Two interesting discoveries in early '06:

First up, Dallas cult rockers Virgin Insanity; they received an informative write up in the Dallas Morning News a couple weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when I read that a genuine cult rock band hailed from my neck of the woods, and more interestingly, played a kind of arty folk rock that could be compared to later Velvet Underground, The Manson Family(!), Brit psych folk, and any number of "lost/utopian" acid kissed garage bands. Needless to say, I immediately located their one and only privately pressed LP (edition of 200), "Illusions of the Maintenance Man," in digital form through nefarious means. The music: a humbling listening experience, youthfully optimistic, but with an edge that can be deemed "art basement," a cynicism that acknowledges the disasters of the previous five years (this came out in '71) and a hope that keeps eyes forward and attention focused on the present. The lyrics are both naive and honest in their declaration that all we really have left in a dying world is a little hope and much love. Seems obvious, doesn't it? Tempos occasionally waver as minor key guitars dance beneath heartfelt boy/girl vox, and percussion is rarely used, but effective when it is.

Opener "Don't Get Down" really does sound like it could've been the first song on "Loaded," only Bob Lang actually means what he's singing (but then, I guess Lou meant it by then, too), as he captures archetypical emotions of loss/hope in 2 and a half minutes of folk pop transcendence. Not everyone will see it that way, but then what do they know? Any soul who doesn't listen to the oblique acid pop/tender emotional pleas of "Be My Friend," a number that begs for affection and acknowledges the end with the same earnest poignancy over a soft bed of hypnotic fingerpicking, probably doesn't have a pulse. Belle and Sebastian and Clientele fans should appreciate, but I'm more inclined to think of Japanese folk pop legends, Nagisa Ni Te, or even Maher Shalal Hash Baz. All in all, shambolic, truly timeless folk psych, and get this: Japan's P-Vine records will be reissuing this album and its never released follow-up (recorded over 30 years ago!) in February. Can't help but wonder if Shinji Shibayama ever came across one of those original pressings back in the day.
Sound samples:
Don't Get Down
For a While

The Battles are not an instrumental math rock ensemble featuring the former drummer from Helmet. Based on a randomly read email in recent months, that's precisely what I expected. The Battles (the other act is simply Battles) actually hail from Vancouver (New Pornographers country) and conjure pretty melodies over a charging, garage punk backdrop of Feelies obsessed guitar jangle, Pere Ubu synth and Peter Hook hypno-bass. That's a simplification, of course. The ghost of early Flying Nun Records, Todd Rundgren, Ray Davies, Roxy Music (I realize these people are not dead) also hover sublimely over Steven Wood's alternately impassioned, quirky and detatched songs, which can definitely make the heart shiver in its cage, especially when his band kicks into high gear and hits everything harder. Just check out "Poem #8 (That Would be Good)," its elastic basslines and surging chorus wiping all memory of Interpol from the gray matter. Too bad it's so short, but I'll take a minute, fifty secs of what The Battles have to say over 40 mins of Interdull any day of the week. The beauty of these performances may have something to do with the fact that contributors play or have played with Destroyer, Loscil and Black Mountain, among others. There is depth to burn in "Tomorrow's Eager Hands" (Soft Abuse) and like a classic Wire album (other than "Pink Flag"), its genius isn't always so obvious on first listens. As for me, I just had to hear opener "Changes" turned up to 10, and I was pretty much hooked.

Dan Bejar can also be heard harmonizing on a few tracks, but you know what? I dig this more than Destroyer or the recent work by New Pornographers. It's because Wood is such a visionary, all encompassing songwriter. He obviously loves stripped down, minimal basics, but his use of harmonies, quirky synths and massed distortion ups the ante sufficiently. The glory hewn "We Were Right to Fight" sounds almost like the New Pornos gone prog. A welcome inclination towards moody, spectral folk pop never disappoints (see "In Excelsis, Yes"), and the monumental groove of "Northern Man"--Mott the Hoople power chords over thudding drums--propels a monster hook of a chorus to the golden rock promise land. Diggit. This isn't actually out till early Feb, but Soft Abuse is taking pre-orders now.
Sound sample:
Suzanne

Just what can one say about the Akron / Family? What a jam band should sound like? Brooklynite freedom fighters from da undaground? King Crimson locked in mortal combat with the Flaming Lips in an endless runout groove on the flipside of a scratched copy of 'No New York'?

The Akron / Family Four men with beards.

Driving around earlier with a friend listening to some kind of ultimate badass super mix, consisting of Eminem, Townes, Neutral Milk Hotel, Missippi Juhn Hurt--left me wondering why doesn't Jeff Mangum retool NMH and hit the nostalgia circuit, if not actually release a followup to "Aeroplane"? I don't care if it's half-assed. Just play some shows! He's been spotted on stage in the last year or two doing the damaged sideman bit with the Olivia Tremor Control. His absence leaves a fairly gaping hole in the pop cultural landscape today. What I loved most about NMH was the sound--grungy, gritty, full body fuzz drenched acid jugband pop that always sounded messed up, even during the most anthemic moments.


Going to see the Akron / Family tonight (one band doing its part to fill the void), and this newfangled Young God signing, Mi and L'au (impossibly beautiful people playing impossibly beautiful music). Shearwater (not the Chicago band, rather an Okkerville River side thing) goes on first. Should be boogielicious. First gig of the new year.

Just had to share... Rula Lenska is her name. Horses are her game.

Shit, mane! I forgot to post something here! Something about something regarding someone somewhere and you were all waiting with nervous anticipation cursing my name for the epiphany that never came. Keep waiting!

First off, congrats to my friend Joanna and her new husband, Dave; they just got latched at the hip forever up in Seattle. Way to go, you two!(?)

I just got the most incredible package of the short new year, including the CD version of Mirror's "Still Valley" on Die Stadt and the new "Live at VPRO Radio" CD by the One Esemble of Daniel Padden on Brainwashed. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!! You know who you are. I feel unworthy. I feel like bacterial slime squished under a dirty hippie's bare feet. I feel like a street mutt's slobber. I feel like a dead ant's anal leakage.

But I'm still happy.

All you Satanic Euro-droners, make note:
Here Comes The Sunn O)))!

(From SOMA)

LIVE AKTIONS

SUNN O))) & EARTH vs EUROPE 2006

WED 8/2 GERMANY KOLN GEBAUEDE 9
THU 9/2 BELGIUM DIKSMUIDE 4AD
FRI 10/2 LONDON ISLINGTON ACADEMY
SAT 11/2 LEEDS THE COCKPIT
SUN 12/2 GLASGOW ABC2
MON 13/2 LIVERPOOL ROADKILL
TUE 14/2 BRISTOL THEKLA
WED 15/2 BIRMINGHAM CUSTARD FACTORY
THU 16/2 LUXEMBURGESCH ALZETTE KULTURFABRIK
FRI 17/2 FRANCE PARIS POINTE EPHEMERE
SAT 18/2 SPAIN BARCELONA MEPHISTO
SUN 19/2 FRANCE TOLOUSE VENTS DU SUD
TUE 21/2 SWITZERLAND DUDINGEN BAD BONN
WED 22/2 ITALY TORINO SPAZIO 211
THU 23/2 ITALY FIRENZE AUDITORIUM FLOG
FRI 24/2 ITALY MILAN JAIL
SAT 25/2 ITALY RAVENNA BRONSON
MON 27/2 CROATIA ZAGREB GALERIJA SC
TUE 28/2 AUSTRIA VIENNA SZENE
WED 1/3 GERMANY DRESDEN STAR CLUB
THU 2/3 GERMANY BERLIN VOLKSBUHNE
FRI 3/3 NETHERLANDS AMSTERDAM PARADISO
SAT 4/3 GERMANY HAMBURG MARKTHALLE
SUN 5/3 DENMARK COPENHAGEN LOPPEN
TUE 7/3 NORWAY OSLO BLÄ
WED 8/3 SWEDEN STOCKHOLM DEBASER
FRI 10/3 SWEDEN GOTHENBURG IDEAL FESTIVAL
SAT 11/3 DENMARK AARHUS VOXHALL
SUN 12/3 NETHERLANDS GRONINGEN VERA
TUES 14/3 PORTUGAL PORTO CASA DE MUSICA


Booking Europe: Vincent/Conspiracy www.conspiracyrecords.com/bookings/
Booking States: Angela/Eclipse www.eclipsebooking.com
Booking UK: Jodie Cox/Feedback/Riverman www.feedbackbooking.com /
www.riverman.co.uk

VIDEO!
SUNN w/ XASTHUR vs KNITTING FACTORY NYC 122105

out now: KHANATE CD “Capture & Release”: "Two tracks of funeral psyche from the originators of such mezmerizing dismal cacophony powered by vintage Sunn equipment and negative essence." —Chris Barnes

"Based on what I knew, I figured they'd sound something like Godspeed You! Black Emperor with occasional screaming-cookie-monster metal-dude vocals. Turns out they sound more like the driver of an 18-wheeler parking outside my apartment and leaning on his horn for an hour straight. " — The Village Voice on SUNN O)))'s live presence

Bad news from the alma mater:

SAVE KOOP!

the short version --

fire BAAAD!

91.7fm GOOD!

every dollar helps http://koop.org/

so does your time: 512-472-1369

and showing your support at upcoming benefit shows

longer version --

Some drunken asshole fell asleep while sucking a cancer stick and burnt up the bottom floor of the building housing KOOP's studios. The music library is covered in ash, and it's unclear how badly studio equipment was damaged. They will probably have to move.

KOOP is Austin's community-run, listener-supported radio station during the day on 91.7fm.

I can't say enough about the unique and valuable programming they do. I used to be addicted to a music show that came on Tuesday evenings and was run by a guy who patched his laptop into the soundboard, fed samples of pop music into a multitracking software and looped them in real time to basically create live, improvised mashups. It sounded fricken amazing.

KOOP is also -the- Austin outlet for progressive and minority voices on air, with programming that just isn't done on any other local station.

Two other music shows close to my heart, Ear Candy and Commercial Suicide have been hosted by a rotating cast of players for-freakin-ever, and they both mine the best gems from the obscurist corners of their respective genres ... have no words for how great they are. I've discovered so much music through them.

It's going to be a profound loss to Austin if KOOP can't get back on its feet.

feel free to repost.

upcoming benefits

Sunday Jan 15, a KOOP HoeDown at Shoal Creek Saloon, located at 909 North Lamar. Featuring the Grassy Knoll Boys and Double Eagle String Band. Music starts at 4pm. $5 cover to support KOOP's studio equipment fund. Plus, your donation will be matched by one of our very generous supporters!

Friday February 10, KOOP's Artic Blast at Beerland, located at 711 Red River. Featuring music from The Ugly Beats and The Nervous Exits and KOOP's own Jennifer (Ear Candy) and Scott (Stronger than Dirt) will be DJing.

Thursday February 23, The Sinus Show, with KOOP's own John Erler (Elk Mating Ritual) at Alamo South Lamar.

I love the songs of Townes Van Zandt. I love Townes Van Zandt. I feel like I've always loved him, since even before I was born. One doesn't have to always hear something to understand what it's saying, right? It was like that with the Beatles. One day a switch was flipped and I could never really go back to how it was before.

I recommend this: Be Here to Love Me

trailer

Some select screenings (you can bet those SXSW shows will be packed like sardines):

January 20, 2006
Landmark Midtown Art
931 Monroe Drive, Atlanta, GA 30308

February 3, 2006
Landmark Lumiere 3
1 Embarcadero Centre, San Francisco, CA 94111

February 3, 2006
Landmark Act 1&2 Cinemas
2128 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94704

February 10, 2006
The Clinton St. Theater
2522 SE Clinton St., Portland, OR 97202

February 17, 2006
Angelika Film Center
510 Texas Avenue, Houston, TX 77002

February 17, 2006
Angelika Film Center
5321 E Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, TX 75206

February 17, 2006
Darkside Cinema
215 SW 4th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330

March 3, 2006
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street, Fort Worth, TX 76107


Festival Screenings

Toronto Film Festival
Jan 26 - Feb 6, 2005

International Film Festival Rotterdam
Jan 26 - Feb 6, 2005

Amsterdam Weeping Willow Film Festival
February 13, 2005

True/False Film Festival
February 25-27, 2005 Columbia, MO.

SXSW Film Festival
March 11-19, 2005 Austin, TX.
March 13 - evening, Paramount Theatre

...more at the site.

What a fucking year...

These are CD/LP’s, and I've not heard everything released this (last) year, so this list is not necessarily definitive. Just damn close. Expect a shorter “best of” of limited CD-R type things in the next day or two.

25 in 05:

25. Jackie-O Motherfucker “Flags of the Sacred Harp” (ATP)
24. Franklin’s Mint “Gold” (Sunburned)
23. Oneida “Secret Wars” (Jagjaguwar)
22. Major Stars “4” (Twisted Village)
21. Todd Tamanend Clark “Nova Psychedelia” 2CD (Anopheles)
20. The Directing Hand “Bells for Augustin Lesage” (Secret Eye)
19. The Iron Kite “No Eyebrows” (Twilight Flight Sound)
18. Skullflower “Orange Canyon Mind” (Crucial Blast)
17. Earth “Hex: or Printing in the Infernal Method” (Southern Lord)
16. The Goslings “Between the Dead” (Self-Released)
15. Simon Finn “Magic Moments” (Durtro/Jnana)
14. Boris “Pink” (DIW-Phalanx)
13. Corrupted “El Mundo Frio” (H.G. Fact)
12. Om “Variations on a Theme” (Holy Mountain)
11. Josephine Foster “Hazel Eyes I Will Lead You” (Locust)
10. Jack Rose “Kensington Blues” (VHF)
9. Mirror “Still Valley” (Die Stadt)
8. Marissa Nadler “The Saga of Mayflower May” (Eclipse)
7. Windy & Carl “The Dreamhouse / Dedication to Flea” (Kranky)
6. Steven R. Smith “Crown of Marches” (Catsup Plate)
5. Sunn 0))) “Black One” (Southern Lord)
4. The No-Neck Blues Band “Qvaris” (5RC)
3. Angels of Light “Sing Other People” (Young God)
2. Michio Kurihara “Sunset Notes” (Pedal)
1. Damon and Naomi “The Earth is Blue” (20/20/20)

Debut of the Year:
Akron/Family "S/T" (Young God)

Other albums thoroughly enjoyed in 05: Antony and the Johnsons "I Am a Bird Now" (Secretly Canadian), August Born “S/T” (Drag City), James Blackshaw “Sunshrine” (Digitalis), Cobra Verde “Copycat Killers” (Scat), Lightning Bolt “Hypermagic Mountain” (Load), Øyvind Holm “The Vanishing Act” (Camera Obscura), Xiu Xiu “La Foret” (5RC), The Harvestman “Lashing the Rye” (Neurot), Nick Castro & The Poison Tree “Further From Grace” (Strange Attractors), Twilight “S/T” (Southern Lord), Lurker of Chalice “S/T” (Southern Lord), Thralldom “Black Sun Resistance” (Total Holocaust), Kinski “Alpine Static” (Sub-Pop), Sleater-Kinney “The Woods” (Sub-Pop), Khanate “Capture and Release” (Hydrahead), Current 93 “How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon” 2CD (Durtro/Jnana), Wooden Wand “Harem and Sundrum” (Soft Abuse), Eyes and Arms of Smoke “A Religion of Broken Bones” (Cenotaph), Six Organs of Admittance “School of the Flower” (Drag City), Badgerlore “Stories for Owls” (Free Porcupine Society), Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice “Buck Dharma” (Time-Lag), Urdog “Eyelid of Moon” (Secret Eye), Mike Tamburo “Beating of the Rewound Son” (Music Fellowship), Mahjong “Raydongcong” (Cold Crush), M. Ward “Transister Radio” (Sub-Pop), Espers “The Weed Tree” (Locust), Miminokoto “Orange Garage” (Last Visible Dog), High on Fire “Blessed Black Wings” (Relapse), Sigur Ros “Takk…” (Geffen), The Soundtrack of Our Lives “Origin, Vol. 1” (Republic), Outrageous Cherry “Our Love Will Change the World” (Rainbow Quartz), Broadcast “Tender Buttons” (Warp), Gravenhurst “Fires in Distant Buildings (Warp), Thuja “Pine Cone Temples” 2CD (Strange Attractors), Nels Cline/ Wally Shoup/ Chris Corsano “Immolation/ Immersion” (Strange Attractors), Cold Bleak Heat “It’s Magnificent, but It Isn’t War” (Family Vineyard), Hototogisu “Green” (Heavy Blossom), Residual Echoes “Phoenician Flu and Ancient Ocean” (Holy Mountain), Disembowelment “S/T” 2CD (Relapse), Castanets “First Light’s Freeze” (Asthmatic Kity), Fursaxa “Amulet” (Last Visible Dog) and Lepidoptera (ATP), Nagisa Ni Te “Dream Sounds” (Jagjaguwar), Black Mountain “S/T” (Jagjaguwar), Subarachnoid Space “The Red Veil” (Strange Attractors), Islaja “Palaa Aurinkoon” (Fonal), Boduf Songs “S/T” (Kranky), Birchville Cat Motel “Firepower Fragrant Cloud” (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon), Spires That in the Sunset Rise “Four Winds the Walker” (Secret Eye), Sunroof “Silver Bear Mist” 2CD (VHF), The Volebeats “Like Her” (Turquoise Mountain), Mirror “Viking Burial for a French Car” (Plinkity Plonk), Goblin Market “Haunted” (Camera Obscura), Salamander “Bent Hemlock” (Camera Obscura), Tetuzi Akiyama “Pre-Existence” (Locust), Mountain Goats “The Sunset Tree” (4AD), Paul Metzger “Three Improvisations on Modified Banjo” (Chairkickers Union), Jesu "S/T" (Hydrahead), Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Worn Copy" (Paw Tracks), Animal Collective "Feels" (Fat Cat), Black Dice "Broken Ear Record" (DFA/Astralworks), Angels of Light and Akron/Family Split (Young God), Pelt Untitled (VHF)

Reissues:
5. Judy Henske & Jerry Yester “Farewell Aldebaren” (Radioactive)
4. The Nether Dawn “Whiskey Mute-Down” (Last Visible Dog)
3. Omit “Tracer” 2CD (Helen Scarsdale)
2. George Brigman “Jungle Rot” (Anopheles)
1. Current 93 “Thunder Perfect Mind” 2CD (Durtro/Jnana)
...and mustn't forget the entire Can back catalog, Stooges "Funhouse" 2CD on Rhino, Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" and Dino Jr.'s classic early albums.

Compilations:
3. “Gold Leaf Branches” (Digitalis)
2. “By the Fruits, You Shall Know The Roots" (Time-Lag/Eclipse)
1. “Invisible Pyramid Elegy Box” (Last Visible Dog)
Honorable Mention: “Wailing Bones Vol. 1" Tom Carter, Alligator Crystal Moth, Keijo & The Free Players, Drona Parva (Digitalis)

Music Related DVD or Program:
The Flaming Lips “The Fearless Freaks”
Bob Dylan “No Direction Home”
Ghost "Metamorphosis: Ghost Chronicles 1984-2004"

Live Space-Prog Blast from the Past:
Robert Wyatt & Friends “Theater Royal Drury Lane” (Hannibal)

FUCKING 2006!