Wooden Shjips

Wooden Shjips

Shjips In The Night: Live In San Francisco, June 8, 2018

Silver Current

***Available again in limited supply!!!  Now entering their 13th year of drone and dirge drug-boogie, the Wooden Shjips, one of the linchpins of the neo-psychedelic movement of the new millennium, continue to expand on their concept of the eternal and infinite riff, ever higher and outward, year after year.  Their first official live album, Shjips In The Night: Live In San Francisco, June 8, 2018 is as much a summation of their journey so far as it is an ultra-saturated, full color snap-shot of their peak live powers at present. At once cosmic and heavy, dream-like and searing in equal measures (and often all at once), this is the capture of a single live performance, multi-tracked at Slim’s in San Francisco by Eric Bauer and Damien Rasmussen and in a unique creative twist, was mixed by the band’s friends and colleagues in underground psych rock, Heron Oblivion, who hand out the Nitrous balloons and bring their own subtle (and not so subtle) enhancement of the show’s dark but kaleidoscopic color palette to the Shjips’ universe through performance mixing and post-production effects worm-holes, all the while keeping the Shjips’ long time band chemistry and natural sonic power at the forefront of the listener’s experience.  Shjips In The Night is a career-spanning set that includes performances of songs from their first EP to their latest V out last year on Thrill Jockey.

Wooden Shjips

Vol. 2

Sick Thirst

Strap in for travels beyond the galaxy to tranced-out cosmic bliss! Sick Thirst presents Vol. 2, the second compilation of hard-to-find Wooden Shjips tracks. Vol. 2 digs deep to collect the band's Sub Pop and Mexican Summer singles, two self-released European tour singles, and a track from Yeti magazine, for nearly 44 minutes of fuzzed-out psych jams. Not just for completists, Vol. 2 contains the essential live standards "Loose Lips," "Death's Not Your Friend (Live)", and "I Hear the Vibrations (E-Z Version)," plus savage covers of Neil Young's "Vampire Blues" and Serge Gainsbourg's "Contact."Wooden Shjips is a trance-rock quartet from San Francisco consisting of Omar Ahsanuddin (drums), Dusty Jermier (bass), Nash Whalen (organ), and Ripley Johnson (guitar and vocals). Their sound crosses the icy garage rock of early Echo and the Bunnymen with the sun-bleached tremolo-punk of the Scientists. Hints of krautrock, the trance-inducing organ haze of Suicide, Velvets-style dance-drone, classic desert-fried garage psych, and the mysterious, obscure Japanese lysergic-rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are all mixed into one explosive whole.The band has released two acclaimed LPs and a previous collection of rarities on the Holy Mountain label. Their recordings and performances have received praise from well-regarded tastemakers such as Tom Lax, Byron Coley, John Mulvey, and David Fricke.In 2010, Wooden Shjips embark on a March tour of Australia and New Zealand, including appearances at Lost Weekend Festival (AU) and Golden Plains Festival (AU). An April tour of the UK and Europe precedes festival appearances at All...

Wooden Shjips

Dos

Holy Mountain

***BACK IN PRINT ON VINYL!!!  How many music bloggers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, computer screens are backlit. Here we have a Wooden Shjips record the world saw coming--not titled II, Sophomore, or Second, but Dos. The group maintains its strident pace like a silverfish rave in perfectly folded bedsheets, with more bounce per ounce as life goes jogging with bopping heads and digging heels. Five numbers whose style might fit as cozily at La Cave in 1968 as at Ibiza in 1988. Natural loops with just enough vocals take you where the khakis and the cut-offs play together.  Dos sounds off as the inauguration speech of a group accepting the minimalist psych bop crown that once adorned the likes of Neu and Loop. If possible, their brand of whipping fuzz hooks have gotten groovier. "Motorbike" begins the program with an attack of bleeding organ and cicada chirps--a wiley, wheel-spinning cloud-kicker indeed. "For So Long" introduces the hip-swayed, shoulder-dropping dance steps of the album. At this point, the guitar delivers a concise Fogerty / Karoli vibe of stiff and loose kraut blues. Closing side one is the stop-motion go-go anthem "Down by the Sea." Imagine yourself in the back of a cigarette boat with Alan Vega and Takashi Mizutani circling Easter Island. Smile as you melt under the glare of their mirrored sunglasses staring your own face back at you.  The needle drops on side two. Beyond the dawning of the age...

Wooden Shjips

Vol. 1

Holy Mountain

***Available on vinyl again!!!  The Wooden Shjips' earliest material was released on vinyl, pressed in small quantities that were either free or hard to come by and are now hopelessly out of print. Who are we to keep you away from the rush of "Shrinking Moon for You"? Vol. 1 collects all the tracks from the free 10-inch, the Dance, California 7-inch, and the SOL 7-inch.  The band will be out playing live, in their own nimble way, this spring and summer, road-testing new material for their next record.  "... [T]ight-wound repeato psych guitar raunch with spoony (maybe even imaginary) percussion, surprisingly Rev-like keys, and vocals buried under burning driftwood. It's a nice one." --Byron Coley, Wire   "... Wooden Shjips seem to have their wagon hitched to a post psychedelic/punk damaged Krautrock environ that just not enough people are astute enough to homestead." --Tom Lax, Siltblog  "Like fellow locals Comets on Fire or English space rockers Hawkwind or Spaceman 3, Wooden Shjips' magic is created by a mix of pummeling hypnotic grooves and otherworldly guitar that sounds like Hendrix strung out in a methadone clinic." --Andy Tennille, HARP  "'Dance, California' locks onto a three-note, twangy, nuclear beach groove and hangs out there for the duration, guitar slashery (in the single-note sweepstakes for a good long while) shooting over the top like artillery fire. On the other side, an atmospheric, slow drone and steady pulse frame blistery lead and what's that, vocals? Oh,...

Wooden Shjips

S/t

Holy Mountain

NEW LP PRESSING NOW INCLUDES DOWNLOAD CARD     Wooden Shjips, a quartet from San Francisco heavily influenced by the experimentalism of psychedelia, classical minimalism, and garage rock excess, started as an experiment in rhythmic primitivism and group improvisation. The current roster brings a more structured rock approach to its performances, utilizing a traditional lineup of drums (Omar Ahsanuddin), bass (Dusty Jermier), organ (Nash Whalen), guitar (Erik “Ripley” Johnson), and vocals.  The band released two acclaimed records in 2006, beginning early in the year with a self-released 10-inch, Shrinking Moon for You. The record quickly sold out, after capturing the attention of well-regarded tastemakers, such as Tom Lax and Byron Coley, who penned rave reviews on Siltblog, and in Wire magazine, respectively. A 7-inch followed on the Sick Thirst label, and received similar praise from music bloggers, as well as from veteran scribe David Fricke in Rolling Stone.  The band has three 2007 releases planned: this LP/CD for Holy Mountain, a 7-inch for Sub Pop, and a 7-inch for Pollymaggoo Records. They recently played NoisePop 2007 with Roky Erickson, as well as a showcase at the SXSW Music Conference in Austin, TX.   “Wooden Shjips are from San Francisco, but the concentrated ferocity of the freakouts on their two very-underground releases—a white-label ten-inch EP (the band gave away the first 300 copies) and a clear-vinyl single (“Dance, California”)—arrives via the ’70s Germanic-guitar lunacy of Guru Guru and the confrontational repetition of VU.” —David Fricke, Rolling Stone   “..tight-wound repeato psych guitar raunch with...