A few posts ago I wrote about Cave In ending their "indefinite hiatus", and since then they have been gratefully re-re-received (the extra "re" is for 2006's "Perfect Pitch Black") by their Boston, Mass. hometown fans at a sold out show followed by a few more bookings over the Summer. I shelled out £17.00 for their new 12" EP "Planets of Old", and it's pretty damn good - raw, slightly techy in places, with some very big nods to the sludge (read: slow) and hardcore (read: fast) roots of their music. They've even resurrected the old logo from the days of "Until Your Heart Stops" and "Beyond Hypothermia", which should give you some idea of what they were going for with this one. The odd thing about Cave In these days is that they seem to want to return to a point of inspiration sometime before they wore themselves out with the RCA contract, but from which point? I'm as unsure as the band seem to be, but that doesn't make the music any less enjoyable. It's coming out as a CDEP sometime next year, so make sure you pick it up and don't pay quite as much as I did.
More HydraHead Records related news - Oxbow's debut LP "Fuckfest" has been reissued in a nice sorta vinyl-style cardboard sleeve and slipcase. It's a far cry from the more recent material that I know best, but a great album and a way overdue re-release. Oxbow are a difficult band to classify but for the benefit of the uninitiated... (fuck it, I'll put this in the Music HackSpeak Box):
There we go, hopefully I won't have to do that again. Anyway, they're doing a few shows over here in November, including the Engine Room down here in Brighton. We're all very excited about that.
Also in September we had the weird, devastating and wonderful Kayo Dot in the UK. Well, actually we didn't because of the (possibly) over-zealous UK customs officials, who denied entry to all but three of them. Luckily the three included the main man Toby Driver and his most frequent collaborator Mia Matsumiya (the violinist), as well as a gruff-looking metalhead dude that, as it transpired, played clarinet and keyboards. This trio toured as a stripped-back version of Kayo Dot, a sort of alternative 'reading' of the band's sound, and were billed as Toby Driver's more minimal project Tartar Lamb. Very good as it was, it's a shame that customs intervened and robbed us of the full band. I've heard numerous times about this constrictive litigation. I think it's something to do with work visas, although it's obvious the upholders have no idea that the likelihood of a band actually earning money for touring abroad is virtually nil, especially at this level. You might well expect me to start ranting about this being yet another example of infrastructural difficulties for non-professional musicians, but frankly the bullshit comes with the territory. It shouldn't be the case, but it is. Maybe try explaining DIY ethics to the Foreign Office. Let me know how that goes, I'll be at home waiting for Travelling Troubadour Tax Breaks to be instated. (I'm joking of course, but I bet even carnies get a better deal.)
I just realised this is turning into a HydraHead wank session. I should do something about that, er...
That's better. I guess I must have some kind of hipster/metalhead split personality, judging by the two festivals this Winter I'm most excited about... Ten Years of ATP at Butlins Minehead, and Damnation Festival at Leeds Student Union. It will be my third ATP and my first Damnation, and the lineups for both are eclectic and brilliant. ATP is boasting probably their most star-studded lineup ever - it's really quite ridiculous, including: The Mars Volta, Explosions In The Sky, Melvins, Sunn0))), Mudhoney, Six Organs of Admittance, Modest Mouse, The Breeders, Múm, Bardo Pond, Tortoise, Shellac, Dirty Three, Fuck Buttons, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Battles, Devendra Banhart, The Magic Band (yes, Beefheart's Magic Band, with Drumbo and Zoot Horn Rollo)... I don't actually like all of those acts of course but whichever way you look at it, it's a huge lineup. It's basically a list of bands I should really know a lot more about by now, which bodes well for a festival.
Similarly with Damnation - it's only Electric Wizard I know a great deal about. Most of the others fall into awkward categories like "I've only got one of their records" (Destruction, Firebird, Rotting Christ, Lockup and Mistress in my case) and "I saw them supporting __________ a few years ago" (Jesu, Charger). Hopefully the bands I'm unfamiliar with can catch my attention - Negura Bunget, Nazxul, The Gates of Slumber, Mithras and A Storm of Light.
The downside of such good lineups is that the inevitable clashes are even more frequent. I've had to make some horribly ruthless choices in the past... Anthrax vs Meshuggah... Porn (with Thurston Moore and Brent Hinds) vs Os Mutantes... Four Tet vs Squarepusher... the list goes on.
I was also very pleased this month to find From The Dust Returned. An extreme metal review site that's open-minded, literate and detailed is a major discovery for me, as most sites are badly designed and full of Uber-Necro shut-ins from the Ukraine and Deathcore teenagers who can't spell properly. The site's creator has recently drawn up Top 20 Metal Records lists for every year since 1982, and he certainly knows his stuff.
There's been a new Gong record since my last update, and naturally I had to buy it straight away without regard for my ailing bank balance. It is fabulously silly of course, filled with the usual references to pixies, teapots, witches, mystical planets, drugs, human brotherhood being compromised by warmongers et cetera. All the "political" stuff is as wooly as can be expected from a shamelessly hippyish band like Gong, but I barely notice the cheesiness any more. There's some great hypnotic unwinding deep space rock jams on it, and Steve Hillage is back in the fold. Enough said. They're playing at the Brighton Corn Exchange at the end of November (last date of a pretty big tour), and I'll have to make damn sure I'm stoned for that one. They're the best space rock band with a 76-year-old frontwoman of all time.
And then we come to the Shrinebuilder record. I rushed back home with the CD (spotted a couple of days before the official release date in Resident Records), cranked the fuck out of my stereo, sat on my bed and proceeded to spend forty minutes squealing and giggling like an excited little girl. It's awesome, both in the "fuck yeah!" colloquial sense and literally awe-inspiring. Four of the most distinctive and consistent musicians working in underground rock and metal today, and somehow it actually does sound as good as the sum of its parts. To hear Wino and Scott Kelly alternate verses while coiling long threads of guitar together, to the point where they can't be told apart, before Al Cisneros comes in with his Om-mantra monotone over effortlessly hypnotic riff-cycles... well, I'd better stop now before I explode into a pile of ashy superlatives. I was never in a million years going to be able to look at this record impartially for a proper review, and thank fuck for that. SURRENDER YOURSELVES! ALL HAIL SHRINEBUILDER!
Finally, ISIS rolled back into Camden Town courtesy of the fine folks at ATP, supporting their most recent album "Wavering Radiant". It was the eighth time I've seen them so surprises weren't in abundance, but it was a reliably fine and gutsy performance - heavy as fuck and very compelling. All but one track from the new album were played, and I finally lost my cool about half way through 'Threshold of Transformation' when I barged through the stock-still beard contingent waving my camera above my head, screaming "yyyeeeeaaaahhhhh" and headbanging with no regard to spacial awareness whatsoever. Fuck 'em, it's not my fault they never noticed that ISIS are actually a band borne of nasty, cavernous sludgecore. We then managed to spoil someone's fun by screaming the lyrics to 'Carry' at the top of our lungs, before a rare airing of 'Altered Course' capped the night on a high.
It was also very significant to me that I was with the same two friends that I'd persuaded to come along to their Mean Fiddler show in support of "Oceanic" on Saturday March 15th 2003, six and a half years ago, still one of the best shows I've ever attended, and one that converted us to a style that has since grown and developed into something influencial, genre-straddling, powerful, genuinely progressive and unignorable. It may be a little over-analysed these days*, but it's been a hell of a lot of fun so far and long may it ride.
(Next post will be a review of Damnation Festival with photos and videos!)
*I got talking to someone outside the gig who said he was studying Modern Classical music and doing his thesis on the band. Though admitting that I wouldn't know Modern Classical music from a horseshit sandwich, I said I couldn't see how ISIS can have much in common with his course. He disputed this strongly, saying there were all sorts of connections. I then suggested that the connections might not be intentional, which he again disputed. He said I should come to an exhibition/performance somewhere in a couple of weeks to see what he meant. I had to fight my urge to grab him and shout "I'm only in it for the RIFFS!", and although I'll definitely look deeper into his argument, I didn't want to tell him that I already had tickets to see a folk band that night.
