AM Research Results [fact.] (Page 6 of 9)

PLAN 9..
Featuring four guitars and a sound straight from those psychedelic '60s, Rhode Island's Plan 9 dealt with little except period covers on their first album, 1982's Frustration. The group added a batch of originals on Dealing With the Dead, and spent the next two albums compiling early singles (Plan 9) and documenting their live show (I've Just Killed a Man, I Don't Want to See Any Meat). Plan 9 began to add remnants of hard rock with 1985's Keep Your Cool & Read the Rules, but after switching to Enigma, the group stripped its '60s influences and began sounding like a plain old rock band.

by John Bush

Epic Soundtracks writes affecting piano ballads and mid-tempo pieces with an ease that belies how good these songs are. Though J. Mascis (drums on two tracks) and Kim Gordon (voice on "Big Apple Graveyard") do contribute, this is Epic's show; he provides most of the music and all the magic. Many songs have a traditional feel and sound strangely familiar.

^^^^^sounds interesting, Markus^^^^^

Found this when trying to find a download:

I've been listening to an album tonight that I thought my usual readers might enjoy. It's the self-titled debut from Vic Conrad & the First Third, released by Hidden Agenda/Elephant 6 in 2003. While I wouldn't characterize the band as a member of the Elephant 6 cohort, it's not hard to see where this project relates to the E6 stable musically. They deal in a similar brand of psych-pop bliss/oddity. Don't be fooled though; they're from Australia, not Athens. I understand that Vic Conrad used to the frontman for an Australian pop group called The Garden Path.

Also think I read somewhere that it was released on Bevis Fronds label or something...(?)

Psychedelic music is not only psychedelic rock, psychedelic soul and psychedelic funk--it is also psychedelic folk-rock--and one of the most psychedelic-sounding folk-rock groups of the 21st century has been the Dublin, Ireland-based Jessie & Layla. The guitar-playing vocal duo is comprised of sisters Jessie and Layla Collins, whose trippy, hazy, lush approach to folk-rock owes a lot to the era that gave us the Summer of Love, Woodstock, flower power and Haight-Ashbury. Influences from the '60s and early '70s have had a major impact on Jessie & Layla's ethereal sound, including the Fairport Convention, the Strawbs, the late Sandy Denny, the Mamas & Papas and the Beatles (specifically, the Beatles during their White Album/Abbey Road/Magical Mystery Tour/Yellow Submarine period rather than the Beatles in the early to mid-'60s). But for all their '60s and early '70s worship, Jessica & Layla are not a carbon copy of that era. The Irish siblings also have their share of ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s influences; alternative pop-rock, shoegazer music and adult alternative have affected them as well, and their work also has some things in common with Lush and the Cardigans as well as the Bangles.

Although both of the Collins Sisters were born and raised in Dublin, they haven't spent all of their lives on the Emerald Isle. Layla lived in Paris for a while, and Jessie spent some time in New York City. But both of them ended up moving back to their home town, and the 2000s found Jessie & Layla performing together frequently in the Irish capital. Jessie & Layla's debut album, Kinetic, was produced by Liam Mulvaney in Dublin in 2004 and was originally released on Rooster Records in 2005. After that, Jessie & Layla came to the attention of producer Mark Kramer's Second Shimmy label, which has been described as a reincarnation of Kramer's old label Shimmy Disc. Kramer digitally remastered Kinetic in 2006 and reissued the album on Second Shimmy in 2007.

UFO Goes UFA - Pop garage symphony N°9 (2008)

Annoncé comme la dernière sortie extraterrestre de chez Freaksville Record (euphémisme?) le projet anglo belge UFO Goes UFA est porteur de grandes espérances. Derrière les manettes, une pléiade de guests qui ont fait leur preuve dans l'indie rock ces dernières années dont le mythique gourou Kramer, leader du label new yorkais culte Shimmy disc, entre autres producteur et ingé son sur des groupes cultes eux aussi dans le milieu, Ween, Sonic Youth, Yo la tengo, Jon Spencer, Daniel Johnston, j'en passe et des meilleurs. Ajoutez à cela Monsieur Miam Miam Monster (sic) aux arrangements, porteur d'une certaine identité chanson post gainsbourgienne tendance pop garage, saupoudrez le tout d'une bonne dose de culture buble gum et d'une pincée (poignée) de bon goût, et vous obtenez l'ovni en question.

A force de se palucher devant le staff 4 étoiles on en oublierait presque les 3 musiciens, deux qui font raisonner les percus et vibrer les synthés, un autre qui pousse la chansonnette (en anglais). Nommons les, ce sera fait. Sophie Galet à la rythmique, Pascal Scalp à la basse, Brian Carney aux petites touches blanches et noires et enfin Brian Androïd 80 le chanteur liverpoolien. Premier jet et pourtant, cette symphonie est à l'aise dans tous les domaines: électro blues, synthés Krautrock analogiques, guitares vintages. Un côté touche à tout qui lorgne chez le Captain Beefheart et qui témoigne d'une énergie débordante, d'une réelle envie de bien faire.

Si l'influence de l'Oncle Sam est incontestable (le Velvet) l'Angleterre est également bien présente, comme sur cette intro de UFO Goe UFA Theme, où l'on semble entendre Oasis fulminer. C'est indéniablement l'hymne du groupe, arrogant comme un adolescent. Mention spéciale aux titres des morceaux, tous emprunts de culture série B : Zombie Nation III, Twilight salope, The Pipea, the Good and the Bad... Et pourtant, il est très dur de parler de cette musique au sens musical du terme. C'est un peu le défaut de ce son Freaksville, à force de vouloir toucher à tout avec classe, il s'éparpille et n'adopte pas varient d'identité particulière. Allez reconnaître UFO en blind test si vous ne connaissez pas les chansons... Ne boudons pas notre plaisir et accueillons ce premier opus (le 15 avril prochain) comme un condensé de rock garage, belge et barré, frais et bigarré.

En bref : Un premier disque rock racé et cultivé, peut-être en manque d’identité mais annonciateur d’un groupe de qualité.

Hessup Swede-i can heckle you a zip when i have got my registered shimmy disc fröm the mailman-sheers+best wishes.

M

June Panic is a singer-songwriter and sonic experimenter from Fargo, North Dakota. Bob Dylan, Marc Bolan, and Skip Spence all come to mind when listening to Panic: Dylan because he begins with traditional American music forms and then twists them to fit his own idiosyncratic vision, often to nearly unrecognizable extremes; Bolan for his penchant for pomp and outrageous-even ridiculous- imagery; and Spence, not simply because he plays every instrument on his albums, but because of a neurotic claustrophobia that acts as the common tread among his disparate styles. Panic's vocal style reminds of Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes and the subjects of his songs seem to cover much the same territory as the Femmes: jittery angst, sexual frustration, and self-depreciation.

Review

by Thom Jurek

Songs from Purgatory is a massive three-disc offering by June Panic that assembles archived four-track recordings from 1991-1996. There are 48 tracks in all that beg questions of excess, self-indulgence, and the complete and utter dedication of the indie imprint Secretly Canadian to its artists. Panic began recording for the label in 1999, and has since issued five full-lengths for them. Why they chose to release this monster is anybody's guess, but Panic must have a group of true believers who've been clamoring for this stuff. Rather than break this all down, it's safe to say that these archival recordings have their own secret history. Done on four-track -- yes, long before Pro Tools -- these are homemade studio offerings with Panic playing a load of the instruments on his own, and sometimes with other collaborators. None of the material has seen the proper light of day before. In fact, these tapes almost ceased to exist at all according to the liner notes. They were retrieved from a massive flood in Grand Forks North Dakota, from Panic's parents' flooded basement, and restored using primitive but effective methods or re-soaking and cleaning in a cramped apartment kitchen in three pots!!! So with water first and then a solution of alcohol and water, they have been remastered by Kramer, which eliminates the lion's share of tape hiss inherent in four-track cassette recordings. That said, they've lost none of their lo-fi charm and obnoxiousness. The music ranges from Sebadoh-style indie rock, to loose, shambolic blasting pop to quirky ballads that remind one of Simon Joyner (though without his own harrowingly beautiful vision -- where's his boxed set?) and everything in between.

Songs from Purgatory, which has its own pretentious and heady explanation in the liners by the artist, is an historic document in a manner that is larger than he is. It reveals a mindset and an M.O. pervasive in indie rock in America at a particular place in time. Though we are not far enough away from that period yet to have any real perspective hardly matters; it's there, it should be listened to in the context of that time. Because, to be truthful, there isn't anything here that really transcends it. It was recorded during a period in rock when anything was possible because nothing really was -- except for Nirvana. For better and worse, this is the real thing. A lot of this stuff is simply pedestrian. Some of it is almost brilliant in the same way and feeling that Elliott Smith's less mature early work is, and some of it begs more than a listen or two. Sure, this is a lot to take in for anybody. But, the fact that anybody went through this much effort just to keep a record of his own artistic life is both egocentric and admirable. There is meaning invested in this material for all that effort alone. And, as music, there is strangeness, charm, excess, ideas that don't work, and enough genuine rock & roll spirit to make it all worthwhile. For anyone who followed June Panic, there is so much here to delight you, you would most likely never regret having purchased this. For those music freaks interested in the period, this is akin to having an archive to look into and look back onto and consider in reference to what else happened. There is great pleasure to be derived from taking this set in a disc at a time, and perhaps even ecstasy if you let yourself be bludgeoned with it all at once. Secretly Canadian, however, should be applauded and celebrated for putting its money, once again, where it has always been: behind the artist.

Few bands in Boston rock & roll history have lasted as long, and made as much good music, as Lyres. Led by garage rock obsessive, record collector, Farfisa organ king, and world-class megalomaniac Jeff "Monoman" Conolly, Lyres rose from the ashes of Conolly's first band, DMZ. Sporting a similar high-energy trash-rock sound indebted to the Seeds, ? & the Mysterians, the Stooges, and the early British Invasion (especially early Kinks), Lyres, for a brief, shining moment, were the kingpins of Boston's punk rock scene. Resembling venerable British blues-rockers Savoy Brown because of a constantly changing lineup (something like 40 musicians have passed through the ranks), Lyres (or more specifically, Monoman) gleefully party on, oblivious of trends or the assorted vagaries of the alternative rock marketplace. A dinosaur in his own right? Perhaps, but as long as Jeff Conolly has his organ, a few guys behind him, and a place to play, the simple joy that can only be had through rock & roll will exist in this world -- hipness be damned!

Sometimes an album comes along that's so deranged and far gone, it invokes naught but stunned looks of disbelief (often accompanied by uncontrollable drooling) from the listener. Surpassing that is Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine's Rampton, an exercise in doom-noise absurdity that craps black sludge on any and all musical conventions in its path, causing one to chuckle at Napalm Death, who at one time had the tenacity to tout itself as the end of music as we know it. Uh huh. It sort of makes sense that TOLRTD is a doom metal supergroup, consisting of drummer Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey), vocalist Lee Dorrian (Cathedral, Napalm Death), guitarist Stephen O'Malley (Khanate, Sunn O))), Burning Witch) and guitarist/Southern Lord leader Greg Anderson (Sunn O))), Goatsnake) -- although Rampton is, by design, truly shatterpated, the enemy of all things logical, and most likely the product of excessive ingestion of chemical depressants. Take opening cut "He Who Accepts All That Is Offered (Feel Bad Hit of the Winter)" as a prime example: A quasi-response to Queens of the Stone Age's smugly ironic single "Feel Good Hit of the Summer," the 29-minute track is an endless slog through countless filthy snowdrifts of ambient noise, feedback, and sluggish drumming, Dorrian's goofy, monotonous vocal droning on about (presumably) a particularly bad acid trip, if you care to squint at the lyric sheet, which is printed in a nearly indecipherable font. "New Pants and Shirt" and "The Smiler" continue the album's lead-footed trudge through a polluted haze of billowing smog and soot, sounding like a hellish mixture of Sunn O))) or Earth-style ambient noise dementia and Sleep's one-sloppy-riff-will-do-for-the-next-eight-minutes non-work ethic -- kind of like dragging Cathedral or Eyehategod across the turntable at about 11 rpm. And that's it -- three songs, 55 minutes, and countless glazed-over eyeballs rolling back into heads. Only Sleep's 52-minute, one-song, one-riff excursion Jerusalem rivals Rampton in sheer ludicrousness. Maybe the members of TOLRTD were really staring into the blackened pits of hell as they passed this black-tarred beast into the night, or perhaps they were snickering while constructing such epic, grotesque excursions into lunacy -- either way, their intentions were undoubtedly foul and insidious. For appreciators of mentally unhinged anti-music only, and, uh, handle with care.

That Teeth of Lion's Rule the Divine sounds mad brill Mak. Great sleeve too.

Ya heard it?

Debuting in 1991 as a three-piece support act for the Frogs, Strapping Fieldhands made a few waves as one of the more charming -- albeit ramshackle -- bands in indie-rock's decidedly ragged lo-fi movement. The band, comprised of Bob Malloy, Bob Dickie, Jacy Webster, Sky Kishlo and Jeff Werner, gigged around Philadelphia and recorded their debut EP, The Demiurge, in 1991 for Siltbreeze Records. Several singles for the label followed, and Strapping Fieldhands released their first album, Discus, in 1993. The group played around the East and followed up with two ten-inch EPs released during 1994, In the Pineys and The Caul. The band's second LP, Wattle & Daub, was released by Shangri-La in 1996. Siltbreeze later combined Strapping Fieldhands' seven-inch output on the compilation Gobs on the Midway.

Viking Moses, otherwise known as Brendon Massei, is a nomad of sorts. He's a high-school dropout who's been perpetually on the road since 1996, with much of that time spent with his acoustic guitar, touring with or supporting artists such as Little Wings, Ted Leo, Will Oldham, Cat Power, the Microphones, and Devendra Banhart (on whose compilation Golden Apples of the Sun the song "Crosses" first appeared). He has records under the names Supperbell Roundup, Brendon Massei, and most recently Viking Moses. Crosses is his second release with Marriage Records, actually a two-disc co-release with piano player and labelmate Spencer Kingman.

Swedish singer and songwriter Tobias Fröberg achieved stunning success in his homeland with his debut album in 2004, and has won a growing international following with his second album, 2006's Somewhere in the City, which recalls the cream of the folk-influenced singer/songwriter movement of the '60s and '70s, particularly Paul Simon, Nick Drake, and Tim Buckley. Fröberg was born and raised in Gotland, an island community known as a haven for artists and a popular vacation destination. Fröberg grew up in a musical household -- his father played bass in a jazz ensemble -- but despite his love for music, he initially pursued a successful career as a journalist, writing for a variety of publications in addition to contributing a regular column to Aftonbladet, the nation's biggest newspaper. Fröberg often joked to friends that if he could interview Neil Young and Ingmar Bergman the same day, he'd consider his career as a writer complete and give it up to make music. In 2003, Bergman agreed to talk with Fröberg for a book he was writing on the publicity-shy Swedish filmmaker. The night of his final interview with Bergman, Fröberg attended a Neil Young concert in Stockholm, and figuring this was as close as fate was likely to allow to achieving his great goal, he quit his job and returned to Gotland to begin writing songs. Fröberg set up a home studio, and contacted his close friend Linus Larsson, a successful record producer. Together they made Fröberg's 2004 debut album, For Elisabeth Wherever She Is; Larsson handled the recording and played the drums, while Fröberg played all the other instruments. The album was a considerable critical success, and received an Album of the Year nomination from Sweden's most prestigious independent music award committee. Fröberg and Larsson took their time making the follow-up, spending over a hundred days in their studio recording 2006's Somewhere in the City; once again Fröberg and Larsson played nearly all the instruments, though Ane Brun contributed a memorable duet vocal for the song "Love and Misery." When one of the tracks from the album was licensed for use in a camera commercial, Fröberg's music was suddenly being heard all over Europe, and the British Poptones label signed Fröberg to a deal in the U.K., where Somewhere in the City received rave reviews. Meanwhile, the rising indie label Cheap Lullaby Records gave Somewhere in the City an American release, and in the spring of 2007 Fröberg made his debut in the States, including a pair of shows at the prestigious South by Southwest Music Conference.