Italian psych-doom trio Ufomammut will hit the UK this October in support of their latest LP, EVE!

The heavier-than-thou one-song album is already one of our faves of 2010 –make sure you don’t miss them at one of these rare UK shows! Tickets are available now from www.wegottickets.com

Ufomammut UK dates:

12  Oct  The Croft,  Bristol

13  Oct  Star & Garter, Manchester

14  Oct  The Fighting Cocks, Kingston-upon-Thames

Read the full interview with Ufomammut in Rock-A-Rolla issue 25

Queens Of The Stone Age/Them Crooked Vultures/etc guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes will release his solo album, Spark, via Joshua Homme’s Rekords Rekords/Ipecac Recordings on October 5^th.

Alain penned Spark to commemorate his late wife and creative partner, Natasha Shneider, a founding member of Johannes’ former band Eleven and one-time keyboardist with QOTSA, who passed away in 2008. Work on the album began the same year, and Alain continued writing tracks while on the road with Them Crooked Vultures.

The side/solo project-heavy schedule at Ipecac also sees another QOTSA offshoot, Mini Mansions (featuring bassist Michael Shuman), getting a release in November, along with Some Place Simple, a solo album from Tricky/Massive Attack collaborator Martina Topley Bird in October (released on Damon Albarn’s Honest Jon’s in the UK).

R. Loren, of Texan experimentalists Pyramids, has announced two new star-studded projects: Sailors With Wax Wings and White Moth.

The two albums are slated for release back to back in September and October via Angel Oven Records, with SWWW featuring contributions from J. Leah, Ted Parsons (Swans, Jesu, Godflesh), Simon Scott (Slowdive), Aidan Baker (Nadja), Colin Marston (Krallice), Vern Rumsey (Unwound), Prurient, James Blackshaw, Hildur Gudnadottir, Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride), Jonas Renkse (Katatonia) and Marissa Nadler. White Moth, meanwhile, features C. Rogers, Ashley Scott Jones (Treasure Fingers, Evol Intent), Colin Marston, Sam Hillmer (Zs), Jacob Kirkegaard, Christoph Heemann (H.N.A.S.), Lydia Lunch, Dälek, Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot), Shelby Cinca (Frodus) and John Gossard (Weakling, Asunder).

Look out for full reviews in an upcoming issue of Rock-A-Rolla

Read the Pyramids feature in Rock-A-Rolla issue 24

Avant-metal/drone supremos (and multiple Rock-A-Rolla cover stars) Sunn O))), aka Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley, are set to curate the 2011 edition of Roadburn Festival.

Following previous curators David Tibet, Neurosis and Celtic Frost/Triptykon man Tom Gabriel Warrior, Sunn O)))’s special event will take place on April 15^th, with the three-day festival taking place from 14^th – 16^th April at usual venues 013 and Midi Theatre in Tilburg, Holland. The first line-up announcements will follow later in the year.

Photo: Jenn Garrett

COVER STORY – MELVINS:

Everyone’s favourite band return with their third Big Business-infused album The Bride Screamed Murder – and, according to Buzz, it’s one of their best to date. Melvins hit the cover for an in-depth discussion of their latest record, double-drum action and lame music critics.

THE HIGH CONFESSIONS: New supergroup alert! Chris Connelly (Ministry/Revolting Cocks), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Sanford Parker (Minsk/Twilight) and Jeremy Lemos (White/Light) go head to head with a brand new band.

NEUROSIS: Steve Von Till discusses the making of Neurosis’ seminal album, Enemy Of The Sun, in our Classic Albums series.

YAKUZA: Chicago avant-metal crew talk latest album, Of Seismic Consequence.

HORSEBACK: Jenks Miller fills us in on his psych/post/kraut/black metal project.

TEMPORARY RESIDENCE LTD: In-depth look at the label that Explosions In The Sky, Mono, Fridge, Envy and Eluvium, amongst many others, call home.

PLUS!! MONARCH, EDIBLE WOMAN, OMEGA MASSIF, STIAN WESTERHUS,

PLUS!! AARON TURNER talks life after Isis; Atsuo spills the beans on the Boris/Ian Astbury collab, BXI; Black Sun meet Eugene Robinson.

Live action: SLAYER, GRAILS, NURSE WITH WOUND, RANGDA, CONVERGE; plus over 100 album reviews, and much more!

Only in Rock-A-Rolla issue 27, out now!

Subscribe to Rock-A-Rolla now! Click HERE

Buy issue 27 now: http://www.rock-a-rolla.com/backissues.htm

Drummer extraordinaire Zach Hill (Hella, El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Marnie Stern etc) has announced an autumn 2010 release for his second solo album, Face Tat.

The 13-track disc features a typically wide range of contributors, including Devendra Banhart, No Age, Guillermo Scott Herren (Prefuse 73), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof), Carson McWhirter (Hella), Nick Reinhart (Tera Melos, Bygones) and Robby Moncrieff.

“This record was titled prior to any of its music being made, based on an article I had read about people with facial tattoos potentially having a higher suicide rate than those without,” says Hill of Face Tat. “I have friends with facial tattoos who are some of the most positive people I know, and have friends and family without facial tattoos that have taken their own lives within this past year. I found that idea very interesting and metaphorical on many levels – whether true or not – and began using my personal thoughts on this as a muse/concept that could be applied to many different contexts.”

The album hits the stores via Sargent House on October 19th, 2010. The tracklisting is as follows:

01. Memo To the Man  02. The Primitives Talk  03. Ex-Ravers 04. The Sacto Smile  05. Green Bricks  06. House of Hits  07. Jackers 08. Burner In the Video  09. Dizzy From the Twins  10. Gross Sales 11. Total Recall  12. Face Tat  13. Second Life

Zach Hill – The Sacto Smile from Sargent House on Vimeo.

One of this withering orb’s most unceasingly brutal bands, Glasgow’s Black Sun have (in one form or another) been hurling around boot-to-skull riffs, imploding beats and sadistic noise for over a decade.

Russell McEwan, drummer, vocalist and solar core, knows his way around extremes of experience. He’s been at this game a while, as a former member of noise-rockers Macrocosmica and industrial experimentalists Test Dept, a sometime cohort of flesh-ripping body artist Ron Athey, and current pansexual high priest(ess) for conceptual noise duo Atomized.

While recording their sixth album, Twilight Of The Gods, Black Sun dragged Eugene Robinson across the Atlantic to contribute howls and shrieks, as is his wont. As the imposing antagonist at the helm of Oxbow, inter alia, Robinson knows a thing or two or twelve about transgressive, confrontational art himself. It seems like a match made in… well, not heaven. Maybe, the fevered nightmares of a late-stage syphilitic. How did these two burly, heavily inked purveyors of fury and catharsis come to be cracking jokes over bad instant coffee in a Glasgow studio?

“We’re big fans of Oxbow, “ says Russell. “And have been for a long time. We admire the intensity of Oxbow. When we had a chance to meet up in Holland [at the 2009 Roadburn festival], I thought well, let’s do something.”

“There’s a stark aestheticism about both of our stuff that I like – and attention to detail,” says Eugene. “Probably only other musicians would credit us with that, but our stuff is painstakingly constructed, and from the visual identity of Black Sun onwards there’s that attention to detail. There’s a discipline and a mania for order there. When we decided to do this, he did not have to communicate the reasons why or how we were going to make it happen at all.”

“Having Eugene on the album is just a different take for both of us,” says Russell. “We are pretty organised in Black Sun, but we like to add elements that aren’t fixed, that are more fluid – not a completely uncontrolled element, cause I think people tend to think that Eugene’s insane, but he’s not! He’s not crazy! ‘Is he going to be fighting you?’ No, I don’t think so…”

The two collaborative songs in question, ‘Tabula Rasa’ and ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ are typical of the band’s recent work – stunningly heavy and automata-precise, but with increasing groove and velocity compared to their previous warlike pummel. Eugene’s feral, unhinged vocalisations beautifully offset Black Sun’s regimented discipline.

“When we did ‘Tabula Rasa’ live at Roadburn, I did something that I never, ever do, which is I used their words,” says Eugene. “It was so strong rhythmically that I was hard pressed to take any serious narrative action. But in the interim I thought, OK, is there anything I can put in there that works and fits and makes sense, and I did with this album version. ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ was a lot more open-ended, so I could lyrically stretch. I’m familiar with Wagner, so the aim was to have it all thematically consistent.”

“Twilight Of The Gods is a Wagnerian reference,” explains Russell. “It’s one of those themes that never goes away. You’re in charge, you make the law, but you’re beyond the law. You see it happening again and again and again.”

“If I was in charge I’d be robbing and stealing with both hands,” says Eugene. “‘But what about the little man?’ Yeah. What about the little man? But if I’m on the other side of that equation, you’re right…”

“I liked the ‘gods’ theme as well,” says Russell. “Before god you had your father – but if your father’s not all that great then what have you got? People whose fathers aren’t all that great tend not to have a great relationship with god. And if that father’s not any fucking good, then what use is this other one?”

Anyone who’s seen Eugene in action, drooling, snarling and onanising his way to the other side of sanity, will testify to the memorable nature of an Oxbow gig. Uniformed in austere black-and-white and sonically unrelenting, Black Sun offer a less theatrical, but equally startling experience. Recent gigs have culminated in a bruising multi-drummer pileup, the audience’s space being invaded by a phalanx of flailing percussionists.

“That’s Black Sun Drum Corps, which is non-musicians, non-drummers,” says Russell. “We do this really simple, primal kind of thing. That’s what I like about Oxbow as well. You’ve got the live, visceral show, and then you have the parallel thing, the intellect, the books. I like that. But I never want to get away from the show. I like elements of showbiz, which is probably why I like Lady Gaga as well. You just get on and use that time to make as great an impact as you can.”

“To me, both the live thing and the studio thing, they don’t exist in my mind as separate from each other,” says Eugene. “It’s like that great Bukowski line: ‘Every now and then I have to show you that I’m not a monkey’. In other words, the confirmation that you receive that we are not accidents – that’s what you get from a studio album. Everything we’ve done we’ve intended to do. There are no accidents here, happy or otherwise. I don’t know if it’s valuable for people to hear that, but it’s necessary for us to know that.”

He continues: “It’s one thing to be able to do a live thing and to embrace, in the moment, elements of id, but again, there’s a process to that. Like Dali said: ‘the difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad’. There are people wandering the streets doing Oxbow shows every day, screaming at the sky and falling at the ground, but there is a difference between what we do and that guy. Sometimes it’s a smaller difference than other times.”

“It stops you going to the shed and sharpening the big knife,” says Russell. “Mental health.”

“Yeah!” agrees Eugene. “I feel much better as a result of doing this than not doing this. I think us feeling good is probably better for everybody than us feeling bad. But there are deeper reasons. I think we both believe that what we do has artistic validity. Scratching my balls gives me pleasure as well, but I’m not charging tickets for it. Not yet.”

Twilight Of The Gods is due in September

Words: Matt Evans  Photo by Alex Woodward www.crimsonglow.co.uk

A further round of live acts has been announced for this year’s Rock-A-Rolla-sponsored Supersonic festival, including Hallogallo 2010 and Napalm Death.

Supergroup Hallogallo 2010 features band members Michael Rother (NEU!), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Benjamin Curtis (School Of Seven Bells), and Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs), performing the music of NEU! as well as a selection of tracks from Rother’s other projects.
“I’m thrilled to return to Supersonic this year with my new live project Hallogallo 2010. We will present some favourite music by NEU!, Harmonia and from my solo albums. I look forward to Supersonic this year because two great musicians and friends are joining me in Hallogallo 2010: Steve Shelley and Aaron Mullan. Expect some fast-forward movement!” says Michael Rother in his press statement.

Joining them are grind legends Napalm Death, making their first ever Supersonic Festival appearance. “We are very much looking forward to playing Supersonic this year. It’s always great to play a hometown gig, and with this festival being so diverse musically it’s going to be even more fun for us as we rarely get the chance to play such events – and on the same stage as Swans, well what can I say?” says Shane Embury.

Also confirmed are Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides, OvO,  PCM, Dosh, Drumcorps, Tweak Bird and Cave.

Tickets are on sale now at www.seetickets.com

Experimental/noise rock legends Boredoms have announced details of their upcoming DVD, 77 Boadrum.

Filmed on location at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, NY, the DVD captures the infamous 77-drummer performance that took place on July 7th, 2007 at 7:07 PM, along with behind-the-scenes rehearsal and interviews. Comprising footage filmed by Jun Kawaguchi and his crew, web-TV sites like VBS TV, Viva-Radio, and videos taken from You Tube, the DVD will be released in the UK on Thrill Jockey Records on 7 September.

Boredoms recently performed a substantially trimmed-down version of Boadrum in London, reviewed in Rock-A-Rolla issue 26.

Photo by Jeff Winterberg

Miami sludge/stoner/pop trio Torche have completed their next album, amusingly titled Songs For Singles.

The follow-up to 2008’s Meanderthal is expected  September 21 via Hydra Head.

Track list:  1. U.F.O.  2. Lay Low  3. Hideaway  4. Arrowhead  5. Shine On My Old Ways  6. Cast Into Unknown  7. Face The Wall  8. Out Again