Newagehillbilly

The Squids Ear
Newagehillbilly "White Walls" CD
New Age Hillbilly is Alex Strama, essentially a one man band hailing from Baltimore, MD. On this, his 4th release he's augmented by several other session players on almost every track. IV White Walls takes it's inspiration from post-punk, psych, prog, electronica and just plain vanilla R&R, borrowing freely from all sides to create fairly dense sonic pictures. There's lots of good ideas here and they are, for the most part, well executed. Standout tracks are "Ghost", a nod (intentionally?) to the softer side of Kevin Ayers, and the title track "White Walls" with it's driving grunge/prog aesthetic. Overall, a solid, if a bit limited, outing. It's worth mentioning that NAH has played live with King Missile III, Drums & Tuba, Cotton Casino (Acid Mothers) and many others. One imagines that seeing NAH perform would be quite entertaining.

NEO-ZINE
Newagehillbilly "White Walls" CD
Genius…pure genius! There is a lot in here, so please excuse a label like “experimental/electronic/acid/rock.” Even that meaty tag doesn’t cover it all. For as weird and as complicated as the sound is, it is also immediately friendly and inviting. It is more novel or exotic than it is dangerously strange. Newagehillbilly is probably just a little bit ahead of his time. This is a bit like the kookiness of Alien Sex Fiend, but smoother and brighter. Some tracks are more rock, some are more techno, and some are even more ambient. The lack of continuity is a bit of a problem, but not a terrible one. I mean, we are talking about ground breaking here. If you are on the tattered edge, formula is not the first consideration.

Disagreement.net
Newagehillbilly "White Walls" CD
Luxembourg has its Cyberpiper who combines medieval European music with a futuristic bagpipe synth. It's only logical that the USA must have their Newagehillbilly. Don't expect any trans-dimensional post-country. Alex Strama, the main man behind NAHB and the record label MT6, used to play experimental electronic ambient acid on his three first albums, but decided to turn more rock on the fourth one, IV: White Walls, which is consequently also the first non-CD/R album on his label. There is still an experimental edge to his music, but it is a thoroughly composed album with lots of intentions, and the songs veer one moment this way, and the next one into a completely different universe, without ever losing momentum. The fourteen songs are mostly rather short, but the vast stylistic range makes this more than just a juxtaposition of your regular rock songs. The album begins with the science fictional intro Child's Eye, before Astroids Collide picks up the theme in a more roots rock direction, sounding like a crossbreed between Bob Log III and Finnish electronic artists Aavikko and Desert Planet. My personal fave is the instrumental Ghost, which is conjuring the image of early Butthole Surfers, with a criminally amazing guitar solo at the end. The following Kin Luck emphasises strongly a new wave (or new age, considering the band name) influence, not that far away from Devo or B-52's. Not as polished of course, but therefore just as charming. I could go on dissecting the album, but it suffices to be said that it continues in this zany direction, playing everything between crazy futuristic roots rock and ambient wave pop, with a sometimes great feeling for melodies (Rock/Roller), and then at times just rocking like hell (Weekend Warrior). The album ends on two more experimental songs (Doctor Spins and the long jam Lights On Einstien). IV: White Walls is a tremendous album, combining the experimental background of his label with a more straightforward rock attitude. Only helped by a drummer on half a dozen songs and a couple of guest musicians, Newagehillbilly played all the instruments (guitars, bass, electronics, vocals, Hammond organ and drums) by himself. There is no real band attitude on the album, it does sound like a solo effort, but as such a one, it really works perfectly, displaying a crazy image of tongue-in-cheek roots rock from a future perspective as seen from the past. Ok, this is a complicated way to see things, so just imagine the cartoon show family Jetsons on a weird drug cocktail playing rock'n'roll. This is deeply entertaining, disturbing at times but never losing its smart sense of humour. The last then minutes are maybe a little less fun to listen to, but apart from that you are left with some of the coolest moments in contemporary experimental rock music.

Metromix.com
Newagehillbilly "White Walls" CD
Newagehillbilly is the stage name of Alex Strama, a Baltimore virtuoso who plays dirty, ambient techno-rock on his new CD IV: White Walls. Strama paints distorted sonic landscapes with guitars, organs and a variety of electronic sounds in a style most would call experimental. Varying tracks from heavy to mellow, NAH shifts gears flawlessly throughout the record to keep the listener guessing and interested as the tracks ooze from the speakers. The standout track "Rock/Roller," is a catchy synth-pop tune with distorted bass and vocoder vocals driving the dance beat throughout the song. I didn't like the CD the first time I heard it; it seemed like a bad Devo rip-off. After a second listen, though, the catchy nature of the songs caught me and I got into it. Give the songs a listen or two. It may take some priming before you appreciate Strama's music, but it will be worth it.

Smother.Net
Newagehillbilly "White Walls" CD
Baltimore’s Newagehillbilly makes me feel like my own weird electronic music project dRed isn’t all that out-there. His music ain’t New Age unless we’re ushering in a whole new era of crazy experimental electronica that comes packaged with its own psychedelic drugs. But he is a total hillbilly. The backwoods can be the only explanation for his deranged sense of discordant guitar-centric experimental noise rock. It might be lo-fi but it surprisingly hits with a mean array of production tweaks and twists. Excellent.

Music Emissions
Newagehillbilly "White Walls" CD
Frank Zappa once asked, "Does humor belong in music?" While that can be debated over beers, the general consensus seems to be that being goofy does not make for a sound career plan. You could call the Residents or Devo goofy, but beneath the costumes there was deadly intent in the music. New Age Hillbilly (Alex Strama) comes to us, costume and all, with a mix of crunchy guitars and 1980 techno. The atmospheric "Ghost" works well, with its moody vocals from guest Amanda Strama (Alex plays all instruments, with occasional help on drums by Troy Hays). The rockers: "Rock/Roller", "Sin Sin Natty", (get it?) "Weekend Warrior" prove Stama to be a so-so guitarist with at least the good taste to distort some of his arena-rock cops. More problematic is "Doctor Spins" and other tracks like it, which sink the record in jittery early-80's goofiness. It seems like Stama has some good ideas that may serve him better down the road, when he ditches the big yellow sunglasses, Pete Townshend jumpsuit and lightning strike makeup. (MT6 2005)
Review date: 2005-10-25 01:08:48 by Mike Wood

Fishcomcollective
Newagehillbilly “IV: White Walls”
Alternative rock. Punk. Electronic etherea. All wrapped up together and served up underground and pretty darn experimental. Eclecticism embodied in a compact disc. Go from trippy, ambient stretches of experimental electronica to raving guitar punk assaults with yelled lyrics. Electronica fades into elongated guitar solos equally as trippy. Psychedelic even. Detours into dark, spacey synthpop/EBM/electro. Or there’s the buzzier and simultaneously retro variety of electrorock. Anyway, you see how much territory on the map this sucker covers. Eclectics will remain stimulated from beginning to end. Those desiring stylistic consistency will find something on here to piss them off. An accomplishment either way, I’d say. Good and weird.

Splendid Zine
Newagehillbilly - Familiar Puzzle CD
Familiar Puzzle's few moments of readily discernible purpose are so at odds with their bare, unsettling surroundings that they seem more perverse than anything else the record offers. Most of the album is an exercise in electronic minimalism; "real" instruments like guitars and trumpets occasionally intrude upon the pixelated diaphragm-taps, tuner twists and deep, artificial heart thrums, but Newagehillbilly always uses the instruments for their own purposes (which may not line up with those for which they were designed). On opener "Stolen Wool", guitar strings radiate their tones like sonar pings through a city drowned by static, and on "Second Becky", trumpets and electric guitars form an oddly modulated, unexpectedly listenable dialogue of screeches and howls. One moment threatens to pull the curtain back completely: in "And They Said...", the band finally gives their electric guitar its head. It first attempts to eke a Sousa melody out of a broken, dessicated frame, then breaks into an insolent jazz riff, mutating the song around it. Describing these songs as comforting or pleasurable would test the adaptability of the human mind, but listeners with a taste for minimalism and detail, not to mention the unfamiliar, will find ample involvement.

Baltimore City Paper Review written by Bret Mccabe
The Wire Orchestra "S/T" CD
Though this sextet raises the “experimental” music flag, this 14-track debut suggests a few King Crimson and/or Nurse With Wound albums in the band’s collective record collections. If anything makes the Wire Orchestra experimental in the 1980s sense, it’s the morass of vocals and electronics floating around the more straight-forward prog guitar, drums, and bass, waffling from seismic throb to waveform oscillation with the stoic, eventual certainty of tides. It all makes for a pretty killer soundtrack for sitting alone in a dark room with the headphones on—which is often all you really need from a steady high-hat and bass skip while a tone echoes between channels in “Venus Blast,” or the tinkling, tickling cascades of a keyboard dancing around space-rocking guitar fuzz in “Mafia Image.” Though, as that image suggests, the Wire Orchestra creates sounds for private screenings (guitarist Newagehillbilly never met a digital delay pedal he didn’t want to step on), it gets much more mileage out of catholic punk—the raw dorking of “Generations Come Before” is a classic example of making-it-up-as-we-go-along that comes to a stuttering, anarchic life the rest of the album can’t touch.

DOT-ALT.COM
Newagehillbilly - Familiar Puzzle
Sounds Like: lo-fi electronic weirdness. Cassettes scavenged from the cupboard under the stairs, in between DVD covers, this is the sound of Newage Hillbilly, less an album of songs, more of a collection of sounds retrieved and sequenced on a dusty 8-track, awash with distorted keyboards and skittering house noises. Still, Familiar puzzle is a pretty sinister work. Musically it relies on the buzzing drones and miniscule blips of feedback to provide a dark atmosphere that captures even the furthest, gloomiest corners of your speakers. It’s in these dank, saturated conditions where glimpses of melody, sweet and simple, emerge like pop music amidst the monotone of fuzzed-up sound. Opener Stolen Wool feels like the most concise and focused work on the album, slowly building up from the sounds of dying animals to a dark crescendo of delayed guitars, only to be swamped again by a monster synth, slowly tumbling towards a Constellation-style ending of lost, detached noises. It isn’t until the second half of the album till actual songs begin to form. They are messy, sprawling pieces, but songs none the less, with the occasional emotion becoming audible through the hiss; the yawns of low-end keyboards and howling, near incongruous guitar solos mushed together whilst a marching beat played in 45 attempts to keep everything in order on Fields of Fire. The gentle, reverb drenched guitar chords are plucked out on Second Becky soon become submerged by… is that a trumpet? Listening to Familiar Puzzle is like hearing woozy noises made by animals in the dark. It’s definitely not ethereal, but retains a kind of earthy melancholy, the drone of our daily routines introverted, and fucked up to the point of surrealism. Or maybe it’s one guy having fun with his keyboards and effects pedals. Sounds like he’s having a good time.

Sonic Curiosity
Newagehillbilly: Familiar Puzzle
This CDR from 2004 features 51 minutes of experimental electronic music. Newagehillbilly is Alex Strama. This music is hardly new age, stemming more from musique concrete roots than from any holistic ambient foundation. Harsh electronics are a keynote here, with rasping diodes and snickering relays providing a gritty sonic disposition. While the music is not in-your-face aggressive, neither is it passive or mellow. Artificial and traditional percussion bestow pep through quirky rhythms. A variety of conventional instruments (like guitar and trumpet) contribute to the orass of electronics, fleshing out the sound and generating a homey feel to the instrumental tuneage. The result is an engaging (but often unsettling) minimalism violated by pleasant melodies and adventurous structure. This music evokes the dedication of an apprentice who has cast off the advice of their mentor to seek a more individual mode of expression, exploring means of fusing primitive technology with modern sensibilities. Once the audience abandons their own preconceived notions, these crude compositions adopt an inventive slickness that conveys the spirit of a struggling indie out to incorporate a regressive demeanor with a predilection for futurist ambitions. Imagine if Stockhausen were of Appalachian ancestry.

DirtyHouse ZINE
Newagehillbilly: Familiar Puzzle
New Age Hillbilly is Alex Strama from Maryland. He creates a minimal breed of guitar electronica. Very soothing and very calm, Familiar Puzzle is a good album to fall asleep with. The guitar on track 1, Stolen Wool, reminds me a bit of the soundtrack to the game Diablo. NAHB's work has much more depth to it however. Stolen Wool is haunting, atmospheric, and very ambient with various interesting electric noises coming in here and there. The chilled out plodding guitar line is tastefully done and ties the whole track together. Mr. Hillbilly continues his slow and somber journey with Nash Creek, a quickly memorable piece with a catchy melody. The track dissolves into quiet atmospheric noises and leads smoothly into Subway Song. This track consists of what sounds to me like noises you would hear in an empty subway. In the distance you hear various sounds and the regular rhythm of trains going through tunnels. Deep bass tones resonate and remind me of colossal machinery. What seems to be a collage of random noises gradually develops into a haunting melody by the end of the song. Olate builds up from a faint growling electronic tone joined with a bass drum rhythm. On its own, this rhythm is rather disjointed but around 1:20 into the song, electronic clicks and beeps accompany it quite well. A fun thing about NAHB’s tracks is that they gradually build from faint, sometimes random arrays of sound into coherent song. This reminds me a bit of Four Tet but Mr. Hillbilly seems more adventurous and more minimal. The sounds he has chosen vary widely but go together very well. I hear similarities to The Dust Brothers in some of the more electronic tracks. I have to say, though, that I much prefer the guitar driven tracks on the album. Kite/String ends Familiar Puzzle well with a nice collection of guitar sounds and a driving beat. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by NAHB’s take on the indietronic variety of music that has been increasing in popularity. On the negative side, some tracks lacked direction. I would be happy to hear more melody in future releases as that seems to be something NAHB has a knack for (even though he displays it sparingly). Keep up the good work!

Taken From weft 90.1 f.m., champaign, il.
community radio for east central illinois.
top 10 playlist 3/15-3/21/04
1. clouddead/ten/mush
2. va/zentertainment 2004/ninjatune
3. junkie xl/radio jxl: a broadcast from the computer hell cabin/koch
4. squarepusher/the ultravisitor/warp
5. plej/electronic music from the left coast/exceptional
6. neulander/smoke + fire/disko b
7. mochipet/combat/violent turd
8. voodoo child/baby monkey/v2
9. federico aubele/granhotelbueanosaires/eighth street lounge music
10. NEWAGEHILLBILLY/FAMILIAR PUZZLE/MT6

Our Scene News
Newagehillbilly: Familiar Puzzle
NewageHillbilly is a sick and twisted electronica outfit. Upon receiving New Age Hillbilly's Familiar Puzzle in the mail I gave it a listen. This is definitely not the music you want playing in dark nights, or in your dreams. While I would be highly interested in one part and where it might go, it may have stopped short and become repetitive. It's slow paced and creepy. I enjoy it because I don't always get stuff like this in the mail, or in my CD player for that matter. My favorite would probably be "Stolen Wool." Thanks for the submission. We wish you well and hope your dreams remain freaky. Thanks for being different!

Tric Zine
Newagehillbilly: Driving on Ice
Newagehillbilly, also the indie artist responsible for the far more organic piece of groovy chilledness called Pillage of the Glass City, here shows us what he can do with some tasty and often dark electronics. That's right. Another of my discoveries brought to light from the wide underground. Another piece of evidence that the independent scene has its share of jewels, my friends. Eclecticism is again very apparent in the proceedings, with tracks varying in style from lazy, acidic beats (in one case bearing an oddly Cure-ish personality ... wave "hi" to all the Robert Smith fans out there), to very dark, understated but highly captivating goa, to somewhat forboding ambient/borderline experimental, to Crystal Method on downers ... and more. At the same time, there is a consistent personality, and often a consistent nighttime edge, to the various tracks on here. The one thing that happily runs through all tracks is the ability to pull you in and take you away. Enveloping minimalism, a certain dark side and sometimes acid textures, frequently with an experimental nature, Newagehillbilly has put together for the open minded listener a delectable dish of electro musings.

Tric Zine
PILLAGE OF THE GLASS CITY
Pillage of the Glass City, an indie CD from the mind behind Newagehillbilly, a talented techno artist, is described in the liner notes as "mind expanding instrumental music." I think that's a fair enough description of what Pillage has to offer. The beauty of this dose of chillout is that even I find it alluring. Which isn't to say I don't like chillout usually. I do. It's just that I don't gravitate toward this particular brand of chillout. This is more organic than what I'm accustomed to grooving to in my chill music mode. Mostly I go for heavily electronic ambient and chill, stuff like Amethystium or the new age driftings often found on labels like Hearts of Space. Pillage is chock full of acoustic and non-synthetic instruments, such as brass, piano and electric guitar. Also, I heard some strings in there but I don't know if they were electronically generated or not. They had a Plasma Symphony Orchestra feel to them, so it's hard to say. (They were on the last track, I believe.) There are also electronic underpinnings to the musical goings-on, and sometimes, I admit, they do take over. But what it comes down to is that Pillage of the Glass City (don't know if that's supposed to be the CD name, the one-man band name or just the overall side project name ... anyway) is an eclectic and remarkably absorbing (for a non organic chillmeister like myself) work of musical art, representing one of the lights in the underground. I know, I know. I'm becoming Raves.com's self-appointed discoverer of underground/indie artists, but hey, at least I discover good music, right?

Feast of Hate and Fear
VARIOUS ARTISTS - Supple Selections Volume 2 CD-R (Supple)
If the first sounded good, the second is almost as good. Icecake start it off on a real high note with two tracks of Robert Kaminek's lullful guitar driven ambient. Ksine are another highlight and can be described as what Aphex Twin sounds like when Richard James feels calm and sedated. NON FINIRe mai made me think Boyd Rice may have something to do with it, but I was mistaken, as Ales Uratnik is the sole member. Quite the opposite of Boyd's NON, NFm is accessible bursts of ambient and some techno. Newagehillbilly picks up where NON FINIRe mai leaves off and takes the techno into fields of trance and break-beat. Jososo Joseph Innacelli's "The Common Wheel" was too world-beat for me, but his "Untitled II" was better, and similar to Muslimgauze or Trail of the Bow. Project Skyward is a spacyer (more electro, less jazz) Everything But The Girl. One of my favorites on Volume Two. It was another highlight to hear Panophonic sing their brand of dark electro-pop in my native tongue of Spanish. Delta Waves ends this disc first with an amazing drumless shoegazer sound, and for their second track a psychedelic jam - yes, with drumming, keyboards and guitars a'plenty. Drop Supple another $5 and get both Volumes. (July 24, 2003)

Newagehillbilly top ten DJ list in Tric Zine April 2003
Deltron 303-Instrumentals(75 Ark)
Mouse on Mars-cache coeur noif(Thrill Jockey)
While-Haze(chcolate ind)
Cex-roleplaya(tigerbeat6)
DJ Logic-Remixed(rope a dope)
Warlocks-cocaine Blues(Bomp)
WhamO-S/T(union pole)
Kid 606 vs. Dalek-(tigerbeat6)
RL Burnside-Rollin Tumblin(Bongload)
Oscilython-computer soup(Plug Research

Tric Zine
Newagehillbilly Driving on Ice
"I was really happy to get these Cdrs in the mail from good ole Baltimore.
Newagehillbilly aka Alex Strama produces some real good experimental electronic music. He was coming up with some killer sounds on this CD. Good use of tweaking and random placement, plus he seems to find weird uses for traditional instruments. There also seems to be some scheme of stinging together nicely, and is well thought out as an entire piece. The beats were pretty good, but they were a little standard for "bedroom electronica". On a funny side note, Alex and his friends played at last years "FlowerFest" at Fat Ricks as Operation Huss, and their friends with Meekhail Juckson the Russian Folk Singer."

Newagehillbilly's Top Ten DJ List
from Tric Zine #15 Sept. 2002
Kid 606- Ps I dub you (Tigerbeat)
Dub Narcotic Sound System- Fuck Shit Up ( K Records)
SqaurePusher- My Red Hot Car (Warp)
Baldwin Brothers-Dream Girl (TVT)
Greyboy Hold it down (Ubiquity)
Chicks on Speed Eurotrash Girl ( K Records)
Plug- Drum and Bass for Papa(Nothing)
Lypid- Stratospheric (Statra Recordings)
Boards of Canada- Kid for today (Warp)
Dust Junkies- What time is It? (Polydor)