Tag Archives: white hills

Stream: Man Forever – “Pansophical Cataract”

Experiments in drone. That’s pretty much all that you need to know about these two tracks (yes, only excerpted here) from Brooklyn’s Man Forever. The first track up is “Surface Patterns” which is followed by “Ur Eternity.” Both tracks are similar in scope and purpose, with Glenn Branca’s brand of minimalism taking up the aesthetic reigns. The ever-growing rumble mixed with the incessant jungle beat percussion is reminiscent of the sounds that Branca conjures from an orchestra in his 6th Symphony. The songs on “Pansophical Cataract” inspire the listener to search for sounds and patterns within this cloud, and repeated hearings reveal any number of paths that one can take.

The artist behind Man Forever is one John Colpitts. He’s best known as the drummer of Oneida and also for his work with Boredoms and White Hills. Colpitts also works with So percussion, and has more recently completed a collaborative album with So entitled “Ryonen” released on Thrill Jockey earlier this year.

“Pansophical Cataract” is available through Thrill Jockey, and there are even a few copies of the album left on orange vinyl. You can also listen to samples from his other releases on his artist page on Thrill Jockey.

Colpitts is taking Man Forever on the road for the summer. Check the tour dates below:

Apr 25, 2014 Baltimore, MD The Metro
Apr 26, 2014 Winston, Salem, NC Reanimator
Apr 27, 2014 Richmond, VA Balliceaux
Apr 28, 2014 Charlottesville, VA The Southern
May 08, 2014 Albany, NY The Low Beat
May 24, 2014 Pittsburgh, PA Gooski’s
May 25, 2014 Erie, PA Basement Transmissions
May 26, 2014 Columbus, OH Double Happiness
May 27, 2014 Detroit, MI Trinosophes
May 28, 2014 Milwaukee, WI Cactus Club
May 29, 2014 Bloomington, IN Magnetic South
May 30, 2014 Madison, WI Good Style Shop
May 31, 2014 Louisville, KY Dreamland
Jun 01, 2014 Dayton, OH Blind Bob’s
Jun 03, 2014 Poughkeepsie, NY My Place Pizza
Jun 22, 2014 Raleigh, NC King’s Barcade
Jun 23, 2014 Knoxvile, TN The Pilot Light
Jun 24, 2014 Asheville, NC The Mothlight
Jun 25, 2014 Atlanta, GA 529
Jun 26, 2014 Chattanooga, TN Sluggo’s North

 

Stream: Dahga Bloom – “No Curtains”

Gritty psych rock. Or maybe this is stoner-rock. Or maybe it’s stoner-psych rock, or psych-stoner rock. Well whatever it is it’s heavy. Thick and distorted bass chugging, growling, snarling vocals, trippy echoes and cyclic riffs that swirl around you to create a hypnotic daze. Add in some motoric rhythms and you’ve got yourself a great psych-rock, or whatever, album.

Right out of the gate, with the opening track “Supa” we get high-powered, quick tempoed driving blues based guitar and bass riffs with a breakdown that slows everything while the pressure builds only to explode again for the noisier, even faster still end of the track. “Wampum/Rotted Man” really lays on a thick layer of grit, with a distorted to all hell guitar line that slowly slinks down by evil sounding half step. That the tune carries on for over 9 minutes of sleazy, echoed places it firmly in the stoner-rock realm of Wooden Shjips and White Hills (though they are, according to their website, “fuzzed out motorik space-rock”). The song is split in two, as the title suggests, with a spacey feedback laden middle section that breaks away to a drum and vocal break as the guitar and bass slowly begin to re-assert their control over the sonic landscape.

I will have to say that my favorite track, for a number of reasons, is “Adolph Hipster.” First of all that’s some next-level song naming going on there. Secondly the uptempo guitar riff is maybe the catchiest of the seemingly hundreds of riffs that fly out of this record. The vocals are at their most disorienting and haunting throughout this one, making it sounds like a completely frantic and confusing affair.

“No Curtains” was released earlier this month, and like I said I would recommend this album to anyone that is into Wooden Shjips or White Hills or any other doom-y, dark stoner-psych bands. Maybe their sound tangentially touches upon Purling Hiss too, I could hear a slight resemblance there. Anyway, it’s available as CD or 160 g vinyl from the Captcha Records bandcamp.

You can also check out everything else that Captcha has to offer by going here, liking them on Facebook, following them on Twitter etc. etc. etc.

Dahga Bloom is also on Facebook.  Make sure to check out the album in full above. Turn it up loud.

New Release: Psychic Teens – “Come”

Psychic Teens - "Come"
Psychic Teens – “Come”

This album was brought to my attention through the Permanent Records email list, my favorite record store in Chicago (they have recently opened shop in Los Angeles as well). “Come” is Philadelphia’s Psychic Teens’ second full length record. Part psych rock, part garage rock, part abrasive noise. From the sneering vocals and angular guitar bending of “NO” to the buzzsaw dissonant counterpoint of “RIP” and the feedback assault of “BUG” the entire album creates beauty through hazy, gritty guitar noise and a punchy bass with punk-rock drumming.

The hooks are there, just below the surface. The mix and overall aesthetic of Psychic Teens reminds me a little bit of The Telescopes, or even My Bloody Valentine mixed with White Hills in parts. An element of shoegaze is present, but not as a rule. Take, for example, album closer “VEIL.” That song’s slow dirge, with gently chorused guitar, holds back the flood of a Russian Circles’ circa “Enter”-like thick wall of bass heavy distortion. During moments like this it’s difficult to determine whether this should be categorized as straight up metal.

The standout for me, however, is the hypnotic half-step foundation of “LUST” that is periodically broken up with a slightly out of tune 2nd guitar. The entire thing shifts considerably upon the entrance o a heavy dose of feedback squeal and a metal power-chord crunch that leads into a four-on-the-floor stomp.

I guess you could call it whatever you want as long as you listen. The band can readily move between and beyond categorization with very little effort. They seem to be placing themselves right at the edge of several intersecting styles. Another great example of the diverse Philly music scene.

Take a listen to the album above or on the SRA Records bandcamp. Albums are available in a variety of formats including CD, oxblood colored vinyl, and cassette with a few bundles that include a variety of other things thrown in for good measure.

Bandcamp//Purchase//Permanent Records//

Album review: White Hills – "H-p1"

Heavy, unrelenting drones of guitar riffage that are spread out over an extended jam. That is how I would sum up the sound of White Hills’ “H-p1” in one sentence. It isn’t totally fair to sum things up in one nice little phrase though as the songs on the album actually cover quite a bit more ground and honestly can’t be summed up succinctly.

The same way that Queens of the Stone Age’s early material would take one riff and pound it into the ground with unrelenting repetition, so do the tracks here. I’m reminded more of two bands that aren’t Queens of the Stone Age while listening to this album, both of them based in Chicago: CAVE and Vee Dee. CAVE’s basis in heavy sounding kraut-rock that sounds like it is going to crush you beneath its weight combined with Vee Dee’s garage rock goodness.

The opening track “The Condition of Nothing” is basically the same fuzzed out guitar riff that shifts between 2 chords throughout. There are some vocals that bring the track into a bit of A Place To Bury Strangers territory with the sound of guitar based industrial music that is sinister and sneering with tinny production placed up against an absolute wall of guitars.

“No Other Way”, which clocks in at nearly eleven minutes, takes the same formula, minus the vocals. A heavy riff is repeated throughout while an echoed melody provides a bit of variety. In the course of eleven minutes the track is developed subtly with a background hum that slowly creeps up eventually taking center stage as everything else begins to fade. These shifts and changes that occur over the extended jams contrast with the sheer repetitiveness that the listener is sure to be focusing on and drawn towards. Admittedly the riffage does lock in to a hypnotic groove, allowing the listener significant time to focus on different aspects of the track.

White Hills - "H-p1"
White Hills - "H-p1"

Following “No Other Way” is “Paradise”, another lengthy track that functions in quite a different way. This time the drums are the primary focus while scattered, spacey sounds pop up at various times creating a much more varied fabric that spasms and percolates to the end.

Out of the extended jams and the stoner-rock minimalist development comes the garage-rock sound of “Upon Arrival” that gets to the point straight away. Psychedelic garage rock with vocals that sound like Alice Cooper and simultaneously provide White Hills with the best opportunity for radio play. There is an honest to goodness verse/chorus/verse structure with a real guitar solo that pulls us back out of kraut-rock groove of repetition.

As a testament to the truly varied nature of the album the latter half moves even further away from riff based rock and into more ambient, free form electronic free form improv with a trilogy of tracks that seem to develop and bleed into one another. “A Need to Know”, “Hand in Hand” and “Monument” could form one giant song, just as the band seems to be doing earlier in the album.

Pulling things apart and putting them back together, exploring different sounds and themes while remaining firmly rooted in the tradition of heavy psychedelic music seems to be what this album is all about. They take ideas presented and flesh them out on other tracks, they run them into each other and play them on top of each other, helping to make sense out of their seemingly disparate interests. This all makes total sense with the truly epic titular track that closes the album at an astonishing 17+ minutes with a truly evil sounding riff that seems to tie together all of the ideas presented in the album. I’ll even give them bonus points for sporting a few extended guitar solos in one song and throughout the album.