Millipede – Dungeon Dweller (self released)
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Tennessee’s Joseph Davenport is back with a new Millipede record, this first since 2011′s Realms (although he did have a new piece on my free comp You’re All The Fucking Best) and it’s a fucking winner. This dude belts out the noisiest harsh bliss I’ve ever heard, sounding like he’s tossed a hundred guitars into a raging bonfire, caked in scorched & burnt feedback, with gauzy melodies climbing out from a pit of red hot embers, some blown out mixture of shoegaze, psych, drone folk, & space rock, taking all of those sounds and leaving them out to crust up in the desert sun, the core still peaking through the shell, and in fact the “lead” guitar is more noticeable than ever in The Lower World, nuzzling up to your ear drums while the caustic distortion bores through your skull, this is a masochistic record of pain & pleasure, the beauty buried deep in grit and wholly worth excavating, one of Millipede’s best, and exciting as hell because this the second part of a trilogy (Realms being the first), so we know there’s more destructive brilliance on the horizon.
Lisa/Liza – Black Out (self released)
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Download Ancient Edge
/purely intimate/
/shining voice obscured by clouds/
/melted harmony/
Haute-Cimes – Pertt (self released)
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A caustic debut by this new French dude, and he’s giving it away for free. Grab it first, read later. This is some awesome fucked noise, like Yellow Swans on a murdering spree or Gnaw Their Tongues doing power electronics. Scary brutal static, nauseous paranoia, fucking intense blow outs of grit & grime, clear and distorted vocals, dappled with moments of respite, beauty, chirping birds, none lasting too long before being jerked back into the terror. Film samples get thrown around, sometimes recognizable & enjoyable, like a clip from My Neighbor Totoro, others are a bit more horrifying, like the one of a girl screaming for her life while a maniac laughs. Some uniquely killer shit, no reason to pass over this. Digitally free, or pay some cash and get a tape.
Sujo – Ceptian (Inam)
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Download Terran
/fog thick blackened bliss/
/grey dawn turns to wall of noise/
/faint spectral crackle/
Liturgy: huge transcendental black metal which nobody seemed to give a shit about, Royale only at about quarter capacity when Liturgy went on, only played a half hour set which would have been pretty lame, but it was ok because they didn’t actually sound all that great, the lead guitar & drums were all you could hear, drowning out the second guitar, bass, and vocals, literally couldn’t hear any vocals unless it was one of those solo vocal loop songs, and the second guitar was almost non-existent, theories: a) I was standing in front of the lead guitar amp so it was my own damn fault, b) the sound guy did a super shitty job, c) the lead Liturgy guy came down with a case of the big egos… at least the drummer was a fuckin BEAST
Asobi Seksu: never sounded better, they were loud as hell, more metal than pop, falling right in line with Liturgy & Boris, covered JAMC’s “Never Understand” and Yuki jumped into a mostly bland audience but it was still super fucking awesome, lots of Citrus love which was great for a Citrus lover such as myself, finished with one of the more epic songs on Citrus (can’t remember which one) and then Boris’ drummer Atsuo came out to fuck shit up on his set while Yuki took on Tony’s drums and Tony messed around with James’ pedals while James destroyed his guitar, so so cool
Boris: LOUD doomgaze psych metal awesomeness, lots of newer material but the good stuff, crowd was way into ‘em, obviously, sadly only did a couple of the slow doomed shit, still great, ended with “Pink” and an epically long “Aileron,” expectedly bangedover this morning
Liturgy
Asobi Seksu
Boris
Millipede – Destroyers And Usurpers (Dead Pilot)
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It’s been way too long since Millipede (aka Joseph Davenport) has put out a full length (only a year but still) and he comes back on a new label (previously on Install) and with some trendy cover art (ignore it if it’s not your thing but either way I don’t think it says too much about the sound. Just imagine it’s a version of the Triforce because this dude started out making Zelda inspired noise). Truly fantastic sounds on here. Scathing & grating guitar harshness, a Neil Young worshiper getting high on Skullflower, Love Is A Stream taken to the next Holy Noise level, My Bloody Valentine recording on the surface of the sun. Nearly impenetrable grit with glorious melodies shining through, Davenport clearly honing his skills, diving deeper into the bliss birthed from cacophony. If you’ve followed Millipede through the full blooms on Death Mountain, this is the next stop on the journey and an absolutely necessary one at that. Noobs take a seat and learn how it’s done.
My buddy Crawford from Tome To The Weather Machine sent me over the newest video his band Vitamins put out. “No Notion Of Anything Only Whatever Is What” is a nice shoegazin kraut psych pop track with lots of room for partying. High stakes ice skating videos chopped & layered, triple axels blowin the roof off the place. The end is fuckin teaser of the year.
Posted in video on March 10th, 2011
Pet Milk – Cherry Outline
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Note: I got a massive batch of 15 tapes from Peasant Magik. I debated on either giving a few of them the regular full blown review treatment or doing the burst shot quick & dirty reviews to get through as many as possible. I chose the latter. So this is one in a slew of short portraits of some of the newest Peasant Magik releases.
As soon as this tape starts up, you’re lost in the fuzz. ROCKIN fuzz. It’s full of high-energy bite-sized punkgaze with obscured boy/girl vocals and even more obscured pop riffs. There’s epic melodies and a slight cosmic feeling that sounds a lot like if Hum made a shoegaze record. I’m sure if Hum did that it would be 100 times better than everything else in the world (including Pet Milk) but this is still a cool enough imagination primer. Either way though, Pet Milk is definitely going for that old school C86 vibe in a truly awesome way. Also, they cover MBV’s “Paint A Rainbow” and they do a pretty decent job.
