Ba Da Bing!   Page 3

Strang, Kane

Blue Cheese

Ba Da Bing!

Kane Strang’s first proper album, Blue Cheese, picks up on the rough disaffection of his earlier demo collection, A Pebble and a Paper Crane, which he recorded in a WWII bomb shelter in Germany. Back in his hometown of Dunedin, New Zealand, Strang spent two curious months alone, housesitting for his parents. Re-nested, yet still isolated, Strang composed all of Blue Cheese over those quiet days. Lead-off track “The Web” channels pummeling bass lines punctuated by a twinkling synth that calls upon microscopic pop principalities of restlessness (“Yeah, I met someone else / Without leaving my little house / No, I haven’t held her yet / I met her on the internet”). Its abrupt ending parallels Strang’s own disconnect. “She’s Appealing” weaves Day-Glo guitar motifs into distant, detached ’80s garage pop vocals. “Never Kissed a Blonde” is driven by a slapping delay on both vocals and guitar. Strang’s path toward a melody is always surprising, and he never misses a hit-on-the-head-obvious-in-retrospect memorable line. Strang amassed a band and has started playing his distinct psych-pop live. He will tour the United States in 2016.

Renderers

In The Sodium Light

Ba Da Bing!

The seismic rumbling of The Renderers goes beyond the fiendish pastoralia of their music. Long-time Christchurch residents, Brian and Maryrose Crook witnessed the earthquakes crumble the city. That, and Maryrose’s developing career as a painter (she is self-taught, only starting in her late thirties), inspired them to move to America and concentrate on touring here. So, where do they move? Obviously, a rock-throw’s distance from the San Andreas Fault, to Joshua Tree. Not surprising, given the tenacity of the Crooks. Through endless band lineups and continual challenges, they have maintained a focused sound and approach to their music. A Renderers song creates its own space, one that threatens dissemblance at every turn. With two of the most distinct voices in New Zealand rock, they trade off vocal duties, and both contribute toward burying their songs in layers of swelling and swirling guitars. For their new record, In the Sodium Light, The Renderers take a step back from the furious chug of their last album, A Rocket Into Nothing. Instead, they appear to be representing the landscape of their new home. Songs creep out of holes, seep and spread, permeating the room. The album is a languid, calm-waters drift over the abyss in a glass-bottomed boat. Let the tide take you.

Cross Record

Wabi Sabi

Ba Da Bing!

In 2013, Emily Cross decamped from Chicago to the remote, idyllic town of Dripping Springs, TX, with her husband Dan Duszynski. They rented a ranch that covers eighteen acres, has a chicken coop and is located next to a bird sanctuary. During 60-hour workweeks, split between restaurants, supermarkets and nannying, she absorbed these workaday commonalities and shaped them into her smoky, atmospheric and gripping second album, Wabi-Sabi. Recording together as Cross Record throughout 2014 and into 2015 at the couple’s own Moon Phase Ranch, Wabi-Sabi is a crystallization of Cross’s past music and her passion for art (she studied at the Burren College of Art in Ireland). For example, the scorpions depicted on the cover were found in her bathtub (something she definitely had not experienced before living in Texas) and photographed by her, and she regularly draws and paints in a nook above the studio. The way we interact with and adapt to different and strange environments is a theme that permeates the album. Most recording was done in the early and late hours of the day, with loons cawing in the distance thanks to that bird sanctuary. The ambiance of twilight evenings and orange dawns formed its heart and soul. Cross’s wispy, silvery singing and minimal presentation contrast with the dark intensity of booming drums, thick guitar and destabilized electronics. It can be loud, stirring and unsettling, but also quietly still and serene. Dusynski produced and engineered the record, alongside production from one of Cross’s close friends Theo...

Von Schleicher, Katie

Bleaksploitation

Ba Da Bing!

Released on cassette last year, Katie Von Schleicher’s Bleaksploitation took the tape world by enough of a storm to thunder demand for more formats. Consequence of Sound described her songs as “like ghosts trying to communicate through a cassette deck”; Paste claims they “sound like a vintage girl group playing in the basement of a haunted house.” This is exciting music from someone we’ll be hearing about for a long time to come. Bleaksploitation was recorded in a dark room on a Tascam 4-track cassette machine. The result is hazy, terrifying and playful. This is what happens when well-crafted songs are made in the moment, warped, drunk on themselves. Von Schleicher’s voice sinks like anchors and rises like a phoenix, wrestling its way through its very own form of basement tapes. ’70s piano rock provides the core, sad lyrics form the shell. The LP is limited to 300 copies, with silk-screened covers made by the asshole herself! They also come with liner notes by Jay Ruttenberg.

Colossal Yes

Surrounded By Progress

Ba Da Bing!

Utrillo Kushner, main conveyor of Colossal Yes' ivory melodics and Comets On Fire's percussive juggernauts, takes Brutalism to new levels on "Surrounded By Progress," the soundtrack to a science-fiction dystopian tale yet to be written. The music here remains wordless and instrumental, interconnecting biological rhythms with a sky the color of a television turned to a dead channel. The initial rush of inhumanity disguises the human heart at the center of "Surrounded by Progress," a living and breathing document the Monks of the Order of St Leibowitz would deify up for endless study.

Cronin, Claire

Over And Through

Ba Da Bing!

In anticipation of Came Down A Storm, Claire Cronin's full band collaboration with John Dieterich (Deerhoof) which Ba Da Bing will release next Spring, we present this Best Of compiling her solo songs of the past few years. Cronin's songs are sparse, deep, and dark, and her gravelly voice reaches unexpected levels of emotional beauty. There's something Jason Molina going on here, by way of Karen Dalton and Neil Young. Cronin is currently working towards a PhD in poetry at University of Georgia, and her lyrics reflect the intelligence and insight of someone so devoted to the written word.

Earth Jerks

The West Is A Mess

Ba Da Bing!

One guy. A keyboard, a few pedals (reverb, delay, tremolo, fuzz) and that's it. The guy, (me) has been in bunch of other bands; most notably, I played drums in Death Sentence: PANDA! (who had records out on Upset the Rhythm and a couple other Euro labels). I classify the jams as surf rock and honestly the point of reference is more Sunset Strip `66 than Berlin* or Cologne `72.  Earth Jerks is a very pro-California entity.  * RIP Moebius

Natural Snow Buildings

Terror's Horns

Ba Da Bing!

After a string of Natural Snow Buildings reissues, each more elaborate then the last, Ba Da Bing presents their first ever release of new material from the band. For a group known for its use of horror imagery and lyricism, perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that this album clocks in at just under 45 minutes. If there ever was a release that served as the proper entry point for Natural Snow Buildings, Terror’s Horns is it. It would be a stretch to call this Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte’s pop record, for Terror’s Horns continues the duo’s tradition of combining many layers into sometimes blissful, sometimes contemplative, often menacing conditions. Stringed instruments trill, percussion gongs, feedback hisses and vocals maintain near monotone as if in a cultish trance. The songs still unveil themselves slowly, and the album’s progression lends the impression of descending down through the depths, past hidden cavities and chambers never to be unseen once experienced.  Terror’s Horns features new artwork by Gularte that pays tribute to the backwoods horror of massacres involving chainsaws.

Frank, Jackson C.

The Complete Recordings Vol. 2

Ba Da Bing!

While Jackson C. Frank’s eponymous 1965 album and other material has enjoyed numerous official and unofficial reissues, Jackson C Frank: The Complete Recordings is the first to compile his entire recording career. Released in conjunction with Jim Abbott’s book, Jackson C. Frank: The Clear Hard Light of Genius, The Complete Recordings contains a total of 67 tracks, 24 of which have never appeared before. Every song has been mastered or remastered, a number of them straight from the original, brittle reel-to-reels on which they were originally laid down.  Plagued by tragedy with the most haunting music to show for it, Frank’s life can be heard through his music, which has been covered by the likes of Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, John Mayer, South Korean jazz singer Nah Youn Sun, French singer Graeme Allwright, and sampled by Nas for “Undying Love.” While never fully recognized as one of the great musicians of the ’60s, Frank clearly had his fans. The artist’s story is a cautionary tale for the dangerous pitfalls of a life lived. At the age of eleven, he was the victim of the infamous Cleveland Hill School Fire in a New York suburb, leaving him burned and disabled, and killing fifteen of his classmates. He spent an agonizing eight months in the hospital, during which time he picked up a guitar for the first time. Scarred both physically and psychologically, and left a...

Frank, Jackson C.

The Complete Recordings Vol. 3

Ba Da Bing!

While Jackson C. Frank’s eponymous 1965 album and other material has enjoyed numerous official and unofficial reissues, Jackson C Frank: The Complete Recordings is the first to compile his entire recording career. Released in conjunction with Jim Abbott’s book, Jackson C. Frank: The Clear Hard Light of Genius, The Complete Recordings contains a total of 67 tracks, 24 of which have never appeared before. Every song has been mastered or remastered, a number of them straight from the original, brittle reel-to-reels on which they were originally laid down.  Plagued by tragedy with the most haunting music to show for it, Frank’s life can be heard through his music, which has been covered by the likes of Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, John Mayer, South Korean jazz singer Nah Youn Sun, French singer Graeme Allwright, and sampled by Nas for “Undying Love.” While never fully recognized as one of the great musicians of the ’60s, Frank clearly had his fans. The artist’s story is a cautionary tale for the dangerous pitfalls of a life lived. At the age of eleven, he was the victim of the infamous Cleveland Hill School Fire in a New York suburb, leaving him burned and disabled, and killing fifteen of his classmates. He spent an agonizing eight months in the hospital, during which time he picked up a guitar for the first time. Scarred both physically and psychologically, and...

Our Love Will Destroy The World

Carnivorous Rainbows

Ba Da Bing!

Witness the latest rebirth of Campbell Kneale. It has happened before, and probably will again. This Featherston, New Zealand, artist is on the forefront of the world noise scene, having cut his teeth for a decade in Birchville Cat Motel and more recently as Our Love Will Destroy the World.  Carnivorous Rainbows is electronic music at its most relentless; four tracks of pure, hot skree constantly rebuilding like a viper’s unpredictable strike. Some percussion rattles throughout, a few instruments are arguably perceptible, and a beautiful harmony of intensity creates a gorgeous tapestry of sounds.

Miller, Jenks And Rose Cross, NC

Music For Snowdrifts

Ba Da Bing!

We all knew winter was coming this year, and oh boy, did it. While there's not much to show for it in the aftermath, save for cracked roads, threadbare sweaters and a mistrust of any forecasts, we at least have Music For Snowdrifts.  Conceived by Jenks Miller and Elysse Thebner over the past few stormy months (winter even struck as far south as their home base of North Carolina), Music For Snowdrifts offers a transcendental, laconic reaction to the cold, with meandering guitar threading through a hazy synth bed of pure mood. It is both subtle and epic—think Ashra teaming up with Popol Vuh. Music For Snowdrifts inspires a look back at the past few months that is damn near wistful.

Ass

Live In New Jersey

Ba Da Bing!

The rage of rebellion refried and roaring, ÄSS ("AHH-sss") marries Monoshock, Electric Eels and Red Transistor with Judas Priest and UFO in an unauthorized ceremony still illegal in most states. Made up of the underground scourges Andy Kman (TeePee Records), Brian Turner (WFMU), Andrew Shumway and Chris Larsen (honored former member, since replaced by the Crucifucks drummer), ÄSS tear through a set recorded live in Hoboken where you can feel the scum on the walls and sweat clouds in the air. Rock festers on in the crevices.

Eye

The Future Will Be Repeated

Ba Da Bing!

Eye is among the finest of New Zealand’s rich improvisational scene, and The Future Will Be Repeated follows their stunning Winterwork LP of last year. Including Peter Stapleton (The Terminals, The Pin Group, Flies Inside The Sun), Peter Porteous (Empirical), Nathan Thompson (Sandoz Lab Technicians) and Jon Chapman (Double Leopards, Rory Storm and the Invaders), the group incorporates percussion, guitar, piano and electronics into a beautiful melee. These tracks come from three different performances, one notably done at the famed Chicks Hotel in Port Chalmers.

Family Underground

No Host. No Guest.

Ba Da Bing!

Denmark’s greatest drone rock duo unveils an epic record of beauty. Family Underground has released numerous records with Not Not Fun, Into The Lunar Night, Chocolate Monk and Turgid Animal over their ten-plus years of existence. No Host. No Guest. displays the group at their best, delving to ominous lows and intense highs with equal skill and precision. For fans of The Dead C, Yellow Swans, Prurient and Burning Star Core.

Kolovos, Peter

A Wolf Should Only Be Lone

Ba Da Bing!

Los Angeles guitarist Peter Kolovos’s last release was the epic 3xLP Black Colors. While not quite as immense, A Wolf Should Only Be Lone, the artist's first cassette release since his days with Open City, hits the beautiful red space in fits and starts. These two tracks carry his distinct style of annihilating common notions of guitar playing. Bruce Russell once likened his playing to “Derek Bailey covering The Resident’s Duck Stab,” while David Keenan has described him as having the "dexterity of Bailey directed more towards Mars-style tonal confusion." Whichever take makes more sense, each Kolovos performance carries its own internal logic, a methodical and fervent approach to randomness that bleats pure emotion and raw skill. This cassette captures the best of his live performances during a West Coast Tour during August 2014.

Abbott, Jim

Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius

Ba Da Bing!

***BACK IN STOCK!!! The story of Jackson C. Frank is tragic. The victim of a school fire in his youth, struggling with homelessness and mental illness throughout his life, half-blinded in old age before his death in 1999, Frank met continuous obstacles. And yet he enjoyed a shining moment with the release of Jackson C. Frank on Columbia Records in 1965. The album would go on to be seen as one of the greatest folk albums of the decade—maybe of all time—and its opening track “Blues Run the Game” has become a standard covered by hundreds. Jim Abbott’s book is the result of years of research piecing together evidence, relations and apocryphal stories from Frank’s life. It is also part memoir, as Abbott cared for Frank through the final decade of his life. Their friendship was fraught with difficulties, which Abbott portrays with the honesty of a journalist. In doing so, he draws a portrait of a uniquely gifted songwriter, blessed with talent and besotted by demons. At 250 pages, Abbott’s memoir shows a flawed and caring individual whose struggle was best depicted in his songs. Following the release of Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius, Ba Da Bing will release three volumes of Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings in early 2015, compiling work from throughout his life, including unreleased material. ISBN: 9780990916406

Terminals

Singles & Sundries

Ba Da Bing!

The Terminals are smack in the center of all that is great about New Zealand music. Members of the group have connections to The Renderers, Scorched Earth Policy, The Axemen, The Pin Group and Dadamah, and the list goes on from there. They bridge the gap between the free-form sprawl of their improvising peers and the melodic beauty of Flying Nun’s poppiest groups. The result is a ripcord of rock which sounds vital, intense and fomenting with menace. Collected here for the first time are the singles. Released throughout the 1990s, these songs are the band’s finest moments. “Deadly Tango” blares at a syncopated pace, while “Witchdoctors” seems to crawl out fully formed from a miasma of feedback, with Stephen Cogle’s vocals sounding like incantations. The greatness of The Terminals comes from their mastery and their ability to achieve such a powerful effect with the music they’ve created. Their music throws an intelligence into the dark and structure onto the dangerous. For anybody looking at a roadmap to New Zealand music, the songs on Singles & Sundries are essential vantage points.

Ora Iso

Bathcat

Ba Da Bing!

Ora Iso’s pieces begin in abstraction, encounter semblances of melody, then disintegrate into fragments. It all comes together as a glorious noise, and Bathcat, the duo’s first album, captures the essence of their nature. The group formed with a shared affinity for challenging pieces. Kathleen Malay, born in Indonesia and a recent transplant to New York via Australia, is a classically trained pianist who found her calling once she met Jason Kudo, a guitarist best known for his work in Modra. Bathcat was recorded with the deft influence of Lary Seven, a fixture on the New York experimental scene since 1970, who has worked with Tony Conrad, Foetus and Jarboe.

V/a

Temporary: Selections From Dunedin’s Pop Underground 2011-2014

Ba Da Bing!

On the same day Ba Da Bing releases an album by Dunedin legend Hamish Kilgour, the label is honored to present the city’s current artists. The tiny city of Dunedin, located in the Otago Region of New Zealand, is synonymous with smart bands, incredible melodies and a wholly distinct and innovative music. Thanks to The Clean, The Chills, The Bats, The Verlaines, and The Dead C, Dunedin has amassed a worldwide reputation for innovative music. Local label Fishrider Records has taken on the mission of compiling and producing an album that casts a light toward the Dunedin of today. These bands have all created their own sound away from the shadow of their city’s past, yet like many of their predecessors they retain the air of slightly disturbed melancholia along with a sense of space and distance from the rest of the world. Whether it is dark synth-pop, teen angst noise pop, guitar-and-organ jangle, or all-out psychedelic weirdness, these songs all come from a place on the edge of the world where the young still read books in abundance and fend off boredom by creating music and art in cold houses. Yet again, an extraordinary number of incredible groups are populating the scene, and the songs on Temporary are the best of the best—a Dunedin Double Plus Good, if you will.

Kilgour, Hamish

All Of It And Nothing

Ba Da Bing!

Incredibly, after all his work as a founding member of both The Clean and The Mad Scene, Hamish Kilgour has never released a proper solo album of his own, until now.  Fans of his work over the years will no doubt be pleased with this debut release. All of It and Nothing is an ode to the power of jangle, highlighting Kilgour’s innate ability to both gleam the melodic cube and let the choogle of a chord progression ride itself to greatness.  Written and recorded in collaboration with Gary Olson, who captured the album at his Marlborough Farms studio and accompanies Kilgour on some songs, the album carries a distinct hushed intimacy, full of soft-spoken phrases and light guitar play that belie the power of the music it provides.

Conway-Jones, Richard

The Best Of Richard Conway-Jones

Ba Da Bing!

Richard Conway-Jones is a painter and musician who has been making records in his Twyford, England, home for over two decades. Renowned for his artwork, Conway-Jones is mostly known for his work as one half of The Marilyn Decade, a sprawling and gorgeous two-guitar band that released an album on Freek Records in 1995. He’s continued to write, record and release albums on his own, and here is an opportunity to hear a best-of compilation, with songs chosen by the artist himself. Conway-Jones's method of production, and impressive output, places him in a rarified league populated by some of the most distinct musicians. He does not quite sound like R Stevie Moore, Jandek or Robert Scott, but there’s a line that connects him to all of the aforementioned. The Best of Richard Conway-Jones captures home-recording at its finest. Many songs are just guitar and his soft, nuanced vocals. Others have female vocal accompaniment, or a thick guitar distortion breaking in. The result is a musician unbounded by expectations, creating essentially beautiful songs from an intimate vantage point.

A Handful Of Dust

Topology Of A Phantom City

Ba Da Bing!

Topology of a Phantom City was a cassette originally released in 1996 on Bruce Russell’s glorious Corpus Hermeticum label, and this reissue captures the spirit of the original version by…well, by also being on cassette. For these recordings, the core members of A Handful of Dust—guitarist Russell (The Dead C) and violinist Alastair Galbraith—are joined by Peter Stapleton (Terminals, Pin Group, Scorched Earth Policy) on percussion and synthesizers. The two sprawling paeans to the glories of improvised invention ride waves of menacing intensity and freeform scrawl.  This reissue is a refreshed opportunity for fans to hear one of the more obscure recordings in A Handful of Dust’s catalog. It also marks the first in a series upcoming cassette releases on Ba Da Bing—leading with their shiniest leg first.

La Morte Young

La Morte Young

Ba Da Bing!

With members of Sun Stabbed, Talweg and Nappe, this French group “draw[s] singing feedback from expiring amps and extend[s] moments of tense string-brut into colossal, slow-burning ascensions,” explain our friends at Volcanic Tongue. “Padding drums force the eternal upward vectors into waves of dreamtone as the group attempt[s] a flat-lined reconciliation between barbarous psychedelic drone, early music and single tone hypnotics. Wordless vocals touch on… ritual epiglottics… while the levels of dynamic fuzz are almost Japanese…. [P]lug the fuck in.”

Cousins

The Halls Of Wickwire

Ba Da Bing!

We all have cousins, but Cousins are not actually cousins. Cousins are Leigh Dotey and Aaron Mangle and they are the hardest working band in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cousins are a guitar / drums duo that plays rock and roll music for today. Their Halls of Wickwire is generously filled with fuzz and reverb. There are ten thousand bands in Halifax, rising up, gasping for air, sinking, stuck in the mud, or flaring up like model rockets over the harbor’s shitty waters. The geographic, cultural and economic factors of the region take their toll on the lifespan of the average Atlantic Canadian rock unit. But these Cousins have persisted and carry on. After several years of skin-shedding metamorphosis, near-endless North American touring, two full-length albums and a string of limited-edition releases on various formats and labels, they’ve grown up, unencumbered by the weight of the region or their own history. This band is poised, clean and lean.  Cousins break through fences and set off roman candles. Their rock and roll is devastating and joyful, full of love and punk romance. It will fix your bike and leave paint under your fingernails. It is music that will shake off all that faux, dead, cool. This record will change your life if you let it. A heartbreaker and a healer, it looks an awful world dead in the eye, fills the lungs up with all that pain and worry, and then comes back breathing a beautiful fire. This is the fine...

Youngs, Richard

No Retreat In Comfort

Ba Da Bing!

These are the last remaining copies of the 300-run CD that Richard Youngs sold on his US 2013 tour, which saw him travel up and down the East Coast, most memorably playing the support slot at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC, opening for John Cale. In his own words: “No Retreat in Comfort was made on a week-long recording bender when I found myself home alone. I remember the weather was dreadful, and I rarely ventured outside. I borrowed a Moog Source, and the album started off as an hour and a half of synth jams. I then fitted the songs to my favourite jams. Having done the recording, it lay dormant for over a year when I remixed it for the tour-only CD. Influences? I don’t think it sounds anything like it, but I have a memory of having heard the bonus disc of the McCartney II re-release at about this time and rather enjoying it. I also recall having a Gaelic Proverb book out of the library.”

Slothrust

Of Course You Do

Ba Da Bing!

Note price increase. Led by singer / songwriter / guitarist Leah Wellbaum, Brooklyn’s Slothrust is a rock band of musicians from the jazz / blues tradition who sound nothing like jazz musicians playing rock. Beneath the know-how, their aesthetic is punk as fuck. How perfect, right? You get the zap without the Zappa, not a lot of Yes but a load of Oh Hell Yeah! Slothrust’s musicianship sneaks up on you, because the first thing that grabs you is how insanely catchy these songs are. Then you realize that it all comes down to the fact that they play fearlessly and full of tenacity. Rock ’n’ roll. Formed amid the ashes of Wellbaum’s solo project Slothbox (“The box rusted,” she explains…obvs!), Slothrust was forged with drummer Will Gorin and bassist Kyle Bann. With the added dynamics of a tight, powerful and funky rhythm section, Slothrust is a forceful trio as unsettling and capricious as their name. Of Course You Do is the band’s debut for Ba Da Bing and follows up to their 2012 self-released full-length, Feels Your Pain. With her deep, charismatic vocals, most reminiscent of Nico with the edge of Isaac Brock circa ’97, Wellbaum sings about alienation, awkwardness and absurdity, and damn if she doesn’t make it all sound kind of fun. “Crockpot” is a dark yet funny and irreverent take on the struggle for human connection in a society built to make us feel isolated; “Juice” is a paean to realizing the limits of self-improvement. She evokes feeling while...

Cross Record

Be Good

Ba Da Bing!

Between melody and discord, Cross Record’s first full-length LP Be Good forges a quiet path through myriad sounds. Strings, clarinet, flute, steel drum, bells, tape distortion and other instrumentation support Emily Cross’s enchanting vocals while allowing for silences to build like black holes. Her lyrics conjure a dark beauty that leaves an effect long after the album has completed.  The record follows a string of self-released recordings by this enterprising 25-year-old. Released on Lay Flat as a 300-press LP in September of 2012, Be Good is getting formal distribution via Ba Da Bing. Along with the last remaining copies of that original pressing—a beautiful, white-vinyl album with poster insert—the label is releasing the album in a limited CD run. Cross has just moved from Chicago to Austin, and is presently at work on her next album, which will be released on Ba Da Bing.

Dead C

Armed Courage

Ba Da Bing!

With nary a praising documentary, coffee table photo book or tribute band to their name, The Dead C are nonetheless one of the most respected, longest surviving groups in the history of rock. Still sporting the original band members (Michael Morley on guitar / vocals, Bruce Russell on guitar, Robbie Yeats on drums) from their first assemblage in 1987, The Dead C’s renown has a lot to do with their stubborn unwillingness to compromise in any form. With a varied and challenging discography, the band has never released an album requiring later apology. No The Elder. No Diabolus in Musica. No Trans. Each release demands appraisal on its own merits and exists separate from any temporal trends in underground music, save for whatever influence they’ve had on others.  Armed Courage reaffirms their epochal career. With two side-long tracks, the record epitomizes the elements which elevate The Dead C to a level of worship. Compositions assemble and pivot, colliding new landscapes while undermining their very foundations. The Dead C exists on an intuitive sphere, with music never over-thought, yet rewarding when contemplated. 2013 marks the first time The Dead C has ever appeared on the cover of a magazine, and how appropriate that it was in The Wire, the only international music rag to celebrate anti-traditionalism. It is easy to view this as a highpoint of recognition, but the real achievement happens whenever that cognitive switch flips in the listener’s head, and they suddenly think, “I get it”—because from that...

Youngs, Richard

Summer Through My Mind

Ba Da Bing!

Richard Youngs presents his debut recording for Ba Da Bing Records, and the label is looking forward to a long relationship. For Summer Through My Mind, Youngs pushes himself into a challenging new sphere yet again. A renowned musician with over 40 albums to his name, he goes somewhere he never has before—to the heart of American music. Summer Through My Mind is a country music album, warped through Youngs’s ambidextral mind. A warning: it’s not like any country album one has heard before. There are familiar elements scattered about—slide-guitar, heartfelt vocals, dark lyricism—but these pieces exist like alienated rocks from a planetary explosion of long ago. The discomfited guitar lines create patchy connections, and Youngs’s unmistakable singing seals things right up. The album draws together a story Youngs wrote as a child, involving bad people and dark spirits (“Story of Jhon” which has a vocal contribution from Simon Joyner), with some lyrics written by his own six-year-old son. In a rare chance to see him perform outside of Europe, Youngs will be playing select US dates in 2013, including the Hopscotch Festival in Durham, NC, and at the ISSUE Project Room in New York.

Rubinos, Xenia

Magic Trix

Ba Da Bing!

On initial listen to Magic Trix, the first album by Brooklynite Xenia Rubinos, one might feel as though one is being tased (bro). Little compares to the sharp, thick spine of keyboard sound that shoots out from the very first moments. An oblique assemblage of uncommon rhythms, forceful singing and dance-’til-you-puke styles combine to make Magic Trix one of the most exciting debuts in years. Surprisingly, the record’s aggressive sound is achieved without the use of guitars. Rubinos, with the assistance of drummer / sound magician Marco Buccelli, creates a dozen songs that bring to mind the adventurous spirit and whacked-out mentality found in the best moments of Rip, Rig and Panic, DNA and The Contortions. Rubinos expands on her Cuban, Puerto Rican and American roots, and while the songs shoot off to new stratospheres, they never lose the sense that the music is at its core two people banging on things, making a racket. It was such a racket that their home production of the album was often interrupted by paintings falling from the walls of their apartment as they recorded. Rubinos and Buccelli can also fully replicate the record live, thanks in part to the latter’s makeshift “analogic distorted snare.” In order to alter his snare sound, he circuits the drum through an array of reverb and distortion pedals, projecting the sound through an amp at his side. Rubinos’s songs cover intimate topics of family and travel. “Help” is based on a family legend of a woman flown...

Isengrind

Snowbringer Cult

Ba Da Bing!

Following up on 2012’s fearsome four-LP box set Night Coercion into the Company of Witches, Ba Da Bing presents the second large-scale reissue of another obscurity from French duo Natural Snow Building’s past. Originally released on double-CD by the amazing Students of Decay in 2008, The Snowbringer Cult is a grandiose quadruple-album that combines Mehdi Ameziane’s and Solange Gularte’s solo projects, TwinSisterMoon and Isengrind, on disc one and their collaboration as Natural Snow Buildings on disc two. Ba Da Bing is reissuing the original double-CD, along with vinyl versions for each of the three releases, all with interconnecting artwork. Gularte’s Isengrind centers on hypnotic soundscapes, floating woodwinds and chanted dirges. The airy sounds intermix and collide, sometimes building ominously, sometimes crashing together. It sounds gloriously like an imagined soundtrack to a banned ’70s Italian horror film.

Isengrind / Twinsistermoon / Natural Snow Buildings

Snowbringer Cult

Ba Da Bing!

Following up on 2012’s fearsome four-LP box set Night Coercion into the Company of Witches, Ba Da Bing presents the second large-scale reissue of another obscurity from French duo Natural Snow Building’s past. Originally released on double-CD by the amazing Students of Decay in 2008, The Snowbringer Cult is a grandiose quadruple-album that combines Mehdi Ameziane’s and Solange Gularte’s solo projects, TwinSisterMoon and Isengrind, on disc one and their collaboration as Natural Snow Buildings on disc two. Ba Da Bing is reissuing the original double-CD, along with vinyl versions for each of the three releases, all with interconnecting artwork. Gularte’s Isengrind centers on hypnotic soundscapes, floating woodwinds and chanted dirges. The airy sounds intermix and collide, sometimes building ominously, sometimes crashing together. It sounds gloriously like an imagined soundtrack to a banned ’70s Italian horror film. Ameziane’s TwinSisterMoon showcases the folk end of his sound. Often graced with his soft countertenor voice, the songs are like a sweet respite amidst the menace of minor keys. Delicate acoustic guitar passages break for shifting drones before leading to ornate instrumentals. The Natural Snow Buildings material on the second disc brings about an alternately luminous and perilous finish to the journey. Here, The Snowbringer Cult reaches climactic points of intensity, following all the tension from disc one with grand payoffs.  In all, this expansive work presents the most varied and nuanced sense of what fills the Natural Snow Buildings cosmos, and is one of the greatest projects by an experimental band in recent...

Natural Snow Buildings

Snowbringer Cult

Ba Da Bing!

Following up on 2012’s fearsome four-LP box set Night Coercion into the Company of Witches, Ba Da Bing presents the second large-scale reissue of another obscurity from French duo Natural Snow Building’s past. Originally released on double-CD by the amazing Students of Decay in 2008, The Snowbringer Cult is a grandiose quadruple-album that combines Mehdi Ameziane’s and Solange Gularte’s solo projects, TwinSisterMoon and Isengrind, on disc one and their collaboration as Natural Snow Buildings on disc two. Ba Da Bing is reissuing the original double-CD, along with vinyl versions for each of the three releases, all with interconnecting artwork. The Natural Snow Buildings material on this double-album brings about an alternately luminous and perilous finish to the journey started by the Isengrind and TwinSisterMoon releases. Here, The Snowbringer Cult reaches climactic points of intensity, following all the tension from the  with grand payoffs. 

Twinsistermoon

Snowbringer Cult

Ba Da Bing!

Following up on 2012’s fearsome four-LP box set Night Coercion into the Company of Witches, Ba Da Bing presents the second large-scale reissue of another obscurity from French duo Natural Snow Building’s past. Originally released on double-CD by the amazing Students of Decay in 2008, The Snowbringer Cult is a grandiose quadruple-album that combines Mehdi Ameziane’s and Solange Gularte’s solo projects, TwinSisterMoon and Isengrind, on disc one and their collaboration as Natural Snow Buildings on disc two. Ba Da Bing is reissuing the original double-CD, along with vinyl versions for each of the three releases, all with interconnecting artwork. Ameziane’s TwinSisterMoon showcases the folk end of his sound. Often graced with his soft countertenor voice, the songs are like a sweet respite amidst the menace of minor keys. Delicate acoustic guitar passages break for shifting drones before leading to ornate instrumentals.

Dead C Vs. Rangda

S/t

Ba Da Bing!

Two of the greatest bands of the present day, each composed of two guitarists and a drummer. Every member’s name carries its own legendary status. Richard Bishop. Ben Chasny. Chris Corsano. Michael Morley. Bruce Russell. Robbie Yeats. Fabricated empires have risen and been destroyed by the vast output of any one of these guys. Finally, they come together on one release: a split LP between two supergroups. The Dead C’s tracks are a gem of a find. The band uncovered recordings nestled in the back corner of their archives that they completely forgot existed. These tracks were under consideration for their seminal album Eusa Kills. The loose majesty found on that album comes to the fore here, with a group finding their wings right as they are set aflame. Rangda recorded their two compositions at Russian Recording in Bloomington, Indiana. Everything that brings these musicians together uncoils and commands. Beats of silence underscore tangents that lead back to main themes and out again. It’s as though the years and years of playing under their collective belts has culminated in these glorious moments.

Lady Lamb

Ripely Pine

Ba Da Bing!

***BACK IN STOCK!!!  Received a 7.8 rating from Pitchfork.  More than anything, Aly Spaltro has 20,000 second-hand DVDs to thank for her first album. Despite being recorded at a proper studio in her recently adopted home of Brooklyn, Ripely Pine showcases songs conceived during her tenure at Bart’s & Greg’s DVD Explosion in Brunswick, Maine. Little did customers know, the same store they’d drop off their Transformers movies was providing the ideal four-year cocoon for the development of a major musical talent. Spaltro worked the 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM shift. Each night, after locking up, she’d walk past Drama and Horror, pull out her music gear from behind a wall of movies, and write and record songs until morning broke. She did this every day, drawing strength from the monotony of her routine and testing out multiple techniques, approaches and instrumentation. Anger, confusion, love, happiness and sadness reigned, and the songs ran rampant, with little form or structure. Isolated for those many hours, Spaltro let melodies morph together, break apart and pair up. This is how she taught herself to write music and sing. Taking the name Lady Lamb, Spaltro became one of the most beloved musicians in Portland. Her live shows were unhinged, as melodies followed an internal logic only apparent to Spaltro herself. She sang and played guitar, and the songs offered a vivid yet brief snapshot of her expansive world. At 23, with years of writing and performing music already under her belt,...

Grant, Jenn

Beautiful Wild

Ba Da Bing!

Jenn Grant’s The Beautiful Wild, her fourth (but first US-released) record, expresses wonders beyond pleasant views. Having grown up on Prince Edward Island, Canada, she saw lush landscapes and the glistening sea right outside her window, and it was easy to take such things for granted. The album title is a challenge: to accept the grueling lows of life that come between glorious highs. To embrace life means acknowledging its inevitable confrontations. So why this record and why now? Simply put, it’s the songs, soulful and ornate, with lush guitars, pianos, horns, banjos, strings and even a boys’ chorus populating The Beautiful Wild like trees in the woods. But everything stands aside for Grant’s captivating singing, a thick tenor that trails like heavy smoke. While her past material established her throughout Canada as a musician of distinct note, The Beautiful Wild propels her into new realms of accomplishment. Over the time period that The Beautiful Wild was conceived and completed, Grant’s life took significant turns. First, she married Daniel Ledwell, who is now her musical collaborator. Having spent the past ten years living in bustling downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, she and Ledwell moved to a two-story home in the wilds of Echo Lake (population 3,562). Like her youth on Prince Edward Island, Grant chose the reflection of a removed life and took a step away from the city. It was this environment of accepting the past in which The Beautiful Wild materialized. In the video for “The Fighter,” shots cut...

Snowgoose

Harmony Springs

Ba Da Bing!

Snowgoose, from Glasgow, formed both in name and actuality on their heels of their celebrated predecessors. Incorporating the complex musicianship of ’70s folk rock with modern melodies, the group’s members boast many hardened years of experience. This collective wisdom creates a sound unlike what any of them have done before. While their contemporaries seek out a freaky-deaky (and quickly tiring) take on folk, Snowgoose maintains its focus on skill and ability, outshining trendy approaches in a gorgeous basket of light. First strike is vocalist Anna Sheard who, ironic for a band with such a pedigree, has no past history performing. Rather, she was heard singing in her kitchen by friends and word spread. Sheard’s voice is penetrating and steely, and will stun anyone whose affinity for Jaqui McShee (Pentangle), Shirley Collins or Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention, The Strawbs) carries deep roots. Sheard was enlisted by guitarist Jim McCulloch, who then formed a group befitting her abilities. McCulloch, best known for his work with Soup Dragons and BMX Bandits, recruited bassist Dave McGowan, and soon enough, the band expanded to a true ensemble, with guitarist Raymond McGinley (of the great, great Teenage Fanclub) and drummer Stuart Kidd (previously in Stevie Jackson’s band) joining. Harmony Springs was recorded in Norfolk and Glasgow, and features additional contributions by Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, noted violinist John McCusker, The Bluebells’ Dave McCluskey and Giant Sand’s Peter Domberknowsky. Glorious harmonies anchor the songs, while expert playing dresses them up in frills and vests. This is music...

Natural Snow Buildings

Night Coercion Into The Company Of Witches

Ba Da Bing!

Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches is the first domestic release by France’s mythic Natural Snow Buildings, a band revered in experimental music circles despite self-releasing most of their albums in ridiculously limited runs. The original Night Coercion... CD from 2008 was an edition of only 22 copies, so finally, the intense music that Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte create on these tracks can be widely heard and appreciated. Fans of Popol Vuh raga drones, Flying Saucer Attack distorted bliss, The Dead C’s intuitive chaos, and Islaja’s oblique folk, take note. Natural Snow Buildings make melodic, orchestrated, droning compositions with layers of guitars, chants, woodwinds, percussive bells, distortion and delay. On Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches, they push to extremes, producing layers of stereophonic sound both nuanced and grandiose. This record is the ideal introduction to the band’s sound, building harmonies upon noise upon harmonies, and providing a clear explanation as to why their albums (even the ones that aren’t so limited) sell out so immediately upon release.  For the Ba Da Bing release of Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches, there are two physical formats. Like the original version, the album is available as a three-CD set, this time at the low price of a single CD release. Additionally, the limited four-LP box set has a new mixing job, done by the band to fit the record’s new vinyldom.