Frontman Aaron Turner, for one, has been busy trying to balance way too many other commitments for a while now, from art direction gigs and the day-to-day operations of his label Hydra Head Records to such part-time collaborations as Jodis, Greymachine and Mamiffer.Well, part-time in the past, at least.

As you’re about to see, Turner has a stack of post-Isis records on tap, but that’s not to say he isn’t incredibly proud of Isis’ slow-but-steady evolution over the past decade. In the following exclusive—and exhaustive—feature, Turner takes us on a tour of the band’s entire catalog, including their rare early recordings and the one record he’s still disappointed by.

“I’d shudder to hear the original again”Mosquito Control Escape Artist, 1998Our third recording as group; the first two being a demo and what you could consider a demo of the demo. I think we were starting to find our voice on Mosquito Control. Specifically, “Life Under the Swatter” was the beginning of a path on which we would synthesize heavy riffing with complex rhythmic patterns and textural / subdued passages… though it was still presented in a pretty jagged form here.

This was also the last recording which contained multiple members from our early lineup, or songs which were written in part by them. There are things on this record that certainly would not have have been written were it not for those people, and it represented a set of voices that was no longer apparent in the subsequent recordings.

I think this record took about three or four days to record and cost around $600. Too bad we were never able to make a record this cheaply again. The first mix was pretty bad in my opinion, but that was corrected a few years later when we remixed and remastered the whole thing. I’d shudder to hear the original again I’m sure.”

Continue reading: PRIMER: Aaron Turner Revisits Isis’ Entire Catalog, and Shares a Project-By-Project Breakdown of What’s On Tap Next | self-titled magazine :: s/t daily.

ISIS has reached an end. It’s hard to try to say it in any delicate way, and it is a truth that is best spoken plainly. This end isn’t something that occurred over night and it hasn’t been brought about by a single cataclysmic fracture in the band. Simply put, ISIS has done everything we wanted to do, said everything we wanted to say. In the interest of preserving the love we have of this band, for each other, for the music made and for all the people who have continually supported us, it is time to bring it to a close.

We’ve seen too many bands push past the point of a dignified death and we all promised one another early on in the life of the band that we would do our best to ensure ISIS would never fall victim to that syndrome. We’ve had a much longer run than we ever expected we would and accomplished a great deal more than we ever imagined possible. We never set any specific goals when the band was founded other than to make the music we wanted to hear and to play (and to stay true to that ideal), so everything else that has come along the long and winding path has been an absolute gift.

As with any momentous life-changing decision (which this certainly is for the 5 of us), we feel a very dynamic range of emotions about this and cannot express all of it within the space of a few sentences, and perhaps it’s best to do what we’ve always done and let our music speak for us. It is and has been the truest expression of who we are as a collective and in some ways who we are as individuals for the 13 years in which we’ve been together.

The last and perhaps most important thing we might say in relation to all this is how grateful we are for the people that have supported us over the years. It is a lengthy list that would include those who put out our records, those that played on them and put them to tape, the many bands with whom we shared the stage, all of our family, friends and companions who supported us in our individual lives and thus made it possible for us to continue on in the band, and most importantly those who truly listened to our music whether in recorded form or by coming to out to our shows (or both). It is quite true that we would never have done what we have without those people, that is many of you who are reading this. Our words can never fully express what we feel, but we hope that our music and the efforts made to bring it into being can serve as a more proper expression of gratitude for this life and for everyone in it. Thank you.

In more immediate and practical terms the tour we are about to embark upon is indeed our last. We are hoping that these final live rituals can help us bring a close to the life of this band in a celebratory and reverent way, and also provide us with a chance to say goodbye to many of those that have supported us over the years. While there is a measure of sadness that comes with the passing of this band, we hope that the final days can be joyous ones during which any and all that wish to come and join us will do so.

It seems fitting that the last show of the tour and of our active existence will take place in Montreal, the site of the very first ISIS show in 1997 (though that was an unintentional move when booking the show initially). After the tour we also plan to follow through with other projects set in motion some time ago – pursuing the completion of a final EP, compiling live audio and visual material for future releases, and generally doing whatever we can to make our music available for as long as there are people who wish to hear it.

Thanks again to any and all,

ISIS, May 18 2010

Please click HERE for Isis’ final tour dates.

Harvey Milk - st

Lovingly pinched from StonerRock.com: I’ve gone over my history with Harvey Milk in greater detail before, but for context’s sake, the condensed version is thus: Once upon a time, I was a no-nothing mainstream metalhead who had grown tired of the crap I listened to. Then I discovered Harvey Milk and it was, more or less, a musical rebirth. I still don’t know a hell of a lot, but thanks to Harvey Milk, I know more than nothing.

I owe the band a debt of gratitude, one that I gladly repay a small portion of every time a new release of theirs hits my desk. Even when the material isn’t a game changer – like the good-but-not-great contribution to their recent split with Wildildlife – it deserves a mention, because, well, it’s Harvey Milk. It may be genius or it may fall short, but it’s still worth a listen.

That said, their s/t (something tells me that’s the actual title and not an abbreviation for “self titled”), also known as The Bob Weston Sessions, also know as “The Debut That Never Was,” is another essential Harvey Milk album. But in this case, the target audience is a little more precise, namely those already on board with the band. Why? Because you've heard it all before.

Continue reading: StonerRock.com – Harvey Milk – s/t.

Kayo Dot

Here’s the PR wire:  Coyote, Kayo Dot’s fourth studio album, is a single, narrative-driven, long-form composition written with story and text provided by a close, terminally-ill friend of the band, Yuko Sueta, in the final stage of her life. Coyote was once again engineered by Randall Dunn (SunnO))), Earth, Six Organs of Admittance) in Seattle, Washington, forging a new genre of “goth fusion” which combines elements of early Cure, Faith and the Muse, and Bauhaus with Herbie Hancock’s psychedelic album, Sextant, and Scott Walker’s recent album, The Drift. The lyrics and story were constructed with deliberate melodrama to pay homage as well to the intended gothic vibe, expressing the protagonist’s loneliness and longing to be in a better place, and her journey through her own personal looking-glass through a hallucinatory world of fear and wonder.

The musical objective this time around was to create a piece of music that uses the sonic aesthetic of this specific era of gothic art-rock integrated with a more modern-classical approach to form and architecture. To achieve this, Kayo Dot has put together a new instrumentation, which features trumpet (provided by former Candiria trumpet player Tim Byrnes) and alto saxophone at the lead, backed up by violin, keyboards, piano, organ, bass guitar, percussion, and a pronounced lack of guitar across the album. This album also marks the return of former Kayo Dot member, Terran Olson, whose contributions were heard on the band’s 2003 debut, Choirs of the Eye, as well as with Kayo Dot’s alter-ego, Maudlin of the Well. The music is also more rhythmically-driven than any previous Kayo Dot work, and being a performance-oriented composition, it was recorded mostly live (similar to 2006’s Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue). Coyote also brings back some of the aggression absent from 2008’s Blue Lambency Downward.

Keelhaul - Triumphantly Return To Obscurity

I’m not going to front – besides listening to a couple of tracks from previous albums, this was the first album of theirs I listened to front to back. But recently I had the great fortune of seeing them play in Brooklyn (a.k.a Hipster Hell) and their live performance – this is going to sound like an odd description of a band that consists of four thirty-something, very average dudes – was electrifying and refreshingly different.

Continue reading:  Hellbound » Welcome to the Hellbound.ca Archives » Keelhaul: Keelhaul’s Triumphant Return to Obscurity.

Keelhaul - Triumphant Return To Obscurity

Triumphant Return To Obscurity, out on Hydra Head Records, “picks up on the band’s progression as if they were steadily releasing records throughout their six year hiatus. The pace is precise, the instrumentation is masterful and the guitar tones are absolutely appropriate”, according to a press release.

Greymachine - Disconnected

This is not music for the lighthearted this is the stuff nightmares are made out of. Droning soundscapes layered into weighted guitar riffs, feedback and general noise. This is the dark underbelly of the avante garde.

It’s no surprise that Greymachine operate this way since it features Justin Broderick and Diarmuid Dalton of Godflesh and Jesu fame as well as Aaron Turner of Isis and Old Man Gloom and Dave Cochran of Head Of David, God and Ice. Each of these musicians has mastered the art of turning extreme music on its ear and when they combine forces the results are like a bad car wreck. You want to turn away but you just can’t.

Continue reading: Double Play: Baroness and Greymachine – CraveOnline.com – Page 2.

Greymachine’s Disconnected is available for streaming on the band’s website.

Jodis

James Plotkin describes the sound of Jodis as “expansive, tonal, minimal, or all of the above. It has been described to me as a more relaxed Khanate, and a much heavier Low.”

Jodis’ debut album entitled Secret House will be released on October 27 via Hydra Head records. A track called ‘Continents’ is available for streaming on James Plotkin’s website.

Continue reading: James Plotkin – current actions.

Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul

Clean Hands Go Foul, the fourth and likely final full-length from late experimental metal outsiders Khanate, deserves a warning label: “Not recommended for those with mild-to-severe mental disturbances,” it could read before countering, “Well, just promise not to hurt anyone, OK?”

Its brittle, monstrous tones shake whatever space they enter. Riffs coil, shatter, and splinter into notes that disperse like buckshot. Words trade mythology for purely imagistic hatred. You could imagine Khanate pushing some feeble soul over the edge. This was true of Khanate on their previous LPs, but Clean Hands Go Foul– which the band recorded in 2005 before breaking up in 2006– ups the aggression until it feels like a score for nervous breakdowns and wanton rampages.

Khanate once found a riff and marched behind it, cutting it open and bleeding it until but a din of feedback or a vortex of noise remained. Clean Hands doesn’t worry so much for the riff or the rhythms, though. Instead, it aims directly for the blood, or the sense that these songs are for, well, ending the world. Cuddly stuff, really.

Continue reading: Pitchfork: Album Reviews: Khanate: Clean Hands Go Foul.

Jesu mastermind and former Godflesh frontman Justin Broadrick and Isis leader Aaron Turner have teamed up to form Greymachine, along with fellow Jesu / Godflesh member Diarmuid Dalton and Head of David’s Dave Cochrane. Broadrick and Turner have both been known to maintain a ton of side projects, so it’s really no surprise that they’d eventually find each other.

What is surprising is just how obliteratingly noisy and sludged-out the result is. You can download the 10-minute Greymachine track “Vultures Descend” right here. “Vultures Descend” will find a home on Disconnected, Greymachine’s debut album, due August 4 from Hydra Head.

Please read full newsflash at: Pitchfork: Jesu + Isis = Greymachine.