This Thursday at the Fun House, unknown legends of skronk and roll Trumans Water make a rare stateside appearance. The show coincides with the release of their 13th album O Zeta Zunis on Asthmatic Kitty who have plans to release the bands entire back catalog. Originating in San Diego in the early 90′s they’ve spent much time overseas in the past decade or so, but never stopped producing amazing and confounding music.  Falling somewhere between Beefheart and Flipper Trumans Water still stand up next to most of the greats of 90′s noise rock but have remained elusive to many folks in the states. Trumans was a big favorite of John Peel who had them on for several Peel sessions over the years and once played their entire album uninterrupted over the BBC airwaves effectively melting the minds of the entire populace.

Dahga Bloom – coming soon to ESCALATOR Fest 2010 Oct. 22!!!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I’ll have what he’s having.

Get with some deep fractal mindwave Binaural beats (listen on headphones for full binaural effect)

MORE

BIFF! BANG! POW!: SWINGIN’ FLICKS OF THE SIXTIES

If you’re in the U-district- April 9th & 10th, 16th & 17th late-nights at the Grande Illusion

http://www.grandillusioncinema.org/

I guess April is the month to stay inside a warm dry cinema and watch the flickering lights…

And now another spirited rant from Mr. John Gillanders, here’s his latest installment of “Extra Dimensional”…

If you were to think of our species as united cosmically as one being, which is something that most of our religions and prominent neuronauts have been telling us since the beginning of what we perceive as time – plotlines begin to emerge that don’t necessarily involve self destruction. In not listening to these viewpoints, we’ve separated ourselves from our own eternal nature and the essence of time. We’re kind of like an idiot savant that can program the shit out of a computer but couldn’t get a date if his life depended on it. Another way of putting it is that we’re becoming increasingly and dangerously unbalanced as an individual; a work-a-holic who’s career success has blinded him to the fact that his personal life is in shambles. This unbalance has produced some hilarious and mind blowingly horrific enchantments, but we need to diversify our science now more than ever. Pleasure rather than violence. Cooperation rather than competition. Self love rather than self hatred. Biology rather than synthetics. DMT rather than prozac. Read more…

Apparently a feeling of being in touch with nature, plants, trees and animals is one of the worst things Mark Driscoll can conceive of. “I own two entertainment centers and three Tivos…” So blinded by his own worldliness, he seems to identify more strongly with the napalm happy planet-rapers of Avatar. I guess that might be what you’d expect from a religion that confuses the god of nature with the devil. Still the circular logic is utterly incomprehensible. Let’s see- Satan wants you to connect with a lie and humans having a connection to the divine is Satanic… oh, nevermind.  I guess the dull saps who attend Mars Hill church become so confused all they can do is throw money. Dude is getting rich off a bunch of suckers who aren’t old enough to remember Jim and Tammy and the televangelist scams of the 80′s. This stuff still works??
Mark Driscoll you are a sad, ugly little man…

Moon Duo are currently on the road to celebrate their Woodsist release "Escape" on Feb 16.
Check 'em out tonight on DJ Rick's KDVS show on Feb 15, 10PM PST (http://www.kdvs.org/). 

FEBRUARY 2010 WEST COAST TOUR DATES
2/11 • Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco, CA (w/ Nothing People, Epikurs Euforie)
2/12 • Synchronicity Space, Los Angeles, CA (w/ Pocahaunted, Psychic Handbook)
2/13 • Showcave, Los Angeles, CA (w/ Psychic Handbook, Former Ghosts, Popdrone)
2/15 • KDVS Radio, Davis, CA
2/16 • Brookedale Lodge, Santa Cruz, CA (w/ The Entrance Band, Lights)
2/18 • Rendezvous, Seattle, WA (w/ Du Hexen Hase, Midday Veil)
2/19 • ANZA Club, Vancouver, BC (w/ Stellar OM Source, Pacific City Nightlife Vision Band)
2/20 • East End, Portland, OR (w/ The Urinals, Leaders, Eat Skull)

They'll be in Seattle this thursday in the Jewelbox Theater at the Rendezvous 2322 2nd ave.
along with the terrifying sounds of Du Hexen Hase and ethereal vibes of Midday Veil.

Our spiritual space brothers and sisters at the Chicago Metaphysical Circus are having a little psych fest. Looks cool, maybe we can open a worm-hole to the windy city and pay ‘em a visit. Wanna come?

Prolific New Zealand experimentalist Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel) will be making only four stops in the US and this is one- Saturday Jan. 9th at the Funhouse in Seattle. Melt your face with sound.
Our Love Will Destroy The World (New Zealand)
AFCGT (check out their new shit, it will mess you up good)
Dull Knife (members of Story of Rats and Du Hexen Hase)
Great Falls (Hemingway, Playing Enemy)
With brand new hypnogogic visual accompaniment by Portable Shrines

Pssst. Rumor has it the Markers just signed to Sub Pop.
Seriously this is going to be a start to finish FUCKING AMAZING SHOW. You don’t wanna miss out.
See below for more details…

Tonight Saturday 10/16 the imminent Kurt Vile returns to Seattle (this time with his band the Violators) along w/ Eat Skull, the Whines and Charles Leo Gebhardt IV. At the High Dive in Fremont…

Coming November 1st- A Portable Shrines Dia de los Muertos show w/ Blues Control, Little Claw and Brother Raven at the Funhouse. Blues Control (of Queens, NY) have been gifting the world with unique and  amazing jams on reputable labels such as Holy Mountain, SiltBreeze and Sub Pop for some time now but I believe this rare appearance in the NW is their first journey to these parts. Don’t miss it, cousins.

Little Claw are one of Kim and Thurston’s fave bands (he just put out there 2nd album on Ecstatic Peace) and they leave a trail of fire in their wake wherever they go. Check out some of their new tunes HERE.

Brother Raven are a local Seattle duo who deserve your undivided attention. Their analog virtuosity will take you on an awesome voyage through the pineapple portal and into interstellar space. Dig up on that shit right HERE.

by John Gillanders…

“Art is magick because art transforms consciousness”
Alan Moore

The above nugget of cosmic wisdom was culled from the documentary:  The Mindscape of Alan Moore, which was released on DVD stateside in 2008 to little fanfare. When I just checked, there were exactly two holds placed on said movie at the public library, whereas comparatively the Watchmen DVD had nearly a thousand. Which is really too bad, and kind of a reflection on how we want the body of our art and not always the mind. To be honest, I ran out and saw Watchmen on opening weekend back in March and banished Mindscape to the bottom of my ever expanding Netflix cue before just getting around to finally checking it out last month.

If I were to recommend a cogent introduction to so called magickal thought, I’d suggest this to anyone far more than actually reading anything Aleister Crowley’s written (which I’m still yet to get much out of) – which is kind of the aberrant thing with magickal writing. Whereas, people like Austin Osman Spare and Crowley are often seen as the forefathers of western magickal thought, I’ve personally found it far more beneficial to read other’s interpretation of their work rather than hearing it directly from their own mouths. In fact, it was actually attempting to read Crowley that turned me off to all things magick for years.

Read more…

The Slaves are currently on tour with Cloaks and will be playing ESCALATOR FEST Saturday 9/26 at the Vera Project.

Thanks once again go to Adam Svenson for the interviewing. Take it away Adam-

The Slaves exist at a juncture of the past and the future. This Portland two-piece
conjure up a cough syrup collusion between sweet crooning AM radio vocals and hazy
keyboards and slow time signatures. There is a beauty and darkness in their sound
that reflects their love of 50′s pop and modern noise and Goth musical moves, and a
record of theirs would not be out of place in the 4AD catalogue or placed during
the end credits of a harrowing foreign film. Sit back and let your mind wash down
the twilight river pouring forth from the Slaves.

Who are The Slaves and where do you come from?

The Slaves are Birch Cooper and Barbara Kinzle and we’re both from the Northwest.
I (Birch) grew up in Alaska, until I moved to the “greater Portland area” (AKA
Forest Grove) where Barbara and I went to high school together. After that Barbara
went to Portland and I went to Olympia. I’ve lived in Portland now for about 2
years.

You used to be an improv / noise band before morphing into a more structured
format…is there still a element of improvisation when you record and play live?

Improvisation is an important part of our music. We do have structures to our
songs, but they are really reliant on the energy of the moment, which is the main
thing that I like about improvisation.

Was the progression from a free-form approach to song-based pretty natural?

Yeah, ever since “The Slaves” really came into being, we’ve mixed the two, and
that’s what has come most naturally to us. We really started structuring our music
when we had the idea to try and blend “drone” and “noise” with “50′s rock/pop”.

Do the songs come out of improvisations or is the structure there before recording
them?

Well, we don’t really think of recordings as the ultimate way for a song to exist,
we think of them as being equal to a live song. Our songs come out of
improvisation, and then we develop structures from that, but the songs tend to keep
on changing after we record them.

If someone described your sound using the words “Twin Peaks” and “4AD”, would you
walk away, shaking your head with disgust?

We definitely consider David Lynch an influence. Juliee Cruise and Angelo
Badalamenti, too. I think that this answer is going to bleed into the next
question.

How about “cough syrup” and “Suicide (the band)”?

We love Suicide and we love This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins. I’m not crazy about
the Suicide comparison, though, if only because I feel like the commonalities
between our music are the result of us deciding to mix certain elements that are
also mixed in Suicide, rather than trying to follow in Suicides footsteps. I do
think that it’s pretty honest to say that we are aware of those bands, though, and
we have been affected by them.
Song to the Siren was kind of a gateway for us. We first heard it in “Lost Highway”
and were blown away, enough so that we decided to cover it, and i think that the
song has had a lasting impact on our band. Also, Alan Vegas collaboration with
Pansonic and Bruce Springsteens cover of “Dream Baby Dream” are important ones.
I think a lot of our sound comes from Barbara’s child hood love of new age music,
in combination with all the other stuff. 50′s rock, surf rock (especially Beach
Boys), free noise, composed noise, goth, industrial music, drone music, black
metal, contemporary pop/hip hop, amazing pop, 90′s rap, Neil Young “Trans”.
After getting really into noise music, I got really into pop music. I was very
interested in extreme music, and I think that The Slaves have always strove for
the extreme qualities of pop music. The helplessness and the power…
Actually, I like the “cough syrup” comparison the best. When we play I often try
to imagine that we are moving incredibly fast and incredibly slow at the same time,
in kind of a frozen moment of speed. I’ve never actually tripped on cough syrup
though….

You have a self-released CD out…any new releases coming out soon?

We are just completing our new release called “Grey Angel”! We’re putting it out
ourselves on tape and CDR. We’re really excited about it.. it’s definitely the
best sounding recordings that I’ve ever done.

Would you consider your music psychedelic?

What a question! I think that all music is psychedelic on a basic level. But I
would say that we try to hone in on the deep dark parts of human experience, and
for me that is a very psychedelic space.