Arcane Candy

Fadensonnen is back in Black for their third color-titled half-hour EP. (I can’t wait until they cross the entire color spectrum and end up at Burnt Sienna or Turquoise.) The opening track, “Night of Sharoque Coughs,” features some lonesome guitar picking that is occasionally interupted by schizo workouts on the drum kit. “Sweet Judy Brown” is the first song in the Fadensonnen canon with vocals, which remind me a lot of the singing on The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy. Careful, guys–you might attract a fanbase. “Gnid Gnid” shuts down the album in a more atmospheric rock vein with tin cans dripping in the background as distant drums throb and the guitars chime and moan on into a lengthy, churning din. Here’s hoping that PD and RD will be joined by R2D2 and C3PO on their next EP for a Fadensonnen quartet take on the bar scene from Star Wars.

Label: Fadensonnen Records Catalog Number: 003 Format: CD-R Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 3 Total Time: 32:17 Country: United States Released: 2011 More: Official, YouTube

Text ©2011 Arcane Candy

Whereas Fadensonnen’s first album, Grey, was named after the most well-known type of alien, White pays tribute to that most beloved paranormal phenomenon: the ghost. (Punching the cobweb-covered clock at just 25 minutes, it seems that the latter could have been included on the same disc as the 30 minute long former.) Shyly boasting just two tracks, the EP kicks off in high gear with the duo of PD and RD a-pickin’ and a-grinnin’ their way through “Slit the Moon,” whipping up a dense, sloppy electric guitar maelstrom supported by a backbone of simple, Velvety drum thwack. “White of Ice” flip-flops the mood with a much more subdued sound stage filled with spacious drones that hover like body wash mist in a dank dressing room as gently-picked melodies tease some downwardly mobile stripper’s alcohol-logged head into a stupor.

Label: Fadensonnen Records Catalog Number: 002 Format: CD-R Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 2 Total Time: 25:01 Country: United States Released: 2011 More: Official, YouTube

Text ©2011 Arcane Candy

PD and RD (I’m on an initials-only basis with these guys!), also known as Fadensonnen, is a duo of din-makers who hail (a cab) from Brooklyn, New York. (Soon to be re-named Old York, or maybe New Spice.) On their alien-titled debut CD, Grey, they offer your brain / ears combo a half hour’s worth of surly sonics that crawl the gamut from noisy guitar feedback with maniacally hyperactive, freeform drumming to sparse, plaintive pickfests to all-out drone / riff-athons–all reverb-soaked and recorded in murky lo-fidelity. This shirt, I mean short but sweet set is sure to please electric fans of sub-underground drone / shamble rock–especially from Japan and New Zealand.

Label: Fadensonnen Records Catalog Number: 001 Format: CD-R Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 5 Total Time: 30:14 Country: United States Released: 2010 More: Official, YouTube

Text ©2011 Arcane Candy

Like a rotting burger submerged in a stagnant pond, the music of Berger Rond is composed of just the type of sonic gastro-intestinal chaos that instantly repels most people. Well, I’m not like most people, so I welcome with open arms the Berg’s special efforts to crumble up reality like a paper ball, throw it away, take a nap, wake up, fetch it back out and unfold it to reveal an ever-expanding map of Planet Weird. We’re talking deeply unpretty, lurching, start ‘n’ stop seizure music of a fairly tall order. Recognizable instruments like cello, cymbals, drums, piano, violin and xylophone get layered with banging musique concrete-like sounds to form fractured rhythms and melodies. Then the whole mess gets sprinkled with myriad layers of random blats, bleats and homely French singing to push it a little bit further out. It’s the perfect wedding music, if your bride is a duckbill platypus and the reception takes place inside a house of mirrors in an active volcano on an asteroid that’s about to crash into Jupiter. Think Caroliner mashed up with Pierre Henry and you’re getting warm.

Label: Freaky Waves Format: CD-R Packaging: Slimline CD Case Tracks: 4 Total Time: 53:01 Country: Canada Released: 2010 More: Last.FM, The Sixty One, Official, This Great Society, WTFMusic, YouTube

Text ©2011 Arcane Candy

Hailing and wailing from sunny and smoggy Los Angeles, California, Karie Jacobson and Drew Kowalski–a musical duo known as The Dagons–ditch the brightly lit warm weather and head straight for a Louisiana swamp at midnight on their fifth full-length effort, Upon the Dull Earth. Brandishing fuzz guitar, a sitar brighter than a glass of Sprite, rock steady drums and reverb-bathed vocal melodies–all tethered together with a seriously booming bottom end–they comb, I mean combine sea shanties, ’60s psych and ’80s fence post-punk with an ease not seen since La-Z Boy debuted the recliner to the delight of armchair pirates everywhere. And where have I seen that cover wench before? Oh yeah, she modeled for the Starbucks logo!

Label: Dead Sea Captain Records Format: CD Packaging: Jewel Case Tracks: 15 Total Time: 38:10 Country: United States Released: 2010 More: Blogspot, Last.FM, Official

Text ©2011 Arcane Candy