Chris’s Blog

 As far as release days go, and we’ve had some damn fine ones this year, today (November 20) is a doozy; no question. It’s tough to establish a hierarchy, but if pressed, I’d name Crucial Blast’s reissue of Skullflower’s 1992 album, IIIrd Gatekeeper.

Bearing only a limited resemblance to the superbly abrasive, occasionally transcendent noise of Matthew Bower’s more recent output under the Skullflower moniker, IIIrd Gatekeeper is very much a metal album. Were it seeing releasing today for the first time, few would hesitate to label it “post-metal,” and I don’t doubt that a fair number would hail it as a new high-water mark for the genre, and they’d be right to do so. Gloriously menacing, first plodding, then churning bass roots the album’s low end in doom and sludge, occasionally venturing into an almost industrial grind reminiscent of early Swans, while Bower’s guitar squeals and howls psychedelic obscenity and white-noise poetry above the black morass. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a little of Glenn Branca to be found here as well. So very, very nice.

In a close fight for top recommendation is Southern Lord’s release of the live Boris and Merzbow collaboration, Rock Dream.

This double-CD isn’t the first time the two Japanese legends have worked together, and I hope to God it won’t be the last. Easily assuming it’s place as my favorite Boris recording to date, and despite Masami Akita’s substantial contributions, this is still very much a Boris album, Rock Dream manages to showcase most of Boris’ many facets, all subtly, and occasionally not-so-subtly, augmented by Akita’s psychedelic noise. The pairing seldom falters, though it’s notable for succeeding in very different, and often unexpected ways from song to song. During many of Boris’ more chaotic, baldly aggressive numbers the listener may find himself denied the expected cartharsis when Akita’s squelches and squalls begind to work against the rhythm, providing a constant where Boris’ original renditions thrive on calculated flux. Every bit of the pent up energy and frustrated release pays off in the quieter moments, as in the absolutely beautiful “Flower Sun Rain” and the slow, invincibly threatening “The Evilone which Sobs,” both of which allow Akita’s noise to live up to its full musical and atmospheric potential. I do not wish to imply that every runs contrary to expectation, however, for there are moments, particularly on the second disc, which rank amongst the most genuinely raucous rock and roll have to offer, exhausting to listen to under any circumstances.  The shivers I’m getting right now listening to this album are making me rethink not placing this at the top of the list. Good God, you people need this.

But that’s not all! Far from it!

The Foetus reissues continue, this time with 1988’s Thaw and the 1981-89 rarities collection Sink.

Thaw may very well be the most genuinely frightening release in Thirlwell’s intimidating ouevre. Replacing Nail’s big band stylings with Southern Choruses, Blues piano affectations and Mexican/Indian accents (you’ll have to give “¡Chingada!” a listen to make much sense of that one), Thirlwells manages to wring even greater mileage out of his impressively developed psychoses than his early work allowed for; the tone here is decidedly darker and the humor, while perhaps not quite living up (down?) to the depths of the holocaust references present on Nail and Hole, is wielded more aggressively, and Thirlwell’s tone would seem to have shifted from black comedy to bullying sick joke. The album’s darkest moments arrive with track 4, “English Faggot/Nothin’ Man,” which features Thirlwell first growling, later screaming, lines inspired by a threatening answering machine message he received during the album’s composition, some of them repeated verbatim. If these comments sound like a caution, they’re intended to, but that isn’t to say that this isn’t a fine, fine album, and one I’d heartily recommend to those of the proper disposition. Sink is a purchase better suited to the dedicated Thirlwell fan, but features some fantastic tracks, and showcases some of his early successful forays into soundscapes and soundtracks which would later manifest in his Steroid Maximus project and his work for the Venture Brothers series, amongst other places.

And, goddamn, that’s still not all! But it’ll have to do for now… more to come!

At long last I am making my much delayed, but little hoped for, return to Pure Pop blogging. I apologize for the month long delay between my re-entry into Anglophonic society and my posting here. I’d like to say school was wholly to blame, but in truth, sloth was undeniably an accomplice.

So. Where to begin?

The collaborative recording session of Fred Frith and Evelyn Glennie documented in Touch the Sound (you can find the trailer below) has at long last been released by Tzadik records, and is entitled The Sugar Factory. I can’t recommend it enough. The musicality of both parties is every bit as astounding as expected, and the range of form and tone on display is remarkable. While plenty of passages revel in the industrial decay in which the session was recorded, joyful outbursts and bright, playful diversions are also in ample supply.

I was supremely disappointed to learn that sales of Throbbing Gristle’s return Part Two: Endless Not did not substantially improve during my absence. This album will be extremely difficult to unseat from its current position as my favorite album of the year, and I’d like to think I’m not alone in my admiration of it. TG’s new sound may not be immediately to the liking of those hoping for 20 Jazz Funk Greats part 2 or another Annual Report will be disappointed;  Sleazy’s presence dominates throughout and Endless Not resembles nothing so much as a late period Coil album with a handful of guests from the old gang lending a helping hand. This is not a problem.  To call it a “late period Coil album,” high praise indeed, is perhaps selling TG’s accomplishment short; this is a great late period Coil album. Replete with warbling, soft-focus shapes of malformed sound, and hazy, occasionally jazzy melodies, this is clearly an entirely new TG, and one which may ultimately pose a greater psychic threat to the listener for having shed the more overtly confrontational trappings of years past.

Those who find TG’s latest to their liking would be well advised to explore the double-disc editions of Black Antlers and The Remote Viewer currently resident in our Avant-garde section; they do not disappoint.

Upon my return I was also able to re-discover an unexpected gem of an album released earlier this year, MGR vs. Sir DSS‘ Impromptu. MGR (Mustard Gas and Roses, a Kurt Vonnegut reference) is guitarist Mike Gallagher, and you’ll find the album filed in out Post-Metal section under his far better known band, Isis. MGR’s previous outing struck me as a not-unpleasant, but rather by-the-book post-rock outing with pretensions of heaviness. Paired with Sir DSS, who’s previously provided studio support to Big Business, Merzbow and Mike Patton in addition to a stint with the Melvins, he’s managed to release a lovely little recording, well-suited to the taste of those listeners with an ear for Earth’s recent output and labelmate Harvestman’s Lashing the Rye.

On the Metal front, Wolves in the Throne Room, a wonderful band of black-metalists from the Pacific-Northwest who richly deserve their recently assumed position on the Southern Lord roster, are set to release their newest sprwaling, blackened epic, entitled Two Hunters, on September 25th. Wolves in the Throne Room’s previous efforts have found their way onto my top metal albums of the year list two years running (and would have done so the year before if I’d been able to acquire their 2004 demo in the year of its release), and I’ve every confidence they’ll manage to do it again.

That’s all for the moment, I’ll do my best to be better about updates in the near future. In closing, I’d just like to mention that Mike’s going to be placing an order with Forced Exposure early this week, so Pure Pop customers interested in any of the lovely but oh-so-difficult-to-find recordings which are their stock and trade would be well advised to get in touch sooner rather than later.

Only a few short weeks into my blogging career and already I must take my leave. Later today I’ll be arriving on the campus of Middlebury College to participate in their language school - seven whole weeks of nothing but German. Sadly the advancement of my education comes at a cost, my coming inability to speak, read, write or listen to any language other than German will mean that my blogging activities will be severely curtailed. Oh, I’ll try and sneak a post or two in if I can… I’m assuming that all of you already have a favorite web translator, yes?

Thank you very much for reading - I’ll be back in late August!

We’ve all got two or three, maybe even four bands that manage, over the years, to transcend “favorite band”status and enter into a special pantheon of the truly great. Bands which have exerted such a powerful, sustained influence over our lives that they cannot be accurately classified as mere “entertainment,” they are touchstones of our identity, producing a music wholly subsumed into our concept of self. For many, such a status is too rarified to accord upon a band as a whole, particularly a band possessed of a longevity spanning decades, but rather it is an album, a period, an era at most which merits inclusion in our personal pantheon of identity

I have a band, a group whose works I carry with me, whose music has played a formative role in my development, and whose latest album is held as close to my heart as their very first. A band whose entire active career, corresponding almost exactly to my own lifespan and not yet ended, has to date been a singular triumph spanning nearly three decades. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Einstürzende Neubauten!

Now, I’ll admit that I am, from time to time, given to hyperbole which, when coupled with a propensity towards the romantic, especially in the company of alchohol, can give birth to some rather grandiose, even silly statments. Be assured that what I say now is not one of that ilk.

I was late in discovering Neubauten, for it was not until my freshman year in high school that I first experienced them. Haus der Lüge, their 1989 which served for many fans as the death knell for the raucus, noisey Neubauten proper of the ’80s (those who did not already despair in the aftermath of 1987’s quiet, tension-filled Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskal). Back in the early 90’s, I had no inkling of the controversy which raged amongst the Neubauten-faithfull over the quieter, more accessible direction taken by Blixa and company… I knew only that this was something important. More than a decade on, I’m still convinced I was right and the any-sayers wrong, wrong wrong. As time passed I explored Neubauten’s back catalog, discovering as I explored the esteemed contemporaries of their early years - Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Foetus, Cabaret Voltaire, The Virgin Prunes, the Swans and all that lot, all of them dear to this day. With Coil as possibly their only true rival in my heart, Neubauten have remained the most consistent the most continuously loved of the lot.

So why do I mention any of this now? Well, recent months have seen a number of Neubauten reissues, and a pretty damn spectaclar new DVD release (to say nothing of the subscriber-only releases they’ve been handling themselves). None of them have gotten much attention, and it’s a goddamn crime as far as I’m concerened. Here’s a partial run-down:

Kalte Sterne - Released some time back, but still recently enough that you might have missed it if you weren’t looking. This is an odds and ends release from the years preceeding their first proper LP, containing a significant number of tracks previously unreleased in the US, Kalte Sterne remains a startling work, notable both for its abrasive audacity and a surprising subltly already present amidst the chaos. The throbbing baselines and skittering guitar apparent on a few tracks provide a link with the better known contemporary post-punk and no-wave movements that is less apparent in later releases. The videos linked below are not all tracks which appear on this collection, but rather performances representative of the sound and era.


Halber Mensch - A1985 release considered, along with 1983’s Drawings of Patient O.T., one of Neubauten’s undisputed classics. In many ways, Halber Mensch marks the introduction of a more sophisticated methodology for Neubauten, one which saw an increased emphasis upon an intricately constructed ambience and melody along with a greater willingness to incorporate more traditional instrumentation. Though showcasing a more restrainted and refined Neubaten, Halber Mensch contains some of the band’s most unabashedly desperate, emotionally frightened moments as the nihilism of their earlier releases collides with the romanticism of later efforts. Seele Brennt and Letztes Biest (am Himmel) being prime examples. The video below is a live rendition of Yü-Gung.

Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskal - Neubauten’s 1987 release showcased a softer, more patient and considered side of the band. Although derided by contemporary critics as a Neubauten album recorded whilst attempting not to wake the neighbors, this album’s quiet has little to do with fear. Though restrained in comparison to their previous efforts, this album is in many ways a frightening companion piece to the folkish explorations of the Swans during the same era. Alas, I could find no YouTube documentation of its power.Haus der Lüge - Possibly the only Neubauten album which provides any evidence of a link between the abrasive, mechanical, droning and experimental nature of “industrial music” as coined by Genesis P-Orridge and the synth-pop/metal fusion which would bear in the same name in the United States throughout the nineties, but a fine, fine album nevertheless. The album’s title song, which I had the pleasure of hearing Blixa sarcastically introduce several times over as “our greatest hit, which we never tire of playing over and over again…” is a powerful energetic fusion of old and new Neubauten, with almost Wagnerian horns backing a violent bass throb accompanied by cascading showers of breaking glasss backing what is possibly one of Blixa’s finest vocal deliveries. While some may suffering violent head-banging flashbacks to the tune of Slayer’s “Reign in Blood,” it is only with the utmost difficulty that I can listen to this song without engaging in full body seizures approaching grand-mal proportions. At the other end of the album’s sonic spectrum, “Fiat Lux” is a gorgeous composition of murmured vocals, buzzing bees and quiet bass while “Ein Stuhl in der Hölle” is a surprsingly traditional, beautifully rendered, quietly disturbing Bavarian folk-song. The first video below is from the band’s tour in support of this album, the second is a festival performance several years later.


Tabula Rasa - A reissue courtesy of Mute Records which combines the 1993 Tabula Rasa album with the Interim EP released the same year. Both releases were important declarations for the band, annoucing the path to be pursued over the next decade. Krautrock emerged as an influence for the first time, the dramatic, soundtrack elements of previous releases were brought to the fore and a new melodic gentleness emerged as a guiding principle. At the same time, the abrasive excesses of the past were not forgotten, but rather concentrated into intense bursts of fury as on the now legendary “Headcleaner.” The first video below is a live performance, the second a video accompanying the album’s release.


Finally, Neubauten have just released Palast Der Republik, a video record of their 2004 performance at the venue of the same name in the former East Berlin shortly before it was destroyed. I’ll let Blixa explain the significance. The second video is a sample of the performance.


And after all that, I still feel it necessary to further insist upon your watching a wonderful video for Neubauten’s exceptional video for their song “Sabrina” (still capable of moving me to tears) from the Silence is Sexy album (their American tour in support of this album provided me with one of the finest concert experiences I have ever had, with the band’s concluding performance of “Sonnenbarke” being perhaps the most transcendental experience of my admittedly brief life), and then a series of wonderful adverts featuring Blixa’s dramatic readings from the catalog of Germany’s largest hardware store. Then, lest the amusing absurdity of the adverisements adversely affect your mood, I will conclude with aNeubauten’s extraordinarily beautiful “Armenia.”

Fred Frith, in all his varied projects and forms, has never been a big seller here at Pure Pop. This is a shame, a damn shame, and I mean to do something about it. While we’ve no solo Frith CDs in stock at the moment, we do have two fine, fine new releases dominated by his presence that require your attention.

Death Ambient - Drunken Forest: A masterpiece by turns both beautiful and sinister, violent and calm and occasionally even light-hearted. Death Ambient is the trio of DNA drummer and Tzadik staple Ikue Mori, Ground Zero bassist and multi-instrumentalist Kato Hideki and, of course, Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith. Perhaps better termed “exploratory” than “experimental,” on Drunken Forest Death Ambient create a series of intricate, ever-evolving sonic environments, never quite fully formed songs, yet far too active to be classified as merely ambient and both too melodic and too structured to be considered noise. One minute the listener is surrounded by the clicks, whirls and jarring pops of Ikue Mori’s electronics, the next floating lazily along to the accopaniment of Kato Hideki’s carefully plucked banjo only to be ripped from revery by the howling and scraping of Frith’s tortured guitar. More often than not, it’s all happening at once. Jim Pugliese is also to be credited for doing some excellent work as guest percussionist.

Massacre - Lonely Heart: Dating back to 1980, Massacre have become one of the finest improvisational and experimental groups in the history of modern rock music. Consisting only of rock’s bare bones, bass (Bill Laswell), drums (Charles Hayward) and guitar (Fred Frith), Massacre have never been guilty of being boring, even when, as here, Frith decides to restrain his more unconventional, noisier impules. Recorded at the Roskilde music festival before a crowd more accustomed to the overt aggression of thrash metal than considered textural guitar studies, Lonely Heart documents Massacre’s ability, via a display of astounding virtuosity, a willingness to give free rein to their most energetic impulses and one gorgeous, unexpected foray into melancholy, to craft a performance equally pleasing to their established, avant-garde fanbase and some 10,000 unsuspecting metalheads held rapt on a zealand plain.

I feel I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention another piece of Fred Frith related media, one that’s gone unappreciated for some time, and that’s Touch the Sound. Touch the Sound is achingly beautiful documentary testifying to the extraordinary talents of deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie. The direction and cinematography is handled by Thoams Riedelsheimer who demonstrates here, even more so than he did in his also excellent Rivers and Tides, for which Fred Frith provided the score, that he possesses a talent for marrying image to sound unequalled by a quarter century’s worth of music video directors laboring for MTV. While Touch the Sound touches upon much of Glennie’s life and childhood, and features many memorable performances, the centerpiece of this extraordinary film is an improvised recording session featuring Evelyn Glennie and Fred Frith in an abandoned German warehouse.

Coming into work Friday evening I had occasion to glance through our newly-relocated Post-Metal section, and as I did so it struck me how nicely our Sunn0))) section has filled out. Once upon a time, we’d have a title or two in stock, maybe Black One or White1, and there’d be a Khanate CD nearby, but that’d be it. And while that was perfectly respectable for a small indie record store in Northern New England, I’m glad to see we’ve progressed. Now I can look out from the counter with pride at Stephen O’Malley’s assembled sonic progeny, swelling our Post-Rock section from within like putrid gas  bloating the corpse of particularly evil looking goat, ready to burst forth in an exceptionally slow explosion of fetid gore and droning bass tones.
Here’s a quick run-down of some of the newer additions:

KTL - The name comes from “Kindertotenlieder,” which translates roughly as “death songs of children.”  This project, a collaboration between O’Malley and digital noise master Peter “Pita” Rehberg released on two CDs, originated as the score for a performance piece created by Giselle Vienne and Dennis Cooper. The tracks are surprisingly varied, though the ingredients vary little. O’Malley’s bass rises and falls in fluctuating, bowed waves on one track then churns and chugs its way into a distorted maelstrom on another, all the while Rehberg’s digital noise skitters above it, sometimes accentuating, others dominating. I favor the second album myself. Excellent stuff.

Grave Temple - A trio comprising Stephen O’Malley, Oren Ambarchi and the legendary Attila Csihar, gathered together for a limited number of shows in Israel during 2006. The CD contains a single hour long track pieced together by Ambarchi from various live recordings, but you’d never guess it wasn’t recording in a single sitting. Building from nothing, the first 30 minutes of the track are quiet and desolate, but the sounds increase in menace and intensity until finally breaking in chaotic climax of frentic drumming, hissing vocals and overpowering bass distortion.

The Lotus Eaters - Lovingly packaged in a DVD size booklet, The Lotus Eaters is another trio, this time made up of Stephen O’Malley, James Plotkin and Aaron Turner. Surprisingly quiet and considered given the project’s pedigree, the emphasis here is all on atmosphere. Recommended late night listening.