Cincinnati Ohio’s Fourth Wife has released an electric high energy mixed genre album on the newly formed Culture Vacuum Recordings, titled “Head Fell Between Two Horses” and for our Decaycast {Track} Reviews section we’re focusing on the second track from the album “Attic”. The track is a high energy, high anxiety explosion of indie rock prowess oscillating between early Radiohead, Drive Like Jehu and Elvis Costello although it doesn’t 100% totally resonate in any of those reference points and carves out it’s own clanky, spastic, and energetic path. The mix is boisterous in a rewarding and almost noise rock way; egging on and amplifying the intensity of the clanging of guitars, synths?, percussion and vocals in a layered and enjoyably chaotic way. Frantic percussion, fuzzed screeching guitars, and layers of shouted vocals provide the backbone of Fourth Wife’s sound, and “Attic” is a great representation of the album overall. Fun and chaotic, and for all of the layers the mix is surprisingly very well executed, tune in and listen today.
Tag: rock
DECAYCAST Announces Preorder For HAURAS 4/9/21 “Chant For A Broken Chalice” OUT 5/7/21
DECAYCAST Announces Preorder For HAURAS 4/9/21 “Chant For A Broken Chalice” OUT 5/7/21
HAURAS has crafted a lush and foreboding sonic landscape with “Chant For A Broken Chalice”, their first release for Oakland based imprint DECAYCAST. On “Chant For A Broken Chalice” intentional and otherworldly sounds envelop into a whirlwind of a slow churning concoction of beauty and anxiety. Dense choral envocations pulse over a sea of strings, keys, percussion and voice. HAURAS crafts tense and delicate music concerned with the rapid decline of empathy as intensified through the violent throes of capitalism. Both meditative and a warning, like a distant pulse of a lighthouse gently peaking over the fog as a distant warning of impending doom and collapse, scary and at this point completely unavoidable, but wow the beauty and elegance of the message is not something to soon be forgotten.
“My work is concerned with the psychology of society at the end of Civilization.” – HAURAS
The first single “Hold My Hand” takes a psychedelic dubbed out industrial approach to transport the mood and psyche of the listener to a blissful yet slightly unnerving underworld. The vocals glide through the mix like a robotic worm infecting an unknown host. Like most of Hauras’s work; “Chant For A Broken Chalice” holds the listener in an hourglass where time is rapidly and chaotically slipping away. Intentional, heartfelt, and intense.
“You’ve heard of the Music of Tomorrow? This is the Music of the Day After
Tomorrow.” – Chris Ryan (Composer, Cerddorion Ensemble,, Tzadik)
“The sonic equivalent of expired film in my Holga.” – Richard Youngs
RIYL: COIL, Psychic TV, The Residents, Snickers
Tracklisting:
1. Somnia
2. On The Morning
3. Rotagivan
4. Hold My Hand
5, Chant For A Broken Chalice
6. Standing At The Entrance
HAURAS has shared bills with:
Sarah Davachi, Laaraji, Father Murphy, Low, Tom Carter, Common Eider King Eider, Mary Lattimore, Tom Weeks, Lee Noble, Louise Bock, Clarice Jensen, Jonas Reinhardt, Carl Hultgren, John King, Lea Bertucci,
Saariselka, Nels Cline, Jessica Moss
ARTIST PHOTO:
More info / questions / press requests: decaycast@gmail.com
http://decaycastoakland.bandcamp.com
DECAYCAST Premieres: Watergate Sandals Releases “Presidential Bootleg” via Under The Counter Tapes. Listen to “Ukranian March” Below!
DECAYCAST Premieres: Watergate Sandals’ Releases “Presidential Bootleg” via Under The Counter Tapes
Here we have a genre we haven’t really covered before on Decaycast and what better way to bridge this gap then with a fantastic new release from underground mainstays Under The Counter Tapes. For their newest release, they present “Presidential Bootleg” from Watergate Sandals. W/S excavate their twanged, fuzzed out, up beat, four to the floor garage rock sound to it’s fullest extend on “Ukrainian March” which you can listen to for the first time below. The track combines thick distorted guitars, driving basses, and cavernous drums accented with vocals oscillating between a fed up, accentuated yell and blown out howls which perfectly complement the sound and vibe of this upbeat, but heavy track, perhaps the standout on the album. Ukrainian March is like an old beat up machine inching down the road toward uncertainty , exhaling billows of smoke behind it’s rusty, decaying exterior, but it keeps going and going and going until the job is done. in a seemingly oversaturated genre, Watergate Sandals offers a unique and refreshing take on garage rock / power pop, not something we have covered much here in the past, although this offering is both uniquely refreshing and captures a sound well those familiar with the genre can appreciate and understand.
“Light” offers a more upbeat, slower and more controlled take on expanded garage rock / blues with more out front vocal harmonies gelling with the guitars and drums perfectly. Light still has a garage rock feel but defiantly oscillates into some straight classic rock territories as well. The cassette ends with “Chilly” the perfect combination of up beat guitars and vocals while acting as a crescendo for the album. This was explained to us more as a compilation, but the flow to beginning to end and consistent recording style lends itself as more of a complete album, energetic and fun listen, also check out the beautiful J card art below. Order this today!
Presidential Bootleg pulls together all 20 of Watergate Sandals’ recorded songs, from the 8 featured on Pick Apart the Jewels and Gems, the 5 featured on their final digital-only EP, 4 newly mastered former demo recordings, and 3 never before heard recordings to form the ultimate document of the Santa Cruz band’s history. Watergate Sandals notably went through a few distinct shifts during their run, starting as a noisy punk blues band, then moving towards more power pop oriented garage rock and then finally landing on psych rock influenced by the Paisley Underground. As such, none of their previous works quite captured a true picture of the band in isolation. Presidential Bootleg is arranged not as a chronological compilation, but its own album released (and not released) in bits and pieces over the years, flashing back and forth between the eras in a way that feels as though it were always meant to be and lending immense range and dynamism to the 70 minute runtime. Shockingly seamless transitions from the destructive force of the newly mastered “Landlord” into the soft, floating “Ways Away” paint a perfect picture of the band’s uncommon deftness and versatility.
Thanks to the efforts of Jesse Nestler (Watergate Sandals bassist) and Kevin Percy Linn (owner of Paisley Shirt Records and genius behind Sad Eyed Beatniks), we’ve been able to put together an incredible package honoring the band in celebration of the 4th anniversary of their previously only physical release, Pick Apart the Jewels and Gems. Featuring a stunning double-sided 7-panel j-card collage including archival photography, old gig flyers, and satirical American and presidential iconography, Presidential Bootleg is not only musically comprehensive, but visually as well.
UTC is absolutely thrilled to bring this incredible band’s catalog to true fruition in the form of Presidential Bootleg.
Presidential Bootleg releases April 26 digitally and on limited edition cassette bundle. Bundles are limited to 50 worldwide and include a chrome cassette tape with a double-sided 7-panel j-card, and 3 release specific collector’s pins. A portion of sales through UTC will go to Planned Parenthood.
DECAYCAST Premieres: Peaer ” left/felt pt. 2″ (Citrus City, 2019)
Taking a stroll outside of our normal “experimental” zone a bit to share a premiere from Citrus City Records artist Peaer ahead of a reissue due for release March 18th of this year. Citrus City hosts a diverse myraid of artists and has been popping up in all corners of the internet for some time, and taking a look at their eclectig bandcamp page linked below offers a diverse sonic array. Here we have Peaer’s track “left/felt pt 2.” , which opens with a slow twanged guitar pluck with a minimalist beat and softly spoken words, however things don’t remain the same for too long as things begin to open up and expand and voice articulates fuller and louder presentations each phrase. The track slowly and steadily becomes a much heavier, fuller, yet dissonant form of itself blending thick drums, as the break drops we’re thrusted into a full on post rock composition, strummed waves of chord distortions, decaying riffs and arching waves of tone poem high register guitar work, dynamic and interesting throughout. Take a listen below and preorder the cassette today!
Peaer states, “‘the eyes sink into the skull’ was a phrase I lifted from a random webpage when I was reading about the stages of decomposition of a human body. The image conjured, although gruesome, captured the introspective nature of the album. This version has been slightly remixed and completely remastered by our beloved Jeremy Kinney. “the hands and feet turn blue” is another line from that same writing found here. This recording includes a re-recorded version of the song “left/felt” that includes a brand new portion of music, one that was written virtually one year after the original song was written and recorded. Released for the first time here. Also on the collection are two live tracks, from our first official tour as a band in 2016. The two remixes are included as well, a remix of the song “mouther” made by our friend Andrew Schuyler (aka morningstar), and a remix of the song “the dark spot” made by good friend Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie, both originally made in 2015 and have been patiently awaiting release. Finally on the new recordings are two previously unreleased demos that I have made since. Those two songs “happy birthday to me” and “the entire day feels like morning” were recorded on Ableton before being fed into a handheld tape recorder to characterize and color the recording.
Peaer reissues their debut album, the eyes sink into the skull, now remastered & reissued on tape for the first time alongside special remix & live sessions album, the hands and feet turn blue, via Virginia/Brooklyn based label Citrus City Records. Available digitally and physically March 18, 2019.
DEAYCAST Reviews : MONOCHROMACY “Living Posture” CD (Stay Strange SD. 2018)
DEAYCAST Reviews : MONOCHROMACY “Living Posture” CD (Stay Strange SD. 2018)
Stay Strange SD Collective artist Esteban Issac Flores brings eight heavy, dissonant and atmospheric guitar based worlds oscillating between drone , noise, metal and industrial under tbe MONOCHROMACY moniker . Flores elegantly creates haunting and dissonant cinematic spaces for a wall of destructed waves of swelling chaos, choked screams decay into walls of thick oppressive fog of tone, climax and eventually swell back down into dreary, pulsating tones. Sine waves shifting into the horizon encapsulate a distant haze of confusion and dread.
On “Living Posture” , Flores creates a deep and complex tension between the various sonic elements, which really doesn’t ever falter throughout the eight tracks of dreary doom. Some of these atmospheres could call back to Times Of Grace era Neurosis (my favorite period of one of my favorite bands ) , SUNN O)))) , Earth etc but that would be sort of a lazy comparison as Flores has clearly refined his sound to something not heard before in the tropes of heavy music.
Monochromacy leaves the “tough guy” bullshit of extreme music far away in the trash for a delicate and intelligent experimental offering. Flores has clearly honed a unique philosophy and approach to present the listener with a tense, yet refreshingly present decaying burning structure of mammoth and intimidating take on noise-influenced, drone-metal. The plethora of unique territories covered on this record while maintaining an overall dark and dreary cinematic vibe is rather impressive to say the least.We are never left without a tight sonic line pulled taught across our reality/neck wth ever shifting tone, pulse and intention. what is going on? Where did he leave us atop this fog ridden, dank mountain of dissonance and confusion? What is GOING ON! Wow and just like that it’s over, what a listen.Absolutely essential ride for all fans of the heavier side of noisy guitar works and heavier dissonant, cinematic music in general.
DECAYCAST MIXES : Farm To Tape : Episode 5
DECAYCAST MIXES : Farm To Tape : Episode 5
Next mix from the Farm To Tape series combining experimental, jazz, metal, noise, avant garde, neo-soul, hip hop and other interpretations of experimental sonic musings.
1. John Coltrane – Untitled Original 11383
2. Wizard Apprentice – I Am Invisible
3. The Fathers – B1 (Sound Advice)
4. Willie Dunn – Son of the Sun
5. Jess Sa Bi & Peter One – Apartheid
6. Sinkane – U’Huh
7. Maya Songbird – Merry Me
8. Signor Benedick the Moor – Belladonna
9. Spellling – Place Without a Form
10. Gnawed – In Ill Wake
11. Developer – Live @ Smiles for Miles in Dayton, OH 7/25/13
12. Beauty School – A1 (Crust Immersed)
13. Okkyung Lee – Hollow Water
14. Ilsa – Nasty, Brutish
15. Thou – The Changeling Prince
16. Drakkar – Crazy Loving You
17. Gita Pon Yeik – Ah Chit Yae
18. Zoe Keating – Hello Night
mixed by: Diego Aguilar-Canabal
DECAYCAST Reviews: THE FATHERS “Sound Advice” Cassette / Digital (T/ECA, 2018)
DECAYCAST Reviews: THE FATHERS “Sound Advice” Cassette / Digital (T/ECA, 2018)
The Fathers is Nathan Bowers of Tusco Embassy, Coagulator, Sun Poisoning, Sexorcyst and many many others, and Derek Gedalecia of Headboggle / Hillbogglle, Headlights et al taking a fresh and free sonic approach to avant gardism through minimal, stringed psychedelia. On “Sound Advice”, Bowers and Gedalecia seamlessly concoct a sonic stew of a tonal stringed rhythms through oceans of various tunings and strategies. Synthesizers, tapes, and guitars bend, flex, bow, and squeal through a distorted and plucked array of sonic excitement. Big chords, dizzying chords , buzzing chords are accented by splattering drum machines, long synthesized echoes, minimalist plucks, scrapes, taps, pings, rings, and reverberations melt into distant walls of unknown feedback. Eerily scraped axes, densely weighted keys, arpeggio stringed madness is the twisted spine of these dense arrangements.
The Fathers cover a wide range of sonic territory on “Sound Advice” effortlessly oscillating between musique concrete, new music, avant grade classical and even some straight up noise to boot. The Fathers don’t stay in one place for very long, but long enough to give these pieces life beyond just improvisational experimentations, these are complex, complete sonic works into themselves, but they also tell a longer, deeper story to the listener who is willing to make the connections or break the connection. The A side offers one long twenty minute track which begins with subtle synth blips, churning and chirping morse code to a dead radio who’s operator has long abandoned ship, backed by low and slow droning pulses, fluttering distant ringing warning bells of a barge slowly approaching the shore. The A side builds on ominous waves of tension, sounds elasticizing into each other in a sort of Rude Goldberg style of call and response, but it never sounds contrived or “jammy” all of the sonic events seem intentional and as if they have a place in the overall crescendo and decrescendo of a complex and damp mix. The sound never drops off, it only drops into the smallest part of the listeners ear to create a micro symphony of contorting notes and densely weighted rhythms. The blending of the guitars, synthesizers, tapes and other instrumentation gel into a warm, atonal stew of deep, soupy events. Texture and thickness of sounds expand and contract as the push and pull stylings of The Fathers operates like an elastic band of tension, composition, and duality, springing into a new space to once again fold back on itself. The Fathers create new guitar music quite unlike anything else, this tape is a must and it’s exciting to see the possible return of T/ECA, who offer some of the most unique and honest hand silk screened layouts to date, a must own. Grip it now.
DECAYCAST Reviews: ZSA ZSA GABOR “Left Skull Bank” Cassette (Stay Strange, 2017)
DECAYCAST Reviews: ZSA ZSA GABOR “Left Skull Bank” Cassette (Stay Strange, 2017)
“ZSA ZSA GABOR is dead” but the sounds, voice, and pulses in a ritual are anything and everything but that. ZSA ZSA GABOR is one of the artists and founders of the Stay Strange SD Crew who boast a new label imprint, show collective and all creative force led by San Diego stalwart Sam Lopez aided in sound and words from Ariel Irbe, Esteban Flores and Micheal Zimmerman, allwith their own projects to boot under the collective umbrella. Irbe performs and records under the S O L V moniker, while Flores work as Monochromacy represents powerful, thick, radicalized guitar forward drone/noise works.
“Left Skull Bank I” opens up the cassette after a brief intro with a dark, smudged, thick drone which slowly encapsulates the listener and then drops them in a voice cell of terror, confusion, disorientation, The time to talk isn’t now or maybe again for an hour or even a year. Seal your lips shut for it’s time for the hymn of ZSA ZSA GABOR. This release is relentlessly and refreshingly diverse in its sonic character and nuance of sound and style; oscillation between spoken texts , drone, ambient, field recordings, distant screams that ring like a hammer smashing an ancient bell, and string based swells ZZG has something for everyone , but at the sane time NOTHING FOR YOU. They owe you nothing and owe everything to the void. Full tilt sonic mayhem engulfs your last thought and hope as your skull is cast aside like an extra, misshaped, unneeded brick into the ever-growing pile of death.
“Left Skull Bank 2” picks up close to where part 1 left off, with a thick, buzzing, shaking vibrato of stringed chaos while a monotone, anxious, realistic voice reads and breathes upon every swelling stringed drone of death, and after a “brief demonic interlude” the listener is cast once again into the chaotic experiments of death with Part three, twisting and tangling the false hope that we once had with harsh stabs, angry, dissonant, atonal swells through a purgatory nobody wants to even pass by for a minute. This cassette runs the full scope of experimental sounds but in a a unique and refreshing way, no rehashing, no redux, this is simply top notch experimental music, get about it, be about it. .ZSA ZSA GABOR is a thick, swollen, controlled anger, which is more or less the sound of a decaying future; you’re dead long after you found out when you’re going to die, and if you’re worthy this might make an appearance at the funeral to help shovel your lifeless corpse to rest eternally and be consumed by the wormed earth. Follow ZSA ZSA GABOR HERE and HERE.
DECAYCAST Reviews: MOIRA SCAR “Wound World Part 1” (Near Dark, 2018)
Bay Area queer deathrock stalworts MOIRA SCAR are back with their new full length on CD/CS/ and digital via Oakland’s NEAR DARK imprint, which is run by dark gothic outfit, OTZI whose newest offerings, “Ghosts” was covered HERE a few weeks ago. Moira Scar currently is in trio form with their latest offering with Roxy Monoxide: guitar, sax, vocals, LuLu Gamma Ray: synthesizers, vocals, and Aimee S: drums. Moira Scar’s newest full length, “Wound World Part 1” boasts seven snappy, punchy, femme forward dark punk/death rock cuts, intentionally building upon their unique, sought after, indimable sound of their previously released full lengths, “Psychoid” and “Scarred For Life”. With an augmented lineup, and a slightly darker and more rock forward sound, “Wound World Part 1” might be the most intentionally straight forward, intense and focused sound the outfit has concocted yet, and the recording production suits the sound perfectly. Thick pummeling percussion, wailing, screaching vocals, fuzzed-out chugging, angular guitar riffs and the staple walls of reverb’d saxophone.
“Snap Back” might be the most traditionally “Moira Scar” sounding cut on here blending heavy bass riffs, walls of sax with driving punk inspired hard hitting drumming and the signature layered vocal efx stylings which could take the sonic shape of anything from low distorted growls to high pitched shrieks of intense washes, utilized to great success on the track “Chrysalis Skull” The operatic style walls of vocals blend perfectly over the frantic, manic heavy drumming and thick slabs of guitar and bass work. Slower, more post rock inspired track “Zeta Rainbow” offers chugging, blown up guitar riffs with dragging slagged out bass lines with more traditional breakdowns where the guitar and dual vocal processions shine brightest.
Moira Scar’s sound is thick, violent, present, and demanding of the space it requires and deserves. Death rock, like any “sub-genre” can be formulaic, boring, and predictable, but “Wound World Part 1” is the complete opposite; fierce, unique, cathartic, and nasty!. In a time where we need it most, Moira Scar once again, and perhaps with more force than ever proves they are here to stay with some of the most forward thinking and necessary sonic offerings within the contemporary rock scope. This record rallies against the dying, boring, overdone and under thought droves of CIS white-male “dominated”capitalistic rock scenes, by raising the bar and flushing the boring and inspired rock trends down into the sewer where they have belonged this entire time, and serve as an assault on the normative, re-hashed, uninspired music that often fills the airwaves. Moira Scar is a weapon against a violent, patriarchal system of despair, confusion, and entanglement and “Wound World Part 1” is the next logical step in the bands seemingly endless progression of reinvention. One of the most important contemporary dark rock acts going, period. This record is not to be overlooked.
DECAYCAST Reviews: STRAIGHT CRIMES “Jams, With Microphone, 2017” (Fine Concepts, 2017)
DECAYCAST Reviews: STRAIGHT CRIMES “Jams, With Microphone, 2017” (Fine Concepts, 2017)
“Jams, With Microphone, 2017” is the newest sonic offering from bay area punks Straight Crimes. This cassette is toted under the “punk” category on band camp and other agents of the internet however stretches pretty far past that on this album delving between slow, heavy sludgy cuts where could easily faintly resemble an early Big Black or Butthole Surfers, which thick fuzzed out guitars, monotone style yelped vocals, heavy drum machined percussion, and thick, dense, cavernous spaces of spearing electronics. The duo doesn’t stick to a particular style on this release bur one of their own, which is refreshing to the ear and psyche. While it does have many “punk” qualities to it, composition wise, things really get stretched and scratched to the max, such as on the ten minute anthem, “Is This Hell Or Is This Dumb” the vocals and meat and potatoes of the track don’t make an appearance for nearly six minutes as the listener is left in a murky, dark, disorientation of jabbed and beaten guitars, harsh alienating feedback, high tension style sound the alarm ringing and buzzing as the listener marches towards a future of confusion and uncertainty. 
As the song pulses on the listener is even LESS SURE of themselves than they were in the beginning and we all must hope to answer the question by the end of the bass swells that check the situation in the innards and slowly build to a crescendo of chaos. “Jams With Microphone, 2017” is absolutely as much of a heavy abstract, even “noise” record than it is a “punk” record as can be much more easily stated for previous S C releases, though the heavy, pummeling track “In a Free Pile” is perhaps the album’s most accessible and straight forward song, while still boasting thick percussion, a tonal heavy dirge out guitar, sludgy bass lines and walls of noise which add sharpness to the overall throbbing beat, perhaps the strongest cut on the album. Tracks such as “The World Does Not Care About My Art Like Every DAY” show a more abstract and experimental side to the act, with this nearly eleven-minute feedback and vocal based offering, which peaks and swells through various sonic landscapes with the continuity of well executed guitar feedback leading the listener through this dark, murky, sweaty tunnel out to the dejected other side. This is a really refreshing release overall, and look forward to hearing more of this band, and everything else via their imprint, FINE CONCEPTS, longtime Oakland stalwarts.
D E C A Y C A S T Magazine 