Hydra Head Records: Isis

JODIS BLACK CURTAIN PRE-ORDER

JODIS - Black Curtain LP & CD

Release Date: October 2, 2012

Known for their work in the dark recesses of heavy music via such vehicles as Khanate, ISIS and Blind Idiot God, it would have been easy enough for the trio of Aaron Turner, James Plotkin and Tim Wyskida to kick out something adequately dark and crushing with the formation of Jodis in 2007. Certainly outside expectations of what the group would sound like fell along those lines, but to the dismay of some and the delight of others, the final results were altogether more lush, melodic, and downright beautiful than anything previously imagined. The foundation for their debut album Secret House was laid around a careful synthesis of Plotkin and Wiskyda's reductive, mercurial rhythmic interplay coupled with Turner's knack for constructing monolithic sounds and dramatic ambience. Each note was deliberate. The gaps between notes were as important as the notes themselves. Tempos were made malleable. But a clear sense of structure and a dreamy, understated elegance threaded through the album's seven tracks to produce an alluring, if somewhat bleak sonic landscape for the listener.

After several years of steady concentrated work, Jodis have returned with their sophomore album, Black Curtain. Once again, the trio's emphasis on sparseness and tension remains in full force, but is tempered by a greater focus on melody and slow blooming song structure. While its predecessor thrived on a kind of predatory patience, Black Curtain's reserve is more of a salve than a threat. The album opens with "Broken Ground", where spikes of reverbdrenched guitar sprawl across a humming electronic horizon, over which delicately draped vocal melodies twist, collide and dissolve. Drums occasionally rise from the ether, punctuating the meditative passages of pastoral calm. The band continues to explore the many outlets of their panoramic minimalism across the airy expanses of "Silent Temple", the shimmering melancholy of "Red Bough", the hymn-like repetition of "Corridor", and the mantric chants of "Awful Feast". The more visceral and vitriolic elements of Jodis's members' past work are put on hold for the majority of Black Curtain. But the thunderous low-tuned throbs of guitar and strong-armed pounding of the drums rear their head in the closing track "Beggar's Grasp". Even in this rousing close to the album, the harmonious core is retained, and the listener is immersed in the depths of the sound around them, rather than mercilessly suffocated by it. Black Curtain is no doubt heavy - emotionally, even sonically - but its true strength lies in its graceful reserve and reverential worship of gray-skied beauty.

Stream "Silent Temple" on Tiny Mix Tapes

JODIS items in the Hydra Head Shop

JODIS Bandcamp

JODIS Facebook

OLD MAN GLOOM - NO

2xLP/CD/CS/Digital

June 26th, 2012

INTER-OFFICE DATA EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE HEAD EXECUTIVES AND THE OMG INSTITUTE, WINTER 2012

A: Do any of you have interest in doing a small number of OMG live events in 2012? First

off, a fest in Poland and possibly some additional shows before and/or after?

C: If it makes sense to do some other shows then great, I could probably get away with

being gone for a short week. If not then I'm fine with just doing the fest and taking

everyone's share of money. I figure I deserve it based on the amount of stress I endured

during the recording process. I need a googleplex to make this work.

S: I'll drop some knowledge on ya'll. Caleb is trying to trick us. A googleplex isn't a

number, but a wrestling maneuver. He's simply trying to make sure we'll all wrestle on

the tour. ....plus, we'll have merch to sell, and from what I understand, the Polish love

balsa wood aeroplanes.

A: Nate - just so you know, the fact that Santos drinks now means he can just come

along to entertain Caleb, and we can finally ask Kurt to play drums for us full time.

C: If we can keep our over head to a minimum then I would be on board. And of course I

will need a bowl of Wendy's french onion soup at every show. And it better be fucking hot.

A: Wendy's soup. Got it. You are a prick.

N: Danzig wanted a Wendy's chicken sandwich in addition to his piping hot french onion

soup. "No mayo, No mustard. Dry."

A: Even if we never play a show, just talking about them is reward enough for me.

N: I'm sorry if that last email came off shitty. I read it after I sent it and realized the tone

could have been misunderstood. Though I AM shitty, I promise I wasn't trying to be.

S: Hey fellas. Any progress in figuring out your schedule Caleb? Maybe I missed some

emails. I got the one where I was kicked out, so I'm just writing as a fan. Can I get on the

guestlist if you do play shows?

C: Ok, so in theory this would work for me. Drop the kids off at daycare 7am on Tuesday

the 1st. Drive to airport, fly to London. Shred hard in London Tuesday night. Make our

way to the Poland fest by shredding hard through Europe. Maybe another show after the

fest heading in the right direction? I would need to try and be home by 4pm on Monday

the 7th. You can probably throw in a trip to the emergency room somewhere in there,

mid-week or so. Again, this would be an ideal situation for me but I realize everybody

has their own shit as well. I'm just spitballin' as they say in the industry.

A: Well, Santos it looks like you might be able to play with us after all. Do you know how

to press play on a discman?...Also, anyone have an opinion about the new sequence of

the record?

N: I'm fine with this new version too, I just like it when records punch you in the face

right off the bat. Thinking about you staring at me makes me uncomfortable.

A: How about if I jump out of the record cover and punch you in the face next time you

put it on?

C: Im good with it.

N: Him punching me or the sequence?

C: Both.

N: Well, I guess we can get the punch over with this weekend.

A: Only if we listen to the record.

SELLING POINTS //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

- Old Man Gloom is a supergroup (containing members of Converge, ISIS, Cave In,

Zozobra, Doomriders, Mamiffer, etc.), but instead of making shitty records like other

"supergroups", Old Man Gloom actually makes great ones.

- NO is an undeniably great title for an album, and also serves as an ironclad manifesto

in opposition to the moral and aesthetic decay of our global society.

- This is Old Man Gloom's fifth album, their first in eight years. They weren't on hiatus,

just busy writing the greatest album in music history. That makes them the proud

progenitors of the five greatest albums of all time, NO being number one. NO is like

"one", only spelled backwards and without the "E".

- Old Man Gloom are playing shows in 2012 and 2013, just in time for the collapse of

the global economy.

- The acronym for Old Man Gloom is "OMG". "OMG" has become a household phrase

since its introduction in to the popular lexicon in 1999, directly coinciding with the

formation of Old Man Gloom the year prior. The group has never been properly credited

for this massively important contribution to global culture.

- NO was made using acoustic and electric instruments including but not limited to:

sheet metal, toilets, human voices, guitars, drums, tambourines, shoes, hands, various

other percussive tools, analog and digital electronic devices, and brains.

You can stream a couple tracks and pre-order the album on all formats on the OMG Bandcamp page or pre-order it with limited edition clothing in the Hydra Head Shop

Occasionally noisome hardcore punk by way of Finland and Vashon Island. Featuring Aaron Turner of ISIS and Jussi Lehtisalo of CIRCLE. 'Tiny Me', from their upcoming debut album, is streaming now on Pitchfork.

SPLIT CRANIUM WANTS YOUR SKULL:

Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse? How about play fast, die old and leave the next round of stiffs wondering what the shit their crusty old grandpop was up to back in the economically vibrant 20-teens, when liquid gold flowed down from Finland's Kemi River and crisp American sawbucks grew on trees? IfSplit Cranium had a manifesto-which they don't-they might at least consider endorsing that one, whatever it was, before giving us all the finger and getting on with it.

"It" being a highly satisfying blitzkrieg of Finnish/Amero punk perpetrated by Jussi Lehtisalo (Circle, Pharaoh Overlord), Jukka Kröger, Samae Koskinen (Steel Mammoth) and Aaron Turner (Mamiffer/ex-ISIS), a token American brought in to soften potential US resistance to the Finns' brash mastery of almost every style of rock worth mastering. Of course, it's no coincidence that Mr. Turner is also not exactly a fucking slouch in the vocal department, lending his patented monastic chants and feral roars to the band's stomp n' burn riffola and death-defying d-beats.

Birthed kicking, screaming and drenched in smelly amniotic slime, Split Cranium is the result of a recording session that promptly reversed course. Lehtisalo and Kröger had spent a few days unfurling some artsy-fartsy free-noise-rock improvisations before deciding to just get their fucking riff on. Circle had recently joined ISIS on the latter's final European tour, during which Lehtisalo and Turner had discussed forming an unstoppable Scandi-American justice league of maximum musical proportions. Right after his improv session went punk, Lehtisalo heard that clicking sound that everyone always references when they say dumb shit like "It just clicked." The token American was drafted, post-haste. Koskinen was simultaneously hauled in from NWOFHM killers Steel Mammoth. Left brains were promptly separated from right brains. Split Cranium were ready to, uh, split craniums.

First head on the list? YOURS.