The Almighty Defenders

Supergroups: Sometimes you get Cream, and sometimes you get a bunch of people who spontaneously engage in a slapdash recording session that may or may not involve absurd conceptual pseudo-alter-egos. One of the end results of the Black Lips' possibly kicked-outta-India incident back in January, aside from a deluge of some of the most breathlessly manic press-release freakouts I've ever read, was an emergency stopover in Berlin to recuperate/decompress with King Khan and Mark "BBQ" Sultan. Apparently the mood was so charged and jubilant in the aftermath they celebrated by spending eight days recording an "evil gospel" album. Well... shit, why not?
It's important to keep this narrative in mind when listening to The Almighty Defenders, because it definitely sounds like it took no more than a week to exist from conception to completion, even if it's probably more likely that the group's actually a culmination of a more long-stewing collaborative interest. It's a hasty sounding album in pretty much every sense of the word, with spontaneous-sounding takes and muddy recording that sounds almost surreptitious. It's like listening in on a bunch of like-minded friends screwing around in a jam session, which it technically pretty much is.
The album contains 10 originals and a cover of the Mighty Hannibal's "I'm Coming Home", all of which fall pretty strongly in line with what you might expect from a Black Lips/King Khan & BBQ Show hybrid, only messier and more incoherent: lots of garage-soul wailing, drums that sound like they're being hit with a stake-driving hammer, snarling guitar riffs lathed into crude, shambling catchiness, and the occasional UHF station Horror Chiller Theater organ. Both bands' propensity to run the wider gamut of pre-psychedelic rock'n'roll is bolstered a bit by the gospel underpinnings, though many of the songs-- sludgy vintage rhythm & blues ("Bow Down and Die"), amped-up doo-wop ("Cone of Light"), goonish blues-rock ("Over the Horizon")-- don't need too far of a push to get there. It's a shame that the on-the-fly nature of this album dampens what could've been a superb collaboration given another month's worth of studio time, though there's moments where they manage to pull through anyways; leadoff track "All My Loving" isn't all that complicated, but it gets its hooks in you quick.
Now if only I could figure out what they're singing. The biggest downfall of The Almighty Defenders is that most of the vocals seem to be miked sloppily, so while you get a nice fuzzed-out quality to the call-and-response chants and the wild-assed choirboy choruses, the actual lyrics often get subsumed into this big swirl of noise. It's especially bad on "Cone of Light", where Mark Sultan's amazing deranged-Sam-Cooke voice, strong as it is, still winds up smothered under percussion. When the irreverent-gospel theme is decipherable, it can be pretty striking, if frequently a little too prone to self-aware, button-pushing edginess: "Jihad Blues" is a demented sweet-chariot-ride song that invokes exactly what you think it does ("just gimme a boxcutter and a one-way ticket"), and I'm banking on "The Ghost With the Most" being the first time in recorded history that the Holy Spirit is invoked using a catchphrase from the movie Beetlejuice. But maybe the spirit's more important than the letter anyways: there's two tracks in a row ("30 Second Air Blast" and "Death Cult Soup n' Salad") that are mostly just incoherent howling and mumbling and the occasional Three Stooges imitation, and they might be the most ecstatic moments on the album. Maybe the most profound, too.
— Nate Patrin, September 14, 2009

Good piece of garage super rock!

check em http://www.myspace.com/thealmightydefenders

Pontiak

Patterns of listening are their own cumulative demographic: Some people listen for innovative music that cuts across boundaries and incorporates new elements. Other folks listen for comfort music-- old sounds given a new sheen or a new industry push. These divisions aren't always obvious, as champions of all genres and members of every social group fall unevenly and unpredictably into (and between) those dual castes. You'll find respective purists in noise and adult-contemporary pop, and you'll find teenagers and their grandparents who pine for the good ol' days. Each is bound to have a more progressive counterpart somewhere on the other side of the fence.
Don't be surprised, then, that one of the most ambitious and iconoclastic rock records of the year comes from three bearded, farm-living brothers raised in the rural hills between Washington, D.C., and Virginia's Shenandoah Mountains. Together as Pontiak, the Carneys-- Jennings, Lain, and Van-- turn Maker, their second album for Thrill Jockey, into a platform for bending elemental rock'n'roll into warped shapes. All the while, they keep the purists happy by putting the song at the center of the conquest.
Pontiak self-released their second record, Sun on Sun, in 2007 in an edition of 500 LPs. Last year, Thrill Jockey grabbed the album for a wide reissue that went largely unnoticed. Makes sense: Sun on Sun remains a somewhat indefinable quantity that erects big, brash rock songs with three-part harmonies and clangorous playing amid extended instrumental interludes, outros, and intros. United only by a slight haze of mystery and a visceral first-take buzz, the brothers mined slight funk ("White Mice"), bar-band force ("Shell Skull"), roadhouse waltzes ("Tell Me About"), and dreamy gospel-rock ("Sun on Sun") in nine weird numbers. The songs themselves were strong, but it's easy to see how the record-- blurring borders as it did-- could be written off as non-committal heavy rock.
It was easy to imagine Pontiak trimming the fat for the follow-up, editing away the instrumental excess and focusing on rock songs that could land on blogs and college charts. That might happen yet: The Maker tracks with relatively traditional structures are outstanding pan-American rock songs, aggregating blues, soul, Southern rock, and alt-rock into tunes you can, you know, sing. Opener "Laywayed" introduces its layers one at a time-- a jagged guitar line, a simple drum march, big bass sustains-- before charging into two parallel verses built so well that they're as memorable as a refrain (which the song forgoes). Above grimy guitar and bass, the Carneys present "Honey" in three-piece vocal unison, turning what sounds like a work song on its head. Pontiak grind through a series of bucolic images with resolute lethargy, suggesting a springtime Sunday where chores are abandoned for play-- booze, instruments, naps.
Overall, though, Maker is perhaps twice as divisive as its predecessor. With two more tracks and seven more minutes, it's increasingly eclectic and rangy. Still, it's more cohesive than Sun on Sun because its lopsided structure engenders a sense of propulsion. Each time a pattern begins to emerge, the Carneys destroy it: During "Laywayed", for instance, Pontiak ride a riff for the first 30 seconds. They pause, but instead of immediately ripping back into the song, they go silent for five seconds. The bait-and-switch commands attention.
And there's the album's overall structure: The first, third, and fifth tracks are lumbering rock anthems worth humming. The subsequent even-numbered tracks-- two, four, and six-- are aggressive instrumental bursts, each lasting less than two minutes. After track seven's subdued sing-along, you'd expect a return to those two-minute offensives. Instead, Pontiak unveil their instrumental epic, the 14-minute title track that builds and collapses several times over its length. Mining Om's bass-and-cymbal throb, "Maker" wallows at a mid-tempo trot. Little melodies swirl, and the tune gradually builds to the eight-minute mark. Then the pot begins to boil. Pontiak roar, but they settle again, their careful tension and release drawing more attention to riffs and rhythms than catharsis. Even at 14 minutes, "Maker" develops, moves, and feels like a song, not a long edit of a jam or exercise.
And that's the real charm of Maker. Even when Pontiak are demolishing, abbreviating, or stretching structures, they maintain an allegiance to song. "Heat Pleasure" might be 94 seconds of cymbal splatter and feedback rolling into one wide wave, but it adheres with direction and purpose. With its shifts in meter and simple key changes, the headlong burst "Headless Conference" is as memorable as "Wild Knife Night Fight", the catchy harmony-heavy bass tune that follows. Even the album's ragtag acoustic number sounds as subversive as the 14-minute trip in front of it. Pontiak, then, find ways to satisfy both castes-- the musical purists and progressives-- even as they play songs that seem designed for one or the other.
— Grayson Currin, May 14, 2009

I really love this band

check em http://www.myspace.com/pontiak

Heartless Bastards

Since 2005, Heartless Bastards have been writing traditional blues-rock that they record in a simple and more or less lo-fi manner, which means they bleed authenticity from both ends. So the cleaner and more carefully arranged sound of their latest album, The Mountain, is a new step for them. From the opening title track, it sounds like a confident one. A muffled guitar introduces the simple minor-key progression, but then the whole band kicks in, stretching the sound from pan-and-scan to widescreen, while a soaring electric slide guitar adds to the song's understated majesty. Producer Mike McCarthy has done a fine job of making the band sound clean without being antiseptic, but the focus is very much on the dirty guitars and the voice of frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom. Her voice is distinctive, powerful, and exudes an easy lived-in authority; it's the kind of voice any band playing this kind of straightforward rock would die to have fronting them.
Heartless Bastards seem like their trying to grow and diversify without losing sight of themselves or their sound-- a tricky undertaking since they've made it thus far on bare-bones rock. But even with the added touches, The Mountain still a pretty austere affair. The most ostentatious moments are the record's softer ones. "Wide Awake" is one example, with its reserved strum augmented by mandolins, a martial drumbeat, and Wennerstrom singing an ambitious, vaguely Eastern-sounding vocal melody (Led Zeppelin III seems seems like the band's North star on how to add depth). "Early in the Morning" and "Out at Sea" are more typical plugged-in mid-tempo stompers, the latter having a few overdubs and incidental noise that slyly suggest a psychedelic touch. "Nothing Seems the Same" is that song's simmering cousin, gradually building and receding without ever bursting through, with some of the same production touches.
If anything drags The Mountain down, it's tempo. The title track is immediately deflated by the acoustic campfire strum of the following "Could Be So Happy", though the simple ascending chorus promises that it'll linger in listeners' minds once it's over. . "Hold Your Head High", however, is maudlin world-weary, little-help-from-my-friends tripe that even Wennerstrom's voice, hammering every brassy high note within reach, can't save. "So Quiet" is another folky detour, with a string chart that screams starched collars in comparison to the band's blue ones, and they follow that right up with "Had to Go", more acoustic fun with added banjo and fiddle. Compared with the record's earlier slow songs, "Had to Go"'s languid tempo seems purposeful and patient, with Wennerstrom in total control of the melody-- but most arresting is the open space that they've allowed into the song. The last two songs signal a return to volume and normalcy, but while closing track "Sway" is a perky step sideways from the record's somber tone, "Witchypoo" is not nearly sublime enough to sustain its sluggish pace. With The Mountain, Heartless Bastards have shown that they have the tools and the talent to take at least tentative steps forward into a more ambitious and diverse sound. But it's surprising that they sound so introspective here when they could, and occasionally do, sound world-beating.
— Jason Crock, February 23, 2009

Do let me know what you think about this one

check em http://www.myspace.com/heartlessbastards

Sunset Rubdown

As the Wolf Parade juggernaut gathers steam, the quintet's charismatic keyboardist, Spencer Krug, somehow found time to follow his recent self-titled Sunset Rubdown EP with Shut Up I Am Dreaming, a collection of his strongest, most fully realized non-Wolf Parade material to date. Over the course of just one year, Sunset Rubdown's progressed from Snake's Got a Leg's rickety and insular lo-fi basement tape sound to a fuller-bodied EP to this exceedingly well-dressed, multi-hued glam pop.
Now operating as a full band (here, a quartet), Sunset Rubdown more closely resemble Wolf Parade but still maintain the rougher ragtag sound of their previous recordings. A good example is triumphal opener "Stadiums and Shrines II", which continues the practice of updating Krug's songs and echoing his past catalogue (all while building a personal cosmology). This version includes the same lyrics and general melody as the scrubbier slip-n-slide on Snake's Got a Leg, but otherwise it's an entirely different monster. Krug sheds the off-kilter dust-bowl harmonium and stuttering underwater feel of the original for a cleaner, less warped anthem. Now, when he sings "there's a kid in there/ And he's big and dumb/ And he's...kinda scared," instead of going by unnoticed, it'll make you lose your breath.
In his more fleshed-out, metaphysically epic form, Krug consistently finds ways to yoke disparate parts; there's so much inventive stitching, in fact, it makes it tempting to offer a play-by-play with color commentary for every song. Beyond writing catchy tunes and packing them with whispers, mallets, harpsichord, and patches of cheapskate drum machines, he's an intriguing presence. Instead of bubbling along at one level, he roller coasters and raves, mixing nonsense with sharp observations and sadness with puns. This jam-packed, unbridled sound ought to heighten the Frog Eyes comparisons, but complicated by the groups' shared tour and Krug's former role as one of Carey Mercer's band members, that contrast is a bit of a bore. Besides, Krug doesn't stick to any particular style beyond his approach to his howls.
More interesting to note: The cumulative effect of Shut Up I Am Dreaming surpasses "I'll Believe in Anything"'s ostensible perfection. That's a brilliant song, yes, but this a brilliant album, ballooning with those sorts of moments on repeat. See, for instance, the speedy ragtime re-versioning of "Snake's Got a Leg III", which feels comparable to Wolf Parade's "Dears Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"-- albeit with a scrubby sense of pathos-- or jaunty sawdust kicker "They Took a Vote and Said No". As in many of Krug's songs, there seems to be some sort of moral, as if he's writing warped and warbling Aesop Fables. Here, it's "a kid" who "wants a ride", learning that nothing comes for free and "there are things that have to die so other things can stay alive." Some fleet-fingered guitar work and crashing drums obscure the lesson; after a pause and piano line, we're handed a kick-ass axe-toting coda.
Then there's the piano-based ballad "Us Ones in Between", on which he pulls out his deck of unexpected metaphors woven with an endlessly ambient tone-generating guitar: "You are a waterfall/ Wading inside a well/ And you are a wrecking ball/ Before the building fell." Again, there's one of those tenderly surrealistic morals: "I've heard of creatures who eat their babies/ I wonder if they stop to think about the taste." Through an inversion, Krug himself becomes the creature as well as the eaten, asking, "Oh baby, mother me before you eat me." In other new turns, there are female backing vocals provided by former Pony Up! member Camilla Wynne Ingr, and on many tracks glockenspiel or xylophone tap a ringing background.
The opening piano tingle of "Swimming" churns into haunted-house circus music and then it bursts and blooms into the catchiest little music-box reprise of "The Dust You Kick Up Is Too Fine" from the debut. These echoes are everywhere, the resampling a weirdly pleasant and satisfying sort of minimalism, offering listeners a chance to see his work from various angles.
This is rich stuff and it won't be surprising if some listeners prefer Krug's maniacal flights of fancy to Apologies to the Queen Mary's sense of balance. There's obviously much to be said for Wolf Parade's addictive push/pull switch hitting-- that overflowing seep between Bowie/Eno and jittery Iggy/Springsteen-- but it's also incredibly fun watching pop songs pulled apart and restitched into tiny rococo monuments and tossed skyward. All the Wolf Parade comparisons are a drag, sorry, but they're inevitable. Plus, the context's important: Because Krug followed some of the best material on Apologies with this elegant wallop, he's looking increasingly like an important songwriter rather than just another flavor-of-the-month.

— Brandon Stosuy, May 3, 2006

It isn't their latest release but it's my favorite

check em http://www.myspace.com/absolutelysunset

Maxwells

A Danish progressive act recorded live in West-Germany on the MPS label (usually a Jazz label)
They started out in 1963 as The Dragons with covers of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles… They earned a reputation and played in a lot of places locally. Around 1965 they changed their style and name. The Maxwells were born.
In late 1966 some members appeared in The beggars opera and Superman, stage plays in Denmark.
In 1967 , they acclaimed the first psychedelic show in Denmark called WE, a collage of scenes and songs. At the time with a very sensational light show, all handmade with gramophone motors, old glass ans slide projectors.
They collaborated with contemporary composer Per Norgaard, who wrote some songs for the group.
In 1967, they had their first TV appearance. This was a real success, followed by a radio broadcasting and interviews in the magazines.
Late 1967, they recorded their first single flower powder/what did she do? (sonet 7250).
Succesful touring and theatre appearences followed.
Their show opened with a recital of Dada poetry, slowly developping in a wild climax some 40 minutes later. The crowd loved it.
In the beginning of 1969 the German critic, Joachim Ernst Behrendt, heard the band play. He signed them to make the above LP.
The session took 4 days and was recorded in Villingen, Germany.
This is a real example of European psychedelica. Get out the incense and candles, bells and paint everything purple and pink.
source: www.longhairmusic.de

White Flight

Searching in vain for the missing link between indie-rock and hip-hop, we rest our heads at an outcropping, keeping our eyes peeled for signs of life; anything pointing to a merging of highly popular — and equally partitioned — genres that couldn’t seem more disparate, despite the progress made thus far in 2006 (the soul-swirl of Gnarls Barkley, etc.). After a short rest, we head into the brush again, starting to think a Loch Ness Monster sighting would be more realistic.
Then we see it, the creature that will render our hunting trip a huge success. It wears a Slanted and Enchanted T-shirt and a skull cap; it seems to be of no specific race; it walks with both a nervous slouch and a knee-swiveling strut; most confusingly, it whinnies and whimpers when we approach it rather than tying words together with rhymes and alliteration. But make no mistake — this is the species we’ve been waiting for. We can finally officially announce a new phylum! We dub it ... indie-hop? YES, indie-hop, for while the tag has been used in the past, it was employed to signify a different style (or to signify the presence of whitey) more than a distinct musical entity.
Scratch that shit when discussing White Flight. Actually, don’t scratch it; you won’t find traditional ‘wica-wica-wica’ turntable antics here. In fact, though genre classifications are vague and oppressive to begin with, trying to brand this record with any standard insignia is a particularly useless endeavor. All 13 tracks take a different tact. You might find a furry acoustic freakshow around one corner, only to double back and find a “Let the man-/ Let the man go through” shout-along chorus lurking behind you like a dark-purple fog. White Flight can get nervier than Tre-8’s “Fright Night,” freakier than a break-beat loft party, and more disjointed/disinterested than Malkmus covering a Malkmus song Malkmus doesn’t like. It all depends on what track you’re examining.
This happens all the time on the fringes of independent music, but White Flight never lose their sense of purpose for a single moment. They tinker, retool, and re-up several times while still smoking from the same incredible bag, passing around tight-stuffed spliffs of dub, hip-hop, indie-rock, mushroom jazz, noise-ambient, trip-hop and IDM/electronic until the entire smoker circle is bone-stoned and enthralled by the possibilities. Rarely do real-time guitar arpeggios mix with processed beats so fluently, nor do impromptu raps (confined almost exclusively to “Deathhands” and its slightly Basement Jaxxx-y feel) fit in so well with such a constantly shifting template of sound. White Flight never sound like they’re trying to approximate an outside influence, they simply are of that influence, to the point where you can predict the make-up of their personal record collections, all the while knowing that they found a few titles you’ve missed over the years. How else can you explain such a roundly original piece of work?
Of course, in lieu of such effortless quality, maybe it’s time to stop trying to explain it. Just know that White Flight are doing something new, with more instruments and more influences than you’re used to. The Gumshoe always dreamed of a day when his generation would ‘cross the streams’ of all genres, proving that today’s music fan is truly eclectic, an improvement over the dramatic boundaries that in the past would find listeners confined to certain tastes and little else outside their comfort zone. White Flight aren’t legends; they haven’t opened the door to unfettered genre experimentation, but they’ve gashed the padlock up good… only time will tell whether they bust it open themselves someday or simply yield to another generation of upstarts.

by Gumshoe (tinymixtapes.com)

This one will grow on you.

check em http://www.myspace.com/whiteflightsounds

NOMO

On last year's Ghost Rock, NOMO established their own brand of future funk, built on hypnotic grooves comprised of drums and a huge collection of electrified, homemade likembes and scrap metal. The horn section, once the thundering heart of the band, took on a different role, settling into spaced-out dialogue with the rhythms-- leader Elliot Bergman's more conversational horn charts recalled Charles Mingus and Sun Ra in their perfectly pitched balance between structure and disorder. Invisible Cities serves as something of a breath-catching moment for a band that's taken a giant leap on each of its albums, bringing some of the thunder back while further elaborating on the progress made on Ghost Rock.
Bergman's scrap metal instrument collection continues to grow-- this time, he's made a musical contraption out of street sweeper tines to deepen the band's gamelan-ish percussion patterns even further. The band also pays tribute to one of the 20th century's great instrument inventors, Moondog, by covering his German-period composition "Bumbo", a perfect fit for NOMO's mix of complex rhythm, homemade sounds, and arrangements that allow individual horns a chance to break out of the group. They add wordless female voices to the mix on the weird, rambling "Ma", giving the song a striking avant-exotica sound as the nagging guitar part chafes at the snaking baritone sax line.
Amid cosmic freakouts like the echoing rocket ride "Banners on High" and oozing slow-burns like the smeared half-free/half-composed "Elijah", NOMO bring out a few big, crunching horn themes that recall their early, Afrobeat-inspired music. The title track is a total bomb, with the electric likembes providing a bubbling harmonic bed for the horns to lie on over the fractured drum beat. "Waiting" is a classic funk workout with fluid sax parts and a few wicked sections where the horns solo against each other, while "Patterns" rides a swamp vamp the Meters would've loved to call their own.
Invisible Cities is the exact record NOMO needed to make at the point in their evolution. It consolidates all their gains and nicely sums up their output to this point, and as much as you can point to influences and basic kinship with other artists, the music NOMO are now making is very much their own thing. NOMO's facility with both rhythm and tunefulness also makes it easy to follow them as they head down their own path. If you've come this far with the group, Invisible Cities won't disappoint, and it's also a pretty great place to start.
— Joe Tangari, May 4, 2009

Great stuff.

check em http://www.myspace.com/nomomusic