A brace of curiosities.
Dean Roberts - And The Black Moths Play The Grand Cinema
This came out on Ritornell in 2000 and was out of print for a while but was re-issued on Staubgold last year; I can overlook that for bringing a great album to wider attention. I always used to tell people this sounded 'like This Heat recorded by Fennesz' and that's not such a bad reference - occasionally ripping guitars, acoustic drones and buzzing, pixelated electronics (courtesy of Jim O'Rourke.) For fans of the above, Brise-Glace, structured improvisation. And incessant hi-hats.
Los Llamarada - The Exploding Now 600 copies, screened sleeves.
I don’t know much about Los Llamarada other than they hail from Monterray, Mexico and are as murky as hell. Claustrophobic, no-wave fug that people have likened to early Sonic Youth (I don’t hear that much) or Mars (maybe just a touch). Unhinged, pounding rock of questionable fidelity, heightened with primitive keyboards. Very much an acquired taste but possibly one worth acquiring. I’ve grown very fond of the opening track Break the Silence.
Pekos/Yoro Diallo - Pekos/Yoro Diallo
"Yoro Diallo is from Mali and is a well known singer and here is paired up with Pekos, who plays a guitar-like lute, an instrument whose sound is absolutely mindblowing, a fierce buzzing rhythmic riffing, crunchy and heavy, warm and resonant and so so powerful. Strummed and struck, picked and rubbed, weaving a totally hypnotic groove, on the first track it takes the form of a raw blues jam, the melody looped and repeated mantra like while Diallo, wails over the top, his voice deep and intense, as powerful and raw as the music beneath it. The two trade verses, Pekos offering up a never ending patter…while Diallo swoops in every few measures and destroys, his delivery a super intense almost toasting."
Holy effing cats! These are some of the rawest, stripped back, primordial grooves you’re ever likely to encounter. Four brutally repetitive tracks culled from simple cassette recordings of two musicians locked into an illimitable mesh. This is about as basic as it gets, endless, cyclical riffs that I think would equally delight fans of Konono No.1 (whose relentless clatter shares something of the same spirit) and admirers of field recordings of early folk or blues. Not for the feint of heart but what a bold, tremendous album. The cover is brilliant too.
Loren Connors - The Hymn Of The North Star
"Deluxe LP presentation of a new cycle of extremely sorrowful electric wraith-like blues from one of the absolute masters of American primitive form alongside Jandek (who he has recently worked with) and John Fahey. This record is pressed on heavy 180 gram vinyl and is presented in an edition of 499 copies. Recorded at home in his Brooklyn apartment this is one of his most beautiful recordings to date, heavy with a poignant sense of time and place. Connors plays with fuzz and F/X in a way that is extremely painterly, leaving long minutes of slowly expiring notes to just weep in the air before engulfing them in huge sheets of black feedback. Indeed, Keiji Haino’s Black Blues might be the closest comparison to the kind of emotional high-wire feel of much of this recording. On the final track Connors is joined by Alan Licht on second guitar with a recording taken from their heart-stopping performance at the Instal festival in Glasgow in 2005. A major statement from one of the key individual outside-thinkers of the past few decades, highly recommended."
Goofball Ramones covers in instrumental (and Spanish) surf-twang mode. Daft, but very good fun. Rockaway Beach is inspired.
