Shawn Lee’s Incredible Tabla Band: Tabla Rock (Ubiquity)

Shawn Lee's Incredible Tabla Band: "Apache"

In 1972, Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band released Bongo Rock, a heavily percussive and funky take on hits of the day. With the beat-driven version of the famous instrumental "Apache," the album firmly entrenched itself in the breakbeat lexicon. Now multi-instrumental and rabidly multi-genre musician Shawn Lee has produced his Indian-funk take on the classic album, covering it song by song and adding two tracks from Viner's followup record.

Though there might be more virtuosic or "authentic" voices who could recreate Bongo Rock in Indian form, there may be no more apt musician on the planet than Lee to tackle such a project. His endlessly morphing Ping Pong Orchestra has touched countless modern and retro styles; Tabla Rock is just the latest in the tireless Lee's repertoire.

By and large, the structure and melodies of the originals are intact, and many tracks (such as "Apache" and "Last Bongo in Belgium") remain jazzy and funky with horn and organ accents. But with sitar drones, gurgling tabla hits, and other accoutrements, Tabla Rock is more than a mere re-introduction to the source material — although it's excellent for that as well.

- Scott Morrow

Loincloth: Iron Balls of Steel (Southern Lord)

Loincloth: "Underwear Bomb"

It might be silly to call a band named Loincloth stripped-down, but that’s exactly what it is. There are no vocals or indulgent riffing — just pure, soaring metal.

Iron Balls of Steel is the debut full-length from the prog-metal trio, but drummer Steve Shelton and bassist Cary Rowells are also members of on-again, off-again North Carolina-based metal band Confessor. Rounding out the three-piece is guitarist Tannon Penland. Rather than adding complexity to its music through varied instrumentation, Loincloth gets incredibly technical, experimenting with tempo to an almost unfathomable degree.

Its start-stop style doesn’t come at the expense of punishing grooves, but its unpredictable percussive tangents will challenge even the most experienced of head-bangers. If that sounds intimidating, let’s not overlook Loincloth’s sense of humor about it all — Iron Balls of Steel, anyone? — as that self-awareness is what impels the band to rise above the pomp and circumstance of modern metal.

- Kyle Gilkeson

Loma Prieta: IV (Deathwish Inc.)

Loma Prieta: "Trilogy 4: Momentary"

Sharing its name with one of the Santa Cruz mountains, Bay Area hardcore quartet Loma Prieta has quietly cranked out a half-dozen records since the mid-2000s. IV, its Deathwish debut, helps to announce it to the rest of the world with the force of the 1989 earthquake that is most associated with the name.

Though previous recordings have leaned more toward "post-hardcore" with slight touches of screamo and power violence, IV goes straight for the jugular. Shades of the old influences appear in bridges and interludes, but the album is dirty, angry, and raw.

Punk beats and blast beats alike power the screams and the noisy, over-fuzzed guitars and bass into the red for much of the album. Yet there are plenty of tempo shifts and breakdowns, and though IV very predominantly is a hardcore album, it shares good company on Deathwish with its heavy dynamics.

- Scott Morrow

Honorable Mentions

Everything Went Black: Cycles of Light (Prosthetic / Lost Shepherd)

Herculaneum: Uchu

Howler: America Give Up (Rough Trade)

Justin Robinson & The Mary Annettes: Bones for Tinder (Spindle)

Cate Le Bon: Cyrk (The Control Group)

Matthew Dear: Headcage EP (Ghostly International)

Wiley: Evolve or be Extinct (Big Dada)

Mister Heavenly: Out of Love (Sub Pop)

Mister Heavenly: "Bronx Sniper"

In music, unlike the NBA, it’s perfectly acceptable for a hometown hero to enlist his buddies for a maddeningly dominant triumvirate. Formed in 2010 with far less pageantry than the would-be "big three" of the Miami Heat, Mister Heavenly comprises Nick Thorburn (Islands, The Unicorns), Ryan Kattner (Man Man), and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse, The Shins).

The first 25 seconds of the trio’s debut album, Out of Love, feints left with a strummed guitar and brittle vocals — territory where Thorburn has made his name — and then cracks wide open with pure rock-'n'-roll swagger. With the two songwriters, Thorburn and Kattner, carrying on an exchange of verses and riffs, one expects a certain amount of fragmentation. Instead, the dual vocalists complement each other in surprising ways — a result likely due to the rather unlikely influence of doo-wop.

An ear for nostalgia and a strict set of ground rules keeps Out of Love from developing a split personality. Of course, it’s not doo-wop; it’s “doom-wop,” according to the band. Thorburn can sing a mean hook, and sticky melodies seem to come effortlessly, but it’s Kattner (known for his guttural vocals and manic, face-painted antics) and Plummer (a versatile drummer) who bring the edge and keep things unpredictable.

- Text by Kyle Gilkeson.

NewVillager: s/t (IAMSOUND)

NewVillager: "Lighthouse"

As a captivating yet mystifying merger of music, art, and performance, NewVillager is an otherworldly project revolving around an elaborate mythology and still-unfolding allegories, denoting three colors — red, green, and blue — as past, present, and future, respectively, while offering black and white as catabolic and anabolic forces.

With these as background, the project’s principals — Ben Bromley and Ross Simonini — use a large cast of contributors to depict different aspects of its creation myth via songs, videos, and installation art. One such video, for the song “Lighthouse,” features ornately costumed crimson- and sapphire-hued characters and draws inspiration from Papua New Guinean tribal aesthetics.

On the group’s debut album, each song focuses on one of the ten aspects of its mythology’s transformations. With rich, multi-layered results, the music intertwines reverberated indie-rock guitars with skittering hi-hat beats, synth grooves, and Beck-style falsettos with baritone weirdness and sing-along refrains.

- Text by Katie Fanuko. Read the full story in Chromatic, available September 20.

All Pigs Must Die: God is War (Southern Lord)

All Pigs Must Die: "Pulverization"

As another new addition to the ever-growing sub-genre of metallic hardcore, All Pigs Must Die carries a set of credentials that most upstarts do not, counting vocalist Kevin Baker (The Hope Conspiracy), drummer Ben Koller (Converge), and guitarist Adam Wentworth and bassist Matt Woods (Bloodhorse) as veteran members.

God is War is the group's full-length debut, and following a five-track EP last year, it spreads the band's assailing sound over more than 30 minutes worth of material. Citing influences that range from the Cro-Mags and Discharge to Entombed and Celtic Frost — and recorded, naturally, by Kurt Ballou of Converge — All Pigs Must Die follows a path that's well tread but still powerful.

Contemporaries such as Trap Them (and much of the Deathwish Inc. roster) draw close comparisons, but God is War delivers an intensity that is matched by few, bringing more speed to the traditionally doomy Southern Lord roster.

MoHa!: Meiningslaust Oppgulp (Rune Grammofon)

MoHa!: "Brikjande Glime"

Mixing composition and improv in a sort of "free electro-rock" style, Norway's MoHa! has been one of the country's finest avant exports since the mid-2000s.

Just a duo, the two-piece overcomes its size limitations with a barrage of sounds, triggering effects from its drums and cymbals while running electronics alongside guitar and other noise. MoHa!'s live performance is quite the spectacle as well, as quickly flashing lights inundate the audience in synchronicity with the noise-rock insanity.

The duo has three full-length offerings through Rune Grammofon, but it also has an assortment of seven-inches and other hard-to-find releases. Thankfully, that small-run material is now released as this singles collection. The music is every bit as frantic and zany as one would expect — but without the visual accompaniment, you're not doing yourself justice. Pick this up and then head to YouTube.

Gojogo: 28,000 Days (Porto Franco)

Gojogo: "Firebird"

The third full-length from Bay Area classical-jazz quartet Gojogo is a compelling hybrid that blends electronic sampling with strings, upright bass, and Indian percussion. Each member brings a different background to the table, and in the case of percussionist Elias Reitz, who plays dholki and ghatam, learning how to communicate musically with Western-trained musicians was a difficulty in itself. The cross-pollination came with rich rewards, however, as 28,000 days (76 years, or the average lifespan) is masterfully unpredictable and textured.

The album begins with the string-based “Tale of Tales,” which, with its dramatic peaks, valleys, and multiple movements, would be at home in a cinematic setting. Indeed, Gojogo has worked on both film scores and dance performances in its 10-year career, but as the second half of the lead track indicates, the band has no hesitation in plugging in and getting loud.

The deep, plucked bass and the familiar clack of hand-struck drums drive the album through its various moods, creating a consistent backbone for conversational electric guitar and violin. Elements of drone and post-rock are present as well, lending an intensity and hard edge to a laid-back, melodic tour of genres and eras.

- Text by Kyle Gilkeson.

Honorable Mentions

Appetite: Scattered Smothered Covered (Crossbill)

Awol One & Nathaniel Motte: The Child Star (Fake Four)

Braid: Closer to Closed EP (Polyvinyl)

Jeff Bridges: s/t (Blue Note)

Case Studies: The World is Just a Shape to Fill the Night (Sacred Bones)

The Cool Kids: When Fish Ride Bicycles (CAKE  / Green Label Sound)

Matthew Friedberger: Cut it Out LP (Thrill Jockey)

GDFX: One Thing (Impose)

Gold Leaves: The Ornament (Hardly Art)

A Lull: Confetti Reprise EP (Mush)

Sølyst: s/t (Bureau B)

The War on Drugs: Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian)

Yellow Ostrich: The Mistress (Barsuk)

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."

Earth: "Father Midnight"

Most God-fearing people would probably characterize Earth’s cinematic drone-rock music as dark, and the assumption is not without merit. Since 1989, Earth’s founder and guitarist, Dylan Carlson, has specialized in a kind of down-tempo, almost lethargic style of slow rock that easily allows listeners to conjure thoughts of an emotional purgatory.

Carlson describes Earth’s musical destinations in a conversely different light. For him, the band’s resonant, slow-forming instrumentation represents a musically cerebral path to some sort of middle ground, but it’s not so much as a waiting room to hell as it is a medieval common area, where people are free to simply be, free to do as much or as little as they’d like. Earth’s womb-like melodic cocoon is in many ways an external and extremely personal catharsis — an intimate attempt to make sense of an ever-present melancholy that pervades Carlson’s vision of humanity.

What do you think has allowed Earth to maintain the same musical continuity for so long, while so many other bands from your time period have faded from the radar, sold out, died, or come back playing something completely different than what they started?

I think it’s still pretty similar. I think the main difference is more seen by working with [drummer] Adrienne [Davies] and working with the other members of the band more; it’s more of a collective experience than before. There were times when there were very few members of the band — no members of the band — [laughs] except me, so it was definitely more of a solitary pursuit at points, where now I have the luxury of being able to attract musicians to play with me and are able to play with me for at least a couple years at a time, instead of album by album.

That’s different, and I like that. I’ve always viewed Earth as a band, and wanted it to be a band, but it’s not always the easiest thing to find musicians to work with and keep them. I’m more cognizant of what I’m doing than before.

Do you think your sobriety has played a role in that?

Yeah, I definitely think so. I’m definitely more focused on doing music now and not wasting my time running around chasing [pauses] other things [laughs], so that’s good. And I’ve obviously been more productive in this second go-around than I was in the first, in terms of output and performing live.

Has your creative process changed at all over the years?

Yeah, I mean, for the most part, I guess. To me, there are certain things that need to be there for it to be Earth, otherwise I’d do something different. Within that, it should be slow, it should be simple, and hopefully be on the longer end of letting things develop — the longer end of the scale. There’s some wiggle room to do some other things, but if those three things aren’t there, then I should do a different project.

And if I were going to do something different, I’d do something completely different and wouldn’t try to sell that off as Earth. I think Earth has an identity of its own. I don’t think that would be fair to people to make something really fast and new-wave-y and call it Earth [laughs]; that wouldn’t be Earth. That would be my really fast new-wave-y project.

So are you saying you’ve got a really fast new-wave-y project in the works?

I’m hoping to do a solo record maybe later this year, and we’d like to start recording that as soon as possible, depending on our touring schedule, and that’s something that I hope would be different than Earth.

Is it going to be like ska or something?

No, no, no — but like acoustic guitar and some other stuff.

Will there be vocals in that, or will it be instrumental?

I haven’t decided yet. There’s certain things [that] I have in my head [that] I’m sort of keeping secret. I think it’ll definitely be something different, but hopefully people will be interested enough in it.

Speaking of that Earth sound, do you feel any sort of ownership to the sound that Earth has been said to have “pioneered”?

To me, the ownership of music is like this fiction that we’ve all agreed on. Unfortunately, we live in what they call a free-market capitalist economy, and there’s an exchange of goods required for people to survive. We’ve all sort of agreed that there’s this fiction that "Oh, I wrote this," and "Oh, I own this," and "I’m selling it to you." To me, music is as old as time itself, and there’s nothing that invented it.

Right — it’s like give a penny, take a penny?

Yeah, exactly, but because of the society we live in…we have to have the object to sell people, which is the object of the CD.

Do you think that certain catch-22 of music has made it harder for less-established acts to earn a living? Bands with a massively established audience like Radiohead can count on their fans to continue supporting them. Do you think that new bands have to rely more on touring as a means to stay financially solvent?

Yeah, and that’s my hope. My hope is that live music will become more important, like it used to be, but the economics of that don’t always work out. Back when music was big live, there was no TV, no radio; we didn’t have 24 hours of Internet porn [laughs], so we’ve got competition now.

I definitely think people seem more excited about live music than they used to be, and they want to see bands that can actually play their instruments as opposed to backing tracks and dance routines, and that kind of spectacle. I think [that] the only people in trouble are the major labels, and their whole factory thing. Justin Beiber in front of a bunch of teenagers at a mall is not a live show; most people realize that.

As much as I hate to talk about Justin Beiber, he brings to mind something that I hear you mention in a lot of your interviews. Authenticity is a really hot commodity right now in music, and I think that’s largely because of what you were just talking about — people aren’t just looking for something to tap their feet to, but they want something they can connect with — but is that authenticity something that you can feasibly and consciously strive for or knowingly attain?

We have all these myths and representations of music and art, like it’s something for other people to do rather than for everybody. Like the Amadeus myth that there are just born these phenomenal musicians, and the rest of us can only mash our teeth and plot to murder them because they’ve been given this gift that we don’t have. I absolutely abhor that whole myth.

The reason Mozart was Mozart was because his dad started training him when he was four. The reason Jimi Hendrix was a great guitarist was because he played guitar 18 hours a day. They put in the work; that’s why they were good. Everyone wants to go out and be on American Idol and be a star and believe there are people that are somehow just naturally gifted, but that’s bullshit. Ultimately, if you want to do music, and you put in the work, you’ll do something worthwhile.

Have you ever thought about your music as a sort of guided meditation?

Not specifically that sense. My favorite analogy that I heard was someone saying that Earth reminded them of a busy city, like the world as this busy city and Earth as this park where people can go to just be for a while, whether they want to meditate [pause] or alter their consciousness somehow. I remember a brief time when I was homeless, and the most frustrating thing of that whole experience was that there was just no place that you were allowed to be, where you didn’t have to be buying something, or paying for something.

There are no more places in the world for people to just be; you have to be doing something or spending money or being involved in an exchange. It’s really frustrating. In the old days in England, before the Enclosure Act, there used to be a thing called “the commons,” which no one was allowed to own, and anyone could use it, or they could just leave it alone [laughs]. That whole concept is gone. Now it’s all about "What can we do with this?" and "What can we make it pay?" and that’s happened to people. No one’s allowed to just be; you always have to be in motion, and playing the game, and you know, burning [laughs].

It’s like an acid trip; it’s all about what you make of it…

Yeah, you could have a great time or you could lose your marbles [laughs]. Life is fraught with risk. I’m sure there are theological arguments for why that is, but that’s life: there’s no free ride. It’s like doing drugs; as good as you feel at that one moment, that’s as shitty as you’re going to feel later. There’s a trade-off. So, yes, I think there’s a melancholy to Earth, or darkness, but I also think there’s another side as well.

Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)

Colin Stetson: "Judges"

Everyday music connoisseurs may not automatically recognize Colin Stetson's name, but they're likely to have heard his bellowing and diverse reed work — whether from his efforts with musical luminaries such as Tom Waits, Anthony Braxton, and Fred Frith or, more recently, his opening slots for stadium indie acts such as Arcade Fire and The National.

Armed with a baritone sax and other horns, Stetson uses his solo releases to present looped, layered, and transcendental compositions that may leave listeners puzzled at how they're created.  Most sound only vaguely borne from horns, as Stetson utilizes circular breathing, chordal mouth/throat techniques, and singing through his instruments to achieve sounds that are uncommon to most.

New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is his latest, and it's full of swirling, cyclical pieces that can be both meditative and powerful.  Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) provide a few spots of guest vocals, but no amount of star power — including Stetson's famous tour-mates — could steal the spotlight from this one.

Julianna Barwick: The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)

Julianna Barwick: "The Magic Place"

Creating her music almost entirely out of overdubbed and looped vocals, singer/songwriter Julianna Barwick is able to achieve a profound and resonant style. Her ascendant voice, particularly when presented en masse, takes a celestial quality and at times resembles high-pitched woodwinds, organs, or keyboards.

With distant wails and chants that swell and retreat, the music sounds like an experimental composer’s take on church choirs, and for good reason: Barwick refined her talents while singing in church and school choirs as a youth. There are a few complementary piano notes and a buried bass line here and there, but largely, it’s Barwick’s shining voice and compositional skills that are center stage.

Earth: Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light I (Southern Lord)

Earth: "Father Midnight"

Since restarting his cult-favorite band Earth in the mid-2000s, guitarist Dylan Carlson has offered a much less foreboding take on "drone doom" — using pedal steel, banjo, baritone guitar, and more to inflect a dark "Americana" vibe into what had focused on heavily distorted and slowed-down blues-rock riffs.

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I is another return to form — and another new lineup.  Gone are the guest guitars from Bill Frisell; in his place, bassist Karl Blau and cellist Lori Goldston offer resonant low-end riffs that complement and harmonize with Carlson's melodies.

The songs, like usual, are long-form pieces that build around a few lengthy repetitions.  However, they're even a little longer than usual, with two that top 10 minutes and a closer that eclipses 20 — totaling 60 minutes over just five tracks.  All together, the material is another victory for down-tempo music, proving that slow songs don't have to be boring.

Pitom: Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes (Tzadik)

Pitom: "Head in the Ground"

Combining heavy, fuzzy rock jams with Jewish melodies, Pitom is one of many projects from guitarist, bassist, and composer Yoshie Fruchter.  Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes, the quartet's second release on Tzadik, follows the same path as its predecessor, but it does so with a bit more cohesion and restraint.

Built from the ground up with distorted bass and violin, the band's music carries similarities to that of Skeletonbreath, an alt-rock trio that embraces worldly motifs, and Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses, another eclectic ensemble that combines doomy riffs and string work.  Pitom's lineup, however, has a key difference: Fruchter's pliable skills.

Whether driving a song with an infectious melody, commingling with the violin in the high end, or simply taking over a track with raw ability, Fruchter knows when to go full throttle (the punk power of "An Epic Encounter") or pull back (the dark slow jam of "A Resentful Repentance").

Honorable Mentions

Darkest Hour: The Human Romance (E1)

Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX: We're New Here [remix album] (XL)

Rachel Goodrich: s/t

Gutbucket: Flock (Cuneiform)

Peña: Vol. II (Secret Stash)

Six Organs of Admittance: Asleep On The Floodplain (Drag City)

Tera Melos: Zoo Weather EP (Sargent House)

Teeel: Amulet (Moongadget)

Weedeater: "Mancoon"

North Carolina-based Weedeater has always balanced its stoner- and sludge-metal aspirations with a wide-open embrace of not just Southern rock but Southern culture as well. Songs about Dale Earnhardt sit alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd covers; odes to mystical demons were right at home alongside ballads praising the band’s titular indulgence.

But despite some commendable efforts (especially the group's previous disc, God Luck And Good Speed in 2007), these two directions never fully reconciled, and the band’s masterpiece always seemed just out of its reach. Jason…The Dragon, the group's fourth full-length (and second for Southern Lord), doesn’t quite put the group over the top of the mountain, but it’s never for lack of trying.

At its best, the trio’s pursuit of perfect Southern metal becomes almost compelling. The monster-in-a-hallway score underlying the cackling monologue of “The Great Unfurling” sets the disc up as more of a metal outing, and the down-tuned sludge riffing of “Hammerhandle” does nothing to dispel this. Yet the Macon County boogie of “Mancoon” and the molasses-thick riff of “Turkey Warlock” set that idea aside, painting both album and band alike as blatantly self-aware of the line they walk: one foot in the swamp, the other in the grave.

Yet the two styles never fully merge, leaving each element (no matter how well executed) to exist squarely in a vacuum. The warbled slide and gravel vocals of “Palms Of Opium” set up the Sabbath-esque “Long Gone,” while “Homecoming” conjures images of Black Label Society, minus the pick harmonics. “Whiskey Creek” tries to close with a banjo-on-swamp soundscape that would otherwise be the quiet, down-home end of the disc until a hidden straight-up Dixie piano jam takes Jason around the bend one last time.

While Collins, Stephens, and Kirkum move fairly fluidly between executions and genres, Collins’ vocals are arranged to be the most forward component of Weedeater's sound. Painting a composite of Black Breath, Wolves In The Throne Room, and Bon Scott-era AC/DC, his vocals don't necessarily prevent the disc from meandering, but still help it stay in the right general direction. It makes sense: when hanging out in the strange, smoky world where Weedeater lives, it's probably okay to take your time getting to wherever you're going — assuming that getting there is even the point.

In addition to laying down guitar riffs and vocals, Turner is an accomplished visual artist, responsible for cover art, layout, and package design for numerous bands. This unique knack for the aural and visual aspects of music inspired us to ask Turner about his favorite fellow double threats.

My Favorite Musicians/Artists/Designers
by Aaron Turner

Album art is and always has been an extremely crucial component of the experience of an album for me. Though there certainly have been records I've loved that have had terrible cover art, most of those that have left an indelible footprint in my mind have been those with a visual presentation of power equal to that of the music.

When I think back on the records that have shaped my ideas about what it means to make music, I usually have a tangible feeling that comes with that recollection, a sense of the atmosphere that the record created for me and how that atmosphere was accentuated or more clearly defined by the accompanying sleeve art. As that has been true in the past for me, so it is now; when checking out new records, I'm consistently drawn to those with compelling covers that draw me in and make me what to know what's going on inside.

In the last 10 years or so, I've become particularly interested in musicians who are also active participants in designing or creating artwork for the albums that they make. It seems logical to me that those people would have the best understanding of what the music is about and the clearest idea of how to communicate that visually. Some of my favorite album covers now are those that have been made wholly or in part by the musicians who also have created the music itself.

Below is a list of people who reside in that category of musician/designer/artist and who have excelled at both aspects of making memorable albums.

1. Fangs Anal Satan (Boris)

Boris has made some tremendous albums over the years, and the music has always been matched by the equally excellent illustration and design. Like the band, which has mutated through a series of different incarnations (in sound rather than personnel), so too have the visuals, without ever dropping in consistency of quality.

From album to album, numerous tactics have been employed: rigid restraint bordering on minimalism, unorthodox packaging materials (colored foam, die-cut cardboard, hand-painted boxes containing dried flowers, etc.), psychedelic fantasy scenes paying homage to '70s album artist Roger Dean, parodies of classic metal logos (Venom), extensive and beautifully arranged LP-sized photo books.  Each release is a special artifact in its own right and as such warrants even further focus towards the music and the packaging from the listener/viewer.

2. Faith Coloccia

Though many attempt to create interesting record sleeves by making handmade packaging, most simply content themselves with the fact that the packaging is handmade rather than actually thinking about the meaning of the materials being used, their relation to the music, or the end result of how the release will actually look.

Coloccia's work is quite the opposite: each element used is carefully selected specifically because of its direct connection to the music as well as how it looks visually — black ashes retrieved from a fire made on tour, fragments of materials used in live performances, yellowed paper inherited from dead relatives or discovered at sites used by the band members for varying purposes.

The emotionally driven and deeply personal sounds are reflected in the packaging, which clearly has been crafted by the same hands that made the music. Even in the instances where a more mass-produced printing method has been employed, the humanity of the creators still is clearly evident in the form of the expressive brush stroke, the age of the paper upon which it was laid, or the intimacy of handwriting used to draw out the text. In an age where computers have corroded the spirit of both album sleeves and the music that they encompass, this is a truly vital approach that is clearly more about artistry than marketing.

3. Stephen O'Malley

As a founding member of Sunn O))), Khanate, Burning Witch, and KTL, as well as the defining visual voice of Southern Lord Recordings, O'Malley has been a major driving force in forward-thinking metal-oriented music and visuals. One of the few operatives comfortable straddling the lines of fine art, doom metal, and experimental music of various forms, Stephen uses type as an image to largely define the sleeves for his own bands as well as those for others.

From the caustic appropriation of heavy metal's favored blackletter fonts to the vector-based sculptural abstractions of classic Helvetica, he creates visual worlds in which letters and images are mangled and twisted beyond recognition as are the musical formations they are intended to represent. Not content to make music that is quickly absorbed and quickly forgotten, O'Malley also favors packaging of a complex and elaborate nature, which, like the above-mentioned people, requires more effort to decipher and digest than most of the albums passed off as "heavy" and/or "experimental."

4. Andrew Chalk

One of the more elusive characters in this group, Chalk has made his mark as a solo artist as well as a member of drone-oriented projects such as Mirror, Ora, and as a contributor to David Jackman's Organum. Aside from having made sleeve art for the majority of his albums on other labels, he now has his own Faraway Press imprint for which he also does the most of the visual work.

Like the music he makes, his imagery is often abstract in nature, though not in an evasively vague way but in a clearly focused and deliberate manner. His art and his music seem to be based on the intersection of improvisation/chance and controlled manipulation, though I can only assume that this is the case due to the lack of information available on him. The results of his efforts are something that allows for multiple interpretations by the viewer/listener and provide for an ever-changing interaction with the works over time and subsequent inspection.

By favoring small editions of his releases, Chalk is able to expend extra and individual attention on his album covers, utilizing various processes of printmaking, drawing, and painting, thereby creating editions wherein no two copies of a given release are alike, allowing for an even more intimate connection between artist and audience.

The Secret: Solve Et Coagula (Southern Lord, 9/28/10)

The Secret: "Double Slaughter"

The Secret: "Double Slaughter"

When Goodfellow Records folded this year, Italian grindcore/black-metal quartet The Secret found itself momentarily without a label following a pair of raging, nihilism-fueled full-length albums.  Those releases suggested (if not insisted) that the group had something new to bring to European metal’s increasingly crowded table.

In the wake of the former label’s dissolution (and the band’s countless lineup changes since), The Secret attempts to regain its footing on Solve Et Coagula, its first outing for Southern Lord and an album almost workmanlike in its sound, structure, and unwavering metal attack.

Nothing on Solve Et Coagula even hints at lessening that punch.  There are no stops and no clean guitars, and the only tempo changes move from sludgy, noise-soaked slow grooves (like opener “Cross Builder”) to relentless thrash assaults (like “Death Alive”).

Because of this single-mindedness, standouts like “Pursuit Of Discomfort” are usually followed by more expected, by-the-books numbers such as “Weatherman.”  The album's scant 35 minutes, however, might imply that it wasn't designed as an adventure but rather a challenge, the band almost daring the listener to turn away.

Though The Secret's influences stem from a multitude of bands, the group just as clearly owes a debt to a few specific others, from the Pig Destroyer-esque downbeat grind of “Antitalian” to the time-honored death template laid out by Death on “Bell Of Urgency,” to the vague snare-happy nod to early Mastodon on “Eve Of The Last Day.” But this constant shuffling lets Solve Et Coagula walk the line between a compelling listen and an outright unsettling musical experience: drums a-pounding, bass almost wiped entirely from the mix, guitars firing in unison, and vocals screamed into pure all-in-the-red-all-the-time distortion without pause and without hesitation.

But whatever the mode, the band shows time and again that it knows how to write a great riff, even if not always how best to employ it. By the time the over-the-top circular grind of “1968” yields to a droning guitar beneath Charles Bukowski reading his cataclysmic “Dinosauria, We,” the album has left its finest moments to stand not as a statement but yet another hint at things to come (or, if not a hint, then perhaps a well-sharpened threat). The band may have lost a label and a member or two, but the abrasiveness that defined it from the outset still burns as brightly as ever, lighting the way as The Secret follows itself further into darkness.