Revolt of the Apes

BAND OF THE WEEK: UMBERTO

What we can recommend wholly is that you listen to the excellent creepshow of an album that is “Prophecy of the Black Widow” by UMBERTO.

Harder to recommend is the set and setting appropriate for the unveiling of this “Prophecy.”

The opening minutes of opening track “The Temple Room” prepare – or warn – the listener for the fact that this is a dark ride, in case you missed the album title, the wonderful, evocative color-separation errors of the giallo-referencing album cover, or the the titles of the numbers that follow once you leave the temple (“Widow of the Web,” “Black Candles,” “Night Stalking”).

And then something strange happens – although one has to imagine that with Umberto, there is nearly always something strange happening. Your dark journey feels suddenly not so threatening at all. Rather, it feels right, comfortable, not familiar, perhaps, but somehow welcoming. Huge ropes of synths are connected by bass and beats certain to make firm and permanent connections in your mind. “Hey, this ain’t so scary,” you say wordlessly, to no one, to everyone. “Hell … I could probably even dance to this!” Your declaration leads to a 3:00 a.m. display of the tics of thrusts that you call “dancing,” which others would call troubling, possibly involuntary body movements that make Saint Vitus look like Jackie Wilson.

The prophecy unfolds. The embrace of “The Black Widow” is complete, welcoming the vision of another unsuspecting victim.

Listen: Your mileage may vary, your set and setting as well. But here in “Revolt of the Apes” headquarters of Richmond, Virginia, I picked this album up at a great record store on a Friday night, moments after having a chance encounter with perhaps my favorite living musician from another planet, only minutes before a midnight snowfall was soundtracked by the live attack of possibly the heaviest band on this planet, and coinciding with the 11th anniversary of the day I made a vow to my beautiful bride that I promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, both in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others*. “The Prophecy of the Black Widow” has been the moonlight soundtrack for the two nights that followed, perfect accompaniment for constructing your own infinity machine.

As the final track says: “Everything Is Going to Be Okay.”

Indeed.

Download “Temple Room” by Umberto, from the album “Prophecy of the Black Widow”

* except, of course, Joan Jett (Ms. Jett’s love currently unrequited).

P.S. – If you are in the Richmond, VA, area, or happen to be rolling fast down I-95 (supersonic, overdrive) this coming Thursday evening, please come out to see this show featuring Gull. You will not regret it, or your money back. Tell your friends.

“The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.”
– Umberto Eco, “The Name of the Rose”

BAND OF THE WEEK: VERMA

“Salted Earth” – the free, downloadable cosmic-rock meteorite hurled into the atmosphere by Chicago’s VERMA – doesn’t take long before announcing its interstellar tendencies.

By the time Verma are two minutes and twenty seconds into second song “White Heat” (not to put too fine a point on it), they’ve delivered on the heart-stopping promise and third-eye cleansing properties of their sound: dramatic, expansive and always resolved to join the quest to explore the sonically freaky-deaky.

Verma come to our attention when checking out the line-up for Chicago Psych Fest 2, coming up later this month (in Chicago, conveniently enough). It looks intense. It sounds intense. It’s probably gonna be intense! I would try to make it if I were you.

Download “White Heat” by Verma.

Visit Verma’s Bandcamp page to download more from Verma.

MIDDAY VEIL

“Through the Veil of Sleek Emotion, the Mists of Dark Cannot Be Felt”

It seems appropriate – if not downright perfect – to have the good fortune to learn more about Midday Veil on 01-01-11, the first day of the year, and the first post of the second year of “Revolt of the Apes.”

It seems to be what “Crushing” Carl Jung described as an “acausal connecting principle,” or a “meaningful coincidence” or if you prefer, “acausal parallelism.”

Simply put – and despite our hesitancy to concretely detail any sort of “best albums of 2010” list – there was no more striking, affecting, defining, epiphanic and just plain awesome listening experience of the past year than that psychically provided and engineered by Midday Veil’s most recent album, “Eyes All Around.” Some equals? Perhaps. But none more so.

“Eyes All Around” is an album of perfect balance – a meditation on life and death, light and dark, ambient, near-subliminal blankets of sound and loud, jaw-clenching power. It is an album in the truest sense: oversized, vividly illustrated and providing an anthology of distinct, yet distinctly intertwined, songs, sounds and emotions.

It is one of those albums that will leave not the listener’s turntable, iPod, CD player, brain, mind, soul and psyche for some time to come.

It is one of those albums that delivers a clean delineation between the life you led before your heard it, and the life you will lead afterward.

I’m not sure I’m being clearly understood. I’m trying to say I really, really love “Eyes All Around.” It sound great on headphones; it sounds great traveling through the air at high volume.

And while “Eyes All Around” offers much promise for the future work of Midday Veil, just as exciting is the act of moving backwards through the band’s preceding releases (“Remember Child/Matlalcueitl”? Holy smokes …), and understanding that “Eyes All Around” is no fluke. Rather, it’s only the current culmination of sound and expression from a truly evolving band.

I could not be happier to present to you, gentle reader, this interview with Emily Pothast (guitar and vocals) on art, music, Portable Shrines and double rainbows all the way across the sky. Too much. I don’t know what it means. Oh my god – it’s so intense. Oh. Oh. Oh my god. Enjoy!

Portable Shrines, Escalator Fest, sleeping bags in museums for 12-hour drone sessions … what the hell is going on in the Pacific Northwest?

Ha! I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been paying more attention since I’ve been in a band, but it certainly does seem like Seattle is getting more fun lately.

As a multimedia artist, I’m drawn to performances, collaborations, and events that place music in the context of art as a multifaceted, immersive experience. Shortly after David and I began playing shows together as Midday Veil, we met Aubrey and Darlene, who played in a band called Backward Masks and were starting this thing called the Portable Shrines Collective. The idea behind Portable Shrines was that there was a lot of underground psychedelic and experimental music going on, but most of it was happening in small, isolated scenes. Aubrey and Darlene were interested in putting on events that would get local and touring bands to come together and interact with each other more. Anyway, we realized that we had a lot of goals and ideas in common and we decided to join forces.

There are lots of exciting things coming up on the Portable Shrines front. For one, we’re going to be putting out a Shrines-curated double LP compilation early next year on our label Translinguistic Other, which features eighteen bands who have played on Portable Shrines shows. Plus Aubrey has started organizing a bi-weekly DJ night that brings together guests from the local scene to spin records for each other. And of course we’re going to try to make Escalator happen again next year…we’ll keep you posted!

Another catalyst for interesting goings-on is the Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University, which recently hired a couple of new curators with a great vision for the place as a sort of multimedia art hub. Last fall one of the curators came to me with the idea of David and I doing an artist sleepover. We’re both really into the all-night performances that Terry Riley used to give in the late ‘60s, so we wanted to try our own take on that idea. That’s how “A Double Rainbow in Curved Air” was conceived.

One other place that bears mentioning is this little gallery/vintage clothing shop called Cairo, which books shows and events and also has a silkscreen studio where I’m about to start teaching workshops. I love that it’s such a multi-purpose space … it’s a place where people can shop, hang out, play music, and make stuff.

But yeah, there’s lots of fun stuff going on. One thing I like about Seattle is there’s so much music … just when you think you’ve heard it all, you discover some awesome shit creeping under your radar. You should come check it out!

How does your visual art influence the music of Midday Veil, if at all? Do you find yourself exploring similar themes in both your music and art?

Well, I started out as a visual artist. I moved to Seattle from Texas in 2003 to go to grad school for art at the University of Washington. Everything I did in art school had to do with religion in some way. Like, one thing I did for my MFA thesis project was cross out a Bible with a black felt marker, line by line, so that the only content remaining was the violence.

Shortly after I graduated from the UW a bunch of crazy stuff happened (my mom and dad were killed in a car accident, among other things) and for awhile I was just barely holding it together. In 2007, I met David, and pretty soon we started making music together. It really helped to bring me back from the abyss.

It wasn’t until I started playing music that I was really able to make art again, and when I got back into it, it wasn’t the same kind of art I was making before. Everything I’ve done has always been guided by a fascination with religion and spirituality, but I think the art that I made before my “crisis” period was mostly about trying to understand things I couldn’t really identify with. Now I feel like I’m much more of an active embodiment of these interests, in that I see my creative practice as a spiritual practice. Anyway, around that time I started blogging as well, keeping track of the things that interest me and trying to communicate why. Everything began to influence everything else and continues to do so.

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Listen: I love year-end “Top 10/Best Of” music lists as much as anyone, not least because counting to ten represents the extent of my math ability. At their best, these lists serve to elucidate, shining light on artists and work that might otherwise go under appreciated or worse, unheard. A list can put a year of listening in perspective and and help stoke your sonic fires for the years to come, and this year, there are plenty of great lists waiting for you to devour.

But when it comes to the apes that revolt … I plead no contest. I’m tempted to let my pompous nature take over and say something about how further attempting to compartmentalize the subjective and sacred nature of of sonic rituals in to ill-fitting categories of “best of,” “top 10” and “the year” only serves to fuel … something I don’t want to fuel. I’m tempted, but I will resist.

The fact is that putting together a “Top 10/Best Of” list feels like toil to me, and as our friend “Ticklish” Terrance McKenna said so memorably, “man was not put on this earth to toil in the mud.”

Rather, let’s indulge our love of the written word and take a quick look at ten books that made 2010  memorable. You may say it’s a cop-out, but I’m not the only one. In no particular order, for no particular reason, please take a moment to consider interacting further with 10 of the best books the Apes read in 2010.

“Electric Eden:Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music” by Rob Young

Perhaps the greatest book ever written about time travel that is not really a book about time travel at all (except that it is), Young’s words fairly leap off of the page and give definition to some of the more undefinable notions of music, culture and Donovan’s ability to once up and buy himself an island (and we assume he paid in cash).

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Enjoy!

Download “Revolt of the Mix: Volume II” (One file – one hour, eighteen minutes and thirty seconds – 148MB)

AQUA NEBULA OSCILLATOR – “Flying Mountain” … SISTERS OF YOUR SUNSHINE VAPOR – “Lord Is My Gun” … MAIN STREET GOSPEL – “Love Will Have Her Revenge” … WOODS – “Death Rattles” … MELODY – “Steppin’ Stone” … ANANDA SHANKAR – “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” … PLANET CREATURE – “Loaded” … THE BEATLES – “Dig It!” … REVOLVERS – “Apocalypse Surfin'” … SUCK – “Elegy” … AMON DUUL II – “Fly United” … DUNCAN LAMONT – “The Journey” … IGGY & THE STOOGES – “Gimme Danger (Live)” … WOLF PEOPLE – “Banks of Sweet Dundee Part I” … TYCHO – “Brother” … MANAKINS – “Premonition” … JAH STITCH – “Black Harmony Killer” … LOW – “California (Live)” … THE BLUE ANGEL LOUNGE – “Die Away As One In Time” … THE LOW ENDZ – “Easy Rider” … THE BEATLES – “Her Majesty” … BLACK SABBATH – “Planet Caravan” … RAMONES – “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” … YUSUF ISLAM – “The Wind” … WHITE NOISE SOUND – “Sunset” … THE OUTCASTS – “1523 Blair”

Again … enjoy! Until next time, we’ll remain in the “Revolt of the Apes” sonic kitchen, wearing a Pac-Man robe (of course!) and cooking up some more treats. Spread the word!

“So in the same way Einstein’s relativity theories–the curvature of the propogation of light, the idea that time gets older as light moves away from a source. In other words, people looking at the world now on Mars, they would be seeing the state of the world a little earlier than we are now experiencing it. That began to bother people when Einstein started talking about that. But now we’re all used to it, and relativity and things like that are a matter of common sense today. Well, in a few years, it will be a matter of commons sense to many people that they’re one with the universe. It’ll be so simple. And then maybe if that happens, we shall be in a position to handle our technology with more sense – with love instead of with hate for our environment.”

– Alan Watts, “The Nature of Consciousness”

BAND OF THE WEEK: HIGH WOLF

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

– “Awesome” Albert Einstein

There is an inherit mystery to the music – and the musician(s) – of HIGH WOLF that, in all candor, this conscious listener will have no desire to solve.

This is not to say that the music of High Wolf is not compelling – quite the contrary. Nor is it to say that, with the passage of time, a more clear picture of High Wolf will not emerge. With the passage of time comes new perspectives, and if nothing else, High Wolf make the type of music custom made for new perspectives.

Those new perspectives do not necessarily mean answers, of course. The effect of listening to the album “Ascension” by High Wolf is somewhat akin to staring at the night sky in the absence of light pollution. You may get a more clear field of vision – yet the mysteries of the kosmiche remain.

Listen: Longtime readers of this blog (both of you) know that I am no Einstein. Those of you who have seen my mid-century attempts at defining Soviet cinema know that I am no Eisenstein, either. In fact, perhaps the most meaningful and directive words of wisdom that I have ever heard in my life (apart, you understand, from the words, “I am not gonna pay a lot for this muffler!”) is from the noted scientific and artistic genius named David Lee Roth, who said:

“We are only at our best when we are ascending towards something.”

High Wolf is ascending towards something.

Download “Solar System is My God” by High Wolf

“Such a networked path opens up an ecumenical space far more radical than New Age fantasies of global unity or the bland interfaith chats between liberal monotheists … We accept that we will not transcend the sometimes agonizing tension between the world’s various structures of belief and practice. Nor will we simply overcome more contemporary conflicts between faith and skepticism, the stones and the stories, the mundane absurdity of everyday life and the incandescence of the absolute. Instead, these tensions and conflicts become dynamic, calling us to face the Other with an openness that does not seek to assimilate them to our point of view. By replacing the need for a common ground with an acceptance and even celebration of our common groundlessness, network spirituality might creatively integrate these tensions while also learning when to let the gaps and ruptures alone. These are the spaces in which we simply breathe.”

– Erik Davis, “Nomad Codes”

MICHELLE VIDAL

“Step Outside and Take a Bow”

Who is Michelle Vidal? An exciting musician, an astral traveler, an Iron Maiden fan. What more could you possibly need to know?

Possibly, you could need to know more: Ms. Vidal contributed to one of the very finest albums of the year, “Where We’re Coming From” by the mighty EAGLE WINGED PALACE, an unbelievably enjoyable trip through the harbingers and harmonies of psychedelic folk sure to please any listener looking for depth and songcraft, and not coincidentally, one of only a few albums that effectively squeezed literal tears of joy from the stoic recesses of the “Revolt of the Apes” psyche (only a few tears, I assure you. I’m tough as nails!).

At the same time, Ms. Vidal has begun work on her first solo LP … while also performing with the legendary Linda Perhacs. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, well, there’s just no pleasing some people. For those who can be pleased, please know that you will be pleased to know that Michelle was pleased to answer our questions below. Enjoy …

What music first captured your attention in your youth?

In my decrepit old age, I will try to remember that far back …

I was very sheltered from rock music as a child. The only music I heard as a kid here in the US was chorale, fairly formal church music, and mom’s Edith Piaf cassettes. The church music wasn’t gospel or soul but very formal chorale music. It did have an effect on me as far as singing, though. I loved to sing, especially Amazing Grace, which incidentally, was not taught at school. That song was different somehow … it was the first full song that I learned on the piano. I would also sing Christmas carols every year.

I traveled to Peru a lot and listened to Andean folk songs called Huyanos from my aunt and Spanish classical guitar from my uncle. It must have had an effect on me intrinsically as I love Flamenco rhythms and all kinds of folk music.

Then I heard Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” and it was all over. I started learning all the classical pieces on guitar. This was way before I ever had even heard of Black Sabbath. All that finger picking was awesome. This is where the guitar playing came in. I think I was a better guitar player at 12 than I am today.

My mother thought all my music choices were of the devil and inevitably would lead to a harlot’s life of drug abuse and blood worship, and so naturally I sought out music all the more. When I was 12, I would hide my radio in my bed at night just so I could listen to what I wanted.

Then I heard the Doors. That was probably my first connection with any kind of other worldly experience through music. I was also concurrently discovering LSD around the time when that Oliver Stone comedy came out. My dad mentioned once how he and his buddies would go see them play on the Sunset Strip back in the day, which is how I became aware of them. I loved songs like the “Crystal Ship,” and the guitar on “Spanish Caravan” … “Alabama Song” … and total primal awakening from songs like “My Wild Love,” “Five to One,” and especially “Not to Touch the Earth.” Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin … all early intros to classic rock, British and American.

When I was 17, I started working at a record store and that was when I really was able to access a lot of music. Even in college I worked at a record store and had a radio show just so I could get free CD’s. So, I have to stop there because I could go on for pages about music that captured my attention for one reason or another over the past 25 years, music spanning centuries and crossing geography and style. From hip hop to industrial to Americana to Native American flute music, there is music that has made an impression on me. It never ends.

How does that music affect you now, if at all?

I think The Doors are probably the reason that I love keys and like Wurlitzer on my songs. I am still rediscovering “The Soft Parade” and digging the re-masters on all the albums. A lot of music that I was into early on didn’t stick and falls into nostalgia. Some stuff is timeless. There has been an epic journey filled with music that affects me or has affected much more than in early childhood … the first time I ever heard Tina Turner or Otis Redding … Nick Cave or Pentangle, for example … Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt … The Allman Brothers … you name it. Going back to when I was 17, I was really into Bauhaus, the Legendary Pink Dots, Psychic TV, Doorag … there are way too many moments of affect to mention, and memories with all of them. Some music is just groovy. Some plugs you into an energy sphere, a direct connection to the universe. As an adult, I revisit this connection in certain songs and love the moment when that happens. For the scientific and the spiritual alike, music is boiled down to energy waves. I got to explore this “energy sphere” with “Brethren I” and “Brethren II” (off of the Eagle Winged Palace LP, “Where We’re Coming From”). Those songs are very mantra like, somewhat like ritual chanting with a wurly.  And singing with Linda Perhacs is pretty cosmic. She is all about entering the energy sphere with her music while the words deliver a poignant message, and it’s always special when we perform. I have a lot of sonic experimenting to do and will do so again, I am sure. But the current songs on my record are very much coming out of the earth and its people and less about the universe and our cosmic threads. Storytelling is big part of these recent songs.

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BAND OF THE WEEK: NAPOLEON STRICKLAND

Band of the week … band of the week … it’s been a trying week. No time for the meek (always time for The Meek).

Only song I believe I have ever heard from this guy. I know as much about him as you do. Pictures above have nothing (and everything) to do with him. Not even sure I’m spelling the fellow’s name correctly. But I like his style.

Download “Glory Glory Hallelujah” by Napoleon Strickland.

BAND OF THE WEEK: SOUVENIR’S YOUNG AMERICA

“Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.” – Rebecca Solnit, “Hope in the Dark”

“The Name of the Snake” is the third full-length album from the Richmond, Virginia-based Souvenir’s Young America. My hope is that you’ll give them a listen. My hope is that more people will discover that they also love their unique and awesome sound. My hope is, of course, that they would be asked to come to Texas for Austin Psych Fest 4.

This is perhaps unlikely; one may question where the Souvenir’s Young America sound fits in the psychedelic landscape. Indeed, one may question even how to describe their sound (then again, what defines the psychedelic sound? Then again, why define the psychedelic sound?).

Largely instrumental songs (with the occasional tribal chants played backwards for good measure) built upon neo-Sabbath/Celtic Frost riffs and huge keyboard washes, thundering drums and a high-lonesome amplified harmonica drone in what might ordinarily be the vocal spot, transformed to a wordless, world-weary, angry and sometimes vacant drone. Cowboy music for the third slave revolt of Saturn, perhaps.

And perhaps more simply, the SYA sound is the somewhat unlikely and very much undeniable union of the members’ musical inspirations: Neil Young, Cerberus Shoal, Thin Lizzy, Labradford, Amebix, Miles Davis, ZZ Top, Neurosis and Townes Van Zandt, for a start. “Apocalyptic Americana,” perhaps.

Perhaps I could never clearly articulate what it is about “The Name of the Snake” that I find so compelling, so inspiring, so utterly odd and singular and somewhat disregarded in our sometimes cold, cut and paste universe.

Perhaps it’s worth disclosing that the band are, by and large, friends of mine. I foamed at the mouth over their first album when writing for the local daily paper back in 2006, and a relationship bloomed. Trading music, attending family birthday parties, becoming co-workers – it’s safe to say we are friends, and to what degree my impression of the great appeal of SYA’s music is colored by that friendship, I can’t say for certain (though I will say I am more likely to be listening to SYA than hanging out with them, and I do have friendships with bands that I don’t particularly care for and won’t be featuring on my blog anytime soon – sorry, Bono!).

“The Name of the Snake” captures me with its music, its mood and its motivations. Few albums this year – or any year – will take their sonic structure from revolutionary essayist Rebecca Solnit, and her book, “Savage Dreams: A Journey Into the Landscape Wars of the American West.” Fewer still could build such a solid, freestanding – even monolithic – sonic structure.

I hope you’ll give Souvenir’s Young America a listen. Keep hope alive.

Download “Vanishing (Remaining)” by Souvenir’s Young America

“It was still intellectually permissible to believe in ‘the existence of an unseen order of some kind in which the riddle of the natural order may be found explained.’ What was not possible was the old dogmatic certitude – but that was less a loss than a gain, an opening to the enchanting world of ‘maybe.’ “

– Jackson Lears, “Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920“

The boardroom at Reverberation Appreciation Society has issued an official treaty on the initial line up of artists with the opportunity to take the stage at Austin Psych Fest 4.

Upon review of this line-up, the consensus of the universe is that it is seriously baddass. Upon release of the next line-up announcement to come in January, the consensus status of said universe may be amended to include far out AND groovy.

You owe it to yourself to look into all of these rock and/or roll outfits – there’s a great selection of video clips here. The site is called Do512, which is almost certainly a fan page for the first Van Hagar album.

Dig the insane variety of sounds! Just get a load of this PONTIAK video, at least:

C’MON! Watch it again if you have to. How can you not be stoked on this line-up? The mind boggles. The mind growls – The Growlers! Cloudland Canyon! Sleepy Sun? WHITE HILLS?!?!? GettheheckoutofMYface – this line up is insane.

That band The Black Angels plays every tootin’ year, though! What’s up with that?

I’m ready for a Black Ryder super-kick!

Who knows what the next release of artists with the good fortune to bring their craft to the stage will bring? You don’t need my recommendations for at least a hundred reasons, two of which being: A) I LIKE FLEETWOOD MAC. And, B) these decisions are made by the members of the RAS only, as it should be. As you know, my RAS membership application has been declined (something about really liking FLEETWOOD MAC, or maybe it was MIDDAY VEIL? Not GULL, though. Everybody knows GULL rules. Unclear).

Anyway, I will make one official personal/musical endorsement …

… wait for it …

… some other time.

Until then, I will leave you with these two videos. They are super effects-heavy. In fact, they’re not videos at all – the footage has been slowed down to the point that they are not moving images at all. They’re just images. But they can still be moving …

THE DIAMOND CENTER

THE FLYING EYES

GULL

Enjoy!