Maker & Joe Beats: Falcon by Design (Fieldwerk, 5/24/11)

Joe Beats: "Spring"

Maker: "Owner"

David Humphries had only one goal in mind when he moved to Chicago from South Carolina: to start a record label. Specializing in instrumental hip hop, Fieldwerk Recordings was born in June of 2009 when Humphries (a.k.a. Crushcon7) produced his own tracks on the label. This connected him with other like-minded musicians with roots in Chicago, and now the modest label is celebrating its second anniversary.

Fieldwerk's roster includes notable producers such as Joe Beats, Maker, Void Pedal, and Zavala, whose collaborative credits include Onry Ozzborn (Dark Time Sunshine/Grayskul), JFK (Grayskul), Qwel, and I Self Divine. Recently, the label has garnered attention in local publications such as the Chicago Reader, Centerstage Chicago, and even the Chicago Tribune, and the rest of the US is starting to catch up with what Fieldwerk has to offer. We spoke with Humphries to get the scoop on pending projects and the future of the label.

What was the impetus for launching Fieldwerk?

I’ve always been a beat-maker, and one of the things I’ve always wanted to do is start a record label. I moved [to Chicago on] January 1, 2003, and the whole time I was making beats. I worked on a project or two that never came out, and then eventually, I just to a point where I was ready to put some things out. I did a couple of songs and did a seven-inch, and that’s kind of how it started.

Several years before, I met Zavala, and we became really good friends and would go digging for records and stuff. Through Alex (Zavala), I met Void Pedal like a week later and started to build some really good relationships with those guys — good friendships. We’re all beat-makers, and we just kind of bounced ideas off of each other. At the time, Alex was working on a project with Sleep from Old Dominion, and Void Pedal was just workin’ on beats just like I was workin’ on beats, and we all just kind of came together. I was surrounded by a lot of talented guys. We’re all in it together; we’re a crew, and those guys motivate me a lot.

In your opinion, what is the role of a record label?

The role of a record label has changed a lot in the last several years. Everything is a lot more do-it-yourself, and it’s easier as a artist to have your work released digitally. A record label, especially Fieldwerk — I look at it like we’re a team. Fieldwerk, to me, is still a label in the traditional sense of a record label, but it’s also a crew. I mean, I’m going to do everything I can to promote the records that we put out and do everything that a label would traditionally.

Void Pedal: Omni Colour (Fieldwerk, 2/22/11)

Void Pedal: "Let It Fall"

How does your label find and take on new artists?

So far, I’ve been lucky that I know so many great artists. It’s been pretty easy. With the Meaty Ogre record, I knew I wanted to do a record with Meaty, and I knew I wanted to do a record with Joe Beats and Maker. There are so many talented artists out there; it’s just a matter of connecting with them. Basically, to this point, it’s been guys that we know and that we have a close working relationship with. We’re continuing to grow the label, so we’re reaching out to other guys and trying to make connections with new artists. We look for artists that kind of fit with what we do.

How have Chicago's style and your connections within the city influenced Fieldwerk?

There’s a raw side of Chicago that I really like a lot. I think what’s really influenced me the most are the people that I’ve met from Chicago that have become some of my best friends and have really had an impact on how I see things. The friends that I’ve made here like Zavala, Void Pedal, Maker, and Meaty — all these guys have been great to work with, and I think that’s had the biggest impact on me.

To this point, Fieldwerk has specialized in instrumental hip hop, but you recently signed a rap act (Cloudy October). Do you plan to release more non-instrumental music?

I like beats; I’ve always been a beat guy. But we don’t just do beats. We’re not strictly a beat label, but we’re heavy on the production side of things. Over the next several years, we plan on continuing to grow. We just started the label in 2009. This year we’ve already released three records, and we have two more scheduled to come out this fall. [We're] continuing to grow and build and find new artists [whose music] we want to release. There’s no limit to what we may put out.

Zavala: Vessel Instrumentals (Fieldwerk, 5/10/11)

Zavala: "Run"

What new projects do you have coming out in the next year?

Right now I’m working on the Crushcon7 LP, and I’m just trying to balance working on my solo album with running the label right now. It’s a work in progress, so I’m just making as many beats as I can, and we’ll see what it turns into. We have the Cloudy October release coming out in October, and another split instrumental LP will be out in the fall. Also, we have Void Pedal’s Omni Colour CD and LP as well as the Maker & Joe Beats Falcon By Design LP (vinyl and digital) and Zavala’s Dark Time Sunshine Vessels Instrumentals LP (vinyl and digital) available at fieldwerk.com.

How do you see Fieldwerk growing and expanding now that you are somewhat established as a label?

I would like to have bigger projects come out [and] continue to be innovative. We’ve had album artwork by Adam R. Garcia, and his artwork has played a huge role in Fieldwerk. The first thing everyone notices about the LPs is his design. We have one LP, Zavala's Vessel Instrumentals, that was done by Michael Crigler. The artwork plays a huge role in the presentation of the music. I would say that as we do bigger projects, [we want] to make the packaging more elaborate and continue to be innovative and try to sell records.

Zavala and Void Pedal have been touring a lot the last couple years and have made some great connections on the road. We’re just guys making beats; this is our art, and there are a lot of people who like what we do. Sometimes I’ll shoot E-mails back and forth with the guys that order records from us. You get to build relationships with people who really dig your music. I’ve always wanted to have a label and be doing exactly what I’m doing now.

Wino: "Release Me"

Seventeen years after his first show with Saint Vitus, singer and guitarist Scott “Wino" Weinrich stands on stage performing the songs that help launched a generational flotilla of doom. It's July 1, 2003 at the Double Door in Chicago. The crowd for the only American Saint Vitus reunion show is packed near the stage, but there's standing room at the edges.

Weinrich recalls, "It was cool but also a little bit sad. It took however many years, and we couldn't even sell out the show." Five hundred devoted friends and fans — it's a respectable but modest turnout. After decades of playing to crowds ranging from handfuls to thousands, he still can't fill a medium-size venue.

This shouldn't be a surprise; in fact, it's expected. Weinrich has always been just under the radar, a musician's musician. Over the years, he's collaborated with a gamut of rock legends, including members of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Death. His fans include Henry Rollins, who says, "Scott is one of the heaviest people known to mankind. Just listen to the music; the man matches it well."

Dave Grohl recruited him, along with other celebrated heavy-metal icons, for his Probot project, where Wino contributed vocals for "The Emerald Law" and played guitar in a live version of the band along with Grohl and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister. Greg Anderson, who, as a member of Sunn O))) and co-founder of Southern Lord Records, is one of the parties most responsible for the current influx of doom bands, cites Weinrich as an "immeasurable influence. The intensity and passion of his playing are unprecedented. He is not in a class of his own. He is the class and the owner."

Everyone related to heavy music has a Wino story or two, the best of which are off the record. There's a duality about the man — he's well liked, always regarded as a generous, friendly guy, but also known as a fiend, perpetually recovering from one addiction or another. He's the most famous guy in heavy metal of whom you've never heard.

As a teenager, Weinrich helped synthesize the burgeoning DC doom-metal scene of the late 1970s, playing guitar in Warhorse, the band that became The Obsessed. Neither interested in mainstream glam metal nor the counter-culture thrash movement, The Obsessed and other local groups like Pentagram purveyed a slow, bluesy take on psychedelic hard rock.

Despite scant recordings — one eight-and-a-half-minute EP and a single — the band had a tremendous influence across the music underground. Fugazi's Joe Lally briefly lived with the band and remembers, "After Wino became the singer, that's when [the] intention behind his writing became clear to me. When Wino started singing, you really felt, 'Hey, this shit is serious.'" Though his range wasn't as wide as some of his contemporaries, Weinrich was nearly unmatched in his intensity and warm soulfulness. As he honed his musicianship and songwriting skills, he also crystallized an interest in motorcycles, booze, and crack cocaine.

The next several years saw Weinrich play in a number of bands. He moved to LA in 1986 to front rising band Saint Vitus, but after three years decided that he needed to write music on guitar again. He left to reform The Obsessed with new rhythm players, including the Melvins' Dale Crover and Kyuss' Scott Reeder back in Maryland. Paradoxically, his lust for chemicals rarely affected his musical prowess. "Back in the day, people used to ask how I could play so smooth when I was that wired, but you get used to it," Weinrich says. And despite more than the occasional binge, he's kept his friends closer than most.

"Fugazi was touring Germany in the [early] '90s, and I don't remember what city we were in, but between songs I heard someone yell, 'Joe!'" Lally recalls. "It was clearly Wino. After the show, he asked us for a band photo because Hellhound was going to release the first Obsessed record from 1985, and he wanted to include photos of friends. He didn't seem to be too together at the time, and I wasn't sure I'd ever see him again. Still, he carried that photo in the pocket of his leather jacket for the rest of the Saint Vitus tour, and it got on the record sleeve. I was pretty shocked when I saw it there." After The Obsessed parted ways, the mid-'90s ushered in the era of his stoner-doom project, Spirit Caravan.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time. It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't."

In 2002, Weinrich joined The Hidden Hand, his most experimental endeavor to date. Like every Wino trio, this one toured relentlessly, devoted to the ideal of DIY live music. While many players burned and dropped out, Weinrich kept at it, finding fresh musical allies. "When [we were] able to tour with The Hidden Hand, it was one of the high points of playing music for me, period," reflects Mike Scheidt, YOB guitarist/vocalist. "Wino has that killer balance of great songwriting, true heaviness, and honest emotional depth borne from living a hard life and surviving long enough to tell the tale."

Over the years, Weinrich's playing evolved, assimilating more progressive, psychedelic nuances. Politics also infiltrated his lyrics, which previously tended towards philosophical and metaphysical themes. The Hidden Hand disbanded in 2007 after some nasty in-fighting on a European tour, and Weinrich attempted to take a break from music.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time," Weinrich admits. "It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't." These are the kind of thoughts that lead one to record a swan song, but instead, Weinrich started a new project and booked six months of gigs. Jean Paul Gester, an old friend and longtime drummer of Southern rock band Clutch, had other plans. Weinrich says, "We're good friends and had always talked about recording a record someday. Jean Paul was so enthusiastic that it was contagious. It was all the push that I needed [to continue making music]."

The other piece of the puzzle was bassist Jon Blank of DC's Rezin. "I knew that he was good, but I didn't know how good," Weinrich says. "He learned all of the songs so fast, and there was really good chemistry." Given Clutch's tireless touring schedule and Rezin's waxing profile, the real challenge was getting everyone into the jam room and studio. "There wasn't a lot of putting stuff off," Weinrich says. "We knew that we had a time frame, and we did it."

The resultant album, billed simply as Wino and titled Punctuated Equilibrium, was recorded in two sessions, half of the songs at a time. Multi-session records are usually a hodgepodge of sounds or muted by digital normalizing, but that's not the case with this record. The album sounds as if it was recorded live in a practice space. Weinrich says, "This is the best-sounding record yet."

The music is all over the place, spanning the gamut of styles that Weinrich has refined over the years, including doom, blues, hard rock, and psychedelia. Weinrich's relaxed but limber guitar playing makes it sound easy. Punctuated Equilibrium is a twisted mass of tree limbs, each song reaching in one direction only to bend in another. "I think [the album] is vaulting Scott into a new arena," says Bobby Liebling of Pentagram. "There is some incredible ear candy, and he's branching out towards much more diversified material than ever in the past…not to mention the guitar playing, [which is] murderous."

The most ethereal (read: "trippy") song on the record is "Wild Blue Yonder," a six-and-a-half-minute ride on a spaceship. "We went into the studio with just the framework and guitar melody — that's all we had," Weinrich says. The result is an acid-rock freak-out on guitar that's anchored by a relentless bass line and drum work that wrap time signatures around multiple phrases. It's seamless; you'd think these guys had been playing together for years.

Other songs on Punctuated Equilibrium bare the distinct stamp of the accompanists. "One thing about Jean Paul is that he loves crazy timing," Weinrich says."It's fun for me too, especially on songs like 'Eyes of the Flesh' and 'The Gift.'" The latter of these is a bonus track from the extra 10" record. Weinrich says, "I've only ever played it with one other drummer who understood it. Jean Paul and I hammered it out in two or three nights, and Jon learned it in one fucking night." "Eyes of the Flesh," along with other tracks like "Secret Realm Devotion" and "Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons And Demagogues," showcases Weinrich's uncanny ability to wail out sustained notes and slow bends. Tracks such as "Silver Lining" exemplify his ability to scream melodic leads that don't soil his warm, monolithic guitar tones.

Punctuated Equilibrium is an ambitious and varied record, showcasing musicians at the top of their games, and other musicians have continued to take notice. In April of 2009, Weinrich headlined the 14^th annual Roadburn Festival in Tilberg, Netherlands with a once-again-reunited Saint Vitus.

Meanwhile, an acoustic version of his solo band played South by Southwest in the States. Last January, Weinrich announced yet another new band, Shrinebuilder, an underground-metal supergroup of sorts, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Al Cisneros of Sleep and Om, and Crover. The group will release an album in September of 2009 and is planning a brief tour. Kelly has commented in interviews that "Wino has been the keystone of this idea from its inception. It wouldn't have been worth doing, and it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been part of it. Lightning." That's to say nothing of Weinrich's rumored electronic project as well as the acoustic affair, Peckerwood. No one can accuse him of being a slouch.

When asked about the last time he had a drink, Weinrich cracks a joke: "Ten minutes ago [writer's note: it's 9 a.m.]…nah, just kidding. I gave up drinking and hard drugs a long time ago." Not that he doesn't knock back a cold one every now and then. As for the cocaine, he's remarkably candid. "It was fucking great — that's why I did it," he says. "It just becomes a lifestyle choice. You have to stay on it, tear apart your house every day, or you live a normal life. There came a point when I just had to live a normal life."

That life includes three kids — Nick (who wants a Moog keyboard), Maxwell (who wants his papa's gold chopper), and Alexandra — as well as an estranged wife, Diana. "I was a stay-at-home dad," Weinrich says. "I raised them from the cradle. Once Diana and I stopped seeing eye to eye, things changed rapidly." When he's not spending time with his kids, hunting down vintage guitar gear, or watching The History Channel, he's struggling to figure out new technology. "I traded a friend of mine for a G4 laptop. I need to figure out that phone thing to talk with the kids while I'm in Europe…Skop?"

Punctuated Equilibrium has had a positive reception with both critics and fans. "It's about timing," Weinrich asserts. "It's always been about timing, and it's never been right for me before. For some strange reason, things are coming together now." He relates his touring schedule — wall-to-wall shows with the Wino project on the road with Clutch, more Saint Vitus reunion shows, Shrinebuilder, and miscellaneous engagements through June 2009. At age 48, 30 years into his career, it's an odd time for a foray as a solo artist, but it's just what Weinrich needs.

"To be honest, this sort of gave me a shot in the arm. I felt like this record made me feel better about things; it made me want to keep playing."

God of Shamisen: Smoke Monster Attack

Despite a predilection for combining the shamisen — a fretless, three-stringed Japanese lute — with any dissimilar musical style, God of Shamisen’s Kevin Kmetz is very much the traditionalist. Kmetz is a student of Tsugaru-shamisen, a striking, percussive style of performance developed during the late 1800s and early 1900s in the northern region of Honshu (the largest island of Japan). Evolved in part by players such as Takahashi Chikuzan, who contributed to the “Tsugaru boom” of the 1950s, Tsugaru-shamisen eventually adopted long improvisations and began to reflect American influences such as the burgeoning free-jazz movement.

The name Tsugaru-shamisen, however, didn’t gain popularity until the ’50s and ’60s, an era when America again declared itself protector to Japan. Military bases had sprouted up in the region, and with them came American music suddenly filtering through the radio. Influences of jazz, blues, and rock ’n’ roll were added to the Tsugaru repertoire, and just as quickly, the shamisen community named the folk-infused improvisations as the true tradition of Tsugaru-shamisen — a tradition that must stay rigid, according to some.

It is particularly apt, then, for an outsider who spent his youth in the 1980s going to school on an American military base in Japan to advocate a tradition of change inherent in the beginnings of Tsugaru-shamisen.

"I feel like if you’re pissing people off, you’re making an impact."

Kmetz had a desire to play the shamisen during his early teens — something that he says was impossible for a gaijin, an outsider, to do at the time. “There was no way I could have gone into a shamisen school,” he says. “It was just closed off to foreigners. You just wouldn’t see a gaijin going to a shamisen master and learning. I had to wait until I was an adult to go into shamisen.”

Since picking up the instrument, Kmetz has become the first foreigner to win the honorary Daijo Kazuo Award in 2005, as well as finish as a runner-up in 2006 and in second place in 2007 — honors that he hopes to surpass by becoming the first foreigner to win first place in a Tsugaru-shamisen tournament.

Apart from the tournaments, however, Kmetz leads God of Shamisen (www.godofshamisen.com), a conduit for the change that he sees as paramount to Tsugaru-shamisen’s continuity. Dragon String Attack, the band’s 2008 debut, deftly weaves metal, funk, ambient electronic, and even a sense of the 8-bit-music renaissance into an effluent, funny, intelligent mess of Eastern and Western influences.

The album, including contributions from Trey Spruance of Secret Chiefs 3, fellow shamisen player Masahiro Nitta, and bansuri maestro Deepak Ram, has at its center the shamisen — with a rhythmic, buzzing, and tonally striking sound that is never out of place yet always surprising in its context.

For Kmetz, the band’s changes in style — from blast beats to reggae jams to Turkish folk — are a natural progression for Tsugaru-shamisen.

“I feel there’s a duty to keep adding to it,” Kmetz says, “because that’s what it was originally about. People forgot that you could add a phrase and still call it Tsugaru-shamisen. You’re going to make people mad, but that’s really what it’s supposed to say. To me, that’s the only way to keep a tradition alive.”

Those whom God of Shamisen are angering, surprisingly, are not the Japanese masters — a group, Kevin admits, that is not the most vocal in its true opinions.

The most outspoken individuals come from the USA. “I’m thrilled to report I’ve actually been making a lot of fellow American shamisen players quite upset,” Kmetz says. “I’m really taking huge authorities with the instrument, which is one of the major complaints I’m getting from a lot of fellow American players. They’re saying, ‘You can’t really call yourself Tsugaru-shamisen, because you’re not sticking to the language.’ It’s been sort of a satisfactory moment for me, because I feel like if you’re pissing people off, you’re making an impact. Finally, I’m considered worthy enough to get upset about.”

It’s been two years since the release of Dragon String Attack, and despite the distance between players, God of Shamisen has released a follow-up digital album titled Smoke Monster Attack. Kmetz, after spending most of his adult life in the States, has moved back to Japan to study under the current masters of the shamisen.

Bassist/producer Mark Thornton and guitarist Karl Schnaitter reside in California, and drummer Lee Smith — a fellow alumnus, along with Kmetz, of genre annihilators Estradasphere — resides in Seattle, where some of the recording for Smoke Monster Attack was completed.

Produced by Thornton and Billy Anderson, a name very familiar to metal heads, Smoke Monster Attack continues to blend the shamisen’s unique sound with Western music. Anderson has produced for the likes of Sleep, Secret Chiefs 3, and Mr. Bungle, and he brings to Kmetz’s instrument a frantic immediacy that hits at every note. The rhythmic, acoustic strikes somehow fit right in with heavy riffs and video-game covers.

The metal influences heard on the first album take center stage with Anderson’s production, and Smoke Monster Attack is less likely to bound from one genre to another. The music loses none of its spontaneity or humor, and if anything, it feels like a stronger, more cohesive release than the first.

Within the time between albums, God of Shamisen has been as active as a band can be with its members spanning the globe, playing Japanese-American festivals, dive bars, and concert halls. The band plans, however, to accomplish one elusive goal: to tour Japan. “We’ve never done that, and that’s always been weird,” Kmetz says. “It’s like, ‘Wow, you’re doing this thing that’s mixing Japanese culture with American culture, and you’ve never gone to Japan and showed that to anyone.’”

This means that Japan has something wholly original coming, derived from the best that American and Japanese culture could birth, flitting between two worlds despite the tendency for stagnation in the name of tradition. As Kmetz so rightly says, tradition is about keeping things alive enough to change.

Om: God is Good (Drag City)

Following the amicable departure of drummer Chris Haikus in early 2008, hypnotic bass-and-drums duo Om found a chiefly suitable replacement: Emil Amos, a key component of visceral, worldly, genre-defying quartet Grails.

Amos joins bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, a long-heralded piece of stoner-doom band Sleep who has used Om to channel discarnate vibes.  The result is a further worldly bent, with the help of friends such as flutist Lorraine Rath and Lichens / 90 Day Men member Rob Lowe on tamboura.

Recorded with Steve Albini at Chicago's Electrical Audio, God is Good showcases Om’s penchant for creating music that is as genuinely emotive as it is heavy, best illustrated on opening number “Thebes,” which begins serenely, building into a rollicking thunder before coming down again.  And like the art, God is Good represents another step in the journey for Om — a heightened sense of focus and wellbeing.

Om: "Cremation Ghat II"
Om: \"Cremation Ghat II\"

Ben Perowsky: Moodswing Orchestra, Vol. 2 (El Destructo)

For this second installment of down-tempo jams and improvisations, drummer/producer/composer Ben Perowsky joins forces again with turntablist / electronic performer Markus Miller and keyboardist Glenn Patscha, who all began the Moodswing Orchestra in a live improv setting in 2002.

Gathering a cast of all-star guests for this installment, Perowsky instructs his musical brethren away from the jazz idiom — in his words, "less Herbie, more Eno."  The result is an eclectic disc full of elastic grooves, sultry and low-key vocals, and atmospheric improvisation.  Smooth bass sounds meld with computerized tones, flute, oboe, theramin, saxophone, and the trio's regular armaments to create a seductive sonic alloy.

Big-name collaborators Bebel Gilberto, Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob), and Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) join lesser-known but equally vital guests in the form of Pamelia Kurstin, Marcus Rojas, Joan Wasser (Joan as Policewoman), Doug Wieselman, and others.  For soothing jams with striking originality and exceptional musicianship, pick this up.

Ahleuchatistas: Of The Body Prone (Tzadik)

With its proper Tzadik debut, Ahleuchatistas issues one of its most well-rounded albums, mixing improvisational and math-rock madness with refined (though still measurably impenetrable) rhythms.  There's a greater emphasis on melodies and repeated patterns this time around, and new drummer Ryan Oslance proves capable of appropriate accompaniment.

Tzadik, which last year re-released the band's 2004 album (The Same and the Other), should be a suitable home for Ahleuchatistas, which appeals to fans of math rock, prog rock, and experimental rock and even draws in some jazz heads.

Jason Adasiewicz’s Rolldown: Varmint (Cuneiform)

Vibraphone virtuoso Jason Adasiewicz has some of the most dexterous chops in Chicago's thriving jazz scene, capable of creating motion blur for concertgoers.  But Adasiewicz also slows it down, and his effort as a bandleader, Rolldown, combines the two worlds in a deft interplay between composition and improvisation.

For this sophomore effort, Rolldown treats listeners to more of its wandering, melodic passages, rife with cool ambience, fiery solos, sharp snare accents, and clicking chemistry.  Cornetist Josh Berman, alto saxophonist and clarinetist Aram Shelton, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Frank Rosaly round out the expert quintet.

Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown: "Hide"
Jason Adasiewicz\'s Rolldown: \"Hide\"

It is tempting to chalk up this oversight to cultural disconnect (the three-piece hails from Japan), but a more apt diagnosis would be that for Boris, record sales and critical accolades are inconsequential compared to the experiences that making music has provided them and the joy of a synergistic working relationship with one another. Takeshi is quick to point out, in a somewhat Zen kind of way, that even the music itself has become a byproduct of something larger and more encompassing between he and his cohorts.

"When we first started playing, it was about making music, but the more we played the less it became about making music at all," he says. "It was about working together and what came out of it ‒‒ the joy of living, the joy of meeting people, and the experiences that it has brought me. By not making music, I found real meaning."

Defiant of convention, immune to pigeonholing, and predicated on experimentation, Boris (whose moniker was derived from the first song on Melvins' Bullhead) firmly established itself as one of the heaviest and most compelling doom-metal acts to emerge in the ’90s with Absolutego, a rumbling, interminable 65-minute onslaught. The album used thick, down-tuned chords sustained for achingly long durations that rivaled Sleep’s Jerusalem in terms of sheer might. The follow-up, 1998’s Amplifier Worship, found the group dabbling in slightly more traditional song structures, driving power riffs, and psychedelic sludgery (an approach they would revisit on 2003’s Akuma No Uta). After Amplifier Worship, 2000’s Flood submerged listeners in slow-building drones that coalesce into a veritable deluge of howling guitars and textural distortions.

Along with their many albums, there have been a slew of projects with artists such as Merzbow, Keiji Haino, and Ghost’s Michio Kurihara (notably on 2007’s triumphant Rainbows on Drag City). Two years ago they released Altar, a 2006 collaboration with Southern Lord labelmates Sunn O))).

“Three or four years ago we played with Sunn O))) in London, and thought it would be great to do a collaboration together,” says Takeshi. “Because we had become friends, it was a lot of fun, but in terms of the music that came out of it, it felt divine. It was music that had to be made, and when we did, it was like a release.” According to drummer/vocalist Atsuo Mizuno, “Altar was a document of Boris and Sunn O)))’s ten-year relationship.”

The most ambitious and most comprehensive of the Boris albums at the time of its release, 2005’s Pink was a rollicking patchwork of songs, showcasing melodic yet bottom-heavy hooks and low-frequency attacks that owed more to Blue Cheer, Motorhead, and Mudhoney than to Earth or Sleep. Despite the variances between each of their albums, there has always been an undeniable, singular philosophy of sound that permeates all of Boris’ music, even if the vocabulary used to articulate that philosophy is different from record to record. "There is something that is Boris in each of the albums,” says Takeshi. “But really, each time we make a new album, the goal is to get away from that."

The dirty, stripped-down yet texturally and tonally rich sound that defines Boris comes from a combination of classic equipment and sheer imagination. The band members use only Gibson guitars and record only on analog equipment but utilize numerous effects pedals and rely heavily on experimentation. "We love buying old equipment," explains Takeshi. "It's really an adventure in what we can find in crazy stores and then playing on that. It's all improvisation. Each time it's, 'What are the new toys that we found, what can we play with, what sounds can we make, and what comes out of that jam session?' When we get tired of the sound coming out of the improvisation, we might just stop and be like, 'All right, what's the coolest riff that we can think of right now?'”

"We experiment with different settings on our equipment and often screw up," Atsuo confides. "But even during those moments when we feel like we've made a mistake, if we just listen to the sound with new ears, we can discover great potential for all sorts of new sounds. We place equal importance on songwriting and creating the right sound.” If one fosters a good relationship with the world, communication becomes a much more enjoyable experience, according to Atsuo.

Debashish Bhattacharya

With his second album in 14 months, Indian slide-guitar master Debashish Bhattacharya issues his take on musical adaptations of the mythological Hindu figure Shakuntala.  Using one of his twangy, self-made creations, Bhattacharya mixes Hindustani and Karnatic music in a style that, at times, distantly resembles Western slide music.

Debashish Bhattacharya: "Chahat"

Debashish Bhattacharya: \"Chahat\"

Sleep: Hesitation Wounds (Strange Famous)

A co-founder of hip-hop collective Oldominion, emcee Sleep has made a name for himself in the Pacific Northwest with high-energy, quick-tongued rhymes, diverse samples, and an often-downbeat sound.  This follow-up to his 2005 LP Christopher is his debut on Sage Francis' Strange Famous label, and it features guest spots by Del tha Funky Homosapien and Grayskul.

Obvious disclaimer: this Sleep is unrelated to the über-heavy stoner-metal group of the same name.

Amber Asylum: Bitter River (Profound Lore)

This vocally driven neoclassical project is led by multi-instrumentalist Kris Force, a Gothically inspired songstress with no relation to ALARM head honcho Chris Force.

A pairing of cello and violin roots Bitter River in a brooding, eerie minimalism, which is completed with Force's powerful range.  Previous Amber Asylum contributors have included Steve Von Till (Neurosis) and Tim Green (The Fucking Champs); the group's current collaborators include Eric Wood (Bastard Noise / Man is the Bastard), Jackie Perez-Gratz (Giant Squid), Leila Abdul-Rauf (Saros), and more.

Amber Asylum: "Bitter River"

Amber Asylum: \"Bitter River\"

Supermachiner, the haunting, mostly instrumental side project from Converge members Jacob Bannon and Kurt Ballou, will soon have its complete 30-track, two-disc collection, Rust, available through Deathwish Inc. Listen to a few tracks here.

Big Business has announced the release of its new album, Mind the Drift, for April on Hydra Head. Listen to a new track, "Gold and Final," on the group's MySpace page.

Japanese post-rockers Mono have a new album, Hymn to the Immortal Wind, being released on March 24 on Temporary Residence. The album boasts guest contributions from a 28-member orchestra.

Seven Signs, the Southern culture documentary by J.D. Wilkes of Th' Legendary Shack Shakers, is now available on DVD.

Following the release of Old Money via Stones Throw on January 26, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez takes his group to Europe in March. Click here for a list of dates.

A new alt-metal super-group called Shrinebuilder is recording a debut album for Neurot Recordings, due this summer. The group consists of Wino (The Hidden Hand), Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep), and Dale Crover (Melvins) and will be in the studio with Toshi Kasai (Big Business).

Orange Tulip Conspiracy, the exceptional multi-genre new group led by Estradasphere guitarist Jason Schimmel, will play a full US tour in May. If you're involved in setting up shows, you can help Schimmel fill in dates — head here for details.

Grandaddy singer/songwriter Jason Lytle has a solo debut album, Yours Truly, being release on Anti- on May 19.

Finger-tapping indie-rock specialist Kaki King is playing a "solo guitar and no other bullshit tour" in California from January 21-31. Head here for the dates.

Post-rock/jam keyboardist Marco Benevento plays a weekly residency in February at Yoshi's in Oakland in the middle of a handful of other West Coast dates. During the stint, Benevento will be joined by special guests that include Scott Amendola, Billy Martin, Reed Mathis, Jeff Parker, and Skerik.

California math-rock trio Tera Melos has a new EP of cover songs available to download for free. Band member Nick Reinhart also has new band with drumming wiz Zach Hill, called Bygones, that has a debut album set for release in March on Sargent House.

Starting today, the new Cattle Decapitation album, The Harvest Floor, is streaming in its entirety on buzzgrinder.com. The stream will run through January 19.

Thrash/punk four-piece Trash Talk has announced a handful of shows that span Japan, California, and Georgia (the state). The shows include performances with Fucked Up, Pig Destroyer, Converge, Torche, Mastodon, and Neurosis.

Hardcore tough guys Hatebreed have posted a cover of Sepultura's "Refuse/Resist" on their MySpace page. The cover is included in the soundtrack to Punisher: War Zone.

Calexico

Jimmy Carl Black, the original drummer of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, has passed away at the age of 70 after a fight with lung cancer.

All Tomorrow's Parties has announced a new festival, scheduled for May 15-17, 2009 in Minehead. The fest will be curated by The Breeders and tickets are already on sale.

In other ATP news, '90s doom-metal group Sleep will reunite to play the series' next festival in Minehead, taking place earlier in May of 2009.

Interested parties can watch a free streaming video of Calexico's Southwestern folk from a 23-song performance in Amsterdam.

Genre-leaping identical twins and instrumentalists Nels Cline (guitar: Nels Cline Singers, Wilco) and Alex Cline (drums/percussion: The Alex Cline Ensemble, Tim Berne) are each releasing a solo album on Cryptogramophone on February 10, 2009. Follow the link for a sample track from each.

Technically assailing math-metal Relapse artists Dysrythmia have booked shows for February with labelmates Tombs.

Hard-hitting Brooklyn trio Goes Cube will have a limited-edition EP for sale on its upcoming Midwest and East Coast tour dates, some of which are paired with ALARM cover favorites Dub Trio.

Unsigned jam/groove duo Family Order has made all of its excellent upcoming album available for free download.

Funky jazz guitarist Will Bernard has begun a handful of West Coast tour dates with his trio.

Deftones bassist Chi Cheng is hospitalized and in serious condition after being involved in a car accident.

That’s not all Nilsson has to be happy about these days. He and Graveyard bandmates, drummer Axel Sjöberg, bassist Rikard Edlund, and guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Ramm, are gearing up for their first major tour, in support of their recently released self-titled record on Tee Pee Records (Transubstans Records in Europe). The four-piece draws on blues driven hard rock, metal, and folk and revitalizes the classic sounds into a fresh and exciting package, making for one of the most powerful debut rock albums to appear in the first part of 2008.

Although Graveyard is relatively new on the scene, some of the band members have been playing together for over a decade. In 1995, Nilsson and Edlund formed a psychedelic rock quartet called Norrsken (“Northern Lights” in English). When Norrsken disbanded in 2000, guitarist Magnus Peelander went on to form doomy folk metal act Witchcraft and Nilsson and Edlund joined Albatross, a growly blues rock band whose lineup also included Sjöberg on drums.

Initially they considered Albatross to be a hobby, but five years later, the members began taking their music more seriously and had grown dissatisfied with the direction their sound had taken. When Albatross inevitably broke up, Nilsson and Edlund decided that for their next venture, they would head back towards their roots as musicians and songwriters. Nilsson explains, “I am a singer, but in Albatross I only played guitar. Rikard played guitar but he is a bass player. We also wanted a more straightforward [rock] sound.”

Together with Sjöberg and guitarist/singer, Truls Mörck (who left the band and was replaced by Ramm soon after completing their record), they began practicing as Graveyard. In the months that followed, Graveyard played a total of three shows, and began planning for a full-length album with Swedish boutique label, Transubstans Records. In the meantime, they posted a demo of some of their material on MySpace.

It was through a fairly routine activity that Tony Presedo, founder of Tee Pee Records, a New York based independent label with a penchant for psychedelic rock and a history of working with talented artists including Sleep, Earthless and Brian Jonestown Massacre, discovered the new band.

Presedo recalls, “They sent us a friend request. I usually just check ‘accept’ and move on, but I noticed that they had a cool graphic and that they were from Göthenberg. I like a lot of music from there so I went and checked it out. They were a doomy bluesy folk kind of thing with cool vocals. I liked it, but I let it go, because I had a lot of stuff going on at the time.”

But soon after, a friend inspired him to give the band another chance. “I was having lunch with Mario Rubalcaba from Earthless at South By Southwest last year and he asked if I had heard of them, and I said, ‘Yeah, I did’ and he said, ‘You should check it out again. You should really put that record out.’”

Listening to their samples again, Presedo found that he liked what he heard even more than his original impression. “I get that feeling from a lot of old records,” he explains. “The first listen is kind of cool and the second and third really sink in.” Releasing an album by a band in another country, especially one that hasn’t yet developed a large following can be a daunting task, but Presedo says that for a group like Graveyard, it’s all worthwhile.

“I love music a lot and sometimes I don’t give a shit how much work is involved, I just really like it and want to work on it. Moral of the story is; if something is good, you’ve got to get involved. You can’t let it sit there.” The band was caught pleasantly off guard when Tee Pee first expressed interest in working with them in the United States. They put the label in touch with Transubstans to work out the details of an international release.

Graveyard was recorded with Don Ahlsterberg (International Noise Conspiracy, Jose Gonzalez) in roughly two weeks, although mixing had to be delayed for months while Ahlsterberg was out of town. Fortunately, the end result was well worth the wait. The ten songs on the record contain intricate, electrifying riffs, catchy melodies and intense moods. Tracks such as “Evil Ways” and “Satan’s Finest” exhibit Nilsson’s powerful voice, which has gained favorable comparisons to the likes of Chris Cornell and Glen Danzig.

Nilsson modestly attributes at least some of his talent to genetics. “I’ve been singing all my life. It has come quite natural for me since I was a little kid. My mother is an opera singer, and my father is a violin player. I come from a musical family, but I didn’t have much training.” The record’s virtually seamless pacing makes it easy to overlook its intricacies and nuances on first spin, but they become impossible to ignore later on. This fluidity is at least partially due to Graveyard’s egalitarian songwriting process. “We jam a lot in rehearsal, we have ideas we bring to rehearsal. We usually put the songs together and different people write the lyrics. It’s quite equal between us.”

Graveyard will appear at 2008’s South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, before accompanying Tee Pee label mates Witch on a short jaunt through the East Coast then joining them on the road across Europe. Not bad for a band whose longest tour thus far has been ten days. Nilsson says, “We are looking forward to it very much. It’s been quite a dream since I was a little kid. To go on tour in the U.S.! To go on tour anywhere!"