The last time we caught up with Brett Sova he was bending the wild psychedelic overload of Motor Earth into the unsettling pop melodies of Shampoo You. That trend continues on steroids in this fourth full-length, the pandemic-shadowed, Ty Segall-produced Blinded by Oblivion, Sova’s most pop album yet.
Not that the New Pornographers should start looking over their shoulders. The guitar skree lurks in the background of even Sova’s most well-behaved songs, and the lyrical content is darker and more disturbing than you expect. “People,” for instance starts in a robot rumba of programmed rhythms, a minimalist foundation encroached on by swirls of sweetened, mid-range guitar. The words come in a soft, inoffensive warble, but watch for the kick in them: “People will be the end of people/people will snuff the light.” Yeah, not the happiest stuff.
“I’m a Ghost” blares with visceral, tactile bass (that’s Jeremy Freeze) that roils your innards. Its drums, live this time and played by Josh Johannpeter, rattle around in a boxy beat and break out, once in a while, in exclamation points. Sova shreds in a trebly, careening style instantly familiar to anyone who grew up with 1970s guitar bands, but the singing is clipped and futuristic. It’s a weird mesh of Devo and Iron Maiden, but exciting. “Join a Cult,” later on, is constructed from the same materials, the ankle deep murk of bassy undertow, the sci-fi deadpan singing, the crazy things that happens when Sova’s guitar gets loose. These are songs, not jams, the trio is always blasting verse-chorus structures apart.
That last song’s chorus, by the way, has more than a whiff of producer Ty Segall in it. Like Fuzz or Ty Segall Band, it wraps thick, fuzzy blasts of overdriven guitar around the catchiest of melodies. Axis:Sova used to be more about texture and emotion. Now it’s more concerned with song structure. But you can do both. Ask Ty.
Axis: Sova has grown from a one-person operation to full-fledged heavy psych juggernaut with last year’s Motor Earth. In 2015, Ben Donnelly observed that, with Early Surf, “Axis: Sova make heavy psych that bears the traces of bedroom multi-tracking, epic and casual at the same time. Some more fidelity wouldn't hurt their fuzz forms, but the chunks of treble and simple beatbox steps give it an appealing down-to-earth quality.” Founder Brett Sova contributes a list this week.
ZZ TOP — “Under Pressure,” “Gimmie All Your Lovin’" and “Sharp Dressed Man” Live On The Tube 1983
When it comes to the Little Ol’ Band from Texas, the first few records are undeniably hot and where it’s at. But Eliminator is mostly Billy Gibbons working with a drum machine if legend has it right, and top to bottom it delivers with extremely high impact. It’s a big commercial sound, for sure, but that type of ambition following a successful formula is a credit to Gibbons’ vision and willingness to morph and change creatively. BFG’s guitar tone here in particular is one I was after a little bit on Motor Earth — distorted amp saturation that feeds back whenever you’re not playing, bleeding. Something I always listen for with ZZ is the number of guitar tracks on each song — while they’re an exemplary power trio live, Billy tends to at least double track his guitar on a lot of recordings, and sometimes he’ll have two rhythm tracks panned to either side along with another track for the solo (check Tres Hombres, for example). Always pretty tasteful and subtle. (Axis: bandmate) Tim Kaiser and I set out to make our version of a boogie rock record with Motor Earth, and along with Beefheart’s Clear Spot, some Crazy Horse, and some requisite Stonesian scuzz, ZZ provide much blueprint for something of that nature for me, personally. All that aside, this footage of the band doing “Under Pressure” on 1980s British TV show The Tube is simply badass and I'd question the health of anyone who doesn't enjoy it.
Les Rallizes Denudes "Night of the Assassins" 3rd Sunset Festival Live 1976
Been on a mild Japanese psych kick, and this is the original artifact: Les Rallizes Denudes playing one of their iconic songs live (of course) at a festival at dusk against a glorious, mountainous backdrop. Their noise comes atop something simple and repetitive to latch onto, which allows their feeding lead guitar squalor to fully envelop and carry me around as if strapped to a horse on a patient gallop. It's yearning for something, like anything FSA, if FSA was ever accompanied by Link Wray-ish, rhythmic progressions. Melody and groove on the foundation, a screech of feedback over the top: "I Will Follow Him," but decapitated.
Electric Eels — “Splittery Splat”
One of the interesting things about growing up in Ohio and then leaving at the age of 18, when your brain is still mushy, is slowly realizing, especially once outside of it, just how much great, fucked up music has come from the state. There are the obvious and hugely successful ones, like, say, Devo, and there are some like Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, a band I saw numerous times in high school and sorta just took for granted as simply being ‘the guy from Used Kids Records’ band.’ I just saw TJSA in September at Cropped Out Festival (a.k.a. the most important festival on the planet), in Louisville, KY, for the first time in 15+ years and they were phenomenal — they represent to me a lineage of Ohio punk/weirdo music that is entirely genius yet also entirely too out for a broader audience (major label support or no), much like V3 or Tommy Jay, or Electric Eels. This Electric Eels song was on a Scat Records cassette compilation that my friend discovered when we were teenagers in the late 1990s. Apparently I borrowed it and never gave it back, because I recently rediscovered it when going through a box of tapes not too long ago. It’s a perfectly fucked punk song, from composition to delivery to recording and mix. Seems like they’ve gotten a lot of reissue treatment, but I’ll always remember this song from the Scat tape.
Fumio Miyashta (Far East Family Band) Live On Boffomundo
Embedding is disabled but you can go here and watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHNLtEMl2dg
Killer live performance of mellow headtrips via one of Japan’s psych-rock purveyors in the proggiest sense, Fumio Miyashta (of Far East Family Band). These dudes he’s playing with really lock into it, with tasty, mellow guitar leads and a pulsing bass mingling with the space-synth sounds Miyashta is laying out there. A relaxing and deep listen, but also buoyant and light, at times reminiscent of Blackouts by Ashra, which came out three years prior to this performance on The Boffomundo show, an early cable TV show dedicated to progressive music.
The Stooges — “My Girl Hates My Heroin” from My Girl Hates My Heroin
Unmatched depravity — like The Stones recording at Nellcote to get that dusty, humid summer basement vibe for Exile, this jam/gem from a rehearsal around the Raw Power era comes from a neighborly basement with similarly thick air. I make no bones about worshiping at the house of Ron Asheton (Fun House forever), and therefore must point out his nimble and fluid bass playing on My Girl Hates My Heroin, pushing this grimy riff forward, but Williamson really had a gnarled, unhinged nastiness to his playing that’s immediately enjoyable, as well. Iggy sounds like hell, like he should. Bought this on CD at a record store in Paris when I was in high school, and listening to it made me feel like a tough dude for the rest of that year.
Alice Coltrane — Huntington Ashram Monastery
Lacking depravity — empowering! Impossible to do a list without including Alice Coltrane. Journey to Satchidinanda is one of the few records I’ve ever bought new that I’ve truly worn out from excessive plays. Huntington Ashram Monastery might be more consistently played currently. It’s a power trio album, the Rashied Ali and Ron Carter rhythm section out to quake. Relatedly, last time I was in San Francisco I visited the Saint John Coltrane Church, where we listened to and meditated on A Love Supreme in its entirety. As a congregation — which didn’t consist of more than a handful of people — we collectively chanted/sang along when it was time, and otherwise actively listened free of distraction. The experience felt like an open window into the spirituality so prevalent in his and Alice’s music.
Royal Trux — Untitled (3rd album)
“Your beautiful skin, your beautiful spine / You’re beautiful all the time.” Chunky acoustics, insulation, isolation and utter abandon in the form of serrated guitar squeals from the edges of Neil Hagerty’s torn up plectrum straight to your ears. The album begins as something earnest, almost pensive, a light haze akin to just waking up, and proceeds to slowly rise out of bed and begin to walk around, shaking out the legs and cracking the joints til the moss rolls off and the stimulant (or analgesic) hits the vein. From there, its loose openness stretches into a broad expanse, allowing for glorious feedback-laden solos to cover the sonic horizon, barely-there rhythm action holding it together by sheer will. Not much percussion, no bass? More room for what matters! Herrera’s voice right in the sweet spot with bad intent, “on top.” The things I want and need from rock n' roll.
Randy Holden — “Blue My Mind” from Population II
Randy Holden, the badass who spent a year and half an album in Blue Cheer, realized his vision with the unmatched velocity of his solo album, Population II. I was just hipped to one of his earliest bands, The Other Half, for whom Randy Holden played guitar prior to his stint in Blue Cheer, and the power and brilliance of his song construction is evident and completely identifiable even there— but Population II is the full realization of Holden’s six-string swagger damage, and “Blue My Mind” is the highlight for me. There’s barely a drop of effects (ok there are overdubs), it’s just the sound of one man blasting through a literal wall of 200 watt Sunn Amps (16 of ‘em?) with minimal bass and drum accompaniment. Sunn amps have a distinctive sound: their reverb isn’t close to sounding “sparkly” the way someone might describe a vintage Fender with admiration. Instead, when cranked, they sound kinda like a guitar being played through an overheated A/C window unit or maybe a tube-powered hairdryer in a tile bathroom that’s meticulously mic’d through a high powered PA System. It’s not for everybody, but that gnarled and blunt quality cannot be matched, requiring zero fuzz or distortion pedal whatsoever to achieve a gloriously saturated molten tone that somehow retains bell-like clarity. Early days for Axis: Sova was playing through a ’67 Sunn Sceptre exclusively. While that’s not the case anymore, it’s very present on songs from our previous album, Early Surf, especially the title track’s main riff. Guitars in front!
Velvet Underground — “What Goes On” Live at the Hilltop Festival 2nd August 1969
Featuring Mo Tucker, the human metronome. I wish I could get a snare sound out of my drum machine like this. Its rhythmic simplicity set against skittering guitars produces counter beats and accents that start to feel like Terry Riley’s sat in — especially once the organ begins to fry.
Sonny Sharrock — “Once Upon a Time” from Ask the Ages
Stately and serene, a song beholden of wisdom and truth. You know, hopeful. The melody has a patient emotion that doesn’t force itself on the listener, but rather amplifies whatever feeling the listener has at that moment — be it upbeat, uplifting, or melancholy. Especially gritty tone and saturation. Sonny Sharrock’s last album is amazing, with a killer band including Pharaoh Sanders and Elvin Jones.
Steve Hillage — “Salmon Song” live in 1977
p>
Hypnosis via riff-phrase, let it slip, put a driving, unwavering bass line underneath it, and soar towards a gassy nebula… its space-prog breakdowns and solos cascade and shimmer, and then the riff rises again. The whole album, Fish Rising, is cool, but not as tough to beat as this live performance of its best jam, "Salmon Song."
Rafael Toral — Wave Field
Wave Field - Remastered by Rafael Toral =
Aside from Flying Saucer Attack, who regularly achieve something similar, there are few pieces of guitar music that convey as much emotional expression through feedback and drone as well as Wave Field by Portugal’s Rafael Toral. It’s deep, theta brainwave meditation is enveloping and surreal — it drips and distorts reality like the best painters of the genre — to a liquid degree, akin to floating in a sensory deprivation tank. Having gone looking for it online, I just discovered that Rafael has remastered it to create what he feels is a more spacious sounding recording, more in line with his original vision. I’m not entirely sure which sounds better to me: both versions fit like a snug wetsuit in bath water.
In episode 112 of Notes and Bolts, Brett from Axis Sova talks about the differences between performing as a full group and a solo artist along with the differences between performing material in a live setting versus recording it.
