Weird Stalk, Too Lineup Announced

Last year's 3 day Weirdstock festival thrown by the Whitehaus as a 40 year anniversary to the original Woodstock was a huge success, if not necessarily in the turnout, then in proving the fact that doing a 3 day DIY fest is totally in the realm of possibility.

AWESOME NEWS: the Whitehaus is bringing it back and they're calling in Weird Stalk, Too. The sad news is that instead of taking over the Cambridge YMCA for a whole weekend, it's going to be an all nighter at The Temple in JP. But that means lots of good things, too.

Like you don't have to take a whole weekend off to enjoy what's sure to be one of the coolest parties in Boston this year. And instead of feeling bad on missing half of the 40 bands like last year, you can make damn sure you see all of 'em this time. And it's not at The Y.

So the official lineup so far looks totally fucking rad. I'm super psyched about Kurt Weisman and Blevin Blectum, but there's also power drone fiend Double Awake, the self explanatory Metal & Glass Ensemble, California's chill creeper Dead Western, another one of Angela Sawyer's endless projects Preggy Peggy, circuit bending sound artist Omnivore, and plenty of Whitehaus mainstays like Many Mansions, Morgan Shaker, and Peace, Loving. And there's still more to be announced!

This shit is gonna be so so awesome.

August 20, 2010
The Temple
670 Centre St, Jamaica Plain
8pm - sunrise

Blevin fuckin Blectum
Kurt Weisman
Dead Western
Preggy Peggy & The Lazy Babymakers
Cloud Becomes Your Hand
Ashcan Orchestra
Metal & Glass Ensemble
Kid Romance
Cave Bears
Omnivore
Double Awake
Mouse Queen
Morgan Shaker
Many Mansions
Peace, Loving

7 Hours, 53 Minutes Of Vacuum Cleaner Sounds

SO MANY QUESTIONS. Did someone actually record 7 hours and 53 minutes of vacuum cleaner sounds? Did they go deaf? Did they just set up a mic and walk away? How much money was wasted on electricity? Has anyone listened to the entire thing? If somebody made these sounds in a different way (not using vacuum cleaners) and set it up as a sound installation and maybe even released it on a fat slab-o-wax, would you respect it any more than you do now?

via Immanent Discursivity / Noise For Airports

The Show Calendar Returns!

First of all, my apologies for neglecting the show calendar on this incarnation of my site. If you're unaware, I've been scrambling to get my new site off the ground and have put most of my energy (show calendar-wise) on keeping the new calendar updated so that when my new site finally launches, that calendar will be nice and plump. But I figured since I'm using Google Calendar as the core, there's no reason I can't share it with you now and let you have access to all of my hard work of show compiling.

There's a couple of things that I've never explicitly said about the show calendar that I always thought would be semi-obvious, but I might as well get 'em off my chest now while I have the chance.

It's not comprehensive. At all. I do my best to catch all of the DIY & house shows before they happen, but living in Salem, a half hour outside of Boston, sometimes it's hard for me to stay in the loop. If you know of a show that you think me/AGB readers would be into and it's not on the calendar, please hit me up so I can spread the good word.

I haven't heard of all the bands that I list. Sometimes I'll put up a show where I haven't heard of a single band playing. That's rare, but it happens because it's going down at a super reputable place that I feel like I could just go to any show they're putting on and it will be awesome.

I'm going to try to update this as frequently as possible. Whenever I find out about a new show, it'll get posted.

Here's a tiny embedded one, but you'll probably want to check out the big one to get the full effect.

Neil Jendon - Male Fantasies (Land Of Decay, 2010)

Neil Jendon - Side A (Red Nurse - Vigilante! - White Nurse)


Another piece of sweetness from Land Of Decay, although this is the first one from them I've heard that is non-Locrian related. Neil Jendon is just a dude who makes some killer drone, and also used to be in Zelienople and runs the gutflora label.

Side A is really dense stuff, deep rumbling static with delicate layers of barely there shimmer lying beneath the surface. Sounds like massive earthmovers hauling down dirt roads, kicking up an impenetrable wall of dust behind them, and seeing the sun in sporadic blurs where the dust has thinned out just a bit. And as the enormous trucks move on, the rumbling fades, the dust settles, the sun shines. Bliss sets in, soaring drone in the wide open barely blue skies. It saunters right up to New Age and says "Fuck you, this is how it's done."

Flip it over and it's 20 more minutes of amazing fucking drone. It sounds like electronic static distortion ramped up and evened out to create a plane of intimidating drone, yet still with the twinkling euphoria thrown in. It gets increasingly intense, imminent fucking danger where everything's about to go supernova. Feedback, static, low end throbbing, more static, and then it just fades away into the deepest growl you've ever heard. I'm talking from the depths of the deepest trenches. That kinda deep. But then that, too, fades away, into some more heavenly drone like the end of the A side. Some seriously incredible sounds, totally lush, a little OPN type warbling synth with star dust and tape hiss. It doesn't get much better than this.

Male Fantasies is some supreme drone. Jendon has pulled out all the stops, going from crumbling static to glowing glory and everything in between, mixing it all together and making a DAMN fine album in the process. It's a limited tape (250 copies) and it's one of the best aqua colors I've ever laid eyes on. So vibrant and punchy! Love everything about this.

Sleep In - Carnival (Enemies List, 2010)

Sleep In - The Woods


I generally try to stay away from reviewing records like Carnival. The ones where each song is different from the next and it's really hard to peg the album. I feel like I inevitably talk about the record on a song-by-song basis, and that makes me it seem like I don't "understand" the album. If I can't talk about the mood or overall sound, then it feels like I'm not doing my job right.

Sleep In's newest release from the inininfinitely unstoppable Enemies List is one of those records. He dropped it in my inbox over 2 months ago and I've been listening to it ever since, hoping to get a grasp on what kind of shit was going through this guy's mind. No luck. The only thing I've taken from my numerous Carnival listens is that 1: it's totally fucking rad and 2: it doesn't fucking matter if I can't pigeonhole this beast.

I could take the route and say Carnival is like a carnival, you get all sorts of weird shit and random experiences. But I'm not gonna do that. Promise.

So what does this record sound like? First off, it's pretty different from anything Enemies List has done before. It's not some twisted black metal Nahvalr, epic doom pop like Planning For Burial, or the industrial metalgaze of Have A Nice Life. Carnival isn't very metal at all. It gets heavy at times, but more like a psych noise freakout kinda heavy. There's backwoods swamp folk, electro-acoustic doom, warped guitar ambience, sprawling drone, feedbacked squalls, and plenty more that's just weird as fuck.

This is where I say, "But despite all these disparate sub-genres, Carnival still works because it keeps the thread of BLANK going through the whole thing." But I can't do that. I don't know what that thread is.

Despite not being able to decipher the overarching theme, I can still tell you Carnival doesn't seem haphazard or disjointed in any way. It works great as a record, everything flows and sounds perfect together. It's an album that's actually an album instead of simply a collection of songs. It's refreshing and original and 100% awesome.

OOPs: Keep Breathing - Keep Breathing (Rhizome, 2005)

Mysterious stuff here. Originally a ridiculously limited run of 5 or 6 copies on Winter Records, then reissued by Rhizome in a slightly more acquirable, though no less limited, run of 30 copies. No names. No liner notes to speak of (other than what I just mentioned). Song titles are dates. Just about as bare bones as it gets.

The music is where it's at, though. Three 20+ minute tracks (one nearly a half hour) of some long form drones that sound like bagpipe/harmonica/melodica/you get the idea, like the perfect union of Yoshi Wada and Eluvium. I assume it's recorded live using circular breathing, which makes this prime AGB material. I seriously love any/all of those instruments and turn 'em into some sprawling drone via circular breathing and I'm fucking GONE. Plus, the length of these pieces makes it all the more incredible imagining a single dude pushing his cheeks & lungs till the point of almost passing out.

This is some intense stuff, not exactly blissful but still quite a pleasant experience. Very hypnotic, open ended, intricate, layered drone, at times abrasive and enlightening. My wife Elise is pretty tolerable of most drone, but I'm fairly certain she wouldn't dig this. Which hopefully means you're all about this because I give Keep Breathing some of the highest praise possible.

Long live the drone.

MP3: The Haters - Dirwyn 22

The Haters - Dirwyn 22


Sloppy copy/paste 'cause I'm heading to work. "Amplified calculator being pushed into a desk fan." That means it's noisey & atonal & awesome as fuck. From a split The Haters did with Lockweld.

via GX Jupitter-Larsen's Communique

Hard Format

I got a heads up on Hard Format from one of the many TempRes Twitter accounts when they linked to the post on Eluvium's Life Through Bombardment. Hard Format is a super sleek site dedicated to showcasing some of the more finely designed & packaged music (like these Pan releases, Fennesz's Black Sea, Celer's origamied Mane Blooms). They seem to do a lot of scans, which I don't think are always the best way to display such beauties (evidence: Exhibit A / Exhibit B), but the attention to detail is really fantastic and all of the artwork really shines. Definitely a place that further proves music in a purely digital world will never win.

Update: No scans on the site. Everything is shot with a Nikon.

Haiku Review: PK Mao - Raptendo 64 Vol. 1-3 (self released, 2010)

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien Vs Perfect Dark - Help Me Out


PK Mao
Raptendo 64 Vol. 1-3 (download)
/super hit or miss/
/hip hop with 64 beats/
/when it's good it's grand/

OOPs: Voices Of The Loon (National Audubon Society, 1980)

If you know what loons sound like, you've probably skipped all the text and are already downloading this. If you've never heard a loon call, either recorded or in the wild, then just start downloading now and thank me afterwards.

Loons make the creepiest fucking sounds out of any animal ever. The different technical names for loons calls are wail, tremolo, yodel, hoot, and various combinations like tremolo-wail but the word "ghostly" pretty much sums it all up. They sound like ghosts. Beautiful, horrifying ghosts. The specters of the northern wilderness that wake you up in the middle of the night and give you the sweats, who then soothe your fears and lull you back to sleep.

The first side is narrated by Robert J. Lurtsema who helps to identify the different calls. The second side is uninterrupted by humans, just 21 minutes of sounds like "Chorus From A Distant Lake," "Wails During A Thunderstorm," and "Coyotes Calling With Loons." So you can just throw that on and remember those late nights spent staring at the stars on a Maine lake.

The back of the jacket (included in the zip) has plenty of detailed notes, including some spectrographs showing what the different calls look like. So cool. But the best part of this whole thing (other than the recording, obv) is the "Important Note" that warns you not to play this record "near waters occupied by breeding pairs" because apparently loons are a bunch of pussies that can't handle some stiff competition.

LOOOOOOOON

Video: Walls - Burnt Sienna

A truly fine slow burning jam by Walls off their self titled debut on Kompakt. Listen to the song on repeat and it creates a nice ebb & flow of beats & drones. So super awesome. The video reminds me a bit of the artwork for Unknown Pleasures mixed with A Place To Bury Strangers' aesthetic.

Millipede - Full Bloom (Install, 2010)

Millipede - Full Bloom


Millipede is back with another dose of beautiful steel wool guitar noise on Install. To tell you the truth, it's hard to notice many differences between the new Full Bloom and his previous albums. I'm not just being a noise condenser, either. Millipede has a very specific sound and if you make 7 or 8 albums worth of it, I supposed it might become difficult to continue innovating. That being said, is Full Bloom worthy of your time? Hell fucking yes.

Millipede has got it made. He can keep putting out albums of caustic feedback and I'll listen to and love every last one. The intricately dense abrasive layers are endlessly enjoyable. There's so much to listen for and decipher. I could spend hours figuring out if it's a single guitar blown WAY the fuck out or a dozen acid spewing axes, hearing shapeless mourning voices, waiting for the next wave of crumbling corrosion to scrub my ear canals and peel the paint off my walls.

I suppose I should mention, as I do in almost every Millipede review, that Skullflower and Yellow Swans are some big soundalikes, along with hints of Brian Grainger and My Bloody Valentine. But regardless of how many times I write about Millipede, no matter how many albums he puts out or how frequently you listen to him, one thing is certain. Every time you hit play, you need to blur your eyes and crank your speakers until they bleed. Make it fucking LOUD.

Haiku Review: Concord Ballet Orchestra Players - Palindromes (self released, 2010)

Concord Ballet Orchestra Players - Boston Did Not Sob


Concord Ballet Orchestra Players
Palindromes (download)
/grooved out psych noise fuzz/
/quick third eye glimpses of time/
/homespun texture beats/

OOPs: Getting Through: A Guide To Better Understanding Of The Hard Of Hearing (Zenith, 1971)

I got pretty psyched when I saw this record sitting in the back of the last crate on a small table at a record fair. One, because it's a bit strange. Obviously. Also, the "Unfair Hearing Test" was pretty intriguing. But also because I'm nearly deaf in my right ear.

Most of this record is geared towards a person living with someone who has hearing loss, rather than the actual person with hearing loss, so for me it's more novelty than anything else. It explains how to cater to someone who is hard of hearing, ranging from the obvious ("When talking to the hard of hearing, face him directly") to the ridiculously impractical ("When the hearing handicap joins a group, be sure he knows the subjects being discussed").

The best parts of Getting Through are all of the filtered & altered sound samples, trying to replicate what hearing loss sounds like, and what it's like for someone who has a newly acquired hearing aid.

And I'm 99% certain the whole record is to make you feel sorry for your deaf grandparents and buy them a pair of Zenith hearing aids.

You might want to grab the extra large version of the back cover which has some instructions for the record as well as the answers to the "Unfair Hearing Test."

Wear earplugs at concerts.

MP3: Aboombong - Daymare

Aboombong - Daymare


The dude who runs the Pen & Mallet blog is also a music-maker as Aboombong, and a damn good one at that. He's got a few "name your price" albums up on Bandcamp, but "Daymare" is from my particular favorite, Asynchronic. It's a super lush muted free jazz/post rock workout, chaotic enough to blend everything together into a homogeneous blur of skittering drums & intense guitar noodling. Well worth your time, and I highly recommend checking out the rest of his stuff.