Rahdunes Rack Up A Top 10 For Dusted.

Rahdunes
Original post

The trio of Aaron Coyes, Indra Dunis and Nate Archer make primal, psychedelic drone music of the vicious variety. It’s campfire music, if the camp was actually on fire. The vibe is wild, but not to be confused with evil. Rahdunes released their first LP last year on Emperor Jones, a 46-minute self-titled jawn that’s heavy on cymbals and synths and light on subtlety (one of the song titles is "Meeting you is like sucking God’s cock"). In that sense, it makes sense that Rahdunes called San Francisco home for so long. Coyes and Dunis (of Numbers), recently married on Aug. 30, have moved to the suburbs of Madison, Wisc., where they’ve started a new record label, Aldebaran Record Farm (6555 County Road T, Spring Green, WI 53588). Coyes is dabbling in short-circuitry under the name Faceplant, while Archer has chosen the un-Googlable moniker Temptation to kill time until the next Rahdunes project. Coyes took part in this week’s Listed.

1. The Dells - "Freedom Means / The Love We Had (Stays On My Mind)" 45 RPM (Cadet)
This is a great record all around, but “The Love We Had Stays on My Mind” has got to be the sickest slow jam ever. No shit! It is an emotional journey filled with vocal harmonies up the wazzoo, some thick bass licks and wailing guitar guru mantras. They blew my ass out my face when I first heard this jam kickin’ back stoned in the summer heat kickin’ it with 45s.

2. The Lemon Pipers - "Green Tambourine / No Help From Me" 45 RPM (Buddah)
Real run o’ the mill ‘60s stuff. Don’t get me wrong, this stuff is good, especially out of that little mini stereo speaker. The organ in this is totally aggressive and swarthy on “No Help From Me,” with a real out of character guitar solo that does not sound too ‘60s. The vocals are much more rough on this mix in an angsty early psych punk weirdness. Don’t know why, but this song kicks!

3. New Order - Power, Lies and Corruption (Factory)
Can’t begin to tell you how much all of us love this band. We went on this two-and-a-half-month tour straight through: too much beer, too much lack of sleep, too much driving. The last three weeks we met up with this band from Japan, Suishou no Fune, in Baltimore. Our show was cancelled, but we went to a massive fest that was fun and at that fest this girl named Chiara gave us this bag of Damiano, which is some herb to smoke alone or mix with the mother herb. Damiano, weed and both these New Order records played throughout the drive. In New Mexico, the middle of the desert in the middle of the day, the sky was gold, and black purple throwing up lightning bolts all over the place and all of the sudden we saw not one but two rainbows on the side of the road. It completely blew us away. All of us: Suisho, Uncle Reggae, Nate and I all got out of the van on this desert highway with New Order blasting, amazed at this sight which words can do no justice to, as the desert vibe sank in, in all its entirety.

4. Gareth Williams & Mary Curry - Flaming Tunes cassette
Williams co-founded This Heat. These tapes are a magical descent into the future. Complete sci-fi music for the observer of time. If Terrence McKenna, the mushroom king, new about this, his theory of Timewave Zero would have been expanded to a different level. There’s plenty of history behind these recordings to have a feast with. They really just exemplify taking from the past and making something new, like what reggae did to soul. It’s a very unique inquisitive and observatory blast of the time in which this was made, without compromising to the tastes of when it was made. Forward thinking.

5. Three 6 Mafia - "Weed, Blow, Pills (Chopped and Screwed Remix)"
These dudes have done nothin’ but good. The “Chopped and Screwed” mix slays! The song slays! One day we hope to help bring some pulse and sounds to some ripping rap muso’s like this! Dirty south will always rule!!! It’s like a completely original take on hyphy, but it really makes me want to move around and partake in the father, son and holy ghost trio of the aforementioned title. This is positive music, like “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. Yes! Three 6 Mafia is this time’s B.O.C!!!!

6. Bob Marley and the Wailers
Marley was a genius. Whether or not you like or dislike reggae, it doesn’t matter – these early dudes did there own thing, like the movie Rockers, they brought culture and respect to the island of Jamaica. They were creative with their resources. The early dudes all knew circuit bending and shit. Massive tape-delay studio wildness. TRENCHTOWN DUB!!!

7. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms (Stiff)
What can I say, this record will always get some serious play! Too bad they were from Jersey instead of New York – they may have gotten the respect they truly deserve. Not to mention, as Nate put it, they sound epic, like a crazier Yes.

8. The Great Unwashed (Flying Nun)
All this stuff is face-melting pop with a dark undertone. Can never get enough.

9. Mac Dre - Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics (Thizz Entertainment)
Because Mac Dre was never a rat, mad respect from all corners of the oblahglobe. This is the beginning of some crazy sounding hyphy jazz-mattaz! Love it!!

10. WAR - "The World Is A Ghetto" 45 RPM played at 33 RPM (United Artists)
OK, so this WAR song is moderate if played at 45 RPM, but do yourself a home-made ‘chopped and screwed’ mix on your very own turntable and you can partake in the modern act of turntablism, making you a turntablist. This tune slowed down is another world!!! And fits the lyrics much, much more!!!

Blues Control Gets Foxy.

Brooklyn's dynamic noise-rock duo Blues Control scored a killer review on Foxy Digitalis yesterday. For those in the greater NY metropolitan area, check out some live blues with Rahdunes (Emperor Jones) tonight and tomorrow.

09/13 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY @ Bard College (w/Rahdunes)
09/14 New York, NY @ Cake Shop (w/ Rahdunes)
09/19 Brooklyn, NY @ GlassLands

Blues Control
Holy Mountain
Online review

In a homemade submarine below the surface of a tropical sea Blues Control lurk. They have managed an escape from the expectations associated with any prescribed sound or scene. Many bands over the years have been eager to take their “rock” to outer space, but as you can see Russ and Lea have opted for something different, instead of putting the tin can into the cosmos, they lowered it into the sea. I know what you are thinking “The cover of this album contradicts everything you are saying,” but perhaps none of us have just never gone deep enough in the sea.

Deadened hypnotic loops of percussion push their fuzzy low-end frequencies through beaten old speakers, the only sonar the good ship Blues Control needs. The prerecorded magnetic tape that sets the course are soaking wet and the beats sound as if they are being pounded out on a damp cardboard box drum set. Reminiscent of the steady rhythm that would be found holding down an epic side-long psychedelic rock compositions, these loops serve as a ready made foundation upon which Blues Control over lay virtuosic spaced-out piano and infectious damaged guitar leads. Along the way synths, flutes, harmonicas, and manipulated vocals all make appearances in walk-on roles. All structures created for and within these compositions are calculated devices for reaching a more pure level of expression and shared freedom. Freedom is a quality so quickly (and perhaps wrongly) associated with improvised music. While Blues Control are by no means an improv group, their songs are built loosely enough for subtle continual reinvention to take place. It is also through these slight and subtle “imperfections” and “inventions” that the listener is able to develop a closer relationship to the music and it’s makers.

These songs cannot adequately be described in pre-existing genre definitions. There is a hazy feeling of familiarity one gets when listening to the tracks contained here within but any immediate point of reference will not have a name. We could throw terms around until we are blue in the face, but I promise you the moment we settle on a definition, no matter how concrete or vague, Blues Control will make a move to contradict all the conclusions we just arrived at. You see, Blues Control are not afraid of stylistic contradictions that may arise within their process, in fact they embrace them, understanding that the richest territory to mine is that which is not defined, and what better way to get the listener to walk the path with them then by giving the listener something vaguely familiar to hold onto.

As I listen again and again I can’t help but think of, what I imagine to be an, unintentional bond this album shares with German Oak and their self-titled album released 35 years earlier. Though Blues Controls, spaced-out tin can party vibe couldn’t be further from the dark brooding of German Oak, the recordings present on both albums share a similar sense of production and through that production succeed at creating a very specific space in which the music exists. There is an honesty and sincerity that can be heard through the music, a quality that can not be assumed, that truly makes this album a gem to be treasured. Blues Control are not afraid to commune with the ghosts of rock past but be aware their reference to the groups of the past goes hand in hand with a wary critical edge and an eye to the future. 9/10 -- Ryan Brown (12 September, 2007)