ono - diegesis

chicago's gospel-meets-noise art punks ONO are back with a brand new album, DIEGESIS, out via MONIKER RECORDS.  so you better let yer ears expand their consciousness now, cuz this is one wild genre-bending, cosmic post punk ride!!!!!!!

ONO formed during the early days of the chicago punk scene but always had a more experimental goal in mind than louder, faster, dumber.....  their sound is a mix of throbbing post punk, noise coated gospel chanting, pre industrial droning and punk rock attitude of throwing everything out the window.......  after their initial run of two album, ONO went into hibernation......until recently.....  in 2012 they released a new album, ALBINO and showed the world what they were doing back in the 80s, still sounds fresh and avant even today.......   and when ALBINO hit the shelves i couldn't say enough kind words about ONO (click here for that review).....and that would've been enough..... ONO could've retreated once more and left the world a better place.....

however they weren't down blowing minds yet.... HENCE DIEGESIS....... further articulating their cryptic political, tonal and spiritual mission, their new album is even more entrancing and perspective changing........    at times treading the same avant blues ground of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, the sonic desolation of THROBBING GRISTLE, the post punk implosion of THIS HEAT, the no wave rejection of TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS and the all out search for a new meaningful form of music as THE ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO, ONO is leaping beyond what can even be called art punk or noisy post punk........ and boundary pushing is alway a good thing.......

sure these days with yer nice little sub genres and yer crowd pleasing reliable-as-ever cliches, RnR this out there might not gain much attention or creditability.......  sure its weird and dark and subversive......but at exactly times like this do we need an album like DIEGESIS.......  

things are afoot and you need to be tuned into the right vibrations.........  and i guarantee you won't heard another experimental RnR album that'll grab you like this all year long.......

so listen to the first track off DIEGESIS below,
  and click here to stream the whole lp over at the chicago reader!!!!!

and yeah, go here to grab a copy from MONIKER here!!!!!



and yes get converted by watching ONO live below -
  )

ya ho wa 13 - penetration: an aquarian symphony

if yr looking for some far out, experimental psych rock, you need not search any further than YA HO WA 13 !!!!!!!!!  and their seminal mind melting lp PENETRATION: AN AQUARIAN SYMPHONY!!!!!!

for those not in the know, YA HO WA 13 was formed by FATHER YOD out of members of his socal hippie commune / spiritual collective THE SOURCE FAMILY in the early 70s.... while not expanding their minds through meditation and the herbal sacrament and running a successful vegetarian restaurant on sunset strip, FATHER YOD with his music cohorts set out to totally mutate and stretch out psychedelic rock n roll as we know it...... droned and spaced out, filled with chants and freak outs, all sorts of weird percussion and instrumentation, YA HO WA 13 totally blew up what it meant to ROCK N ROLL and pretty much put most of the rest of psych bands of the day into the tame category.......  they recorded all their albums in the garage next to their commune and self released them on their HIGHER KEY label, selling them only at shows and at the restaurant they ran....... making them collectors gold and fresh for rediscovery......

and thankfully labels like TEE PEE and DRAG CITY did rediscover YA HO WA 13 (and FATHER YOD AND THE SPIRIT OF 76 as well as the SOURCE FAMILY's other various one off side projects) and have been reissuing their albums........  apparently there are over 65 lps worth of material much of which has never seen the light of day, even on their own HIGHER KEY label........

i won't suggest you grab all these albums, but PENETRATION: AN AQUARIUM SYMPHONY is their best effort and widely acknowledged as one of the best PSYCH ROCK ALBUMS OF ALL TIME........ way ahead of it's years, and totally entrancing YOU JUST NEED TO HEAR THIS LP NOW.........    one listen might just warp you forever.......  (TEE PEE did reissue it, but it's out of print, though well worth searching for and easier to find than it used to be....)

and once yer hooked on YA HO WA 13, good luck crate digging for the rest of their albums......

GET READY TO HAVE YER EXPANDED AND LISTEN TO PENETRATION: AN AQUARIAN SYMPHONY BELOW -
   and click any of the links above for further reading on YA HO WA 13........




ps....click here to watch the killer documentary on THE SOURCE FAMILY released last year !!!!!  one of my fave RnR films of 2013 hands down.........  

obnox - smoke woody haze ep

hot on the heels of last year's excellent PERMANENT lp ROJO and his recent A RAGIN' IN THE SUN single on ANYWAY, OBNOX has dropped a killer new ep on 12XU entitled SMOKE WOODY HAZE....
and hell fucking yeah i'm i excited..... any new release from Lamont "Bim" Thomas is a cause for celebration.....whether it be in the Bassholes, This Moment In Black History, Puffy Areolas, Unholy Two or as Obnox.....  

and as solo act, Bim has been on a fucking tear -- beginning with his Purple Reign and Masonic Reducer singles which are both monster slabs of blown out rock goodness...and continuing with his noise mongering debut lp I'M BLEEDING NOW (SMOG VEIL / 12XU)......  all of them highly recommended (ROJO made top ten in my year end list, and RAGIN IN THE SUN will definitely hit 2013's single list).......  

can OBNOX keep up this high octane turbo charged burst of creativity?  why YES! and SMOKE WOODY HAZE shows Bim has no desire to slow down one bit or get complacent or less experimental for that matter..... this ep might just be his most OUT-THERE release yet.......  so get ready for yer mind to melt and yer speakers to blow.......

SMOKE WOODY HAZE is OBNOX's beats oriented noise rock deconstruction of popular music, heady yet raw and loud just as you'd expect from Bim......12XU seemed worried that the high concept of this new ep might be lost on some of his long time fans, so they sent a little note along with the promo..... i don't think the back story is necessary at all -- the music says it all --but you might wanna read on anyway -

The only thing I hate more than 12" EP's are 10" EP's. Or failing that, someone calling it a "maxi-single". Why not just put my cock in a vice?

HOWEVER, the 8-song extended player in question, 'Smoke Woody Haze' (a salute of sorts from one Ohio icon to another) is not only a musical left turn of sorts for Bim Thomas, but was also, apparently, commissioned by another label that due to circumstances beyond our control (well, mine, at least --- I can't speak for Bim) is no longer involved in the project. Trust me, this soap opera shit is way less interesting than the musical contents. Not counting the 'I'm Bleeding Now' reissue, this makes 5 amazing Obnox records in 2012, and as such, Bim would be a prime candidate for Time's "Man Of The Year" if the award hadn't already been locked up by whoever invented The Chip Clip (condolences to whoever invented the clothespin ---I think you were totally screwed).

Bim says the next one's gonna be a double LP. Bob Pollard's on the phone --- something about Bim being "too prolific".

you might say OBNOX has chewed up hip hop and spit out something so unique and mesmerizing it doesn't even fall into a genre any more. Kinda like Madlib mashing jazz and hip hop on those "Yesterday's New Quintet" LPs, those outsider wonky ANTICON records lps, Mick Collins taking on techno and soul via the garage rock filter of the Dirtbombs or Puffy Areola's hardcore renditions of acid fried psych, OBNOX's 12 inch is a noise rock reinterpretation of rap and the soul music it samples all through his warped vision of blown out rock n roll fun.  

Absolutely one of the most interesting records you'll come across all year long.  And just the kind of distorted avant rule breaking we  all expect from Bim.....  so get ready to wear the grooves out.

Fans of his previous work, noise rock in general and anything genre busting, 
need to grab a copy of SMOKE WOODY HAZE now.......  
in a perfect world, these songs would all be club bangers and top 40 hits......

HHHHHHHIIIGGGGHHHHLLLLLYYYYY RECOMENDED.....


but don't take my opinion,
listen for yerself below to three tracks off the new 12 inch single -

SMOKE WOODY HAZE......


DEEP IN THE DUSK.......


CASH WEED GREEN.......

watch OBNOX live below.....


and as an added bonus listen to a live OBNOX set here......

kraus - sumpreme commander

the back story of a band doesn't matter.  never really has.  even though the blogs / zines / the hype generating media saturated world we live in would suggest otherwise.......IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC........i could care less where an album came from or who made it.....it could drop from the sky......and onto my turntable and if it catches my attention and sucks me into it's little grooves, THAT'S WHAT MATTERS..........

who is KRAUS?  i've heard he was part of new zealand's finest space punks THE FUTURIANS, but that might just be a rumor.  he is a mysterious fringe musician for sure, and i'd rather let the question of back story remain vague.  i'm sure he's from the same musical corner of the universe as SUN RA, MOONDOG and BRUCE HAACK.....but that is as far into researching as i want to go with KRAUS......anymore context would just detract from this wonderfully obscuro rock record that just appeared one day on my turntable.......

MONIKER RECORDS might just wanna keep the secret to themselves anyway......after all KRAUS' new album SUMPREME COMMANDER is a BY FAR ONE OF THE MOST WAY OUT THERE PSYCH RECORDS OF 2012......and you wouldn't want some other indie label just stealing him away if you were MONIKER, right.....?

SUPREME COMMANDER starts off somewhere in the realm of KING BLOOD and PURLING HISS with it's crunchy blown out psych riffage, wondering to and fro, melting away anything that comes close to pop structure....... what KRAUS aims for is more of an experimental / electronic / analog sound collage that's part sci-fi b-movie soundtrack and part post krautrock mind expanding......and a whole lotta OUT THERE SOUNDS....... think TANGERINE DREAM covering FLOWER TRAVELIN BAND.....or CAN and KRAFTWERK playing NINTENDO together (or making a soundtrack for their epic video game battle)..........but probably more to the point, GOBLIN and THROBBING GRISTLE getting high and collaborating on SPACE ROCK album together...........   

yes KRAUS has made a wholly unique and interesting AVANT ROCK LP THAT BEGS YOU TO LISTEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN.   experimental music is not just for the knob twiddlers and feedback sculptors......KRAUS proves that with a guitar, a keyboard, some effects pedals and a drum machine (and occasional drums) that you can record something exceptional....with no pro-tools foolery......just the kind of analog tricks and tape manipulating that made all those ENO and RESIDENTS lps SO GROUNDBREAKING.........(both of which are also influences on KRAUS)

do yerself a favor and check out SUPREME COMMANDER below... 
        because it's another highly recommended platter from MONIKER......


and watch KRAUS' video for SUPREME COMMANDER here......

Kraus "Supreme Commander" LP from Kraus on Vimeo.

catacombz - mother tongue 2

milwaukee's CATACOMBZ are back with yet another stellar WAY OUT THERE PSYCHEDELIC RIDE in the form of MOTHER TONGUE 2, available as a cassette / mp3 download......... those who picked up last years self titled affair know what you're in store for, but all the rest of you are gonna love this wild krautrock influenced drugged up spaced out rock n roll journey....

on MOTHER TOUNGE 2, CATACOMBZ manage to bend their HAWKWIND / early UFO space rock impulses into a more effects laden TANGERINE DREAM / pre-ambient ENO / CAN mind melting groovy avant rock jams..... at times heavy and explosive and at others proggy and tribal, these tracks race you through the outer edges of the universe and the normal restrictive musical genres........  imagine if NICE stumbled upon fusion era MILES DAVIS smoking a joint with NEU or SOFT MACHINE in a alleyway......  that is not to say that a strong psych/garage debt to the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS isn't running through this whole tape too........   

it's not often that one group can mash psych, krautrock, prog, fusion and rock n roll impulses into one EPIC TRIPPY SONIC EXPERIMENT...... 

this is not psych rock for the hippie kids, this is full on AVANT DAMAGED DRONED OUT PSYCH ROCK WITH A MESMERIZING SPACE FUNK BEAT........

fans of any of the aforementioned bands as well as CAMERA, CAVE, PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE SOUND, ONEIDA, WOODEN SHJIPS, ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE, VERMA and/or TORTOISE will fucking NEED THIS TAPE......and it's not like we need many tapes these days.......   HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

LISTEN TO A FEW TRACKS 

OFF THE MOTHER TONGUE 2 TAPE BELOW.....



AND WATCH CATACOMBZ PLAY THE BURLINGTON 
IN CHICAGO BELOW.....