Wooden Shjips, Vol. 1
Featured Album
Three rare releases from these psych drone evangelists collected here for the first time.
Until this release, if you wanted to hear these Bay Area chooglers 'earliest work, you had to rob a convenience store in order to beat out the highest Internet bidder. But thanks to Holy Mountain, it's now possible to hear these instant stoner classics for a fraction of the collector price. Lest you think the band themselves raked in any of that money: the entire first run of their debut 10-inch was given away for free, while the second seven-inch just barely broke even; the third single was a benefit for Food Not Bombs. All three of those 2006 releases are included here.
The first track is a killer, piling layer after layer of distorted organ, vocals and deep sludge guitar atop a happily motorik groove. It's more than a bit like Peng!-era Stereolab meets Comets on Fire, and the collection gets even better from there. The Shjips present a pleasantly melodic take on psychedelic drone jamming. Where many of their contemporaries approach similar sounds with an overly serious and even malevolent vibe, Wooden Shjips come across every bit the idealists that their original 1960s inspirations — from Malcolm Mooney to Emmett Grogan — were. Here is heavy heaviosity as pretty as it is envelope-pushing, as sweet as it is strong; drink it up!
