The Outsiders: Vol. 1
We listen to a lot of music at Stereogum: Not all of our favorite sounds conform to what people might expect us to cover. Because the last Stereogum reader survey indicated folks wanted more information on "weirder indie stuff" -- and we have plenty of that sorta thing to share -- we decided to start a weekly column, The Outsiders, where resident Bananafish fetishist Brandon Stosuy can focus on bands, albums, singles, and villages in Sweden that may otherwise pass by unnoticed. Some installments could be thematic, but The Outsiders isn't genre specific: It's more about maintaining an eclectic virtual milk crate. For the debut, the fixation is guitars, often solo, sometimes incredibly fast, but also played at various speeds in conjunction with other instruments.
For starters, the often sadly overlooked experimental New York guitarist, composer, improviser, and big Six Organs Of Admittance influence Loren Connors. He's been releasing records since 1978, but I first hear him in the mid '90s when I stumbled upon 1992's Hell's Kitchen Park (Connors on electric guitar, his wife Suzanne Langille on vocals). Fittingly, his new double album As Roses Bow: Collected Airs 1992-2002, which pulls his guitar airs from ten different records, all remastered by Jim O'Rourke, opens with four tracks from Hell's Kitchen Park (it was released on the excellent Indiana label, and home to a slew of Connors's releases, Family Vineyard). In Connors's words, the new record "was inspired by O'Carolan's airs and other Irish airs of the past." Continuing, "They came easy to me. I never had to labor over their completion. They seemed to just be there in me. Maybe the fairies put them in my head..." He's right, these almost silent, often hissy tracks feel almost invisible, simple spiraling guitar notes that register like shadows. They often flow together, so in order to get a better idea of what happens across a few, take a listen to "An Air," "Child," and "Sorrow In The House," three originally from Hell's Park, the second one with Langille's supremely subtle, achy vocals.
Loren Connors - "An Air" (MP3)
Loren Connors - "Child" (MP3)
Loren Connors - "Sorrow In The House" (MP3)
It can be tough learning about someone as Bob Pollard-prolific as Connors, someone who collaborates variously both with other musicians (O'Rourke, John Fahey, Kath Bloom, Alan Licht, Christina Carter, Keiji Haino, Jandek, etc) and other writers (yeah, he writes, too) and has more than 50 albums out on various labels like Table Of The Elements, Ecstatic Peace, the much missed Road Cone, Drag City, Carbon, his own imprints, etc. A good place to start is the very excellent career-spanning 3-CD set Night Through: Singles And Collected Works 1976-2004, also released by Family Vineyard. Eric Weddle, the guy who runs the label, told me Night Through is currently out of print, but is being repressed as we speak. While you wait, here's "Adonais" from the collection. It was originally a one-sided 7" (in an edition of 200), put out by Black Label 2/Father Yod. The second track, "Deirdre Of The Sorrows Pt. 4," first showed up as part of of suite on a 1995 J.M. Synge-dropping split 7" with Thurston Moore.
Loren Connors - "Adonais" (MP3)
Loren Connors - "Deirdre Of The Sorrows Pt. 4" (MP3)
You can hear more of Connors at his site In the spirit of the holidays, take a listen to the two lovely takes on "Silent Night," which he recorded in apartment in 1995 (the second includes vocals by his son). Connors was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease for more than a decade, but remains incredibly active.
Things get a little bit noisier with Mouthus, Orthodox, Octis (pictured), and others after the jump. Well, okay, there's some quiet stuff on the other side, too.
[photo of Mick Barr from Ocrilim's RiffSpace]
The Kim Gordon-approved Brooklyn guitar and drum duo of Brian Sullivan and Nate Nelson have been operating as Mouthus since 2002, constantly shape-shifting -- from noisy clatters to near-silent Excepter ambiance, and now the new album's ... Surprsingly, after a number of records on Ecstatic Peace to Troubleman and etc, this more monkish Load album Saw A Halo is their first studio release (recorded at the ubiquitous Rare Book Room in Brooklyn by Samara Lubelski, a fine baroque psych-folkie in her own right). "Your Far Church" is the weirdly strummed, monk and gong opener, asking us to lay our guns down amid a rattling vibrational haunting. After that, the album develops a bigger clang.
Mouthus - "Your Far Church" (MP3)
Remember, also, to take some doses of fellow Load flyers and BTW Sightings.
Mick Barr is the amazingly quick, ultra entropic guitarist behind Orthrelm (pick up, OV, please), Ocrilim, a duo with Hella's Zach Hill, and various other "o" bands like Octis. In October, the great Green Point label the Social Registry (see Blood On The Wall, Gang Gang Dance, Telepathe, etc), put out a 7" of Barr's flint-fingered fretwork as a part of their Social Club series (previous stuff by Jena Malone, Sian Alice Group, I.U.D., etc). Here's a stream of the hypnotic, grinding Side A, "Navlt." This isn't a loop ... dude plays like this.
Following up last year's The Anchorite, the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist Stephen R. Smith just released Owl on Digitalis Industries. It's the first of his albums to include voice. Smith, who also records as Hala Strana, is connected to various Jewelled Antler-related projects (Mirza, Thuja). Like many of those forest-floor psych-folksters, he often mixes various noisemakers -- hurdy gurdy, fiddles, harmonium, bouzuki -- and Eastern European scales and drones with his playing. On Owl he keeps it spare, evoking some early melancholic New Zealand sounds (think Xpressway records, the Jefferies brothers). Take a listen to "Across The Flats" and "Whistling," both from the album, which was just released by Digitalis Industries.
Steven R. Smith - "Across The Flats" (MP3)
Steven R. Smith - "Whistling" (MP3)
Turning up the volume again, the Spanish doom trio Orthodox sport Sunn 0))) hoods and grind sludgy Melvins riffs like the best of them, but on their sophomore album Amanecer en Puerta Oscura, they've folded clarinet, contrabass, trumpet, and large does of brittle piano into the crunch, creating jazzier rambles amid the earthy, Sabbathian dynamics. Standout track "Solemne Triduo" leans on the heavier side of things, but listen to the delicate bells working their way through the caterwauling vocals (sorta like Serj, no?) and delicate guitar balancing the heavier chords. Other tunes are purer Blue Note ambiance or jaw harp set against the wind and flamenco guitar, a super skeletal Earth.
While we're talking Southern Lord, and perhaps fixating too much on six-stringers, why not exit the Outsiders to the lofty fuzz bass and drums of Om's "Unitive Knowledge Of The Godhead," the second song from their third amazing record Pilgrimage. If you don't know these guys, they're the ex-rhythm section of archetypal stoner rock trio Sleep. Definitely search out more ... it's more of the same, and all pleasingly heady.
Om - "Unitive Knowledge Of The Godhead" (MP3)
Exhale. In honor of Om, this first installment of the Outsiders was kind of epic. I'll rein it in by next week. If you can think of someone worth covering here, pass along a tip to brandon at stereogum dot com.
Posted at 4:52 PM in The Outsiders
Tags: Loren Connors | Mouthus | Octis | Om | Orthodox | Steven R. Smith
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Orthodox!
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Mick barr rules a part of my brain previously reserved for olympic hummingbird fencing. I will second picking up OV, it will seriously rewire your nervous system.
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You guys just melted my brain. I never would have expected a blog that has posted on numerous occassions about something John Mayer threw up on his blog to mention Mouthus. Respect.
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Aw. I actually enjoyed this.
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myspace.com/brockmcgoff
please friend
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so nice to see stereogum digging a little deeper than yr average blog. a great read and nice to know it's going to be a weekly feature.
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I think this post was really good, and a really good step for this whole site.
I think that you can dig a little deeper though, Mouthus, Orthelem, and Om have all been covered by P.Fork....it would be good to dig up stuff that really isn't making it anywhere.
But contrary to that your band to watch section is quite well informed and already doing this.
Maybe I missed the point of this though, if so sorry.
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thanks for the suggestions, photon. yeah, i do plan to dig deeper (and more widely, etc), but i think this column will be most useful and enjoyable if can overlap relatively known folks (like, say, om or mick barr) with people who've too often been overlooked (connors) or are totally unknown (i have a few of those up my sleeve for next week) in order to create some kind of context. i didn't think it would be productive to launch the outsiders with three power-electronics crews nobody's heard -- sometimes a balance of the old and unknown works best. (and hell, if you can turn one more person onto om or sleep, it's well worth mentioning them again.)
mouthus and magik markers and barr and others have been doing their thing for years and have been covered variously (all over the place), but they're still likely "new" to many people ... i don't want to aim for obscurity for obscurity's sake. plus, the new mouthus is great and it's a departure from past records, so it makes sense to bring it up and trace that progression. i'd also like to reverse the time line and resurrect some old bands who deserve to be remembered -- like harry pussy and the shadow ring, for instance ... pairing them with bands they've influenced and seeing where that largely unwritten history goes. (the sun city girls are due for an oral history...)
we sometimes talk about raw or "weird" music in band to watch, but this is the space where i can bring up that home-schooled duo from australia who put out a half-melted cassette-only single in an edition of 30. the plan is to give you a chance to listen to it, too. that's why bananafish magazine gets a reference in the intro: they'd write about this 'outer realms' or whatever music that was so hard to find, but then include a 7" or CD so you could hear what they were talking about. it makes what could be alienating for some, much easier to get into ... that's what i'd like to do here.
musically, the column will cover a ton of genres: psychedelia, noise, loner folk, electronica, and, of course, people who wear masks and stick contact mics on their feet ... whatever. please do pass along ideas ... all is much appreciated.
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Great new feature. Keep it going.
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i was sitting on the toilet while reading stereogum. good thing, too. otherwise i might have shit my pants reading about this new feature. i love it.
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This was great. Those Orthodox and Om albums are outrageous.
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Yes, I know it's well into 2008 and no one's ever likely to read this, but I just have to post a question for Nathan. How on earth do you read a website while you're sitting on the toilet???
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