Tigue Peaks

Brooklyn percussive heathens TIGUE have released an amazing record in the form of Peaks, a hypnotic gem of instrumental wormholes to lose yourself in. None of the tracks spiral out into gargantuan length, all reveling in their precise constructions - mini worlds fully formed. Helping to craft these mesmeric gems are the likes of Kid Millions (Oneida), Ira Kaplan and James McNew (Yo La Tengo), Shahin Motia (Ex Models) and Mike Turzanski, and the result is something of droning, immersive excellence, a heady chrysalis of unfettered rhythm that leaves you revitalized, reborn. Highly recommended stuff. Pick up Peaks here.

Unspeakably Divisive Noise Practices

The only Rick Moody novel that I have read is Purple America, his 1996 familial tragedy that is in the vein of Joyce Carol Oates - one of sad, blunt analysis, an autopsy of a dysfunctional family that is breathtaking in its gritty minutiae and heart-rending in its inexorable decline that loss and addiction inevitably brings about. He's better known for his previous novel, The Ice Storm and of-its-time hipster ennui bible Garden State. He is a figure of adulation in some circles, of derision in others - but he is ever defiant. And, in the halls of Sonic Masala, he is now renowned for The Unspeakable Practices, a band project undertaken by Moody and one Kid Millions of Oneida fame. The group is bristling with talented intensity - David Grubbs (Gastr del Sol), Richard Hoffman (Sightings), Brad Truax (Spiritualized et al), Shahin Motia (Ex Models and also Oneida), and experimental brass wizards Nate Wooley and Michael Foster. The album is indicative of all of these combined talents - post-punk militaristic precision, sudden blasts of crunching squall, free-jazz cycles, discordant implosions - with Moody's deadpan vocals a monotone incision. 'A Steady Effect' plays into the kind of dead-eyed meticulousness that Disappears or, indeed, Sightings carve out in sonic flesh, but most other tracks stand true to their improvisational beginnings. The Unspeakable Practices is likely to be as divisive as Moody's prose - his lyrics here bordering on Beat-lite banalities - but this kind of self-aware deconstruction holds a fitful, fearful energy that deserves its time in the sun - or at least in a cloistered experimental noise den near you. Out through Joyful Noise in excellent blue-yellow or green-black fried egg vinyl (see below), you can get the LP here.

In The White Hills Is Where You'll Be

Ever since I saw New York's spaced out oddities White Hills play a Thrill Jockey co-headliner at The Luminaire in London's Kilburn back in 2009 (the other band - Pontiak; the night - one of the best gigs I've seen), I have watched the movements of Dave W and Ego Sensation avidly. Their eponymous album of 2010 is still one of the best psych rock albums of the past decade, yet with each release the trio (often with Oneida's Kid Millions on the skins, but it is a bit of a carousel) manage to stretch out their baked noises into wider and weirder realms, yet have always brought the bluster and brutality.

Their latest record, So You Are...So You'll Be, continues the trend. Starting with the squelching scrawl and bleeps of 'InWords', before 'In Your Room' explodes, an insidious, almost idiotic circle jerk of leering quirks that somehow manages to ingratiate and grate at the same time, for the same reasons - that's an impressive feat, thus creating an imperceptible unease. 'The Internal Monologue' plays into more astral expanses, a drone-centric malaise that fires the synapses. The title track is classic White Hills, a rhythmic, incessantly repetitive groove that threatens to tear the lining from your brain. There is nothing overtly new being done here - it is just being done right. Then it cuts short, and we disappear down another modem line into a pixellated world of swirling psychosis - 'Forever In Space Enlightened' is currently my favourite track on the record, a undulating mind fuck that turns over to reveal a scorpion's tail of a guitar solo. That said, the album is made as an album - every song segues into the next, informing others that have already played or are yet to come... It takes investment into this warped, conceited world that White Hills inhabit, a barbiturate menagerie of hooks and bytes, but expect the narcotics to kick in and take you way, way away from here.

You can pre-order So You Are...So You'll Be here - get in quick to get the green vinyl and the special bonus 12"! They are also about to become the support for a huge tour of The Cult - seriously (those old bastards don't know what they've let themselves in for...)

White Hills - In Your Room

The Marnie, The Witch and the Wardrobe (And Me)

Man, I am sooooooo in love with Marnie Stern. I apologise to my fiance, I do, but head over heels, right here. She is an awesome guitarist, songwriter, she gets Zach Hill and Kid Millions to drum with her - that is just some fucking ridiculous shit right there. I could go on. She also seems kind of stupid, as in she loves to muck around just as much as she does to hunker down with her guitar and blow everyone away, which every truly cool person must be. Because the truly cool person, is actually someone just like you and me - except they are really good at something, and it doesn't change them. Her new record, The Chronicles of Marnia, may not be in the same frenetic mash-up of previous recordings, but she nails even more because of that - there is bright, shiny pop mannerisms hiding underneath the manic aural colour streams. It's like Ponytail in structured form. I wrote a review of the album already for theMusic.com.au, and I've posted it below. (And by the way, Marnie, you should have extended your Win A Date comp to Brisbane, Australia. Just sayin').

Bursting forth like a clusterbomb created by art-noise tricksters Ponytail and Lightning Bolt (helped by the fact that the drumming duties, normally held by eight-armed Zach Hill, are pinned down by Oneida’s whirling dervish, Kid Millions), Year Of The Glad, Marnie Stern’s opening salvo on fourth album The Chronicles Of Marnia, sets the tone for the entire record. Still featuring the jawdropping fretwork dexterity that Stern is rightly renowned for, the track is a maelstrom of hypercolour explosions for the ears, Stern’s high-pitched vocals swinging from shrieking vowels to hushed murmurs, all evoking a sense of giddy joy.

Yet Stern has always countered her manic musical presence with a lyrical inversion, straddling euphoria and melancholy in equal measure. And so it continues here: the raucous math-rock punch of You Don’t Turn Down is punctuated by Stern’s finger-tapping brilliance and a machine gun delivery in the middle third that decries I’m losing hope in my body; Noonan’s fizzing energy belies a tiredness as Stern implores Don’t you want to be somebody?/And you kept on bringing me down; the kaleidoscopic singsong of Nothing Is Easy underscores Stern’s proclivity for soldiering on. This continual tug-of-war is what electrifies Stern as a person and an artist, and The Chronicles of Marnia has perfectly captured this in all its effervescent glory.

And the pendulum continues to swing – the one-two punch of closers Proof Of Life (with Stern imploring All my life, it’s based on fantasy/And all the gods, they’ve stopped talking to me offering lows which seem bottomless) and the feverish Hell Yes (which quivers and jitters uncontrollably, and purred vocals I won’t give in/I won’t give up/All I’ve got is time). Marnie Stern may feel torn, yet there’s no need to be – her musical legacy continues to energise and impress.

You can get The Chronicles Of Marnia through Kill Rockstars here.

Marnie Stern - Year Of The Glad

Marnie Stern - You Don't Turn Down

People Of The North Create Steep Formations, Melt Minds

This has been around for months, but People Of The North's Steep Formations is one heady exercise in aural endurance. That isn't to say that Oneida stalwarts Kid Millions and Bobby Matador have crafted something boring (well, if you aren't into twenty to thirty minute songs I guess it may be), but this kind of elongated noise takes some Zen-like preparation to properly consume. Millions' drumming, especially on 'Border Waves (Part 1)' is jaw-shattering. This track alone warrants spinning this double LP opus. It is aggressive in its singlemindedness - the thirty-plus titular track is pretty much an exercise in one distorted note - yet the audaciousness is for the most part extremely warranted.


Grab Steep Formations (out through Jagjaguwar) here.

People Of The North - Border Waves (Part 1)

Oneida's Dr Jekyll

And here is the second Oneida-influenced post of the day!

People of the North is a collaboration of Kid Millions and Bobby Matador, with a revolving door of musicians lending a hand since 2002 (including most of Oneida's past and present roster). In fact some of the PotN compositions have morphed into Oneida staples ('Lavender' is probably the most obvious instance of this). The music is in many ways business as usual here - but a little more compact, more bite-size chocolate bar than a chocolate carry bag. However you want to sell it, if you like hedonistic psych-rock that revels in taking everything beyond the ether, the outer reaches, and keeps going - then you'll love this stuff. Ive loved these guys for a couple years now, and my adoration will never wane.

People of the North's latest output is Deep Tissue, a pulsing minimalist LP that came out back in April via Jagjaguwar. The below track is from it!

People of the North - Tunnels

A Maelstrom On The Surface Of A River

AH, Oneida. Paul has raved ad nauseum about these guys ever since I met him at Offset in September 2008. Admittedly I had never heard of them until I got home, all sweaty and sunburnt, to look them up. He was, of course, correct - Oneida are an experimental tour de force, who for some unbeknowst reason has garnered a reference here yet - AT ALL. Well, although this isn't an Oneida piece, it is the first of 2 - count em - 2 posts on Oneida side-projects. Both made responsible by the one, the only, Kid Millions.

First is his about-to-be-released-through-St. Ives vinyl drum explosion, monikered Man Forever. It is an experiment in drumming - with seemingly infinite drums rolling and thumping each other over the period of an hour, reaching a tone of 180 bpm. Im finding it hard to explain - but I love it. This is the album for the people that appreciate the art of the beat - but are also open to more than a gallon drum of crazy. There isd still that overall obsession with repetition that is a hallmark of Oneida, but this is without a doubt a pulverising Kid Millions masterstroke. Not likely to be overly popular, but amazing nonetheless.

A drummer's orgiastic paradise...