29 Cool Coughs

Philly dude Cough Cool brought out 29 on Bathetic Records last month (who are amazing, and if you haven't bought either the Lee Noble records or the Kwaidan one yet then you are a dunce), and its a beguiling behemoth of a record. Dan Svizney has chosen to imbue his melted pop transgressions with mechanical digressions, drum loop syncopations and that iconic reverbed vocal hush this time around, and rather than sending it spiralling on some incidental tangent, has fortified the penchant for hazy, half-formed thoughts, irksome inertia and sunlight stealing through the curtains. It steers enough away from the much furrowed ground of beach pop and bedroom etchings, finding itself in some po-faced purgatory between the two, and he fidgets in the ethereal waiting room, itching to get back out into the real world yet unsure what he'll do when he get there. He isn't moping about though - tracks like 'Misfits 4x4' or 'Disclosure' offer a sense of insistence that life is uncertain, so get on with it. Others like 'Intro To Regret' has a little more snarl about it - an insolent reverie that still doesn't have the cajones to come out and rough it. Which is OK, because we're all having fun, and that's the point, right? Plus those guitar lines should be on repeat for days like this. 20s are the new 20s.

You can buy 29 here - it's a great little record.

Nobly Ruined

It's pretty bleeding obvious that I love me some drone. It started with Mogwai, and continued along that path until albums by the likes of (but nowhere near exclusive to) Barn Owl, Ensemble Economique, Expo 70 and Robedoor consistently circle within my head like sharks in the water. Lee Noble has been an artist that has slowly risen in stocks for me to the point that the simultaneous release of his Ruiner and (reissue of) No Becoming albums through Bathetic Records was something of an event on Planet Masala.

What draws you in isn't the noise, it's the patience that it takes to get to the end point that you know will end in heartbreak and catastrophe; a controlled tension eked out on a knife's edge, time being stalled or stretched without warning. Noble's disembodied vocals are another cipher, an out-of-body experience that refuses to be pinned down, yet irrevocably draws the focus from the sleights of hand that are at play. Ruiner can be glacial and fragmented, isolating yet entrancing - like most drone, it takes you somewhere, often with hundreds of others around you, yet you are cocooned to all but your own experience, your own cryogenic dreamstate.

Yet there is a baroque air to Ruiner, a playful redolence that casts off the oppressive chains and allows the blood to pump through the veins once more. Hard to believe, but Noble at times seems insistent that he is crafting pop - an alien, subterranean version, yet pop all the same. So whilst the icy stabs through your brain still exist, there are counterpoints (often running tangential or parallel to the more industrial moments) where it can either hurt or refresh; paralyse or revitalise. Above all else, Ruiner offers a bruised beauty too - like most experimental music, it plucks at your fraying emotions, forcing you to feel.

You can buy both Ruiner (cover above) and No Becoming (the excellent cover at the top of the post) here. 

Lee Noble - December ∞ 
Lee Noble - Demon Pond

Dwelling In Kwaidan's Bright Drone Metal

Back in 2011 I spoke about a band from Chicago called Locrian. I really dug their The Clearing release from 2011 - still do - but haven't really paid them much mind since. The excellent Bathetic Records have put forth some pretty bloody good releases of late (Lee Noble's Ruiner is also ace - more on that soon), and their latest presser is for the debut LP from Kwaidan, which features Locrian's Andre Foisy. Bathetic and Locrian dragged me in - but Make All The Hell Of Dark Metal Bright is darkly, seductively hypnotic by its own standards.

Firstly, check out the cover art - this is such a rad photo, I would be pressured to listen to this on the image alone. Foisy is joined by Mike Weis (Zelienople) and Neil Jendon, underscoring Kwaidan's penchant for insidious drone. Yet these elements still didn't prepare me for the dense atmospherics that Make All The Hell... unleashes. The pervading sense of oppressive anxieties that the percussive undercurrents push to the surface, an undulating presence intermingling with the slight electronics, percolating guitar and ghostly piano lines to create an ominous beauty - the fog rolling over mountain ranges, licking the heels of the forest floor, or linger in backwater streets as the light seeps up over the horizon.

Make All The Hell... contains all the elements that makes drone music an essential element of the musical landscape; underscore why drone is a necessary byproduct of psych musicality; and how the strained tensions of the loud/quiet dynamic can be endlessly utilised for maximum effect without falling into the familiar tropes that mediocre post-rock aficionados flock to. This is an incredible record.

You can pre-order Make All The Hell Of Dark Metal Bright here - it is quite brilliant.