Siltbreeze   Page 3

Xno Bbqx

Sunshine Of Your Love

Siltbreeze

XNo BBQX are hardcore vegans hailing from Sydney, Australia. That’s right—vegans; the only similarity Matt (guitar) and Nick (drums) share with Cream is a title. All you dairy lovers out there, keep your slowhands in plain sight. This will only take a second.  Originally released some time back on the cassette-only label Breakdance The Dawn, Sunshine Of Your Love pricks up the ears in much the same way as a Han Bennink recording might, and left Siltbreeze wondering, what’s left in that studio that’s not broken? Answer: Only their will!  Matt and Nick had played together a couple of times as part of Antipan (with Sumu and Anthony Guerra). On a day off, in a shed out back of a sharehouse in Newtown, the duo did a couple sets with computers and turntables with no records, but then Matt suggested Nick give the drums a go (he’d played a full kit only once prior). They plugged into the cassette deck—left channel, guitar; right channel, mic under the floor tom—and played. Apart from minor adjustment of levels, the end result was basically that.  The Philly beak doctors immediately procured rights to reissue the disheveled masterpiece on vinyl so that 500 (or fewer) not-yet-but-inevitable fans could bask in the warmth of its crud-o-phonic bullion. And here it is. You’re welcome.  Citing both Harry Pussy and Mouthus as influences, XNo BBQX rocks with a lot of junk in their collective trunk, so of course Sunshine Of Your Love sounds...

Ex-cocaine

Esta Guerra

Siltbreeze

Forged in the Garden City (that’s Missoula, Montana to you, piker), Ex-Cocaine is the formidable, sneer-wielding duo of Bryan Ramirez (guitars, effects, vocals) and Mike C (percussion, hexes, spells). Their debut LP from 2005, Keep America Mellow (on Ramirez’s Killertree label) brought to light heavy august vibes steeped in the tippled, woodbine ’n’ cider electro-folk of Michael Chapman, Steve Peregrine Took, Roy Harper, and other more reclusive Anglo biscuit-snuffers whose works haunt the archives of Kissing Spell and Shadoks. On their second effort, Ex-Cocaine throw down hard, evoking a gnarled bonfire with flames that roar thunderously like the detuned, rockist clang of Dead C’s Harsh ’70s Reality, and burns evenly like the smelted, Rust Belt psychedelia of Stone Harbour’s Emerges. Vinyl-only and limited, the sparks are flying off this one already. Catch it if you can.  “Working pretty much from a template of congas and electric fuzz, these heavy mellow bros conjure up swirling eddies of lo-fi, DIY psych that are pretty unbeatable. Were we to have a séance—or simply break out a Ouija Board—to investigate previous blazers of their trail, we might see, hear or spell out such luminaries as Steve Peregrine Took, Stone Harbour, Parameter, Tim Buckley or (Jandek’s) Units.” —Siltblog

Pink Reason

Cleaning The Mirror

Siltbreeze

Pink Reason is always Kevin DeBroux and practically never anyone else. The self-released Pink Reason debut seven-inch from 2006 was an itch of such beguiling psychic ache that all the inhabitants of Siltbreeze Island scratched it until they bled. On this first full length, the resident of Green Bay, Wisconsin, continues to ooze muzzy melancholia by the bucket, ably and formidably clearing house in Sanguine Manor, whose previous tenants include Royal Trux, The Jacobites, Phantom Payne, Black Vial, and other marginal inhabitants whose sticky fingers glimmer in stoned adulation. Dominated by creeping synths, stark strums and rickety percussive splats that complement De Broux's heartscraping vocal catharsis, Cleaning The Mirror journeys far beyond any known perspective, practically insinuating an alternate otherworld where Tim Buckley's Lorca and Jandek's Ready For The House have been hybridized into a ripe-for-plucking masterpiece. Or, shunning hyperbole in favor of acronym, Pink Reason's modern day DIY is very FYI that you should check out PDQ.   Look for Pink Reason live via land, sea and air throughout 2007. 

Sapat

Mortise And Tenon

Siltbreeze

Spawned from the formidable Louisville, KY collective known as Black Velvet Fuckere (Valley Of The Ashes, Phantom Family Halo, Kark, etc.), Sapat resides as the centrifugal force in this Midwestern psychedelic madrigal set in the psychosexual backwaters of the mighty Ohio River. For the entirety of the '00 decade, members have kept busy collaborating with and/or massaging the egos of various and sundry avant-pontiffs such as Robert Fripp, Magik Markers, Dead Child (David Pajo's metal band. That's right, David Pajo!) and Eugene Chadbourne -- when not honing the orgone energy of Sapat.  The Fall of '06 saw their debut release, a seven-inch on BVF entitled Tongue-Tied & Staid that had a few astute bloggers comparing the action within to "aggressive blues a la Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band." However, for this self-titled full-length release, Sapat has opted for a different, more organic sonic waft. Acoustically packed to the gills, the octet effortlessly strums and blows breezy vibes, emitting kosmisch melodies and Teutonic ambience that channel -- Julian Cope-like -- past giants such as Limbus 4, Siloah and Lord Krishna Von Goloka (you know, the A-team of Krautrock). Once you launch into the group's spacey and entrancing, yet calming and soothing asteroid belt, you might mistake the Ozarks for the Alps if you're not careful. And who could blame you? You're way up there and the air's thin; hallucinating's a must. 

Times New Viking

Paisley Reich

Siltbreeze

What a year 2006 was for Times New Viking. Their hot debut album under their belt, the trio set off on a nationwide U.S. tour (including two scorching performances at SxSW), followed by a springtime East Coast jaunt in support of The Country Teasers, not to mention various scraps in the puniverse of new weird America, and drawing blood from the likes of Magik Markers, Lambsbread and Burning Star Core. All of which is fine and good -- love those chops! -- but fans (and label execs) have been gnashing their teeth in anticipation, wondering "where's the next record?"  The Paisley Reich ably avoids D.S.A. syndrome (an acronym coined by The Shadow Ring meaning "difficult second album").Having developed even more vim and vigor, TNV's blur of high-concept pop, crud, and crunch is staggering. Scribes who languor within the compnoscenti of glossy print continue to peep about parallels to Guided By Voices and Pavement; those of us paying our own way recall the glorious lo-fi shimmer of nascent Flying Nun via The Clean, Great Unwashed, and Max Block. So if you're travelling up and down the SH1 somewhere between Christchurch and Dunedin and hear the luring strains of harmony and distemper, know that it is not The Kilgour Bros., Robert Scott nor the family Crook. It's the malcontented rumble of Times New Viking wistfully channeling spirits from the grime of Washington Beach to the shine of the Otago Peninsula. And in Reich-speak, that may take a thousand years to achieve,...

Times New Viking

Dig Yourself

Siltbreeze

My first encounter with Times New Viking was in the form of a cassingle. I found it lodged in what appeared to be a shrine to them on a street corner during our annual litter crusade. Inside the cassette’s handmade case was scrawled “This am band. Good band!” Next to that was a crude drawing of what appeared to be three people playing instruments. It smelled musty and had a real creepy, cultish vibe to it. I was intrigued. Playing the cassette I was at once taken back at the raw primitivness of the music. The organ wheezed and croaked, the drums snapped with sickness and a guitar hacked through it all like a serrated, gangrenous knife. On top of this was a frantic male/female vocal drama. It sounded like demonic incantaions or really elaborate recipes being delivered in a frantic, almost mantra-like chatter. It was unlike anything I’d heard in a long time. I needed to get to the bottom of the Times New Viking mystery. Long story short, in the following months I saw TNV perform numerous times and got to know them rather well. And yes, I have found many more shrines (and continue to find them to this day).   What you have here is a collection of songs found on the various shrine cassettes. They’ve all been lovingly fucked with my Mr. Mike Rep, (the man behind the lo-fi genius of Guided By Voices’ Propeller and Get Out Of My Stations among other things)...

Guided By Voices

Get Out Of My Stations

Siltbreeze

Originally released in 1993, Get Out Of My Stations boasts the same classic Guided by Voices lineup as Propeller - Robert and Jim Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Dan Toohey and Kevin Fennel (and let's not forget that it was lovingly fucked with by Mike Rep on the production side of things). Outside of the Siltbreeze seven-inch collection (Tard & Further'd), none of the original seven tracks have turned up on any GBV, Pollard, or Sprout project since this seven-inch was released 10 years ago. Too frequently overlooked - due to the unavailability of this record for many years - is how great these tracks are, even compared to the spate of seven-inch EPs that turned up in the wake of Propeller hysteria. Not one throwaway track exists upon it. This is blood, sweat and beers, otherwise known as blue ribbon GBV. (How and why this record originally came to be should tell you all you need to know: the recordings were traded to Siltbreeze for a pair of vintage Walt "Clyde" Frazier Pumas - 1973, size 11, green suede, never worn - and a bottle of Silly Goose authentic German apple schnapps. Those were the days!) Get Out Of My Stations, in all its lo-fi glory, now on compact disc for the first time, contains four extra live tracks from the same era. The recordings are sharp, captured as they came down - hot, spontaneous and presented to you honestly, without the assistance of studio gimmicks. Don't be afraid...

Harry Pussy

Ride A Dove

Siltbreeze

1929

Last But Not Leased

Siltbreeze

1929 consists of members John Boothman (ex-Bro JT & Vibrolux, President BSA {Bald Swingers of America}), Brendan Gallagher (ex-Dischord waterboy, Battlefield Earth reenactor {that's "Terl" to you, farb}) and Tyler Harold (CFBI Booking wunderkid, Fred Biletnikoff lookalike). For the past two years 1929 have been leveling blowboxes all over Philadelphia without so much as a "Hello, It's Me" from Philly's own blowbox king, Todd Rundgren. You'd think with that kind of liberation going on the least Todd could do is invite 'em over to try on a pair of Roger Powell's sunglasses (left by mistake), rub one of Kasim's scarves or exchange high fives with Willie Wilcox. Maybe the Runt's savin' all the good times for Utopia acolytes The Champs. Cujusvis hominis est errare. Once they were spied moping around town, giving each other charleyhorses and hertz donuts after the big dis, the CEO at Siltbreeze agreed to give 'em a record deal. Since they're all Vietnam vets, it makes sense. It's just that kind of restaurant. The sonic, slurring, instrumental tonic they have decided to bottle up and pass off as their own is a dab of Hawkwind, a pinch of Dead C., and a sprinkle of any number of desert rock's heaviest comancheros. You could say it's the finest non-vocal release to pass through the turnstiles since the Smashchords' 12-inch. Or if you weren't born then, how about Earth 2? Say whatever you like. So long as it's not Gone III. 1929 have played in support of and...

Resineators

Don't (blank) With The Fantasy

Siltbreeze

***Get ready to match the stars! San Francisco's game-show-addicted, panic rock overlords the RESINEATORS deliver the ultimate $500 response with their second album, an instant California drug-classic of psych-expanded rockers. Panelists DAVID "THE NUDE" NUDELMAN (3 STONE MEN, THE WILD BREED) and ANTHONY "SILVER-STREAK" BEDARD (ICKY BOYFRIENDS, LEATHER UPPERS) have augmented their telepahtic, two-man collison drill with AARON NUDELMAN (SUNLESS DAY) and ANDY OGELSBY (THE ROOFIES) to forge this collection of ten flypaper-melodic, primal-concussive, battered and deep-fried cans of corn. Includes the fan-favorite "Underage Girl Get Out!!!," as well as a panic-drenched cover of Ike & Tina's drug party anthem, "Contact High." Amazing.

Brother Jt & Vibrolux

Invocation Parts 1 & 2

Siltbreeze

Bruce Russell

Project For A Revolution In Ny

Siltbreeze

***Dead C. mainstay's multiple personalities mull the merits of the back-to-monodiglycerides movement.

Esh, Sam & Hard Black Thing

Montezuma Baby Duck

Siltbreeze

Strapping Fieldhands

In The Pineys

Siltbreeze

Sunshine Super Scum

Two Reactions

Siltbreeze

Ashtabula

River Of Many Dead Fish

Siltbreeze

***Return of this loveable Fieldhands side project, a little closer to the fucked-up psychedelic punk-rock of The Soft Boys and Andrews-period XTC or their alter ego Dukes of Stratosphear). Lots of great pumping organ and new wave guitars. The CD also contains tracks from the Unbearable Lightness seven-inch.

Brother Jt & Vibrolux

Doomsday Rock

Siltbreeze

***A cheerfully titled long-player of late 60's psychedelic pop that explores some of the avenues The Bro tends to meander down, with a more playful edge and less overdriven guitar. Twelve tracks, fifty one minutes.

Brother Jt & Vibrolux

Music For The Other Head

Siltbreeze

Dead C

Tusk

Siltbreeze

After years of flirting with profound torpor, the finger is removed from the carb and New Zealand’s favorite sluggish trio gets a lung full of bigtime entropy. Slow, quiet, and barely played, this masterpiece sounds like it was recorded by several death row inmates on morphine. The future of rock right here, right now.

Harry Pussy

What Was Music?

Siltbreeze

Pin Group

S/t

Siltbreeze

Shadow Ring

Hold Onto I. D.

Siltbreeze

Cheritan, England's favorite sons of the moody-quiet deliver their fourth album, and upon their word, their best to date. Fully integrating the electronic additions began on last year's Wax-Work Echoes (Corpus Hermeticum) by newest member Tim Goss, with their patented threadbare acoustic vibe for some truly remarkable new music.

V/a

Tard & Further'd

Siltbreeze

Not since the delicous love-spanking received via Hey Drag City has my sampler wary ears dripped such a voluminous torrent of wax. A collection of Siltbreeze’s rare and early singles compiled in pleasurable torture. With: Halo Of Flies, Gibson Bros., V-3, Dead C, Alastair Galbraith, Sebadoh, Mike Rep, Terminals, Guided By Voices, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apts, Shadow Ring, Queen Meanie Puss, and Monkey 101. Some with more than one song.

Venom P. Stinger

Tearbucketer

Siltbreeze

Mick Turner (post- SICK THINGS, pre- DIRTY THREE).

Yips

Blue Flannel Bathrobe Butterfly

Siltbreeze

Yips

Bonfire In A Dixie Cup

Siltbreeze

Kito Mizukumi Rouber

Midori Mushi San Connichiwa

Siltbreeze

Plucking Kito-Miukumi Rouber's lp out of an anonymous year end frying pan & into our Best Of 2009 fire seemed to confound toady taste makers & blog plonkers all around Hipster Haven. To them lists are a crucial element of.....something, & let's face it, peeps love lists. Sales are generated, no argument there. Why, I'd wager that ringing endorsement of 'Otonaki Touge De Hagureta KMR' was instrumental in said lp essentially going from under the radar to out of print by early 2010. Fancy that! And now here we are, almost a year later & Siltbreeze is proud to offer its followup; a 5-track 7" ep entitled 'Midori Mushi San Connichiwa'. If you’re a fan of the LP, I can't possibly see how this won't be in your wheelhouse. For the unfamiliar, K-MR's sound seems informed by old school Japanese genre snuffers such as Tako & Gunjogacrayon. Combining the jabbering, pan humanoid outthereness of the former w/the zoned, riffed, mutant indifference of the latter, K-MR have created a toxic, dripping blotter of sound that is most appealing to those of us who luxuriate in the humidity of the 1%. Plus, as an added laugh (theirs, mine, yours, ours) they've tacked on an eerie cover snippet that is a stab in the heart to every campfire singalong & folksy hootenanny through time immemorial. Absolutely tremendous! Released in an edition of 286 to commemorate the year in the Japanese calendar when a wise man went to see the Emperor about a horse....

Renderers

A Dream Of The Sea

Siltbreeze

***After ten years and three albums one of New Zealand’s great many treasures returns with a wondrous new album. A fine fine blending of the delta-esque bluesing of Tav Falco, the amphetamine feedback shriek of the Velvet Underground, and the heartsick, melancholic harmonizing of the Carter Family, along with vocalist Maryrose Crook’s honey-soaked voice and the reckless abandon of Brian Crook’s guitar frenzy. Members have passed through the ranks of such notables as Bill Direen’s Above Ground, Scorched Earth Policy, Max Block, and the Terminals. Touring the states along with Barbara Manning fielding a group that adds Robbie Yeats of the Dead C and Richard Baker filling in for regulars Greg Cairns and Denise Roughan. Invincible, as if from the Gods.

Hall Of Fame

S/t

Siltbreeze

Hall of Fame's third full-length album finds these NYC indoor miners forging even deeper into their secret cave of gems (financed with new picks'n'shovels on the Siltbreeze tab). Like their previous output on the Amish label, this one's a melange of tribal thump, eastern drone, raga concrète and melodious melancholia. Hall of Fame's unique, not easily identifiable sound has been compared to revered oufits such as Flies Inside the Sun and The Shadow Ring, sometimes even in English. If, like the young scribes from Hayfever magazine, your recollection and your record collection go back further than a time we like to call "the early '90s," it's okay to shout "king me!" and move on. But if you really wanna sit around the ol' checkerboard discussing strategy, then your next stop is a lower east side of the late '60s; Hall of Fame's healthy smattering of influences stretches back to Ludlow Street-era Velvet Underground, Prestige-era Moondog, The Godz and Angus Maclise. Recently the band played a series of shows with The Red Krayola, impressing the hell out of that old Quixotic Dadaist Mayo Thompson and his erstwhile Sancho Panza, David Grubbs. Señor Grubbs was so impressed that he enlisted HoF's Dan Brown to do some drumming for his forthcoming release of covers from various performances from the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Only in New York! o Samara is also a member of Tower Recordings, Metabolismus & Sonora Pine. Dan Brown has done time in Stratotanker & God Is My Co-Pilot. Theo...

Ashtabula

Possible Smokestacks

Siltbreeze

***Correct us if we're wrong, but we believe it was the legendary '60s imagemaker Jake Witsen who said, "Give me intestinal fortitude over verisimilitude any day, 'cause I want a band with blood and guts, not a group of bleepin' nuts." Good on yer, Jake ol' boy, you said a mouthful there. But the Witsenian guts on Possible Smokestacks might better be spelled p-l-u-c-k. Lots of pluck. As with outfits within the Elephant 6 collective, there's a ubiquity about it as well (Brobdignagian in this case, as opposed to E6's Lilliputian, let's set the record straight). Smokestacks takes in everything from the glimmer of '60s psychedelic Britpop (a la the UK Kaleidoscope) to a bizarro-world cross between Remake/Remodel-era Roxy Music and Dub Housing-era Pere Ubu, to the Edgar Broughton Band and Hawkwind (setting ears on fire in a tent on the Glastonbury plains). An appearance by a German chanteuse on one track sways somewhere between Nico and Lotte Lenya (but for god's sake, don't go blabbing to Boyd Rice). This album is, as they are wont to say in Magnet, "all over the place." It might make you cry, it might make you sweat, but it'll definitely make you moist. And in these frigid times, kingpin, isn't leaving one's glands to the mercy of people like BOB MALLOY (STRAPPING FIELDHANDS) what it's all about?

Vertical Slit

Under The Blood Red Lava Lamp

Siltbreeze

***An absolutely atomizing collection of all the tracks from both the Smudge EP and the Under the Blood Red Lava Lamp cassette released by this JIM SHEPARD-led über-outer underground band from Columbus, Ohio, circa 1980. Played by three meth-baked and beer-soaked shamen, these tracks are the quintessential blend of heady midwestern prog and slobbering, damaged metal that fit uncomfortably well somewhere between In the Court of the Crismson King and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Immortalized at # 455 by Chuck Eddy in his "seminal" book Stairway to Hell: The Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums of All Time, where he writes, "(Lava Lamp) adds up to a moss of pedal-mass not unlike Hearthan-era Pere Ubu." Pressed in a limited edition of 1,000 copies and features the original Lava Lamp liner notes as well as a remembrance from Old Age/New Age honcho Mike Rep (who originally released these titles on New Age in 1981 and Old Age in 1986 respectively). Amazing.

Licht, Alan

Rabbi Sky

Siltbreeze

Big Al sure gets around don't he? Snoots and scuds know him from his collaborations with Loren Mazzacane Connors, smurfs from his stint in Run On, and snoids from his presence in Blue Humans, whereas true snerts can trace him all the way back to Love Child. But only bona fide spiffs and industry professionals such as yourself are familiar with all his dalliances, including his burgeoning solo career, which, release-wise, can now be stacked three high. Musically, it would be rather fantastic to describe Rabbi Sky as a hybridization of his previous two efforts (The Evan Dando Of Noise? [Corpus Hermeticum, 1997] and Sink The Aging Process [Siltbreeze, 1993]); if you feel a compulsion to nod in their direction, console yourself by thinking of this one as a most excellent extension. Listening to the opener, the title track executed in five movements, one is cast headlong into a minimalist menagerie; the bracing, string-tingling beginning segues into a hypnotizing, ecclesiastical chord organ drone, resurrecting into a tremendous cut-and-paste finale of looped and overdubbed guitar that whirls around in the air performing a lascivious, improvisational fandango. On the other hand, "All Blues" (the second and final track dedicated to both James McNew and Phill Niblock) is pure aggro-muzz that takes on an almost anthemic persona-a 10-plus-minute battle royale of MXR Blue Box fuzz and feedback carnage that sounds like a chimney full of hornets fornicating on the first day of mating season. "I wanted to dedicate the song to James [McNew]...

Charalambides

Houston

Siltbreeze

***Regrouping after the recent departure of Jason Bill, psychedelic pioneers Tom & Christina Carter return to their early incarnation as a duo, and deliver their sixth album - and first new material since their dream-gushing side on the Harmony of the Spheres compilation. A stark and haunting inner-mind probe of the minimalist side of psychedelia using precision instruments of electro-acoustic guitar, piano, saxophone, and Christina's pain-numbing, beautiful vocals. Eight super-drifting, sensual tracks to make love to your central nervous system with.

Ashtray Navigations

Use Copenhagen Guitars

Siltbreeze

***LAST COPIES!!! This lovely and attractive full-length LP debut (previously only found on cassettes and a Betley UK single) shows the solo guitar effectery of Phil Todd (inca Eyeball, Target Shoppers, Ceramic Hobs) in its full light. Overdub upon overdub of acidic, vibrating good-sound that should surely compliment the eye lids at a comfortable half mast, especially on the synth drenched 20:24 timed b-side “Phaser Like a Block of Salt.” Numbingly electric. Ltd. to 500.