Chen Santa Maria on 333 Recordings/Zum Records

Zum records sent this single over from Chen Santa Maria and the 333 Recordings label, who I haven't heard from since the Girl Talk single that came out years and years ago it seems they're back with this co release with Zum and their signature hole punched edition system.

Chen Santa Maria are working with sounds that must take ages to construct. It's layers of distorted sounds you can't place, that dreamy, haunting, full of delay, masterpieces...the fact that the equipment used to craft these two was stolen is a damn shame, but I'm sure that kind of thing for Chen isn't so much a setback as it is an opportunity for future happy accidents to create something even more ear bending than these two tracks. But I'm partial to complex instrumental music of all kinds, from the Don Cab to the John Fahey's, there's no obvious message to get in the way, no vocals to distract you from just listening...and maybe that's what makes it so easy to fail when attempting this, you're pretty exposed, twisting knobs, so it better be good. Let alone in an already crowded genre with classically trained composers getting in on the act. That being said these two sides are both great.

"Jefferson Chopper", on the A-Side does invoke the obvious helicopter blade imagery with a harsh intermittent stutter that gives way to another primal electronic sound underneath; the sine wave hum of a cable, they even slow it down to it's most elemental...AC, the wave bounces down the cable and then back to the source. They will these kind of sounds out of nothing, and it's something that is instantly recognizable as inhuman. I appreciate that they celebrate the source. They are sounds that could only be made out of a mess of patch cables, at the end of a chain...you're not sure what that knob is even doing anymore, it can't be repeated in the lab, try to just capture it with a microphone, which is only going to really capture part of it anyway. It's definitely challenging and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The B-Side, "Great Society" takes that utopian mindset in instrumentation and builds up the delayed loops and quiet rumblings into one great climax, that's always ultimately how it's going to end after all. You can take the view that you should live in the present or give in to the idea it's all going to fail eventually, society, the sun, the universe. Chen Santa Maria is choosing the latter. It's also the sounds of inevitable progress, harsh, repetitive machinery, clanking away at something. Getting ever louder, taking over everything, drowning out the other sounds. The machine gun distorted guitar riffs layered and off set, become almost a didgeridoo; low, warbling, primal. It's almost as if they're working that last smash of the climax backwards from the beginning, some kind of reverse big bang theory. It was there all along, waiting to reveal itself. Even when the climax is over, there's a few machines sticking it out, mindlessly repeating their tasks.

I'm writing some kind of trashy sci-fi short story when I hear them, but really.... they manage to do a lot with the limited amount of time here and without falling into what you would imagine is the usual sound for sound's sake. There is plenty of thought behind this and it's easily as interesting anything Black Dice has done recently...a great sample of things to come given the room to really stretch out live or full length.

CHEN SANTA MARIA
Jefferson Chopper/Great Society 7"
zum030/333-007
numbered green 1 through 49
numbered orange 50 through 109

The duo of George Chen and Steven Santa Maria document another phase in their half-decade collaboration of improvised sonic experiments. This co-release with 333 (7" single series that has worked with Deerhoof, Girltalk, Crack: We Are Rock) captures the band playing with rhythmic elements recorded with Brian Tester (Bulbs, Triangle) in pastoral Berkeley, CA. The pedals and effects used for this recording were stolen shortly afterward so this is the last of this type of sound, not by choice but necessity. Having toured Europe and UK in Spring 2010 (opening for Mount Eerie, High Places, Talk Normal, and Weasel Walter), CSM continues its California campaign. Numbered edition of 250.

Get it from Zum Records.

Silentist on Zum Records

I got this in a little while back for review from Zum records, home of the Zs / Child Abuse split which is part of their ongoing split single series.

Silentist is Mark Burden, formerly from Glass Candy, on drums and piano with August Alston on vocals who gives the tracks a decidedly dark, metal feel. The youtube videos of Silentist live have them playing in the dark lit by a strobe light, so the whole package is treading in some pretty dark waters.

Side A 'The Tunnel' starts out with a crash of cymbals and a low bass piano riff, a very metal sounding repeated drum roll cycles over and over. August is screaming about living in a tunnel, something he's pretty angry about, but this isn't a castrate character... some helpless trapped victim, this is more of a warning for anyone going in to the tunnel. He can't help it, he'll have to probably kill you. You've been warned.

Even more unapologetic, 'Supernatural Barriers' is 30 seconds of August in a traditional metal near growl with ever changing time stuttered thrash metal drum patterns. August seems to be matching the pitch and tone of the rhythms, unintelligibly yelling about pain, syringes, and no justice, thanks to the lyric insert. It's a calculated burst of chaos that is irreverent in length...you have no breathing room or pause to examine what's happening, they led you in the cave and just smashed you over the head. What did I tell you?

I think the thing here that just brings everything into a new area of metal/noise is Mark's piano. It's minimal, almost based on gesture over sound. A loop of tones one hand at a time can reach. A single key becomes hypnotic. I sense an almost epic quality to this direction... like The Mars Volta, that kind of energy, drawing on semi-classical influences to maybe elevate this out of the sea of anyone-can-make-noise.

The B-Side Paralytic is a little slower tempo piece that I have to say is my favorite of the three. Here they sound a little electronic, metallic guitar effects, and Augusts' vocals here being completely delayed and layered...almost quiet, a little in the background even. The piano takes over after this refrain and when August comes back in again it even gets melodic for a moment, before launches into some impressive yelling. The build up here is intense, the repeating piano scale is layered with guitar or bowed strings of some kind. Call me crazy, but this really shouldn't fade out...where did that standard start anyway, these guys feel too deliberate, too calculating to be fading out like a pop song.
Again I love the inherent...I don't know how to put it...cultured sound of the classical piano versus the rest of this unsettling world.

Overall it's a pretty diverse offering, they want you to know right away you'll never know what direction they'll be taking.

On their blog, you can hear a couple of EP's and a full length on a flash player.

Get the vinyl single directly from the Zum Online store.

All of Silentists other releases are on their own celestial gang label.

Silentist - The Tunnel 7"
3 songs
A
"The Tunnel"
"Supernatural Barriers"
B
"Paralytic"

We have been fans of Silentist since hearing the first EP, Nightingales. We also put out the solo piano music of Mark Evan Burden, but Silentist is a different natured project, although it prominently features the piano. Alaska native Burden released another CD EP, "Chariot Swing", under entirely his own design with the death metal-meets-new music sound that is built around howling vocals, complex drumming, piano and bass. By the time of House On the Hill, August Alston (Lords of Light, Pig Heart Transplant, Walls) joined on vocals and lyrics and added an exponential level of brooding creepiness and intensity. The latest album and first vinyl release, the self-titled Silentist LP, coalesces these elements and made a few top ten lists of 2008.

Ed Rodriguez (Deerhoof, Flying Luttenbachers) calls it "Nancarrow or Reich with blast beats." The Tunnel EP comes from the same recording sessions as this album and is the first Silentist release that is not on Burden's Celestial Gang imprint.
Zum025 pressing of 500.

wavves - to the dregs -Post Present Medium

PPM24

a. To the Dregs
b. To the Dregs (version2)

'To the Dregs' is classic Wavves, if there is one track to play for someone who's never heard wavves it would be this track or 'So Bored' or 'Beach Demon'. I don't think To the Dregs is on the self titled release ... the one with the wheelbarrow handplant on it. I don't know if that's the same one on Fat Possum? Mine is on woodsist...I'm pretty sure. It's getting confusing. I have to say that sleeve pic pretty much won me over. It epitomizes my small town...we had those influences on MTV, 120 minutes, but we were in the middle of no where and they would get slightly changed somehow...like that game telephone. I imagine this kid kind of thinks skating is about doing handplants on everything....the way you see one skate magazine and try to emulate that in a weird, no blacktop anywhere kind of way. It's the closest thing you get to the elusive cool.
I'm shocked I figured out how to ollie one day. Or someone must have showed me...but I think I spent days and days in the street just 'practicing', hearing about someone in the next town over maybe was sponsored...so you never know. Get a piece of plywood and some bricks we'll build a ramp.
What does this have to do with wavves? It think it's the perfect soundtrack, and I don't know if it's weird I relate to this being a good ten years older than Nathan, I mean I don't know where that graphic came from on weed demon...but that is classic Thrasher magazine...Is that even still around? Or is it just he's way ahead of his time. I mean I hear a lot about what a stoner he is and he wrote these songs high playing nintendo....whatever. It's the soundtrack for this summer...I don't know why it bothers me....oh termbo.
I'm still listening to this album and every other mp3 I can find...so I know I'm going to get this...somehow.

This is supposed to come out on Post Present Medium, but I don't think it even hit the site yet, but then it's already sold out from Zum distro? I found this at Insound also...but can't think of what else to add in that order, and I've kind of sworn off doing that...after doing my taxes and adding up the record receipts I'm ashamed.
Hopefully it's still hitting PPM, and I can snag one.

Zs / Child Abuse 7" on Zum records

Zum records, who put out that great Abe Vigoda / Mikaela's Fiend split single are back with another volume of a split single series (?) it seems like they have been putting out there recently.

Zum calls Child Abuse and Zs Brutalists...I can't think of a better categorization.

Child Abuse offers two pummellings 'Hat' and 'Beard and Conversations', they seem to be the more structured sounding of the two sides so I probably ended up on this side more... but I'm using that term, 'structured' very lightly. Out of the murk I could hear a definite synth sound involved, a really messed up ring toned synth, which I approve of highly... or maybe now that I'm hearing it again...that's a heavily effected guitar. Drums come in the double bass variety or insane fast foot. A discernible groove makes it's way out from the chaos... you can imagine that live this is a sweaty challenging mess, but maybe they are just admitting they can have a handle on it before they let it go or it slips away again.
There's a bassline that could almost be a sax sound, a low bass electronic sound which has that wavering vibrato feel... the whole thing starts to grind to a halt, and I mean grind.... but picks up again for a big stuttered stop.
Vocals are really death metal style growls and distortion. Like old alternative tentacles stuff.... or cannibal corpse.
But it's not over....'Conversations' is about banging on a synth just out of sync to the bass cymbal fast off beat and high hat...and then it's over...not even 8 measures.

On to Zs.....this track, 'In My Dream I Shot A Monk' is that balance between strict on the beat verse sounds and then chaos. There's choruses of voices yelling... I can't imagine how it's composed, what sessions in the practice space leads to this or what kind of people can revisit this night after night in rehearsal or let alone live. It's that Captain Beefheart, or Zappa on speed sound that's punishing for the performers....some would argue the listeners as well, but all I can think of is the preparation and time that went into what sounds to me like complete disorder. The vocals at one point follow a tom beat for a while and then it doubles back to everyone's free form jazz/sound noise. I swear there is real sax in here...or horn of some kind with a nice stereo mix going on, the drums panning back and forth. I think content-wise it's a dream about shooting a monk in the backseat of a car on the pacific coast highway. In the end the monk looked just like him, rolling up his sleeves and continuing down the highway. So he shot himself? Kind of.

I'm a little surprised to see that the Zs tracks were recorded in '03 and the Child Abuse ones just last year. These tracks completely make sense together and don't show any kind of age, just a log time for like minds to be split together on this single.

This is a great gateway 7" into these insane no-noise worlds of Zs and Child Abuse.
This is something you probably will have to listen to alone then make up your mind to catch them live ...as that's all I could think of is 'Who's making this noise?'

Zum records says:
Another in our split 7" series (most recent being the Abe Vigoda / Mikaela's Fiend 7") pairs New York prog brutalists Zs and Child Abuse. Child Abuse features Oran Canfield (Dig That Body Up...It's Alive, Optimists International, Murder Murder) and Luke Calzonetti (Meths, ABK, and Sheath). After a series of drums and keyboard recordings - including the "Blessed From the Bowels" track on Zum Audio Vol 3 - they added bassist Tim Dahl and released a full-length on Love Pump Records. This latest single includes a version of a Dolphy tune "Hat and Beard" along with the synth squak of "Conversations". Zs have enchanted and confounded many since their 2000 conception in Manhattan. Output by the band has found homes on labels such as Troubleman Unlimited, Planaria, Gilgongo, and 31G. "In My Dream I Shot A Monk" harkens to the vintage sextet formation that dovetails nicely with their current output, an aggro vocal workout of epic man-angst. Zum022 is in a black vinyl pressing of 500. Cover artwork from John Dwyer (Thee OhSees).