Mike Khoury / Chris Riggs - My Words Came Out Slow and Odd (Holy Cheever Church Records CS)

Last one from that new batch of Holy Cheevers, this time with the maestro in tandem with fellow acoustic destruction meister Mike Khoury. This is a duo that makes a ton of sense to me, much like the Matt Endahl or Chris Dadge tag teams, as they all come at the music from a similar stance, classically based perhaps, but far more concerned with the noises themselves than any defining mode of play.

Of course the same goes here, with the first side seeing Khoury laying down some long violin lines while Riggs' electric sort of blubbers about, mumbling down the street, increasingly, until it all just turns to spastic mouth gestures mimicking 40s motorcycle engines. Khoury responds with a nice high pitched fizz, giving a real space between the two of them while Riggs moves some furniture around from corner to corner. Pretty spare material that'll drop out on you right quick before swinging back in with some new contraption or movement spurring the action. Even some two chord repetition from Khoury--Fiddler on the Loose or something. Real dramatics here, but all ground down to dust so the remnants are all that's left. Spooky even, taking on a kind of itching melodicism equal parts Godard's Weekends and fucking Close Encounters of the Third Kind.Like being trapped in a dark box in the middle of some empty desert with only four holes to look out, one on each side, just so you can truly take in the nowhereness. Better take the finger nails to the wood and start wearing it down before the sun comes up...

Second side is more or less of a similar mind, if a bit trillier and more spaced out. Like side one as the soundtrack to deep space exploration, where purple planets reveal bat-like creatures whose propensity for flowers is only rivaled by their thirst for blood--but not Earth blood, it seems. It's all very thrown against a wall stuff, ground into the siding and revealed for its essence. Beautiful and light, but no less guttural than their other stuff. Just weaving lines of glycerin-flushed strings see-sawing over one another. Great Beetlejuice-ish tape stripes too. A swell time all around.

Vanilla Host - Folded at the Face (Housecraft CS)

Got the new batch of Housecraft tapes in recently and it's a real doozy, though I gotta say it's a shame that the Jeffry Astin/Josh Burke split is as limited as it is--only 33 copies I think. It's a lovely little guy. And all the artwork on these new ones is NEXT LEVEL--especially that four-way split. Up and out on all of them. Was gonna cover the Astin/Burke split but I couldn't find any pictures of it online and the camera's back home, so I opted to go with this one, which of course is no disappointment either.

Actually a mail collabo between Astin and Dan of Excitebike/Uneven Universe/Body Morph, etc. fame, this number seems to veer toward the Excitebike side of things in terms of sheer basement cruise control zonkers. Real down and out, the first side presents "Exiter," which I assume references a total exodus of mind, body and soul. Pretty eerie scrapy, drone noise stuff that actually does a nice job of swaying between the two styles, one minute going deep into Michigan sub-aquatics and the next riding on the Xiphiidae train toward lower earth. Hope on the ganjala my friend, and trust me, you can see all the tops of the gates from way down here. Crunched and churned, singed just enough that the hairs start to smell while the razor glitches out from water damage. Nice air traffic control worshiping material, radio waves on the out and rain-drenched cloud beasts on the in.

The second side, "Flat Earth Variation," meshes the two styles even better than the first I'd say, finding a nice balance between the off kilter crustacean evocations of Jeff's stuff with the spurted brick and coat hanger chiseling of Dan. Dentist drills running on high and shoved, drill bit down, into the soil, clearing out any worms or aphids that might be a hindrance to its downward journey. Round the bend and the tape, bent toward disaster, peels itself apart in the name of crumbled cloisters of distress. Sounds like some sorrowful cow about to be sent through the hacker, the metallics not so much representing the shredding mechanism itself but the internal workings of the meat as it processes these alien soundscapes. Some beautiful bowed saxophone notes or something too, gives a kind of minor melody distress call, beached whale fever. It's a real creeper and perhaps even more together than the first side in its singular and empty outlook. A super interesting mash-up, and one that will hopefully continue as the two both bring such different elements into the mix, not so much meeting halfway as laying it all out and watching how they interact. And boy do they.

Bazvotni - Vrums (For Noise's Sake 3" CD-R)

Here's another offering from Madrid based For Noise's Sake, this time in the form of an eleven minute, ten track cruiser by a lad named Nicolash, who also plays in Pier. Stripping down his setup to only drums, mics and vocals, the thing is over before you get started, but it has a certain immediacy to it that's pretty hard to deny.

Talking about individual tracks feels a bit silly when the longest offering here is under two minutes and all of them are more or less constructed from the same material, but the whole romp has the kind of caveman, primitivist attitude and aesthetic of Foot Village or Black Pus, only with a tad looser, more cannibalistic, ballistic feel to it. All about total wreckage with this one, as wordless vocal utterances are huffed and puffed atop free rock/jazz drumming that glides between multi-angular African mishmash and complete numb-nuts brawl material. "Loueem Fv" might have a semblance of a beat for its minute, but its weirdly unconcerned in a kind of punk nihilist way that flies way beyond simplicity for simplicity's sake. Elsewhere the vocals are more central, as on "Neaneamem," where growls harken in clattering putters of cymbal tinkling and snare pulse while his hyper Jandek chants fuel a kind of sadomasochistic, hurts so bad it's good energy. Weird.

Like I said before though, the whole thing is eleven minutes long, and its brevity actually adds to the excitement--never stops moving at all. And the submerged, muffled production makes it sound even more like emissions from some deep cavernous wake, a small flame visible atop the bass drum. Surprisingly effective stuff.

Matt Endahl / Christopher Riggs - Tangible But Not Communicated (Holy Cheever Church Records CS)

More from the Holy Cheever camp, this time in the form of a duet between Riggs and pianist Matt Endahl. Once again though, instrumentation seems nearly irrelevant in these proceedings as instead another alien landscape of fizz is extrapolated on--obviously this ain't no Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau number. What'd you expect?

Things start off in a sort of whimpering, tea kettle improv style, each instrument nearly indecipherable against the hum and lithe grinding, like the soundtrack to some dude sitting at a bus stop grinding his teeth in eager anticipation of the inevitable. The innards of the piano resonate out while single string bows turn into loose chortle the makeup of which consists of molten metal being hammered at like some forgotten blacksmith crafting the weapon by which he'll end it all. Take the electric drill to it, I say, so you have to give it a real push. Every angle here is degraded and rusty, but it sounds so right and in tune with itself. The whole aesthetic is as organic as it comes, nothing forced or coaxed here; just the sounds of things acting the way they act when you use them in this ruthless a manner. Sounds like crayons with brass tips being drawn out over windowpanes, covering their translucence in dappled streaks of brown while chipping off the smooth surface in the process. Totally nuts.

The flip side kicks it off in a higher, less monotonously grating strain with a total shred of disintegrated circuitry and whistle. Grind it on down to the bone. I'd be surprised if there was a piano left after all is said and done here. Almost sounds like Riggs is just playing some vinyl record by laying down a block of wood and grinding it underneath while the reverberations cause the highest string on his guitar to shriek with horror. When the debris is left on the floor the duo run over and pick it up, throwing it around with primordial glee. A whopper with flies, please. Thanks. But then you have to deal with the food poisoning, which settles in just as the flies are spawning in your digestive tract. Little flutters of piano just dancing around in there, having a swell time of it while the increasing clatter starts to awaken the horror.

Just had the TV turned on in front of me and the live Michael Jackson memorial is on which creates a nice contrast in terms of total over-the-top spectacle worship of something chaotic and unknown. Wild. Another winner from the realm of Riggs.

ALTAR EAGLE / Pillars of Heaven / Caligine / High Wolf - Essential Elements (Stunned Records 2XCS)

Seeing as its taken me nigh forever to finish up this recent Stunned batch, I suppose it's fitting that, at last, I close it off with this MASSIVE double whammy of spaced out jammies. Call it the carrot, though I'm not sure anyone else has been drooling in eager anticipation of the juicy words I've chosen to accompany this piece other than me, and then only because I write em and that's an enjoyable activity in itself. Regardless, this release is a monster presenting four sides, four bands, and four unique zones. Where to start? How bout the beginning...

The first side belongs to Brad and Eden Rose (of Digitalis fame) and their brand new ALTAR EAGLE project, presenting here a single piece called "Pennies Masquerading as Dimes." Having dropped the Corsican Paintbrush model after that last Housecraft tape, they've continued moving on into new realms, and this project seems to represent a kind of space age song thing whereby glitched and fuzzed noise is met with mountainous synth drones and Eden's transient vocal sways. Whole worlds of sound evolve here, but there's a forward momentum driven by discreet chord progressions that keeps it all feeling much more like they're jamming on a pre-conceived riff than letting it all hang out. Static, feedback, Mario mushroom sounds, all intertwine, babbling about like some crazed set of street talkers below the voluminous weight of the gray city, looming overhead in the form of synth lines representing the good Word itself. Guitar lines shine through, rays of light, and everyone looks up shielding their eyes as the buildings around them crumble, turned inward by the encroaching vines. And all bred from the harmonic resonance of creation spewed by Eden's long and narrow billows of air. Don't look too long though, or the yellow rays will turn orange and the pupils will widen out past the eye ball, past the head, and finally past the toes till all that's left is a big black hole, a receptacle of light.

Flipping it over presents a far tamer world in the form of Sal Giorgi's Pillars of Heaven project, here presenting "The Singing of Makalaure." Giorgi runs the always impressive Peasant Magik label, whose attention to detail carries over into this solo project as well. Softly emerging primordial ooze leaks out from slovenly synth lines in a far more Godless, organic take on the birth of time than the former act presented. Here the silt is allowed to wash up against the shells, grinding gently and shaping, carving the dunes into stables for seaweed to lay, drying in the sun. Millenia pass and the seaweed survives, morphing its shape into low lying moss on which dragonflies rest. This is a quiet, almost precious location, concerned little with the skies and far more with the matter at hand--and we're not talking "concerns" matter, but matter matter, atoms and electrons and quarks and their quiet buzzing, doing all that they know to do and keeping the very world in rotation as they perform their mindless interactions. Eventually the bustling subsides, frozen and preserved in thick sheets of glass, shielded for a time from the grip of decay.

And now, tape two, opening with Caligine's "Inspirare ed Espiare: Sarad / A Ciascun Silenzio, Un Volto." This Roman weaver runs the Monstres par Excès label, from whom I know nada, but this folk drift cajoles me into thinking that's not for the better. Distant hums and guitar fluttering open it up, like curtains into some scenic field nestled inconspicuously between a grove of trees. Not rolling and vast but an enclave of butterflies and bees folk tales long since lost. The fumbling guitar strings speak of ships and ruffled shirts and perhaps even the single leaves adorning the bosom of some prehistoric teen rife with wanderlust. The entrance of electric guitar, sloshing about atop the distant ramblings of the acoustic, brings up broader, more looming tales, lifting it into a human frenzy of disturbed calm and lunging, quixotic fumblings of the mind. A small chime calls calm again, only this time it is a bustling calm inhabited by the busy bustling of a people collecting, selecting, dissecting in the name of the generations. The future is of a more metallic nature though, and though the construct is the same, basic actions resembling those from before, the silvers and blacks are far more unclean, wreaking of exhaustion.

The fourth and final side is the followup to High Wolf's Not Not Fun debut, and here we see the inverse of Caligine's side. Rather High Wolf draws us into the future with "Digital Heaven;" this is a land post-exhaustion, where a mechanized trajectory guides the motives of previously sentient beings. Behind the battered doors there does remain a hint of past forms, lives lived in light, dinners cooked and garnished with a holiness found only in the menial path of the everyday, but much of that seems gone now. A lone beating guides shadowless forms as they lunge steadily onward toward a new kind of jungle, devoid of commotion, everything in line. Somewhere beyond the borders there is a hint of stagnation, icy waters laid on faces in the sun, and that's here too, but more as a buried, instinctual memory. Close the doors though, and the memories come whirling back, swirling inside and out as dreams of garlic and pears minced and winged flit about. The dream is always better than the reality and boundless dreams seep in to distill the labor in favor of the luxury of necessity. Boundless and breathtaking indeed.

Wow. Long winded and superfluous though that writeup may have been this is one hell of a collection, necessary for anyone remotely into this stuff. Killer way to spend an hour and a half and beautifully sequenced so it all ties together as a whole. One of the best of the year no doubt, each offering is total bread and butter material. 100 copies out there somewhere (not at Stunned, I fear...) but surely Tomentosa has a few for now. Lovingly packaged as well. Again, wow.

Pink Priest - Cold Rock (Kimberly Dawn 3" CD-R)

Been hearing a bit about Pink Priest for a bit now, so it was a real pleasure to get this little 3" in the mail from Frank Baugh's new Kimberly Dawn batch. Wasn't disappointed either, as the four miniatures featured here present a nicely realized world of detached, chilly dronescapes that pull from a number of styles in their minimal, icicle conjurings.

The disc opens with the voluminous "Please Ma'am Pull That Door to," whose static scrapes have been emptied of all edge in the name of whispered caverns and echoed hints. Dripping rhythms percolate around, calling to mind a mix between Zoviet France concrete and airy droners. Slips right into "Wedding Cake," which is equally empty though with a bit of 80s new age keyboard sound fuming from beneath. Its quick and lonely, but quite beautiful, always just out of reach as it shimmies along into "It Melts my Heart," gaining momentum before cutting the chord. The following is the longest number here at 6 minutes, making it not only the most extended but also fullest number here. Swathes of air pushed around atop sterile hallway echoes and sci-fi twinklings of UFO radar sightings. Once it's off the blipping screen, its left to touch down in some fair field, lighting the dawn with its neon punctuations. Lovely. The closing "Gravel Kids" finds the ship traveling toward more aquatic realms, with the white waves hissing as they crash layer upon layer onto the beaches. Take another step in and it's a bit colder, the seaweed revealing lands yet unseen as mysterious black monoliths drift by. There's an intangibility on this that's tough to grab on to, making Pink Priest a true curator of patient revelation. Short and sweet as they say, with great Dark Side of the Moon/prog-style cover art by the musician himself. Another nice 3"-er from Kim Dawn, for whom this format seems preferred. Underused no longer, I say.

The Pistil Cosmos / Aghori - Split (Existential Cloth Recordings CS)

Continuing onward, this time delving a bit deeper into that Existential Cloth batch that arrived at my doorstep to my surprise. This one is a split between Pistil Cosmos (whose release on Stunned I was all over) and another unit I've never heard of called Aghori. Beautiful to have one side from consistent French dude Vincent Caylet (Monks of the Balhill) and a little surprise on the latter half.

Caylet's side is called "A Broken Gamelan," but what with all the Serengeti cries, rain sticks and time lapse cloud movements it all seems a bit more African safari or even Australian outback to me. Almost reads like the soundtrack to some I-Max fly over picture, super hollow and spacious and actually pretty unapologetic in the clarity of its sound. But this ain't no Pure Moods disc, so when it glides right into some metallic shutter; more Bladerunner than Lion King if Bladerunner featured katanas instead of handguns. Some pretty steep shards here, empty and alien with flute mishaps for good measure. Moves right along too, sliding into a steady rhythm and hollow flute echoes while jostling dub patters trickle around nice and stoned like. Totally relaxing and spare, but not without its own depth.

It's always a little irritating to me when the tape side ends long before the tape runs out, especially on the first half of it as it means either an extended wait or a quick fast forward just to get to the beginning of the next side, but hey, that's knit-picking. And besides, it's only to make room for the Aghori side, whose three numbers need plenty of space to stretch their collective limbs and glide. Opens with "Nouwhit," an easy little number that slides along teal streams, waves and tender drones woven into summer sunbaths. Far as I can tell, Aghori's only put stuff out on Existential Cloth, leading me to believe that Matt McKeever is the soothsayer behind the label. "Opal Naree" is thicker than the latter track, but with the same sense of open space and trajectory, humming along in expanding, boundless drone worlds before a chorus of vocals, hushed and suggesting of continuation, pushes it into the closing "Wound," an empty expanse of warm lean-to catering. Nice split all around, definitely one for the laid back crowd and another promising outing from this label.

Christopher Riggs - Riggs Home Security (Holy Cheever Church Records CS)

Is it me, or is Holy Cheever fast becoming essential listening? Every release Chris puts out is as interesting/exciting/impressive as the next, and this latest trifecta is of course nothing no light fare either. Of course the heaviest thing is that nearly every one of the Holy Cheever releases features Chris himself, meaning that he is rapidly becoming a real force to be reckoned with.

This one is a solo offering by the head honcho himself, and it's another winner no doubt. I have to confess though, that I had a crazy experience with this when I first threw it on. The first side is a slow bowed electric number that, according to Chris, was played on a broken amp. So I was listening to it and at weird moments the sound kept fritzing out or slipping into these slow electronic screes and I thought shit, he's really pushing the envelope with this one. Eventually the sound dropped out entirely, making me think this was sort of a Bug Incision redux, but then I flip it over and it's still totally dead silent. Turns out the ol' walkmen was on the fritz, go figure. Still, it's a real testament to just how wild and foreign Chris' stuff is, if not also to my stupidity. Still, the thing is packed with weirdness, with super slow bowed geetar that meanders in long and fluid and richly textured loops raga style for a while. The drenched repetition here really splays out loosey-goosey style, unrelenting and almost classicist in its unbending commitment to the cause. One, two, one, two, Riggs drags the bow across like a scalpel over a fiberglass strung sitar before burying deep into some clouded fuzz buzz that, I dare say, really will have you thinking the tape deck's on the out were it not for the taut sonar blips that keep it unified in its writhing.

The second side is even less guitary, instead finding a playful sort of sproing rebound that calls to mind the harsh realities lying in wait beyond the pogo stick travels of our youth. Remember filming the kids out in the street, bounding along, harkening the end of days? It arrives too, in the form of metal power chords fed through so many dangling daggers that it gets spliced apart into a carnal wreck of dystopic smatterings before cutting off and heading toward high end hiss, so numb as to create worlds within its oneness. When the singular tone disengages with itself it goes into some seriously dark spaces, total schizophrenia slash and burn stuff. Always pushing the meter higher, Riggs' special breed of cerebral demolition is nigh unstoppable. A crazy one, again.

Rambutan - Broken Infinity (Stunned Records CD-R)

At last, back to the cherished blog reviews which have (disappointingly...) taken the back seat as of late in the name of epic bike trips--including a trip to the hospital--and subsequent multitudes of chillery on Great Island in Cape Cod despite less than ideal weather throughout. But surely no one's stopping by here for a vacation redux so I'll stick with my guns and talk tunage instead. Besides, some of these have been on the back burner far too long.

Pushing towards completing that last Stunned batch--the only one left, which will likely come later today, is the mammoth double cassette four-way split--I figured I'd jump right in with my man Eric and his Rambutan release. Always great to see good dudes released on good labels, and this release is the summation of goodage all around. Actually, this might well be my favorite Rambutan release since his debut on Tape Drift, presenting a fine full length of sprawling and moody guitar and electronics excursions whose effect is always greater than the sum of its parts. Hardiman has a way of conjuring some really mystical stuff, and tracks like the opening title number have that same sand-encrusted, desert stench that Rusted Prayers Converge did, reaching far along the tracks in hopes of that ever elusive solitude amidst the heat waves. "Middle Altar" starts with a murmur but is soon timidly reverberating microscopic columns of looped, raindrop enclosed wonders. Something new from the good doctor, and really a neat take on this kind of stuff, much more investigative and slight than a lot of those neu-Krautrock numbers.

Of course the followup lies in the aptly titled "Abandoned Night Cave," though I'd say this is more like an "Abandoned Night Abyss." The elevator don't stop at ground floor this ride, as sheets of hollow howls echo about in less than ideal conditions while the big demon himself wails his axe from beneath. Not sure if this is a concept album or what but "Returning to the Entrance" definitely coincides with the latter track, grinding back up toward the light (it's a long way to go) with every pull of the distorted rope and pulley system in hand. The closing "Cloudy Vision" definitely escapes the hot air vaults at last, though at this point your burned to such a fine crisp that you just evaporate into the air, carried across the mountains and rivers as pure energy. What an album, straight through. And of course, the beautiful cover art ain't nothing to scoff at.

Es - Kesamaan Lapset (Fonal CD)

Another in from Brainwashed. More coming tomorrow from Stunned, Holy Cheever, etc. (finally...)

Between his roles as both filmmaker and Fonal Records head, Sami Sanpakkila has somehow managed to find time to produce this, his fifth album of solo material under the Es moniker. Citing Pekka Streng's "Kesamaa" as its impetus makes sense considering the immediately nostalgic summer feel of the record, though Es' eyes are set on a much more distant and ethereal horizon than Streng's song-based structures.

The title of the record alone alludes to this intended effect, translating to "The Children of the Summerland." While this is certainly the case however, this is far from a naïve foray into elven territory. Indeed, much of the disc's strength lies in the ample inhabitance of less desirable realms, evoking a balance between tender forest traipsing and, simultaneously, a sense of the deeper mystery just behind the foliage.

The album opens on a glistening and undulatory note with "Ennen Oli Huonommin," whose backing drone grasps at the fluttering bussle of notes emitted atop. The track has the same toying playfulness of labelmate Tomutonttu's output, albeit with a real sense of direction. This forward thrust continues on the brief "Kesa Ja Hymyilevat Huulet," a mix of tinkertoy Casios and a lofty, folkloric vocal line, clarifying the album's role as a collection of songs, albeit highly abstracted, even distracted ones.

The centerpiece of the disc lies in the back-to-back efforts of "Sateet Sun Sielusta" and the album's title track, the most extended efforts here and the ones on which Sanpakkila's constructions are able to fully blossom. The former opens with a brief piano excursion whose increasing density mounts into a full blown meteor shower of trickling lines and hovering drones. Reaching far beyond the skies of many of his contemporaries, the piece is a truly momentous one whose forward thrust continues the consistent sense of trajectory runnning throughout the album.

Following in its wake is the 21-plus minute title track, whose opening vocal lines sway atop a writhing lullaby line before building into a veritable orchestra filling memories of sand castles past. The immense reach of the work is staggering, but never without a sense of intimacy or proximity; this is a series of small moments conjoined by their inherent connections, not a vast singularity too overpowering to remain relatable.

The album's closing track, "Haamut Sun Sydamesta," has a chorus of voices bounding between speakers, rendered foreign by their proximity to the psychedelic mash-up atop them, which I suppose is the idea here. A singer-songwriter album at heart, each piece takes its own path, unfolding without bounds to become a true achievement and one of the most beautiful records of summer.