music - TL:DR (That's Long, DID Read)

Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside) – “shoegaze” 1988 – 1993

First a note: this is not an exhaustive exploration of the (for want of a better term) shoegaze genre. It’s extremely subjective, being based on my own memories and tastes c.1990-2 and therefore has some glaring omissions (unaccountably I had never really heard much of the Cocteau Twins’s music at the time. More accountably, I didn’t like Catherine Wheel very much) and takes no account whatsoever of neo-shoegaze or the careers of the bands mentioned below after the period covered.

small but perfectly formed…

Nowadays, when even the format of the album is under threat from streaming services, social media and the ability to download single songs, the EP (always a lesser format) seems ephemeral or even pointless. It was not always so, however; although posterity has made Just For A Day and maybe even Whirlpool and Ferment into ‘classic albums’, many of those who were around, reading the music weeklies (an important point) at the time will remember that virtually every shoegaze album from 1990 onwards was initially regarded as a disappointment upon release. And all of them were then completely eclipsed by My Bloody Valentine’s genre defining/destroying Loveless when it finally emerged from its long gestation (or what seemed at the time a long gestation; compared with m b v – finally released in 2013 – Loveless seems almost hastily thrown together).

That the genre is ideally suited to the format of the EP partly has to do with its style. Although no two shoegaze bands sounded quite as alike as their contemporary detractors claimed, it’s true to say that effects-laden guitars, wistful vocals and hazy, dreamy atmospheres predominated – and these things are on the whole more effective in small doses. Likewise, the subject matter of the majority of these bands was enigmatic and allusive rather than forthright or obvious. Understanding lyrics (or even singing along to them) is by no means a prerequisite for good music, but it does give an album a focal point aside from the overall sound; but in the majority of shoegaze records the vocals are an integral part of that sound and the lyrics are barely discernible.

EPs, singles and even mini-albums were therefore the ideal way to experience what during the period became (sneeringly) called shoegaze:
and, at least in my opinion, all of the key (and minor) bands in the scene produced their best work over series’ of three or four-song 12″ records, right from the dawn of the style.

The architects of shoegaze

Through the early/mid 80s, The Cocteau Twins were undeniably key in establishing a guitar based, semi-ambient sound and, simultaneously The Jesus and Mary Chain made feedback and sheer noise a part of the overground rock/pop scene. Some aspects of the sound that became shoegaze can be traced back further, to the post-punk scene (notably The Cure, still very much a vital part of the music scene in the late 80s/early 90s), but it is really the Cocteau Twins and JAMC that should be considered the real architects of shoegaze. In their wake came the 80s indie scene in general, with bands like The House of Love and The Smiths, who would influence pretty much all of UK indie one way or the other from around 1984 onwards.

Baby Talk…

‘Shoegaze’ proper really kicked off in August 1988, with My Bloody Valentine’s You Made Me Realise EP.

Although MBV had been releasing records since ’85, until You Made Me Realise, the band’s sound was far more traditional, with a jangly 60s, post-Smiths, C86/twee quality very different from their aggressive, feedback and effects-laden mature sound. Their 1987 single Strawberry Wine is a case in point; essentially it’s very similar to a song like Thorn from the You Made Me Realise EP; both songs are fast-paced indie pop, characterised by Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher’s vocal harmonies, Colm Ó Cíosóig’s dynamic, aggressive percussion and layers of guitars. But on Strawberry Wine, the guitar sound is the chiming, jangly, Byrds-influenced one then popular in the UK indie scene. On Thorn, the underlying track is not that different, but on top of the base layer of strummed guitars, the melody is formed, not by a 12-string Rickenbacker-ish sound, but by the highly peculiar vacuum cleaner-like mechanised howl of Kevin Shields’ heavily distorted guitar. Even if Thorn wasn’t a better song than Strawberry Wine (but it is), the guitar adds not only a unique sound to the song, but it also intensifies its stormy, melancholy atmosphere. This was a key feature of shoegaze that all of the best bands brought to their music; not only was the voice another instrument, the guitar was another voice.

MBV followed up You Made Me Realise uncharacteristically quickly with their debut full-length album Isn’t Anything. Iconic though it is, it demonstrates exactly why the EP is the format of shoegaze: even a relatively short 40-ish minutes of disorientating, backwards-sounding, intense and mysterious hazy intensity is a bit much without the voice of a singer like Elizabeth Fraser to bring it all together. Anyway, the impact of You Made Me Realise was pretty immediate; by October ’89, one of the first new young bands made its debut: Lush, with their Scar mini-album.

Lush

With Scar, Lush not only established a distinct musical identity based around the opposing forces of Cocteau Twins-esque fragility (enhanced by the – typically – ‘ethereal’ vocal harmonies of Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson) and prickly, punky bitterness, they also created an instantly recognisable aesthetic. 4AD – always the most coffee-table-book-friendly indie label – should have been a natural home for the shoegaze scene, but in fact Lush and Pale Saints were (I think) the only shoegaze bands aside from The Cocteau Twins (always somewhat aloof from the ‘scene’) to benefit from the label’s invariably evocative artwork and in the end Creation became the shoegaze label. The six songs on Scar were uniformly excellent, but the production (by John Fryer, with the band) was serviceable but lacked sparkle, something rectified on the band’s next (and best) release:

Mad Love EP (1990)

This EP exemplifies the best of the shoegaze scene; four excellent songs, no fillers (and it is surprising how many bands couldn’t record an EP without at least one lesser song), each song catchy and atmospheric but no two very alike.
This time round the production was in the hands of the Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie, indie royalty, and of course the main architect of the kind of pretty noise (and it is worth remembering that, despite their ‘niceness’ most shoegaze records included the kind of abstract noise that was definitely not a normal part of chart music) that Lush were working with. Alongside three new songs (all better than anything on Scar) there is a sparkling rerecording of Thoughtforms, the somewhat leaden sound of the Scar version replaced by something more scintillating.
Later that year, the band released Sweetness and Light, their most commercial, hook-laden record, the poppy a-side backed with two even more lighter-than-air songs, both pretty good. At the same time, it was becoming clear from interviews and TV appearances that the band were not quite the fey, angelic characters they mostly sounded like on record. By ’91 the shoegaze scene was, if not in decline, then at least on a plateau, and Lush’s singles Black Spring and For Love were far patchier than their previous work. There were still great songs, but what had been ethereal had started to become watery and unmemorable and the band’s tougher songs jettisoned the shoegaze idiom for something more proto-Britpop/mainstream indie-rock-ish. Which is not what I am writing about.

Luckily, 4AD seemed to notice this watershed and released an album bringing together all the band’s work up to Sweetness and Light. Gala, especially in its lavishly packaged LP form, is all you need to know about Lush the shoegaze band, and is one of the great monuments of the genre.

Ride

The month before Lush’s Mad Love went on sale, a young band from Oxford released their self-titled debut EP. Ride is not as perfect as Mad Love but it established a sound that was more pop-oriented than My Bloody Valentine, but with a heavier, noisier guitar sound than Lush. Ride balanced the unabashedly indie-pop sound of Chelsea Girl with three contrasting songs. These were the surprisingly heavy Drive Blind (with its psychedelic, flickering guitar part strangely reminiscent of the intro to Status Quo’s ludicrous 1967 psych-pop classic Pictures of Matchstick Men) and the more reflective All I Can See and the noisy Close My Eyes. The band’s sound was defined by the gentle harmony vocals of Mark Gardener and Andy Bell, whose voices bore a passing resemblance to that of MBV’s Kevin Shields, but where his voice often stayed buried, semi-coherently in the mix, Ride put their vocal harmonies in centre stage.

In the summer of 1990, Ride released the eminently summery Play EP. Again, the band showcased a heavier indie rock sound, softened by the mellow Englishness of the vocals, but Ride’s music was never as wispy and insubstantial as the scene’s detractors sometimes claimed.
The Fall EP was released in September and was another strong release, but although I remember a Melody Maker journalist claiming slightly later that the shoegaze (the then-derogatory term was coined around this time) bands were sapping their strength by releasing streams of EPs instead of saving their strength for an album, Ride were one of the few whose debut full-length (Nowhere, released a month after Fall) was actually stronger than the EPs which preceded it.
By the time Nowhere was released, ‘shoegaze’ was at its height, with critical reactions from the music press (in those days far more influential than now, especially on the UK indie scene) outweighed by support, especially from Melody Maker.
Ride were also wise in that they (more or less) jettisoned their shoegaze sound at the right time, the more 60s-pop/prog influenced Going Blank Again proving to be their biggest selling album. But before they moved on, the band released their most perfectly realised work, the Today Forever EP, four contrasting but still definitely ‘shoegaze’ oriented songs.

Slowdive

If Ride were more strident and rock than Lush, then Slowdive were everything shoegaze’s critics hated about the scene: mellow, melancholy, dreamy, slow (of course), fragile. But that’s not all they were: their self-titled debut, released at the end of the autumn in 1990, was a seriously noisy release, for all its snails-pace tempos. The beautiful foghorn guitar of the title track was closer to the sound of My Bloody Valentine’s (as yet unreleased) magnum opus Loveless than any of their peers, and the way the delicate female/male vocals of Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead drift through the massive soundscapes of guitar noise was distinctly different from the other bands of the genre. 1991’s Morningrise EP was another near-perfect EP but Holding Our Breath, released not long before debut album Just For A Day suggested, despite the presence of one of their most popular songs, Catch the Breeze, that the band had painted themselves into a corner; the distorted noise and feedback of the first EP had been smoothed into something altogether cleaner and more melodic, but without the stormy atmospherics, the sound of Just for a Day sometimes veered uncomfortably towards a kind of ‘Shoegaze Moods’ new age muzak.

Unlike Ride and Lush though, Slowdive’s second LP Souvlaki, released in 1993 after the death of shoegaze, was probably their strongest work.

Other bands
Shoegaze was not a vast scene, but at its height, EPs more-or-less in its style(s) proliferated almost weekly. The following are a few bands who excelled on EPs:

Curve – Blindfold (1991), Frozen (1991), Cherry (1991)

Curve appeared fully formed in 1991, with the slick and accomplished Blindfold EP. Despite very positive reviews, there was a certain amount of suspicion of the band in the indie press because the duo – Toni Halliday, (probably the shoegaze pinup, though not my personal one) and Dean Garcia – had links to various mainstream pop artists, having worked with Eurythmics and had an attempted a mainstream pop career as State of Play in the 80s. Curve were important, though, in that they brought (admittedly after My Bloody Valentine had already released remixes of their work) electronic elements and dance beats to the shoegaze genre, not to mention the only (to my knowledge) appearance of a rapper on a shoegaze song, namely JC-001, who appears – surprisingly successfully – on Ten Little Girls. Curve’s first three EPs were consistently strong, but their debut full-length Doppelganger (1992) was the archetypical disappointing shoegaze album, partly, as with Slowdive, because more than four or five songs in the band’s style becomes something of an endurance test.

Chapterhouse – Freefall (1990)

Chapterhouse bore the brunt of the music press’ disaffection with shoegaze, and indeed their discography is on the whole one of the weaker ones of the scene. Freefall is probably the best of their EPs, although lead track Falling Down (a Curve-like funky dance/shoegaze crossover) has not aged as well as one would like. For the best of Chapterhouse see the list at the bottom of this article.

The Boo Radleys – Adrenalin EP (1992)

It’s hard not to hate The Boo Radleys for Wake Up Boo etc, but all of their early EPs (and their debut album Ichabod & I) are all worthy of investigation. Adrenalin features Lazy Day, one of the finest shoegaze-pop songs of the period, the perfect marriage of pop hooks and blurry noise, and satisfyingly short too.

Moose – Cool Breeze (1991)

Moose, like Chapterhouse, seemed to come along just as the music press was growing weary of the shoegaze genre, but the three EPs they released in 1991 form a body of work with a very distinct personality and charm. Cool Breeze is the best of these, four perfect, sparse and autumnal pop songs, simple but inventive. Somewhat surprisingly, the band’s debut album XYZ was good too, despite an unexpected segue into mellow Americana.

Drop Nineteens – Winona (1992)

Labelmates of Moose (on Hut Records), Boston’s Drop Nineteens were (I think) the only US band to fully embrace the shoegaze sound, and their single Winona is a melancholy, droning-but-catchy classic.

CODA
Some songs of the period that would make an excellent shoegaze compilation (with the disclaimer than not all are technically shoegaze songs):

* My Bloody Valentine – Thorn

* Ride – Vapour Trail

* Lush – De-Luxe

* Slowdive – Slowdive

* Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas

* Chapterhouse – Breather

* Curve – Ten Little Girls

* Boo Radleys – Lazy Day

* The House of Love – Christine

* Pale Saints – Half-Life

* Drop Nineteens – Winona

* The Wendys – Pulling My Fingers Off

* Moose – Suzanne

* Cranes – Thursday

* My Bloody Valentine – When You Sleep

* Slowdive – Souvlaki Space Station

* Ride – Today

* Lush – Thoughtforms

* The House of Love – Destroy the Heart

* Curve – The Coast is Clear

* Pale Saints – Throwing Back the Apple

* Codeine – D

* Moose – Untitled Love Song

* My Bloody Valentine – Slow

Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (part two)

Secrets of the Moon – SUN (Lupus Lounge)

There is not a lot of emotionally complex black metal music out there; a shame, because the expressive possibilities of the form are arguably greater and more powerful than any other metal genre. Also a shame, because, as with any genre of music, the best black metal transcends its idiom and is simply great music; and such is SUN, the sixth album by the always-dependable Secrets of the Moon. ‘Dependable’ is rarely used as a huge compliment for a band, but although the last few Secrets.. albums have been powerful and mature, none of them really suggested an album as immense as SUN. Inspired to a large extent by the suicide of ex-bass player LSK, it’s a work full of strange, desolate yet apparently hopeful imagery. Mysterious, elusive, it’s an album whose emotional punch is as unexpected as it is tangible.

Ken Camden – Dream Memory (Kranky Records)

Experimental guitarist Ken Camden’s Dream Memory is as ethereal and dislocating as the title suggests. Blurring the lines between guitar, synthesiser and the human voice, it has at times a Steve Reich-like hypnotic quality, giving the impression of moving forwards while standing still; beautiful, in a peculiar way.

Various Artists – Spazzin to the Oldies – a Tribute to Spazz (Mind Ripper Collective)

I haven’t spent a lot of time listening to powerviolence pioneers Spazz, but having listened to them now, I prefer this; the sheer enthusiasm and variety of bands here makes this short, sharp album a great way to blow away the cobwebs.

Absentia Lunae – Vorwarts (ATMF)

Black metal again; one of the most underrated bands around, the key to Absentia Lunae’s power is suggested by the title of this album. Rather than wallowing in the clichés of 90s black metal – or, more credibly, paying tribute to them – Absentia Lunae use the genre’s powerful forms to move constantly forwards with one eye on the ruins of the past; it’s a powerful, poignant sound. I am aware that this album was actually released late in 2014; but because it was late in the year it ‘bled into’ 2015. I’ll try not to do this again but can’t promise not to…

Valet – Nature (Kranky Records)

It was a good year for Kranky, among the many great releases, the latest album by alt-rock/shoegaze group led by Honey Owens is as fragile but hard-edged as glass; haunting in several senses, it’s a record to wallow in but one that it’s never quite possible to absorb.

OLD ALBUM OF THE YEAR: contender #2

Orange Juice – Coals To Newcastle (Domino)

This beautifully designed little box/book set collects everything recorded by one of the greatest indie pop groups ever. Apart from anything else, it’s one of the widest-ranging bodies of work by any band of the era; from romantic and funny proto-Smiths ‘indie rock’ to sophisticated and soulful funk-inflected dance-pop, Edwyn Collins and co made a unique mark on popular music.

Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (part four)

The penultimate selection of the year’s best releases, I’m thinking there will have to be some ‘honourable mentions’ at the end of the final part!
Enslaved – In Times (Nuclear Blast Records)
It’s been a long time since Enslaved could be classified as viking metal, but the spirit of their ancient Norse ancestors lives on in In Times, along with the spirit of King Crimson and 70s prog in general, metal and black metal in particular and so much more. In Times is arguably their greatest album to date, and its greatness is defined by the way the band takes so many apparently disparate and complex elements and makes them not only harmonious but accessible and memorable. A masterpiece.

Jenny Hval – Apocalypse, Girl (Sacred Bones Records)

A highly peculiar yet very accessible album, the music and song structures on Apocalypse, Girl are dreamlike and unpredictable, but made into a satisfying whole by the remarkable voice, words and personality of Jenny Hval herself.

Grift – Syner (Nordvis Produktion)

Some people are justifiably critical of the more pleasant end of the black metal genre these days, but wallowing in melancholy has its own appeal and Erik Gärdefors makes masterfully mournful music. As beautiful as it is sad.

Jess & The Ancient Ones – Second Psychedelic Coming: The Aquarius Tapes (Svart Records)

Less doomy than their previous work, the latest album by Finland’s foremost psychedelic rock band is certainly not less atmospheric and manages to be exhilarating even when at its most wandering & jazzy. Great songs, great production & the superbly charismatic Jess herself; brilliant.

Sigh – Graveward (Candlelight Records)

Even by the standards of the mighty Sigh, Graveward is a highly peculiar album. Frank Zappa-meets-prog-meets-Yngwie Malmsteen-meets-power metal-meets-movie soundtracks-meets-black metal; it’s difficult to pigeonhole but easy to enjoy.

OLD ALBUM OF THE YEAR: contender# 3

Pilot – A’s, B’s & Rarities (EMI)

Seriously underrated 70s post-glam power pop from Scotland. Pilot had a few chart hits (more than you’d think in fact) but their lesser known work is just as interesting, if not as immediate. Lest the fact that Pilot was a great band not be enough to convince people even more snooty about music than me, half of the band played on the majority of Kate Bush’s most iconic work.

La Flamme et le Lys: Métal Noir Québécois

Firstly, the black metal of Québec (at least the black metal I am talking about) has little or nothing to do with Canada. Nothing against Canada (or Canadian metal for that matter), but what makes this scene so distinctive is the backdrop of the history of Québec/Nouvelle-France as a nation (lots of fascinating info here), not to mention the French language, especially romantic perhaps, to people like myself who don’t understand it.

Two ironies recur endlessly in black metal: firstly, despite the avowed individualism of almost every BM band, the genre has come to be defined in part by national scenes, with various identifying features. The most obvious (because most famous and because it put many of the genre trademarks in place) is the Norwegian scene of the early 90s, but for me, the Québec scene has arguably been the most distinctive and consistent over the last decade or so.

Secondly, despite the rhetoric of superiority common in certain areas of the genre, much of the best black metal (especially the nationalistic/heritage-leaning kind) takes a large part of its melancholy atmosphere from a history of defeat and hardship rather than one of victory and supremacy; the image of snow covered ruins or desolation that grace the cover art of a large proportion of black metal releases may represent the defeat of black metal’s enemies, be they the Christian church, or modern urban civilisation, but the fact is that nowhere in the world is there or has there been a black metal elite ruling over a subjugated population of cowering slaves.

In fact, more commonly than not, ‘heritage BM’ (absolutely horrible term, can’t think of a less insulting one) has at its heart the supplanting of native cultures and traditions by Christianity, but with Québec the focal point historically is the destruction of the colony of New France and the (to a degree ongoing) marginalisation of its culture and traditions within the later UK/US-influenced construct of Canada.
This kind of history of hardship, neglect and respect for nature and tradition is the exact mixture of musical/historical/ideological inspiration that can make nationalistic (a sinister word, but it doesn’t necessarily have the fascist connotations of National Socialist Black Metal, of which see here) BM such a potent-sounding music.

It should be pointed out though, that the settlers of Québec were not the first people there, and the history of the native peoples of Canada is even more marginalised and bleak than that of the first European settlers.
Sadly I have yet to hear any native American black metal, if there is such a thing (I would like to hear it if there is). Possibly the essentially European (and, taking into account the influence of the blues, even African) nature of heavy metal makes it unlikely to be embraced by heritage-minded individuals of native American backgrounds.
Still, the fascinating history of New France and Québec is more than troubled enough to account for the emotion that exudes from the best black metal of the nation.

There is no doubt that in the New France the settlers’ lives were difficult; even aside from the daily hardship that was (and in many places still is) inherent in the lives of people living from the land, the extreme climate and landscape of Québec – especially in the winter – made peoples’ existence precarious at best.
The paintings and drawings of Dutch emigrant Cornelius Krieghoff (seen here) – in some ways a parallel figure, in BM at least, to Theodor Kittelsen in Norway – vividly depict these struggles while also representing something of a nostalgic ideal through their picturesque depiction of an isolated and self-sufficient community. It should be noted though, that the history of New France dates back to the 1500s, so by the time of Krieghoff’s travels in Québec in the mid-19th century, the people’s connection with France was already a near-mythical one.

Perhaps because of the vast differences – not just in terrain and climate, but also government and society – between France and its colony, New France quickly gained an independent identity of its own. Though the language and many of the traditions would remain French, the connection between Québec and its mother country would quickly become minimal, despite various rebellions against the English-speaking oppressors throughout the 19th century.
All of these factors have helped shape the character of Métal Noir Québécois. Although not one homogenous sound, most of the bands have some common ground. Much of the imagery of the genre is that common to black metal in general; the iconography of forests, frost, snow, autumn and winter landscapes – it is particularly appropriate for Québecois black metal. There is a strong vein of nature mysticism in the music, often lurking as a subtext, but occasionally, as in Neige et Noirceur’s masterful Hymnes de la Montagne Noire, taking centre stage.

Likewise, the use of folk elements is hardly new to black metal, but the distinctive folk music of the area uses instrumentation unusual to BM (such as accordions as well as fiddles) and has a unique, archaic flavour which is extremely evocative when used well. Neige et Noirceur again provide a good example with their strangely sea-shantyish Ancien Folklore Québécois.

It’s not all ‘New France’ though; although primarily French-speaking, other influences helped shape Quebec, as the presence of Dutchman Cornelius Kreghoff in the colony suggests. In fact the excellent-but-mysterious one-man project Ziel Bevrijd has a Dutch name, suggesting (maybe?) an alternative heritage, although Viingrid writes lyrics mainly in French.

Musically speaking, the strongest influence on the Québec bands is probably Burzum, specifically the albums Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosefem, the primitive mix of fuzzy guitar and fairly basic synth being surprisingly adept at conjouring epic wintry landscapes as well as desolate misery.

Recommended Listening:
I can’t stress strongly enough that I am not in any way an authority on the black metal of Québec and there is every chance that I have missed out major artists as well as minor ones. A good rule of thumb is that if is from Québec and released by Sepulchral Productions or Les Productions Hérétiques it’s probably worth a listen. These are all good:

Sorcier Des Glaces

This band has been around since the late 90s and if not the most distinctive – or the first – of Québec’s BM bands, they have never made a bad record. Atmospheric but more upbeat (as well as faster and less French) than many bands in the scene, albums like the definitive Snowland and 2011’s The Puressence of Primitive Forests are highly recommended to fans of expansive post-Burzum BM.

1837
A pretty marginal band, but with a name derived from the year of the Québec patriotic uprising and a (to my knowledge) sole EP, Prologue (2010) to their name, 1837 seem in some ways to be just what obscure local BM is all about. The EP is strong, but pretty harsh, very similar to Celtic Winter-era Graveland.

Forteresse
Perhaps the greatest of all Québec BM bands, their manifesto-like Métal Noir Québécois defined the genre, bringing together Burzum-esque epic-but-melancholy BM with traditional Québec folk music and imagery. Les Hivers de Notre Epoque is if anything even better, less ferocious but even more atmospheric.

Sombres Forêts

In a similar vein to Forteresse, but slightly more ambient and snow-shrouded and less folk-influenced, Sombres Forêts are one of the more melancholy bands in the scene. To my ears their best album to date is 2008’s Royaume de Glace, a despairing masterpiece with some of the best vocals of any Québec BM album, especially when Annatar shrieks hoarsely over relatively clean guitars on songs like the great The Forest.

Neige et Noirceur
Another one-man band whose style veers close to Forteresse (and indeed Burzum) at times, NeN have a discography which encompasses folk, ambient and of course atmospheric BM elements, all albums are good, but Crépuscule Hivernal sans fin sur les Terres de la Guerre from 2009 has a particularly intense and obscure atmosphere.

Neige Éternelle
Pretty much a definitive Sepulchral signing, the best songs on Neige Éternelle’s 2013 self-titled debut bring a strongly Darkthrone-like flavour to the Quebec sound (check out L’appel de la Mort for a perfect synthesis of Burzum, Darkthrone and Métal Noir Québécois)

Brume d’Automne
A somewhat schizophrenic band, Brume d’Automne veer between some of the most folk-influenced music in the genre (for example La mort d’un patriote from their debut album Fiers et Victorieux) to a strongly punk-influenced sound on songs like Quand Les Corbeaux Crient Leur Haine.

Monarque
Far more typical, being essentially a very prolific one-man project (sort of – Monarque is sometimes joined by a live drummer) in the epic/atmospheric BM vein. Another artist with no bad releases (that I’ve heard) but the 2013 opus Lys Noir is particularly strong.

Gris
Another great band signed to Sepulchral, Gris play extremely poignant-sounding, at times lush BM, very sophisticated and with at times a Shining-like quality. It’s hard to choose between their two excellent albums, the first, Il Etait Une Forêt somehow has a magical, almost hushed quality even at its most raw, heavy and tormented, while their latest A L’Âme Enflammée, L’Âme Constellée… has a vast epic grandeur.

Chasse-Galerie
A strongly folklore-inspired band where Québec BM meets Falkenbach, Chasse-Galerie specialise in high-velocity melodic BM with at times a heroic flavour and lots of good tunes.

Ziel Bevrijd
Mentioned above, this strangely-named act is far from prolific (and sometimes scorned for the lo-fi qualities of its output), Ziel Bevrijd’s self-titled album and split with Csejthe (a very good band who don’t quite fit what I am writing about) should definitely be checked out by anyone into bands like Marblebog or (of course) Burzum.

Nordmen
Pretty standard orthodox BM with a strong atmosphere, NS by reputation (hard for me to say based on song titles in French) and pretty good despite a slightly thin sound.

Ciel Nordique
To date, Ciel Nordique have released one demo, in 2005, but it’s a very accomplished one, balancing aggression and melancholy perfectly.

Délétère
Still relatively new on the scene, Délétère so far have one excellent full length album, Les Heures de la Peste to their to their name. Better still, because more raw and concentrated, are the demos collected on De Ritbus Morbiferis; a set of songs that utterly embody the raw melancholy and stormy, snow-covered landscapes that define Métal Noir Québécois.

And that’s probably enough for now….

Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (part three)

Onwards with more of the best new releases of 2015, as usual in no order, but with the first mentioned especially worthy of earspace…

Oblivionized – Life Is A Struggle, Give Up (Secret Law Records)

Oblivionized spent the years 2008 – 2013 or so building a style that was dense, technical, experimental and explosive and roughly in the borderlands between technical death metal and grindcore, a period perhaps best experienced on 2011’s Abhorrent Evolution EP. Thereafter, the band reconfigured to a three piece and stripped their music to its unpredictable, emotionally volatile core. Life Is A Struggle… is the perfect encapsulation of the style they arrived at and is a perfect distillation of some of the more vital aspects of the UK extreme [enter preferred genre name here] underground.

Ratatat – Magnifique (XL Recordings)

Ratatat’s peculiar ‘rocktronica’ is as distinctive as ever on this, their fifth album. I haven’t heard all of their work, but based on the bits I know, this seems ‘typical’, in that it is strangely soothing even when woozily off key or actually sort of instrumental-version-of-Queen-ish.

Nechwochen – Heart of Akamon (Nordvis Produktion)

2015 was a good year for folk and/or ‘heritage’ influenced American black metal and while Obsequiae (rightly) got most of the plaudits for the extraordinary Aria of Vernal Tombs (which will feature in this end-of-year-roundup at some point), Nechochwen’s Heart of Akamon is a superbly atmospheric album which has its roots in the history and culture of north America – still surprisingly rare in USBM compared to the influence of essentially European themes.

Alif – Aynama-Rtama (Nawa Recordings)

I hate to use a term as meaningless as ‘world music’ but I don’t know enough about Arabic music (or want to, really) to say anything very intelligent about this beautiful and (to my ears) unusually-textured music.

Chris Cornell – Higher Truth (Universal Music)

Despite my affection for Soundgarden, I was quite surprised to find how much I enjoyed this album; compared to recent Chris Cornell albums, it’s simple, straightforward, not boring and heartfelt. Plus his voice is still great.

OLD ALBUM OF THE YEAR: contender# 3

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (Berserkley Records, 1976)

Genuinely timeless in its strange mixture of sparse instrumentation (acoustic guitar/bass/drums), harmony vocals and childishly straightforward songwriting; a great album

LIVE DEAD: Mayhem 1990

Suicide and murder will get a band noticed, but more than enough has been written about all that elsewhere (best short version; Ian Christe’s Sound of the Beast, best longer version; Michael Moynihan & Didrik Søderlind’s classic Lords of Chaos), so…

Looking at the history of the notorious/famous/classic/tragic 1988-91 lineup of Norway’s black metal legends Mayhem (Dead [vocals] – Euronymous [guitar] – Necrobutcher [bass] – Hellhammer [drums]), the surprising thing about the band isn’t that that they did not manage to finish recording the album they were working on (De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, eventually released in 1994 after the deaths of both Dead and Euronymous) but that they managed to achieve anything at all.

Famously broke, hungry and with little audience existing at that date for the kind of music they were making, the band nevertheless made a huge impact that lasts to this day. They professionally recorded only a few songs (notably Freezing Moon and Carnage, recorded in 1989, but not released as a single until years later when, again, literally half of the lineup on the record were dead) but their influence on their contemporaries was huge and they even managed the impressive feat of touring outside of Norway, albeit in a severely haphazard and underfunded way.

L-R Euronymous, Dead, Hellhammer, Necrobutcher

The band only played a handful of concerts, mostly around 1989-90, and luckily (and surprisingly) most of those were captured on tape for posterity, with varying degrees of technical skill.
The surviving concert recordings appropriately take place mostly in the cold of winter, (February and November, 1990) and give a picture of the band’s evolution from the rudimentary (if extreme) gore-obsessed black metal of their 80s demos, to the intense and atmospheric black metal that was to kick-start the musical style of the whole genre as it is now known.

The setlist for Mayhem’s shows throughout 1990 seems to have stayed more or less the same, although early favourite (and title track of their 1986 demo debut) Pure Fucking Armageddon was superceded by the vastly superior and more thoughtful new song Pagan Fears in the later shows. It is well-documented that Dead self-harmed during several, perhaps all of these shows, but (maybe luckily) the results are never audible, although there is at times a palpably intense and uncomfortable atmosphere.

The Great War: Live in Jessheim, February 3rd 1990

The first surviving concert recording (I think; I haven’t researched this as thoroughly as I intended to) seems to be a show in Jessheim, Norway from February of 1990, just over a year before this version of the band imploded with the suicide of Dead in April 1991. The recording is, to be charitable about it, not great; harsh, tinny and noisy. It does capture the enthusiasm the band still had at this point, although they were to become noticeably tighter by the end of the year.

1. Deathcrush
Despite a fair amount of surface hiss this is a very strong, gritty and listenable version of the old classic from the 1987 mini album of the same name. Dead roars a few times, but seemingly the only part of the lyric he knew this night was “Deathcrush!!” Pretty good nonetheless.

2. Necrolust
Lots of crowd noise and hiss make this a less satisfying listen as the music is a bit muffled and distant. Still, a pretty good version, as far as the bass and guitar (the most audible parts) are concerned and Euronymous’ solo is less tuneless than sometimes. Again, it seems like Dead only sings some of the lyric, but possibly it’s just that his vocals are lost in the surface noise. One of the more enthusiastic crowd reactions of this period though.

3. Funeral Fog
The crowd (or at least a couple of people) actually chants ‘Mayhem! Mayhem!’ before Hellhammer plays the blastbeat intro to Funeral Fog. A noisy, bad recording can’t hide the fact that the band are playing an excellent version of the song; Dead’s vocal is noticeably more engaged than on the earlier songs, and his delivery, deeper than usual, comes across surprisingly clearly. Euronymous’ guitar playing is excellent, intense and precise and the atmosphere of the classic ‘True Norwegian Black Metal’ comes across perfectly. The song ends in an eruption of feedback but the crowd reacts with enthusiasm.

4. Freezing Moon
Dead gives his usual intro (“When it’s cold and when it’s dark the freezing moon can obsess you” over whines of feedback before the band launches into a messy (at least poorly-recorded and hissy) but still powerful version of one of the all-time classic anthems of black metal. The band (especially Euronymous) plays a little less certainly than in later recordings and Dead’s vocals in the slower part are swamped by the guitars, but the atmosphere of the song still comes across effectively and the crowd reacts vocally.

5. Carnage
The crowd continues to chant and the band launches into an abortive version of Carnage that collapses just after Dead has shouted the opening line. There seems to be an issue with the guitar and Euronymous plays a few random chords before the band launches back into the song, playing an intense but messy version, made challenging to the listener by the poor quality of the recording.

6. Buried by Time and Dust
Dead’s usual semi-comprehensible intro leads into a false start where the band plays a bar or so before the song cuts off, then starts again. The recording makes it all a bit buzzing and monotonous but it’s still an undoubted advance on Carnage.

7. Chainsaw Gutsfuck
Dead barks the title and the band lurches into life, playing that simple yet ominous riff hard and heavy. As with the rest of this show, the volume of the guitars and level of hiss makes it a less than pleasant listening experience, but it was never supposed to be nice.

8. Pure Fucking Armageddon
More feedback and some tuning sounds take up the first few minutes of this highly chaotic version of the title track from the band’s first demo. The small audience chants and cheers, Dead finally announces the song and, after another false start and more chanting the band finally plays, extremely fast and loud but also tunelessly. Unless you like pure noise, this is pretty unpleasant, and the end is cut off, making it an unsatisfying version of one of their less impressive songs.

Dawn of the Black Hearts: Live in Sarpsborg, February 28th, 1990

Probably the most famous of Mayhem bootlegs, Dawn of the Black Hearts has always enjoyed a kind of semi-official quality, since it features a photograph of the scene of Dead’s suicide taken by Euronymous and intended by him (you would think, somewhat unrealistically) as an album cover.
The photograph was presumably sent to Colombia by Euronymous himself, and in 1995, following the murder of the guitarist, the also late Mauricio “Bull Metal” Montoya used it as the cover of the original edition of the album on his Warmaster label, which also features some live tracks recorded by the previous Mayhem lineup in Ski in 1986. Incidentally, the title comes from lyrics written by Darkthrone’s Fenriz which includes an excellent reference to Satan’s “hooven clooves”.

1. Deathcrush
The slightly tinny quality makes this particularly feral version of the perennial Deathcrush a bit hard on the ears, but Dead’s shriek manages to equal Maniac’s unhinged performance on the original 1986 mini-album, no mean feat.

2. Necrolust
After a very short pause for whooping from the crowd, the band launches into a churning version of another venerable classic. The slow, stomping intro riff is more effective than the blasting passages, and Dead’s voice is a little lost in the noise (although he delivers his lines with an occasional hint of Celtic Frost-ish swagger). Star of the show is Hellhammer, who basically pummels the song to oblivion. The crowd sounds a little taken aback but approving, chattering and shouting good-humouredly through Euronymous’ guitar tuning before Hellhammer’s curt intro leads into…

3. Funeral Fog
The first song of the set to be penned by the lineup actually playing is noticeably superior to its predecessors, the blasting passages being both fast and relatively complex/melodic. Dead is audibly more enthusiastic and Eurnonymous’ guitar playing loses its sloppiness, playing the song’s intense interlocking riffs with speed and precision. The tremolo-picked riff following the verses is aggressive, atmospheric and completely definitive of the ‘second wave’ of black metal that the band was bringing into being. The reaction of the (presumably quite small) crowd is suitably enthusiastic.

4. Freezing Moon
After Dead’s usual introduction the band is led into a slightly clumsy version of their signature tune by three cymbal crashes. Once the song gets going everything falls into place, but there seem to be some minor timing issues during the intro. Dead’s especially hoarse vocal is extremely effective during the slower passage, although the performance is derailed a little by Euronymous’ solo, which is basically the same as usual but seems to be in the wrong key.

5. Carnage
Back to the earliest years of the band for this messy, noisy blastfest. The band is fast and powerful but also more ordinary than in the preceding songs; Dead rasps, Euronymous plays a speedy would-be technical solo but it’s only in the thrash-toned lull before the last section that the song has much character.

6. Buried By Time and Dust
Another Dead-era classic, and the man himself delivers a highly theatrical monologue leading into the song, possibly his best delivered intro, although the band unfortunately doesn’t quite start when they should. When they do though, they play this, one of Mayhem’s most dramatic tunes, with intensity and precision. Only the trebly quality of the recording mars what is still an excellent performance, especially if the bass is boosted. The relatively poor sound quality does highlight how great Euronymous’ skeletal riffs are though. It also gets one of the more vocal responses from the crowd.

7. Chainsaw Gutsfuck
The monolithic intro to this sounds as good as always, but Dead’s vocals are buried in the noise, making the whole somewhat monotonous.

8. Pure Fucking Armageddon
Dead intones ‘Only death is real!’ a few times before the band storms into one of their earliest, but not best songs. Still, a rousing end to an intense show.

The album ends with the aforementioned live tracks from Ski (or Lillehammer, depending which sources are correct) from 1986, but the recording has comical speed issues typical of old concert tapes; – think Donald Duck on vocals.

Live in Gleisdorf (?) (date??) 1990

There is little information available (at least I haven’t been able to find much) concerning this concert, credited as taking place in Gleisdorf, Austria, but just as likely to be somewhere nearer to the band’s home. That said, the fact that the band seemingly ends the set with Pagan Fears suggests that it could have been part of the ‘mini-tour’ that visited various locations in the former East Germany in the later part of 1990.

A bootleg with the tracklisting below seems to be available, but I don’t have it, so I have only written about the bit I could find online. The nice thing is that it doesn’t seem to be one of the other recordings re-packaged in the usual bootleg manner, so whether or not it’s really from Gleisdorf, it does seem to be a different concert from the usual 2 or 3 that turn up.

1. Deathcrush
The recording is very poor indeed but reveals that the band plays the opening at a more relaxed pace than usual. It is played are noticeably more tightly than on the earlier recordings and Dead’s vocals sound more coherent, so despite the very poor quality of the recording it’s a surprisingly enjoyable version of this venerable tune.
2. Necrolust
3. Funeral Fog
4. Freezing Moon
5. Carnage
6. Buried by Time and Dust
7. Chainsaw Gutsfuck
8. Pagan Fears

War and Sodomy: Live in Zeitz, November 24th, 1990

Also known simply as ‘Live in Zeitz -1990’, War and Sodomy is a better quality recording than the more famous Dawn of the Black Hearts, with the band tighter and more muscular sounding than before and with a more gritty substantial sound, although the vocals are occasionally lost in the (lack of) mix.
The recording was made during the band’s troubled mini-tour mentioned above, which took them to the former East Germany, although concerts further afield were also planned. The setlist had now become equally split between older material and the newly-written songs, giving it more of the ‘true Norwegian black metal’ sound.

1. Deathcrush
The murky sound of this concert begins with some semi-incoherent growling from Dead, but once the music starts the sound is reasonably clear and less harsh than sometimes. The band sounds powerful and better-rehearsed than on earlier concert recordings but unfortunately Dead’s vocals are a little quiet and echoey.

2. Necrolust
The deeper sound gives the intro a particularly ominous quality but once the blastbeats begin it’s all a bit of a blur. Not the worst version, but Dead’s vocals are mainly an incomprehensible croaking noise.

3. Funeral Fog
One of the highlights of the show, even with the dulled top end the atmosphere and power of the song comes across brilliantly, Euronymous’ haunting melody cutting through the swimming-pool acoustics. Dead is still (appropriately) a little lost in the wall of sound, but his despairing croak surfaces from time to time.

4. Freezing Moon
A very slightly different intro from the usual (Dead rasps ‘when it’s cold & when it’s dark’ rather than the other way round) leads into a towering version of the classic Freezing Moon, second only to that on Live in Leipzig. Euronymous’ solo is almost the same as there but not quite as good. Otherwise this is pretty much perfect, Dead’s voice is harsher and deeper than usual but clear and comprehensible.

5. Carnage
A good version of the song, but like much of the earlier material, Carnage was starting to sound a little tired compared with the newer material. Euronymous livens it up with some rather screechy soloing but although full of energy and aggression it isn’t a highlight.

6. Buried by Time and Dust
Dead’s somewhat garbled introductory statement seems shorter than usual but the band plays the song with authority and intensity. Again, the vocals are a little lost in the sound (especially towards the end when there is some very squealing feedback) but overall a strong version.

7. Chainsaw Gutsfuck
Again sounding a little pedestrian compared to their more recent material, this is a pretty good version of the Deathcrush classic, with the vocals clearer than on most of the songs here and some nice playing by Euronymous.

8. Pagan Fears
At the beginning of the year the band had still been ending their shows with the venerable Pure Fucking Armageddon, but it was replaced in later shows by the mighty Pagan Fears, one of the best tracks written by this lineup of the band. The band is tight and focussed and Euronymous plays the intense riffs perfectly. The recording is somewhat detached from the rest of the album, the intro and applause are cut off, robbing the show of some of its atmosphere, but it’s worth remembering that these recordings were never intended for the CD format so it’s possibly just to do with the mundane reality of turning the tape over to continue recording.

Live in Leipzig: November 26th, 1990 (Eiskeller Club)

The only official live album featuring Dead and the best of these by far, Live In Leipzig, despite many rough edges, captures the band at its best, delivering definitive versions of many of their songs. Interestingly, the setlist here combines all of the songs they had been playing throughout the year (it may just be that this is the only complete show), making it the perfect live document of the era.

1. Deathcrush
As on the ‘Gleisdorf’ version, the band leads into this version of Deathcrush slower than usual before reaching the usual blasting tempo. After all the previous bootlegs it is extremely refreshing to hear Dead loud and in the foreground and with all instruments audible behind him and little surface noise.

2. Necrolust
A solid, brutal version of Necrolust gets a slightly muted response from the crowd, to Necrobutcher’s audible exasperation. His shouted ‘Come on Leipzig! is a rare occurrence for a band who – at this period – tended to stick to minimal, scripted* interaction with the audience.

* possibly not actually scripted, but Dead does seem to have worked out three or four standard monologues for live performances

3. Funeral Fog
As if to shake the audience out of it’s torpor, the band launches into perhaps the best ever version of Funeral Fog. The band’s (and especially Euronymous’) playing is precise and aggressive and Dead delivers his peculiar but seemingly heartfelt lyric about a deadly mist in the Carpathian mountains with throat-ripping intensity. Euronymous’ tremolo-picked melody is one of the highlights of early 90s black metal. The crowd finally reacts with some excitement and Dead delivers his introductory monologue to…

4. The Freezing Moon
The band plays the classic intro at a deliberate, powerful pace before leading into perhaps the definitive version of their most famous tune. Euronymous’ solo is as peculiar as ever, but more inspired and less off-key. Arguably superior to the drum-heavy studio version this lineup also recorded (see above), this is one of the milestones of the band’s career. The audience sounds relatively enthusiastic, but not enough for Dead, who chides them before the band leads into a pummelling version of…

5. Carnage
A fast, precise version of this older song (presumably one the band were still particularly fond of, it is one of only two songs that Dead recorded in the studio.) It’s a strong performance but not their best song, despite Euronymous adding some more modern black metal touches to his guitar parts.

6. Buried by Time and Dust
Feedback somewhat spoils Dead’s introductory speech and the band launches into a good, extremely fast version of this classic with very precise guitar playing but a slightly rattling drum sound compared to most of the album.

7. Pagan Fears
Without doubt one of the best black metal songs of the era, this version of Pagan Fears falters slightly after the intro as Euronymous seems to get slightly lost in the timing of the brief slow section. As soon as the song launches into the first verse though, it picks up, becoming one of the highlights of the set. Dead’s rasping delivery makes the most of one of his best, most enigmatic lyrics.

8. Chainsaw Gutsfuck
Anticlimactic after Pagan Fears, the intro to Chainsaw Gutsfuck is nevertheless as powerful as ever, but the song just sounds a little too primitive compared to its predecessor. A good version though, prowling and sinister, but although Dead delivers the lyrics as well as anyone could, their crudely ‘shocking’ quality seems hopelessly ineffective after the mysterious atmospheric allusiveness of Pagan Fears. After much subdued but good-humoured crowd noise, during which Dead (or Necrobutcher?) exhorts the crowd to join them, the band finally plays…

9. Pure Fucking Armageddon
Probably the best, most intense version of the song, this is heavier and more riff-oriented than usual, although Euronymous does play a seemingly improvised and very messy solo. Disappointingly, the song fades out just as it ends, with no real sense of the crowd’s reaction, a slightly bathetic end to an iconic release.

As far as Mayhem’s recorded legacy in concerned, Live at Leipzig marks the end of an era. Within six months of the concert, Dead had committed suicide, after which Necrobutcher quit the band and this version of Mayhem came to an end. Although it almost certainly didn’t feel like it at the time, they had actually achieved quite a lot for a bunch of weird kids from what was then not a country known for its heavy music.

Within a couple of years, Euronymous too was dead, and the classic Mayhem was no more. Subsequent lineups have made important contributions to the black metal genre and the band endures to this day, but the mystique that draws people to the band still belongs to those early years which, it shouldn’t be forgotten were about music as much as anything else.

Dead (Pelle Ohlin) & Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) RIP

The Story of an Artist; Daniel Johnston covered

Due to his highly idiosyncratic, sometimes unnerving style and often rough and sometimes non-existent production values, many people prefer to hear the songs of the great Daniel Johnston performed by others; they are wrong – but there are many great covers of his work. The following selection is not comprehensive but all of these are definitely worth hearing…

1. M Ward: To Go Home (from Post War, 2006)

Guitarist/Singer M. Ward (of She & Him, Monsters of Folk etc) recorded a superb version of Daniel Johnston’s ‘Story of An Artist‘ for The Late Great Daniel Johnston, but this is even better; one of the best songs from arguably Johnston’s best album, The What of Whom, this version rocks without losing any of the complicated but intense feeling of the original.

2. Beck: True Love Will Find You In The End (Discovered Covered – the Late Great Daniel Johnston)

Perhaps DJ’s most covered song, nobody quite captures the hopeful desolation of the original recording, but Beck’s version gives the song a mournful Neil Young-esque acoustic guitar & harmonica treatment (slightly reminiscent of the great ‘Out on the Weekend’) and makes up in authority what it lacks in fragility.

3. Camilo Kraxberger: I’m Gonna Buy Me A Car (Hola che, como andas- Homenaje Argentino a Daniel Jonhston)

The Argentinian (I presume) anthology Hola che, como andas- Homenaje Argentino a Daniel Jonhston contains many versions of songs that are even more ramshackle than the home-recorded originals, but there are some gems here too. Singer/songwriter Camilo Kraxberger sounds almost as fragile as Johnston himself on this great, non-amateurish recording. Less melancholy than the original, but much creepier and with excellent use of sampled car salesmen.

4. Lumberob – Honey I Sure Miss You (I Killed The Monster; 21 Artists Performing the Songs of Daniel Johnston)

This wonderful version seems to be exactly Daniel Johnston was aiming for on his own extremely affecting but slightly scratchy and wobbly original recording. Sometimes a smooth professional approach tends to bland out some of the original feeling, but here it is sophisticated without being too mainstream and works perfectly.

5. Drowning Your Mother: Mask (listen here)

This slightly basic cover takes the obsessive, morbid aspect of the song and makes it the whole point: it’s droning, deeply unhappy and great.

6. BMX Bandits: Do You Really Love Me? (from Star Wars)

As a songwriter and performer Duglas Stewart has the same kind of vulnerability (if less desperate on the whole) as Daniel Johnston, and the BMX Bandits are the perfect band to cover this very Beatles-eque song, retaining the feeling completely while giving the sound of a real band (although in fact the version on DJ’s Artistic Vice (1990) is also pretty much professional and polished.

7. Eels: Living Life (Discovered Covered – the Late Great Daniel Johnston)

This quietly powerful version of a somewhat manic original is based to some degree on Kathy McCarty’s also-great version of the song. Mark E gives a suitably world-weary quality to the optimistically dissatisfied lyric and the whole thing is beautiful and over far too quickly.

8. Kathy McCarty – Like A Monkey in A Zoo (Dead Dog’s Eyeball)

There are lots of good covers of this (Teenage Fanclub & Jad Fair’s would be the best if Jad could sing in tune), probably one of Daniel Johnston’s most accomplished early songs as well as one of his saddest. Kathy McCarty gives it a seemingly inappropriate jauntiness but somehow it works.

9. Virginia Verstraeten – Lousy Weekend (Hola che, como andas- Homenaje Argentino a Daniel Johnston ) – also a nice video)

Another (again, I think) Argentinian singer and a lovely weary version of this satisfyingly bitter song.

10. Karen O & the Kids – Worried Shoes (Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack)

The delicate, mournful piano and xylophone(?) makes this one of the prettiest DJ covers. Karen O is always a great singer and she makes the most of one of Johnston’s saddest lyrics on this perfect version of an always-great song.

11. Guster : The Sun Shines Down On Me (Discovered Covered – the Late Great Daniel Johnston)

This song has one of DJ’s most Beatles-esque melodies and matter-of-fact but poetic lyrics and Boston band Guster do it justice with a great, wistful performance.

12. Eddie Vedder: Walking The Cow (various live versions, here’s a nice one)

It would be nice if Eddie Vedder would record a studio version of this (he may have, I am pretty ignorant about Mr Vedder and his works). Whereas most covers of this classic song (Kathy McCarty’s is a very good example) more or less follow the tempo of the original (the same pounding rhythm as a lot of DJ’s chord organ-era songs), this version is slowed down without losing the atmosphere, fragility or meaning of the song. Plus he sings it very nicely.

13. The Pastels: Speeding Motorcycle (single, 1990)

Speeding Motorcycle is, though undoubtedly one of the great Daniel Johnston songs, a difficult one to cover; so much of its effect comes from the original, deeply unhappy performance. Somewhat oddly, The Pastels make it into a very 1990 dance-pop song. It works though, although Yo La Tengo’s version is kind of better on reflection.

14. AKA Lurholm: Fish (Apskaft tribute to Daniel Johnston, 2011)

One of my favourite DJ covers, AKA Lurholm unexpectedly turns DJ’s rueful, extremely self-aware semi-love song into a convincing up-tempo ska tune, adding a cheery quality while while not losing the feel or atmosphere of the original: who’d have thought?

15. Uni and her Ukelele – Silly Love (2010)

This perfect, assured cover has all of the emotional power of Johnston’s various versions, but is a little less wobbly. As beautiful as Uni’s ukulele is pink.

16. Indigo Morgan – Like a Monkey in a Zoo (2010)

This is remarkable not just for being a superb version of this wonderful song, but also because Indigo Morgan manages to be kinds country without automatically being unbearable. Nice guitar playing too.

17. Thistle – Love Not Dead (from The Late Great Daniel Johnston – Discovered Covered)

Very similar to the original but with a girl singer: i.e. great.

18. Young Statues – Silly Love

Another very nice version of one of Daniel Johnston’s most affecting songs, this time by New Jersey-based indie band Young Statues. Although there are several great versions of this by Johnston himself (the Live at SXSW and Fun versions especially) I’m not sure that he has ever recorded the definitive one yet.

19. Aaron Robinson – Peek a Boo (2009)

One of the real hidden gems on this list. Peek a Boo is probably one of Daniel Johnston’s most accomplished early songs and Aaron Robinson gives it the kind of professional, but still emotional, recording that it deserves. It seems strange that a song so specific to one individual (“I painted a bar and I never got paid…”) could be so successfully covered by another singer, but that’s always been one of the great things about music, hasn’t it?

20. Joy Zipper – Held the Hand (I Killed The Monster; 21 Artists Performing the Songs of Daniel Johnston)

Baleful but calm and strangely ‘nice’ (but still very creepy) version of this supremely creepy song.

21. Pear Shape – Walking the Cow (2013)

Another nice version of the oft-covered classic, this time by Australian indie band Pear Shape, this one is wistfully happy and summery and has a nice, cheap video too.

(Don’t) Lower Your Expectations; the evolution of Oblivionized

We’re not quite at the ‘albums of the year’ stage yet, but when we are, Oblivionized’s Life is a Struggle, Give Up will be featured prominently. From their earliest demos onwards, the band has epitomised the vital UK underground extreme music scene, with a series of always high-quality releases varying from dirty, chaotic grindcore to extremely technical death metal and I have been lucky enough to be writing about the band since those early days, mostly for Zero Tolerance magazine. Back in April I caught up with one third of the band for Pun-Based Name Pending and below is (a slightly revised version of) what came of it:

It’s always* nice to watch a band grow and evolve and although Oblivionized have just released their first album Life is a Struggle, Give Up, it’s the culmination/distillation of five years or so of progress and transformation that has seen the band go from the powerful, technical death metal-infused grindcore of their earlier work to something looser, less metal, more intuitive and distinctive, far harder to define, but no less intense.

*disclaimer; if they are any good it’s nice. Otherwise it’s annoying.

The band’s history is short enough that it’s fairly easy to track down all of their work to date; it’s totally worth doing that. discography

The style the band has arrived at since shrinking to a trio in 2012 isn’t very much like any other band I can think of. Drums/guitar/vocals sounds like a pretty skeletal basis for an album, but the concentration on these components gives the music a sparse, elemental feel and an emotional impact that matches the harsh minimalism of the lyrics. On earlier releases the technical skill of Sammy Urwin (also of death metal band Regurgitated Life etc) was often used in a powerful but fairly conventional (riffs/solos) way and the songs seemed to be carefully composed for maximum dynamic impact – which was very effective. On Life Is A Struggle though, the technical aspect (though no less impressive) seems less to do with killer riffs and heaviness than with an almost jazz-like telepathic intensity, comparable in a way to Painkiller circa Guts of a Virgin, but with a more personal/introspective focus. The album perfectly captures the live sound the band showcased on last year’s This is S.O.A.N. split with Razoreater, losing none of the immediacy of the live tape, but giving everything more precision and a sharper impact.

Well, that’s what I think anyway; here are some thoughts from vocalist/lyricist Zac Broughton:

It’s been quite a long wait for a full-length Oblivionized album, but it definitely feels like now is the right time for it, do you feel like this is the Oblivionized lineup for the foreseeable future? Was this the first time you ever wanted to record an album?

I’d say this is the third album me and Sammy have written for Oblivionized. Before Abhorrent Evolution (2011) Geoff (Bradley, guitarist), Sammy and myself over the course of nine months or so, demoed a twelve track album in my room. We turned the best from those demos into four songs when Jon and Phil joined and recorded them and released as Abhorrent Evolution. With that five piece line up we wrote nine, maybe ten songs for an album, we demoed two of them and released that as Nullify The Cycle… That album obviously never happened and I’m happy it didn’t. I realised recently that I haven’t been doing music just for fun, I enjoyed hanging out with my mates putting demos on myspace and going to gigs and that, but I’ve turned expressing myself through music it into my life. Being able to express myself honestly, not just screaming negative fantasies, or telling people how fucked the world is… which it is, lets be honest, we’ll likely all be dead in twenty years if that. But actually making something that I can be proud of and feel is an honest representation of what this is. So basically, if all the music we wrote, people’s lives we’d been part of, positive and negative experiences we have had as a band and individuals during our time together hadn’t happened, neither would Life Is A Struggle, Give Up… I don’t know what I’m trying to say anymore but I think I said it.

The title is great because it can be read as super-negative or actually positive, listening to the album it kind of feels like both; very bleak and angry but at the same time full of passion and energy, what would you say is the overall feel or theme?

I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I wasn’t telling anyone what to do or how to think, I’m not interested in that, so you can take them how you like. For me the album expresses exactly how I felt while writing it; simply put, life is really hard and I’ve wanted give up, just become what other people expect or want me to be. I chose not to and decided I’d live for myself, nothing matters anyway, so why give a fuck about other people and their opinions if the end result is your unhappiness.

One of the things that is really noticeable about the album is the way each element of the music has the same importance/focus, is that easier to do that as a three-piece band than it was in the past?

That is something Will bought to the band, in the past we’d had bass that was kind of an accompaniment, with guitars that played separate parts, make things more dissident but we’d made the drums all blasting and double kick. When Will joined and we became a three piece, Oblivionized became three different personalities working towards something.

You tour and play live a lot, was it important to produce an album that captures the sound you have live?

We don’t want to create much on record that we can’t recreate live as just a three piece. We recorded drums with just Sammy and Will playing together, no click track, no triggers or drum replacement, just take for take. Sammy then recorded his guitar parts and I did my vocals last, Tom (Corrupt Moral Altar, Vagrant Recordings) added some singing bells to I Pity You and Justine (Employed To Serve) did some extra vocals on Your Mouth Is A Wound, besides that it’s just us three in a playing music in a room.

Secret Law records seem to be doing a really good job of promoting the album, how did you come to sign to the label?

Will was just hanging out with his mate Tom and Tom was most likely saying “bro I might start a metal label” and Will probably said something like “yeah that’d be rad dude, my band has an album no other labels want to release!” and it just snowballed from there, Ed and Tom are fucking on it, they’ve picked up Desert Storm and they just picked up a new band called Funeral Pact who are rad.

Do you have as much control and involvement in all the aspects of making and promoting the album as you did when you were putting things out yourselves?

We still do all the same stuff, we just have some mates working with us now. It’s good to be part of something like Secret Law Records where we are working together to get something heard.

I’m sure the music is carefully worked out etc, but compared to your older work it has a kind of explosive, spontaneous quality, almost like free jazz, is there any element of improvisation in the way you write songs together?

Some songs were written with all three of us in a room bouncing ideas off each other, basically pushing a song in different directions until it met a conclusion, others were Sammy bringing ideas to me and Will, or Sammy and Will bringing ideas to me. After I’d improve vocals until I knew what the song was about. More simply put, It’s all just ideas and things that happened, musically and lyrically.

A related question; I’m not sure which are the newer and older songs on the album, but it seems like the band has gotten a bit looser and less rigid over the past couple of years, would you agree?

Before Geoff (Bradley, now of Atonement) left the band, he said something along the lines of “it’s time Oblivionized stopped writing shredding guitar exercises and started writing songs.” So that’s what we did, weird avant-garde jazz grind songs, or something.

One of the things I really like about the sound Oblivionized has now is that it’s impossible to label in a meaningful way; there’s something really special about the contrast of the technical guitar playing with the kind of intuitive, non-robotic drumming and super-emotive vocals but it isn’t typical ‘tech-grind’ or any of the usual labels you are given. How do you describe your music as it is on the album?

I honestly can’t, when we started out the idea of a genre was a huge joke to us. We started in 2008 it was weird man, you remember all the bands calling themselves “Ultra Guttural Brutality” and “Brutal Technical Slammin Death Metal” yeah? We all thought it was funny, some reviews called us Technical Death Metal, others said Deathgrind so we called ourselves “Misanthropic Technical Deathgrind” and it was hilarious. So we don’t really mind; Trve Kvlt Heavy Core.

the Life Is a Struggle artwork by Mark W. Richards (Heavy Hand Illustration)

You seem to push yourselves further with each release, is that something you do consciously? Do you have a ‘comfort zone’ as a band and if so is it something you avoid staying in?

I feel like we are aiming for something musically and we haven’t reached it yet, I love music and really enjoy being involved with underground bands and new bands. Lots of people come and go, make new bands and there are some brilliant bands out there if you want to find them. There are also a lot of bands that sound just like Converge, Napalm Death, or someone else and that’s rad, go for it, I enjoy seeing those bands play… but I’d like express myself, not someone else’s self.

Since the early days of the band it seems like the lyrics have become more and more focussed and specific and possibly more personal, is writing and performing an emotional or cathartic experience?

The lyrics are all developing an idea; it’s fully developed, yet I’ve been exploring the same idea for a long time. Making this music and performing is a very cathartic and important experience though, I feel sorry for any musician or listener that doesn’t have that connection to music.

LINKS:

Secret Law Records homepage

Heavy Hand Illustration

NSBM (and possibly NSFW)

It’s not National, to my knowledge it’s rarely socialist, but it mostly is black metal; National Socialist Black Metal (hereafter, NSBM) annoys people by being ‘too evil’, or at least evil in the wrong way. As the snuff movie is to the horror movie, it seems, NSBM is to BM. There are a couple of flaws in this analogy; firstly, it suggests that black metal in general is, like horror movies, some kind of fantasy (which it certainly often is, but isn’t necessarily) and secondly, that NSBM isn’t some kind of fantasy (see previous parentheses). The Nazis of World War 2 represent the ‘ultimate evil’ to people of the post-war generations because whereas even the worst serial killers of the 20th century ‘worked’ on an individual, localised scale, the Nazis made murder into an ideology and ultimately an industry. That is, they functioned in ways that are relevant and relate-able to the daily lives and experiences of most people; but in bringing that mundane quality to extermination; ‘death factories’ they ultimately created something more frightening than a lone maniac. So is Nazi black metal the embodiment of that famously banal evil and therefore the ultimate in musical terrorism? Hmm, possibly not but let’s see…

Defining NSBM

Let me be clear; I am not discussing heathen/pagan/ or folk black metal that may or may not be perceived to have a Nazi angle to it. Interesting though that scene is (Graveland is the classic example of a sometimes great band whose career has been blighted by the media’s – and the band’s own – inability to differentiate between history and ideology) the term ‘Nazi’ is too specific and anachronistic to be very useful when discussing paganism, heritage etc even though the Nazis loved that stuff. So, here I am more concerned with bands whose work fully intends to glorify that specific NS ideology, and whose output can be represented by artwork like this:

The first question is, is NSBM any good? Just like any black metal, the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no. On occasion, the marriage of the classic sound of ‘orthodox black metal’ with the particular (let’s not beat around the bush, violently racist and specifically anti-Semitic) kind of extreme bile that a Nazi band projects can be extremely effective. Even a modestly-talented middle-of-the-road orthodox BM band like Poland’s Ohtar were able to make something nightmarishly gripping out of tunes that, had they been devoted to Satan, would have just been that familiar, same old tired BM. In that (but not only that) respect, NSBM is comparable to Christian Black Metal – it may sometimes be okay as sound or music, but that doesn’t make it right.

Given the existence of such subgenres as ambient BM and folk BM, perhaps the only essential ingredient of black metal is Satanism, in one form or another; and the good thing about Satanism is that it can mean many things to many people. Therefore you have the kind of religious goats ‘n’ horns Satanism that is the polar opposite of Christian metal, exemplified I guess by Watain. Related, but not necessarily requiring any actual religious belief, there is the mythical figure of Lucifer – the fallen angel, analogous to humankind, who were also cast out of paradise for rebelling against God’s stricture. Lucifer as the cosmic light-bringer with the key to forbidden knowledge. As the philosophical figure of the adversary, Satan can simply be seen as the ultimate rebel; and therefore the perfect icon for black metal regardless of one’s feelings about Christianity or goats.

Misanthropy: a group activity?

Some of the best black metal, even made by those with Nazi links (Burzum being the best and most obvious example) is metaphysical and above all personal. Like any music that people put their souls into, black metal isn’t ‘just music’ – and no-one could deny that in the early 90s, people like Dead or Mayhem or Burzum’s Varg Vikernes lived the music they made. Whatever his political views were or are, Vikernes has the sense to realise that, while his views may be shared by many, his thoughts and feelings are his alone and at its best, Burzum’s music is an expression of those feelings rather than an ideology. Filosofem, probably his finest work, expresses a kind of solitary desolation through lyrics that are almost abstract in their elemental bareness, making it endlessly appealing to those metal fans (and not just metal fans) who feel alienated from modern urban society and mainstream music.

As an alternative (or even an accompaniment) to this kind of individualistic ‘Satanic’ philosophy, National Socialism is highly inadequate. It’s too specific, too political, too ephemeral, too small. Anyone reading Mein Kampf can have no doubt that, to Adolf Hitler, National Socialism was the expression of a deeply felt personal philosophy. But anyone following it now should be aware that that’s exactly what they are doing – following someone else’s ideology, living someone else’s dream. Not to be too dictatorial about it, but surely even though black metal isn’t all that some of its proponents make it out to be, following a failed idea from the recent past is fundamentally not what the genre is supposed to be about.

Another key band that helped to ignite the idea of NSBM while definitely not belonging to it were Darkthrone, but as is obvious from looking at their work, their brief flirtation with the language of NS, even evaluated from a politically neutral point of view, undermined the impact of their music. The album which caused the controversy is also the one which cemented the band’s reputation as scene leaders, despite the fact that it is significantly weaker than the two which preceded it; 1993’s Transilvanian Hunger. The title track is one of the band’s – and the genre’s – best ever songs, but it also helps to illustrate where Darkthrone went wrong. The (not surprisingly) vampiric lyrics are classic black metal, an almost romantic view of misanthropy, forever making cold one of the keywords of the genre. The narrator is utterly divorced not only from society but from humanity. And yet, at the same time as putting forward this image of inhumanity/antihumanity, the band chose, famously, to include the statement Norsk Arisk Black Metal (‘Norwegian Aryan Black Metal’) on the album’s sleeve. What the Aryan (Iranian, or Indo-European or however you choose to interpret the word ‘Aryan’) people have to do with Norway is anyone’s guess. And if we are to presume that the vampire of Transilvanian Hunger believes in some kind of racialist ideology it can surely only undermine the song with baggage it definitely doesn’t need. Which raises another problem with National Socialist ideology in relation to BM; it’s too nice.

Nazism is too nice

This statement clearly needs elaboration. Misanthropy, whether or not it is a viable design for life, is all-encompassing. Nazism is by definition unpleasant, but – examining even the term ‘National Socialism’ – it most cannot be said to be anti-social (there’s no nationalism without nations, no socialism without society), let alone misanthropic. Therefore NSBM, although at first it may seem to our edgelord brethren like the ne plus ultra of darkness, actually has a reductive effect compared to the stance of the classic ‘second wave’ of BM. As a misanthrope, you can’t ‘belong’, but to be a member of some kind of elite society, you must ‘belong’. Sweet, really.

The Inclusiveness of true evil?

Black metal’s classic stance is that it supports ‘all the darkness of humanity.’ Variations of that dedication have appeared on album sleeves since the dawn of the 90s and are still going strong; a recent one in my own experience being Malaysian band Nefkarata’s (very good) Morts, which is dedicated to “All Evil In Man.” “All evil” by necessity includes Hitler & co, alongside Jewish serial killer David Berkowitz, Roman emperor Caligula, Idi Amin, the Moors murderers, Margaret Thatcher etc; a position of strength, if you’re into that kind of thing. But the most strident NS bands are so dedicated to that vague, misunderstood thing, ‘Aryanism’ that basically their ideology all about one short, albeit turbulent, period of the 20th century. And for all the true NSBM bands’ xenophobic, elitist rhetoric, it should be remembered that historically, Nazis were not only mainly Germanic – NSBM bands are as or more likely to spring from North or South America or Finland or Poland as anywhere else – but they were also – and for a totalitarian ‘might-is-right’ philosophy this is extremely important – the losers.

The glamour of atrocity

Like it or not, it’s undeniable that Nazism and especially the holocaust, have a certain frisson; hence the existence of cheesy Nazi exploitation movies like Salon Kitty, Ilsa, She-wolf of the SS and slightly more ambitious/artistic ones like The Night Porter.

Awareness of this frisson is at the heart of one of Stephen King’s better pieces of writing; the opening chapters of Apt Pupil, and a disapproving awareness of it drove the predictable moral panic which greeted Martin Amis’ deeply non-exploitative Time’s Arrow. That frisson, that special atmosphere is definitely part of the allure of certain kinds of NSBM. Especially the sillier kind that’s made by bands with ‘Aryan’ in their name. An album cover that features a photograph of Nazi atrocities with a typically spiky black metal logo has a kind of spurious impressiveness that makes it stand out amidst the hordes of unreadable scrawls, inverted crosses, enthroned goats etc. It’s pointless to deny that appeal because, much are there are plenty of NSBM fans who are convinced Nazis, there are probably more that just think it’s transgressive and edgy and therefore cool.

“Nazi Moods”

Perhaps the most artistically successful Nazi-themed or related black metal is the ambient kind. Partly that’s because – however unappetising it may sound from a pop-music perspective – the mixture of sombre, wintry and minimalist electronica with martial themes and archive recordings of WWII-era radio broadcasts, speeches and music is incredibly evocative and paradoxically, strangely emotionally involving just because of its atmosphere.

Similarly, the kind of artwork that accompanies these releases tends to be evocative rather than visceral. Black and white photographs of landmarks like the Berghof, Zakupy Chateau, Schlöss Wewelsburg, the Wolf’s Lair; crumbling monuments, statues or ruins. This kind of aesthetic has a deep appeal which matches the music – boring if you don’t like it, but strangely moving if you do, even for those who completely reject the ideology behind it. Compared to standard NSBM, this is a very grey area; whereas a record with a cover image of a mountain of emaciated corpses and a name like ‘Aryan Sturm’ can be reasonably presumed to be an NSBM album, a masterpiece like Kampf by the Italian ‘electro-apocalyptic’ group Tronus Abyss – which has many of the hallmarks of an NS ambient project as listed above, cannot (and shouldn’t) be easily labelled NSBM. The band does explore avenues of mysticism associated with the Third Reich, they do use martial themes and evoke the ruins of postwar Europe, but it would be difficult (and futile) to try to demonstrate that therefore Kampf is a ‘Nazi album’, any more than Oliver Hirschbiegel’s superb and similarly evocative Der Untergang is a ‘Nazi film’.

Banning Nazism; the ultimate irony

In recent times, the escalating paranoia about right-wing extremism (alongside, ironically or maybe obviously, a tolerance among people for actual right-wing extremism) has led to some high-profile cases of black metal bands being prevented from playing live, especially in Germany. Most of these bands have of course not been Nazis at all – and it is intolerable that these bands have had their art suppressed and livelihood threatened over what is basically the same kind of metal-phobic ignorance that led to US burnings of Number of the Beast in the early 80s. On the other hand, being provocative provokes, and there’s something a little bit embarrassing about people whose whole schtick is being scary and offensive getting annoyed because their work had its intended effect.

Still, banning any kind of art that doesn’t actually involve harm to third parties is a ridiculous, futile gesture which has (to my knowledge) never had any positive results except to energise those opposing the regime in charge. On the other hand, the last people who should be complaining are actual NS bands. In fact, they should be quite pleased; banning is a classic Nazi trait after all, and it should give them hope for the future of the reich.