Albums of 2014

[William Bloke]

Chuck E Weiss, apart from being the inspiration for Chuck E's in Love, is a 70 plus LA institution and has just released the album Red Beans and Weiss, which is a fun listen throughout. Musicians are excellent and Weiss himself can certainly hold your interest at the mic. Varied styles and overall good stuff. Here's Tupelo Joe:

[Lament]

Honeyblood's new album is really strong. Some female vox for my man Lament:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

This is good.

[William Bloke]

Honeyblood's new album is really strong. Some female vox for my man Lament:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

This is good.

Yeah, I'm loving this album more with every listen. Really good stuff.

[super nintendo chalmers]

This will be in my top ten, for sure.

[LetMeSleep]

Honeyblood's new album is really strong. Some female vox for my man Lament:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

This is good.

Yeah, I'm loving this album more with every listen. Really good stuff.

Liking this. Cheers Varis.

[William Bloke]

[Heathen]

Grouper Announces 'Ruins' LP

Long-running experimental musician Grouper (a.k.a. Liz Harris) revisited some old material with last year's The Man Who Died in a Boat LP. This fall, she'll offer up a proper follow-up album.

The record is called Ruins, and features eight new compositions from the artist. The bulk of the album was recorded in 2011, while Harris was completing a residency in Aljezur, Portugal. The only song that wasn't recorded there was "Made of Air," which she recorded at her mother's house in 2004. All of it was recorded with a portable four-track, a Sony stereo mic and a piano.

"The album is a document," Harris said in a press release. "A nod to that daily walk. Failed structures. Living in the remains of love. I left the songs the way they came (microwave beep from when power went out after a storm); I hope that the album bears some resemblance to the place that I was in."

Ruins is set to arrive on October 31 via Kranky. The album's track listing is available below; the artwork is above.

Ruins:

1. Made of Metal
2. Clearing
3. Call Across Rooms
4. Labyrinth
5. Lighthouse
6. Holofernes
7. Holding
8. Made of Air

http://exclaim.ca/News/grouper_announces_ruins_lp

[Birds in Hell]

[super nintendo chalmers]

I love Pinata.

[Birds in Hell]

Finally got my copy of the Survival Knife (feat. ex-Unwound folk) album and it's super, super good.

[Brett]

Three new releases out on Constellation this fall, two of which I know I'm getting, the third I'm still undecided on.

Last Ex - Last Ex is a Timber Timbre-related project that's instrumental rock with a tape music/film score root. The first song in that sample above is them, it's called "Hotel Blues" and the album's out October 14.

Avec le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche - Zubberdust! is a kraut-space-psych-funk-rock group. I'm really hyped for this one, because the demos on their Soundcloud are awesome. That's "Face à l’instant Part 2" as the second tune in the mix, and that one's out September 30.

Ought - Once More With Feeling is out October 28. The last song's obviously them; it's called "Pill." The release is an EP with an outtake from the album earlier this years as well as re-recorded tracks from their first EP and a new song.

[zeb]

Finally got my copy of the Survival Knife (feat. ex-Unwound folk) album and it's super, super good.

I'm interested.

[super nintendo chalmers]

Priests Bodies and Control and Money and Power

[bodysnatcher]

that looks almost as compressed as Backspacer

[pappas]

Even though it's only been out a few days, I'm really loving 4 piece Melbourne Australia rock band "Kingswood" Microscopic Wars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CXyYyXMQcA

http://youtu.be/avb-LliOPK0?list=UU-kk_ ... ebRg28I8TA

Kingswood, a scorching alt-rock four-piece hailing from Melbourne, are mere weeks away from taking the musical world by their fiery storm.The band, comprising of lead-vocalist Fergus Linacre, guitarist Alex Laska, bassist Mango Hunter and drummer Justin Debrincat are gearing up for unquestionably the biggest moment of their career: the drop of their debut record, Microscopic Wars.
In what has been one of the most hotly anticipated Australian releases of 2014, this record emphatically lives up to its hype, and then some.

The 13-track long-player sees the quartet explore a plethora of sounds, from dry desert tunes to wailing blues, mind-bending psychedelica and space-rock atmospherics, surprising mournful piano ballads to punk rock ferocities, Microscopic Wars confidently offers a sonic slice for any palate.

http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/416519/kings ... tory.htm/3

https://www.facebook.com/KINGSWOODmusic

[Brett]

MONO, the Japanese instrumental rock band, have two albums coming out simultaneously at the end of October. They're titled The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness, which certainly cues up thoughts of the melodramatic "cinema" music they've been doing for the last decade or so. Word is these albums will be different, though; neither have strings, for example. Dawn is supposed to be lighter in tone, with shorter songs, including "Kanata," the more "pop" tune that had on a soundtrack last year. Darkness has just four songs, all presumably on the longer side, and is supposed to be very dark, with doom and other metal influences.

Here's "Where We Begin" from The Last Dawn:



Kinda standard "post-rock" fare to be honest, but I'm curious to see if anything else holds up to the press release promises.

[Heathen]

Steve Gunn has been a stalwart of the American experimental scene for closing in on a decade. He has a prodigious talent for fusing traditional American song structures with a raga influence and is known by many for his contributions as one half of the core duo behind GHQ (with Marcia Bassett) as well as for his many other affiliations with underground luminaries such as Tom Carter, The Magik Markers and Marc Orleans.

Paradise of Bachelors will release Way Out Weather, Gunn’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Time Off, on October 7, 2014. A heady and elliptical travelogue, Way Out Weather demonstrates a radical widescreen evolution, featuring a larger band and lighting out for lusher, more expansive, and impressionistic territories than Time Off. This is the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter’s career-defining statement to date, a self-assured masterpiece.

title track:
http://thequietus.com/articles/16162-st ... ther-video

[super nintendo chalmers]

Can't wait for Gunn.

In the meantime, I am absolutely in love with this record.

[Heathen]

http://www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Wrek ... A81GOeYhRY

J.R. Robinson perceives life as a long, gradual process of decay. Lightness fades into darkness, while innocence succumbs to the evils of modern society. His music reflects not only this worldview but his emotional response to it. Then It All Came Down, his second long-form composition as Wrekmeister Harmonies, is an exploration of that existential deterioration and an attempt at attaining a deeper understanding of its process. Wrekmeister Harmonies’ pastoral doom has earned praise from Pitchfork, SPIN, Decibel, and Invisible Oranges as a new form of metal composition and performance involving a wide variety of instrumentation. Employing an enormous ensemble of some of Chicago’s best talents in the metal and experimental communities, including Sanford Parker (Corrections House, Twilight), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), Ryley Walker, Chris Brokaw (Codeine, Come), members of Indian and Leviathan and more, Robinson has created a work that is equally gorgeous and menacing. Few artists have perfected the nuances of beauty as well as annihilation, and Robinson’s mastery of both sides of the spectrum makes his a unique voice in the field of doom.

Looking forward to this one. Out Oct. 21 on Thrill Jockey.

[McParadigm]

Chuck E Weiss, apart from being the inspiration for Chuck E's in Love, is a 70 plus LA institution and has just released the album Red Beans and Weiss, which is a fun listen throughout. Musicians are excellent and Weiss himself can certainly hold your interest at the mic. Varied styles and overall good stuff. Here's Tupelo Joe:

I didn't know that was out there. I really like the particular flavor of his idiosnycracy. Do You Know What I Idi Amin ?