A Year of Music

It’s a good thing I didn’t know or forgot that Dead Meadow’s Howls from the Hills was a reissue, or I might have skipped picking it up. Somebody told me once that their old records suck, and like a chump I believed Andee. Somebody. Whoever it was who told me that who definitely wasn’t Andee. The lead singer has kind of a whiny voice, but not in a Doug Martsch way, and I’ve come to love Martsch’s voice anyway. These are some epic stoner jams here, sort of as if Black Sabbath and got together and recorded some jams with Bardo Pond at their most baked. The whole thing is very 1975. It’s not quite as space-rocking or as catchy as the more recent Dead Meadow albums, but their combination of midtempo sludge, fuzzed out guitars, and wah-wahed droning feedback is instantly recognizable. These guys are like comfort food for me. Now I gotta go pick up the other reissued old album and their live CD. I can’t believe I passed up the chance to see them live. Stupid tinnitus.

After reading this inspirational article, I decided to do my part for the music industry and pay a visit to my friends at Aquarius. Some of this stuff had been on hold for me for months now, so it was past time.

I spent a while distracting Andee and Allan while they feverishly tried to finish the newest edition of the infamous and sprawling Aquarius New Releases list. And “feverish” is right – there’s a certain amount of urgency to the proceedings, but they’re also not too tough to distract, the sustained effort of putting together the behemoth list having broken them down until they have the attention span of disease-enfeebled gerbils.

Here’s what I got:

• A Sunny Day In Glasgow: Scribble Mural Comic Journal (notenuf)
• August Born: August Born (Drag City)
• Buried At Sea: Ghost (Neurot)
• Dead Meadow: Howls from the Hills (Xemu)
• Malicious Secrets / Antaeus / Mutilation / Deathspell Omega: From the Entrails to the Dirt (End All Life)
• The Necks: Townsville (ReR)
• Paolo Parisi / John Duncan: Conservatory (San Sebastiano) CD + book (Mascietto Editore)
• Jack Rose: Raag Manifestos (vhf)
• Torche: In Return CD + 10” (Robotic Empire)
• Wolves in the Throne Room: Two Hunters (Southern Lord)
• Xasthur: Defective Epitaph [2CD Daymare edition] (Hydra Head / Daymare)

The Torche is packaged in a seriously beautiful gatefold sleeve with the vinyl in one sleeve and the CD fixed inside the gatefold, with art by John Dyer Baizley (by way of Pushead and Alphonse Mucha):

(Many thanks to Cosmo Lee for his excellent article on John Dyer Baizley’s illustration, which alerted me to the existence of this record. I shamelessly stole his high-quality scans, which are of course © John Dyer Baizley, used only for purposes of promotion and review.)

My record is marbled pale green vinyl; if anybody else with this stops by, let me know what color yours is.