Massive Week In Review

Not getting anything last week in the mail and the holiday on Monday, several orders arrived between Tuesday and Thursday.

From Archive CD came three surprise releases that to my knowledge weren't know until they went on sale on the website. A reissue of the first UP-TIGHT album along with a couple of bonus tracks, and two collaborations - Astro, Jazkamer, and Hair Stylistics for a long track and Todd Merrell, Aidan Baker and Patrick Jordan for some mellow tracks. From the distro I bought the new Boris with Merzbow live album 'Rock Dream', a reissue of Circle's first album 'Meronia', South Saturn Delta's debut album, and expanded editions of Sunn O)))'s 'Flight Of The Behemoth' and 'The GrimmRobe Demos'.

Coming from Constellation Records was their two releases from Hrsta (featuring members of Godspeed You Black Emperor), one of them a new release and the other I finally got around to picking up.

From Kranky Records came a load of CDs by Charalambides, including their two most recent releases, 'Likeness' on Kranky and 'Electricity Ghost' on Wholly Other that features outtakes from the 'Joy Shapes' sessions.

After not being able to find them in a couple of trips to the record store, I reluctantly put in an order to Souther Lord Records for the latest albums from Orthodox, Wolves In The Throne Room, Oren Ambarchi and Deathspell Omega.

Earthless, Danava, Saviours and Witchcraft at Brick By Brick, San Diego November 6, 2007

First time I've been to Brick By Brick to see a show and the lineup for the Tuesday night gig was stellar. After seeing all the shows at the Casbah, Brick By Brick feels gigantic in comparison. It was nice to have some room to roam around between sets. The downside was they opened the doors about 45 minutes late. I believe the everything did start on time however.

First up was Earthless and their broken-finger-playing guitar player. Back from a US tour (which they said was great), Earthless started off their jam in similar fashion but went into different territories afterwards. Starting with some fretboard acrobatics, they eventually went into some heavy jamming for most of the set. Definitely the heaviest set I've heard from them as it featured less guitar effects, but the excellent soloing was still intact.

Next was Danava whose first album from last year was a welcome surprise when I got it as a freebie. I loved that their bass player was out in front and playing all over the fretboard (fingerstyle!) for their seemingly brief set. My complaint about them, and perhaps this was the soundman's fault, but I couldn't hear the electronics/keyboards/synths very well. Either they really wanted them blended into the sound or something was off at the mixing board.

Saviours, the only band that I wasn't really familiar with, ripped their doom-tinged "classic" style of metal. They certainly had a nice contingent of fans for their set but I couldn't get into them. There wasn't enough uniqueness to their sound to differentiate them from the pack. It was solid metal but nothing that hasn't been done already.

The headliners for the night coming all the way from Sweden was the Black Sabbath and Pentagram influenced Witchcraft. One thing is clear right away is that they are much heavier live than on their records. Once again I loved the fact that their bass player was playing fingerstyle and all over the fretboard. It was their first showing in San Diego and the good turnout for a Tuesday night was excited they were in town. Witchcraft played a great set of tunes from their three full length releases. They seemed to be having a great time playing and hopefully they'll be back again.

New Important Records

A big order from Important Records finally arrived with new CDs and LPs from the always diverse label.

The CDs included another live album from Suishou No Fune (Archive just recently released a live album by them as well), a new (very short for a) full-length from LSD March and the self-titled (debut?) album from Sky City who features Robert Horton, Tom Carter, and Lisa and Lee Ann Cameron.

ImpRec has put out the new Citay album on vinyl and I decided to pick that up. I still need to get their first album. However this second album sounds fantastic. Getting some buzz on the music forums was the self-titled LP from A Place To Bury Strangers. Haven't given it a spin yet but I'm curious to hear what "New York's loudest band" sounds like. The collaboration between Oren Ambarchi and musician-producer Chris Townend, dubbed simply Sun. I'm not sure if this is the first Sun release, but I've enjoyed Oren's past work.

From The Archive Distro

A couple of new discs arrived from the fantastic Archive distro. After releasing a live CD/DVD combo on the Archive label, Kousokuya have released another live album that was recorded a few months before the passing of their guitar player. Just about all the info in the liner notes is in Japanese, so a translation would be helpful.

After reading the review on fakejazz.com, the latest album from Mammal sounded like an interesting release in the world of noise music. So I decided to make an impulse purchase in hopes of it being a good album. Scott from Archive liked and I'll take his word on it.

Lou's Again + ATH

Went back to Lou's Records to pick up some stuff they didn't have in last time. While they didn't have almost any of it in, I did manage to pick up many CDs and LPs.

CDs:
Captain Beyond - Captain Beyond
Captain Beyond - Sufficiently Breathless
Wooden Wand - James & The Quiet
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II
The White Buffalo - EP
Bartenders Bible - Rimrock Recording Sessions

LPs:
Heavy Winged - We Grow
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Willie And The Poor Boys
Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing At Baxter's
The Moody Blues - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
The Moody Blues - To Our Childrens Childrens Children


And the latest order from All That's Heavy featuring a couple of new releases. Everything is on CD:

Witchcraft - The Alchemist
Los Natas - El Universo Perdido de Los Natas (2CD)
YOB - Elaborations Of Carbon
Blind Dog - Captain Dog Rides Again
The Ribeye Brothers - If I Had A Horse...

Cuneiform Records And More

It's been on my "to order" list for a long time, but I finally placed another order to Cuneiform Records to fill out the rest of the proper Heldon discography. Not only have they released the Heldon and Richard Pinhas albums, but they have also released the latest album from San Diego's Upsilon Acrux. Although the lineup has changed, Upsilon Acrux are still playing that jazz-punk-King Crimson-math rock influenced music.

I must have missed it when I ordered the other two Jandek tributes, but Summersteps Records has a third tribute album in their handmade series that contains cuts that didn't make it on the first two releases. I think 'Corwood Variations' might actually be the best of the three.

On a trip to Best Buy to buy a new external hard drive, I picked up the latest album from Down along with the special edition of the Mastodon's latest album (includes a making of DVD).

Back To Lou's

Now that summer is over with and traffic on the freeway is not insane, I finally made a trip to Lou's Records in search of some new releases. All but one of the CDs was a recent release and I managed to score some good vinyl.

CDs:
Area C - Haunt
Kawabata Makoto - INUI 4
Nadja - Radiance Of Shadows
Om - Pilgrimage
Deathspell Omega - Kenose

Vinyl:
Oren Ambarchi - Stacte Motors
Oren Ambarchi & Scott Horscroft / Hado Ho - Split
Big Business - Here Come The Waterworks (gold vinyl)
GHQ - California Night Burning Dreams (plus 3" CD-R)
LSD March - Shindara Jigoku
Silvester Anfang - Echte Vlaamse Geiten

Arriving the mail during the weak was another vinyl release from Three Lobed Recordings. Under the name of Basalt Fingers, Elisa Ambrogio, Ben Chasny and Brian Sullivan play some improvised guitar-only music that take up both sides of the record. I previewed a bit of the music just hear what it was like (different from what I expected) so I still need to sit down with this one for a spin. Love the fact that a pressed CD of the vinyl material has been included with the silk screened packaging.

ATH Order

Will some new releases out and some excellent deals to be had, an order to the All That's Heavy online shop was due.

New releases from Expo 70 (who I've never heard of but liked the reviews), Truckfighters and The Perfect Rat have come out in the last few weeks. Truckfighters continue to be the best of the new fuzz rock bands that have come out of Sweden. The Perfect Rat features a mix of SST and desert artists like Greg Ginn, Gary Arce and Mario Lalli. An interesting mix that has set to sink in yet. Expo 70 is just a dude playing improvised ambient and drone music with a slew of instruments.

For older albums I picked up Eternal Elysium's two albums on Meteor City. The blend heavy blues rock with psychedelic/stoner rock. After reading some positive reviews and with a very cheap price I also picked up the self-titled album from Sir Hedgehog.

Earthless and Jesu at the Cashbah, San Diego October 4, 2007

Wolves In The Throne Room were scheduled to open up the show but apparently they broke down on the drive to the gig. While I did see them back in July, I was looking forward to hearing them again and buying their latest album. Instead of pushing up the other two bands, they stuck to the original schedule which meant more sitting around doing nothing until 10pm. Making things worse the Jesu merch table wasn't open before the show started. I was probably going to buy a couple CDs but ended up buying nothing.

Earthless went on a little after 10pm and dig right into a 50 minute jam of 'Godspeed', the first track on their new album. This was my fourth time seeing the band and they are continuing to play phenomenal sets. They did different intro than I remembered hearing the previous time and it works well.

I've enjoyed Jesu up until the last album, but being from the UK, I figured I won't have many opportunities to see them live. I wasn't sure what kind of configuration Justin Broadrick would have; turns out they are a trio with help from a laptop providing the noises and keyboards. Perhaps it was because of the location as was at, but the mix just wasn't working for me. The drums were way too loud and the guitars needed to be turned up - way up. I was expecting to bathed in washes of guitars but it was not to be. They played (from what I can tell) mostly new material including the best tracks from 'Silver'. Not sure if there was anything from the self-titled album or not. The encore song, whose name escapes me, was by far the best part of the set.

Nil Recurring

Just a quick update this time.

Arriving from the UK was the latest release from Porcupine Tree. An EP called 'Nil Recurring' featuring four tracks that didn't make the cut on their recent album. Robert Fripp contributes some lead guitar work on the title (instrumental) track. The EP really shows the diversity of the band throughout the four songs. A welcome edition to the PT catalog.