Pengo (2 items)
- Artist: Pengo
- Title: Alchemy and Bullshit
- Format: 2CDR
- Label: Carbon Records
- Price:
$12.00$7.20 (40% sale) - Catalog ID: CR101
a double CDR document of Pengo's migration from a 3-piece out-spazz-noise group to 4-piece drone-psych-noise-rock group. recordings ranging from the 2001 Phi-Tour series, 2002 live and "studio" pieces (including a show with guests Dave Cross of Coffee, Ed Wilcox of Temple Bon Matin and Charles Leport of Hinkley/Finkbeiner/etc), thru pounding live 2003/2004 sets, much in the vein of current configuration. 2 black-bottom cdrs, glossy print insert, sealed in a 6"x8" silkscreened and spray painted chipboard mailer.
Reviews (3):
Volcanic Tongue
Heaviest slab yet served from the gob of this Rochester-based unit, with two beautifully packaged CD-Rs that bridge the gulf between the early American hobbyist art/action goofs that defined the three-piece incarnation to the heavy psychedelic post-Airway gravity that the current world-beating quartet have been shovelling from their guts for the past few years. Recordings run from the 2001 Phi-Tour series through 2002 live and studio pieces (including guest spots from Dave Cross of Coffee and Ed Wilcox of Temple Of Bon Matin) and wild style tear-em-ups from 2003/2004. Pretty much the definitive set from these bozos, all sealed inside a 6”x 8” silkscreened and spray painted chipboard mailer. Recommended. - David Keenan
Patchwork Collective
PENGO MAN.
4 monsters from Rochester have got the art of mind fuckery down to a science. "Alchemy and Bullshit" is a 2 disc retro of sorts that complies their insanely hard to pin down style. I mean, its aloof in the sense that they have moved passed their 3 piece heavy drone unit that dawned the organ heavy "A Nervous Splendor" in 2001, to a 4 piece incarnation they've been working with as of late... This slab really does bring out the raddest sense of complete ambivalence in the most fun way possible. Heavy as shit, Harry Pussy like guitar work, bright eyed hysterical sax spurts, fast paced narcoleptic drumming, and over blown organ work is just the beginning. Similar instrumentation spans throughout both discs, but you're hard pressed to find congruence. The first track of disc one is a seamless jointing of what seems like six of seven live shows. Its all "covers" of a genre catch all. The Stooges, Rush, the Organization, Neil Young, and Negative Approach (if you think they were just mediocre hardcore, go back to bed shit stain). They rip apart the essential elements of each song to the barest, and slap on their own sound. It's repetitive, but totally insane. But its fun see. They take themselves out of the lame self important avenues of typical drone, and basically blend together 142 styles into one snot rocket of GROSS ROCK. Quotin' John Schoen from a Blastitude interview last year, he shows his love for Chilean schlock director Alejandro Jodorowsky. "(Jodorowsky) treads the same fine line between mystic and bullshitter..." That line is never defined with this band. It's psychedelic in the sense that it resists categorization. Released in December of 2005, you can still snag a copy of this at the Carbon Records website. 2 black-bottom CDRs, glossy print insert, sealed in a 6"x8" silkscreened and spray painted chipboard mailer is what you're going to be staring at. Keep it scummy. - Brock Kappers
200LBU
Rochester's Pengo have carved out a truly unique spot for themselves in the past few years. Live, they can sometimes come off like some manic tribal ritual that would of taken place on the Spahn Ranch right before a creepy crawl. Their recorded output can be a confusing though fulfilling stew of found audio, grey noise clouds and ham fisted guitar wrenching that would send any strong blooded struggler for the Geritol in no time. This double disc set, entitled 'Alchemy and Bullshit', is made up of various live recordings done around their hometown a few years back and it showcases the various forms of dementia this unit is capable of. The first disc is a perfect soundtrack for a late night wander through old newspaper clippings and various forms of mildew found behind the toilet. The boys attempt to cover Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy, Negative Approach and Organization only to end up sounding like pygmies dropped off in the middle of Sunflower City with only a bamboo shoot and a paper thin guitar pick to fend with. The gem of this disc is the closing 'Official Genius' which meanders through much fog and steam to relieve itself in a way only Captain Beefheart or Ansley Dunbar would find fitting. How quaint. The second disc is made up of shorter pieces of subtle mud slapped guitar crap that'll have ya heavin' in no time. Swap a copy of your Hunger Artist 12" to the fine folks at the Carbon label and maybe they'll throw ya one - Tony Rettman
- Artist: Pengo
- Title: climbs the holy mountain
- Format: CD
- Label: Carbon Records
- Price:
$8.00$4.80 (40% sale) - Catalog ID: CR22
"a document of Pengo‘s 5th live performance ... The performance consisted of a live musical accompaniment to the first 31 minutes of Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s film The Holy Mountain. The first 31 minutes of The Holy Mountain are without dialog. This is the section of the film they chose to play along with. This portion of the film is also considerably less linear then the rest of the film. This perfectly suited Pengo‘s music making aesthetic. The only thing constant is continual change. There are recurring symbols in the film that pass by so fast that they are almost subliminal to the viewer."
Reviews (5):
La Folia
The bizarre cover photos give no clue to the music genre, although first guess would be a cross between progrock and dark ambient. It begins with small instruments and percussion, almost like an Art Ensemble of Chicago performance from Paris 1968, and indeed it is a fine thirty-minute free improv performance in Rochester, NY, by Jason Finkbeiner, John Schoen, and Joe Tunis. - Steve Koenig
Blastitude
Ah, but what do Pengo sound like? On here, they come off as one of the more accomplished contemporary bands playing in that style I'll call The New Ominousness. Alot of noise/psych/improv artists play in this style. I think it mostly comes from AMM and MEV, which came from Webern and Stockhausen. On the rock side, it comes from the thousands of bands that have been influenced by the Doors, Velvets, Sonics, and Stooges. (The one-chord riff of The Doors' "The End" is sort of the ground zero for The New Ominousness.)
Buddyhead
Unfortunately, this one kind of went over my head... which is actually why I respect it. This album is pengo's fifth live performance, a performance accompanying the first 31 minutes of Alejandro Jodorowsky's film, "the Holy Mountain." Without the visuals in tact, it is somewhat difficult to really get a feel for this, or even enjoy it for that matter. me being a score composer dork, it starts to make more sense to me once the music reaches it's halfway point (and it's climax) at 15 minutes. i admire this and consider it to be art. but i honestly do not recommend it unless you are a severe film nerd or you meditate. - Kathleen Catastrophe
Arthur
Pengo are from upstate New York, and for some reason we usually think of them as being associated with a somewhat brutal form of post-industrial freeform noise-hunch and/or bass-heavy ass-rumblage. And yeah, they still do that, but on this new LP, A Nervous Splendor (Haoma Recordings) they visit all kindsa other space, as well.
There's good avant-psych formulating, passages of free-jazz honk, answering machine messages, mock ethnological field recordings, and even semi-folk-swabbage in a vein that would appeal to fans of the Sun City Girls.
That all these shenanigans emanate from inside a great cover design, swiped from the BYG Actuel series, is only icing on an already rich cake. - Byron Coley
Nashville Scene
Holy Mountain / Show Preview - Kinds of the Rochester NY noise scene -- larger kingdom than you might suppose -- this three-man ensemble most recently recorded a pulsing, clanging suite to accompany the wordless first 31 minutes of Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal odyssey The Holy Mountain. There's no word on whether the footage will accompany the group's show at Springwater, but without Jodorowsky's assaultive visuals of deformity and exploding frogs, the piece unfolds on CD as a sonic squall that swells, rages and recedes -- a recipe for a potentially mesmerizing live show. Adept at instruments ranging from zithers and amplified sheet metal to Tibetan prayer bowls, Pengo headline a five-band bill of electronic experimentation and drone-rock that includes one-man Toys R Us-noisemaker Radio Shock, Breathmint label chief Mat Rademan's band Newton and Nashville's own Tan As Fuck and Banjoland, both featuring former members of the New Faggot Cunts. (Oct 24, 2002) - Jim Ridley