Bands – Page 2 – Southern Lord Recordings Europe

Engine Kid

Engine Kid was born in Seattle, Washington, 1991. The band’s original lineup consisted of guitarist/vocalist Greg Anderson, drummer Chris Vandebrooke and bassist Art Behrman. They had all been in hardcore/punk bands around town, and all had a burning desire to create a sound that was unlike anything they had done in the past. After just a few months, they quickly recorded and self-released the “Novocaine” 7inch. Circa ’92, Behrman was replaced by Brian (Krafty) Kraft, a bassist and close friend of Anderson, who he had made music with in other bands. At that moment, the entire aesthetic and execution of sound became heavier, darker and extremely dynamic.

The power trio was picked up by local label C/Z records and set out upon recording the new music they were quickly creating. The band had two releases on C/Z in 1993. Their first offering was the Astronaut five song EP recorded by John Goodmanson. The songs were primitive and exemplified the bands worship of Slint and the quiet/loud song structure methodology. In the summer of ’93 the band drove to Chicago to record with their hero Steve Albini, in the basement of his house. They emerged with the eight-song album they called: “Bear Catching Fish.” Albini intuitively captured the band exactly as they were at that moment: RAW, VULNERABLE, & MAMMOTH.

Shortly after the album’s release Jade Devitt replaced Vandebrooke on drums. This transition was crucial in the second phase of the group. Devitt was an absolute beast, and his power helped launch the band miles beyond where they had ever been before. The sound of “The Kid” started to transform into a sound much more of their own. The three dudes were hell bent on pushing the bounds of sonic exploration to its fullest. Suddenly there was an abundance of depth within the sounds they were creating. Eclectic influences of punk/hardcore (Black Flag, Die Kreuzen), Metal (Entombed, Carcass) and even jazz (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis electric era) were on a full collision course with the already dynamically heavy foundation of the band. The levee had broken and the resulting flood of sound completely saturated everything in it’s path.

Engine Kid toured their asses off. They were constantly on the road – playing every nook, cranny and shit-hole they possibly could. Any moment not on the road was spent focused on making their new material as lethal as possible. In early ’94 the band decided to pay homage to their mutual love of jazz/fusion and recorded three instrumental pieces that would become a split album with like minded powerhouse, Iceburn. The Engine Kid/Iceburn album showcased each groups love of jazz loosely framed by the intense enthusiasm of underground music. The album was released by Revelation records in 1994.

During the summer of ’94 the band reconvened with producer John Goodmanson at Bad Animals and AVAST! studios to record the new material that was literally bleeding out of the reinvigorated trio. The songs recorded were much more progressive, heavier, harder and more focused than past works. They even tackled John Coltrane’s “OLE,” adding saxophone and trumpet from their brothers in Silkworm. In March of 1995, Revelation records released these recordings as the “Angel Wings” album. Unfortunately “The Kid” flew too close to the sun, and broke up very shortly after the album’s release.

Here we are almost 30 years later, and it has taken every day of every month of every year of that time passed for the dust storms the band created to have settled. Maybe now it’s possible for the enormity of their creation to be comprehended.

NOW is the time to honor and celebrate the mountains formed and the canyons created.

Neon Christ

Neon Christ formed in the fall of 1983 with William ‘Kip’ DuVall on guitar, Jimmy Demer on drums, Danny Lankford on bass, and Randy DuTeau on vocals. They made their debut in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 1984. That March, they recorded their eponymous debut 10-song EP. Released in June ’84, the EP’s songs exemplify the band’s signature musical diversity, from DRI-style thrashers like “Parental Suppression” to the atmospheric improv of “After.” A short east coast tour followed. On Labor Day 1984, the band recorded four tracks in the home studio of Nick Jameson, of Foghat fame. A few months later, “Ashes to Ashes” was included on the International Peace/War compilation released by MDC’s R Radical Records, bringing the band worldwide exposure.

Neon Christ shared the stage with the luminaries of 80s hardcore including the Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, and Corrosion of Conformity. In 1985, the band added Shawn Devine on second guitar, as the band’s sound and songs became slower, heavier, and more melodic. DuVall wrote an album’s worth of songs in 1985, but only “Savior (Drawn In)” was ever recorded, in the band’s last studio session on December 26, 1985 (the master tapes were lost). Returning to the four-piece original lineup, the band played a handful of Atlanta shows and then took a break in March of 1986. A few months later, William moved to Santa Cruz, CA, to join Bl’ast, and Jimmy, Danny, and Randy formed Gardens of…William later founded jazz/punk/world improvisers No Walls. He would later form Comes With the Fall and move the band to Los Angeles, where he struck up a friendship and musical collaboration with Jerry Cantrell. William joined Alice in Chains as vocalist and guitarist in 2006. On February 2, 2008, Neon Christ reunited to headline the Ratlanta Punkfest 2.

To this day, the band members have maintained a close friendship, as well as a desire to honor the legacy of the group. So when longtime fan Greg Anderson of Southern Lord contacted the group about reissuing a deluxe edition of Neon Christ’s 1984 sessions, “1984” quickly came to life. To remaster the original tapes using an all-analog process, William DuVall made multiple trips to Nashville to one of the few remaining studios maintaining the vintage technology to play and process the audio. Side one of “1984” features the original Neon Christ 7″ EP, and side two contains the four songs of the Labor Day session, all on heavyweight vinyl at 45 RPM for maximum fidelity. The package includes a full-color gatefold sleeve and a 12-page oral history booklet featuring dozens of never-before-seen photographs.

Nadja

is a duo of multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker and bassist Leah Buckareff—active since 2005—and making music which can be described as ambient doom, dreamsludge, or metalgaze. Nadja’s signature sound combines the atmospheric textures of shoegaze and ambient/electronic music with the heaviness, density, and volume of metal, noise, and industrial.

For the new album, Luminous Rot, the duo retain their signature overblown/ambient sound, and explore shorter and more tightly structured songs reflecting their interests not only in metal, but post-punk, cold-wave, shoegaze, and industrial.

Thematically, the album explores ideas of ‘first contact’ and the difficulties of recognising alien intelligence. This was in part inspired by reading such writers as Stanislaw Lem and Cixin Lui — in particular, theories on astro-physics, multi-dimensionality, and spacial geometry in “The Three Body Problem” — as well as Margaret Wertheim’s “A Field Guide To Hyperbolic Space,” about mathematician Daina Taimina’s work with crochet to illustrate hyperbolic space and geometry.

The album was recorded between their home studio, Broken Spine Studios, or Nadja’s live rehearsal studio, both in the district of Lichtenberg, Berlin.

Luminous Rot marks the first album mixed by someone else, who in this case was David Pajo. The band comment, “as big fans of Slint, we thought he might fore-front the more angular, post-punk elements of our music – the mix is quite different from our previous albums. But, as usual, we had James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD, etc) master the album as we trust his ears and aesthetic, as he’s mastered numerous records of ours.”

Dead End America

Dead End America is:

Drums / Vocals – Steve “Thee Slayer Hippy” Hanford

Guitar – Tony Avila

Lead Guitar – Ian Watts

Bass / Vocals – Nick “Rex” Oliveri

Vocals – Mike IX

Vocals – Blaine Cook

Dead End America – “Crush The Machine”

A perfectly appropriate title for this 7 inch EP of jack-hammering, oldschool style hardcore tunes released by Southern Lord, written and played by a rogues gallery of real deal music lifers as a condemnation of the criminal Trump administration and Republican party, in the same spirit of those by-gone days when Ronald Reagan or George Bush was the crooked, self-serving president of the crumbling United States empire. Never before has there been a more obvious target, as Donald Trump and his mafia family cabinet rape the country while Rome burns. D.E.A. is Tony Avila, Ian Watts, Nick Oliveri, Mike IX, Blaine Cook and the legendary and beloved, late producer and drummer of Poison Idea, Steve “Thee Slayer Hippy” Hanford. Dying shortly before the completion of this record, it stands as a final testament to his genius, one last hot-wired blast of his epic musical brilliance.

Mark Lanegan

Los Angeles

August, 2020

Anna von Hausswolff

Anna von Hausswolff is a musician and composer exploring the myriad of possibilities and the potential for new expressions on the pipe organ. Anna has performed on pipe organs all over the world, as part of this ongoing quest of discovery. Her polyrhythmic sound is ever-changing and full of contrasts, often distinguished by fluid transitions of calmness and drama, harmony and dissonance, with various overlapping elements. Her imaginative approach is open-minded to sonic possibilities and different perceptions, drawing inspiration from wherever it may appear.

Anna has written and released four full-length albums; Singing From The Grave (2010), Ceremony (2012), The Miraculous (2015) and Dead Magic (2018), often recording with a cast of other musicians. Her forthcoming release, All Thoughts Fly on Southern Lord sees Anna in solo instrumental mode. The entire record is just one solo instrument, the pipe organ, all songs written and played by Anna von Hausswolff. Recorded in Gothenburg at Örgryte New Church, on their Quarter-comma Meantone tempered North German Baroque organ. All Thoughts Fly was recorded in 7 days in January 2020, the songs were written in 2019 and 2020.

Anna has recently toured the UK with Sunn O))) (and guested on their live session for Mary Anne Hobbs airing on BBC 6 Music), has supported Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Swans, Efterklang, Refused to name a few. Anna was invited by Nils Frahm to perform his curated event “Possibly colliding” at the Barbican, London and by David Byrne to perform at his curated Meltdown festival at Southbank centre, London. Other key live appearances include performances at Primavera festival, Roadburn, Roskilde festival, Aural Festival in Mexico City, End Of The Road, Green Man Festival, Way Out West, MONA FOMA Australia and more.

As a spirited collaborator, Anna has worked with Swans (guesting on their album Leaving Meaning), Yann Tiersen (guesting on his album All) and Wolves In The Throne Room (guesting on Thrice Woven). Anna notably performed at the Nobel Prize Dinner (2018) with material written in collaboration Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson. In the same year, Anna performed as a solo vocalist in Alexander Ekman’s ballet “Midsummer Night’s dream” with music written by Mikael Karlsson. Anna has written theatre music for “Gösta Berlings saga” a play by Rikard Lekander (2017).

A restless creative, Anna owns and runs Pomperipossa Records, with several small and experimental releases, that often sell out quickly. Anna also plays in BADA who released their self titled album earlier this year, and is one half of Hydras Dream, a collaboration with Matti Bye (Swedish pianist and composer for film, TV, theatre and dance) who released the album The Little Match Girl (2014).

As an enthusiast of visual arts, Anna has a Bachelor degree in Contemporary Art, studied a masters in music & contemporary art at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, and Printmaking at Gothenburg Art School. In late 2019, Anna combined her passion for pipe organs and appreciation of visual arts when hosting her first ever large-scale solo exhibition at Galleri Backlund, Sweden. The work on display was images of imaginary pipe organs, visualised on copperplate engravings, made through various techniques.

Always embracing ambitious undertakings, Anna is currently working on film music for a documentary produced by Swedish television, due to premiere either late 2020 or in 2021. A process which inspired her compositional approach on All Thoughts Fly (2020).

Entry

As a collective, the members of ENTRY passionately believe in the power of punk and the uniting nature of music, and with Detriment,they reflect themselves and their community with integrity and authenticity. The follow-up to their sold-out No Relief 7″ released on Dune Altar, ENTRY’s Detriment LP is succinct and ferocious. Detriment is a diverse album which provides a breath of fresh air to the genre. The album showcases the band’s appreciation for different aspects of punk and hardcore, and their imaginative songwriting that is condensed into nine concise musical statements of intent.

Inspired by the likes of Discharge, Minor Threat, Converge, Tragedy, The Cramps, and The Exploited, ENTRY started as a project between Sara G – whose musical origins come from punk bands in Pennsylvania – and Clayton Stevens, who also plays guitar in Touché Amoré on Epitaph Records. Bass player Sean Sakamoto plays in the indie pop band Sheer and is a recording engineer in Los Angeles, while drummer Chris Dwyer is also a recording engineer in LA. The punk community at large is as inspiring as it has ever been to them. ENTRY has played the Olympia Hardcore Festival, and Ceremony’s Homesick Festival in Los Angeles, and has opened for Career Suicide, Krimewatch, Sunn O))), Dangers, Despise You, Sect, and Show Me The Body, and many others.

ENTRY’s Detriment was recorded in Los Angeles by the band’s Sean Sakamoto and Christopher Dwyer, mixed by Christopher Dwyer, and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios. The album is completed with photography by Katie Krulock and layout by Emma Maatman.

From Ashes Rise

Touring.
Recording.
Touring to record.

We practiced almost nightly, and never once showed up to practice with a completed song. We would turn the amps on, play a riff or a drum beat, and begin working on a song right there. Our deadlines were tour dates, centered around the time we booked to record in Oakland, California, and we were driven by the chemistry between us. Lyrics-mostly and thematically about the changes we saw coming in the world-were written on notebooks in our old converted prison van as we drove between cities, gazing out the windows at ever-morphing landscapes.

That was almost twenty years ago now.

When we look back on our first two albums, there’s a rough around the edges urgency in the music that we’ve learned inevitably becomes scarce. The two tours we did in the spring and fall of 2000 gave us four months of experience and a lifetime of memories. The sounds on these two albums are the sounds of four southern misfits snarling at the weight of the chips on our shoulders. The studio, Polymorph, is, sadly, no longer active, and the building that we recorded in now houses a couple of boutique shops. For two separate weeks in 2000, that building smelled like dirty clothes and unburned fuel from a carbureted van. Nothing in those boutiques can match the value we’ve personally applied to these albums, and those experiences, in the years since.

Don’t ever give up.
Stay pissed.

The Wraith

Infused with ‘80s UK post-punk (Death Cult, Killing Joke, Chameleons) and SoCal deathrock (T.S.O.L., Samhain), The Wraith was founded by Bales, formerly of revered Virginia peace-punkers Lost Tribe, and guitarist Kaz Alvis shortly after they separately washed up in L.A. Their irresistibly distinctive sound – skeletal basslines and tribal beats propelling Alvis’ textured swathes beneath Bales’ poetic, anguished bark – immediately gained a following.

Convulsive, chaotic West Coast shows honed the songs that became The Wraith’s lauded 2017 EP, “Shadow Flag”. A couple of videos and line-up changes later – the band is now completed by Belgian drummer Jef Pauly and Brit bassist Paul Rogers –, their evocative songwriting and pure-punk authenticity earned the ear of Mitchell (who’s also produced/remixed The Flaming Lips, Tones on Tail, Meat Puppets, King Crimson and more).

“The Wraith is a flashback to many of the bands that inspired me to start making music,” said Mitchell. “Given the opportunity to work on an album with them, how could I turn it down?”

The 11-song Gloom Ballet and accompanying videos will be released worldwide later this year.

http://TheWraithPunk.Bandcamp.com
http://Facebook.com/TheWraithPunk
Instagram.com/TheWraithPunk

High Command

Southern Lord will release the debut LP from Worcester, Massachusetts crossover outfit HIGH COMMAND, putting the final touches on the terminal Beyond The Wall Of Desolation for release in the coming months. While the album’s street date and more are being locked down, an early single, “Visions From The Blade,” as a precursor for the record, as the band continues to tour across the country supporting Spirit Adrift. Surging with the strength of the early US thrash and crossover scene, HIGH COMMAND projects a scathing display of scorched earth vocals and spiraling divebomb riffs, soaked in napalm leads, and percussive devastation. With competitive and fantasy-inspired lyrical scourge, the band drives their message forth with might and conviction. The raw barbarity of the band’s crushing early recordings caught the ear of Southern Lord who hunted the band down and now has them locked and loaded for the release of their debut LP.

The brainchild of guitarist Ryan McArdle and vocalist Kevin Fitzgerald, HIGH COMMAND began in rebellion to the brutal winter months, yet quickly spiraled into a full-bore killing machine, initiating the recruitment of like-minded area friends, the lineup fleshed-out by guitarist Mike Bonetti, bassist Chris Berg, and drummer Ryan Pitz. The band recorded The Secartha Demos at The Paincave with Chris Corey (Mind Eraser, Magic Circle, No Tolerance, Innumerable Forms) and had it mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (From Ashes Rise, Integrity, Obituary) after which it saw release through Haftvad Records, the label issuing, “With razor-sharp metallic riffs, pure punk adrenaline, and an original Sword and Sorcery theme, HIGH COMMAND delivers a demo of skull crushing fantasy violence and aggressive atmosphere. If the brutal literary worlds of Robert E. Howard and Karl Edward Wagner manifested in the musical form of Sodom, Mercyful Fate, Integrity, and Cro-Mags, The Secartha Demos would likely be the result. For those who live for the lust of battle and music that bludgeons with the fury of a spiked-mace.” The label then issued the two-song The Primordial Void 7” shortly after.

Caspar Brötzmann Massaker

Southern Lord is proud to announce the first in a series of Caspar Brötzmann Massaker album reissues starting with the masterful debut The Tribe (originally released in 1988) and second album Black Axis (originally released in 1989) – remastered and presented as they were when originally released.

Born in 1962 in a post-war divided Germany, Caspar Brötzmann started out playing the piano, his main inspirations included, Hanns Eisler, singer Ernst Busch, his mother’s “Hausmusik” (German tradition where the family gathers to play their instruments together), and also by the roaring sounds of his father, virtuoso saxophonist giant Peter Brötzmann, aka “The Teutonic Axe“ – a key player in the European free jazz movement, Fluxus artist, and ideologically adamant communist.

Caspar lived in fear and awe of his strict father, and he took to the guitar knowing that Peter and his peers sneered at Americanised music, and especially electric guitars and the hard rock sounds that appealed to Caspar, the likes of Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix. The guitar became, Caspar says, “his shield against the unsettling world”. “It wasn’t about virtuosity” Caspar continues “rather the love of the instrument”.

Caspar didn’t have any formal training, but Hans Reichel – a family friend and an avant-garde guitarist who built his own instruments – showed him the ropes. Hans taught Caspar how to manipulate the workings and mechanics of the guitar. Caspar’s left-handed instrument is less of a nod to left-handed Hendrix and more of a technical improvement to Caspar’s own playing, allowing for a stronger low end, better access to the volume control, and the vibrato bar, all of which gives CBM’s music an unparalleled dynamic range.

Caspar Brötzmann Massaker’s music is resoundingly singular. Ultra heavy riffs and beats, ominous tribal chants and a raw physical force is conjured up by these three sinister and proud minds of their era. Their unhinged, unified stream of energy is captured on these remastered reissues and the results are thrilling.