OH MY GAWD

I have been jamming to Demadrados Soldados De Ventura for quite a while, and this is the first time I watched them live, albeit, as usual, without breathing the same air as the band. I hereby solemnly swear that Demadrados Soldados De Ventura are one of those bands who are excellent on record and even more excellent live. Thank you, the head honcho of Golden Lab Records, for forming the band and its fantastic music, and I’d appreciate it if you forgave me for unlawfully uploading a digitized version of that awesome Greg Kelley x Alex Neilson album on my blog way back when my command of English was terrible (I didn’t forget you Sacred Bones snoot!). However, I, a person whose privacy precedes the guilt of any piracy committed for his own amusement, do not feel compelled to disclose and acknowledge my other alleged illegal acts concerning your label’s intellectual property and will not seek further forgiveness. That said, I should mention this: that Neil Michael Hagerty & The Howling Hex album!

My acute ears and curious mind tell me that perhaps Demadrados Soldados De Ventura are riffing on Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star” in here. Anyway, oh my gawd, I want to catch Demadrados Soldados De Ventura live for real. And Destruction Unit (please don’t disband yet). And Endless Boogie — they will not disband, like ever! — at least once again. And there must be many more. But none of them in Korea. Because Korea sucks.

 

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ
An 18-legged psych monster with multiple drums and even more guitars hovering lysergically in formation over your altered mental state. Led by Nick Mitchell, who you’ll also know as part of blazing power trio Chalaque and his Golden Lab label, DSDV feature an elite coterie of Mancunian leftfield luminaries and casually hone the voodoo required to guide a cacophonous septet into unified formation and create a wailing psychedelic big band experience.

Across a small spree of very limited (and rapidly selling out) releases, DSDV have rapidly gained a reputation, with high praise from the likes of Thurston Mooore and Byron Coley, Foxy Digitalis using such phrases as “The essential British psych release of 2012″. The ecstatic expansions of their music inspired The Wire to respond accordingly: “As each of the four side-long jams unfold they build into the kind of trance-inducing constructs that short-circuit thought while touching on the desperate ascension style of Albert Ayler’s New York Eye & Ear Control Group, complete with that same weeping, testifying tone, with heavenly vibrato traded for endless wah-wah. At points you can feel them nodding toward the kind of rock dinosaur-ism that has yet to enjoy underground rehabilitation – Lotus-era Santana, for one – and it’s all the more thrilling for it”

http://desmadradossoldadosdeventura.bandcamp.co­m/

Recorded live at TUSK Mini at Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne on Saturday 12th July, 2014.

Cameras – Harry Wheeler, Phil Powell

Vision Mixing – Shaun Blezard

Sound – BLANK Studios

Video Production – Hugs Bison

Production coordinator – Stephen Bishop

Special thanks to Sound And Music

 

I’m enjoying Joanna Gruesome’s new album as I should be, but I may be liking this band more. Maybe.

 

My record-buying (yet, oddly, turntableless), mp3-purchasing, almost-as-hip-as-me acquaintance hipped me to an Argentine trio called Los Cripis, and you know what I’m gonna say: They are awesome! I bet four months of my celibacy — you know it’s rare and precious — that you won’t be able to tell their nationality simply by listening to them; they have an unmistakable English/Australian DIY art-punk sound reminiscent of adorable female-fronted bands such as La La Vasquez (London/Brighton, hopefully just on a hiatus), Gloss Rejection (London, a recent find; the vocalist very much resembles the Whines girl, just sonically), and King Tears Mortuary (Sydney).  Yes, that youtube video is for you to watch, so see or listen for yourself.

Los Cripis are going on tour with Fungi Girls, and I am going on a trip to Osaka in June, and there I will see Acid Mothers Temple and The Silence (Ghost’s Masaki Batoh’s new band). Plus, I feel gutted about the Royal Trux reunion (and the festival that marks it). Yeah, it’s only a good thing, but I cannot help but get peeved by it.