White Hills Burn Up The Road

New-ish label Outer Battery has some pretty sweet live LPs coming up that were recorded at Holland's Roadburn Festival last year (co-released by Roadburn Records, of course), none moreso than the current recording of LA's space rock demons White Hills. It's a killer set consisting of 'Three Quarters', 'Under Skin Or By Name', 'Radiate', 'The Condition Of Nothing' and signs off with a blistering 'H-p1'. The CD is sold out, but who cares when you can buy it on green vinyl? I sure don't. Further exciting news from Outer Battery is that they have become the USA arm of Roadburn Records, so expect to see live releases of past years' Roadburn fests from the likes of Neurosis, Wolves In The Throne Room and Yob become much more readily available.



You can get Live at Roadburn 2011 here.

White Hills Live - Side B

Gnod On The Wire Past The 5th Sun

Salford's best exponents of dark, dank, dirty psych drone (and funniest bastard alive Stewart Lee's fave band) Gnod have two recent releases of note that are damned (and killer).


First of all, we have Chaudelande Volume 2 which came out a few months ago on Tamed Records. The followup to Chaudelande Volume 1 (strangely...), this three track release is one tripped out motorik trip into the netherworld and back, guaranteed to tear a fraction of your soul away in the process. The grooves inherent in this album are insane - I never expected Gnod to reach these heady heights. I personally love 'Man On The Wire' (why didn't this soundtrack some portion of Kill List? Or maybe The Wicker Tree - that film mightn't have been such a dire disappointment otherwise...) and 'Entrance', but 'Genocider' is beautifully unrelenting also. They are so on song here that it is scary. You must get this - seriously.

Gnod - Man On The Wire


Then to make things interesting, along comes brilliantly destructive Irish label Trensmat (who have also put out sweet one-offs by the likes of White Hills, Evan Caminiti, Expo '70 and Cave) and and drops 5th Sun, a delectable slice of Gnodisms that works as a symmetrical trip into an exploding star. The flip side is '5th Dub', the closest these dark alchemists will ever get to being Massive Attack (and it's still solar systems in comparison). You can grab that one here.

Gnod - 5th Sun

One of the most underrated psych bands out there. Get on board.

Video Vacuum - Pink Mountaintops, Depth & Current, Christian Bland & the Revelators, Pontiak, White Hills

Two Video Vacuums in one week? Weird, right? But I'm not feeling terribly work-oriented, so what better way to waste time than to toke up and get psychedelic on everyone's asses? (NB: In case anyone from work reads this (IE slim to nil, but still...) I haven't really toked up. I have just rubbed my eyes really hard because I'm so tired from working outside work hours all night long, and don't want to fall asleep because I love my job sooooooo much...) Plus it's Austin Psych Fest weekend, so in lieu of not being there, here are some images that might denote what it'd be like if we were...

Let's start with Pink Mountaintops, the side project for Black Mountain's Stephen McBean (they toured recently with Dead Meadow - I missed that hot ticket, and am still paying the price...). 'While We Were Dreaming' is not a new track but thanks to the excellent Ongakubaka blog I have reacquainted myself with this great song.



Continuing the vein of epic psych bands with the colour black in their name's side projects, Black Angels axe-grinder Christian Bland has been pumping out tracks off his own bat, backed by The Revelators. Nothing new here - what it is is bloody good though.



It's certainly no secret that I love the shit out of Pontiak, the Carney brothers' ode to all things psych rock. Their latest opus Echo Ono is one of my fave albums of the year thus far, and 'Royal Colours' helps to keep the good times roll. I honestly thing that if I spent a weekend with these guys, I would end up covered in metallic paint with a devilish grin also. Just sayin.



Another SM fave, and also with a rad album under their belt in 2012, White Hills have a couple of vids floating about on the back of tracks from Frying On This Rock. Both 'You Dream You See' and 'Pads of Light' encapsulate the space spazz oddities that Dave W and Ego Sensation are, and are rocking to boot. I am a massive fan of this band, and you need to be too.





Finally I mentioned Depth & Current last year as their debut LP (through Nice People) was pretty solid. Here is this also solid video for the track 'Pick Yourself Up' - this band is a slowburner, but when it does latch hold of you they sizzle. Check it out for yourself. If you are in Norman, Oklahoma this weekend they are playing the Norman Music Festival, alongside some other ace acts like Bloody Knives, Amen Dunes, True Widow and Woods. Nice...



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Getting Fried On The Rocks Of White Hills

Next month LA psych space rock behemoth White Hills unleashes another album on us in the form of Frying On This Rock. Holy shit its good. Then again, I always love what they offer. It opens up with the thundering motorik swirl and bluster of 'Pads Of Light', before 'Robot Stomp' takes us on a repetitive droning journey into the inner echelons of the psyche, its incremental ratcheting of the noise an otherworldly aural orgasm of unearthly delights. 'You Dream You See' feels like an amalgam of the first two tracks, but 'Song Of Everything' is an altogether different beast, delving into the heavy White Hills psych noise before stopping halfway through for silence, samples and general malaise, before kicking back in in the final sixty seconds. Finally we have 'I Write A Thousand Letters (Pulp On Bone)', a fucktastic orgy of brutal swirling psychedelia that eats the paint of the walls and the tar off the lungs. Its less atmospheric than 2011's H-p1, infused with an addled urgency that, like a meth addict, makes it hard to trust or predict, therefore you daren't take your eyes off it. That's a twisted seal of approval, right there.



Frying On The Rocks is out March 20 via Thrill Jockey. There were some half pink/half white vinyl versions available for pre-order, but they sold out in less than 24 hours. Nevertheless it is still available in the two colours above. How about that pink??? Sexy times. Pre-order your copy here.

White Hills - Pads Of Light

Back And Forth With The Skull Defekts

It really is a psych-tastic day, what with the awesome local flavourings of Dreamtime and the incredible, INCREDIBLE Vision Fortune paving the way before us. But Im not finished there, no way Jose! For Ive received an suitably eclectic but altogether radtastic release from the Thrill Jockey stable, for my friends in haze, The Skull Defekts.

The Skull Defekts have a new 12" EP coming out next month. Recorded during their US tour earlier this year, The Skull Defekts for this recording includes Daniel Higgs and Zomes (Asa Osborne). 2013-3012 features three new tracks; the B-side presents those songs played in reverse and reverse-cut, starting from the inner-most groove and playing out toward the edge of the record. United by a common belief in the power of music and sound, The Skull Defekts and Zomes soon found themselves performing together, and when a show was cancelled during the tour, recording together for an explosive and extremely creative one day session. The cover features artwork by Daniel Higgs.


The track below is actually an amalgam of the track 'Children of the Skull Defekts' and its mirror image 'Stkefed Lluks Eth Fo Nerdlihc', which gives you an amazing idea of what this release entails. I love these guys, and Higgs' involvement with them - their album Peer Amid is one of my favourites of the year (check out my thoughts here). The band are joining many of my favourite bands at the inimitable Supersonic Festival in Birmingham tonight for three days - Barn Owl, White Hills, Eternal Tapestry, Part Chimp, Mike Watt, Bardo Pond - fucking incredible, right?

The Skull Defekts - Childrenerdlihc