Grackle – Desert Acid

Grackle was a complete mystery to me only a few weeks ago.  Named after a small black bird I see often around the neighborhood, the name dared me to indulge, inflaming my curiosity.  This turned out to be a far-more-than-worthy gamble, as William Burnett (aka Grackle) brings a shitload of personality, energy, and hardened swagger to a corner of the electronic music world often lacking in all of the above.

Ostensibly a moody space disco number, the title track evokes everything from laser-pocked 80′s sci-fi soundtracks to smokey funk bangers, its rhythm deftly negotiating an absolute stampede of bass, yet never once feels any older than Right Now.  It’s the score to nighttime escapades in the Grand Canyon on a clear night, possibly in some future dystopia where the desolate  home of the Roadrunner is the only solace from the onslaught of modern living.  The set-opening Musiccargo remix feels like a primal dance around and through a brush fire, a stomping, clattering frenzy let loose when the crisp air first hits and the wild starts to take over.  A 4/4 motorik pulse glides the momentum on rails straight into the main feature before you’re even aware of what’s happening.  Afterward, the sparkling skyward view beckons and we’re flat on our backs, feeling the draw of space and the sounds of satellites.  The Sombrero Galaxy version draws out the meditative (and frankly psychedelic) aspects of the track, riding through hot aquatic swells bathed in that surface-of-Venus skyline in Blade Runner.  Twinkling synth stabs illuminate romantically pleading horn waves, sending shivers up the spine while the martial lockstep percussion wanders off towards a hazy oasis.  We’re gently brought back to earth the the tune of splashing water and distant laughter.  Finally rounding up this drum-tight selection is an original titled We Are It, feeling like a mysteriously shrouded cousin of some of Gothenburg’s finest club crushers.  All buzzing seaside guitars and breathy vocals, snaking their way through wavering key lines and plinking drum taps, it’s 4am, long after the beach party died down.  So Grackle leaves us by the salvation of water, after all.  Starting out in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert (with possibly a satchel of peyote buttons) has been redefined into something not only desirable, but vital.  If you grew up in the same era as I did (reading this, you probably did) – expect to have all your deep pleasure centers massaged over these 23 minutes.  Take this trip and call me in the morning.

[grab this EP at boomkat, junodownload, or on 12" from kompakt]

ROVO – Nuou

ROVO lay down incremental evolutions on the same sound, album after album, consistently for over a decade now.  With most bands, this would be a bad thing.  Fortunately, this particular sound is a jaw dropping transcendent bliss hurricane, perpetually bestowing its myriad gifts upon the listener, play after play.  Their latest full length proves the rule again.

Basically, take the spaced out sun worshipping tribal krautrock jams of latter day Boredoms, divide it by Miles Davis‘ brilliant, hard rocking Pangaea-era band, multiply the result with judicious electronic manipulation and add exquisite electric violin fireworks.  Now you’ve got a tiny kernel of an idea about how this sounds.

Already a favorite here at Optimistic Underground (see Pyramid and Mon posts), I won’t mince words reiterating how I feel about the band itself.  Instead, I’ll break down what makes this album particularly eargasmic.  For starters, the band seems to have discovered a more laconic sense of beauty and space; these five tracks radiate a confident, nearly relaxed sense of purpose and design.  No longer boiling directly into frenzied storms to get the point across, they craft this piece with a jeweler’s touch using gentler elements like hushed marimbas in album centerpiece Melodia, allowing the dueling percussionists to convey a soft-spoken interplay in leiu of the usual kung fu assault.  Of course, this wouldn’t be ROVO without those warp-speed eruptions, the moments when everything locks into place, time and space folding into some utopian extradimensional conveyance – these are simply delivered with a measure of of grace and patience befitting an outfit knocking out their eight consecutive masterpiece.

The thing with this music is, you simply have to hear it to believe it, much less know exactly what it’s like.  No amount of superlative descriptors in the world can prepare you for the absolutely addictive nature contained within.  Nothing can truly describe the hypnotic fever-dream euphoria.  Just listen, and get familiar.  You can thank me later.

And seriously, watch this psychedelic preview / live footage hybrid.

[get your hands on this god-level magnificence at hmv japan or yesasia.com]

Boredoms – Voaltz/Relerer

Boredoms are one of the greatest living bands on the planet.  Here is an obscure, tangential testament to that unavoidable fact.

This highly evolved tribal psychedelic rock juggernaut exists on their own terms, in their own world, above and beyond the perceptions and ambitions of mere mortals.  Frontman Yamantaka eYe is reported to be at least 200 years old and fueled entirely by advanced nuclear photosynthesis – not to mention a mould-shattering, epoch-defining musical genius.  Birthed in the chaos-as-art nebula of 1980′s Osaka, Japan, Boredoms grew from noise-assault pranksters with more than a hint of potential to the Weird Kings of the original Lollapalooza with a little help from American fans Nirvana and Sonic Youth in merely half a decade.  Eternally restless, they next entered the experimental cocoon of Super Roots, emerging at the tail end of the 1990′s as a sun-worshipping tribal-drone-trance monolith, devouring lesser bands and bridging the gap between primal violence and avant garde jazz like an acid-frenzied Colossus of Rhodes.  Throughout the current decade, the band has danced extensively with electronic manipulation and outright reconstruction through eYe’s increasing flirtation with DJ culture, and Voaltz/Relerer is one of the many joyous, dance-floor ready permutations they’ve birthed lately.  Consisting of percussion-centered tranced out remixes of two tracks included with the Live At Sunflancisco DVD, this 12″ rarity is essential listening for anyone with even a passing interest in the band; or anyone still reading for that matter.  Give it a spin (via the album artwork above) and try resisting the sorta exorbitantly priced copies available below.

(Special thanks to Ackibear for bringing this to my ears!)

 

[highly sought after and extremely rare, this 12" can be procured on the discogs marketplace and few other sources]

White Rainbow – New Clouds

White Rainbow (née Adam Forkner) recently tore through the autumn skies to drop this bomb, blowing away expectations, surpassing anything I could have anticipated after the already-excellent 2007 LP Prism of Eternal Now.  Expanding on the warm, nebulous nature of his live jam constructions, New Clouds is an impossibly appropriate title for one of this year’s best records.

Transcendent, overwhelming, hypnotic bliss.  Building layer upon layer of drones, stretched and echoed vocals, muted tribal percussion, and gorgeous synth swells, each track is a towering confection allowed room to naturally develop and breathe.  The four tracks comprise an hourlong running time, every moment feeling palpably open and inviting.  This album inspires and propels further listening, rather than demanding it.  Songs begin focused on a singular element, be it delayed acoustic guitar strums or rubbery hand drumming, and evolve with such grace and intuitive logic that final assembly is nearly imperceptible.  This music simply happens, while the conscious mind is busy absorbing the amorphous beauty like a pillow swallowing a blissful dreamer.  Informed by a wide range of greats, from Terry Riley to Can at their most euphoric, Forkner has finally broken through to a plane where his art exists on its own terms, immaterial of time or place.  This album raises hypnagogic exploration to new heights.

[pick this brand new album up at boomkat or amazon, or directly from kranky, a label fully deserving of your support]

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Fuck Buttons released one of the most interesting and polarizing albums of 2008, one of several named on my end of the year list (which would undoubtedly have been published here if Optimistic Underground was running at the time) and a perennial physical overload to unwitting passengers in my car.  This October the English duo are set to blow faces off and disintegrate non-believers with the sonic asteroid they’ve named Tarot Sport.

Using the word epic to describe this music is beyond moot; it’s simply a given at this point.  Yet this fact does little to temper the unshakeable urge to invoke it – and feel it – on every listen.  This is the sort of thing epic was coined for.  Kicking off with the dancefloor earthquake of Surf Solar, expanded to 10 minutes from its early incarnation as a 7″ single, the album shouts its thesis from a mountaintop and gets moving at a breakneck clip.  With an insistent four on the floor beat and stocatto-spliced vocal clips there’s no wonder which of debut Street Horrrsing‘s tracks was the launch point for this sophomore triumph: shining, atmospheric, ass-shaking standout Bright Tomorrow.  Every track, though submerged in the same industrial crunch mana Fuck Buttons are known for, feels more breathable, open, dynamic and most of all catchy, than anything they’ve yet created.  Third track The Lisbon Maru gently (and subtly) conjures the pulsing power-surge key stabs from the debut’s stellar opening (and most popular) track Sweet Love For Planet Earth, swaddling the backbone in vacuumed reverb and what sounds like hundreds of damaged violins compressed into a small wind tunnel and dialing up the velocity throughout its run.

After this point the album transforms into pure, blissed out, pounding noisy nirvana.  Fourth track Olympians blasted its way to the top of my list, where it reigns with impunity, after only my first two listens.  Not content with merely teasing their dancefloor intentions or continuing to shy away from unabashed melody, this striking 10 minute centerpiece showcases everything Fuck Buttons do well and then some.  Finally delivering on the ambitious promise suggested all along, the moment is a revelation: a band fully coming into their own as artists and hitting an undeniably assured stride.  Nothing feels remotely tentative about the syncopated big beat drums beamed through the tonal cloud this song is born in, nor the manner in which every element seems to gather up, tightening into a coiled rhythmic outburst in anticipation of the mythical organ swells beginning three minutes in.  It’s a gorgeous night sky colored with soaring waves of heartrending resonance and shimmering supernovas, exploding out of the mix like galactic pop rocks – a transcendent meteor shower as close and tangible as the ‘play’ button.

Topping that monster would be difficult, if not impossible; the guys instead turn and unleash a funky blast of head clearing noise bop in a (relatively) concise 5 minutes, before diving into sonic rollercoaster Space Mountain (appropriately titled) with driving tribal percussion and twinkling keyboards ablaze.  A nearly-clean guitar tone drives the action, disintegrating in the atmosphere, enveloped in feedback, before giving way to the final push:  closer Flight of the Serpent and its destructive martial stomp.  Swooning UK post rock guitar moves over a clattering speed-march rhythm section, bursting with feedback at just the right moments and sharing the spotlight with a romantic organ pulse grown from Olympians‘ seed.  Feeling almost like a burly reprisal of that apex, the swarm of drone flies suddenly drop away at the halfway point, exposing the skeletal drum pattern and letting it hang, galloping along unadorned for several moments.  Thankfully, majestic crests of oceanic keyboard melody and shattering light beams of narcotic bliss return to guide the album to a satisfactorily dizzying end.

Watch this clip with the volume cranked to whet your appetite if my words haven’t already.

[and make sure to preorder the album at boomkat, norman records (vinyl!), or rough trade - or make your purchase at a local record shop when it drops on October 12]

Gang Gang Dance – Crystals

New Gang Gang Dance material.  It’s called Crystals, and it’s mighty promising.  This is an epic on the scale of their earlier God’s Money centerpiece, Egowar.  Which, as it happens, is my favorite track from these boundary destroying folks.

Yes, finalizing my last post reminded me of one of the best pre-release tracks I’ve heard in a long time.  Yes, I’m speaking of their new live favorite.  And yes, it’s beyond fucking incredible.  Hit play, turn on the “HQ” version if possible (for the sound quality) and leave a comment about what you think.  I have faith.

Gang Gang Dance

Gang Gang Dance released their self-titled (and initially vinyl-only) sophomore album in 2004 and quietly set alight their singular brand of cavernous, sample-fluent, tribal psychedelia with this tripped out onslaught of free form beat-laden soundscape exploration.

So, holy shit.  I finally got around to listening to this album.  An album I should have discovered years ago when I was knocked on my ass by God’s Money.  Jesus.  I was waiting until I found the real McCoy, and succeeded in my quest.  I’m so thankful.  This is better than it has any right or percentage of probability to be.  Though leagues more free-form than God’s Money or Saint Dymphna, it’s got far more focus and drive than the murkey Revival of the Shittest.  2 tracks totalling 40 minutes wind through movement after movement like a song-based album broken apart and shuffled into a smooth blend by a mad scientist DJ’s hand, giving ample evidence that the masterly flow of the band’s later efforts didn’t materialize out of the wild blue ether.

So truly odd and uniquely rewarding, I’ll leave it up to the listener to understand my enthusiasm and infatuated prose.  Just hit play and sit back, resist the urge to skip around on the slow-building opener and make sure to note the point, halfway through the second half, when you’ve completely lost track of time and place.  Or don’t.

In memoriam of Charles Bukowski, I had a vodka drink and listened to scandalously good music tonight – then I wrote.  This is the one thing item being shared, however.  And I mean it.  You may feel disoriented, lost, and slightly apprehensive.  But in the end you’ll thank me for that final push, what made you take the plunge.

[the album is somewhat of a rarity but one can obtain it via amazon sellers]

Gang Gang Dance – Retina Riddim

Gang Gang Dance dropped this slice of fried (and twisted) gold less than a year before their breakthrough masterpiece Saint Dymphna arrived to warp the innocent minds of our youth.  (A video project released as a combination dvd/cd, this is the audio portion.  You’ll have to buy that dvd yourself to see the insanity.)

In a way, Retina Riddim is even more mindbending – packing in every conceivable rhythmic shift and unexpected sample, every wild percussion tone and dub variation – it’s like a wild roller coaster ride through the band’s collective labyrinthine nightmare, the moment before they awoke and created Saint Dymphna.  Stuffed to the gills with middle eastern string sounds, heavy bass thumps, bent and skewed organ swells, and an overwhelming exotic feel, the uninitiated may be forgiven for assuming it’s like any other release from these esoteric primal psych spelunkers.  It’s not.

If you haven’t heard Saint Dymphna, do so now in preparation for this disorienting onslaught of blissful oddity.

A single uninterrupted 24 minute track, Retina Riddim nearly feels like the band dropped their other albums into a blender and simply poured the resulting fluid into the grooves of an LP as it spun at top volume.  Fortunately, repeated listens reveal an intricate structure and flow, a steady build through varying tempos and structures both dizzying and purposeful.  Fans of Dymphna in particular will notice several sampledelic building blocks for that masterpiece album embedded throughout this wild ride;  some in untreated form, some ready for the spotlight, and some which require a bit of teasing out to reveal their source (or more likely, destination).  When the whole package wraps up with an undeniably transcendent part of the later LP (recognizable in the track Vaccuum) confusion is an understandable first thought.  Second thought usually goes something like:  “I want to hear that again.  Now.”

[the best part of this is that the sound is only half the show - pick up the dvd combo at boomkat or amazon for a totally reasonable price]

ROVO – Pyramid

ROVO.  Readers of my previous post about this galaxy-shattering band, the gravitationally powerful Mon, know that I’m beyond crazy for them.  It’s more of a physical and spiritual impulse at this point.

The “man-drive trance” outfit has evolved from what was (mistakenly) believed to be a side project for Boredoms guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto into a pre-eminent percussive juggernaut with a genre all its own and a die hard fan base ever eager for further permutations of their uniquely pulsing energy signature.

Pyramid, released in 2000, is a single 43 minute track situated neatly between the more obviously electronically enhanced early sound and the more sophisticated, minimal, and directly hands-on appoach ROVO has flowered into.  As expected, the incandescent electric violin of Yuji Katsui rides the tidal groove with astonishingly fluid precision while Yamamoto’s six string mastery prods and propels his bandmates while providing crucial textural detail.  It’s uniquely jovial in a gentle free-jazz manner for a good portion of its running time, with meandering horns and  keys dancing unfettered until the rhythmic force pulls every building block inevitably toward a torrential avalanche of tribal motorik ecstasy.  The arc may be predictable, though never any less than thrilling when the band hits their warp drive lock-groove stride and rides the ensuing momentum into a rapturous eargasm.  It’s a space ship jumping to light speed, the stars stretching forward eternally, minute after blissful minute.

Surrender  full attention and be rewarded accordingly.  And then some.  And thank them personally while you’re at it.

[difficult to track down due to its original rarity and out-of-print status, i've found this album at jpophelp, or used copies at amazon (for an exhorbitant minimal price of $61) and amazon.jp (for ￥3,730 - under $40)]