Sunday, January 28, 2007

Music I Liked And Didn't - 1/26/07 - 1/28/07



Adds -

ARBOURETUM: Rites of Uncovering CD (Thrill Jockey) - Arbouretum is a project led by Dave Heumann (Anomoanon, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and so on) and “Rites Of Uncovering” is their second full-length release. The material on this release incorporates a diverse range of influences to create eight interesting, but complex, tracks that are not open to quick and easy assimilation nor description. The material is pretty evenly divided between dark, folkish rock and slow, dense rockers. Highlights include the album’s two heaviest pieces, “Pale Rider Blues” and “The Rise” (which both feature excellent and lengthy twin guitar workouts), “Sleep Of Shiloam” (on which Heumann almost sounds like he’s channelling Tom Verlaine during the solo), and my favorite of the quieter tracks, “Mohammed's Hex And Bounty”. Not immediately accessible nor uniformly excellent, but after taking the time to fully absorb the sounds contained within, I found this to be a pretty interesting and solid effort.

BAD TRIPS: S/T LP (Rocketship) - Debut LP (limited to 500 copies on vinyl only!) from the Bad Trips, a new SoCal-based project led by psychedelic guitarist extraordinaire, Grady Runyon, of Monoshock and Liquorball fame. 5 tracks of lo-fi, instrumental kraut-psych jamming. Like most live to cassette basement recordings, this tends to lose focus at times, but scorchers like “War On Drugs” and “First Priority” make this a clear winner!


Did Not Add -

None


Running Count For The Year

Adds 16/84%

Did Not Add 3/16%


On The Horizon:

New Releases -

LOW: Drums And Guns to be released on Sub Pop on 3/20/07!

ST-37: And Then What (vinyl LP only!) on Noiseville, apparently out now. Haven’t seen it in stores and who knew Noiseville was still active?! Don’t think that I’ve thought much about Noiseville since the early-90’s.

TRANS AM: Sex Change to be released on Thrill Jockey on 2/20/07. By the way, can anybody explain to me why Trans Am will not be appearing in the Bay Area on their upcoming US tour?!? They have an open date on Saturday, April 21, right between shows in LA and Portland - uh, hello!?!

There are also two new releases on the fine Sublime Frequencies imprint, GROUP DOUEH, “Guitar Music From The Western Sahara” (once again, on vinyl only!) and OMAR SOULEYMAN, “Highway To Hassake - Folk And Pop Sounds Of Syria” CD, that several local college radio stations (KFJC, KDVS) seem to have been promo’d on, but are not to be found in any store nor are they listed as being available on Sublime Frequencies’ website. What gives? I want them - NOW!

Also, in related news, there’s a new Sir Richard Bishop LP, “Fingering The Devil” out on the Southern Records side-label, Latitudes, that I’ve yet to see/hear.

Glad to see that now that the holiday lull has passed, there’s more intriguing releases upcoming than I can possibly purchase and review! It will be fun to try and keep up.

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