oOoOO & Islamiq Grrrls - Faminine Mystique (Nihjgt Feelings, 2018)

After witch house blew up (and after becoming one of the few witch house artists worth listening to) oOoOO promptly took some time away from that crappy and toxic scene - respect points. He reemerges here in a collaborative effort with Islamiq Grrrls, a relative unknown producer/vocalist from LA. On Faminine Mystique they sling tattered witch house garb over the bones of pop tunes, to a really strange effect - some of these songs feature references to Chris Isaak, the Eagles, breakbeat, hip hop...as usual within that Scene, it's hard to tell how much of this is loving homage, irony, or pastiche. But it works pretty well. I'm not sure if each musician wrote their own lyrics but it seems to me that the tracks with Grrrls' vox feature clunkier lyrics which kind of weighs the project down, and they never truly lift off into completely uncharted avant pop territory but it's certainly a departure from "witch house typical" and definitely shows two artists trying to come up with a new kind of musical discourse, even if they aren't inventing a new language. Think Religious Knives with a more hip-hop bent and you're in the ballpark. Interesting.

Comments

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Get Wet with the Animal (Manhand, 2018)

I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.

Nachtmystium/Leviathan - In the Valley of Death, Where Black Metal is King: An Homage to the Roots (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

What the fuck is that title. Okay I get the first part is a Judas Iscariot tribute, but did we really need "an homage to the roots" in there? Hey wouldn't it be funny if these were actually covers of the band The Roots? Anyway. This album was supposed to come out 10 years ago, but it was blocked by the bands' respective labels. Now I guess they've figured out a way, or Blake Judd needs money for drugs so he's figured out a way, to put this out. The Bandcamp version has 8 tracks, 5 from Nachtmystium and 3 from Leviathan, but I've seen a 10-track tracklisting elsewhere. On the version I have, we have Nachtmystium covering Judas Iscariot, Ildjarn (twice), Von and Burzum. Leviathan tackles Ildjarn (twice) and Von once. I seem to be missing Leviathan's Judas Iscariot cover ("Where the Winter Beats Incessant") and one of Nachtmystium's Von covers ("Von"). Weird. Wonder if there were some licensing issues or something. All four Ildjar...

Kamal Keila - Muslims and Christians (Habibi Funk, 2018)

Pretty cool album compiling two long-lost tapes of a long-lost Sudanese musician Kamal Keila and his band. The songs are sung in both English and Arabic and the backing band is lightly jazzy, punchy, RnB...talented for sure. Not the most far-out interesting thing Habibi Funk has ever put out but nice.

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