Nico's sophomore effort was a dive into the void, a descent to a bottomless ocean, a hypnotic state which awakens the mind through life, reincarnation and beyond: "Lawns Of Dawns" introduces the hypnosis, the mesmerized mind reciting an incantation amidst a cacophonous maze of mirrors. "No One Is There" recalls 18th century romanticism, in what is basically a funereal chamber piece with the strings clashing with each other.
"Ari's Song" is a feverish psalm, "Facing The Wind" an obsessive liturgy and a psychotic cabaret piece, while "Julius Caesar" travels even further down the past (the chorus of some ancient tragedy, the ecstasy of a dervish). Eventually, the last two songs reach a terrifying apex. "Frozen Warnings" sets the icy sunset, through which the Valkyries' catastrophic call of "Evening Of Light" heralds Armageddon. Get it here.
Glenn Branca's The Ascension is played by an ensemble of 4 guitars, bass, and drums. It starts conventionally with "Lesson No. 2", which is elastic punk-funk, with the 4 guitars giving it a "symphonic" sound, but the track ends with crashing monotones, which speed up, slow down, speed up again etc. The 13-minute "The Spectacular Commodity" starts with Stravinsky-an ebullience, a sort of Rock in Opposition meets No Wave meets Chamber Music hybrid, but the continuation is quite anthemic. A series of movements follows, forming what is essentially a highly fluid mini-symphony, though a bit of pomp isn't avoided. "Structure" is an interlude which returns to cold, geometrical, glacial repetitions, layered in such a way so that they sound enormous.
The 8-minute "Light Field" is a perverse military-march of sorts, with the ensemble's typical huge sound. The movements are more subtle, with guitar lines that hide behind other guitar lines, until they align and "move" the track forwards, which itself represents a plexus in constant motion blur. Ambiance comes to the fore in the 13-minute "The Ascension", with reverberation creating a resonating sound, much more cosmic and religious than any of the previous tracks, with vibrant streams that represent an antenna that picks up spiritual forces; by 6:00 minutes, with the introduction of percussion, the track does indeed constitute a hymn of catastrophic intensity, until it freezes (7:30), re-starts, re-freezes, and then the track resumes on a slightly different harmonic scale, still representing a tortuous flow of cosmic forces, until they unite to form a spectral supernova and the track ends. Get it here.
The influence of Cabaret Voltaire and This Heat hangs heavily over this release by 23 Skidoo. But arguably, there's enough of their own personality to justify it's cult-status.
Check "Kundalini", with funk bass, industrial noise breaks, ethnic overtones and distorted vox. Or the more conventional funk-jazz "Vegas El Bandito". The anthemic "IY" sounds pretty conventional too, but is carried by orgiastic percussion.
Much more important was "Mary's Operation", an ambient piece with disorienting symphonic textures and dissonant jazzy brass. This is clearly illbient 15 years before it became a movement. Ditto for "New Testament", which also adds a threatening industrial clang to the recipe, and then finishes with a deformed ritualistic tribal chant. Also "Porno Base", where slow-motion bass engages in "dialogue" with vocal-samples. Then "Quiet Pillage" ends the album accordingly with a mutant exotica. Get it here.
Αfter the unassuming debut, Sophia's sadcore assumed formal perfection with The Infinite Circle, a set of depressed, philosophical, epic, stately ballads ("Directionless", "If Only", "I'd Rather", "Every Day", "Woman"). These songs displayed a rare magniloquence, which bridged romanticism, the requiem, the meditation, the poetry of Leonard Cohen, the transcendence of Tim Buckley, the bombast of Scott Walker. In fact, their epic nature overcomes the manic depression, thus becoming a metaphor for the human condition ("Bastards", "Within Without", "River Song"), and with the reprise of "Directionless" completing a perfect circle, which is a metaphor for life itself. Get it here.
Better production values dampen the attack somewhat (their peak remains the "primitive" Deathwish EP), as evidenced by the new version of "Cavity", turning from a panorama of frenzied distortions into a more clean-cut form of morbid psychedelia. Nevertheless, "Figurative Theatre" shows they haven't lost "the edge", seeing as a tame dark-punk verse derails to an explosive chorus, while "Burnt Offerings" shows that despite the clearer sound, theirs is still a paralytic form of death-disco, a terror acid-rock if you like.
"Mysterium Iniquitatis" is a very important track; firstly it showcases a progressive complex structure, and secondly it displays an angular bouncing chorus, whereas their death-rock moves closer to agonizing spazz-rock and what will eventually be called math-rock. In the meantime, "Stairs" dwells on atmosphere (lush and middle-eastern), and the same goes for "Romeo's Distress" (lush, epic and romantic). "Resurrection" is also an important track, where they gradually freak-out along an unusual harmonic scale. The final track "Prayer" shows a desire to experiment on the electronic free-form sonic environment (which Rozz Williams explored more convincingly in Premature Ejaculation).
The unsung hero of the album is Rikk Agnew, whose guitar leads and distortions battle for attention with Rozz's vocals: vitriolic, morbid, demonic, hysterical, agonizing. Get it here.
One of the best albums ever made.
The anthem "Sex Beat" sets the blues-punk train rolling. The dynamics gets even more precise and frantic in "Preaching The Blues" (a Robert Johnson cover), but things tone down a bit in the country-blues-punk "Promise Me", only to go berserk again in "She's Like Heroin To Me".
The way the Gun Club "expand" these songs to the point of delirium by adding extra layers of intensity is simply breathtaking. In just 2:30 minutes, "She's Like Heroin To Me" is like a piece of wood on fire, which then gets gasoline poured on top so that the fire gets even more wild, burning to it to the point of total consumption.
"For The Love Of Ivy" returns to the surgical manic precision of "Preaching The Blues", the band riding this roller-coaster ride with spectacular accuracy, while Jeffrey Lee Pierce screams his guts out like a madman. This dramatic side-one ends with "Fire Spirit", their most dramatic moment yet, but things don't let off in side-two, blasting straight away with "Ghost On The Highway", another emotional tour-de-force.
"Jack On Fire" displayed another dimension of their sound, still consumed by the infernal punk energy, but vibrating like a personal tragedy, and at the same time elegant like an epic. The coda to this amazing track is even more entrancing, with backing vocals adding a universal tone, while the lead guitar blazes through the sky like a comet.
With highlight after highlight, "Black Train" returns to a more feverish pace, displaying a devilish rhythm, with a less protagonist role for the guitar, showcasing instead the punctuality of Rob Ritter's bass and Terry Graham's drums.
"Cool Drink Of Water", a Tommy Johnson delta-blues cover, is the most traditional song here and as such the album's only misfire. However, the closer "Goodbye Johnny" returns to the more constrained narrator perspective of "Promise Me", though in a more universal manner. Get it here.
The Cramps invented voodoobilly, i.e. a deranged form of rockabilly, possessed with punk mania and exorcised by the shamanic vocals of Lux Interior. From the ritualistic tom-toms of Nick Knox, to the chainsaw guitars of Poison Ivy and Bryan Gregory, and finally to Lux's werewolf-like Elvis imitation, the mood ranges from demonic freak-outs ("Rock On The Moon", "Sunglasses After Dark"), to zombified b-movie scores ("I Was A Teenage Werewolf", "Fever"), but behind the black-humour and kitsch lies some truly inspired mayhem. Get it here.
