★Ecstatic Peace!
Paul Flaherty / Thurston Moore / Bill Nace
Paul Flaherty has been a direct lifeline to the radical free-reed lineage of Albert Ayler, John Gilmore, Peter Brotzmann and Arthur Doyle since first coming into our vision sometime in the '80s. In the '90s he began woodshedding hard with Northampton, Massachusetts resident spirit-drummer Chris Corsano. As the contemporary free-noise-space-weird underground gathered around, minds were liberated to godhead heights. Also in the '90s a young and beautiful boy-man named Bill Nace was drawn to the re…
The Door
Religious Knives is comprised of Maya Miller and Michael Bernstein, formerly of industrial drone group Double Leopards, Nate Nelson of the similarly noisy Mouthus, and Todd Cavallo rounding the group out on bass. After a string of twelve inches, singles, and an LP, they're set to release their proper sophomore effort, The Door. It was co-produced by Thurston Moore, and will see release on his Ecstatic Peace imprint. Don't be intimidated by the band member's pedigree and the noisy reputation of t…
s/t
Keith Wood, along with constant foil Leon Dufficy, is Hush Arbors, and while his self-titled Ecstatic Peace! debut is not his first album by any means - he's been at this almost ten years - it does provide the perfect introductory point to Hush Arbor's distinctive take on psych folk. Combining the pensive songwriting of John Phillips circa Wolfking, the plaintive honesty of Neil Young, and the fishtank-gazing cacophony of Six Organs of Admittance (Wood is a frequent collaborator), Wood writes cl…
Gettin\' Gone
Still riding high on the glorious steed that was Green Blues (heads are still processing its smoked grooves and wild-at-heart paeans to love and kosmiche carnality), Matt Valentine and Erika Elder entered a Western Mass studio armed with enough fresh material to choke a whole team of horses. You may ask, 'how can this be?' Well, since recording their Ecstatic Peace! debut, the duo has toured extensively, all the while writing tunes, scavenging esoteric guitar equipment & revamping their backing …
Boss
From the clatter of the White Stripes to the dream-pop of Beach House, there have been plenty of duos to please divergent tastes. Perhaps the appeal of the twofer is that it requires a minimalism that mothers interesting combinations, and the Magik Markers are no different. “Axis Mundi” tears Boss open with a tea kettle-hiss of feedback, affirming the group’s noise pedigree. The shifting rhythm of drummer Pete Nolan and Elisa Ambrogio’s barbed guitar reveal a newfound ease with free-flowing groo…
Throats
David Watson (bagpipe) w/ Shelley Hirsch (vocals), Makigami Koichi (vocals & jaw harp). "The writhing and resolving glissandos, so familiar to East Village ears by now, were still edgy enough to send a few Lincoln Center new-music wimps dashing for the exits. It's my feeling that the bagpipe is an inherently avant garde, push-the-envelope type of instrument anyway." --Kyle Gann; "From 1981-86, Watson was active in the New Zealand music and art scene, as a member of Primitive Arts Group, appearin…