Posts Tagged kill rock stars
Orthrelm/Behold... The Arctopus | S/T Split
I thought this was the first official recording released by Behold… The Arctopus. It is not, but it is in fact the shortest, and cheapest, which is the real reason I got it. I’ve been meaning to get some records from those guys for a while since I started following them on Myspace if you can believe that.
Orthrelm I first got into through Kill Rock Stars when they were giving out a lot of free downloads. Seems odd now, because they seem so Metal; at least, they fit in perfectly into the current Weirdo Metal scene. But guitar hero Mick Barr started out in the KRS stable playing bass for Quix*O*Tic. And this side project fit right along with the spazz-math/noise rock of labelmates Hella and Nervous Cop. So KRS was featuring a couple Orthrelm tracks even tho the first record came out on Toletta.
Interesting? Dubious? Why even mention it. Why even spend time thinking about this footnote of a release? It’s referred to as an EP but it’s merely a split single, a song a piece, neither over 5 1/2 minutes. And not the most memorable tunes. It would be hard to tell which band was which if you didn’t know what to listen for. It’s two solid blocks of blistering instrumental intricacy-core. Speed Metal at 78, the record broken and randomly glued back together. The thing I’m into here is that these two bands that sound so similar got there in opposite ways.
BTA is inspired solely by extreme Technical Death Metal bands and Modern Classical composers. Every note of their songs is written on paper and then played back as precisely as possible. (It should be mentioned many bands write this way but do not have the chops or will to put in the practice hours to really perform their own music.)
Orthrelm rely more on improv techniques coming from a Jazz influence. This interview with Mick Barr explains how this works within his style of Metal. Knowing this, it’s much easier to hear the difference between the compositions. Orthrelm does not have the kind of doubled stop/start parts of BTA. (Which actually reminds me of bebop, but apparently that’s a coincidence.)
This record may be of interest to fans of Krallice, as it is the first meeting on record of main members Mick Barr and Colin Marston, as far as I tell. Altho they are on separate songs. And the music has zero to do with Black Metal. Some people might say Krallice is not really Black Metal, well, this record is really, really not Black Metal. It’s all relative. But check it out. There’s not much to risk only losing about 9 minutes of your time, that’s shorter than most individual Krallice songs. I think I’ve listened to this more than I would an LP of either band, it’s pretty enjoyable once you get into it. But I’m going to get those LPs still. In time.
TRIVIA: Orthrelm’s song Pithot 1 may not be an invented adjective for a situation as hot as a pit, but a French word for male goose [the word is from “Jersey French”] Seven years later, they have yet to follow up with the implied sequel. Maybe there’s a pun I’m missing. BTA’s song Paincave is just about a cave of pain, I think. But who knows.
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Bikini Kill/Huggy Bear | Split LP
Split LPs create a unique problem in titling blog post reviews. But forget about that. I love the split LP as an object unto itself, but am annoyed by it when it comes time to organize. I just came across this split the other day in a folder marked “206”, the Kill Rock Stars catalog number. That’s how it came when I bought the download last year direct from the KRS site. Since then they’ve been moving their digital sales to bandcamp, except for the Bikini Kill stuff because they bought the rights back or whatever. This release gets unfortunately gets lost in the shuffle. To prevent it from getting lost again in my own collection, I’ve split the release up into the respective artist folders because it’s really just 2 EPs released together for convenience sake. Convenience as a sell-able item that is. It’s the kind of thing that makes sense as a physical object. Except it doesn’t of course if you like to keep your records in order. Then all you can do is put it with the other split releases, possibly by catalog number. It’s almost enough to make you not care about anything at all, ever. Why even buy records, or talk about them? Maybe it’s time to delete all your blogs, stop checking your email, there’s no goddam point to anything if you can’t even keep a record collection in order. A record collection? Why?
But then you get over that cause there’s not really that many of them. And you can always sell them. You don’t even have to review them. It’s all right. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine and good. The mp3s can go in separate folders, it’s going to be ok.
Huggy Bear, come over here for a second. I just want to talk. I got this for you guys. I like Bikini Kill fine, but all the songs on their side are on their other records in better versions. The slower version of Rebel Girl is interesting, I can’t believe that started out as a slow song. Not much else to say about it. But the cover is great. Don’t really get what you were going for with your cover. It wasn’t posted on the site when I bought it. I like to think that the BK cover is the the real cover of the entire release but we know that’s not true. It’s ok. I remember the 90s. I wasn’t really “around” for the early Riot Grrrl scene, but I remember all the reactionary aesthetic moves that seemed necessary at the time. So, a lot of things about this release seem a little jarring compared to your comp album Taking the Rough with the Smooch, but not that much considering the context. That comp has a real timeless feel to it tho. It’s one of my favorite 90s punk albums (even if it wasn’t conceived as an album). I didn’t even know there was more, I thought you guys were like the Germs. I don’t know why it took that long to find you had more albums. I’m going to have to check out the later stuff. Anyway, I like how this stuff matches the sound of the stuff on the comp, but I can see why none of it made the cut. I don’t really get what most of the songs are about; seems to be some British scene-related fashion policing. And there’s non-politicized young romance stuff, complete with a Charlie Brown sample. THAT’S SO 90s. I just mean, it is. Maybe you just didn’t think of the band as having a real set in stone image but I thought of it as a super angry, kinda beatnik/anarchist thing. Those angry songs were also the catchiest. I guess I get it, with the cover and all. This is more real autobiographical stuff about just being young people in a band? And the other early stuff is the ultimate fantasy of Super Punks…unless you guys were really killing cops in the streets. I’m not saying you weren’t…it just seems like that would be more known. I didn’t research it if there’s some open cases there. If there is, don’t answer this. I mean, it’s a blog post. That would be pretty stupid to give yourself up in a blog post comment after all this time. Not saying you would do that. It’s just…ok enough of that.
☠☠☠☠☠
If you people out there want a legit copy of this thing you’re going to have to get the vinyl used from a 3rd party, which will get the bands exactly as much money as if you torrent it or whatever it is you do, but you’ll have that piece of vinyl that going to stare at you from whatever random shelf you put it on cause you don’t know what to do with it…for the rest of your days. You’ll want to put it on sometimes tho, it’s pretty good.
...apparently you will find another band that is like kiddie techno or something if you look for the mp3s on amazon (but they have the other albums).
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