Skip to main content

Jackie-O Motherfucker - Bloom (Textile, 2018)

Not sure what prompted me to check in on JOMF, I haven't heard anything from them since 2005/06 with Candyland, America Mystica, Flags of the Sacred Harp, etc. They always struck me as kind of an inbetween band. They've got the post-rock Americana thing going on like Spiritualized (but without the great songs), they've got the improv/collective thing going on like No-Neck, Sunburned, Vibracathedral (but not quite as freaked). Fig. 5 was a formative record for me but beyond that they've been in a lot of limbo. Maybe this is a vein they've been mining recently and I missed out but Bloom has some out-and-out Songs. "The Strike" is one of the most invigorating tunes I've heard from them. "The Pipe" is a drone-y intro track (the band rehearsed in an area surrounded by steel pipes hence the reference) but from there things get fairly straightforward. There's only 6 tracks here and the longest is 8:37 so they've definitely reined it in somewhat, it was an intriguing album but I still prefer the freakier stuff.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MKWAJU Ensemble - KI-Motion (We Release Whatever the Fuck We Want, r. 2018)

DOPE re-ish of Midori Takada's 1981 debut album as MKWAJU Ensemble - you may recall last year WRWTFWW released Takada's Through the Looking Glass LP, but this one's even better - a wild mix of Japanese ambient and African rhythms played on marimba, vibraphone, synthesizer and percussion. RIYL Terry Riley or Tubular Bells, or even more new age-y weirdness like Vangelis, but these rhythms are so wild I wouldn't bat a lash at all if you told me the Animal Collective bros stayed up nights listening to these. Check out "Angwora Steps", totally out of pocket. "Hot Air" is a spacious breather, the other tracks pile up the rhythms in slowly-shifting crescendos...crazy stuff.
Post a Comment
Read more

Abstracter - Cinerous Incarnate (I, Voidhanger, 2018)

I was not aware of these guys, who formed in 2010 as a noise duo, and slowly evolved and added more members and turned into a kind of death/blackened doom metal project. They've got ties to other noise acts I don't know (Sutekh Hexen) and other industrial acts I don't know (Only Now). Quite a stew and the band pulls of something that sounds truly different. It's got a tentacle in each of the aforementioned genres but blends them really well. It's quite hard to pin them down in fact. Big, heavy riffs with a production level along the lines of a sludge/black metal record but sharp instrumentation and just a dirty atmosphere...ambient noise passages separate a couple tracks as a nice diversion...very cool
Post a Comment
Read more

Grouper - Grid of Points (Kranky, 2018)

I've never really liked Grouper much, lots of other wogs go ga-ga over anything she puts out but it all leaves me cold. I wrote her off for a while, heard some hype for this new one, and I'm back to writing her off again. It's the same ghostly vocal samples/quasi religious/hymnal vibes..haunting and ethereal and...nothing that gets me all wound up. Pass.
Post a Comment
Read more