the of mirror eye

* Nate Denver’s Neck: Cough (3.5 mb) | Snuggle Tummy (3.0 mb) | Watching The Wheels (3.0 mb)
From Live : Rock Is Hell Records : RIH-004

Sometimes I just hate the fact that there are so many cool record stores and mail order outlets. I know, I know, it’s a hard cross to bear. But places like Reckless Records, Hard Boiled Records, Permanent Records, Archive, Mimaroglu Music, Fusetron Sound, Forced Exposure and Aquarius Records just suck up all my money. I mean, if they didn’t exist, I’d probably be able to save money instead of being up to my ears in debt.

But then I’d never be able to hear about awesome, incredible bands like this one, Nate Denver’s Neck. From the first time I read about this band, I knew that I’d have to get something of theirs.

For those of you unfamiliar with Nate Denver, imagine, every band you liked in high school, every comic book you have ever read, every fantasy movie you’ve ever seen featuring either dragons or wizards or both, some skateboards, a lot of heavy metal, death metal to be specific, some beautiful folk songs, spikes, elves, banjos, Nintendos and anything else you remember fondly on your convoluted path to where you are NOW, all chopped up and blended into an impossibly catchy, goofy, funny, pretty, heavy, folk metal ultraviolent goofball spazz rock mess. Denver is insanely adept at squashing all manner of unlikely sounds into a single performance, or even a single song, and make it sound perfect. Pretty songs are only pretty on the surface, but are actually subtly violent and evil and hateful and miserable, howling chaotic blasts of pummeling noise are somehow happy and joyful, filled with flowers and clouds and sunshine. Which goes a long way to explaining the charm of Nate Denver’s Neck. This world where metal and folk, dragons and elves co-exist peacefully, is fun and funny, ironic but not intentionally, wild and ridiculous, but ultimately, heartfelt and insanely well crafted. Schizophrenic for sure, but in a gloriously satisfyingly demented sort of way! (Aquarius Records)

I was also intrigued by the way he chose to release the album. I mean, the 3 inch CD has its place, but a 3×3″ CDR is just kind of ridiculous, as you have to do triple the amount of work to put it out. For those who don’t know, a 3″ CD contains 20 minutes of music. So, three of them would have 60 minutes of music, which would very easily fit on one 5″ CDR. I guess that’s just a long, round about way of saying, what the hell?!?! Why would you sit and burn three CDs when you can just burn one?

At any rate, Nate Denver is pretty damn amazing and his amalgamation of folk, death metal, hip hop and pretty much everything else you can think of is an aural delight.

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* Suishou no Fune: Hikari Ahureru (30.0 mb)
From Akatuki : Tour CDR

A week or two ago, I was perusing the local weekly when I stumbled upon a listing for one of my favorite, currently performing, Japanese psychedelic band, Suishou no Fune. I was super psyched because I had no idea that they were even touring the US. And, as an added bonus, they were playing an incredibly small venue that could hold at best, 50 or so people. It was an amazing opportunity to see an incredible band in an intimate environment. I’d only heard their one album on Holy Mountain (look here), but was completely blown away by what I heard. Unfortunately, as with most of these Japanese bands, I don’t know too much about them. In fact, the sum total of what I know about them is what I read on the Holy Mountain page.

Formed in 1999 as a duo of female guitarist Pirako Kurenai and male guitarist Kageo, Suishou no Fune [soo-ee-sho no foo-nay] have been making some of the most charmingly chaotic dream music coming out of Japan. Their sound contains subcutaneous elements of no-wave energy mixed with psychedelic rock a la early Fushitsusha or Kousokuya. Other songs approach balladry with oddly beautiful twinned vocals and distorted guitars.

They’ve mined the dark psychedelics of Fushitsuha, Les Rallizes Denudes and LSD-March to great effect, but taken it a step further with the female vocals. This is truly awesome stuff, and if you get a chance to hear them on this tour, you definitely should.

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* Dirty Three: Deep Water (25.0 mb)
From Live On Studio 22 : Sept 23, 1999 : Melbourne, Australia

Since I posted the collaboration between Nina Nastasia and Jim White earlier, I thought it was only fitting that I posted some songs by Jim White’s main band, Dirty Three. Hailing from Australia, this trio consisting of the aforementioned Jim White on drums, Mick Turner on guitar and Warren Ellis on violin might seem like a recipe for some unforgettable Muzak, but that could only be farther from the truth. It’s hard to place a finger on what exactly draws me to their music. The three are incredible musicians, with the guitar and violin really doing their part to be the “voices” of the band and the drums driving everything forward.

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* Nina Nastasia & Jim White: I’ve Been Out Walking (4.5 mb) | The Day I Would Bury You (4.0 mb) | I Come After You (4.5 mb)
From You Follow Me : Fat Cat Records : FATCD53

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it out right. This album, by Nina Nastasia and Jim White (of Dirty Three fame) contain songs with a capital S. Always an amazing songstress, the lovely Ms. Nastasia has really outdone herself with this collection. The writing is deeply nuanced and accomplished, and speaks of love, pain, joy and the simple things in life. Buoyed by the amazing drums of Jim White, the album is truly amazing.

With Nina’s extraodinary voice able to swoop and turn on a dime, to shift from a langorous, breathy trail to beautifully emotive peals or a bloodied howl, Jim’s highly inventive playing (the word drumming seems a somehow inadequate or lazy to description) is simultaneously loose and lithe, intensely tight, testing and marking out the spaces around things; changing weight from a dissipated shimmer to explosive shrapnel bursts or weird machine-flurries – both functional and impressionistic. What results from the meeting is a series of songs that emerge in a process of almost continual invention. They unfurl and stretch out, expand and contract, always fluid and organic – as though the songs themselves were living and breathing entities. The space hewn out is in flux and deeply three-dimensional, an almost cubist commingling of events, perspectives and possibilities. The more you listen, the more you pick up. With the recordings close-up and sensual / visceral, it’s a passionate, emotive album articulating a spectrum (both lyrically and musically) that ranges from driven rage to a loving sensual warmth. (Fat Cat)

Although Jim White has been a part of her backing band for a number of albums, this album, by paring the ensemble down to just guitar, voice and drums, sees his contributions pushed, with great effects, to the forefront. He’s an amazingly expansive drummer and it’s awesome to hear him stretch out here and really push these songs to the edge. Here’s hoping that we haven’t heard the last from this duo.

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* The Make Up: Pow! To The People (4.5 mb) | Born On The Floor (6.5 mb) | R U A Believer (2.5 mb) | Wade In The Water (3.5 mb)
From I Want Some : K Records : KCD092

Sometimes I just need a little of that Gospel flavored indie punk, courtesy of The Make Up.

Make-Up is a group which composes superior, original music, performs that music dynamically in spaces and nightclubs, and organizes the performances at which they appear across the U.S.A. These performances have been characterized by the freneticism, catharsis and spirituality of what can only be described as GOSPEL MUSIC. They are a total departure from the boring pantomime of rock ‘n’ roll as we know it, inflicting a sublime theatre on their audience which resembles a baptism, or perhaps an orgy. (Dischord)

A Four piece consisting of Ian Svenonius on vocals, James Canty on guitar and organ, Steve Gamboa on drums, and Michelle Mae on bass guitar, they’ve been kickin’ it since 1995, with most of the members coming from the Nation Of Ulysses and have, since 2000 continued on with Weird War.

I first got into them back in the late ’90’s, loving their mixture of gospel vocal stylings with a fantastic musical backdrop mash-up of punk, soul, surf, psychedelic and indie. I got the chance to see them at the venerable Boston Club, The Middle East and was treated to a pretty amazing show. The band, resplendent in their matching velour suits quickly got the crowd moving, with Ian working the crowd like a madman. To be honest, it’s been awhile since I’ve been into them, but every once in a while, I just love to put on their albums and rock out to some of that Gospel punk.

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* Boris with Michio Kurihara: Rafflesia (9.5 mb) | My Rain (2.5 mb) | Sweet No. 1 (11.5 mb)
From Rainbow : Drag City : DC338

Sometimes you just know that something is going to sound awesome, which is why I was super excited to hear that Boris and Michio Kurihara were teaming up for an album. Boris (look here and here) have been a favorite of mine since I first heard them last year. A trio consisting of Takeshi (Bass, Guitar & Vocal), Atsuo (Drums & Vocals) and Wata (Guitar), Boris have been exploring the dual genres of drone and psychedelics for a long time now. And just the thought of adding Michio Kurihara (look here), master of psychedelic guitar, got me reeling and drooling.

Luckily, the collaboration doesn’t suck. In fact, the album is pretty damn incredible with Kurihara’s freaked out guitar pyrotechnics really pushing Boris to pull out all the stops.

Rainbow is the most cohesive collaboration Boris has ever done. It towers over their recording with Sunn 0))) and is a completely different animal than anything they’ve done with Merzbow. It’s a sign of their sheer musicality and dynamic diversity as a group. As for Kurihara’s place, this album was a vehicle for him to shine as a player, as a creator of textures and tensions, but also to engage with a band that fully “gets” his other side apart from Ghost. This is what great, uncompromising neo-psychedelic rock is all about: it draws from the past and points ever forward into the unknown future. (AMG)