Sleeping Heart

Giles Corey - "Sleeping Heart"
[goth-folk]

Giles Corey- Sleeping Heart from Justin Donais on Vimeo.

Easily one of my most anticipated albums of the year is the upcoming full-length by Giles Corey - aka one half of Have a Nice Life - which has been a long time coming, having demos kicking around the internet since basically HANL came out as totally a thing. Totally downer doom-country that, while not explicitly about being crushed to death, is nonetheless thematically heavy and oppressive with the music ranging from stripped-down voice-and-guitar suicide notes to surprisingly lush ghostly full-band Americana. Pre-orders should be going live soon, and of course the packaging is going to be phenomenal and include some lengthy, vague/threatening "book" that is sure to end lives.

Put My Dream on This Planet

If you're not familiar with Jandek, I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article on him, because it's one of the more intriguing stories in contemporary music, especially since rock and roll has lost much (read: all) of its mystique.

A quick run-down: a man (herein referred to as Jandek for convenience's sake) release a bunch of outsider folk albums in the late 70's/80's, disappears for a while, comes back with a trio of spoken word albums, experiments for a while, then randomly plays some live shows for the first time... ever in the mid-2000's. Why is this so interesting?

Well, we barely know who Jandek is.

He releases his own albums (on a label called Corwood Industries, which, in addition to being owned by Jandek, releases only Jandek material), has offered only 2 official interviews ever, and makes only sporadic, largely unannounced live appearances. During his hiatus, it was assumed his output was a result of a manic recording session resulting in over a dozen albums, but then he came back, decidedly older sounding, and we're led to believe he's still at it. Hell, there was no way to confirm that he was even the gentleman that appears on almost all his album covers until he played his first live show nearly 30 years after releasing his first album (which itself was released under a different pseudonym, under the guise that it was a band that released it).

Put My Dream on This Planet is one of his "experimental" albums: almost an hour of unaccompanied voice, half-singing and cripplingly depressed. "I Need Your Life" is a 28 minute plea of uncomfortable desperateness, that might be laughable if it weren't so serious and, well, sad, in every sense of the word.

I don't even care if I'm in a wheelchair
Or in a bed
Unable to move
For all I know
It's better than what I did today

"It's Your House", likewise, is a grovelling mess but a bit more poetic, as The Representative from Corwood demands a house made from granite and iron, denying all frills and extravagances in his quest for solitude and stability ("no glass, no wood, no plastic, no brick, no shingles, no aluminum siding, no syn-thet-ic [dramatic pause; our narrator desperately trying to find what he doesn't need] fibres") until he surrenders the building (presumably to whoever's Life he Needs), turning it into a symbol of commitment. Or trying to, anyway. Sad, really.

"I Went Outside" clocks in at only 1:18; for most of the song, he tries to find his shoes, and when he finally gets out, it's only snowy and cold.

Call it a sad mess of regrettable poetry or a brutally honest account of a personal crisis, either way Put My Dream on This Planet is enthralling, though difficult to listen to in terms of subject and presentation. Are you man enough?



Jandek - I Need Your Life
Jandek - It's Your House
Jandek - I Went Outside [COMING SOON - my internet's being a bitch]

If you want to buy some, check out this flyer and mail the man a cheque.

SHOW REVIEW: MV+EE w/ Woods, $100

Folk rock extravaganza at my favourite local art gallery for $10? Sign me up.

First and foremost: the Whippersnapper Gallery is a fantastic venue. It is easily accessible by public transit (I'm looking at you, Sound Academy), suitably intimate (read: small), and since it is, at its core, an art gallery, it makes for a lovely place to see a show. As if that weren't enough, there's a very nice bunch of folks who run this place, and do their best to support local talent at a minimal cost to both the artists and the visitors. Seriously, catch a show or exhibit or party or anything you can there; this place deserves your support.

As for the show, it opened with $100, a local alt-country band getting a decent amount of buzz about them lately. That being said, I can in no way appreciate the genre they play, so I don't feel as though I can fairly say anything about their performance another than "I didn't like it" and "the free nachos at the makeshift bar were delicious and free."

Woods were undoubtedly the band that people came to see, as the crowd ballooned to twice its size after $100. They're the latest little buzz band, I hear? Whatever, it's well deserved: these guys write some viciously catchy fuzzed-out folk-pop, and balance it nicely with some psychedelic/jam elements. And, as if I needed more reason to love them, their live tape... player? Performer? Tapist?... is wildly entertaining: some sort of noise S&M enthusiast, masking himself with sideways headphones and abusing the shit out of a pedal-board-cum-DJ-set-up-cum-noise-factory. But despite the image, his drones and squeals and back-up vocals were tasteful and subtle, and added a ton to their live show, especially when things got far out, man.

I was kinda saddened that literally 75% of people left before MV+EE even began setting up, but fuck 'em, the hipsters only missed out on a great set. (I must also shamefully admit I had to leave somewhat early to catch the last bus home) They played with whatever band it is they have now (I believe it's the Golden Road) and kicked out jams from Gettin' Gone and the recent Drone Trailer, with each song being twisted and stretched into extended country-fried jam sessions, the highlight for me being the reinterpretation of the folk song "Hammer", with Erika Elder sounding as lovely live as she does on record, and Matt Valentine grabbing the Telecaster for some downright heavy fuzz riffage.

In addition to playing amazing sets, both Woods and MV+EE are composed for an extremely friendly bunch of people who manned their own merch booths and were more than happy to have a chat, and seemed genuinely grateful to everyone who talked and bought merch (and, y'know, certain drummers from certain jam bands gave props to certain bloggers for wearing a certain Comus shirt, which was also cool (certainly).

Great bands, great sets, great venue, great nachos... what's not to like?

Check 'em out if they come to your neck of the woods, and definitely stop by the Whippersnapper if you're in the GTA.


P.S. sorry it's been all live reviews lately; I'll get back to the usual this week!

The hollow mountain

As I'm sure you may have inferred by now, I'm a big proponent of buying records and physically owning music: artwork and packaging is absolutely vital to fully experiencing an album the way it was meant to be heard. And what arrived in my mailbox the other day is, perhaps, the greatest affirmation of that fact: The Hollow Mountain by TwinSisterMoon.



Scans aren't quite going to do this thing justice, but give it a look. In person, the booklet is a huge 8"x8" piece of screen-printed gorgeousness, tucked inside a beautiful hand-screened sleeve with a slab of hand-numbered vinyl (19/105 here.) Let's just say thank goodness it came in a protective record sleeve.



I was almost hesitant to play this thing: what if my hand slips? What if the needle scratches this beyond repair? FUUUUUUCK. But yeah, eventually I found my testicles and played the thing and wow. Like most releases by Natural Snow Buildings and all related projects, this is truly a record to crank to 10 and get lost in.




The structure of this album is a lot like that on his portion of the 3-way split, The Snowbringer Cult: eastern-tinged drones interspersed with acoustic folk. The drone numbers are standard fare for Mehdi Ameziane, which is to say, fucking awesome. All matter of instruments I can barely pronounce ebbing and flowing like a Lightbright melting underwater on acid. Sure, it's pretty same-y to his Natural Snow Buildings stuff which, in turn, is pretty same-y to isengrind (aka Solange Gularte, aka the lady-half of NSB) but when it's all so great I can't really be bothered by it. It's the shorter, simpler folk tunes that make TwinSisterMoon stand out: although technically unremarkable and all following a similar arpeggiated chord pattern, Ameziane's falsetto is gut-wrenching, and to have the lyrics finally printed only adds to the experience, giving grounding to the otherwise indistinct wailings.

I daresay this is the most accessible material from the project, and certainly from the whole NSB collection: the folk songs are beautiful, and the drones are all soothingly psychedelic (as opposed to some of the stuff found on Nigh Coercion...) and in digestible lengths of less than 10 minutes (sorry, no 46-minute "Song for Laurie Bird" here). Probably the perfect gateway to anyone who's had this project. The vinyl sold out immediately, but there is going to be a CD version on Ultra Hard Gel with a bonus track to boot.

In the meantime, you can get your TwinSisterMoon fix with the 3-way split The Snowbringer Cult, still not sold out (?!) which is actually a better introduction to this French psychdronefolkgaze madness, so ignore what I said before.

From The Hollow Mountain:
TwinSisterMoon - Bride of Spirits
Note: Dull Knife, thankfully, made sure this LP was sold only to people who wanted the record, not to the notorious eBayers who re-sell these things at several times their original price. As such, I am respecting their wishes and only giving you the sample MP3 they have on their own site.

From The Snowbringer Cult
TwinSisterMoon - Amantsokan
TwinSisterMoon - Kingdom of the Sea

Comus rape, Comus break, sweet young virgin's virtue take!

It's always a pleasant surprise when the most interesting and experimental bands you can find were actually active 40 years ago. Such was the case when I stumbled upon Comus roughly over a year ago. A tragically short lived and largely-membered group of musicians from the UK who released one of the most "out-there" albums of the early (early early) 70's, First Utterance. Seriously, it is difficult to conceive that must like this was released in 1971, and even harder to imagine it was conceived 2-3 years before that. HOLY SHIT.



It's sort of hard to describe, but imagine a group of medieval minstrels on LSD on acid playing some sort of proto-freak folk (in the sense that this is freaky and it is folky, not in the sense it's that made-up genre people sometimes label Animal Collective as.) Thematically, the song varies in themes from rape to more rape to torture to rape and torture (to the oddly out-of-place celestially-themed prog-rock wankery of "The Herald", which is probably a metaphor for rape (i.e. "flutes", etc.)

None of this would really be half as interesting as it is if it weren't for Roger Wootton vocal style, which ranges from yelping to screaming to warbling to sometimes actual singing; definitely download "Song to Comus" to see what I mean, because it really makes the songs extra-special. EXTRA SPECIAL.

Most exciting of all and most extra special is that the band recently announced a goddamn reunion after a 35-ish year split. I will donate any part of my body (you hear that, Comus? Any part.) for a Toronto date. Please.

Comus - Diana
Comus - Song to Comus

Comments are always appreciated. Tell me what you like, what you don't, want you want more or less of, or send me some recommendations or anything. And if you wanna link to me, I'll link to you. No homo.

Holy hell, I am slow with updates.

Even though an overwhelming 3 people read my last entry, I am compelled to do another one. Sorry it took so long, all of you cats waiting for a new 'un; school, work, etc, etc. You know how it is.

Anyways, not too long ago I was able to track down a vinyl copy of Half-Eaten Guitar by Wyrd Visions. The LP was released some 2 years ago to only 350 copies, and I was able to find one brand new at Rotate This which made me sort of sad that it hadn't sold out. Then again, I first heard this chap back in October when he opened for Mount Eerie, so I shouldn't be chastising anyone's laziness regarding this record.



I don't know quite how to classify what Colin Bergh does under this moniker. I mean, sure, it's acoustic, that's a start; it's not exactly folk, mind you. Black metal? Ergh... yeah, actually. Acoustic minimalist black metal? Post-black metal? Fuck it.

Live, these songs are all done through an extensive loop pedal work out, and it feels the same on record: layers and layers of fairly simply phrases. The "riffs", if they may be called such, are undeniably black metal, just slowed down and played sans buzzsaw distortion. His cover of Mayhem's "Freezing Moon" really puts it all into perspective, and then you notice the ultra br00tal crescent moon/inverted cross artwork... the pink throws you off, don't it? And you wouldn't think the innocently titled "Air Conditioning" would be a full-on distortion black metal piece a la [Burzum's] "The Crying Orc", but there you go.

Anyway, if you can focus for a period of time longer than 5 minutes, give this track a listen and then buy the album (the CD is still in print.)

Wyrd Visions - Bog Lord