Satanic Threat - In To Hell (Hells Headbangers)

Basically rips off a load of Minor Threat and Uniform Choice songs/riffs but adds on ludicrous satanic lyrics. Vocally it rips off Minor Threat and Uniform Choice as well.

Personally I think Minor Threat's lyrics are fucking crap. Satan is just silly though.

Musically, it's just as good as most other retro hardcore doing the rounds.

Appropriately, the download will cost you $6.66

Suffocation buy their own CD at the shop

A guy from Suffocation videos himself going to the shop to buy his own band's CD.

Basically, he points out a lot of good things about why people should pay for music. Especially why people should pay for underground music. He points out that Suffocation aren't Beyonce or someone like that racking in millions and millions of pounds.

He points out that if bands and labels lose money then bands get dropped, they can't make records, they don't come and tour your city etc etc etc.

He's really trying to drive home the point that underground music needs supporting and fair fucks to him. Fully behind his sentiments.

However, there's a big 'but'. And come on, you knew the 'but' was coming.

Neither Suffocation nor their label (Nuclear Blast) make the music available for sale as flac/wav or any other lossless format.

It's a familiar rant on this blog but crappy, lossy mp3s from amazon/itunes can well and truly get fucked. I'm not handing over cash for something that sounds shit. Also, I'm not buying a CD as I don't own a CD player and I think they're fugly.

I'd be more than happy to hand over cash for a flac download of Effigy Of The Forgotten. It's a classic. I'd also buy their new one too.

That's two album sales they could be making right there for virtually no effort. I'm guessing Kevin would buy them as well. Seeing how much the folk over at Metal Bandcamp buy I'm guessing there's fuckloads more people that'd buy it.

And here ends yet another "just sell us the damn music" post.

Beach Fossils - Clash The Truth

http://boomkat.com/downloads/640015-beach-fossils-clash-the-truth

More great indie rock stuff from Captured Tracks.

Kicks off with a cheeky Sex Pistols riff but quickly settles into the 80s British indie sound. Reverby guitar harmonies, busy drums and persistent basslines.

After a few days I've already got some of these tunes stuck in my head. Just perfect for this kind of stuff.

Spectral Park - s/t

http://boomkat.com/downloads/641169-spectral-park-spectral-park

This is like some kind of hyperactive crystal-meth version of chopped & screwed but done with 60s psych instead of hip hop. It's almost like a bunch of 7"s have been smashed up and randomly glued back together.

It's all really tuneful though. The organ and voice keep the melodies going while chaotic collage of sound swirls around.

The organ is a definite highlight. Can't beat a good organ tone.

Maybe a bit like MGMT done as old school cut and paste collages with glue and old newspaper magazines. it's really well done though.

Guess it'd be a good one to place next to that Retromania book. All the themes and sounds are kind of retro but they're all formed into a different style.

The song in the first youtube video has been on repeat on my commute. Really interesting way the melodies, harmonies and backing music fit together.

They've also got an 'official' video. First song on the album. Which is also good.

Slomatics - The Future Past

New Slomatics jams is always a thing to be welcomed. We only get 10 minutes this time but I guess it's always best to leave the audience screaming for more.

They channel Bullhead/Lysol era-Melvins and fuzzed out doom-psych. Just riffs riffs riffs riffs.

Slomatics really know how to construct a good song as well. It's not just a collection of reasonable sounding riffs. There's real craft going on. They've been going for years now and they know exactly how to do it.

They really need to come back to the UK and do a tour.

Also, someone needs to put these two songs onto a 7".

Vakunoht - Gagarin's Start

"The missing link between XTC, Nomeansno, The Cardiacs and Motorhead?" according to a friend. I reckon something like Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum or maybe APATT doing a metal band.

Occasionally I hear glimpses of things like Tarot Woman by Rainbow but mixed in with Devo.

What about if the folk in Circle/Pharaoh Overlord tried their hand at a pop rock band?

Apparently they've got a new album coming which is going to be even wilder than this one. Can't wait.

Cymophane - Cymophane

This is a shameless plug as it's something I was involved in, but hey, enough people read this blog now that a few more people might listen and enjoy it.

This was a ludicrous labour of love by myself and Mr Ian "SDZH" and I still believe the efforts paid off. What we have here is total John Carpenter/Tangerine Dream/Vangelis film soundtrack worship married to a love for early 90s ambient electronica such as FSOL and Biosphere, but then mixed together with later era Dub and Techno, especially of the gritty and atmospheric variety. Special effort was put into making a cohesive album, hoping to take the listener on an evocative journey through many styles of electronic music, really mixing together the styles of its creators. There's dark droning passages leading into breakbeat heavy monsters like "This Unclean Spirit", to the blissful ambience of "Dead Men Naked...", to the head-down, menacing, devastating conclusion to "Kissed Bionics".

If anyone likes these tracks enough to DJ them on a proper sound-system  please tell me as it would make my lifetime to hear them blasted out properly. Also, if enough people download this and enjoy it, Ewan and I have the most amazing idea for a vinyl release on his newly minted label (go buy the Godstopper LP NOW!)... just planting seeds, you know...

 

Spoonful Of Tar mix 2

Spoonful Of Tar mix 2 by Ewanfrater on Mixcloud

Another quick half hour mix of good stuff.

California X, Kowloon Walled City, Geiom, Prolefeed, Xaphan, Veronica Falls, Belgrado, Church Whip and Damu.

Umberto - Confrontations

If you like 70s synths and the old 70s/80s film soundtracks they were used on then this is right up your street.

Total John Carpenter territory!

Umberto has been honing his craft for quite a while now and it shows. This is seriosuly accomplished stuff. Admittedly some of his earlier stuff could be dismissed as pastiche but not this.

It's intricate, well produced and superbly done. The synth lines have real tension and it has real form rather than just aimless meandering.

Really, all it needs is someone to make an awesome straight-to-VHS film for it.

Belgrado - Panopticon/Vicious Circle 7" (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Nice short slice of goth-y post-punk dreariness. Dreary like bleak early 80s UK anarcho punk. Wearing all black clothes & black makeup. It's freezing cold and pissing down with rain.

Quite how a band from Barcelona can evoke that is anyone's guess but there you go.

There's been quite a refreshing micro-trend in the DIY punk of bands like this and the likes of Arctic Flowers bringing back goth punk type stuff.

La Vida Es Un Mus is selling the vinyl but Belgrado are offering up the download for a euro. Bargain. Especially as their album is also a euro.

Fingers crossed I don't miss them next time they come to the UK as I've already managed to miss them twice somehow.

Kromosom - Live Forever (Southern Lord)

http://boomkat.com/downloads/637783-kromosom-live-forever



In Kromosom's world I think the definition of 'live' is ultra-distorted blown out chaotic d-beat noise punk. It makes their previous bands (Nuclear Death Terror and Pisschrist) sound like prog rock. It's also ex-Scientific Bong who did a split with Knifed many moons ago.

Anyway, this compiles their long sold out cassette and 7"s. Good job too as it's well worth a listen. Kudos to Southern Lord for putting out punk stuff that is this raw. It's definitely the real deal.

Friends that live for the rawest most obscure punk noise have raved about this lot for a while and this is a good a place as any to dip your toes into that world.

Buy this record, a massive bottle of white cider and destroy everything.

Nails - Obscene Humanity (Southern Lord)

http://boomkat.com/downloads/637821-nails-obscene-humanity



There's a thread on Collective called Let's Talk About Dark Negative Heavy Hardcore. That's a good a description of Nails as any.

They veer between all out whirlwinds of blast beats and chaotic riffing to chunky, stomping chug riffs. Perhaps the mid-point between The Swarm and Earthmover. A bit more polished than that but the more metal production doesn't diminish the brutality.

3 short songs is the perfect length for something like this. Don't need more than five minutes of a frenzied assault.

Savage.

Wartorn - Iconic Nightmare (Southern Lord)

http://boomkat.com/downloads/637861-wartorn-iconic-nightmare

If you love From Ashes Rise and Tragedy and can't get enough of that modern epic d-beat crust sound then you'll like it. Plenty of pickslides, metal solos and fist pumping chorus bits.

Unfortunately this sound is ten-a-penny now and Wartorn don't do anything particularly special with it. It's exactly what you think a band called Wartorn doing From Ashes Rise type stuff would sound like.

Unless they happened to be touring near me I can't imagine I'd ever listen to this record again.

Abyssal - Novit Enim Dominus Qui Sunt Eius

You can count the number of good death metal bands in the UK and still have enough fingers left to tell the other death metal bands to fuck off.

Basically, you've got Cruciamentum, Grave Miasma and this lot. I almost didn't check this lot out as "UK death metal" is almost as bad a phrase as "ska punk".

Anyway, this is good stuff. Kind of similar to stuff like Portal. It's technical but also disgustingly filthy. You know the way Portal sound like their music is rotting in swamp? Like that.

It shifts tempo and lurches and crawls in a delightfully fucked up way.
BR> Get on it.

Om Unit - Aeolian EP

Some top notch post dubstep/UK garage underground beat stuff.

Bits of it even remind me of things like Tricky and Massive Attack. Particularly Dark Sunrise with Tamara Blessa. It's worth posting the video for that as well.



Shifts in between kind of dark down tempo stuff like that to full on drum and bass spliced up breaks. Kind of a nice surprise as you don't hear them too often now. At least not in stuff like this.

Boomkat are also selling it - http://boomkat.com/downloads/549904-om-unit-aeolian-reso-sweatson-klank-mixes

and this is their blurb which is probably a better description:-

Something of a producer's producer, Jim Om Unit rarely disappoints in his releases, but recently he seems to have found a particularly rich vein of form and is producing some of the most confident, club-destroying and ear-kissing gear of his career. 'Ulysses' is a more delicate take on the juke-jungle hybridising of he and Machinedrum's Dream Continuum project, with nods to the original garage ravers but moreover the rain-slicked cityscapes evoked by Kuedo and the sighing, synthed-out R&B vistas of Clams Casino et al. 'Dark Sunrise' is an out-and-out dubstep killer, with irresistible vamps, ruffneck subs and spry, impeccably LDNish vocals courtesy of Tamara Blessa. 'Fumes' and 'Lightworkers Call' (a Kromestar collaboration) are satisfying syntheses of dreamy instrumentation and rudeboy stoppage, and as with 'Dark Sunrise' the rhythms deftly suggest that hip-hop and dubstep might be closer cousins than is usually admitted. The footwork futurism returns for 'Slowfast Matrix' and Sweatson Clank's remix of 'Ulysses', and the same track gets a fabulous, unexpected d'n'b makeover - with shades of circuit-fried Rephlex/Warp braindance - by Reso.

Ninja Tune digital subscription

A subscription service is something I've often thought would be a good idea. For a set amount you'd get everything from a label.

Ninja Tune were started by Coldcut years ago. Recently they've been putting out stuff like The Bug and Actress so they've still got their finger on the pulse.

Here's a link and their blurb:-

https://drip.fm/ninjatune

Want an easy, convenient way to get every album, EP and single Ninja Tune and Big Dada release? Then our new subscription service is for you.

Subscribe for just $12 a month, and we'll send you everything we put out, on release day, in high quality MP3, WAV or FLAC formats , which are yours to keep forever. In the event that there are less than 2 albums in any month we'll top up with favourites from the back catalogue.

Sign up now and you'll receive a 42-track compilation we've put together from all our 2012 releases, as well as recent albums from FaltyDL and Dobie, with new releases from Bonobo, VISION and more coming up in the next few months!

WHAT YOU GET

$12 a month for everything we release, delivered straight to your inbox
At least two albums a month
High quality MP3, WAV or FLAC downloads
Subscribers in February 2013 also receive a 20% discount code for any purchases at the Ninjashop, as well as a 10% discount for the entire time you're a subscriber.
Automatic entry to our VIP Club, where you'll receive news about exclusive releases, bonus content and more
A free Ninja Tune Mug!

Ninja Tune don't put out enough stuff I'm into for it to be worth it for me. However, I'd love it if a label I was totally into did this.

My Bloody Valentine new album

Guess I was surprised as anyone when a new My Bloody valentine album appeared. Like everyone else I just presumed it would be something that would be keep getting put off for years and years. A bit like Chinese Democracy.

I reckon it sounds really good.

You can buy the WAV straight from the band - http://www.mybloodyvalentine.org/Musicdetail.aspx?rid=599&fid=20&brid=5

Exactly how it should be done - being album to buy a lossless version straight from the band.

Here's a stream of the whole thing on youtube if you haven't heard it yet:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2FQ3ih0MoE&list=PLG9zGdKjNW2_S0nRfRmESBmYh3RR-3baU

Pere Ubu and Neil Young

OK, the new Pere Ubu and Neil Young songs are really good.

I'm now going to say a bunch of words like mediafire, rapidshare, zippyshare, free download, megaupload, lossless, piratebay, israbox, torrent, filestube.

As Pere Ubu and Neil Young are both on large record labels I'm presuming they have people employed to try and stamp out free downloads and piracy etc.

Fingers crossed I've used enough naughty words for them to find this blog while they're googling. If this happens to be your job and you're now reading this please could you pass this brief message on to your manager or someone involved in trying to get the artist/label as much cash money as possible:-

I would like to buy both the new Neil Young album and the new Pere Ubu album. However, they are not available to buy anywhere as FLAC (or any other lossless digital format). I'm not paying hard cash for shitty mp3s from itunes/amazon. I don't want a bit of crappy plastic. I just want the music exactly how it came out of the studio (ie FLAC/Lossless) and I'm more than happy to pay for it. There's loads of other people like me. Stop pissing around while you're industry tanks and just sell us the damn music.

Both albums are well worth checking out so here's a couple of youtube vids.

Prolefeed - Murder Rob For Cult Status

Raw, fast, thrashing d-beat hardcore punk in the UK DIY tradition. Ex-members of Flat Earth bands like War All The Time, Boxed In, One By One and all that. Although it does also feature folk steeped in the Geordie noise rock tradition who played in bands like Marzuraan and Orrin De Forest (and current Tide Of Iron who are also fantastic).

It borrows from all that Scandi stuff like Totalitar, Anti Cimex and Mob 47 and all the other old band you see on patches on crusty jackets. And all the raw Japanese stuff as well. Of course, it all goes back to the early stuff of some band from Stoke On Trent.

Punk fucking rock.

Holly Herndon - Movement

One of my favourite albums of 2012. Holly Herndon seems to be among the very small handful of musicians really doing something genuinely new and unique with experimental electronic music.

I mean there's occasional 4/4 beats lurking about and odd bits of squelchy 303-style basslines. However, when I say odd I also mean bizarre.

The third 'song' Breathe is really unsettling. Starts off with lots of odd sounding breaths treated loads and layered. Just sounds completely alien. The kind of thing that could really give you nightmares. Some of them end up almost as the gurgles of someone dying. Not the kind of thing you'd have on your headphones walking home at night down a dark alley.

However, if you happen to be in charge of soundtracking a horror film I've got exactly what you need right here.

There's treated male voice on a later song combined with treated female voice. That one sounds a bit more fun though. Almost like they were sat around making the noises of speeding racing cars at a baby. Total doppler effect stuff going on. Some strange harmonies as well.

It's one of those albums you could probably write a whole essay about if you were that way inclined. I'm happy enough to just say it's brilliant and enjoy listening to it a bunch more.