. He's all alone. A simple movie elevated by a fairly amazing performance from Mickey Rourke which I've come to refer to as The Passion of the Last Von Erich.

2. Gran Torino - Iconic, old fashioned, gruff and remorseful, this is refreshingly non PC while still being sweet and well intentioned at its core. Maybe a little pat in places, but the showdown ending packs a wallop in this modern western meets the cantankerous old guy who just wants people to stay off his lawn.

3. Let the Right One In - The sweetest and most surprising love story of the year, and also the best old fashioned vampire flick of '08, though it's not really that scary in a conventional sense. It's more like what if Francoise Truffaut went to Sweden and made a kiddy vampire flick with emphasis on mood and space. There's a few good jolts, some gore, and a strange charm in the juxtaposition of budding sensuality and a static backdrop of snowfall and howling wind.

4. The Dark Knight - I like Chris Nolan.

5. Synecdoche, New York - I like Charlie Kaufman...and Phillip Seymore Hoffman.

Which brings me to this announcement from Dallas Cinemania, a new film society devoted to bringing cult/art house classics to the area for special one time screenings. So far they've screened Zombi 2, The Holy Mountain and Straw Dogs:



One week from today DALLAS CINEMANIA will screen a rare 35mm print of Herschell Gordon Lewis' pioneering horror/unintentional comedy classic BLOOD FEAST at the Angelika Film Center Dallas.

The show starts at 8pm. They'll be some vintage trailers for your amusement and edification (we've even got the original BLOOD FEAST trailer!) Tickets are a measly $10!

So come out and support Dallas Cinemania in our effort to bring back fantastic cinema to Big D!!!!

Jan 29, 2009 -- BLOOD FEAST -- 8pm -- Angelika Film Center

2008 wasn't so bad. As the rest of the world seemed to be falling apart I felt like I was figuring some things out. Basically, I've learned to be more thankful for what gifts I have and forgive myself more for whatever may be missing. Don't get me wrong. Still have work to do, but a little understanding tends to go a long way. And I feel like I'm finally coming to understand my place in this big ol' chaos-sphere.

Welcome to your new home, Prez Obama and family. Welcome to the future, everyone.

Also, in 2008 I rekindled my love for The Doors. When you finally get past all your preconceptions and the spectacle that is Jim Morrison, you're left with one of the most unique and powerful bands in rock history. I highly recommend viewing the concert film, The Doors: Live in Europe, for undeniable proof of said claim.

When the music's over...
Turn out the lights.
Turn out the lights.
Turn out the lights.

It ain't over. '08 kept me spellbound and fascinated more than usual...

18 in '08

1. La Otracina Gardens of Blackness (Digitalis) CS
2. The Dead C The Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing!) CD
3. Ulaan Khol II (Soft Abuse) CD
4. Earth The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull (Southern Lord) CD
5. Warmer Milks Soft Walks (Animal Disguise) CD
6. Zanzibar Snails Vanadium Dream (Phantom Limb) CD-R
7. Renderizors Submarine (Last Visible Dog) CD
8. Robedoor and Husere Grav Split (Not Not Fun) CS
9. Sic Alps Long Way Around to a Shortcut (Animal Disguise) CD
10. Tatsuya Nakatani Primal Communication (H & H) CD
11. Jack Rose Dr. Ragtime and his Pals + Self Titled (Archive) CD
12. Alan and Richard Bishop Present: The Brothers Unconnected (Abduction) CD
13. Steel Hook Prostheses Atrocisizor (Malignant) CD
14. Orange In the Midst of Chaos CD (De Stijl)
15. Religious Knives The Door (Ecstatic Peace) CD
16. Leviathan Massive Conspiracy Against All Life (Moribund) CD
17. Current 93 Birth Canal Blues (Durtro Jnana) CD
18. D & N D & N (Mayyrh) 3" CD-R

Most memorable live events:

1. Alan and Richard Bishop (along with the spirit and ashes of Charles Gocher) at The Granada in Dallas, TX. Sorry for the bad directions, guys.

2. Sapat at Terrastock 7 at the Melwood Arts Center in Louisville, KY.

3. Tatsuya Nakatani solo and with members of Yells at Eels (Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez + others) at Kettle Art in Dallas, TX.

4. MV & EE and the Golden Road on the third stage at Terrastock 7.

5. Zanzibar Snails at Melodica 2008, Dallas, TX.

Most memorable event overall: You decide.

This is My Music: Vol 2 (A Rainbow in Curved Air)

The Dead C The Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing) CD - The Dead C will always be. Long after the great rivers have run dry and the stars have faded, The Dead C will still be right there in the heart of so much pain. For over 20 years this New Zealand trio has unleashed its broken rock for a broken world. Music that rides the boundaries between so many genres -- art punk, noise, garage rock, minimalism, drone, psych and Krautrock (but never prog), indie pop, nowave, lo-fi drek, even folk and blues. They have their predecessors -- early Sonic Youth comes to mind -- and all sorts of bands have emerged since attempting to unravel the mysteries of deconstructed rhythmic catharsis, but none has really gotten the mixture quite so perfectly (im)balanced as Bruce Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats. The Secret Earth comes close on the heels of last year's darn good Future Artists, but I'd say this is a more solid release all the way around and will likely come to be known as one of the strongest releases in their already considerable catalog.

Cut to the chase: The Secret Earth rocks pretty damn hard. Opener "Mansions" sets the tone with groaning guitars beneath a pummeling percussive backdrop, Michael Morley's keening vocals blending equal parts devastated pathos and moaning rage into one signature howl. It seems more like The Dead C doesn't compose songs at all; instead it open doors to scenes fraught with torment, despair and even the occasional cautious beauty. The trio paints these images in sound, so we see the decadence of "Mansions," hear the confused clatter of "Stations," ride over the endless jagged spikes of "Plains" and bathe in the cleansing warmth of "Waves." This entire album comes in waves. The Secret Earth is classic Dead C. It's a hard album to get through in one sitting, but then so are the rest. A force of nature at any volume.

Merzbow Rainbow Electronics 2 (Dextar's Cigar) CD - Life Rule # 237: When Jim O'Rourke reissues an album in his Dextar Cigar's label, ya'll best pay attention! Masami Akita aka Merzbow is a towering enigma in the modern Japanese noise/power electronics scene, and his recordings are as vast and mind-frying as your Sun Ra and Nurse With Wound catalogs times ten. I've not heard much myself, but my Good Lord, Rainbow Electronics 2 surely represents some of the most purely psychedelic analog tone generations I have ever wrapped my feeble mind around. Brilliant tone bursts and muted hazes all impeccably arranged to tell a story beyond words. 65 mins of maximal minimalism that's filthy and transcendent in the same stroke. A must. This was originally reissued in the late 90s and supposedly went OOP, but it appears to be back in the racks again. I found this copy at my local record emporium last month.

Aural Fit II (PSF Records) - While exploring the realm of the difficult and the Japanese I should mention Aural Fit, a largely unknown psych noise unit till now, but, none the less, I have concluded that these lads released the most discordantly abrasive and true rock record in '08 with II. Four long tracks in the classic PSF raveup garage vein landing somewhere between the pummeling onslaught of Kousokuya and the redlined power shredding of High Rise, proving that the new wave of Japanese psych/noise continues to grind on as an ever growing wall of sludgeoid fury. Been listening to early volumes of Tokyo Flashback lately, and Aural Fit honors the tradition brilliantly while actually offering something new and completely in the now at the same time. II feels as visceral as White Light/White Heat sans the banal necessity of any pop concessions. This is what Sister Ray said.

Zanzibar Snails Brown Dwarf / D & N D & N (both Mayyrh Records) CD-R & 3" CD-R / Zanzibar Snails Vanadium Dream (Phantom Limb) CD-R - '08 must be the year of the snail in some exotic land somewhere, maybe Tanzania or Morrocco... or even the USA. It's clearly the year of Dallas improvised drone cracklers Zanzibar Snails (no longer employing the 'the'), with three quality CD-Rs hitting the racks, each showcasing a different facet of their hands-on revolving ensemble approach. Brown Dwarf preserves a live set that was performed as an opening act sharing the stage with Rahdunes, ST-37 and Suishou No Fune. This this was basically the show of 2007 as far as I'm concerned, though I didn't actually arrive at the venue till right after the Snails' set. So I was pleasantly surprised to find electronics guru/Snails member Michael Chamy's claims of spontaneous aural perfection not too terribly exaggerated when I finally threw Brown Dwarf into the changer: 35 mins of minimal bass hum separated into five segments that build from a bottomless one note subharmonic trudge to full nuclear devastation before it's over.

D & N is the duo of Nevada Hill and David Price, whose initial recordings eventually flowered into Zanzibar Snails. This self titled 20 min 3" CD was recorded in a postal exchange that resulted in 8 short tracks of hallucinogenic aural transport. These pieces have a more compositional quality than any ZS related release I've heard so far but come off as no less spontaneous or challenging via shifting tonal landscapes that suggest Spacemen 3 one moment, minimal composition the next, music concrete the next, etc. It's never less than completely consuming and richly detailed, plus one of my favorite ephemeral type spins in '08. Recorded live at home, Vanadium Dream compounds some of the heaviest cosmic elements with three extended workouts that continue the more serene moods of Brown Dwarf while upping the difficulty a few notches to conjure some truly challenging celestial voids. This is the first Snails session to involve contributions from Mike Maxwell of Subkommander/SDS, proving a solid fit with the Snails philosophy of less is more as the quartet combines oblique string vibrations, breathing electronic textures and pulsing bass hums into deeply transportive, continuous drone chasms. Not for the faint of heart but not too harsh either. These three releases ultimately come closest to the fractured improve noise of classic NZ combos like Flies Inside the Sun and Surface of the Earth than any previous ZS releases.

* ZS related live action note: Caught a trio set last Thursday of Chamey, Maxwell and Mark Church (current merch dude at Good Records, formerly of Bay Area weird rockers Flat Tire), performing as 'Snails offshoot The Watchers, a power electronics trio that conjures an almost devotional quality at times instead of the more trad ambient/electronic skree textures. 'Least that's the vibe I got when I arrived to a room saturating distorted Buddhist chant accompanying the alchemist scene from The Holy Mountain, which was being projected on the wall at the front of the store. Like walking into a dream. It was Church's birthday too. Good cupcakes, good tunes, good friends...yum. Next was the post industrial/apocalypse folk of Awen, a trio that brings that classic late '80s World Serpent sound (think Current 93, Death in June, Non) to the DFW area with conviction. Takes balls to make this kind of doom folk racket round these parts, but ultimately I gotta respect these folks' for the quality of their performance (Stone Breath gone militant?) over their stage presence which invoked images of Boyd Rice and fascist salutes. Still I think I can dig where they're coming from. Brings me too....

Steel Hook Prostheses Atrocetizer (Malignant) CD - ...This DFW area headliner of said show specializes in so-called death ambient, or death industrial, power electronics, whatever. They make me think of Bastard Noise and Nordvargr and all those dark drone behemoths that just can't get over how fucking grim everything is. They sound amazing live with HUGE surging bass fuzz swells that fog the mind without necessarily clawing the face, as their name might suggest they would. On this CD SHP conjures a crackling compositional morass inspired by how creepy vivisection and surgical procedures can be along with an overriding paranoia of the techno/industrial revolution unfolding before our very eyes. Ultimately a lot more texture than what you'd expect from a duo calling itself Steel Hook Prosthsteses, and despite it's gruesome title and darker predilections, Atrocetizer provides more solace than pain.

La Otracina The Risk of Gravitation (Colour Sounds) CD-R / La Otracina Gardens of Blackness cassette (Digitalis) - La Otracina made quite the splash in '07 with the Tonal Ellipsis of the One CD on Holy Mountain and has since been clearing out the vaults with multiple CD-Rs of gooey psychedelic goodness for the head-music-elite. Hard to believe though that The Risk of Gravitation is just a limited to 100 CD-R release, but it appears a vinyl issue is in the works. It's a monster platter that combines the free form psych of the first album with proto biker metal fuzz assaults (think early Blue Oyster Cult and Pink Fairies), doom sludge cauldrons and more ethereal blissouts into a flaming fireball of distorted delight. Fantastico. Released soon after: the equally mind blowing Gardness of Blackness tape via the always dependable Digitalis Records. This one features really beautiful bombed out psych folk, massive Hawkwindian distorted squalls and grooved out West Coast bong boogie with optimum cosmic transport capacity via its magnetic aural environs. And it's probably my favorite tape of '08. These boys have figured out the secret psychedelic formula, alright.

Smegma Live 2004! (Resipiscent) CD-R - Let's give it up for the aural approximation of ball sweat that is Smegma. This ectoplasmic blob of sonic goo has been working its cryptic magic for over 30 years now. That would put them loosely in the same orbital ellipses as similar sound soup collagists like Negativland and Nurse With Wound both in terms of amorphous style and mind-bending musical longevity, but, sonically, Smegma has burrowed itself into a particularly compelling/unique niche of subterranean improvised groan. It's no secret Wolf Eyes are big fans and even joined forces with Smegma for a split release on the Di Stijl label five years ago, and after having had my mind melted a few times over by this dark acid I can see why. I've heard little of Smegma's actual releases over the years, but this miasmic noise fest goes a good way in filling that void with post industrial gunk that alternates between a kind of melodic minimal trance and the most destroyed and singular nowave death lurch ever approximated by humankind. Guest appearances by Jello Biafra, Johnathan Coleclaugh and Steve Mackaye (the guy that blew sax on The Stooges' Funhouse).

Concord Ballet Orchestra Players Flying Together (Froyen Foods/Insect Fields) CD-R - Now here is the business: a large (7-9 members) ensemble from Somerville, Mass that started life as a onetime tribute to my favorite Krautrock band (Faust, of course) and quickly blossomed into a full time concern exploring elements of improvised psych, fusion, and all manner of phased distortion and sending the groove train straight into orbit. The results are modern improvised psych performed with some chops and should appeal to fans of any kind of jazz infused komische space from The Orginasation to '70s era Miles and well beyond. Very groovy.

Beehatch Beehatch (Lens Records) CD - Probably the coolest new thing I heard in '08 was this duo project of Mark Spybey and Phil Weston, who both met when they worked together in Download. I never really got into Download, but I can dig on pretty much anything Spybey related, and this self-titled dish is a brilliant merging of glitchtronica, minimal drone, industrial, techno, dub and good old fashioned noise into an epic slice of aural lysergia that works just fine whether cranked up to 11 or played at lower background volumes. It also features the best song title of '08 in "God is So Good, God is So Dub." I'm hooked and quite curious to hear the recently released followup, Brood.

Religious Knives The Door (Ecstatic Peace) CD - What a band we have here. Of the two most excellent RK long players released in '08, I think The Door takes top prize. It's hard to believe that two members of this trio used to make freaked out noise murk in the Double Leopards. The Door (possibly a reference to The Doors?) is their first album for Ecstatic Peace, and it's probably their most accessible platter so far. I've decided that RK offers up a more destroyed post Dead C response to what Providence, RI's Urdog did so well: moody organ/guitar/drum jams that alternate between a strange melodicism and corrosive prog space. Tracks like "Basement Watch" and "The Storm" have an off kilter charm that's both unsettling and deeply hypnotic at the same time. Currently my favorite Brooklyn band.

And a bonus, originally reissued in '99 that I only just heard a few weeks ago. One can never get enough of Mr. TR:

Terry Riley Reed Streams (Nonesuch) - Yet Another brilliant dispatch from the master of minimalism. Riley's solo compositions, with John Cale, and in a variety of other sonic constellations via a far reaching network of live performers the world over have continued to define the sweetest fruits of what happens when minimalism goes psychedelic and repetition breaks free and flies right in to the ethereal plane. The first two tracks on Reed Streams are dazzling eruptions of electric organ and rain-patter-like percussion that evolves and grows more complex across 20 minutes of musical phase-shifting before 15 mins of layered cycling saxophone blurts that are so masterfully layered and mixed together that it's pretty easy to confuse the source instrumentation with an electric organ, among other things. All this is very cool, but it just might be the live rendition of "In C (Mantra)," performed here by a fairly large and diverse ensemble that pushes things over the edge into the highest realms of psychedelic ecstasy and makes this yet another essential Riley release. Heaven is a song.

P.S. RIP Ron Asheton: Master of the Whiplash Fuzz Onslaught. You will be missed, old friend.

Despite my better angels, I finally got hip to Entourage. It's a fun show. This season the soundtrack featured vintage cuts by Love and Captain Beefheart among a few other notables (mostly rap). I used to really be annoyed by the overall smugness, but I guess I've grown vapid in my encroaching middle age.

Speakin' of dem laughs, I don't know if I've ever shared my affection for South Park here. Last season's "Imaginationland Trilogy" basically summed up my life's philosophy, and more recently they've dealt with the Britney Spears' nightmare of fame with tasteless acumen. All the episodes are now available for streaming download at their website. Celebrate the new dark age with me.

Did you hear about Michael Bay's rejected script for The Dark Knight? It's been making the rounds for quite a while now. Bay aficionados should be amused.

And: I don't think I heard a more inspired Various Artists compilation in 2008 than Wayfaring Strangers: Guitar Soli (Numero/Creative Vibes), a round up of rarely heard acoustic solo guitarists from the late '70s/early '80s following closely in the footsteps of Tacoma trailblazers John Fahey and Leo Kottke. It comes as a gorgeous cardboard package containing luminous steel string vibrations sure to soothe the troubled mind and still the hurried pulse. This is music for peace. Hunt it down if so inclined.

Neat sidebar: I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR yesterday, and low and behold there's a feature on Richard Crandell, who just happens to be one of the guitarists spotlighted in this collection. Turns out Crandell is one of the 10 million Americans who suffer from essential tremor disorder, a condition that plagues my own mother, and I fear may one day catch up with me too. When Crandell realized that etd inhibited his ability to play the fingerpicking style he'd mastered, he was eventually able to discover a new mode of tonal discourse via the mbira, a traditional thumb piano from Africa. I have a feeling a few folks featured in this space over the years have employed such a device. Anyway you can read/listen to said piece here. And you can order Wayfaring Strangers here.

Love and peace in '09, friends of mine...

Much love to all, and that includes the few folks who check in here once in a while and the rest of the world that doesn't even know Womblife exists. It's during these darkest and most cynical times that words like peace and hope carry the most weight. So peace and hope to you all.

I should be able to assemble some best-of thoughts re 08 and another few music posts in the next week or so. In the time being, I'm pretty hyped to see Gran Torino. This article by an LA Times auto critic hints at the depth and timliness of Eastwood's vision. No spoilers.

I've had some technical difficulties here at the Womb lately. Information has been lost, and along with it some of my fighting spirit, but I persist and that internal/eternal love light remains aglow. As a result, I'm going to offer abbreviated reviews of MANY THINGS in a series of posts over the next days, though I may expand a bit here and there.

This Is My Music: Vol 1 (Garage Days Revisited).

Bad Statistics Bad Town Gone (PseudoArcana) CD - An album to inflame passions and bruise brains. Ya either love or hate the Bad Statistics, maybe even at the same time. Hawkwind, Scorched Earth Policy, Reynols, Circle -- BS come from a long line of such rambunctious tail-chasing weirdos. The fuzz blowouts that comprise their second album, Bad Town Gone (the first was released by Belgium's Kraak label, and critically thrashed in the e-pages of Foxy Digitalis), are tribal and invigorating like a blood-soaked Pagan rite just after midnight, while still rocking in a semi-conventional but completely destroyed way. Also: There's a mush mouth singer named Thebis Mutante that sounds like he was left out in the sun a little too long. Lather on an overall grimy distorted murk that can best be described as avant-stupid, and you've got one of the neatest/weirdest things I've popped in the changer all year. Most norms will hate this. Guess that makes me "special." A sample from the Kraak album.

A.M. Rag Red Reverie (PseudoArcana) CD - Antony Milton's typically more sedated A.M. project gets injected with dancehall beats and boogie fuzz guitars on the extended noise trips of Red Rag Reverie, a freakout that you can drone out to on the horizontal plane just as easily as you can spaz out in the vertical. Fans of Vibracathedral Orchestra/Astral Social Club, minimal techno, Blue Cheer/Sonic Youth and the more serene past A.M. releases should gulp down this smokestack lightnin' with nary a grimace.

Sunken Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve (PseudoArcana) CD - Long in the making, this first full length from the duo of Milton and Stefan Neville offers up grinding minimal trance-scapes via organs and more primitive means across epic excursions that suggest John Cale's early noise experiments and the great Tony Conrad gone garage, while the quieter bits are more akin to a kinder, gentler Main. Deeply rewarding stuff whichever path these lads choose. Consider me sunk.

Glory Fckn Sun Vision Scorched (PseudoArcana) CD - Repackaging of the excellent debut by this levitated free noise trio should register with fans of Flies Inside the Sun, AMM, Sun Ra, luminescence, the pineal gland, infinity and all those flickering flames on the horizon. Vision Scorched is actually a continuation of Milton's duo recordings with Ben Spiers under the Seen Through moniker with the free percussion of Simon O'Rourke lending everything a decidedly off kilter arrhythmic flow. Glory Fckn Sun, don't go down on me!

The Free Players Snakes From Space (PseudoArcana) CD-R - Not sure how much Keijo has made it into these hallowed pages. There was a while there when so much of his product was flooding the shelves that I just started to let things go. Since then he's introduced the world to his free trio, the suitably christened Free Players, and amassed a musical catalog that's vast and uncompromising. If Jandek is the post-modern answer to woebegone blues, then Keijo is closer to the Finnish Sun Ra. His compositions seem to literally materialize from the aether; and the half hour "Snakes From Space" does just that as bouncing jaw's harp, percussive clatter and various string vibrations melt into one hypnotic rhythmic dream that truly earns those late period Sun Ra comparisons. To add: I once literally had a dream of snakes from space invading earth and basically taking over, but, despite a few fairly Lovecraftian aspects, it wasn't a nightmare. It was in fact one of the most profound dreams of my life, and this CD-R could very well be the soundtrack. Fuckin' a.

Michael Yonkers and the Blind Shake Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons (Farm-Girl) CD - Michael Yonkers is one of the more unlikely cult rock stories to emerge from the garage underground recently. His band signed to Sire Records in the late 60s, recorded a mind-blowing proto-punk psych assault entitled Microminiature Love which was deemed unreleasable and actually shelved(!), I guess, because it presaged everything from no wave to shoegaze, and young hippie ears just weren't ready for all that chaos. Thankfully Sub Pop and De Stijl Records rectified things a few years back by giving Microminiature Love a proper release on CD and LP respectively, and the rest is history still unfolding before our ears. Now comes the issue of the equally blistering noise assault, Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons, and once gain, Yonkers has assembled a first rate power trio to back him in The Blind Shake, and more importantly that same wiry Godz/Stooges fuzztone that made the first album so stunning remains intact. Yonkers' own madman vocals sound pristine, dulled none by age, and the songs are heavy as shit. I mean this rocks hard! It's not necessarily on par with the greatness of his early work, but I got to think no other old school rocker (aside from maybe Moe Tucker) still rocks with as much heaviosity. Truly a mind-ripper. And for an abrupt shift to the equally compelling psych folk side of Yonkers' singular abilities, look no further than his excellent Grimwood, recently reissued on CD by De Stijl. It's a real beauty in the post early Cohen vein.

Times New Viking Rip It Off (Matador) CD - Noisy Ohio darlings make the leap to the big time, get played on eMpTyV and still manage to drop another hum-dinger of a sing-songy brain-smasher with 15 blistering guitar/organ/drums fuzz nuggets cranked out in just under 30 mins of distorted hook-laden bliss. Boy and girl vocals, sometimes together, never boring. I have no doubt that this is the ugliest production to bear the Matador stamp in over decade, but the melodies are there screaming through the grime and demanding your attention. I pity anyone who thinks this is just a bunch of bumbling amateurish nonsense. Listen to the songs! To the point: If you love to get sloppier than hammered shit on your favorite cheap whiskey and dance like an epileptic at a Motorhead concert, Rip It Off is pretty far from a rip off.

Sic Alps A Long Way Around to a Shortcut (Animal Disguise) / U.S. Ez (Siltbreeze) both CD - Two very fine platters dropped by this San Francisco duo this year. The first, Long Way Around To a Shortcut (clever title, that), is a compendium of singles and other comp cuts that's stuffed to the gills with some of the most purely satisfying psych pop anthems I've grooved to this year. Sic Alps has a gift for emphasizing the ramshackleness of its arrangements but never to the detriment of the songs. Whether blasting things apart and getting freeform, or patching together a series of haunted instrumental segues into drifting interludes, or recasting the glory of nuggets old into modern art slop masterworks, these dudes seem incapable of releasing shit. And based on this CD they're one hell of a singles band. On the long players the duo aims to make things a little less digestible and stranger. Their Siltbreeze debut may not be as consistently fun as A Long Way Around... It's less than half the length, but under the right circumstances and proper conditions U.S. Ez strikes a lazy balance between stoned psychedelic destruction and hummable in-the-red pop that comes off like a late night meeting between Madcap era Syd Barrett and Pussy Galore. The deconstructed bits, which on first listen, sound more like aimless freakouts reveal their charms and manage to squeeze a lot of transcendence into just a few minutes. Fans of vintage psych artisans such as Outrageous Cherry and Maher Shalal Hash Baz really should hunt both these beauties down. A rockin' live sample.

Hey! I'm still alive! Courtesy of our friends at Foxy Digitalis (Absolutely LOVE that new La Otracina tape btw!), great article here with Campbell Kneale of the esteemed Birchville Cat Motel, which was recently put down like an old family pet in favor of newer realms of exploration via the designation Our Love Will Destroy The World. Especially interesting for his observations re the current state of the digital download underground and the problem of too much, too fast! More to come... I swear.

Is it safe?
Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.
Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if any one of those dots stopped moving forever?
We are through the looking glass here, people.

...just a few lines from my bible that express paranoid feelings of living in this country and on this planet right now. Here's to hope. *clink* I know what hangs in the balance, and I hope you and yours are holding things down, preparing for who knows what and always living life and moving forward. All that really matters is today (and ever today to come). It's hard to know what lies ahead, but no matter who becomes the next president (it's gonna be Obama), it's going to be a rough ride the next couple years me thinks. Thanks to an abundance of the various soul elixirs required to weather such storms, I giess I'm ready.

Farewell, Paul Newman and Cool Hand Luke, Fast Eddie Felson, Butch Cassidy, Frank Galvin...the list goes on doesn't it?

Apologies for falling behind so far here. It is officially chilly in TX once more--so long, short pants! Hello bronchitis! Had a fantastic time seeing the great Roky Erickson with the Black Angels at the Granada Theater last Saturday (vintage psych catharses, my friends), and Zanzibar Snails and the wickedly amazing Vorvadoss at Good Records earlier in the evening. Dallas's Vorvadoss count Brainticket and Beherit among their influences, both justified in this band's rabid pagan noise metal assault, but I also heard some Darkthrone in there and even a bit of Eye Hate God. Check out their myspace site (linked above) for a cpl tracks that hint at the absurd fury of the live show, which had me and about 15 people all head-lashing and all sorts of spaced out amid the disorienting smoke-machine abyss. Here's some great pix of the pagan fury that almost convey the grim wonder and absurd beauty of this mighty live experience. I dunno, I think these guys could really flay some minds and strain some necks if they can hold it together long enough to actually release something.

Coming to Terms with Tenacious D: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and love Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny...

I never was a big Tenacious D fan. Never was a big Ween fan either...or Frank Zappa. I recognize the genius of all involved, but for me, musical appreciation has always been more about a feeling. Sure I judge things through my own prism of experience/influence, but for some reason many of my favorite musicians and artists have appealed more to some receptor in my body where my mind seems to sort of shut down and my soul just goes into overdrive.

Which brings me to the completely unrelated Weeezer. I once enjoyed the 'pleasure' of seeing Weezer live with some friends. At this particular show, in Ft. Worth, TX circa 2003, Tenacious D. was the opening act. And they were greeted with lots of collegiate hoots and hollers, though I personally couldn't make out 10% of the lyrical content, let alone recognize any of the songs. I'd dug a few of the shorts on HBO, but maybe it was the looming specter of seeing the legendary Weezer in their natural thriving habitat -- the live setting -- that had me a bit apprehensive. Ya see, Weezer is a decent singles band. What superior bands like Cheap Trick and Kiss did for the the late 70s power pop/glam crowd, Weezer managed to do, along with the ever-important geek chic appeal, originally pioneered by any number of early 90s indie pop acts. It was a neat trick, and not entirely worthless. But live, this night, Weezer was entirely worthless. There was no Spike Jonez or Ric Ocasek on hand to dress up these mopey pseudo-emo/indie pop hits and ballads or conceal what was clearly little more than a calculated, and even quite cynical, indie pop cash-in, 10 years after the fact no less. The Pixies were rolling over in their graves, and they're all still kicking in the here/now. None of this stopped myriad late-teen-somethings, though, from trading off high 5s and declaring Weezer the greatest thing since Tivo multiple times in my vicinity.

Fast forward a good 5 years to right fuckin' now. I am watching Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, and I've seen it before. I know a lot of you whipper-snappers reading this blog are pretty high-fallutin' with your counter-cultural democratic-socialist leanings, and I dig that. You probably hate the mainstream, though it's nothing personal. You hate Hollywood too. The last piece of original music you purchased came in an edition of 12 micro-cassettes on a label run by an alienated genius who lives in the Gobi desert with a plastic fuck-doll named Dawnika, but goddamnit(!), metal kicks ass! Metal is cooler than hardcore, and I love hardcore, well deeply appreciate and covet thy copy of Negative Approach's Total Recall anyway, but if we as rockers and profound lovers of the metallic sword, must truly recognize the totality and cosmic importance of our most rewarding ride on this cosmic carousel, then we must recognize the totality and undeniable dominion of true metal -- the need for sonic revolt, the desire to rock hard with allegiance to none other than the ultimate ear-stabbing riff. I wouldn't turn my back on this pagan god's fury for anything on earth -- the love of well-endowed bar wench, the inevitable maturation that comes with age.

Which brings me to a stupid movie...

...about two stupid guys who worship the riff with unyielding devotion, while barely getting by in the fucked beyond belief "real world" of man we call life today. I'm a big fan of the buddy picture, the rock hero's journey picture, heavy metal, Ronnie James Dio/Satan, Dave Grohl and guitar picks -- all of which are present and accounted for in Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. If any of these things matter to you at all, and you ever once dared to sing along to Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beat" as broadcast on MTV circa 1983, please, dear God... PLEASE, Dark Lord, oh Pentecostal dispensationalist Deity of Grim Retribution and All That Is Sarah Palin...see this movie. See it stoned. See it with someone you love...and turn your mind off. I dare you.

Still kicking, ya'll. I owe you some updates and they're coming. Much love to all my friends, far and near...

...and that brings us to the sad side of the moon. I am listening to Piper at the Gates of Dawn as I type this. Lest we forget Richard Wright actually sung the lead vocal on "Astronomy Domine," and his keyboard playing was never anything short of pure ghost fire dancing through the aether on those early albums. Saucerful of Secrets, More, Ummagumma and bootlegs from the era, including the legendary Smoking Blues from 1970, all lend credence to this assertion. Sure some of the later stuff is a bit snore-inducing in that smooth jazz sort of way, but I have a feeling all reading this can agree that Darkside and Welcome to the Machine are some genuine beauties in the conceptual prog-syke multiverse. Sleep well among the stars, Mr. Wright.

Sorry I missed Social Junk and Big Nurse last night, but sometimes you just gotta lay down and close your eyes for a few hours. The night before I did enjoy the magnificent splendor of seeing Richard Lloyd and Billy Ficca (of the amazing/godly Television) along with some considerably younger blond fellow on bass--his name escapes me. I feel really bad about that because he did an excellent job backing these legends through an old fashioned power trio set that spanned Lloyd's latest solo album, two well chosen numbers from Marquee Moon ("Friction" and "Elevation"), and here's the kicker, five Hendrix covers. The whole set did the job and basically reaffirmed my fundamental world views in the most cathartic of ways. A fine night at Club Dada.

Yah, so Werner Herzog has apparently signed on to direct a new Bad Lieutenant film, which is neither a remake of or sequel to Abel Ferrara's cult classic. The cast, including Val Kilmer and Nic Cage in the leads, looks very Hollywood, and it's set in New Orleans. All rather dubious, but intriguing none the less, as Herzog continues his great pilgrimage towards the center of American pop culture. This interview, snagged from Defamer, is a fuckin' hoot:

Defiant Werner Herzog to Defamer: 'Who is Abel Ferrara?"

Wowzerrzzzz The Flaming Lips movie, Christmas on Mars, is finally finished! And if this trailer's any indicator it's gonna rock pretty hard...

Thanks Pitchfork.

Dear Readers,
Thanks for the positive vibes regarding recent personal celebrations. Keep 'em comin'!

I never did mention the wicked joy felt in the presence of the mighty Sun City Girls a few weeks back on the Dallas stop of their Brothers Unconnected tour, as much a tribute to fallen comrade Charles Gocher as the amazing trio itself. They played an astounding selection of songs--all acoustic duets--from the last 27 years with strong emphasis on Torch of the Mystics and Dante's Disneyland Inferno, and the film of Gocher's experimental videos was great. This set made for a stark contrast to the blistering electric gig I caught in Austin in late '04 and waxed fanatical about here. Also had a pleasure meeting and greeting the Bishops and their merch guy, all very warm and humble gentlemen. For more on this once in a lifetime gig, check out what Captain Groovy had to say over at his Myspace blog. And just for the record, I dig Tom Waits.

Also had a fun time last week at the Harvey Milk/Yells at Eels/Zanzibar Snails gig at Rubber Gloves. This was the first time I'd seen the mighty Yells at Eels in a rock club, amplified and electrified and it was smoking. The Gonzales's--father Dennis on trumpet, brothers Steffan on drums and Aaron on double bass--play an aggressive free jazz that I've concluded is fusion, and good fusion at that. This might be partly because the brothers also play in math metal combo Life Death Continuum and know how to kick out the mother fuckin' jams with the best of 'em. Dad's something of a local legend who was on the cover of The Wire way back in the day. He's also really, really sweet. Side note: I saw this rhythm section play in a big band ensemble with Tatsuya Nakatani few months back that was jaw-dropping.

Zanzibar Snails brought their big-band screaming electro assault from the deepest regions of space, and to be quite honest, I was scared there for a while. Thought I'd taken the bad acid. But their planet killer of a set concluded and equilibrium was eventually reestablished. Harvey Milk--featuring new member Joe Preston on guitar--delivered the goods with sludgeoid doom/power-jams that came off like a cross between The High Tide and early '90s Melvins, which is basically a dream come true for a bong wizard such as myself. So yeah...thumbs up all the way around, kids.

That brings me to what I hope will be a recurring thing (at least once a year or so) here at Womblife. Ladies and Gents, I give you...

More Jazz:

Richard Youngs and Alexander Neilson Electric Lotus + Lotus Suite (VHF) LP and CD - This double set was recorded around the time of the sessions for Partick Rain Dance I believe. The LP contains studio quality duo performances of lumbering guitar/drums rocking and rolling their way through some pretty rough and heavy terrain. I suppose this fuzzed out white guy fusion (a term Lester Bangs probably coined) represents one extreme in the jazz spectrum, which most academic sorts might say is not jazz at all, rather the angst-ridden rumblings of two disaffected yoots. Of course these "scholars" would be missing the point entirely. Electric Lotus is about transcending the shite, flying on broken wings of harmonic solace, looking down with sad wonder at the devastation below. Lotus Suite is the CD that comes with said wax, and it's more duo recordings this time of free percussion and shakahachi! The CD is the more difficult of the two discs with Neilson's skittering percussive sprawl backing Youngs on shakahachi, a Japanese flute that looks like this and creates tones ranging from coarse, guttural groans to fried, blissful harmonics. The results are vertiginous but also quite soothing. The CD is the grower of the two. The LP pretty much kicks ass from the get-go.


Æthenor Betimes Black Cloudmasses (VHF) - This is the kind of jazz that doesn't seem like jazz at all. These lads are coming to the realm of improvised sound via the most oblique experimental corridors. Deep In the Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light, the first Æthenor album, was one of my favorites of the last few years, so needless to say I had high hopes for the ever difficult sophomore dispatch, and I needn't worry. Betimes is a creeping, pulsing journey through the darker spaces of existence. The first track rides on little more than a glide of throbbing bass before the frame cants and we're lost, climbing stairs that grow darker and more distorted with each step. Hearing this track at loud volumes is like being trapped in some ancient German Expressionist nightmare circa 1922. By the time we're headlong into the dark waters of track 2, a shower of percussive rain crashes down from a shadowy abyss, and we turn around and rush back down the stairwell, tripping along the way, stumbling into shadow. We get back to our feet and look back. There is something up there, its claws clicking and scraping with each dread-inducing step. The tempo picks up faster and we're on the move, afraid to look behind us as cyclical keys and stuttering snare invoke a sense of impending doom, or maybe the avant-jazz excursions of Jac Berrocal crossed with the creeping post industrial malaise of Nurse With Wound. Like many jazz units there is an air of transcendence in these claustrophobic rumblings, in that we can always wake from the dream and return to conscious awareness. Æthenor specializes in taking that surreal, unconscious dread and injecting it directly into the frontal lobe. Though I'm not sure this is as good as the debut, it's world class and unique all the same.

Sandoz Lab Technicians The Western Lands (Last Visible Dog) - Now this is a kind of jazz that I'd not necessarily call new jazz, or old jazz for that matter. How bout No jazz? Early SLT recordings were some pretty messed up lo-fi skronk affairs in the classic stoned/isolated New Zealand mold, but more recently the Lab Techs have grown as free improvisers and honed what used to come off more as trance inducing skree into stunningly rendered cosmic jazz. The Western Lands is simply a masterpiece of understated improv psychedelia and some deeply transporting hallucinogenic sound space. Masters Tim Cornelius, James Kirk and Nathan Thompson utilize an arsenal of instruments and found sounds to weave levitated spectral spells that never hide amid the fog of distortion or clang. This is all beauty, and highly recommended for innerspace dwellers the universe over. Stunningly recorded. Masterpiece.



Orange In the Midst of Chaos (De Stijl)- And here's a special little artifact, courtesy of those vigilant musical archaeologists at the De Stijl label. Orange is interesting for a few reasons, perhaps most notably the inclusion of then nascent free jazz sax god Paul Flaherty, who's responsible for some of the most pummeling, blood boiling tonal bleat and groove of the last 25 years thanks to his many recordings with percussive shaman Chris Corsano, the incredible Cold Bleak Heat, solo and with myriad other performers. Orange was a short lived Connecticut quartet of guitar, bass, drums and sax that lasted just long enough to capture three sessions of material in 1978, which make up the entirety of this lost gem, or Rosetta Stone, as this fine article in Junkmedia describes it. As for the songs themselves, they're fairly accessible jazz fusion workouts that are easily among the most trad works being explored in this here column, yet Flaherty's signature intensity is pretty much on full display from the start. When one considers the relative ferocity of these performances, the decidedly rock tenor of the guitar and bass, the brevity of each track, this could almost be dubbed punk jazz, of course it ain't that at all. Way too stoned for the punks. And at the same time, way too out for the acid rockers. Though much of this is fast and furious, there are some shockingly beautiful passages that probably represent as accurate a starting point for so called "free folk" as anything I've come across to date. This is way beyond odd curiosity and in the realm of essential underground Americana. Thank you gods of sound and De Stijl for making this widely available.

I just made an order from Abandon Ship Records, which has got a kick ass sale going on right now where you can get nearly 50% off anything in their catalog, depending on the purchase. The breakdown reads something like:

-Buy one 7", and get any 2 releases of your choice for free

-Buy any 3 tapes/cdrs/3" cdrs and get 1 release of your choice for free

-Buy any 5 tapes/cdrs/3" cdrs and get 2 releases of your choice for free

-Buy any 7 tapes/cdrs/3" cdrs and get 3 releases of your choice for free

This will be going on throughout July/August. Fans of beautiful tape editions and other limited ephemeral things best git on it!

Every night my cat wakes me up at 4 AM howling to the fucking void. It's an ungodly sound combining the siren wale of a cat in heat with the shriek of death. Could she be possessed? Or maybe just missing her sister... Like clockwork.

Happy Birthday, Nelson Mandela!

Okay, I definitely like The Dark Knight, even love it. Heavy shit for Summer popcorn escapism, and it honors the "reality" of this discombobulated, morally ambiguous, conspiracy paranoid world we live in today more truthfully than any movie of its ilk that I've come across. Go baked. Take someone ya love (who also really likes allegorical/philosophical superhero mumbo-jumbo).

Also notable, the mountain of upcoming trailers that precede it, including a new Terminator flick, again starring Christian Bale (big whoop), Frank Miller's The Spirit (curious) and most compelling of all, Watchmen. I suppose Zack Snyder has subtly improved with each film he's made. I love how 300 looks, but all that bullet-time sort of ruins it for me. Guys a technical master; let's just hope he can capture the right tone for Watchmen, which should approximate a cynicism as caustic as anything in The Dark Knight. We'll see in 2009.