Thanksgiving Update

Happy up-coming Thanksgiving everyone! I am thrilled about how this year turned out for personal and musical reasons alike. I'll say it's a great sign for the number of quality records released that I continually trade back my old music and find ways to get as many new LPs as possible.

'Spective Audio News
(1) If you're interested, I am releasing a set of semi-improvised tape manipulation/reverb-circuitry manipulation recordings on limited, hand-dubbed (commercial grade) tape. These recordings were compiled on my nearly-dead Tascam and featured intensely textured experiments with infinite decay and infinite echo, along with lots of backwards droning. These will be $5 PPD US (international shipping negotiable), or other offer. As always, email spectiveaudio [at] gmail [dot] com.

I will be more than happy to negotiate shipping, prices, and trades.

(2) The N.E.C. have been busy with dates and their new LP, Pineapple, available from Pretty Ambitious and fine record stores. This one showcases the band's power pop sensibilities as much as their ability to dive into exceptional droning textures, and at their best, they combine both. The N.E.C. place yet another notch in their psych belts, but the driving backbone and soul sensibilities are never far from the group's strangest excursions.

Copies of the group's B-Sides cassette remain available, featuring oddities and rarities recorded over a several-year span from Million Minks and Is. The tape is full of extended wild, noisy breakdowns, short rockers, and surprising ambient segments -- it spans the full spectrum of N.E.C. sounds, and you'll hear a lot of the band's current elements in utereo. C45, translucent red tape, artwork by Cyrus Shahmir, $5 PPD US (international negotiable).

(3) The Vital-Sound groups have amazing music out this year (or on the way).

As mentioned, The N.E.C. just released Pineapple, and the Great Society Mind Destroyers' Spirit Smoke received its rightful vinyl incarnation. Soft Opening produced a mind-bending instrumental journey.

Killer Moon's Tunnel Vision is on the way, and Rabble Rabble followed up Bangover with their ripper, "Why Not" b/w "Long Hook." Implodes' much-anticipated Black Earth also saw the light this year, following the group's visionary cassette from a few years back.

All The Saints' next LP Intro to Fractions will be released in January 2012, following their life-changing Fire on Corridor X (that LP probably opened the door to more than half of my psych obsessions).

Brainworlds continue to release cassettes at a furious pace, and The Sunny Muffdivers introduced their tape All Half Evil, also on 'Spective.

Copies of Vital-Sound are available for a suggested donation of $7 PPD US (international negotiable)

(4) Cinchel has a handful of copies of drone.dump remaining, as do Milwaukee Ave. Reckless, Permanent, and Discogs.

Cinchel also has many other recordings available, including his Feedback Loop release Ritual Habitat.

(5) The Leavitt Ours are now officially in Cleveland and New Orleans, after many individual journeys across the United States this year. Travis Bird toured with Evan Lindorff-Ellery and Jaap Pieters, and also put together a solo tour earlier in the summer. Dense Reduction, the pastoral, textured noise duo of Travis and Evan, come highly recommended, for obvious personal and musical reasons, and so does their label, Notice Recordings.

Copies of Return by The Leavitt Ours are available for $7 US PPD suggested donation (which includes the tape, artwork by Evan, and individually sewn, handmade cases by Kelley Crawford).

Thank you for an amazing year, everyone -- bands, friends, and everyone who ordered tapes, reviewed them, and sold them at stores. I never dreamed that these tapes would be across Europe, Canada, and the United States -- but it still feels like a close-knit group of people who like psych, outsider, experimental music.



Recent Obsessions
(1) Notice's Ben Own tape, Birds and Water, 1, totally kicked my ass. There are some serious depths of frequency captured on this cassette. One of my year-end favorites for sure.

(2) Bad Drugs produce some of the best heavy music I've heard this side of Cacaw. Rotted Tooth have had an amazing year of releases, but Raw Powder is blowing my mind continuously with shifting structures and brutal noise.

(3) Thee Oh Sees are going to make me go broke. Obviously everybody loves Carrion Crawler/The Dream, and so do I. Exceptional acid rock; I feel like Thee Oh Sees are rewriting chapter after chapter of the Sonics/Nuggets/freak folk tradition in American rock.

(4) Sloow Tapes blew my mind this year, from The Great Society Mind Destroyers tape, to their compilation of Belgian psych, to their recent batch of traditional folk/psych tapes. Those tapes really took a lot of time away from the "Phono" setting, but when my belt and needle work beyond their expected life, I'll have these tapes to thank.

(5) As for Foxy Digitalis material, I've been re-listening to a bulk of material I reviewed earlier this year, and there are a lot of standout releases this year. Jasper TX Black Sun Transmissions and Phaedra The Sea remain among my favorites. Recent material I've heard by Food Pyramid, Cut Hands, Moonwood, Muscle Drum, and Blue Sausage Infant is going to make end of year lists nearly impossible.

(6) Old music obsessions: Echo and The Bunnymen, Ocean Rain, The Beatles Yesterday and Today, The United States of America, The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man, Tegan and Sara Sainthood, U.S. Maple, etc., etc.

Thank you for reading! I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving...let everyone who needs peace have peace, and let's continue to share music for the rest of this year and all of the coming ones.

VITAL SOUND AVAILABLE NOW! *UPDATED*

Forget the coming soon -- everything is pressed, and I have approximately 40 completely ready to go. The rest will be ready by the end of the weekend.

Suggested donation of $7 ppd/US orders, $5 minimum, contact PayPal: [spectiveaudio] at [gmail] dot [com]. International shipping negotiable / case by case, please email.

September 26 Update: Copies are available in Chicago at Reckless Records locations! As always, please do support your local record store!



Release Information

Artwork is handmade, either insert or j-card, including:

-12 leftover cinchel j-cards (watercolor)
-8 cuts from a map of Thomas J. Diven's subdivision lots with old water department billings (Harding and Iowa, Chicago)
-15 "city horizon" illustrations
-10 inserts cut from a hand-painted pattern
-15 cuts from an old Beckers Deed copy, Cook County
-6 cuts from a Zoning Ordinance copy (Central and Hirsch, Chicago)
-6 cuts from a Hirsch Deed copy, Cook County

44 Atlanta copies will have special art. Not even I've seen it!

SPCTV CS5: Vital-Sound I COMING SOON!

Spirit Smoke / White Noise Sound

One of the valuable results of the recent embrace of psychedelic culture in independent music is the residual focus on 1980s and 1990s trends in psychedelic music. Behind the outbreak of punk and alternative recording and songwriting trends in those decades, psychedelic influences were played down somewhat; perhaps they were hiding in plain sight at the time, but the development of heavier aesthetics in recording and songwriting kept whimsical, wet, and repetitive sounds to a minimum. Those sources of psychedelic sounds in the 1980s and 1990s are receiving their due during the last few years, providing listeners with a library of sounds to dive into, in order that listeners might understand the skeleton of contemporary psychedelic music somewhat better.

***

I have absolutely no idea how I missed White Noise Sound when their debut record was released in the United States last September, but I am making up for that now by wearing down the wax of their United Kingdom release in 2011. Hailing from the U.K. themselves, this group combines heavy and driving sounds from the Jesus and Mary Chain revival with symphonic or progressive elements from Echo and the Bunnymen (at their most symphonic). That heavy revivalist sound results in exceptional industrial distortion tones, completely distinct from the usual germanium fuzz attacks of psychedelic acts. Resulting from this sound, along with heavy dancey beats is a group attack that is not unlike the Welcome to the Monkey House Dandy Warhols, with the teeth of A Place to Bury Strangers.

On each side, the band starts with a fast and heavy rocker, retreating to introspective songs immediately thereafter. Here the listener has the privilege of diverse instrumentation that is executed in a sufficiently dark and reflective manner; from here the songs meander to their eventual conclusion, and the album itself is completed with one of the best symphonic psychedelic passages of recent years. Not unlike the swells that accompany Darker My Love's "All the Hurry and Wait" suite on their second album, White Noise Sound execute their symphonic passages with more dissonance and less logical conclusions, allowing for heavily emotional involvement in the closing moments.

This is obviously a record that I love because I enjoy the repetition of the Jesus and Mary Chain's fuzz cycles, and their logical conclusion in The Raveonettes and A Place to Bury Strangers, and I have a soft spot for bombastic progressive psychedelic sounds to boot. Needless to say, this disc executes progressive sounds with a succinct vision, and even though I feel like this disc could be twice as long, I appreciate that it is a release that leaves me wanting more. Overall, this is one of the best contemporary releases I have heard that includes psychedelic and progressive elements.

***

Not too long ago, I sent PayPal to a nice man in Belgium who happens to run a cassette label. Yesterday I received my copy of Great Society Mind Destroyers Spirit Smoke in the mail, and was immediately driven to a land of blistering fuzztones, stomping rhythms, and ethereal vocals. Having my mind sufficiently blown the first time I watched these guys play live over a year ago, and following the progression of their live demos and Dark Fog split 7", my mind was yet unprepared for the comprehensive attack of this new cassette.

In complete contrast to the White Noise Sound review above, this release accentuates certain aspects 1990s psychedelic production (some of the moments remind me of the heaviest and most psychedelic elements of the Smashing Pumpkins when they are at their very best), but the group itself sits more firmly in the traditional stream of psychedelic music originating from the 1960s (especially San Francisco's acid rock). This traditional slant includes organization of events that promote psychedelic culture in Chicago, promote independent psychedelic bands in the city, and also embraces the spiritual possibilities latent in psychedelia (not unlike The Pyschedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators).

When Great Society Mind Destroyers are at their best, they remind me of the complex instrumental arrangements of the original Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the disgusting, saturated tones of that classic acid blues (think "Ball and Chain"). Riffs are at the center of most songs on this release, rather than repetitive, meandering passages, and the execution of these hooks is perfect, bathed in effects, with varied rhythmic approaches from the bass and drums. Typically, the rhythmic section drives the songs in a rather subtle manner, clearing the way for the up-front guitar sound and dreamlike vocal sound. At various points the songs are raving-up or completely controlled, providing the release with diverse sounds and approaches.

One of my favorite things about psychedelic music is the basic template that allows groups to work within familiar conventions while presenting their own unique vision and their own attempt at providing spaces for the mind to reflect and explore. In this regard, Great Society Mind Destroyers pay homage to tradition while commenting on it with relentless, saturated passages.

Even if you're not into psychedelic tomes, this tape straight up rocks. Part of me wondered how this new release would relate to the development of the Chicago sound, and the group turned in a striking statement.

PSYCHEDELIC SUMMER!

June 21, 2010

VIADUCT THEATER (3111 N. Western Ave., Chicago 60618)

The Great Society Mind Destroyers
The N.E.C.
w/ The Leavitt Ours and Cinchel hosting

MORE TO COME!

$8, doors at 8pm

Chicago Metaphysical Circus / Psychfest

Finally, a collaboration among every local band I love! I must admit, I am sometimes bad at keeping a show calendar, and the fact that Chicago Metaphysical Circus is organizing these bands, rounding all of them up, and placing them at home at The Hideout Inn builds within me an anticipation I haven't felt for a local show in a while...at least not since the first time I saw Cave at Hideout, or not since the Black Math set at Permanent's Anniversary show.

The batting order is a set of heavy hitting groups that provide space for emotional and psychological reflection in often-distorted passages, claustrophobic rhythms, never-ending-walkabouts (yeah, I went there), and a generally eclectic sonic palate. It's so easy just to say, "oh, these bands stradle the divide between punk and psychedelic," or something like that; I mean, it is true that in Vee Dee's driving rhythms or Plastic Crimewave Sound's abandon, you will find the spiritual grandchildren of that imaginary generation of music about which Lester Bangs often dreamt. A generation where punk is thoroughly grounded in abstract song structures, a measured aesthetic towards fuzzy guitar sounds and -- if you're lucky -- loads of phaser or reverb or wah wah or whatever else.....

It's more than that; this music reflects an environment. You might think I'm crazy, but I honestly think that if you listen carefully enough, you can feel the bizarre isolation of Chicago's scene, the distance that the city affords despite its size and density, the hopelessness the city promotes despite accessible wealthy neighborhoods never more than a stone's throw from the new, morphing bohemia. A lot of us grew up in the affluent 90s, which proved perfectly the despair of economic comfort, and we subsequently find ourselves in a city that begs us to reflect ourselves, our fears, and our desires -- our affectivity -- against its foundations and infrastructures, while those structures themselves often deny us the meaning we seek in our very reflection.

Psychedelic music is not necessarily a genre of music, but a form of technological manipulation in music, and a form of psychological and spiritual development in music. It is more than nihilism; yet it struggles to leave the loud disdain for artistic and pop forms proclaimed by the brief history of punk. So, to say that these bands straddle the barrier between punk and psychedelic indeed misses the point; this barrier is psychedelic adventure, psychedelic exploration, psychedelic development itself. A culture that shares a rich piece of the history of technological advances in music (from The United States of America and The Byrds to The Dandy Warhols and Darker My Love, yes I went there), a culture that matches the enthusiastic contradiction of surrealism, where high art form is matched with the spirit of dada destruction of anything from pop to societal convention; a culture that revels in the alienation of possession, property, commercialism, and totality.

These bands showcase where we are -- physically and mentally, and through their interludes and breakdowns and washes and drones and feedback, tell us exactly how we got there.

You're already there, so I assume you'll be going to the show.

***

Hideout Inn, January 22, 2010

Dark Fog
Plastic Crimewave Sound
Sadhu Sadhu
Vee Dee
The Great Society Mind Destroyers
Black Wyrm Seed
DJ Velcro Lewis