Hippy Hypocrites On Crystal Shipsss

A triptych of warped warbles of varying degrees of low fidelity, here are three releases likely to blow your mind and fill your ears with white fuzz and ear-candy.

Danish-born, Berlin-based psych pop wizard Jacob Faurholt has been on Sonic Masala's radar ever since he entered the fray under the moniker Crystal Shipsss. His Yay release made an impression, and now he (along with a band of willing  wanderers) is back with not one but two releases slated for 2013. First cab off the ranks is this self-titled EP, available on cassette through Three Ring Records, Mouca and Raw Onion. The 5-track EP are scuzzy to the point of obstructive - this is Demo 101 territory, almost to a fault. Yet whether the band are opening up the throttle or quietening down to a soothing idle, Crystal Shipsss is never an easy proposition - a wayward journey into the counterculture of the backwaters of your mind. Yet in the past year they have traipsed across stages alongside TEEN, The Black Heart Procession and Grizzly Bear, and these three best represent where Faurholt and his acolytes are heading. It's a great taster for Crystal Shipsss's next full-length Dirty Dancer which we will see before the year is out.

Another lo-fi gem that struck a chord here at Sonic Masala was Tweaker In The Park, the debut LP by Indiana's guitar-pop malcontents  Hypocrite In A Hippy Crypt. Tweaker Two (out on 12" vinyl through Tree Machine Records) continues the weird themes and tin-cans-and-shoestring budget, yet offers more semblances of spit and polish alongside being anchored in more grounded, maudlin concerns such as fading youth and imploding dreams. Its hooks are surreptitious, then the penny drops - once you are familiar with this world, it becomes a second skin, with all schizophrenic connotations to such a notion held intact. Elliott Smith suspended in formaldehyde, preserved in sepia and seedy chagrin. An addiction worth having.

Finally we have Brooklyn's Hippy. Reminiscent of the nascent garage punk and guitar pop amalgams that the likes of Harlem (seriously, where have these guys gone???) and Black Lips dish out at regular intervals, the trio's new (debut) record Almost Live is in turns buoyant, ridiculous, bilious and carefree - tonguing the power socket whilst outta your gourd kinda fun. Hurts so good (c'mon, baby now...)

Father, Son, Holy Girls

Im not entirely sure how I feel about Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Girls' (AKA Christopher Owens) sophomore release. A lot was made of Owens's past, his childhood connections to the insidious Children Of God cult, his consequent emancipation and induction into the world of music and the result being his first foray into full-length recording, Album, being an idiot-savant's guide to the world of garage rock. It was infused with wide-eyed adoration and naivety, and as such had an infectious quality fused to the very core of it, making it an album very hard to resist.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost still has that sense of wonder about it, although it seems Owens has delved further back into the Buddy Holly era of rock. Nothing wrong with that at all. Yet this sense of backwards nostalgia doesn't always glue for me - opener 'Honey Bunny' comes across a little hokey, whilst 'Just A Song' is a mixture of Elliott Smith and 80s AM easy listening that errs on the wrong side of treacly sweet and 'Love Life' is a rip off of McCartney that is a little hard to swallow. That said, there are some crackers here - the shoegazy 'Alex', the classic rock rumble of 'Die' and 'Vomit', or the languid meandering of 'Forgiveness'.

My attraction to this album, and Girls, ebbs and flows. So it's a strange one, for he is shamelessly the myna bird of contemporary music, and in a day and age when every second band is retro or revivalist, the line between theft and reinvention is increasingly blurred. Still, it's worth having a listen, maybe picking the tracks that draw you in, and casting the rest aside - it's that kind of long-player.


Father, Son, Holy Ghost is out now on True Panther.

Girls - Vomit
Girls - Die

Spiralling Out Of Four Quadrants

This album, Four Quadrants' The Paragon Of Animals, has been sitting on my desk waiting for a review for the same amount of time as previous postee Crunchholdoh, and this is just as criminal an overlook. The UK band's debut release, The Paragon Of Animals (out through small London label Wooden Step Records) is a vastly different beast, offering Elliott Smith-esque hushed indie melancholia ('Pirouette' and 'A Long Way Down' may as well be offcuts of the much missed troubadour mesmeric back catalogue) and the charged melodicism of contemporaries like Fanfarlo and Sparklehorse. It offers some beautiful tracks, although the similarity of some of the tracks and the chimeric voice of Rob Sharples may prove to be more than just mere adulation to some. However, if you can get past the emulation then you will be richly rewarded. Sharples is bloody talented, has a real knack for a tune, and will only grow into his music over time...

Four Quadrants - Whitewash
Four Quadrants - Pirouette

Grandpa Was A Lion...

I have just been speaking to a young guy by the name of Justin D'Onofrio, who had sent me some music under the nom de plume Grandpa Was A Lion. An amazing set of tracks that evokes the lyricism of Elliott Smith and the candid heartache of Conor Oberst, D'Onofrio wrote and recorded the album on Garageband on a second hand iBook in his basement, then had them mastered. The entore album can be heard on his myspace, although it is currently unavailable for purchase - these are undeniably great tracks, especially the opening couplet ('Hello From The Farm', 'Mobile Alabama Blues') and the brilliant 'The Light'. He had originally had these songs done with a producer in New York (not naming names - smart), but the result was too slick, too unreal - it took away the immediacy of the songs. So the results can be seen as a rebuttal to the producer's take on what Grandpa Was A Lion was - which is a great thing to be able to say. D'Onofrio said that the guy was a nice guy, and he learnt a lot from the experience, but in the end it told him how he wanted to sound. I think we can all say that is a very good thing - snap this guy up, someone!

Grandpa Was A Lion - Hello From The Farm
Grandpa Was A Lion - Mobile Alabama Blues
Grandpa Was A Lion - The Light

Friday Cover Up - Europop and Dirge Put Through The Supersonic Wringer

What a week, eh? And now its time for the weekend. I have nothing planned other than to chill out and spend the time at home, maybe get my hair cut, watch movies, and mentally prepare for the musical onslaught of another week, with Nisennenmondai, Screaming Females and Pontiak all doing shows this week. Plus, for those of you fortunate enough to be heading to Birmingham this weekend, Supersonic is going to wreak all kinds of awesomeness, with the likes of Swans, Hallogallo 2010, Godflesh, Napalm Death and many many more gracing the various stages.

So, in tribute to Supersonic, AND to a little post I did earlier in the week about, erm...a-ha, I have chosen a couple of covers that highlight them both. Drone merchants Nadja put out an amazing record early this year with Pyramids, called, funnily enough, Pyramids With Nadja. But before this they put out an amazing dronecore album made up of covers called When I See The Sun Always Shines On TV. The covers, ranging from Slayer and My Bloody Valentine to Elliott Smith and Codeine, are drone metal crossover gems, every one. SO today, I have chosen Nadja's reworked version of a-ha's 'The Sun Always Shines On TV', plus their toned down into the ground version of Swans' 'No Cure For The Lonely'. Have a great weekend!

Nadja - The Sun Always Shines On TV (a-ha cover)

Nadja - No Cure For The Lonely (Swans cover)

Heavy Bombs On Hawaii

We had a taster of San Diego's Heavy Hawaii at the beginning of the month with 'Teen Angel'. Well their debut 12"/cassette HH dropped yesterday. Its very lo-fi, and there are a few different elements that draw cross references here - Deerhunter/Atlas Sound in 'Beacons', a Casio-and-stompbox bound Elliott Smith in 'Sleeping Bag', also in evidence in the already plugged 'Teen Angel' whilst also mining territory that the likes of Meth Teeth have occupied in a more assured manner - and whilst its unlikely to storm the heights of some of the other Art Fag releases due this year, it does hint that there is more here than meets the eye. They have been playing with the likes of Beach Fossils and Sleep Over of late, so with that kind of creative exposure, and if the Wilson Brothers' vibe and the tinkering with toys can be merged in a higher concept setting, we may see something worthy.

Love the .gif like cover art too.

Heavy Hawaii - Beacons