And Now for Something Completely Different…

Pulling Teeth “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions”
(2009, Deathwish Inc.)

This is quite a way to cleanse the palate after blogging about psych-drone for the better part of two weeks.  Although I haven’t been digging a lot of the more recent offerings from Deathwish, I still have tons of love for the label and many of the bands that call it home.  Pulling Teeth is an interesting case.   I’ve always liked the band, but I’ve never really felt like they were reaching their potential– until now.  On “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions” Pulling Teeth puts all of the pieces together to become so much more than just another hardcore band with Slayer solos.

Pulling Teeth’s previous album “Martyr Immortal” showed signs that the band was beginning to evolve beyond the confines of the hardcore genre.  “Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions” makes the full transformation.  Although the band will still drop into uptempo thrashcore passages and fire off explosive guitar solos, there is a new focus on exploring the dynamics of sludge, prog, sampling, and even noise elements.  “Ritual” spends much of its time repeating a nasty doom riff and tends to skew into spaced-out textures in its closing moments.  Fans of the band’s previous works should find a lot to like about  “Bloodwolves,” which hits about as hard as a body flung onto the pavement from a speeding automobile.  Again demonstrating their maturation as a unit, Pulling Teeth reigns in the intensity, dropping the attack in favor of soaring guitar melodies to close the track.

The album closer “Paradise Illusions” demonstrates the biggest departure for Pulling Teeth.  A 9+ minute excursion through societal decay, this piece is probably the greatest moment to date for the band.  Beginning with nature samples and light, pitched-out synth gurgling, it’s pretty clear right away that this isn’t going to be like anything Pulling Teeth has done before.  Clean guitars and actual clean singing make their way into the picture, giving one the impression that things are going to go ape shit pretty soon– but they do not.  Pulling Teeth drops everything, careening the song into samples of human despair backed by somber bass guitar.  Suddenly, the piece collapses into a sludgy dirge, vocalist  Mike delivering apocalyptic premonitions until a final guitar solo emerges to burn the whole thing down.

“Paranoid Delusions/Paradise Illusions”  is a defining moment in the career of a young band. This is an album that vaults Pulling Teeth into the top tier of the Deathwish roster.  Although some will complain that the album is a bit on the short side, no one should let that deter them from hearing one of the best releases extreme music has to offer so far this year.  Recommended.

Listen to “Bloodwolves” on MySpace

Pulling Teeth Official Website

Hear more and purchase @ Deathwish Inc.

Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness:” Part Five

At last we have reached the end of our long journey.  Now five tapes deep, only two sidelong pieces remain of this once intimidating box.  The duo comprising Natural Snow Buildings, Gularte and Ameziane find closure in these final optimistic movements.

Side A on cassette five contains “Devil’s Fork,” which begins as a gentle piece of psych-drone filled with the same hope radiating from the tracks on cassette four.  Cleanly picked guitars are interspersed at the top of the mix, coasting along tiny waves of synth flutter, later giving way to delayed swipes of guitar wash.  Again, a feeling of a warm, yet bittersweet longing for the past is brought to life through these tones.  Natural Snow Buildings are not content to simply idle away the rest of the album wallowing in nostalgia.  The fading sun on the dusk suddenly explodes into a ball of fire with swirling guitars, tambourine clashes, and towering choral arrangements.  Although the proceedings become rather intense, we are pulled back away from the flames only to watch them burn out harmlessly.

Now we reach the end of the album– “The Invisibles.”  Opening with a more caustic nature than the last few tracks, the piece leans heavily on big drums and female chants.  Pulsing with spiritual enthusiasm– you could probably dance to this.  I wouldn’t recommend throwing it on a playlist for your next party though.  Unless your party happens to be on a burial mound where you and your friends smoke opium and read the Necronomicon.  Once the party is over, the track drops into a formless binge of guitar distortion before again being picked back up by periodic drum hits and jangling percussion.

It’s difficult to condense one’s thoughts on an album as expansive as “Daughter of Darkness.”  This box contains a huge emotional spectrum– moments of intense fear, regret, longing, and happiness are all drawn out through these tracks.  I can’t seem to shake the feeling that this album sounds like a companion piece to a great spiritual journey.  Along the way, we encounter our hopes, fears and dreams.  Although a lot is learned about the world around us, the greatest discoveries are internal.

I will probably never be able to listen to this album from start to finish in one sitting, but I have the utmost respect for what Natural Snow Buildings have accomplished with “Daughter of Darkness.”  To have the foresight and patience to construct such a coherent series of pieces that unfold over the course of six hours is quite a feat.  Well done– now how about a reissue?

Download “Daughter of Darkness” Cassette Five

Oh, and yes, this isn’t the last of “Daughter of Darkness.”  The band recently released a “Part V” despite actually being the 6th tape in this series.  Stay tuned for that one.

Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness:” Part Four

Somehow I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  After four hours of arctic climbs and dances with the dead, we are entering the final stirring movements of Natural Snow Buildings’ almost indescribably epic “Daughter of Darkness” box.  Two roughly half hour pieces comprise cassette four, which unsurprisingly takes us in a completely different direction than anything we have heard up to this point.

There was some question at the close of tape three that the oppressive atmosphere Natural Snow Buildings had spent the last hour or so crafting would continue to linger– that is not the case.  Cassette four opens with “Will You Die for Me,” a supremely calming, ambient drone piece that lifts the black clouds.  Introspective and gorgeous, this piece completely shifts the mood of “Daughter of Darkness” as the album enters its final stages.   Beautiful layers of synth casting themselves high into the bright blue sky.  There were times when I wished this song would not end.

Luckily, “Black Pastures” continues this  pastiche.  Still heavily reliant on lush synth texturing, this track adds vocal arrangements and some light percussive elements.  These vaporous drones recall pleasant memories of people and places lost to our past.  Waking to see the sun rise and realizing that at this moment in time, everything is exactly as it should be.  Simply moving.

Cassette four is a bit of a redemptive moment for “Daughter of Darkness.”  This sea change marks another stunning turn for the album, and remains another impressive component in an ambitious work that could easily teeter off its perch into lethargy.  This is arguably the best section of this five cassette box.

Only one part remains!

Download “Daughter of Darkness” Cassette Four

Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness:” Part Three

We reach the halfway point of this titanic album in today’s post.  Cassette three of “Daughter of Darkness” is the darkest portion of this box encountered up to this point.  Unlike tapes one and two, tape three consists solely of two sprawling pieces, a trend that will continue for the remainder of “Daughter of Darkness.”

Much like the beginnings of cassette two, cassette three opens with a bleak movement.  “Santa Sangre Part I & II” makes heavy use of percussion and chanting.  This track feels like a continuation of cassette two’s “Slaves for the After Life,” which I noted as sounding like a celebratory piece of honoring the dead.  There are no traditional guitar breaks or soothing melodies to be found here.  Natural Snow Buildings let the fires of their festival rage on until the flames expire and the ashes smolder.  Extended passages of guitar squall and persistent chanting carry the track to its conclusion.

The transition is smooth into “A Thousand Demons Invocation.”  This murky psych-folk giant uses its explosive loops of intense guitar wail to summon the dead we spent the last few songs celebrating.  Spires of guitar noise burst upwards from the the ground like the dead ravenously clawing their way out of their dirt prisons.  Once the dead have reclaimed the world of the living, they march.  That familiar percussion begins to take hold, and the guitar tapestries return to a more uniform approach.  “A Thousand Demons Invocation” is largely a straight guitar drone piece, flush with undulating waves of distortion and feedback.  Another standout piece.

It’s remarkable that after hours of music, Natural Snow Buildings can still surprise in the confines of a single album.  Cassette three’s enveloping darkness and deep psych-drone exploration manage to grip the listener in a different manner than we have seen on previous tapes.  Ameziane and Gularte continue to trudge forward, challenging and surprising.  They have dropped us deep into an oppressive, moribund space– now we must see if they are willing to help us find salvation.

Part four will be coming soon.

Download “Daughter of Darkness” Cassette Three

Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness:” Part Two

Welcome back for part two of my exploration into the latest hyper-dense release from Natural Snow Buildings, “Daughter of Darkness”  The second tape in a mythical beast greater in stature than the icy peaks climbed on cassette one.  If you’re planning on spacing out to this one, make sure you have plenty of time to spare– the first piece alone extends beyond forty-three minutes.

Ameziane and Gularte open cassette two by twisting the limbs off of the traditional folk piece “Curare,” which closed the first cassette.  Again showing their prowess for building and breaking sounds, they open “Her Face is Not Her Real Face” with a heavy section of acoustic guitar chords and beautiful female vocal chants.  The French duo slowly deconstruct their glorious monument, pulling away each element and filtering it back through broken but still every bit as breathtaking as it once was whole.   We’re only 1/3 of the way through this track.

Reassembly.  Now sullen and wrought with tragedy.  Natural Snow Buildings pick up these fragments and piece them together so precisely it is as if they were never totally dismantled in the first place.  The lovely vocals come back and so do those ominous chords.  Minimal tribal rhythms now accompany the piece, which is seemingly gathering so much weight that it feels as if we may sink into the ground along with it.  Natural Snow Buildings begin to lift the weight before it becomes too much to bear, transforming the track to an exercise in tonal meditation.

Such a stunning piece is not easy to follow, but “Body Double” does an admirable job.  Melodious, conventional guitar-picking and warm drones give it a much more inviting feel than the darker tones featured on the previous track.  Choral work, free form drum and tambourine are added, giving the track an almost overwhelming amount of layers.  A kaleidoscope of swirling, sunny day psychedelia.

After being warmed by “Body Double,” we are again submerged in darkness  on “Slaves for the After Life.”  With a title like that, you had to know twee-pop wasn’t going to be hitting your ears.  More of the same plodding, heavier drones and vocal arrangements that were focal points of “Her Face is Not Her Real Face.”  While the foundations may be similar, the directions are very much divergent.  Natural Snow Buildings quickly drape these morose drones over top of pounding drums and supplement their female vocal sections with male choral sections.  With it’s stomping and slinking percussion this piece feels like a celebration of the damned.  Similar to tape one, tape two closes with a gorgeous piece of more traditional folk music.  Like much of tape two,  focus is again placed on female chorus use and minimal guitar.

Cassette two really sees Natural Snow Buildings finding their footing.  The delicate balance between the serene and the macabre that emerges as a central theme on this tape makes for a captivating listening experience.  Somehow this tape manages to be even more arresting in its imagery and composition than the already-stunning  tape one.

Remember to check back for part three!

Download Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness:” Tape Two

Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness:” Part One

Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness” (2009, Blackest Rainbow)

Pressing play on “Daughter of Darkness” is like standing at the bottom of a massive summit where the only certainty is how the journey begins.  Clouds flock to the sides of the mountain as if it were sharing great secrets of the Earth long kept to itself.  The top of the mountain is but an abstract concept in our mind.  You wonder if you have the determination to see this through to the end.  To say “Daughter of Darkness” is a staggering piece of work is to denigrate the sheer mystery and majesty of the music held within.

Captured over the course of five cassettes and spanning a mind-bending six hours, “Daughter of Darkness” is likely to be the most daunting piece of music one may hear in 2009.  Emotionally and physically demanding music is not a foreign idea to the prolific French duo that comprise Natural Snow Buildings– they’ve been putting out challenging experimental albums for about a decade now, usually in extremely limited quantities.  As a matter of fact, “Daughter of Darkness” is already long gone.  Only 150 copies were made, and if you’re looking to buy one, be prepared to pay upwards of $100.

I’ve considered different approaches for writing about this album, and have decided that the best method for digesting this titanic release is to break it down tape-by-tape, diving deep into the wintry middle eastern folk dreamworld Natural Snow Buildings have so meticulously crafted.  I would likely lose my sanity had I attempted to condense my thoughts on six hours of music into a 500-word blog post, so I will instead be doing multiple  installments.  Let us continue.

The first tape in the “Daughter of Darkness” box is comprised mainly by the two part “Satanic Demona” suite– 50+ minutes of sprawling psych-drone bliss.  “Part I” is a rigorous ascent to the top of the holy mountain in the midst of a blinding snowstorm– shimmering guitar and tambourine pair with choral sections to form apparitions of false idols rendered opaque by the frozen precipitation.  Gentle drones emerge like sunlight peeking through clouds, the warmth from its rays reducing the icy summit to a vast ocean, beautiful in its perfect stillness.

“Part II” drifts out of the speakers with echoing purple haze guitar emissions and tambourine.  Simple drums join the fray.  The intensity of the percussion gathers and we are brought to a tribal dance section momentarily, only to have its layers stripped away.  Drums, chorus, and jubilation all stripped away, the piece settles into soaring guitar drones.  These drones too fall away in favor of calming woodwind instruments.  Traditional guitar-playing makes its return at the close of “Part II,” a perfect end to a spiraling structure of free-form psychedelia.

Surrounding those two pieces are four smaller pieces including the crackling howl of the title track “Daughters of Darkness” and the rich shoegazing texture of the album’s shortest piece, “Left for Dead.”  On the back end of the two “Satanic Demona” pieces  are “Curare,” which feels like an addendum to the aforementioned epics, and “Carnal Flowers,” which for all I know may be a traditional folk piece.  Its simple, conventional beauty is a welcome respite from the shifting experimentation of the songs that precede it.

The first cassette of “Daughter of Darkness” is a gorgeous fusion of traditional folk sounds and more the progressive approaches of psych and drone music.  Natural Snow Buildings move seamlessly from the familiar to the uniquely stunning, and they do it with grace.

Stay tuned for the second installment!

Download Natural Snow Buildings “Daughter of Darkness” – Cassette One

Pure Powerviolence: Crossed Out

It’s no secret to readers of this blog that I love hardcore punk.  Naturally, this means I am fond of many of its offshoots as well.  One of these is powerviolence.  For those of you not familiar with the genre, powerviolence is is a style of hardcore punk that tends to be much more visceral, sharing a number of similarities with the grindcore genre.  Powerviolence bands typically produced songs that were very brief and chaotic.  It was not uncommon for these bands to incorporate elements of crust and sludge as well.

Now that the genre distinction lesson is over, I can dig into the meat of this post.  This post is obviously about Crossed Out, one of the all-time great  powerviolence acts. Crossed Out came to be in California back in 1990.  Although they were only together for three years, they managed to leave a lasting impression on the world of punk music– influencing later bands like The Locust and Agoraphobic Nosebleed with their confrontational, dissonant sound.

Although a fair amount of Crossed Out’s sound draws from 80s hardcore legends like Infest and Deep Wound, the band managed not to simply carve out a niche for themselves– they took a fucking bulldozer to it.  The signature element of Crossed Out’s sound was their extremely heavy low-end.  By punctuating their frantic passages with tons of thudding basslines, Crossed Out gave themselves an extremely vicious punch that really made them stand out among other genre stalwarts like Man is the Bastard and No Comment.

To say Crossed Out was an aggressive band is an understatement.  Throughout their all-too-brief career, they expressed utter distaste for society across a handful of 7″ EPs and splits.  “Crown of Thorns” comes sprinting out of a dark alley like a knife-wielding cannibal crack addict, stabbing his victim to death and ripping the flesh off bone using only his teeth.  Songs like “Heman” started off with a flurry of riffing, snare hits and barking vocals but would freqeuntly drop into more groove-oriented bass-heavy portions that will make the average listener want to run through a brick wall.   On “Scapegoat” and “Suffocate” Crossed Out drops the tempo through the floor, banging on their instruments like a wrecking ball blowing through concrete and rebar.

Crossed Out wasn’t around for long but they have left an indelible mark on the face of hardcore punk music.  That indelible mark being a caved-in skull due to blunt force head trauma.  There are few bands in the history of music who can lay claim to being as pissed off, as violent, and as downright hateful as Crossed Out were.  They helped draft a blueprint for not just many of today’s grind bands, but for extreme bands in general.   Crossed Out– accept no fucking frauds.

Download Crossed Out – Complete Discography (1990-1993)

I’m great. How are you?

Although this isn’t an “official” update, as in I’m not going to talk about an album that allows me draw parallels to death, drug trips, or astral projection– I figured I would take a moment to present a few things to the handful of people that actually follow the adorable little deformed kitten known as Super Avant Garde Postmodernism Counterculture.  Consider this a “state of the blog” address.  Did I really just say that?  Kill me.

First, you may or may not be aware that I have given this blog a proper domain.  That domain being www.superpomo.com.  This name is fantastic because it’s short, fairly catchy, and above all else– it confuses people into thinking they are clicking a link to visit some website called “Super Porno.”  I assume this is perhaps responsible in part for some of the recent spikes in traffic.  Sadly, I can offer you no double penetrations, bukkakes, or any of the other things one might consider to be deserving of “super porno” status.  No, you’ll need to submit a photo first.  Then we’ll talk.

Second, I’m a staff contributor at Foxy Digitalis now.  So if you enjoy reading my one-hundred percent correct opinions on music then head over there for more lovin’.  The folks over at Digitalis are awesome, and if you don’t already have their site in your Google Reader or whatever you use, then you are not one of the cool kids.  Oh, you can find my reviewer page right here.  Yes, I know I am one sexy mother fucker.

Third, I’m on Twitter now.  You know, that thing that your grandmother uses to tell strange people on the internet that she just watched an episode of The Young and the Restless?  Aside from my absurdly handsome profile photo, my Twitter feed and the masturbatory microblogging there within has been known to improve lives.  In reality, I mainly just use it to rave about what I’m listening to and upload random songs.  Watch me self-promote in REAL TIME.

Lastly, if by any chance you’re an artist and you would like to send me your music so I can write about it, get in touch with me  at robert@superpomo.com.  Take a look around the site at the music I cover.  If your music tends to be experimental in nature, drone/noise/ambient, hardcore punk, black metal, or electronic, then perhaps you should get in touch with me.  If your music sounds like Nickelback, Avenged Sevenfold or any of that shit polluting the airwaves right now, do not bother contacting me.  I do not want to hear your music.  Thank you. 

That wraps it up for this not-really-an-update.  I’ll be back very soon with a real update.  With music and stuff.

Love, your e-pal Robert O.

Campbell Kneale’s Love Will Destroy the Birchville Cat Motel (and World)

Greetings, I have returned from my brief hiatus!  I have been rather busy lately and sadly have neglected my lovely little blog.  I will fill you all in with some news and notes in my next update.  Anyways, back to the grind…

Our Love Will Destroy the World “Stillborn Plague Angels”
(2009, Dekorder)

By now everyone that gives a shit has heard that scary experimental New Zealander Campbell Kneale has laid to rest his Birchville Cat Motel moniker.  Yes, tears were shed throughout the bustling drone community.  Somehow he managed to take on an even more ridiculous name for his next project, Our Love Will Destroy the World (which was also the name of an awesome BCM release of course).

Our Love’s debut album “Stillborn Plague Angels” doesn’t rise from the ashes of Kneale’s former act or anything trite like that– No, this is more than content to writhe in the rubble, to drain the dead of their blood, to snap the bones of the fallen like a giddy child popping bubbles on protective plastic wrap.  The title track’s molten terror makes it apparent that Kneale has lost interest in beauty or hope.  This is thick, guitar-driven drone that snarls back from the abyss with grimy yellow incisors now coated crimson.

“Pink Hollow Paradise” expels guitar waste haphazardly across screeches and howls.  On “Chinese Emperors and the Army of Eternity” Kneale’s hypnotic metallic cascades are joined by torturous squalls that build in intensity and freqeuncy until the track melts down into a formless mass of decay and death.  Kneale continues to spray his psychic horrors at the outset of “Over Prehistoric Texas,” which begins strangely calm but wastes little time in constructing a tower of looping buzzsaw guitars to lacerate the sky.

Our Love Will Destroy the World is not simply a reboot of Birchville Cat Motel.  At least it would not appear so on “Stillborn Plague Angels.”  This is defiant, nasty drone in love with controlled chaos and guitars baptised in fire–  But it’s not metal.  Don’t call it that or Campbell Kneale will find you and kick your ass.

Listen to “Stillborn Plague Angels”

Buy the album

http://www.myspace.com/ourlovewilldestroytheworld

LSD March – Under Milk Wood

LSD March “Under Milk Wood” (2009, Important)

Well, this was an unexpected surprise.  After slogging through last year’s titanic, draining collaborative effort from LSD March and Bardo Pond, I thought I had reached my quota on these guys for a bit.  I was mistaken.  “Under Milk Wood,” their first proper full-length on Important in two years is some superb, drugged-out psych rock.

“Bisyonure No Kimi” opens up sounding like 1960s British prog folk drenched in persistent guitar skree.  Vocalist Shinsuke Michishita provides weary narration in the wake of the oncoming icy guitar storm.  “Shiroi Sekai De” is a moment of respite, again trending towards the folk side of the spectrum, foregoing the sheets of guitar in favor of cleanly plucked notes.

The following two tracks “Ai No Sakebi” and “Sekai No Shizukesa” continue to carry the up-to-this-point subdued nature of “Under Milk Wood,” focusing on Shinosuke’s vocals and percussion-driven song structures.  The real story here though is “Dare Ga Hoera.”  Just when you thought LSD March weren’t going to turn it loose on this album, Shinosuke’s electric guitar rips a hole in the snow-obscured night sky.  The kaleidoscopic acid downpour illuminates the Earth and makes me wish I still had long hair.  “Kimi No Uta Wo Kiite Boku Wa Akuma Ni Natta” combines both the subtlety of the early tracks and the strung-out guitar dirge of “Dare Ga Hoera.”

I am confident in saying this is easily one of LSD March’s most impressive works to date.  From the calmness of the opening moments to the freewheeling guitar magma in its later moments, “Under Milk Wood” manages to do just about everything right.  Throw on your boots and wool hat, it’s time to trip balls in the frozen electric wonderland.

MP3: “Dare Ga Hoera”

Hear more & buy it from Important Records