SHOGUN KUNITOKI Tasankokaiku (Fonal) cd 16.98
Wow!!! Most loyal AQ customers are pretty aware of our total love and adoration of almost all things Finnish, especially pretty much everything released on Finnish label Fonal. They just have not done us wrong yet. Islaja, Kemialliset Ystavat, Paavoharju, Es, the list goes on and on. And while for the most part their releases focus on the more murky free folk side of Finnish underground rock they have proven to be a label that isn't just about one 'sound' but instead are simply about beautiful music. Period. Whether it's random ethereal forest folk, dreamy drifty swooning ambience, or crunchy chaotic tribalistic clatter. Their latest release, from the Helsinki quartet Shogun Kunitoki, is further proof to that effect, and dare we say this might even be the greatest thing Fonal has released. Some of you may be shouting IMPOSSIBLE! And under different circumstances we'd be right there with you. But just listenening to Tasankokaiku has us thinking not only is it possible, it's damn near for certain. Color! So much vibrant color just bursting out of Shogun Kunitoki's instrumental onslaught. It starts out on fire and every song and sound just feeds the flame. It's almost as if Steve Reich and Terry Riley raised a child weaned on the BBC Radiophonic experiments, a young Rick Wakeman who grew up listening to the fuzzy guitarscapes of M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas... and the dreamy and propulsive instrumental jams of Stereolab, and thus cultivated a totally informed yet unique outlook and approach to music and music making. The sounds on Tasankokaiku are triumphant and assured, flickering then bursting, warm and so totally alive! Knowing how to perfectly use repetition to build momentum and then suddenly blast off to sparkling spaces that make you feel like you're being spirited away to a place that you've never been to but have always dreamed about. A sparkling glistening land of thick warm keyboards, hypnotic prog laced krautrockiness, Neu-infused soundscapes, basically a world populated by all the sounds that drive us wild. This is another one of those rare records that is an across the board unanimous AQ favorite. Everyone who works here loves it. We all hear different things too, besides the above mentioned bands, Andee hears bits of Goblin and Zombi and Heldon, Allan hears hints of Aavikko and Cluster and Circle, Irwin noticed a little Broadcast and even some Raymond Scott, but no matter what you hear, or what shades of sound reveal themsleves to you, the sum is SO much greater than its parts. A gloriously dense and warm world of fuzzy sound that we just can't stop listening to. No matter what music you've been obsessed with lately, this is one of those special records that somehow trumps whatever it is, straight to the top of your listening pile, elbowing it's way past all the other discs in your collection right into your cd player where it will effortlessly fend off any other records wanting to get in there. It's that good.
MPEG Stream: "Montezuma"
MPEG Stream: "Leivonen"
MPEG Stream: "Piste"

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ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE PINK LADIES BLUES Featuring The Sun Love And The Heavy Metal Thunder (Fractal) cd 21.00
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Of sorts... for, despite the name, this is not exactly the same Acid Mothers Temple by whom you already have a dozen albums. AMT & The Pink Ladies Blues, unlike AMT & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. or AMT & The Cosmic Inferno, doesn't feature Kawabata Makoto! Yet this is one of the best AMT releases we've heard in a while (and it's not like we didn't like Starless & Bible Black or Iao Chant From The Cosmic Inferno, either). AMT & The Pink Ladies Blues is a trio consisting of guitarist Magic Aum Gigi (whose solo LP MMMM we also have in stock, though it's not been reviewed on our site yet), drummer Mai Mai, and guitarist Tsuchy, presumably all members of the extended Acid Mothers Temple communal family.
AMT always can be counted on to indulge in an orgy of FX-overloaded heavy guitar jamming when desired, and THIS Acid Mothers Temple, even without the presence of Kawabata, definitely live up to that reputation! A goodly part of this is primitive, fucked up, bluesy, choppy, podding clangor, heavy and damaged like they're trying to outdo krautrock obscurities Zippo Zetterlink in that dep't. Opening track, the 19 minute "Sandoza Death Blues" sets the tone: utterly raw geetar/drums/electronics (Magic Aum Gigi and Mai Mai being both credited with thermin) riff-stomp, with weird drop outs and/or edits (??). Bearing a dedication to the late great Link Wray, this album knows how to "Rumble"! But they have their blissful space-out side too...
Aside from two brief interludes of ambience and effects, the tracks on this 72 minute album are all lengthy jams. The longest at over 28 minutes is called "Freaks Your Mind & Your LSD Piss Will Follow". Geez, those psychedelic punsters! Ain't that a VERY Acid Mothers Temple title, though? They liked it so much they chant it a bunch, which while unfortunate fails to detract from the enjoyable Brainticket-style bad trip they conjured with this track.
We kinda wish that they hadn't included "Acid Mothers Temple" in the band name, which could cause this to be overlooked amidst past, present and future massive AMT output. This supreme lysergically inspired rock dementia deserves its own designation! Though it also fits in perfectly with the AMT aesthetic that's for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Sandoza Death Blues"
MPEG Stream: "Acid Mothers Rock n' Roll"

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE PINK LADIES BLUES Featuring The Sun Love And The Heavy Metal Thunder (Fractal) 2lp 48.00
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Of sorts... for, despite the name, this is not exactly the same Acid Mothers Temple by whom you already have a dozen albums. AMT & The Pink Ladies Blues, unlike AMT & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. or AMT & The Cosmic Inferno, doesn't feature Kawabata Makoto! Yet this is one of the best AMT releases we've heard in a while (and it's not like we didn't like Starless & Bible Black or Iao Chant From The Cosmic Inferno, either). AMT & The Pink Ladies Blues is a trio consisting of guitarist Magic Aum Gigi (whose solo LP MMMM we also have in stock, though it's not been reviewed on our site yet), drummer Mai Mai, and guitarist Tsuchy, presumably all members of the extended Acid Mothers Temple communal family.
AMT always can be counted on to indulge in an orgy of FX-overloaded heavy guitar jamming when desired, and THIS Acid Mothers Temple, even without the presence of Kawabata, definitely live up to that reputation! A goodly part of this is primitive, fucked up, bluesy, choppy, podding clangor, heavy and damaged like they're trying to outdo krautrock obscurities Zippo Zetterlink in that dep't. Opening track, the 19 minute "Sandoza Death Blues" sets the tone: utterly raw geetar/drums/electronics (Magic Aum Gigi and Mai Mai being both credited with thermin) riff-stomp, with weird drop outs and/or edits (??). Bearing a dedication to the late great Link Wray, this album knows how to "Rumble"! But they have their blissful space-out side too...
Aside from two brief interludes of ambience and effects, the tracks on this 72 minute album are all lengthy jams. The longest at over 28 minutes is called "Freaks Your Mind & Your LSD Piss Will Follow". Geez, those psychedelic punsters! Ain't that a VERY Acid Mothers Temple title, though? They liked it so much they chant it a bunch, which while unfortunate fails to detract from the enjoyable Brainticket-style bad trip they conjured with this track.
We kinda wish that they hadn't included "Acid Mothers Temple" in the band name, which could cause this to be overlooked amidst past, present and future massive AMT output. This supreme lysergically inspired rock dementia deserves its own designation! Though it also fits in perfectly with the AMT aesthetic that's for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Sandoza Death Blues"
MPEG Stream: "Acid Mothers Rock n' Roll"

BISHOP, SIR RICHARD Fingering The Devil (Latitudes) cd 13.98
The newest in the frustratingly limited Latitudes series. Former contributors have included the Grails, Shit & Shine, Will Whitmore, Ginnungagap and Ariel Pink (don't bother asking, they are all long gone). Here we have the Sun City Girls' Sir Alan Bishop, in his solo guitar Improvika mode. Very much in the spirit of the current American Primitive / neo Appalchia sound, exploring similar territory as Jack Rose, Stephen Basho-Jungans, Charlie Schmidt and of course John Fahey, but on these improvised tracks, Bishop injects a healthy dose of flamenco which is sort of surprising. Not that Bishop isn't well versed in various musics of the world, he most definitely is as any number of SCG records will attest to, but it still sounds a little surprising in this context, but the result is truly gorgeous. Moody and emotional, dark and dense, dreamy and lyrical. Just Bishop and a steel string guitar unfurling dense tangles of intricate fingerpicking, as well as slow contemplative melodies, all rich with Spanish flavor. Occasionally Bishop goes for an Eastern raga like vibe instead, and ends up sounding closer to UK guitarist James Blackshaw or Rose at his most drone-y. So so lovely indeed!
Comes packaged in a super intricate hand screened die cut fold over sleeve with a full color insert. The cover has a breathtaking silver foil stamped embossed frontpiece and each copy is hand stamped and numbered. Limited to 1000 copies worldwide, 500 of which made it to the United States, about 50 of which made it here. So you know what that means!
MPEG Stream: "Abydos"
MPEG Stream: "Dream Of The Lotus Eaters"
MPEG Stream: "Romany Trail"

BLUEPRINT HUMAN BEING Heaven Is All (Paradigms) cd 11.98
Fourth in this new series of super limited aural oddities, all of them amazing and sonically all over the map, from black metal (Throne Of Kataris, elsewhere on this list) to doom drone (past Record of the Week Hjarnidaudi) to gorgeously gloomy chamber music (Amber Asylum) to this, the first release, as far as we can tell, from epic Finnish post rock prog metal mavens Blueprint Human Being. That's right you heard us, FINNISH. As in from Finland! So all you Finnish music freaks best not dawdle, as you will definitely want to get your hands on this. Especially if you're partial to the sort of Krauty drone rock of Circle and the like, although that element is only one tiny aspect of BHB's sound. There's lots of post rocky drift, a sort of proggier Tarentel maybe, but then the horns kick in and we're in serious King Crimson territory. But there's also lots of fuzzy metal guitar wrapped around jagged loping Slintish rhythms, with strange sung / spoke vocals, all blending in some weird way that reminds us as much of Ved Buens Ende as Crimson. Some parts have the horns moving to the foreground, the music taking on a very jaunty garden party sort of feel, which makes us think of some damaged, sort-of-metal Penguin Cafe Orchestra or some bizarre Japanese what-the-fuck jazzdrone outfit or the stranger Circle side projects like Ratto Ja Lehtisalo. A bit schizophrenic for sure, but in a good way, a super dynamic sort of seasick meander through blasting metallic post rock, far out quirky prog, lilting almost RennFaire acoustic breaks, and blissed out repetitive krautrock. Be sure and stick around for the end of the final 11+ minute track, after a stretch of silence, comes a dizzying blast of freaked out psychedelic noise, all grinding loops, snippets of earlier songs, and all sorts of head spinning post production fuckery. Groovy laid back post-kraut-rock slathered in thick swirls of distortion and fuzzy effects, obscured by tape dropouts and strange damaged feedback, the whole thing warped and warbly as if broadcast through a thick cough syrup haze. So cool.
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Vojaganto"
MPEG Stream: "Tucumbalam"

CIRCLE Arkades (Fourth Dimension) lp 14.98
Finalnd's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock return, with yes, another limited LP only release, and their obsession (one of many obsessions they have) with Southern Rock has finally reached critical mass. Not so much musically, although there are subtle hints here and there, as visually and conceptually. This set, recorded live on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU when Circle were in the states last time is a monster. Two side long tracks, combining the metallic leanings of their later records, with the murky propulsiveness of their earlier records, as well as their droney improvised abstract side (most noticable on the LP only Mountain). It's kind of remarkable how all of Circle's disparate musical personalities fit so well together. But before we get to the music, let's talk about the sleeve. And the Southern Rock. The cover features a knotty pine background, riddled with bullet holes, two crossed pistols above the band name. Very Sergio Leone... The reverse side features a band photo seemingly branded into the wood, with Circle donning cowboy hats and sombreros, whooping it up like that last freeze frame in an episode of Bonanza (maybe it was CHiPs, but Bonanza makes more sense here). Then there's Brian Turner's eyewitness account of the musical showdown that occurred when Circle showed up at WFMU to record their set. Woe was the pasty British garage band that felt Circle's wrath. Broken glass and tobacco spit figure prominently. And let's not forget the Confederate flag on the LP label.
Thankfully (or maybe not, some might be thinking) this Southern Rock doesn't filter all the way down to the music. Instead we've got more of that Circular genius we just can't get enough of.
Side one begins as an abstract soundscape of spacey affected riffs, sort of blurry and drifty, above strange mumbled mutterings and what sounds like alien scat singing. The vibe is strangely dubby and Middle Eastern sounding. Eventually a warm wash of woozy distorted guitars builds into a monstrous swell of sound, warm and thick and sort of heavy, while buried beneath is a burbling cauldron of electronic squiggles and gurgling vocal sputters. Out of nowhere, like a beam of sunlight with a small flock of faeiries flitting about, comes a strange dreamy drift of almost rennaisance faire sounding festive folk, which dissipates quickly into a swirl of speaking-in-tongues vocals and insect like electronics before drifting off.
Side two is a bit darker, with faux throat singing over ominous psych sludge riffing like classic Circle but slowed way down. Groovy and dark, peppered with subtle tribal percussion. Weirdly enough, that weird dreamy stretch of faerie flecked folk sunniness that surfaced briefly on side A, shows up again here in a slightly different form, and disappears just as quickly, returning to a VERY Circular propulsive groove. Drums skitter instead of pound, while a guitar drifts and stutters, sounding a bit like the guitar line from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" but way more druggy and psychedelic!
So we'll all have to keep waiting for the inevitable, that record they keep threatening us with, when Circle finally become a bizarre krautrock psychrock dronemetal version of the Marshall Tucker Band, but for now, just crack open that Jack Daniels, throw those boots up on the desk (careful with those spurs!), pull the brim of your ten gallon down over your eyes, put a little pinch between your teeth and gums, turn it up and drift off...

CONRAD, TONY WITH FAUST Outside The Dream Syndicate Alive (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
Recorded live at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in '95 this was the reunion of one of minimalist's great torch holders Tony Conrad along with one of experimental rocks greatest bands Faust. When they originally teamed up at a German filmmakers request, they made Outside The Dream Syndicate over three days together in 1971. A landmark record that took Conrad's affinity for building drones mixed with a rhythm section that added intense pulsations and textures to the sounds. While apparently Faust didn't really remember the recording sessions (what were they on?) they met up only two more times since the original recording to perform the piece live. This show was the third and last time they performed together and at this show they were also joined by the helping hands of Jim O'Rourke (is there a band he hasn't played with?). And wow! What an amazing show to have been at. With his La Monte Young cap on tightly, Conrad masterfully created a piece that no matter when it was produced evokes such a strong physical reaction. This is raw, building, blistering, pounding, droning brilliance! The way momentum keeps building works its way into your body and about half way into the piece you can't stop from getting completely wrapped up in it. The droning violin, the dirty percussion, the gut wrenching passion underneath and above it all! It's amazing how in these sounds you can hear so much of a handful of contemporary AQ favorites: Godspeed You Black Emperor's explosive drama, The Dirty Three at their most wild and rocking, Swans/Angels Of Light's blistering poignancy, but it all ends up seeming sorta like little league in comparison to the blood and guts that oozes out of this performance. As always Table Of The Elements appropriately package the cd with the care it deserves including some nice short conversations with Conrad and two great stickers of Conrad's face. Absolutely recommended!
MPEG Stream: "From The Side Of Man & Womankind"

CRUSHED BUTLER Uncrushed: First Punks From The British Underground 1969-1971 (RPM) cd 16.98
We heard a lot about this before we got it in which fired up our curiousity just a little bit. Like it says in the title, this obscure post-mod trio with the cool name has been trumpted as the "first punks" to come outta Blighty, kicking out the jams with an antisocial sneer and snarl long before the Sex Pistols and the Damned and all the rest blew up in '77. And on the strength of the seven tracks here recorded circa 1969-1971, they were indeed pretty darn punk and ahead of their time (at least, in terms of bands who made it into the recording studio). Loud fast rules with these guys, most of the tracks being uptempo rockers, though the lumbering "Love Fighter" will be welcomed by all '70s proto-metal lovers, and supports the argument that these guys are just as much a proto-metal outfit as proto-punk, being something that fans of Buffalo, Toad, Budgie, Nazareth or Black Sabbath would enjoy. Indeed, some of the riffing on here might quite well remind you of Sabbath, and we weren't surprised to learn that they'd opened for the likes of UFO and Atomic Rooster. Metal? Punk? Same dif back then really. The distortion, fuzz, and 'raw power' attitude on display should qualify 'em as pioneers in either camp. Crushed Butler were heavier than the Pink Fairies, anyway, and that (awesome) band is already rightly heralded as punks before their time. So we'd say that the legend of Crushed Butler is hereby confirmed... alongside the Fairies and Third World War and a few others in England (and the Stooges in the States, of course, and some European freaks too) they trashed the happy hippy scene of the day for something uglier, grottier and more dangerous.
This digipack cd (a slightly expanded version of a 10" released a few years back) boasts in-depth liner notes and archival graphics. There's just two drawbacks: it's only 21 minutes long, and that's only because of the inclusion of an alternate version of what's probably our least favorite song as a bonus track. BUT it's 21 minutes that anyone into metal/punk/hard rock history should find quite a blast.
MPEG Stream: "It's My Life"
MPEG Stream: "Factory Grime"

MAMMATUS s/t (Holy Mountain / Rocket Recordings) cd 13.98
Whoa, heavy!! This is a whole-body vibrating, brain-melting, serious amplifier worship ceremony! The first time I (Allan) saw these guys, last year sometime at the Hemlock here in San Francisco, I was blown away... I'd been told the were a heavy 'stoner rock' outfit from Santa Cruz and worth checking out, but I didn't realize they were gonna be quite so AMAZING. Hairy backwoods hippy dudes, the drummer wearing what looked to be a home-made Whysp t-shirt, guitars turning the air to cottage cheese a la Blue Cheer while creating a trance-zone worthy of Finland's Circle!! So good that I immediately bought the live cd-r they were selling... we were gonna try to get some for the store, in fact, but then we found out that local label Holy Mountain run by our pal JW was on the case already and would be issuing Mammatus's debut studio full-length cd Stateside (with Rocket Recordings, home to the most recent UFOmammut, putting it out in Europe).
So yeah, heavy stoner rock this is, but waaay psychedelic and Hawkwindy, kinda like what maybe you thought Circle side-project Pharaoh Overlord was gonna (and sometimes does) sound like. Loud, massive and mesmerizing, swirling sludge psych! Their songs, often of epic length, are ever chugging skyward, dripping molten goo, full of feedback and fx. Their energetic riffage and warm drones are adorned by drifting vox (not unlike Dead Meadow, with whom they share certain proclivities) and fantastic, metallic, progtastic imagery. Take note of titles like "Dragon Of The Deep" (parts one and two!) and the Roger Dean-esque cover art by Arik "Moonhawk" Roper.
Further musical comparisions aren't hard to come up with -- Mammatus belong in the company of such bastions of cosmic heaviness as Sleep, Boris, YOB, UFOmammut, Earthless, old Monster Magnet, Acid Mothers Temple (at AMT's heaviest, like on Starless & Bible Black Sabbath), Tarantula Hawk, and even Amon Duul (especially on the druggy, krautrocky jam "The Outer Rim"). And of course they're now labelmates with OM, which also makes perfect sense. If you love many, or even just any, of those bands and the sounds they make, this comes highly recommended.
Time sensitive note: Mammatus are playing tomorrow, Saturday April 1st again at the Hemlock with AQ faves the Grey Daturas!
MPEG Stream: "The Righteous Path Through The Forest Of Old"
MPEG Stream: "Dragon Of The Deep Part One"

MELNYK, LUBOMYR Wave-Lox (Bandura) cd-r 16.98
We had never heard of Lubomyr Melnykor, nor his 'Continuous Music method' before. But the more we learn the more we fall in love with this iconoclastic modern innovator. In the early 70's Melnyk developed a unique approach to the piano called Continuous Music, a physical and mental technique that allowed Melnyk to play an incredible amount of notes at an incredible speed. In fact he holds two world records, one as the fastest pianist in the world, sustaining speeds of over 19.5 notes per second in each hand, simultaneously! And two, for the most number of notes played in one hour! In 60 minutes, Melnyk sustained an average speed of over 13 notes per second in each hand, yielding a total of 93,650 INDIVIDUAL notes. Holy shit!! But don't be mislead, this is not some Yngwie bullshit, where songs and composition are sacrificed for mere shredding. No, there is a method to Melnyk's madness, and the result says all that needs to be said. Continuous Music as you might have surmised, involves generating an extremely rapid flow of notes, with the pedal sustained non stop, patterns, broken chords, the sound is dense and dizzying, like glimpsing the inner workings of some tiny lifeform and watching atoms and molecules spin and swirl. The result of so many notes, played so quickly and so close together, with the overtones drifting and bleeding into each other, is some of the most breathtaking music we've ever heard. It's almost like a waterfall of piano notes, a frothy cascade of tinkling sparkling melody, or a laying beneath a perfectly black night sky, watching a million fireflies dance and flit, a sky full of tiny little streaks of light. Someone described Wave-Lox as three Terry Riley playing at once, which is not that far off the mark. Or imagine a thousand George Winstons spinning weightless in space, notes everywhere careening wildly, but with some strangely indescribable pattern. The sound of Wave-Lox is at once chaotic and soothing, confusional yet serene. Close listening yields so much detail, like looking at a piano concerto through a microscope, not so close listening offers the listener a glorious abstract soundscape on which to drift away. Wave-Lox is actually a piece for 2 pianos (giving you an idea of the density and number of notes we're talking about here) and 3 contra-bass, which offer the same sonic complexities as the piano, making a rich sonic stew even more deliriously dense.
It has been ages since we have been so blown away by a new discovery, and not just a new performer but a new way of performing. And for those of you who are especially moved by this music, you can write to Melnyk and purchase a course that will train you to be able to play Continuous Music. But be warned, Continuous Music requires serious discipline, in fact Melnyk, when he first started out, was unable to perform the pieces he composed, and only after years of strict discipline, including extra training, both physical and mental, in the form of martial techniques like Tai Chi, was he finally able to play the music the way he intended it to be played. SO AWESOME!!
These are professionally printed cd-r's with full color covers and extensive liner notes, they are bit more expensive than most cd-r's we carry because instead of mass producing one or two titles, Melnyk wanted to make available all of the pieces he has been working on for the last 20 years. Thus each disc is pressed in a super limited run, but what that also means is that there are 50 or more different pieces to choose from, all of them utterly amazing. We currently have about 10 different titles in stock, and while Wave-Lox is our favorite so far, one of the others features Melnyk on piano accompanied by multiple tubas! So drop us an email if you're interested in any of the other titles, but for now revel in the beautiful beautiful music of Wave-Lox!
MPEG Stream: "Wave-Lox 1"
MPEG Stream: "Wave-Lox 2"

OXBOW Love That's Last (Hydra Head) cd + dvd 14.98
Rock and roll as a raw nerve art form, that's the intense Oxbow aethetic... a band that dares you to listen, much less attend one of their shows. Avant garde yet drawn to swampy roots, Oxbow's approach is both intellectual and primal at the same time, these men channeling psychic and physical distress into their music, so much tension and release it's disturbing to behold... This brilliant and unique Bay Area outfit has been going strong against all odds for almost two decades now (!) and with each passing year seem to gain a wider audience, despite never ever being a part of any scene or trend. Not one that would help them, anyway. Except maybe now, that they've seemingly been accepted into the Neurosis/Isis axis of arty post-metal noisecore, releasing their last full-length An Evil Heat 4 or 5 years ago on the Neurot label and now (finally!) reappearing on Hydra Head with this cd+dvd package. Love That's Last isn't exactly the new Oxbow opus we've being waiting for, since it's not an all-new album but rather a collection, complete with commentary and lyrics in the booklet, of unreleased live cuts, improv tracks, compilation rarities, and a few "greatest hits" from their hard to find early albums. You'll certainly get a representative serving of their cathartic ugly/pretty rock action here, with all of Oxbow's characteristic Bonham beats, slide guitar skronk, droning ambience, and of course the distinctive mewling/screaming baby monster vocalizations of scary front man/fighting man Eugene Robinson. Highlights (and that's what all this is, really) range from their infamous "Insylum" duet with Marianne Faithful from 1996's Serenade In Red to the 1998 live recording "Glimmer Bird" to the prototypical expression of Oxbow anguish that is "Yoke" from their 1989 Fuckfest debut. Ten tracks in all... you too might be crying like a baby when it's over. Oxbow would be happy about that.
The DVD portion includes 5.1 mixes of a handful of Oxbow classics, plus filmmaker Christian Anthony's Oxbow documentary Music For Adults (previously available here at AQ when it was a dvd-r release) with outtakes too, AND a bunch of additional live footage of the band in Belgium and San Francisco. Here's what we said about Music For Adults before: "Now you can vicariously join Oxbow for their summer 2002 European tour. Even better than actually being there, you can enjoy their shows and tour hijinx without running any risk of Oxbow singer Eugene getting you in a headlock (and pulling down your pants, as happens to at least one unhappy Scotsman in this film). The live footage captures the Oxbow rock machine in all their twisted, bawling glory, while the 'behind-the-scenes' stuff will show you that they're actually all really nice guys!"
So, Oxbow fans NEED this. And it's obviously the first thing the prospective Oxbow fan needs to pick up as well. Hopefully that's just what's gonna happen. Recommended as always with all Oxbow product!
MPEG Stream: "Insylum"
MPEG Stream: "Is That What Sleep Looks Like?"
MPEG Stream: "Pretty Bird"

PENTAGRAM First Daze Here Too (Relapse) 2cd 14.98
It's a time of joy, and a time of doom. That's because in the space of just the past month or two we've gotten not one but now two awesome, unearthed releases of previously lost early '70s underground heaviness from a bunch of longhaired DC-area Blue Cheer fans who, if they'd only managed to get a record deal back then, might have gotten huge and now be known as the American Black Sabbath. Well they really are the American Black Sabbath anyway, but not as many people know it. We're talking about the legendary original lineup of Pentagram, and their even more obscure evil twin Bedemon.
Two lists back, we were freaking out over the long awaited release of that Bedemon album, upon which sometime Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer's home recorded hymns of doom finally saw the light of day. We're still freaking out about it (just got more in, it's relisted this list), but now our frenzy is doubled. Yes, that amazing release wasn't enough, now here's First Daze Here Too, the follow-up to First Daze Here (natch) the AQ fave 2002 release that compiled a bunch of rare '70s era Pentagram recordings that were otherwise unavailable except perhaps with sub-par sound to rabid tape-traders. First Daze Here astounded us, being one of the best '70s heavy rock albums that never was we'd ever heard. Great songs, restored to sound better than fans has ever heard 'em. Incredibly, Relapse has now put together a solid -second- collection of unreleased vintage Penta-tracks from '72-'76. So many classics in their original form: "When The Screams Come", "Wheel Of Fortune", "Virgin Death", "Target", "Nightmare Gown", "Much Too Young To Know", an alternate version of "Be Forwarned", and more -- even their heavy take on the Stones' "Under My Thumb"! Sound quality varies, from tracks recorded for professional demo purposes to lower-fi rehearsal tapes, but fans will dig it all... though at 22 tracks total we'll admit that it's not all entirely the equal of the 100 percent killer first First Daze Here. This is more like 90 percent, yet it's not like we'd have wanted them to leave anything off. And in fact, we know that there's still more in the Pentagram vaults, so maybe we can look foward to a third volume someday...
Relapse have pulled out all the stops with this one, which after all these years Pentagram definitely deserve. It's a double disc (though actually we think all of it could have fit on one stuffed to the gills 80 minute cd) handsomely packaged with a huge thick booklet full of prevously unseen, sepia-toned band photos and text by original Pentagram drummer and keeper of the flame Geof O'Keefe, including track-by-track commentary... there's also notes from other former members as well. Doom on!
MPEG Stream: "Wheel Of Fortune"
MPEG Stream: "Virgin Death"

PENTAGRAM First Daze Here Too (Relapse) 2lp 16.98
It's a time of joy, and a time of doom. That's because in the space of just the past month or two we've gotten not one but now two awesome, unearthed releases of previously lost early '70s underground heaviness from a bunch of longhaired DC-area Blue Cheer fans who, if they'd only managed to get a record deal back then, might have gotten huge and now be known as the American Black Sabbath. Well they really are the American Black Sabbath anyway, but not as many people know it. We're talking about the legendary original lineup of Pentagram, and their even more obscure evil twin Bedemon.
Two lists back, we were freaking out over the long awaited release of that Bedemon album, upon which sometime Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer's home recorded hymns of doom finally saw the light of day. We're still freaking out about it (just got more in, it's relisted this list), but now our frenzy is doubled. Yes, that amazing release wasn't enough, now here's First Daze Here Too, the follow-up to First Daze Here (natch) the AQ fave 2002 release that compiled a bunch of rare '70s era Pentagram recordings that were otherwise unavailable except perhaps with sub-par sound to rabid tape-traders. First Daze Here astounded us, being one of the best '70s heavy rock albums that never was we'd ever heard. Great songs, restored to sound better than fans has ever heard 'em. Incredibly, Relapse has now put together a solid -second- collection of unreleased vintage Penta-tracks from '72-'76. So many classics in their original form: "When The Screams Come", "Wheel Of Fortune", "Virgin Death", "Target", "Nightmare Gown", "Much Too Young To Know", an alternate version of "Be Forwarned", and more -- even their heavy take on the Stones' "Under My Thumb"! Sound quality varies, from tracks recorded for professional demo purposes to lower-fi rehearsal tapes, but fans will dig it all... though at 22 tracks total we'll admit that it's not all entirely the equal of the 100 percent killer first First Daze Here. This is more like 90 percent, yet it's not like we'd have wanted them to leave anything off. And in fact, we know that there's still more in the Pentagram vaults, so maybe we can look foward to a third volume someday...
Relapse have pulled out all the stops with this one, which after all these years Pentagram definitely deserve. It's a double disc (though actually we think all of it could have fit on one stuffed to the gills 80 minute cd) handsomely packaged with a huge thick booklet full of prevously unseen, sepia-toned band photos and text by original Pentagram drummer and keeper of the flame Geof O'Keefe, including track-by-track commentary... there's also notes from other former members as well. Doom on!
MPEG Stream: "Wheel Of Fortune"
MPEG Stream: "Virgin Death"

QUASI When The Going Gets Dark (Touch & Go) cd 14.98
AQ faves Sam Coombes and Janet Weiss are back with their sixth Quasi album... with the worst cover art... ever. Whoa, what an eyesore. Fortunately the same can't be said about the music. Whew, Quasi fans rejoice. Yaaaaay! Weiss is an aggressive dynamo on the kit, likewise Coombes on the piano and guitar. When The Going Gets Dark features some of his most valiant cascading piano flourishes. Their performances are looser and more impassioned than ever. We always wish she'd sing more, but we're somewhat disappointed to report that this album has the fewest appearances of Ms Janet on the mic. On the rare occasions when she does chime in with Sam on vocals, the sun shines a little brighter. On his side of things, Coombes has exhibited some bizarre behavior on his own solo releases (for instance the swampy bluesy psych of Blues Goblin), and some of it has definitely trickled into the Quasi pot. This is evident right from the get-go, as the first track "Alice The Goon" comes tumbling out of our speakers. As well, our musical antennae picked up a few oddly familiar melodic progressions that we more than suspect he nicked from some old classics -- the closing song "Invisible Star" shockingly trickles into Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade Of Pale" territory, and the second to last song "Death Culture Blues" has an ominous plodding section that strongly recalls Brian Wilson's "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". But then again, Quasi always toss in a couple of eyebrow raisers to keep up on our toes. Apart from the cover art, the only other downside of this album is the somewhat murky sound quality. This is a little surprising since studio whiz David Fridmann was at the production helm, but despite his successes working with other pop wonders such as the Delgados, Flaming Lips, and Janet's other band Sleater-Kinney, his overdriven, blown-out style seems to overwhelm and disrupt the Quasi pop balance. That said, nothing can really tarnish the radiant force of Quasi. Their greatness always shines through, and so we proclaim, "Recommended!!!"
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Poverty Sucks"
MPEG Stream: "Merry X-Mas"

QUASI When The Going Gets Dark (Touch & Go) lp 14.98
AQ faves Sam Coombes and Janet Weiss are back with their sixth Quasi album... with the worst cover art... ever. Whoa, what an eyesore. Fortunately the same can't be said about the music. Whew, Quasi fans rejoice. Yaaaaay! Weiss is an aggressive dynamo on the kit, likewise Coombes on the piano and guitar. When The Going Gets Dark features some of his most valiant cascading piano flourishes. Their performances are looser and more impassioned than ever. We always wish she'd sing more, but we're somewhat disappointed to report that this album has the fewest appearances of Ms Janet on the mic. On the rare occasions when she does chime in with Sam on vocals, the sun shines a little brighter. On his side of things, Coombes has exhibited some bizarre behavior on his own solo releases (for instance the swampy bluesy psych of Blues Goblin), and some of it has definitely trickled into the Quasi pot. This is evident right from the get-go, as the first track "Alice The Goon" comes tumbling out of our speakers. As well, our musical antennae picked up a few oddly familiar melodic progressions that we more than suspect he nicked from some old classics -- the closing song "Invisible Star" shockingly trickles into Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade Of Pale" territory, and the second to last song "Death Culture Blues" has an ominous plodding section that strongly recalls Brian Wilson's "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". But then again, Quasi always toss in a couple of eyebrow raisers to keep up on our toes. Apart from the cover art, the only other downside of this album is the somewhat murky sound quality. This is a little surprising since studio whiz David Fridmann was at the production helm, but despite his successes working with other pop wonders such as the Delgados, Flaming Lips, and Janet's other band Sleater-Kinney, his overdriven, blown-out style seems to overwhelm and disrupt the Quasi pop balance. That said, nothing can really tarnish the radiant force of Quasi. Their greatness always shines through, and so we proclaim, "Recommended!!!"
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Poverty Sucks"
MPEG Stream: "Merry X-Mas"

RUPTURE, DJ/ Low Income Tomorrowland (Apple Core) cd-r 10.98
Once in a while we get all super annoyed BY DJ'S and DJ culture. We love DJ's as much as the next guy (okay, well, maybe not AS much) but once in a while, we start to wonder how playing somebody else's records makes you a musician, or a celebrity or a star. C'mon, what the fuck? Sure there are DJ's and turntablists who blow our minds, who take the turntables and do amazing shit, from avant soundscapists like Jeck or Marclay, to actual hip hop DJ's like the Skratch Piklz or folks who exist somewhere in between like DJ Shadow. But for the most part it's hard to not think "Fuck DJ's". So when there's a DJ, who isn't some crazy acrobatic scratcher, isn't some crafter of obtuse beatscapes, but who just plays records, has killer taste, and deftly mixes and matches and mashes up tunes and beats and said cool records, well for us to love every single thing they do is definitely saying something. And that's precisely how we feel about Rupture. Sure being a DJ is the equivalent of being a professional mix tape maker, so your record collection is 90% of the battle, and judging from Rupture's last few records, he has one of the world's best record collections (rivalled only by DJ Andy Votel we'd imagine). This time around it sounds like Rupture has caught grime fever just like the rest of us. Sure there's loads of classic hip hop, spastic drill and bass, classic jungle, huge bigbeat ragga, dancehall, but there's also plenty of greasy grungy griminess!! Every track on here rules, From a wildly catchy and bizarre MIA remix, to a Dead Prez meets snake charmer joint, to a perplexing but killer a capella Tracy Chapman track mashed up with some super stuttery slow motion drum and bass. Funky, fierce, furious, and FUN.
As if that weren't enough the disc also includes 4 live German radio mixes, over 90 minutes, 6 MP3's of crazy sonic terrorism, all over the map, from Sabbath, to eighties pop, to hardcore ragga but most importantly there's glorious GRIME all over the place...
MPEG Stream: SIZZLA "Got It Right Here (50 Cent Blend)"
MPEG Stream: BONG-RA "Old Skool Armageddon"
MPEG Stream: JAHBA + KRUMBLE "Bush Is A Pussy Cloth + Backward Country Boy Explosion"

SEAWHORES Forest (Essay Recordings) cd 14.98
Seawhores appears to be the work of a cast of thousands -- well there's like ten people credited as "writers and contributors" anyway. We're not sure who or what is at the core of this project, but we can tell you that Brian Chippendale (of Lightning Bolt) and Dale Crover (of the Melvins) both appear, amongst others, including ex-members of the Cows, on this album. And Seawhores definitely do display an affinity with the sort of noise-rock of those bands, particularily the mix of heaviosity and musical fuckery normally (abnormally?) practiced by the Melvins, and their former AmRep brethren as well. It's mostly instrumental with the notable exception of the (ironic we're pretty sure) hard rock radio friendly vocals that make/break the track "College Walls". They've gotta be ironic as we do sense a definite wiseassitude about this band, again in keeping with their Melvins meets Wolf Eyes noisedrone attack, a demented mix that incorporates rhythmic drum machine damage, gobs of distortion, soundtracky ambience, and more... For instance, the track "Sweaty Men, Attack" destroys the memory of its mock-country opening with pummelling industrial rock spazzcore. Elsewhere, you'll be treated to the extended eleven minute hissing howling horror soundscape of "Village Curse". All six tracks on this mysterious cd are intriguing. Very recommended to fans of Melvins, Mike Patton, Lightning Bolt, and suchlike gonzo avant-rock entertainment!!
MPEG Stream: "Sweaty Men, Attack"
MPEG Stream: "May Your Hands Wither"

SLOMO The Creep (Important) cd 14.98
Finally available again! Now it's a real cd ( not a cd-r) and comes in spiffy new packaging courtesty of Important records! Here's what we said about the previous edition:
Could a band have a more perfect name? And an album a more perfect title? In this case, no. Slomo's The Creep is EXACTLY that. Creepy, creeping, slow motion music. One hour, one track, improvised and recorded live with minimal overdubs and "zero eye-contact" (it kinda sounds like it was recorded in total darkness, in fact). The ominous subterranean echoing seismic sounds of Slomo are the work of the UK's Chris McGrail and Howard Marsden. McGrail, as you might have guessed, is also the main guy behind heavy psych-dronesters Holy McGrail, whose Collecting Earthquakes was highlighted here last list. This heavy-lidded, cave-dwelling creature is a different, more somnolent beast, but if you liked that Holy McGrail disc we think you might like Slomo's The Creep too. It's something akin to a narcotized Earth or Black Boned Angel, but played with the spacious, quiet restraint of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. The crunchy feedback on offer is both spooky and soothing. Appropriately, the cd booklet contains an old rhyme on the subject of this duo's namesake, a folkloric character known as Slomo for his generally slow and slothful ways. The final line says of Slomo: "Whose detractors do call static... but whose champions call Ecstasis?" Clearly McGrail and Marsden are of hold to the latter opinion, as do we.
This is an actual factory pressed cd, in a cool Important style gatefold cd sleeve, which supplants the now out of print cd-r version released on Julian Cope's Fuck Off And Di cd-r label that we listed back in September of 2005.
MPEG Stream: "The Creep [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "The Creep [excerpt 2]"

SPARKS Hello Young Lovers (In The Red) cd 13.98
Wow! 30+ years after their beginings Sparks have made one of the best records of their carreer! Brothers Ron & Russell Mael are sometimes known best for their totally amazing mustaches and their Queen-like approach to symphonic pop with totally quirky leanings. Truth be told they formed a year before Queen in 1970 and actually had Queen as openers for many shows in their early years. In their 36 year existence they've been all over the map, being under appreciated and ahead of their time with their ubber smart art-pop, then going for disco gold with Georgio Moroder in the late 70's, hitting the charts with The Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin in the early 80's and then...well then it seems like the world stopped noticing them. But they never really stopped and thats part of the beauty of Sparks. It's undeniable that what they do is so a part of them and all their quirky eccentristies might make some annoyed but they're so smart and too cool to even care. Their last release Lil' Beethoven was arguably one of their strongest in a decade but with Hello Young Lovers they've totally reignited their flame of totally infectious (we're talking infectious, like it will be in your head when you go to sleep when you wake up when you are on the bus when you are at work -- and this is something to worry about), totally ridiculous, totally over the top brilliant dorky super smart pop from men who remind us that men are still boys when all is said and done. From Devo to Nomeansno to current spazzy punkers you can feel the influence of Sparks in both sound and sentiment. Like a possesed house band in Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory making their own brilliantly crazed multiple Bohemian Rhapsodys over and over and over for eternity. Underneath all the flamboyance and fireworks though you always get the sense that Sparks mean every single breath of it and that's what makes them so totally special. YEAH!
NB. we have to say also, if you're a fan of Steven Schultz and his many projects, you will DEFINITELY love this...
MPEG Stream: "Dick Around"
MPEG Stream: "Perfume"
MPEG Stream: "Metaphor"

STARVING WEIRDOS Self-Hypnosis (Jyrk) cd-r 5.98
Hard to believe it was only a matter of months ago when two guys from Humboldt sent Andee a stack of 15 full length cd-r's. All mysteriously packaged, with bizarre collage art, strange song titles, and music that was stranger still. We went apeshit and insisted they make us a sort of best of disc, which they did and we sold about a million (we still have a bunch in stock too!). Word spread and now the Starving Weirdos are like a real band, with releases coming out all over the place, including a recent one on Root Strata, and this here gem on the Yellow Swans' Jyrk label. They were even in the latest issue of Vice Magazine!! Thankfully all of this hasn't gone to their heads and this blast of murky free psych weirdness is just as fucked up, demented and downright beautiful as anything else we've heard from them. Huge spacious recordings of Dead C like clatter, cavernous swells of haunting ambience, like exploring some lost sewer system that leads right to the center of the earth. Clatter and clang, percussive splatter drenched in natural reverb, like some sort of silverware war in an abandoned cistern. Free jazz played on scrap metal in a cave. Cool and creepy.
The second lengthy track introduces sax, but not in that annnoying sax-ruins-everything sort of way. No, this is more of a deep listening sort of sax, long foghorn like blasts, rumbling and reverberating, drifting into the reverby distance, a slow low meditative series of short rich drones, the whole thing a barely recognized melody stretched into it's constituent parts. A foghorn symphony played on duck calls and broken reeded bagpipes. The final 15 minute epic is a return to the metallic clang of track one. A pipe fight to the death, taking place at the bottom of a black pit, walled with stone and the crushed skulls of past pipefighters, between Z'ev and David Jackman, each hurling broken cymbals, warped gongs, bent cutlery and assorted car parts at each other, while in the background a mad scientist boils up an unspeakable brew of warm wheezing guitars and gurgling electronic drones, each and every sound wrapped in a thick smear of reverb, drizzled with delay, and sent drifting back to the surface where they were recorded onto a wax cylinder. Fucking awesome!
Hand screened cardboard sleeve, photcopied insert. Limited to 200 copies!
MPEG Stream: "Density Of Life Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "Self-Hypnosis"

THRONE OF KATARSIS Unholy Holocaust Winds (Paradigms) cd 11.98
The third release in Paradigms' series of super limited cd obscurities, this time from mysterious Norwegian black metal horde Throne Of Katarsis. On first listen, this sounds like some lost slab of classic nineties Scandanavian darkness, ultra grim, super lo-fi black fuzz recorded on a 4-track, whirling drone drenched icy buzz, but the Throne manage to add their own little slant to the proceedings. The first hint that this is not just some typical BM group, is the warm church organ intro that manages to be totally misleading, unless you envision the ToK horder bursting in on a mass in progress and defiling everyone and thing in sight. Then there's the haunting acoustic guitar halfway through the eleven minute opening track, that quickly segues into some loping dirge-y doom, sounding sort of like a slowed down Xasthur. The acoustic guitar returns again closer to the end, and transforms that gloriously droning dirge into a strangely melodic, epic sweeping sway, sort of like Dissection or even Iron Maiden, albeit doused in muffled black grit and slathered with satanic skree. The second track is more straight ahead Norwegian black metal, bringing to mind Emperor, Mayhem mixed with newer black souls like Leviathan and Xasthur, especially with its weird sorrowful lilting Burzumish acoustic guitar melody buried beneath the fuzz. The final track is the real oddball (and maybe our favorite track here), partially recorded in the Liarlund forest, the sounds of footsteps crunching through the snow, the call of faraway birds, whirling whispering wind, all beneath a warm creepy blanket of muted synth and gargled demonic mutterings. Eerie and lovely, but still strangely black and grim...
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Funeral Moonlight"
MPEG Stream: "Symbols Of Winter"

V/A Not Alone (Jnana / Durtro) 5cd 37.00
Talk of this compilation has been making the rounds for months, and now that it's here we can see why. We can also see why it took so dang long. But it was well worth it. The final product, the lineup, the songs, the packaging, the cause, WOW. The bands are a who's who of indie / avant / alternative rock / folk / electronica / experimental, all over the map. It's dangerously close to being SO eclectic that it's just a mess, but if you approach it as the worlds longest mixtape, made by your coolest friend with the best record collection it all starts to make some sort of skewed sense. But who cares? Look at this lineup:
Angles Of Light, Michael Yonkers, Antony And The Johnsons, Thighpaulsandra, Devendra Banhart, William Basinski, Bevis Frond, Teenage Fanclub, Sundial, Six Organs Of Admittance, Suishou No Fune, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Richard Buckner, Vashti Bunyan, Damon And Naomi, Shock Headed Peters, Isobel Campbell, Dolly Collins, Shirley Collins, Bill Fay, Marissa Nadler, Tom Recchion, Colin Potter, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Linda Perhacs, Max Richter, Current 93, Jad Fair, Simon Finn, Edward Ka-Spel, Pearls Before Swine, Nurse With Wound, Jarboe, Charlemagne Palestine, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Mirror, Matmos, Alex Nielson & Richard Youngs, Larsen, Faun Fables, James William Hindle, The Hafler Trio, Keiji Haino, Allen Ginsberg, Howie B, Ghost, irr.app.(ext)., Cyclobe, Fursaxa and more more more!
The liner notes make it impossible to tell just which tracks are exclusive or unreleased and which are album tracks, but again it hardly matters in this context. Like borrowing some cool kids Ipod and setting it on shuffle. And of course the most important part of all this, and the whole reason this compilation exists is that all proceeds go to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to support their work in fighting HIV / AIDS in Africa.
Packaged in a cool slipcover box, with individually printed cd sleeves, a HUGE book with liner notes from Mark Logan who runs Jnana records as well as information about Medecins Sans Frontieres, as well as track by track notes from each band.
MPEG Stream: IRR.APP.(EXT.) "Fly Away - And Then What?"
MPEG Stream: FURSAXA "In Lieu Of"
MPEG Stream: MATMOS "A Song For The Appeal"
MPEG Stream: DEVENDRA BANHART "A Sight To Behold"

V/A Run the Road 2 (Vice) cd 14.98
What more can we say about grime? Other than it's kicking our ass on a daily basis. This shit is so hard and heavy, so funky and catchy and freaked out. Why are people still listening to shit like 50 Cent, The Game, and all that bullshit gangster cookie cutter hip hop? Grime has all the aggression, all the ferocity, but mixes in loads of humor in a super subtle way, and the sound of grime is so much more funky and fun, so much more alive, more vibrant. A headspinning collision of hip hop, dancehall, jungle, ragga, huge slabs of distorted synth, throbbing basslines, bizarre sped up loops, that stuttering grimy beat, and the flows, oh the flows. Holy shit! These MC's could rap circles around our MTV elite, although no one would be able to understand a word they were saying. Super nimble, tongue twisting, mush mouthed, marble mouthed, cockney drawls, shooting off rapid fire lyrics, sputtering, stuttering tangled up rhymes splattered all over the hiccupping beats. FUCK! This is so good!!!! As much as we dug the recent Heavy Meckle comp, this second volume of Vice's Run The Road series is even better, definitely HARDER, as they have cherry picked the hottest tracks from the hottest names in grime (most of which remain criminally unknown in the US): Low Deep, Big Seac, Kano, Crazy Titch, Klashnekoff, Bear Man, Mizz Beats Sway and loads more.
SO ENTIRELY AND UTTERLY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY RECOMMENDED!!!
MPEG Stream: LOW DEEP "Get Set"
MPEG Stream: BIG SEAC "Nah Nah"
MPEG Stream: KLASHNEKOFF "Can't You See?"

VULTURE CLUB Pure Agitator (Invisible Generation) cd-r 10.98
We always wondered when and how we could finally remove the musician from the equation entirely. Not like synthesizer and sequencer sampled electronic music or anything. And not like some Chuck E. Cheese robotic band. No, we mean just taking a drumkit or a guitar, plugging them in or setting them up and letting them go. Some bands have come close for sure, SUNNO))), Earth and the like. Music so slow moving that it seems to just sort of hover, a music that seems to be playing itself via huge swaths of amp hum and wild sheets of feedback. It's almost as if the music would still play even if the band members took five. All of the robes and smoke machines and demonic imagery in the world can't disguise the fact that you could get almost the same sound from just plugging in a guitar, turning the amp to 10, the distortion all the way up, and leaning the guitars up against the amps, and letting the guitars just feedback, moaning and squealing and rumbling and droning gloriously on and on and on....
Thus we have Vulture Club, a band, MAYBE, or perhaps just some guitars and amps who somehow figured out a way to capture their nocturnal rumblings on tape and press up a bunch of cd-r's. Either way, this record has been kicking our asses since we first got a copy a few weeks back. Imagine a more minimal Earth 2, or SUNNO))) without the riffs, or a more metal Troum! Slow shifting, churning, warm thick swells of guitar hum that swirl and eddy like some strange black tide. Alternately, at its most fierce, a seriously Total like skree, like a plane flying overhead, or someone mowing their lawn down the street, or all of your neighbors vacuuming at once heard through the apartment walls, or the sound of the mighty Ditch Witch that has been sucking sewer water out of ditches all along Valencia Street outside our store for the last two weeks. A thick and gloriously corrosive din! But the noisy edge is tempered by long stretches of tranquil drone and hum, a whirring and warbling rumble, that would sound not at all out of place hovering dreamily between your Maeror Tri records and all of those limited PseudoArcana and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon cd-r's!
Really, the thing to do would be to actually buy those amps, three or four 100 watt amplifiers, a handful of distortion pedals, and a couple guitars, and let them loose, set the amps up around your bed, cranked as loud as they'll go, plug the guitars into the distortion pedals, crank 'em up, lean the guitars against the amps, lay down and just get buried in guitars. But assuming you're not up for spending the $10,000, or are short on space, Vulture Club should most definitely do the trick for now!
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES (we took almost the WHOLE pressing!!) Hand numbered and stamped in cool oversized cardstock sleeves, with strange hairs/fibers affixed to the front, with a lovely vellum insert and track list.
MPEG Stream: "Dusk On Owl Creek"
MPEG Stream: "From Afield"
MPEG Stream: "Pure Agitator"

WHITE HILLS No Game To Play (self released) cd-r 5.98
We'd been hearing good things about this band for ages. Someone we know was raving about 'em, and they also had the recommendation of Julian Cope... But we were having some difficulty tracking down the band, or a way to get their record for the store. Until an insane bit of coincidence / serendipity. In walked one Dave Weinberg, who a decade earlier had been Andee's boss at Holey Bagel in Noe Valley, across the street from the old aQuarius (back when Andee had time for two jobs). He had copies of a cd by his band, and what do you know? Dave's band just so happened to be White Hills! Wow. Thus we managed to get 30 or so copies of the second pressing of the No Game To Play cd-r (the first pressing is long out of print, as is the alternate version, which was drastically remixed, resequenced and retitled They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood and released on Cope's Fuck Off And Di cd-r label) and it's just as good as we had hoped. In a word, SPACEROCK. Or if you prefer, two words. Either way, this is some seriously tripped out swirling cosmic proggy, krautrock flecked, keyboard drenched outer outer outer space rock. Think just the jams from all the best Hawkwind songs, or the dreamiest mellowest bits of your favorite Monster Magnet tracks. Mix in some Neu! and some Faust and even some Stereolab at times and you'll just be scratching the surface of White Hills' sound. The opening track is a grungy, lowslung garagey drug addled space rock stomp, think the Stooges dropping acid until they started drifting off and began to sound more like Hawkwind, a killer hypnotic riff, a simple shuffling drum beat, mumbled vocals buried in the mix, and a swirling squall of wigged out guitars and all manner of synthesizer squiggle and swoon. It sounds quite a bit like Circle too, that riff just repeating and repeating, mantra like, a super tranced out rock that you want to go on forever. The centerpiece of the record is definitely "They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood", a near static synth swirl over a shuffling tribal rhythm, while guitars just sort of drift and float lazily amidst the whir and drone. Sounds a little bit like Brian Eno jamming with Crash Worship while somebody goes apeshit in the background on the synths. A gloriously mesmerizing hypnorock. Then a brief blast of straight up blown out, super distorted Neu! worship before the drifting ambient closer "Ulan", an abstract synthesizer soundscape that sounds like some lost Tangerine Dream jam. Blissy and totally dreamlike.
This is supposedly the final pressing, limited to 222 copies.
MPEG Stream: "No Game To Play"
MPEG Stream: "They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood"

WOLFGANG PRESS Burden Of Mules (4AD) cd 13.98
The Wolfgang Press' 1983 debut Burden Of Mules is one of the most curious albums from the annals of '80s post-punk. Dark, clunky, and quixotic on occasion, Burden of Mules has very little in common with the stylized retro-chic propulsion which has been favored by the likes of Interpol, Ladytron, Adult and other contemporary darlings from the '80s revivalist camp; thus, it's a little weird that 4AD would choose to reissue this album. I (Jim) am not going to complain, as I've cherished this album for years. The band had originally formed many years before the release of Burden Of Mules, but other projects such as Mass (yes, another band called Mass!), In Camera, and Rema Rema required the attention of the Wolfgang Press trio (Michael Allen, Andrew Grey, and Mark Cox). Something of an aggregate of The Birthday Party, Public Image Limited, and Tom Waits, The Wolfgang Press crafted weird noir-funk tunes through the alienated, aggressiveness of post-punk. Unlike the spastic energy of James Chance across the pond, London's Wolfgang Press mired their lust for atavistic funk in surrealistically tinged, cacophonous gloom, typified on Burden of Mules. Later on The Wolfgang Press' grooves become more and more pronounced, culminating in the vastly underrated album Bird Wood Cage before they devolved into a cheeseball parody of themselves. Regardless, Burden Of Mules remains a diamond in the rough for The Wolfgang Press with a case in point being the opening track "Lisa The Passion" with its tribal percusssive hammering coddled with an angelic swath of droning melodies. Elsewhere on the "Prostitutes 1 & 2," Michael Allen slinks along his bass and utters a disaffected croon about his subject matter being "the spice of life," whilst a Swordfishtrombone percussive clatter is extracted from drum machines and metallic junk. The album hardly fits in with what had been codified as the 4AD sound espoused by The Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil; but it's a sarcastic, challenging, morose, and very well done record nonetheless.
MPEG Stream: "Lisa (The Passion)"
MPEG Stream: "Prostitutes I"
MPEG Stream: "The Burden Of Mules"

WRIGHT, PETER Yellow Horizon (PseudoArcana) cd 13.98
If there were any justice in the world we'd be speaking of Peter Wright in the same hushed, reverential tones reserved for the more well known minimalists and dronologists. Chalk, Coleclough, Berry, Kneale, Milton, all fantastic, but they have nothing on Milton. In fact, if anything, Milton takes the subtle drones and the amorphous soundscaping of his brethren and uses those concepts and sounds to make actual songs. Like on the opening track "The Chain Bridge", Milton lays out a thick wash of warm cathedral guitar, slow moving and stately, so thick with reverb and delay that the melody sounds submerged in some warm viscous sound, the overtones so rich and thick they seem to overwhelm the notes that produced them. But that doesn't keep Milton from unfurling the mightiest of drones. Take the 13+ minute "Offa's Dyke" a chiming reverberating slow moving mass, glistening black, shot through with all the colors of the rainbow, but so subtle as to only be barely glimpsed through the whir and rumble of the mighty drone. But even in full drone mode, there are layers of melody, subtle shadings, even little song fragments and sonic swirl. Then there's tracks like "Bannockburn", one of the most gorgeous, and emminently listenable pieces of modern minimalism we've heard in ages, a circular series of repeated motifs, slowly shifting and gently overlapping, the best Steve Reich piece that never was. A 21st century new-weird-underground cd-r Terry Riley even. Wow.
Yellow Horizon is that rich in sound, heavy in emotion, just beautiful to listen to, all the way through, alternately droning and lilting, slow and smoldering, shimmery and effervescent.
Easily one of the most gorgeous records of the year so far!
MPEG Stream: "The Chain Bridge"
MPEG Stream: "Hover"
MPEG Stream: "Pendulum"

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AHMED, ILYAS Yahan Aur Wahan (Self Released) cd-r 6.98
What a thrill it is to discover one of our customers quietly making music as beautiful as, if not more so, than the music we love and listen to every day! Such is the case with aQ pal Ilyas Ahmed. We listed one of his cd-r's a few weeks back, which didn't last long since we only got a handful. We also got copies of his other limited cd-r which sold out so fast we didn't get enough to list at all. Well, we didn't want to blow it again so we made sure to reserve 30 copies of this, the newest cd-r release, and again it's a breathtaking bit of beauty. Solo acoustic guitar, gentle and lilting, soft focused and dreamlike. Definitely in the spirit of John Fahey, Richard Bishop, Jack Rose and the like, but much less Appalachia, and more introspective folk. Minor key and melancholy, fingerpicked steel string guitar, candlelit and moonlit, melodies flickering like shadows, deft and smooth, but effortless and carefree. So so so so lovely!
Packaged in a cardboard sleeve, with hand screened artwork affixed to the front and back. Hand numbered, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "100 Veils"
MPEG Stream: "Descend Again"

AMANDINE Leave Out The Sad Parts (Fat Cat) cd ep 8.98
Leave Out The Sad Parts is the new cdep from this Swedish foursome who briefly went by the less fitting moniker Wichita Linemen. This U.S.-only release includes one song ("Firefly") from their fine debut album, 2005's This is Where Our Hearts Collide and two tunes previously only available on a UK 7". Amandine's sound is perhaps most characterized by the vocals of Olof Gidlof. He has one of those voices of which it's difficult to discern the gender. We believed it to be a female singer until we checked the band lineup. It sounds as though the weight of the world is preventing him from raising his voice beyond a low, muted register. Some of us thought this was quite reminiscent of '70s heavy hearts such as Bread. It's a disarmingly warm, melancholic assembly of piano, guitar, bass and drums accompanied by accordion, theremin, banjo and trumpet. The final song "Between What He's Saying And What He Regrets" is graced with some suitably sleepy fiddle... a definite highlight!
MPEG Stream: "Firefly"
MPEG Stream: "Between What He's Saying And What He Regrets"

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Grass (Fat Cat) cdep+dvd 10.98
A special treat for Animal Collective fans! The audio portion of this cd/dvd combo offers up the super buoyant tune "Grass" from their last album Feels, and accompanies it with a more abstract "Fickle Cycle" and a third number titled "Must Be Treeman" which is sorta like an Animal Collective microcosm encapsulating their catchy poppiness and more bizarre musical behavior in one track.
The dvd features videos for "Grass" (European tour footage from last year presented in washed out negative), "Who Could Win A Rabbit" (a 'bad trip' starring humans in fucked-up bunny and turtle costumes), "Fickle Cycle" (the most artsy fartsily layered of the bunch -- footage shot while they were recording, grainy segments of a guy shaking his head furiously, projections on a guy's head wrapped in a sheet, hazy close-ups of an eye and with a soda pop product placement) and another live one of "Lake Damage" from a 2004 tour.
MPEG Stream: "Grass"
MPEG Stream: "Must Be Treeman"

APPLESEED CAST Low Level Owl I & II (Gilead) 3lp 25.00
These two long time aQ faves have now been re-issued on vinyl, as a deluxe gatefold triple lp. YOWZA! Here's the skinny on these two classics, originally released way back in 2002:
Though Lawrence, Kansas based Appleseed Cast has been around since 1998 they haven't been as widely heard as their contemporaries The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, and we would have imagined that the release of Low Level Owl volumes one and two would change all that (although it seemingly hasn't helped too much as this record came out last year and Appleseed's public profile hasn't really improved all that dramatically). Though AC was basically your run of the mill emo band (Andee's old band even played with them a few years back at a hardcore festival!), we highly doubt their most recent efforts will be confused with their mid-west emo contemporaries. Within the emo/post-hardcore spectrum Low Level Owl has much the same hue as Sunny Day Real Estate's angst-ridden How It Feels To Be Something On. Anthemic, meandering, and contemplative are definitely some of the adjectives that might describe this new sonic one two punch. Taken together Low Level Owl I and II are a much more sophisticated work than How It Feels was (and we love that album very much thank you), combining a sense of pop hook writing akin to Death Cab For Cutie or even Built To Spill, but with the added epic glory of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Radiohead or Mogwai's arrangements and production, but none of that overbearing pretension (esp. G.S.Y.B.E.'s incessant use of homeless street poets) and more a wide-eyed excitement to just make music!. This is good clean all American pop music for the emo lover who's old enough to have been drinking for at least a good ten years. The songs are filled with gorgeous melodic guitar lines soaked in spacious reverb, huge drum sounds and earnest vocals. If part of emo emanates a sense of nostalgia (Get Up Kids with Rick Springfield, Sunny Day with Christopher Cross) then we almost want to put Appleseed Cast on the same page with U2 circa Under A Blood Red Sky with many of the guitar and drum parts, but we imagine that might bum out some AQ customers so we'll refrain. Oops, too late!
The thing that really kicks a hole in our pants with these albums is the obvious love and meticulous care that went into recording them. The band apparently spent three months recording all the tracks; laying down the initial tracks and then sculpting them with additional overdubs and extensive tweaking, even miking leaves blowing along the driveway outside the studio and including it as a segue between two songs. In fact, both albums are obviously meant to be listened to in their entirety, with nary a second of silence between songs, as tracks bleed and drift into one another. Volume two begins, quite ingeniously and literally, where volume one leaves off -- with a brief reprise of the ending track. It could be us, but volume two seems to contain more Mogwai style extended jams and instrumental musical forays and experiments. So hearing the two together is pretty much perfect, the more ebullient "pop" record set up right there alongside the more drifting and pensive one. Almost everytime we play this in the store, someone buys a copy or comes to the counter to see what the heck we're playing. Fans of Death Cab, Get Up Kids, Flaming Lips, and all things emo, pop, and power pop, who missed out on the Low Level Owl a few years back should definitely have another listen and see what they've been missing!

BADAWI Safe (Asphodel) cd 14.98
Some of you might be familiar with Raz Mesinai from his work with the illbient/ambient dub project Sub Dub. If so you know that he has this great ability to get to eerie places in the music he creates. Growing up in Jerusalem he spent many of his formative years around Bedouins and really really latching onto their musical stylings. Then studying with dervish sheik Murshid Hassan he became a master of Middle Eastern drumming excelling in the playing of everything from bendir to zarb to darbukka. Meanwhile, he also studied extensively with folk musician and Hasidic rabbi Harov Shlomo Carlebach. All this background info really sets the stage for this outing as Badawai. The underlying tension in his homeland is no doubt a constant fuel for his music. Taking from both Palestinian and Jewish traditions he creates songs that are loaded with suspense and sizzle under the surface. With an amazing ensemble including Eyvind Kang, Marc Ribot and Mark Feldman the result is darn near flawless. It might just be a matter of moments before Mesani is snagged by a big film studio because we can't think of anyone better suited to score films filled with drama, mystery, suspense and horror. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Etheric Uprise"
MPEG Stream: "Safe"

BAND OF HORSES Everything All The Time (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
Fans of My Morning Jacket, Sparklehorse, Songs Ohia, and Iron And Wine, you just might have another band jockeying for your affection! Mat Brooke and Ben Bridwell, two ex-members of Seattle pop band Carissa's Weird, have regrouped in a new combo that doesn't stray too far from their former band's slow, lush sound, but takes it into more of a rural setting. Some of us (staffers and customers alike) thought they were a deadringer for My Morning Jacket -- from Bridwell's high mournful vocal delivery to the duo's balance of haunting Southern gothic ballads and rockier numbers. For a full box of tissues example of the former, check out the final song "St. Augustine". But whereas MMJ blanket their shadowy melancholic recordings in cavernous cathedral reverb, Band Of Horses apply a lighter coat -- their sun-drenched guitars countering the heavy-heartedness of the vocals. Really really really good!
MPEG Stream: "The First Song"
MPEG Stream: "St. Augustine"

BAND OF HORSES Everything All The Time (Sub Pop) lp 14.98
Fans of My Morning Jacket, Sparklehorse, Songs Ohia, and Iron And Wine, you just might have another band jockeying for your affection! Mat Brooke and Ben Bridwell, two ex-members of Seattle pop band Carissa's Weird, have regrouped in a new combo that doesn't stray too far from their former band's slow, lush sound, but takes it into more of a rural setting. Some of us (staffers and customers alike) thought they were a deadringer for My Morning Jacket -- from Bridwell's high mournful vocal delivery to the duo's balance of haunting Southern gothic ballads and rockier numbers. For a full box of tissues example of the former, check out the final song "St. Augustine". But whereas MMJ blanket their shadowy melancholic recordings in cavernous cathedral reverb, Band Of Horses apply a lighter coat -- their sun-drenched guitars countering the heavy-heartedness of the vocals. Really really really good!
MPEG Stream: "The First Song"
MPEG Stream: "St. Augustine"

BATTLES EP C / EP B (Warp) cd 22.00
Two of the three killer Battles eps (C and B) on a single import cd (note: both eps are still available separately) from this far out post Don Cab post Helmet post-prog-jazz-mathrock-whatthefuck-supergroup! Here's what we had to say about the two eps when we first reviewed them a while back:
EP C:
This is one pedigreed post-rock combo here! Battles consists of Ian Williams (Don Caballero, Storm And Stress), Tyondai Braxton (son of jazz genius Anthony and solo artist in his own right), John Stanier (Helmet, Tomahawk) and Dave Konopka (Lynx). These gents have joined forces to tangle their guitar strings, various drum implements, and electronic gadgetry into a big knot that might seem loose but is probably really tight if you were to try and unravel it. And while their compositions might be 'difficult', listening to this is not. Battles sounds like a post rock band (a la Don Cab or Lynx) playing the music of Conlon Nancarrow on Raymond Scott's Manhattan Research equipment. Or Gershon Kingsley making math rock. Weird, complex, delightful.
EP B:
Battles seems to have a thing for EPs. Well, why not? Might be the best format for their brand of attention-span sapping math rock. And you do get a full half-hour here, filled out with these five tracks of advanced instrumental action. This band -- featuring (ahem, selling points here) Ian Williams from Don Caballero/Storm And Stress, Tyondai "Son of Anthony" Braxton, John Stanier of Helmet/Tomahawk and Lynx's Dave Konopka -- are pros at making impressively complicated yet undeniably enjoyable post-rock music, as lively as it is listenable (which we mean in a good way). Often hectic but never harsh. It's as if these guys are taking King Crimson's early '80s comeback classic Discipline and giving it a fractured, abstract and electronic makeover. Venturing into totally deconstructed Starfuckers-ish territory, the twelve minute "BTTLS" might be the highlight, or at least the most abstract track on here by far... but the whole B EP is a fine dose of Battles for their quickly growing legion of fans.
MPEG Stream: "Hi/Lo"
MPEG Stream: "Ipt2"
MPEG Stream: "Dance"

BEDEMON Child Of Darkness: From The Original Master Tapes (Black Widow) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!! These went quick when we first listed this a month ago, and it took a while to get more from Italy, but here they are at last...
DOOM HISTORY HERE FOLKS! And not just that, it's a fantastic album. Ok, you know something is up when almost EVERYONE here at AQ absolutely loves a doom metal album. Not just the regular metal heads (Andee, Allan, Jason, Lauren) but also Jim and Cup too. Indeed, Cup's two cents for this review is this: "fucking awesome!"
So what's all the fuss about Bedemon? Well some of you may be familiar with the band Pentagram from Maryland, who have about a 30+ year history, going on 40 in fact. Well Bedemon are essentially an obscure but very worthwhile footnote to Pentagram's history, being the "solo" recording project of original '70s Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer, the majority of this recorded circa 1973-74 with a few tracks from a 1979 Bedemon session as well. They never played out, or even released any records. Bedemon were more of a practice room, basement-recording project that involved Palmer and friends, including the other members of Pentagram, most significantly the uniquely talented vocalist Bobby Liebling who sings on all of these cuts. It was just a way for Palmer to get his own songwriting down on tape, stuff that wasn't recorded by Pentagram. It's totally in the same vein as Pentagram though, if anything MORE dark and doomy than Pentagram's '70s output. Very heavy, and heavily Black Sabbath influenced, also with echoes of Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and Iggy & The Stooges (the track "Time Bomb" is very Stoogey, in a way similiar to Pentagram's "Last Days Here"). And for '73, this is definitely about as heavy as it gets, Sabbath and Pentagram themselves excepted. There's so many great tracks on here, each one more sorrowful and wrought with doomful emotion than the next, all of 'em throbbing and (awesomely) distorted. Yes, the quality of these rehearsal tape recordings is downright grungey and murky, but in our opinion that isn't a distraction nor a detraction. In fact, it only makes this better, totally capturing that spirit and raw energy of jamming in the garage for your own enjoyment. And it also sounds doomier that way too. Hands down, Randy Palmer wrote some of the best Pentagram songs, and many of these are just as good. Some of his riffs absolutely lay to waste those of his contemporaries. Just imagine if Palmer had decided to promote his doom skills rather than keep them for the most part to himself. Holy shit. At least we have this, one of the best "lost" albums ever uncovered in the realm of heavy, underground music.
Sadly, Palmer died in a tragic car accident just a few years ago, so the official release of this material at long last is also something of a tribute to his memory. Some of this stuff has been bootlegged before, but this legit release has been done with the blessings of Randy's survivors and the input of the other Bedemon musicans. There's even a Wes Benscoter cover painting based on Palmer's own hand-sketched ideas, as well as lots of photos, a Bedemon history written by Palmer before he was killed, and some very fascinating, detailed, and heartfelt liner notes from fellow Bedemon/Pentagram bandmate Geof O'Keefe.
Essential to all true fans of Pentagram, and also to anyone into heavy '70s Sabbathy psychedelic garagey proto-metal!!
MPEG Stream: "Child Of Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Last Call"
MPEG Stream: "Time Bomb"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Chi Vampires (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
This all time aQ fave back in stock!
The thing with Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel, is everything he puts out is great. Really. There are very few bands we can say that about. And even fewer who have such a ridiculously extensive catalog of releases. So what is it that makes one record worthy of Record of the Week status? Well, to be quite honest, almost any of the BCM records -could- be a record of the week, but every once in a while, BCM offer up something -really- special. And as much as we totally love all things Birchville and love to immerse ourselves in their (actually, his) blissed out ambient drone ragas, we can't help but love the fact that lately, BCM mainman (only man?) Campbell Kneale has developed a thing for metal, even proudly wearing a Darkthrone T on his recent US tour. Better late than never we say. The first evidence of this new found metallic leaning, was the launching of a new label (Kneale owns and operates the Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label) called Battlecruiser, a series of limited 3" cd-r's chronicling a weird sect of underground metal, mostly made by NZ noise / drone guys who had also caught the metal bug (two new Battlecruiser releases get reviewed elsewhere on this list). One of the first Battlecruiser releases was by an outfit called Black Boned Angel, which just so happened to BE Campbell Kneale, and was a massive pummelling sludgy black hole of SUNN-like dirge metal. Recently re-released on cd and reviewed again on the AQ list, everyone here could not get enough of Kneale's weird drifting almost ambient take on blackened metal. Fans of Earth and SUNN and all that sort of slow motion doom definitely found a new band to love. Little did we expect that Kneale's metal would leak on over into his main project, but it has, and we couldn't be happier. The first three tracks on Chi Vampires are classic BCM, gorgeous ambient prog, like a blissed-out take on Goblin's creepiest horror film interludes, with slowly drifting swaths of thick warm sonic swirl, sun dappled and dreamily indistinct, but also slightly ominous. Completely epic and the sort of music that either rocks you to sleep, or puts you in a trance, sending you on a trip through your inner senses, dizzying and mesmerizing. Those tracks alone could have had us pushing for a BCM record of the week, at last. But then the final track "Chi Vampires" hits, and it hits hard. Huge guitar riffs, not processed guitar drones, but ACTUAL RIFFS, bulldoze and crush all in their path, massive and intense, ultra low, and ultra heavy, with haunting heavily reverbed chanting offering the only counterpoint. This is like SUNNO))), but sped up to say 18 or 19 rpm, and with actual melodies, and the chanting, so creepy, like a drone metal ritual being performed at the bottom of a massive cavern, riffs filling the room with thick low end, making it hard to breathe, hard to see, the chanting distracting you only enough to maybe worry about escaping with your life, making it to the surface without being sucked into the blackness. The riffs eventually drift off, as the mysterious makers of these sounds trudge slowly back to the center of the earth, chanting as they go, the reverb of the cave turning the chants into indistinct vocal blurs