West

Description: Home About Us Postage & Payment Returns Contact Add The Pom Shop to your Favorites and receive our email newsletters about new items and special promotions. General Interest West Wooden Shjips stand at the forefront of modern psychedelic rock and present their first album for Thrill Jockey. West is the first Wooden Shjips album recorded in a proper studio. Production was handled by Phil Manley (Trans Am) at his Lucky Cat Studios.West marks the first time the band recorded in a proper studio, as well as the first time with an engineer (Phil Manley). All previous recordings, either self-released, for Holy Mountain, or Mexican Summer were done more piecemeal in the band s rehearsal studio. West was recorded and mixed in six days at Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco. It was mastered by Sonic Boom at Blanker Unisinn, Brooklyn, with additional mastering by Heba Kadry at The Lodge in New York. Review California's Bay Area has latterly reinvigorated its late-60s heritage as Mecca for exploratory psychedelic rock, with free-jamming nutjobs such as Sun Araw and Carlton Melton once more turning on, tuning in, but most importantly dropping the kind of far-out and mind-expanding recordings no-one could rightly claim to have heard before. San Francisco's Wooden Shjips have made more headway on this side of the Atlantic than most, with a slightly more conventional, even earthbound variant. It combines The Seeds' garage caveman thud, krautrock's locked-groove hypnosis and, most obviously to Brit ears, Spacemen 3's ethereally-voiced pulsations. This third album was even mastered (though not produced) by former Spaceman, Sonic Boom yet, ironically, it's their first record really to transcend that influence. West, unlike its predecessors, was beamed out from a bona-fide studio, not their dingy old rehearsal room. Thus, their familiar smoke-filled basement gloom lifts, and here finally is a psychedelic audio experience with sufficient focus and momentum to 'take you there' without dozing off on the job. Black Smoke Rise opens at a reasonable clip, with an amps-at-11 fuzz-riff, swirly 60s organ, circling-down-the-plughole bass patterns and catchy lysergic invocations from mainman Erik 'Ripley' Johnson, before Kraftwerk synth expanses and Johnson's FX-mangled solo lead out further into the stratosphere. In advance publicity, Johnson, a silver-bearded New Yorker-by-birth, has revealed that West is loosely themed around California's wide-open spaces, where the combo regularly camp out, to perceive their cosmic tininess. Crossing, mirroring the cover's gaping snap of Golden Gate Bridge, is a desert inner-space trip - like The Doors' Take Me to the Other Side, minus Jim Morrison's brutish ego. However, where Wooden Shjips really start to break new turf here is on Lazy Bones, which, contrary to its title, rattles along fast on a maraca-rustlin' Bo Diddley beat - proper, urban rock'n'roll! Hell, it even clocks in at under four minutes. Later on, Looking Out is similarly hi-octane, with a harp-blowin' intro and Johnson squawking semi-audibly, like a transported Alan Vega. Thanks to those two pile-drivers keeping the energy levels up, Johnson's lengthy slow-mo fret-fiddling in the outlying tracks feels loose and liberated, rather than slack and repetitive. Unexpectedly, these star-sailors are tripping the light, fantastically. --Andrew Perry This link will take you offin a new window About the Artist Wooden Shjips, as it is today, started in 2006. The band self released a 10 and 7 that year and started playing shows shortly thereafter. Prior to 2006, Wooden Shjips was an experiment in primitive and minimalist rock. After it imploded, Ripley Johnson, guitar and vocals, assembled the current lineup of Dusty Jermier on bass, Nash Whalen on organ, and Omar Ahsanuddin on drums. West marks the first time the band recorded in a proper studio, as well as the first time with an engineer (Phil Manley). All previous recordings, either self-released, for Holy Mountain, or Mexican Summer were done more piecemeal in the band s rehearsal studio. West was recorded and mixed in six days at Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco. It was mastered by Sonic Boom at Blanker Unisinn, Brooklyn, with additional mastering by Heba Kadry at The Lodge in New York. The over riding theme for the album (as indicated by the title) is the American West, and all of the mythology, romanticism, and idealism that it embodies. The band members grew up on the East Coast, so for a long time the history and literature of the West was an abstraction and a fascination for them. Part of the allure of the West, which is part of the myth, is the concept of Manifest Destiny, the vastness, and the possibilities for reinvention, which is not to say that is what each song is specifically about, but it was very much an undercurrent during the songwriting of the album. The artwork also touches on the same theme by using an iconic structure that is both a gateway in a literal and metaphorical sense. It is easy to see why these would appeal to Wooden Shjips, as their music lends itself to exploration. It is both transformative and transporting, the sum being far greater than it s parts. The steady driving rhythms are the elliptical motion machine driven by the often thick and distorted guitar lines, melodic and boundless. Where they may lead cannot be anticipated but following them is exhilarating. It is all about getting there, the destination, while the experience of getting there is an adventure. It is the guitar lines that guide both the listener and the band on the literal and metaphorical journey into the vastness. The ghostly vocals, obscured by dense layers of instruments surrounding them, are alluring with their airy mystery. This elusive quality further draws the listener in, while they attempt to grasp at their meaning. While indebted to both the psych music of the 60s and mid- 70s, electric Neil Young, and even the induced travels of Spacemen 3, the Wooden Shjips music is modern and in every way their own. West is an epic journey to the edge and beyond. Shipping Shipping is free for all customers in Australia. Your package will be safely taken care of & posted from England by means of Priority Airmail, which is air freighted to your nearest Australia Post Distribution Center (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, or Perth), from where they are delivered to your address by Australia Post. Returns and refunds We operate a 30 day money back guarantee. If you are unhappy with the product for whatever reason, please contact us to arrange a return and refund. As shipping costs are not retrievable, we are unable to refund shipping costs. Feedback We use an automated eBay feedback response system. If you are happy with the product, please leave positive feedback and we will automatically leave positive feedback for you. If you are unhappy with the transaction for any reason, please contact us first to resolve. If you do leave negative or neutral feedback you waive your rights for support regarding any problems with us and open yourself up for possible retaliatory negative feedback. Please avoid making negative feedback remarks, contact us first if you have any problems! We are here to help! Contact Us Please contact us via eBay messages if you have any questions and our Customer Service team will be happy to assist you with any queries. Thank you. Home About Us Postage & Payment Returns Contact Copyright © 2017 The Pom Shop. 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Price: 37.04 AUD

Location: Priority Airmail from England

End Time: 2025-01-01T13:48:25.000Z

Shipping Cost: 9.37 AUD