true widow

true widow - corpse master

we here at A/C/K/C/L are all in favor of more 90s-style grunge rock. This is not out of personal nostalgia, because personally we were a big dork in the 90s. We're cooler now, although we still are capable of feats of dorkness like leaving the stove burner on so long that the tea kettle stopper completely melts off and the kitchen is coated in a plasticky smell that reminds us of swimming pool floaties from our childhood.

a trio from our hometown of austin texas, true widow play a sort of lightly doomy, stoned-out grunge gaze, kind of like Alice in Chains except more melodic and slower. "corpse master" is our pick from true widow's self-titled release, it sounds like Cormac McCarthy taking bong hits alone in winter. You might, if you were so inclined, trace this sound back to Earth's current sound. If Earth's first incarnation as apocalyptic drone doom spawned a host of imitators, including SunnO))), we can only hope that "corpse master" is a sign that Earth's sound today, a kind of sprawling, dusty doom-country rock, played almost impossibly slow, has been having a similar effect.

"THE HIRED HAND" By Bruce Langhorne.

Following the enormous financial success of “Easy Rider”, Peter Fonda was given full creative control with his directorial debut, “The Hired Hand”. Starring Fonda, Verna Bloom, and the ever-grizzled Warren Oates, the film rested on the dusty shelves of unsung classics for a few decades until Sundance released a DVD version a few years ago. The soundtrack, composed by 60’s folk musician, session guitarist, and one-time member of Dylan’s cortege (he is thought to be THE Mr. Tambourine Man) Bruce Langhorne, is sublime.



The album drifts along like a lethargic river-ride towards a dusty horizon that you’ll never return from. Spare, haunting, and elegant…

THE HIRED HAND by Bruce Langhorne

Guide to AC Radio: March Edition

The inaugural March edition of AC radio is curated by me.

1. Thief at your Window - Endless Grift
Recorded last April at Explosion Robinson, a basement studio on Grand Street in Brooklyn whose name was adopted by the urban clothing store which had previously occupied the space. Engineering and guitars: Darian Zahedi.

2. You May Be Blue (Neighbors Remix) - Vetiver
Topanga folkie Vetiver refits his own track from the album 'To Find Me Gone', turning the dark folk-rock number into a very Superpitcher/Kompakt-like brooding minimal-techno stomper.

3. Space Disco - Universal Robot Band
Eleven minute epic track that is a very strong blueprint for the now-resurgent 'space disco' style: short on chic/village people/bee gees disco decorations, long on hairy tribal weirdness. Sounds a bit like that 'Cloud One' record if it achieved lysergic velocity.

4. Train (Ewan Pearson Remix) - Goldfrapp
5. Once Upon a Time - The Heliocentrics
Belongs in consideration with the DJ-Shadow playing high school band and the Hypnotic Music Ensemble. It seems that live bands have figured out how to play like Entroducing and are ready to start killing shit.

6. Idle Hands - Harlem River Drive
Jonathan sent us this, a burning latin funk album lead by Eddie Palmieri. This is the deepest, most muscular track. The kind of intense music that will temporarily erase your memory and make you forget you have other songs you could be listening to.

7. Track 5 - Ulaan Khol
Stephen R. Smith's new solo record, very recommended if you are pleasantly susceptible to soaring guitar squalls and other types of mesmerizing sonic excess.

8. National Anthem to the Moon - Bruce Haack
From 'Electric Lucifer'. Deeply eccentric outsider-art moogness from the same camp as White Noise, American Metaphysical Circus, etc.

9. Snakedriver - Jesus and Mary Chain
From the Crow soundtrack! You know what, as a matter of fact, I want you to go listen to that whole record right now.

10. Anambra - Ozo
Renowned for being one of the close-out tracks at NY disco impresario David Mancuso's legendary loft parties. Not even really a disco track at all, just deep spiritual beats from no country.

11. Effective Placebo Effect - In Flagranti
12. Hung from the Moon - Earth
13. Super Inuit - Holy Fuck

NICK CAVE and the DIRTY THREE: "Time Jesum transeuntem et non reverendum"

'we were called to the forest...' (photo by William R)


A hidden track from the X-Files TV show soundtrack. It was track zero - you had to rewind for six minutes before track one, into the inner digital void. The Dirty Three performing haunting, funereal omen jams while Nick Cave intones a gothic-realist tale about love and theology. It's an amazing and evocative text. Took me forever to hunt down this mp3 and now the reader bears the fruits of my nerdy, obsessive labor.

"Time Jesum transeuntem et non reverendum" is Latin meaning "Dread the passage of Jesus for he will not return", the ominous pronouncement which at repeated points in Cave's narrative is issued from the mouths of demons.

File Under: Doom Country

NICK CAVE AND THE DIRTY THREE: "Time Jesum transeuntem et non reverendum"