Wooden Shjips - Remixes EP (Thrill Jockey, 2012)

Wooden Shjips

Remixes EP

Thrill Jockey

2012

Rating: 7.5 john boats out of 10

Is it wrong that I might like this EP of Wooden Shjips remixes more than I like their regular material?  Does that make me a bad fan?  Not that I really care, I'd just like to know where I stand.  

There are three tracks here, so let's talk about each one.  

1.  "Crossing Remix" by Any Weatherall: sounds like the "Knight Rider" theme song crossed with Kraftwerk.  That is to say, it sounds super fuckin' awesome.  I'm pretty sure I could listen to this song on a loop for a few days straight.   

2.  "Wiking Stew (aka Red Krayola-ing)" by Sonic Boom (yes that Sonic Boom, of Spacemen 3):it's got a very full sound, layers upon layers upon layers...it sounds a bit like a mess but coalesces back into a song by the end.  Not as good as the first remix, but decent.  

3.  "Ursus Maritimus (Last Bear’s Lament)" by Kandodo (aka Simon Price of The Heads): the epic jam of the bunch, over twelve minutes long.  The beat sounds like a chain gang prisoner walking in leg shackles, with swirling synths and guitars layered over top of it.  It's good.  It makes me want to walk around like a zombie.  

I like this EP a lot.  The second and third tracks are good and certainly work seeking out, but the first track is going to be one of my favorite songs of the year.

Wooden Shjips - West (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

Wooden Shjips
West
Thrill Jockey
2011

Rating: 7.5 lazy smokers out of 10

The Bay Area's Wooden Shjips inhabit a nebulous world where psyche rock and kraut rock are best friends, but it wasn't until this record that I really started hearing a strong mid-to-late eighties noisy shoegaze feel with them. What I'm saying is, this record got me musing on the Jesus & Mary Chain, and ain't a damn thing wrong with that. This album is so enjoyable and mesmerizing that it feels like it's over before it even really gets going...helped by the fact that it is only 37 minutes long. If someone told me these were the lost tapes of a band that opened for both Led Zeppelin and Can in 1975 and then disappeared off the map, I'd believe them. It sounds instantly classic, and I mean that in the best way possible. And they are just as mesmerizing live as on record.

As a side note, Phil Manley of Trans Am and the Fuckin' Champs produced this album, which can only help matters out, cause that dude is a bad ass.