Trial Of The Bow >> That's not a knife

Trial Of The Bow - ""Inverloch"

(Release Entertainment, 1994)

This is a pretty ethereal and somewhat menacing track, with a timeless feel that makes its origin hard to pinpoint.  It's a shame that Trial Of The Bow (no idea what the name means) only recorded one EP and one full-length.  This is from the EP, called Ornamentation.  I almost posted the more dynamic "The Two Sacred Tapestries Of Persia" or "From The Mountains Of Tangier", but decided "Inverloch" deserves to be better-known as a chillout classic.  They were from Melbourne, and this EP would make a great soundtrack for one of my favorite Aussie flicks, the existentially violent Walkabout, or for Picnic At Hanging Rock, which I just saw for the first time last month.  The song is named after the seaside town of Inverloch in Victoria, Australia.  This one goes out to ManiacEyeball.

AllMusic Guide says "In addition to the use of the standard guitar/bass/drum setup, the duo also uses several exotic instruments, including the tabla, hammer dulcimer, tamboura, manjira, bansuri flute, and e-bow. Their lengthy, evocative, contemplative drones take cues from several ageless sources, alternating from haunting to soothing."
They actually made an official music video for the song, which I have on one of those Rock Video Monthly VHS tapes.  It's also on YouTube, sadly at only 240p.  The video's director (username: warmcola) said "I made this video waaaay back in 1994, shot on Super VHS and edited together on my Uni's brand spanking new AVID... Great to see it again."

Sept. 1995 VHS; Trial Of The Bow's EP cover is at bottom right

This VHS has videos for some amazing, era-defining songs by Buffalo Tom ("Summer"), Matthew Sweet ("We're The Same"), Better Than Ezra ("In The Blood"), and Faith No More ("Evidence"), and is capped off perfectly by the "Inverloch" vid.  I have a bunch of these RVM VHS tapes but since the advent of YouTube I never watch them.

Well, I was pretty mad about the ridiculously poor sound mix that Swervedriver had inflicted upon them by the Jimmy Fallon show (or I guess by NBC in general) last Monday.  It totally neutered their sound and made them sound muddy and amateurish, whereas in reality nothing could be further from the truth about them.  Maybe their sheer volume simply overloaded the limiters / attenuators and caused the levels to be artificially low?

I found this magazine the next day in someone's trash on the curb, a few minutes before a massive storm came through.  It's a beautiful, Anton Corbijn-esque shot in every way.  I think I'm going to frame the cover, since I'm really into desert plants; the pic is of a group of Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia), of course.  December '93 was a really rough time for me for several reasons, so this cover helps me reboot my brain when it comes to how I remember that time.

Going back a few weeks...

March 20: Saw Alcest (from France), Deafheaven (from San Francisco), and Whom Do You Work For? (from NOLA) at The Big Top.  It was probably the smallest crowd that Alcest, a hybrid shoegaze-metla band, has played to in years, but they were appreciative.  WDYWF? stole the show, in my mind at least, with their edgy, Slint-y, CAN-y, controlled chaos.  I recommended A.R. Kane's "Green Hazed Daze" to their singer afterwards, and he immediately typed it into his phone as a reminder.  Also bought their new CD-R EP, which comes in several different spray-painted covers.

Flyer showing upcoming shows put on by An Idea Like No Other + a show preview from local zine Antigravity

I snapped a pic even though lots of people were taking better ones up front:

They probably haven't played on a stage this small in many years

March 23: Saw two concerts by Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma at the Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge.  Esperanza Spalding is no longer her bassist, unfortunately, but it was very good nonetheless.

March 24: The annual spring Record Raid at Tulane.  Got a bunch of stuff I never thought I'd find, such as Band Of Susans' Love Agenda (LP), the influential ambient compilation Ambient 4: Isolationism (2xCD), and other stuff like some Massive Attack, Idaho, Miles Davis, and Breathless.  Talked to this girl Candice who remembered talking to me at a Broken Water show two years ago, and even remembered that I was wearing a James Chance & the Contortions shirt that night.  Wow.  She showed me a Wipers tattoo on her tricep; I think it said "Is this real?"  Bought a New Bloods 7" and a Hell-Kite cassette from her booth, plus she tipped me off to a zine with a semi-nude photo of Broken Water on the back cover, so I of course bought that.  Also met some other really cool people, including a guy who was at a Trans Am show I saw in '99 (see upcoming post on that) and his wife, Kathi.  She was, unbeknownst to me, DJing when I called in to WTUL to ask about a song (which turned to be from Belong's latest album) a few days later, and recognized my voice, so we talked for a few minutes.  I requested something by Seefeel, whom she had never heard of; I told her to pick any song and she ended up choosing "Climactic Phase #3".

March 29: Was driving around in east Baton Rouge near Prairieville and saw a Blockbuster Video that was going out of business, so I hit it hard for a few hours and got some obscure foreign films.

March 31: Went to the annual Dept. of Parks & Parkways plant sale at Dillard.  Got a huckleberry tree, a spicebush, and two little flowering plants.  Talked about lots of obscure plant topics with a DPP employee named Skip; decided to name the huckleberry tree after him because his praise of the species led me to buy it.

This post's title is everyone's favorite line from a certain famous Aussie movie, duh.

130 Simpsons episodes at once

Planets with similar climates: Steve Roach & Robert Rich - "Touch" (1992), Miles Davis - "He Loved Him Madly" (1974), Brian Eno - "Lantern Marsh" (1982), Bark Psychosis - "Pendulum Man" (1993).

Pocahaunted >> Dub trouble

California Month continued, tremor #35:

Pochaunted - "Ashes Is White"

(Arbor Records / Not Not Fun Records, 2008)

Pocahaunted were initially a dubby, droney, two-gal duo.  Yes, Bethany Cosentino was still in the band when they released this album, Island Diamonds, though she soon left to form Best Coast (a pun on "Beth Cose").  Despite the band's jokey name, and their slogan "the Olsen twins of blissed-out drone," this album is seriously dark, paranoid, and disorienting.  This song's music video ups the ante even further:

The repetition may get to some people, but at least listen to it once all the way through, with your mind.  I was actually going to post "Ghetto Ballet," but changed my mind for some reason which escapes me now, but probably because the singing is really annoying on it.  This album came out on limited colored vinyl in early 2008, then on CD with different cover art & two bonus tracks (the crushingly-heavy "Iron Shirt" and the atmospheric "Time Fist") later that year.

Singer Amanda Brown found herself ambushed on Penn & Teller's TV show Bullshit!:

After Beth Coast left and started dating that idiot from Wavves, Pocahaunted got a totally new lineup, with Brown as the only original member, and adopted a more funky, compact, party-oriented sound; this guy named Sun Araw is one of the new members.  I saw this lineup in 2010, but I couldn't help but wish I had seen the original duo lineup, which never played in my state, at least as far as I know.  They didn't play a single song from Island Diamonds.  New bassist Diva Dompé (daughter of Bauhaus' drummer) is one of the most attractive people I have seen, and likes to wear feathers and face paint onstage.  She now has some solo songs out under the name Diva.

Just watched the movie The Saint, which was not at all how I thought it'd be for all these years.  Pretty disappointing.  Yesterday in Lockport I bought four persimmons for a dollar from some people who had a huge persimmon tree in their yard and a sign advertising its wares.  Speaking of the Olsen twins, I recently found out they have a sister named Elizabeth, whom I have decided will be a big star.

CNN.com's top 10 topics for today, always a handy way to gauge what the world is talking about:

Planets with similar climates: Slowdive - "Moussaka Chaos" (1993), Medusa Cyclone - "Blind Witch" (1998), Lush - "Undertow" (1993), Morphine - "Down Love's Tributaries" (1993).