LESBIAN "Everything in this world is getting faster with all the Mp3's and Ipods, does anyone actually sit down on the couch and listen to a whole album all the way through anymore? That's the thing with our music if you don't do this than you are truly missing out on the journey aspect of music! It lets your mind wander and is good for you to explore your inner self." Seattle-based Lesbian do grandiose heavy metal with aplomb, and their debut album, "Power Hör" [Holy Mountain Records], packs a seismic metal punch of some considerable impact. The band excels at blending many styles of metal, ranging from prog to old school, from blast-beats to stonerrock-riffs, from 70's guitar frenzy to lush drone reminiscent of Sunn 0))) and Skullflower. This eclectic melange of sounds has been at the core of the emerging New Wave of American Psychedelic Metal, and Lesbian are in the vanguard of this post-psychedelia movement. By flowingly shifting moods, dynamics and styles, they are constantly pushing the boundaries of heaviness. We are pleased to report that Lesbian will play the Saturday Roadburn date, April 19, 2008. Roadburn Records will release "Power Hör" on vinyl in February 2008. Words | Lesbian Black Forest Hamm by Dan LaRochelle [Rhythm guitar] I still remember when Arran first presented the original song structure for 'Black Forest Hamm' to the rest of us. At the time it seemed like one of the most technical songs I had ever played. 3 1/2 years later, and I most certainly still think it's technical. I'm also amazed at where we have arrived since then, both as a band and as individual players. I feel that 'Black Forest Hamm' was pivotal in securing the "metal" in our otherwise dirgey, psyched out miasma. It's also a pivotal benchmark in the Lesbian lexicon, so to speak. 'Hamm', as we most often refer to it, was one of our first forays into the more "traditional" band set-up of 2 guitars, bass, and drums, as well as almost being the original blueprint, of sorts, for some of the more extreme dynamic changes that occur throughout our material still to this day. Previous to 'Hamm', Lesbian existed as one-guitar, 2 bass guitars, and drums, the 2nd ,"high-end" bass being Arran on his trusty Rickenbacker, as a sonic complement to Pete's massive low-end girth. Shortly before exploring the forest of 'Hamm' we hadd moved our practices to the Asshole Castle [where Ben was living at the time, with Luke from Sean and Junior from Slightly Less Than Nothing]. Our minds no longer clouded, gripped, and seized by toxic mold gremlins, the Asshole Castle provided us with an extremely cramped but far less dingey venue to explore our craft. Being the opening track to 'Power Hör', 'Hamm' is apt in that it jumps right out of the gates with an aggressively driving, and extremely catchy, opening riff. Riding on top of the accented chugs is an arpeggiated lead line, courtesy of Arran. Before long, there is an almost hardcore style break whereupon we all come back in together to complete this next equally driving section. >From here the song drops into a galloping rocker of a riff that is almost reminiscent of the Haunted, yet somehow harkens back to something older and more "classic", like early Metallica, for example. Ever onward through more rocking and the song breaks into 3 measures of the closest Lesbian has come to total thrash. The end of this section is punctuated with staggered hits descending from 4 hits, 3hits, etc., each one countered in between with Arran's clean alternated picking. Next is where 'Hamm' really takes a turn into extremes. Here we find the song exemplifying a decidely more pastoral feeling, with a descending melodic line with plenty of T.F.A. floating in the background that s egues smoothly into a revisiting of the first galloping section, presented here with a vastly different sensibility. It almost sounds like it could have been culled from something like Sgt. Pepper's, with Arran's punctuated lead trills that, quite honestly, sound almost like a horn of some sort, or even possibly an effected keyboard. Throughout this clean passage, Steve Moore's mellotron embellishments really take the orchestration and melodic possibilities straight over the top. Pensive and brooding, but still with a sense of optimism looming in the background, this section really shines as an example of the extreme dichotomous dynamics that Lesbian employs. Meanwhile, this is all occurring before the listener even hits the 10 minute mark of 'Power Hör.' Speaking of extreme dynamics, the light airiness of this section is suddenly brought to an "extreme" halt with 4 punctuated hits, and then drops out briefly to a lone galloping guitar. A subtle bass drop is the cue for the rest of the band to climb on board. Just as this galloping cycle fully grips your already banging head, a series of lead bursts accent an extremely catchy, modal riffing cycle that suddenly decrescendos and drops out on a delayed chord, only to flow straight into the backwards looping intro of track 2, 'Powerwhorses.' All said, 'Hamm' is a very powerful opening track, and is literally and figuratively just the beginning of/for 'Power Hor'. It exemplifies the heavy riffing, melodic range, and capacity for corpse-painted guitar histrionics that cascade throughout the remaining 52+ minutes of 'Power Hör.' Powerhorses by Benjamin Kennedy [Drums] 'Powerhorses' is a sort of title track to 'Power Hör.' It was the second song we had ever written as band and has a similar doomy vibe that much of 'Loadbath Portrays.' At the time, we had no idea what this band would become and were simply composing grooves to enhance our bong-ripped minds. That's not to say that we write any differently now but our compositions have certainly become more complex as we continue to learn about each other musically. 'Powerhorses' begins with quiet back masking introduction seasoned again by Steve Moore to give it even more mood. The pace picks up when the drums kick in but the jam is short-lived. For the remaining duration of the song, with only a couple of exceptions, the song is slow and dirgey. At one point, when the guitars return to clean after a particularly progy ditty, one can subtly hear a vibraslap. The vibraslap is a percussion instrument primarily used in latin percussion consisting of a piece of stiff wire [bent in a handle-like shape] connecting a wood ball to a block of wood with metal "teeth" inside. The instrument was a point of contention between our producer Randall and me during recording as he was not fond of it especially in this context. As a lover of all things percussion and all things seemingly inappropriate, I flocked to the device and bought one for the session only to return it for a full refund a few days later ['borrowing' from corporate music stores is a must for any studio session]. When Randall doesn't like something, he likes to say, "Wow." Sarcasm is the norm from Randall and his delivery confines each statement to a grey area where many have trouble determining his intended meaning. The "wow" in this case was easily read as, "y'all are crazy for vibraslappin' a doom song. At any rate, I tracked it and after much debate on volume during mixing, it made the cut. The last riff of 'Powerhorses' is a personal favorite of mine. On the third and fourth time through, Arran rips a solo that feels like heroin. I can play this part of the song for hours. The ending is actually cued by the drums so often times I will allow the part to continue over and over again until I have had my fill. This one has got a lot of whorespower. Loadbath by Dorando Hodous [Bass, vocals] This song is an amalgamation of our first jamolas together as a group. We were all living together in the same house at the time coincidently, and there was a Golgothon Sunrise show booked at a club downtown called the "Funhouse," which we've played numerous times since, but being that their drummer Andrew was out of town, Dan had expressed interest in putting something together to do the show anyways, which we did... 5 days prior. We holed up in our toxic mold infested basement and began "hashing" out parts and riffs we all had sitting around. Since Arran was playing bass in Golgothan, we began as a dueling bass and single guitar group, it wasn't until several months, and shows later, that Arran decided jump back on guitar, and compose our first cut with that instrumentation, "Black Forest Hamm," which I'm sure he'll elaborate upon for you. We picked our name and performed what was supposed to be our first and only show. Well, someone had to step in and offer us another one. So we refined the material a bit, and did our second show. >From that we were offered 2 shows, which we gladly accepted. We were just kind of enjoying getting really fucked up and playing together. One of those second or third shows we did I remember being the only moderately sober person in the group. Arran was tuning in the middle of song out loud, and at times I don't think Ben really knew where his snare drum was. What a mess!! Well, needless to say, we learned our lesson and started cleaning things up a bit. Just say no to drugs and alcohol! ...that aren't marijuana...while playing...live...haha! Basically somehow we wound up averaging a show every 2 weeks for our first year and a half together without ever booking one ourselves, kind of random! Now three years later we've made a record, written our second, toured, played tons of rad shows and met tons of rad people, and are going to Roadburn 2008, fuck yeah! What an insane journey its been... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I just had to tell you, but now a little more about the song... Originally performed as separate pieces, we wound up tracking it the same way in the studio, 25 minutes is a lot of shit to do in one sitting!! If you are familiar with our other projects, I'd say this one probably has the most distinctive parts from each individual, in that I think you could pick out the Golgothan-esqe riff here and there, etc... Ben and I took several parts from a one-off group we had that died, called "The Scortin." My buddy Brendan did all the vox, and me and "Little Beaver" played basses, originally Nathan of the Abodox played drums too before Benzo stepped in. Hopefully we can get Brendan to do some guest singing on the next record. Filthy! We all put our ideas over it, and it eventually evolved into the bath you hear on record today. I remember one time practicing it where Dan and I had delved into the psychedelic world a little bit... the sound waves were moving through my body and I felt as though one with them. It was cosmic. To this day our music has never been quite the same for me. I feel a deeper connection with it and the world around me, it's my channel into the worlds beyond, and I find myself often transported during rehearsal and shows. It's interesting for me to hear this song and think about our evolution as a group, its as close to roots as you can get, and to see what it has spawned from us as musicians and people I find truly remarkable. Irreversible by Arran McInnis [Lead guitar] Movies play a very huge role in my own and the bands influences. There are so many great movies out there and so many different styles that I enjoy. The soundtrack is a huge contribution to a film and some of my favorite music is from films, Pophul Vuh in 'Aguirre Wrath of God', Tobe Hooper in 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', Ennio Morricone in the Trilogy of Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns, and Vangelis in 'Blade Runner' to name a few. I also have to mention Chris C. Parker and my brother Andrew who gave us many free movies from the video store that was 3 houses away from our house for giving us our own personal film school education. Lots of Pot and lots of Fucked up movies! One of the most fucked up movies I have seen has to be "Irreversible" by Gaspar Noé. After watching this one which was recommended by Chris I realized that this was the only True Horror Movie I have ever seen. From the moment it starts get ready to personally feel repulsed and spiral into a very nasty reality. I watched this movie by myself, really the only way to get submerged into a deep movie, and was truly moved by it. I felt fucking gross for having witnessed this movie but was amazed at how truly beautiful the cinematography was and the impact of the soundtrack was perfect. So it was the most disgusting movie I have ever seen but the most effective and beautifully shot movie. Its quite a weird concept. I was thinking about this movie for weeks after viewing it, it really bothered me but I couldn't look away from any of it. The one scene that is really genius is where the female character is getting raped and as this is beginning the camera falls to the ground and for the next 15 minutes it doesn't move. The viewer is forced to watch the most horrific and disgusting rape scene ever filmed. The feeling internally is utterly horrible. So I still feel very strange saying that this film is 'beautiful' when it the subject matter is so very dark and repulsive. I was very moved by this movie and had a bunch of musical ideas that I was working on that were Minor and very Black metal so I just ran with 'Irreversible' as the name for the song and I think it is a pretty good homage to the most fucked movie! The song starts with some clean minor chords and into an extended distorted riff getting more dissonant some of the most augmented chords I have worked with which is a real stretch of the fingers but is driving and mad. Then it goes clean again with a nice but minor melody with a kind of groovy drum beat, still a very dissonant lead and weird rhythm chord workings with some subtle mellotron work by Steve Moore which lifts all of it and makes it haunting. Next it goes to a new heavy theme with some alternating melody, then to a kind of triumphant happy chord change motif In all of this trauma there is a certain delusional happy place the mind will go to even in the most brutal circumstances and then you are brought back to reality with a more discordant version of the previous riff, and realize that you are definitely not dreaming and are being destroyed Onward we go to some chord hits then onto a Incantation style death metal riff. And now we find ourselves in a Doomy ZZtop on acid type of riff with a strange guitar lead and finally pulled back to the black metal beginnings of the song. That's the basic structure of the song. Pete's Vocals tie into the theme of the movie and that it is a nightmare. Conceptually speaking I think we did a good job fitting the music to our concept of this movie. Technically speaking it is a very hard song to play because of the chords, time signatures and demanding changes, also the length is about 13 minutes, Also for Pete he has the most vocals on this banger on top of playing his bad ass tasty bass licks its a tough one. There are a bunch of guitar overdubs as with the rest of the album and this is a good closer to our first album. It starts with "Black Forest Hamm" which is musically similar then diverges to "Powerwhorses" which is kind of Spaghetti western meets Can meets Evoken and throw in a slow doomy outro with some tasty leads that goes into "Load Bath" Which is our Psychedelic freak out with mucho guitar overdubs and lots of mellotron, then finally ending with "Irreversible." The qlbum as a whole demands a lot of the Listener and is a journey into the realms of the universe. Smoke some stuffs and take a listen on headphones enjoy the trip. I remember doing acid and Listening to "Welcome to Sky Valley" by Kyuss when I was younger -it was cosmic same with "Bitches Brew" and "Electric Ladyland." I hope people are still into this, the music transforms itself into a movie fueled by the cosmos and your own inner self, therefore it is very personal way to enjoy the music that is available to us. I want people to enjoy my music this way! I know I sure do, although I enjoy the mushroom families the best, but that's just me. Everything in this world is getting faster with all the Mp3's and Ipods, does anyone actually sit down on the couch and listen to a whole album all the way through anymore? That's the thing with our music if you don't do this than you are truly missing out on the journey aspect of music! It lets your mind wander and is good for you to explore your inner self.