Anti-Gravity Bunny

NEW SITE!

2010-11-08T11:29:00.002-05:00

This site is dead to me. Anti-Gravity Bunny now has its own site! Not on Blogger.

http://antigravitybunny.com

Update your everything and only come back here if you're feeling nostalgic.

FREE SHIT GALORE! Part 2

2010-11-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

About a year ago I made a post that collected all of the super fine releases that were available for free downloading. That post was a pretty huge hit. And since I've recently found plenty more, both old and new, I figured why not another round?

Some of these albums are the name-your-price thing, meaning you could download them for free, but you don't really want to. Also, some of these even have physical versions, meaning you could actually hold it your hands. But even if the artist just put up their own creations for you to have for zero dollars, I can 100% guarantee that if you wanted to throw a little cash their way, they would love you.

Donate whenever possible. Show your appreciation and bands are more likely to keep on being awesome.

Kids & Explosions - Shit Computer (self released)
über-mashup with chill beats, a way less ADHD Girl Talk

George & Jonathan - The Best Music (self released)
Sonic The Hedgehog soundtrack on disco-funk ecstasy

Interlard - Tyrol (self released)
massive lo-fi static noise drums

Asfandyar Khan - Snow Makes Things Perfect (self released)
quiet, beautiful, delicate drone, like Stars Of The Lid mixed with John Murphy

Felix & Volcano! - Grow Rich EP (self released)
crazy catchy electro pop

1 Minute: A Compilation Of One Minute Songs (self released)
30 minutes, 30 songs, 8 bits

Vladee Divacc - Hoop Dreamz EP (self released)
"dunkwave"

The Great Valley - Holiday, Holinight EP (self released)
wobbly sunny beach folk

NYC UFOs - Newer Stations (Real Butter Record Club)
shoegarage pop

Scissor Shock - Psychic Existentialism (For Noise's Sake)
avant schizo mind fuck

Children's Children - The Car My Great Aunt Gave Me (self released)
low key, acoustic, sad

Autumn - Autumn (self released)
silky ambient drone

Shinobu Nemoto - Improvisation Air Vol. 1 & 2 (INSTALL)
spacey guitar drones warped from reel to reel

Jason Skoog - Ladders (self released)
a charming Satan's Twilight Zone with xylophones

Braden J & The Family - Davis Dreamin' (Moondial)
old school romp in the woods

Raindeer - Raindeer EP (self released)
neon electro glitter puke

Hautain - Drench (self released)
scorched earth feedback lightning & thunder

Drummers - Drummers (self released)
post hardcore, post punk, post rock, post awesome

Computer Magic - Hiding From Our Time EP (also Hiding From More Of Our Time EP) (self released)
jangly & dreamy electro popgaze sweetness

Apollo Vermouth - Florida (also Lost In A Graveyard) (self released)
blissy ambient guitar drone

Meth Dad - Pizza Party (self released)
insane blown out 8 bit noise dance party

Brutal Love Masters - Brutal Love Masters (self released)
tender pop

AGB Radio 11/2

2010-11-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

image via

Started with a 30+ minute Disintegration Loop in honor of my aunt who just passed away. Brightened things up a bit after that, though. Not all doom & gloom. And certainly much lighter than last week's horrorfest.

According to recent polls, it's totally legit to play drone n pop side-by-side. Agreed?

Anti-Gravity Bunny Radio 11/2
William Basinski - Disintegration Loop 2.2
Strategy - Stops Spinning
Phantogram - When I'm Small
White Moth - Two Women, Knitting
Oneida - What's Up, Jackal?
Tom Vourtsis - Black
Tarentel - Whistle In The Wires
Ben Vida & Greg Davis - Piper
Stephan Mathieu - Little Pismo's Lullaby (Loop)
Robyn - Indestructible (Acoustic)
Lokai - Glimmer
Johnny Greenwood - Eat Him By His Own Light
Neptune - Tell My People To Go Home (Part II)
Marnie Stern - Cinco De Mayo
Nicholas Szczepanik - Another End Of New
Clutchy Hopkins - 4:08
Kids & Explosions - Use Your Words
Deastro - Leah's Daughter The Giraffe
King Kong Ding Dong - (You're The) Drone Machine
Grant Beran - The Man In The High Castle
Taiga Remains - Part 2.B
Fjordne - Waiting For A Drop
Hunted Creatures - Sleeping Under The Deadweight
Unicorn - Clay & Fire

Planning For Burial / Lonesummer - Split (Music Ruins Lives, 2010)

2010-11-01T10:34:00.005-04:00

Planning For Burial - Sleeping In Separate Rooms

DUDES. Fuckin split of the year right here. Gloom & doom bliss from Planning For Burial and unbridled hatred courtesy of Lonesummer on the same motherfucking record. This is the real shit, guys. The best of the best.

PFB's 3 tracks are a bit different than what he put out on Leaving. A little more vocal oriented, maybe a bit poppier & shoegazier, but in the saddest way possible. This is the beautiful Icelandic epic shit you love thrown to the bottom of a well where it turned into a warped depressed beast of buzz, static, & drone. Plodding drums, mournful organs, blackened rumbled, all with a decidedly catchy twist. This dude knows how to mix the gorgeous celestial washes of euphoria with the basement hiding grim neurosis so perfectly. Unbelievably awesome. You will want to listen to this for fucking ever.

Strip all of PFB's happiness and you're left with Lonesummer's neverending brutality. His black noise metal is as harsh as it gets, with no hope for redemption. It's loud as FUCK, reigning blistering chaos. A wall of black metal so dense it becomes noise. The drums & cymbals blast into a homogeneous cacophony, the guitars shred, wail, & buzz, and the vocals are a tortured screeching, totally obscured in pain. But then there are songs like "I Wish I Could Delete Last Night" that are like a slow (black metal) pop song with a legit guitar solo that just might get caught in loop in your head. This guy is totally fucking into it. Bleak, depressing as shit, noisy, hateful, evil, and still utterly fucking beautiful. Anti-black metal that stands high above most other bedroom BM freaks.

There is no way you should let this slip under your radar. If you haven't heard of either of these guys yet (wtf is wrong with you?), they are making what is hands down some of the most amazing masochistic bliss out there. This split is cheap as hell ($6 preorder) and only 100 copies will be made. So get over to the newly minted Music Ruins Lives and grab yourself a copy before it's sold out and you have to go cry to your momma about how your trigger finger is getting sloppy.

Video: Black To Comm - Hotel Freund

2010-10-30T10:35:00.002-04:00

I just want to thank my BFF Mr. Comm for making this video for me. It's truly one of the greatest birthday gifts I've ever received. I mean, I told him exactly what would make the greatest video ever so it's not like he can say it was his idea or anything. But still. It is the greatest video ever.

Also, he's playing Boston on Friday the 5th at the Goethe-Institut with Xela & Matt Christensen (of Zelienople) opening, and the always entertaining DJ Ning Nong.

Inhibitionists - Lithium Salt Mines (Tape Drift, 2010)

2010-10-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

Inhibitionists - Midwinter Mass

Another gentle giant of a noise record from Tape Drift, this one from Danish dude Christian Kann recording as Inhibitionists, which has gone through numerous line-up and sound changes over the years. Used to make experimental pop, used to be an actual "band," used to have a "The" in front of the name, now it's just Kann making awesome noise. Something tells me we're better off with this current incarnation of Inhibitionists because Lithium Salt Mines is pretty fucking killer.

With a few exceptions, the noise found within isn't really loud or scary or harsh. It's actually pretty accessible for a noise record, even though it's still most definitely NOISE. A bit on the psych side of things, Kann creates super rich textures that keep you on your toes, making sure you're always hyper aware of what's going on, trying to distinguish one layer from the next as instruments & sounds melt into each other.

This is the sort of stuff that puts you in your place, glues you right to your seat, props your ears open with toothpicks, and goes to town. Dark, thick clouds of poison settle in, jittery tape warble hisses through electric bee teeth, creaking light fixtures burn magnesium in thunderous warehouses, crackle cellophane static echos with funereal nightmares... all that awesomeness bursting through your speakers, just waiting to jump your bones.

Lithium Salt Mines is perfect for those nights where you just need to lay naked on the floor with a sleeve of Chips Ahoy on either side, waiting for the hypnosis to kick in. It's also good for when you're not doing that, too. I guess. For $6, you can listen to it however you want.

Sunken - New Zealand Eels (Emerald Cocoon, 2010)

2010-10-28T10:18:00.004-04:00

Sunken - Eelman 003

Yall remember Sunken, right? I mean, not even just because their last CD Eye Electric Organ, Brain Electric Nerve was some of the best massive blissful organ drone out there, but because it's Stefan Neville (Pumice dude) & Anthony Milton (of The Nether Dawn). Little mini drone superduo, right?

New Zealand Eels is their third record, first on vinyl, and second release off of Emerald Cocoon. What all this is leading up to is an enormously depressing, bleak, drowning drone record. Sunken took the uplifting sounds from their previous records and fucking buried 'em at the bottom of the ocean.

I have no idea where the sounds on this record are coming from, except for the muffled cries for help that are almost certainly vocals, vocals that weigh heavy on your heart and empty your bowels. As far as I can tell, Eels is made with broken organs, tape decks, & electronics torn from a centuries old barnacle covered shipwreck. It's distorted, bloated from soaking in too much water, warped & claustrophobic, creaking planks, echoing in an empty submarine as it's going down. It's lo-fi as shit, everything blurs together in a noisy, droney whirlpool of depressing fucking gorgeousness.

This is sad music for sad people by sad people. You can't listen to New Zealand Eels and come out feeling ok. It has a haunting beauty, but that beauty can't make up for the utter doom & desolation permeating it. Sunken have created an incredibly stunning record that is probably going to win them some awards or something. Only 300 copies. Join them on their journey to the black ocean floor.

AGB Radio 10/26

2010-10-27T08:30:00.001-04:00

image via

Yesterday's primarily disgustingly brutal black metal show is ready for the ultimate portability test. Download it, take it wherever you want!

Also, not sure if it's the program I was using to record, but my vocals are wayyyy low in this mix. Did it actually sound like that live? Should I crank that shit up so I'm screaming at your facez? Feedback makes the world go 'round. Tell me what to do to make it better and I'll fucking deliver.

Play it loudest, play it hardest.

Anti-Gravity Bunny Radio 10/26
Aderlating - The Shallow Waters Of The Styx
Painforged - The Achievement We Are The Crawling Filth Descended From This Planet And Our Own Funeral Creators
Emit - Dead Before Death
Lonesummer - Regrettably, Our Harvest Never Grew
Nahvalr - Let Them Eat Blood
L'Acephale - A Burned Village
Dark Procession - Mists Of Darkness
Flaskavsae - The Clouds Shall Cover
Xasthur - This Abyss Holds The Mirror
Empire Auriga - Sorrowsong
Ophidian Forest - A Herald On Silver Wings
Ehnahre - Part III
Azrael Rising - IV
Cold World - Red Snow
Planning For Burial - If I Knew What To Say
Portal - Marityme
Robyn - Dancing On My Own
A Faulty Chromosome - Groaning Like A Grown-Up
Skogar - The Future Will
Mincemeat Or Tenspeed - Infinite Girlfriend
Crystal Castles - Year Of Silence

New AGB Radio Show Time

2010-10-25T09:40:00.003-04:00

I know I already did a post announcing to you the fact that I'll be doing a radio show on Simmons College Radio. FUCK YEAH! But shit got a bit fucked up and I had to change the time & day of my show, and since I'm sure plenty of you don't follow me on Twitter to keep up with all the awesome & informative shit I talk about on daily basis, I figured I'd make another post on my blog (because that's basically who this show is for, all you dear readers).

New day: Tuesday
New time: 10:30 am - 12:30 pm (EST)

You can listen live online either at the Simmons site or through iTunes. I plan on posting the show here on AGB the day or two after so you can download it and put it in your pocket for ultimate portability.

IT STARTS TOMORROW! Make sure you get out your old blockbusters like Marty up there so you can party with the best of 'em.

David Russell - Architecture (Pilgrim Talk, 2010)

2010-10-21T10:05:00.003-04:00

David Russell - Fiddler

One 7", 11 tracks, super short totally twisted loops. Architecture sounds like Eric Copeland made a Zomes record. They're drugged & noisy, frenetic & chaotic, making no sense and a huge racket usually in less than a minute each. There's air raid sirens echoing into the fog, reversed electronic squawks of heartache, malfunctioning time travel machines on coke, half second psych folk freakouts repeated forever, each little snippet stuck in a locked groove of fucked mechanics that is going to be the soundtrack to the most awesomely bizarre party ever.

Century Plants / Locrian - Dissolvers (Tape Drift, 2010)

2010-10-20T09:35:00.005-04:00

Century Plants - Delirium (excerpt)

When you've got two like-minded bands as awesome as Locrian & Century Plants, and a label that churns out winner after winner like Tape Drift, you know it's only a matter of time before the two shack up and squeeze out a monster like Dissolvers.

This is Century Plants' first vinyl adventure. You should be as excited as they are about it because it means they put on their game face and made some of the best drifty jams ever. Their two tracks are a perfect fit for a Locrian split. They're dark and moody as fuck, blending noise, metal, doom, drone, and throwing in some psych to spice things up. The first track is a wandering mess of clatter, hiss, & reverb. Not doing much but creating a weird atmosphere and being a creeper until 6 minutes in when it gets into a real groove and they start banging out those chords, bordering on blissful, but it stays rooted in a brown rusted drone. Their second piece is more cosmic, wonky bloops mixed with solid celestial guitar tones, just drifting through space dust, waiting to get sucked into the inevitable black hole. The pleasing guitars turn into a more evil buzzing beast, more feedback & distortion added to a layer of deep bass drone & static noise while a buried muffled guitar solo works its way through echoing vocals and ever increasing volume. This is some top notch shit as only Century Plants could do it.

Flip it over and you're treated to Locrian's latest mastery of indescribable black ambient noise metal. They start things off with a piercing tone, already more harsh than anything CP did on their side. Let it settle in, though, and some beautifully sad guitars show up with lazer feedback in tow. They crank that shit up, getting super evil, throwing around more & more crash & burn like it ain't no thing. It's noisy and loud and totally fucking badass metal without so much as tapping on a drum. Their second track has that same looped electronic scale that I think also showed up in some form on Rain Of Ashes. Then comes in some delayed picking & shredding and a wash of wind style static. Super hypnotic, a semi-psych jam pulsing through Locrian guitars, heavy on the harsh buzzing drone.

Dissolvers is a dark twisted piece of noisy psych metal drone that couldn't be any better. These two duos are forever at the top of their game, and even though they're both so goddamn prolific, this split is essential.

Megabats - Goes To A Lemon (Debacle, 2010)

2010-10-19T08:30:00.001-04:00

Megabats - Amazon Bike Tits

Megabats really impressed me with their debut in/out. It was a sweet blend of fuzzy Fuck Buttons beats with spacey Oneohtrix Point Never bloop drone. For some reason I never reviewed it, but they have a new one called Goes To A Lemon released by the same label, Debacle, and I'm not letting them slip by again.

The jams they're making are a bit derivative (wtf isn't), but they still resonate with me and I find myself listening to them way more than some of the more original stuff I come across. Goes To A Lemon is full of high quality tunes perfect for a late night joyride, a doze underneath glow-in-the-dark stars, or a hardcore blissed out neon basement dance party. Megabats pump out the deep, dark, euphoric fuzz beats with pink stars blazin past at lightspeed. Clearly this is right where it's fucking at. Stream it for free, buy it on the cheap, download it for even cheaper, all at Bandcamp.

Barn Owl - Ancestral Star (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

2010-10-18T10:28:00.005-04:00

Barn Owl - Light From The Mesa

Barn Owl is a name everyone probably knows. It's Evan Caminiti & Jon Porras, two dudes who have put out plenty of records all over the place, Root Strata, Digitalis, etc. Ancestral Star, however, is their Thrill Jockey debut, and it's a fucking knockout.

Most of this is pure guitar drone, with some extra piano, strings, harmonium, & bric-a-brac, and a little percussion or delicate plucking here & there. Just describing parts of a single animal, though. The drones are fucking HEAVY. Seriously. So so massive. Big enough to blast me into unconsciousness with three cups of coffee running through my veins. They're the hardened sun baked drones straight from rusty Californian deserts. Wide open dust caked steel, endlessly ringing through the black heart of daytime stars. Lonely, blissful, & dark, dreaming of a distant oasis with the weight of a dozen buffalo on your shoulders.

The real killer here is the 10 minute title track. It fucking burns, white hot feedback soaring through the empty sky, embarrassingly euphoric buzz & hum bleeding through the speakers, finishing with a wandering haunted cloud. Some of the best I've heard from Barn Owl.

Ancestral Star is unbelievably good. They're master crafts of the new American raga desert psych thing. Regardless if that's your style, this is meant for everybody. It's essential, it's fucking grand, and it'll simultaneously melt your heart & your face.

Funeral Mix

2010-10-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

image via ECIA

Driving all by my lonesome to a farm in upstate Maine for a funeral. This is the mix I made for the trip.

Funeral
1. More Dogs - Duty. Duty? Duty.
2. Boris with Merzbow - Evil Stack
3. Daniel Menche - Track 8 (Concussions Disc 2)
4. The Mausoleums - Totem Pole
5. Xexyz - Metroid
6. Have A Nice Life - The Icon And The Axe
7. Cocteau Twins - Amelia
8. A Faulty Chromosome - Incubate'r
9. Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Salty Bean Fumble
10. Windsor For The Derby - Gathering
11. Shellac - Disgrace
12. Larval - The Strange Farm
13. Jenny Hoyston & William Whitmore - Marrow
14. Langhorne Slim - One Sunday Morning
15. Set Fire To Flames - When Sorrow Shoots Her Darts

Choi Joonyong - Burn Yoido Burn (Ghost & Son, 2010)

2010-10-13T10:29:00.005-04:00

Choi Joonyong - 150-743

Choi Joonyong is a Seoul based noise dude who likes to fuck with open CD players. On Burn Yoido Burn, his weapon of choice is an mp3 player burning with feedback (plus a contact mic & some distortion pedals). Honestly, I'm pretty fucking floored with the sounds he can spew from such limited materials.

This is a mini 3" CD of harshness, similar to the last one Ghost & Son put out, Amplified WC by Hong Chulki, a frequent Choi collaborator. However, its shortness is matched in its brutality. This is some hardcore digital acid, squawks & static galore. Blown out glitch bubbling from the depths of binary hell. Joonyong has basically turned your iPod into a wall of ear destroying lightning.

Unless Joonyong has a greater message, maybe something to do with the shitty production quality of electronics or that everything we listen to on our mp3 players is really just different sides of the same noise coin, this is noise for noise sake and it's fucking great. A perfect 20 minute dose of electrocuted speakers and thunderous chaos. It'd be pretty sweet if Ghost & Son kept up this 3" noise CD thing, they're startin' to put themselves on a niche map of awesomeness.

Milieu - The Loneliness Of Empty Roads (Second Sun, 2010)

2010-10-12T10:35:00.003-04:00

Milieu - Untitiled 1

Milieu is one of the many names Brian Grainger uses to make music, as well as the name of one of the labels he runs. The Loneliness Of Empty Roads is out on one of those very labels, Second Sun, which he co-runs with David Tagg.

Grainger improvised Empty Roads live on tape, with no overdubs, and managed to come out the other side with an endless drone affair of impeccable beauty & sadness. 3 long tracks of unwavering melancholy, apocalyptic Six-String Samurai type shit, and lovely lush isolation.

The drones here are bare bones, not much in the way of dynamic fluctuations, just a mood set on woe and left to its own devices. Solid sounds that go on for miles of emptiness, with the sole intent of hypnosis, forgetting pain & responsibility. There's one track that's less drone than the rest, with a mournful scorched guitar singing the blues. It still has a drone heart, though, interminably walking down deserted roads with nothing but the dust at its feet and the sun on its back. No goal, no end of the line. Just trying to find the perfection in sorrow.

The near half hour long closer is the grandest, yet most subdued ode to solitude I've ever heard. It's pure elegance, soaring guitar drone made for total body levitation. Resonating chords that will stay with you on the cold forlorn nights. The power of this drone is unlike any other, making its way into your bones and showing you the loveliness of loneliness. It doesn't get much better than this.

MP3: Petrels - Silt

2010-10-11T11:00:00.003-04:00

Petrels - Silt

William Walker was a pretty astonishing fellow. He single-handedly saved the sinking Winchester Cathedral by diving for 6 hours a day for 5 years, working in complete darkness, and using more than 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks, and 900,000 bricks. BY HIMSELF.

Petrels is making an album honoring this man. "Silt" is the first taste and it's a gorgeous bubbly drone with uplifting organs, shimmering & grand. It's the sound of an underwater hero. Can't wait to hear the full record, which is due out hopefully later this year.

AGB Radio 10/7

2010-10-08T10:34:00.004-04:00

image via

Ahahaha so my first radio show yesterday was a bit of a disaster. I had no idea what I was doing. But I got music to play and I was able to talk so I guess that's all that really matters.

That does mean, however, that I wasn't able to record my show the way I planned. To compensate for my idiocy, I created a mix of yesterday's playlist. So you're getting basically the same thing, except you won't hear me rambling and fucking up which record is on which label.

Here's a massive mix for you. Also, I added an .m3u this time. Let me know if that's helpful for anyone or completely unnecessary.

Anti-Gravity Bunny Radio 10/7
Eluvium - A Life In Tides Less Current (Leaves Eclipse The Light EP)
Belong - A Sunny Place For Shady People (Tour EP)
Andrew Weathers - Skin Holding Atoms In (A Great Southern City)
Ben Frost - Through The Roof Of Your Mouth (By The Throat)
Brandon Nickell - The Roughest Jewel In Your Glittering Crown (Second Key) (And If You Set This Mind Of Mine Afire Then On My Bloodstream I Yet Will Carry You)
Bitchin' Bajas - Zone 4 (Tones & Zones)
Greg Davis - Regarding Wave (Part 1) (Regarding Wave)
The Idealist - The Knives Are My Eyes (I Am The Fire)
Linda Aubry Bullock - Stage Evil (Fossils From The Sun) (Ray Of Dark)
Master Musicians Of Bukkake - The Heresy Of Origen (Totem Two)
Mugstar - Today Is The Wrong Shape (...Sun, Broken...)
Tiger Throat - This Brave Waning Light (Tiger Throat)
Nadja & Ovo - Movement 3: Put Some Sugar In My Cup, Please (The Life & Death Of A Wasp)
Umberto - In The Name Of Zuel (From The Grave...)
Marinos Koutsomichalis - 6 (Malfunctions)
Violet - All Records Collapse (Violet Ray Gas And The Playback Singers)
Double Awake - ...Why I Can't Be Everything I'm Not (Leaving Nowhere Forever)
Strotter Inst. - #1/45rpm (Bolzplatz)
Inhibitionists - With Milky Brushes (Lithium Salt Mines)
Reuben Son - B.2 (Glowing Departures)
Noveller - Toothnest (For Chris Habib) (Desert Fires)
Expo '70 - Analog Dreamscape (Sonic Messenger)
Max Richter - Infra 2 (Infra)

Anti-Gravity Bunny Radio Starts Today!

2010-10-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

So before I did Anti-Gravity Bunny, I was the General Manager, Music Director, and DJ at Salem State's radio, WMWM. It was the best. I loved it. I graduated and stopped doing it. Now that I'm doing the graduate program at Simmons, I'm getting back at it. FUCK YEAH DDUDES.

Here's all the details. Anti-Gravity Bunny Radio is a title-in-progress (I'm open for ideas). You can listen to it online (and only online, no FM, no AM, sad face) from the Simmons College Radio site, Backbone, or right in iTunes (under College Radio). Currently it'll be every Thursday from 3-5:30 starting TODAY. I'll attempt to keep that time slot every semester but we'll see what happens.

In addition to listening live, I'll be posting the entire show here for downloading hopefully the day after (aka every Friday) so you can listen to it over and over again wherever you want.

I'll be playing all of the type of stuff you usually see here on the blog but I'll definitely be expanding the tightly curated AGB roster to include other awesome shit. So tune in today and every week from today to get your face explod-gasm-ed like that bro up there.

Nick Hennies - Lungs (Full Spectrum, 2010)

2010-10-06T12:20:00.001-04:00

Nick Hennies - Sympathy

I hope you remember Nick Hennies from his ode to his grandfather, Lineal, because that album was spot on beautiful. Apparently the dude is a drummer and his new disc on Full Spectrum is profoundly minimal ambient drum drone.

When I say minimal, I mean the first sound doesn't show up until about 20 seconds in. This is as sparse as it gets unless you're going the 4'33 route. Hennies has crafted an amazingly gorgeous drone record that is almost entirely ethereal. It's barely there and it never moves. And I'm pretty sure there's no processing either, meaning all of these sounds are coming straight from the drums. It's incredible.

The few sounds that do make up Lungs are found mostly on the two centerpiece tracks, "Lungs" and "Second Skin With Lungs," which are bookended by two short songs of exactly the same length & title that differ only slightly in content, "Sympathy." "Lungs" is made up of stretched out rubber bands of varying sizes vibrating at an insane rate, making a highly textured & tense drone, occasionally pulsing and throbbing with an industrial darkness. Then "Second Skin With Lungs" (super gross name, btw) comes along and you're not sure anything's even playing until a few minutes go by and an ominous doom rattle appears. It's 15 minutes of the sound of a silently massive black cloud hovering overhead as it waits to unleash a flood.

This is the anti-background music. The only way to listen to Lungs is with noise cancelling headphones in a coffin at the bottom of a mine. It's futile to try otherwise (as I sit writing & listening on this fucking train). Make sure when (not if) you pick this up, you give it your undivided attention. Otherwise you'll just be wasting your money.

Haiku Review: Hautain - Glass Desert (self released, 2010)

2010-10-04T10:26:00.005-04:00

Hautain - 1

Glass Desert (download)
/windstorm sand nightmare/
/gritty blasts of feedback skree/
/scraped rusted machines/

Video: Koen Holtkamp - Loosely Based On Bees (Excerpt)

2010-10-01T11:19:00.003-04:00

Koen Holtkamp, half of the masterful field recording/drone duo Mountains, has a new solo record coming out on Thrill Jockey called Gravity/Bees. There'll be two side long tracks and this is a video of an excerpt for "Loosely Based On Bees," a blissful droney piece using the sounds of Philly bees. Honestly, I could use some more bee buzz on this song but who knows, it might show up somewhere else in the full track. This is shaping up to pack a hefty dose of awesome and if we're lucky, it might even be better than Holtkamp's last solo outing, Field Rituals. But at the very least it's getting the deluxe mini-LP treatment from TJ with a custom letter-pressed jacket and everything.

Wrnlrd - Death Drive (FSS, 2010)

2010-09-30T10:29:00.003-04:00

Wrnlrd - Grave Dowser

Wrnlrd's new bit of what the fuck is coming out soon on FSS. Black? Sure. Metal? Mostly. Scratchy drone, static soul, and whatever else the dude wants to throw in? Obviously. It's less than 20 minutes long but Death Drive is a twisted beast that defies logic & explanation aka pure gold.

It opens innocently enough with a few tracks of buzzing black guitars, blasting & chugging drums, and inhuman Cerberus snarls. The first is pretty straightforward, nothing too out of the ordinary for weirdo black metal, but each track delves deeper into the totally fucking bizarre. There's horn n shit, sludgy grit, buried epic solos, chimes & general wonky-ness.

But by the time it gets to the fourth track, "Luster," it rips out its metal heart and goes for the delicate & dejected solo piano. Definitely not unheard of on a black metal record, but this one seems to be lacking a certain darkness. It sounds almost like it could be found on Lambent Material if Eluvium was feeling sad enough. So obviously it's awesome, just more added weirdness. But Wrnlrd saved the biggest mindfuck for the end. It starts as a droney harmonium/accordion sounding piece, bubbling up from the swamp, that shifts gears into a full blown nightmare of metal fury. It makes no sense and is totally fucking brilliant.

Death Drive is a snack size chunk of insane black metal that's off the fucking wall. Wrnlrd killed it with this new one and FSS is bestowing it upon us in the form of a sweet 10" (or digital if that's your thing (idiot)). Should be out around Thanksgiving, perfect timing for scaring the shit out of your relatives.

Will Thomas Long - Sequoia (basic_sounds, 2010)

2010-09-29T11:48:00.006-04:00

Will Thomas Long - Sequoia

As many already know, the incredible husband-wife drone duo Celer ceased making music once Danielle Baquet-Long died last year. However, Will Thomas Long, the other half, continues creating and just released a new EP through the new netlabel offshoot of my most favoritest sites ever, basic_sounds.

Sequoia is one 22 minute track dedicated to the memory of Will's late wife. It's a minimal mournful elegy of outstanding beauty. It sounds very much like Celer, slow moving and subtle. The few tones resonate through open snow fields, intertwining amidst barely shifting air currents. It's simultaneously restrained & expansive, dense & delicate.

I'm glad Will is still making music, and that it's just as fantastic as the work he did with Celer. I'm also glad basic_sounds is taking a step towards more formal curating through a netlabel. This release is kind of a no brainer, considering who's involved and I'm really fuckin psyched to see what else both of them have coming up in the near future.

Locrian - The Crystal World (Utech, 2010)

2010-09-28T12:28:00.005-04:00

~~Locrian - At Night's End~~ Link removed by request.
Locrian - Elevations And Depths (Excerpt)

These dudes just don't know when to stop. Which is definitely a good thing for us. The world could never have too much Locrian. Especially when they get exponentially better with each new release being even more amazingly badass and in a totally different way than the last. The Crystal World (with Steven Hess of Pan American, On, etc adding some percussion & electronics) takes the blackened ambient heart of Locrian's other albums and juices it up, dropping all the metal baggage, creating a dark as fuck stillbirth of a noise record.

As much as I love Locrian's heavy riffs, even without them this might be one of my favorites of theirs and is easily the best crafted. Lots of warped vocals, like the bleak tortured screaming on numerous tracks, or the shamanistic meditation oms & haunted angelic serenades on "At Night's End," which is the most killer fucking track there is. It's a slow candle burning walk through a moonlit church until halfway through the song, the riffs & drums come crashing in and the chanting blows up, filling the entire nave with the lost hope of redemption. Plus, up until that point on the record, it's all subdued meandering darkness, nothing too loud or epic. It totally catches you by surprise and is all the more crushing because of it.

That's about as heavy as it gets on The Crystal World, though. Sure there's doomy percussion and buzzing guitars, it wouldn't be Locrian otherwise. But the emphasis isn't on the devastation, it's on the textured desolation & hidden tragedy in every day life. Swirling pianos mix with mournful riffs creating a beautiful mess of faux sweet dreams. A thick crust of crunching feedback crumbles away into a slow motion avalanche of demon alarms and rupturing stone howls. Black as fuck nightmares caused by buried hatred, the distant scars of pain & anguish fade into a massive wall of endlessly beautiful gray static.

Locrian keep outdoing themselves. I remember hearing them for the first time and thinking, "Holy shit there's no way they could get any better than this." And EVERY record is better. I couldn't have been more wrong. The Crystal World is Locrian at the top of their game but I'm not going to say they can't do better because they obviously can and will. I can't think of a single reason not to find this record as soon as it comes out and play it every day until your death.

P.S. This review is for the LP version. The 2xCD version has a second CD (duh) with an extra hour long track that Locrian didn't want to split up to make it fit on an LP.