STRIBORG Embittered Darkness / Isle De Morts (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Lovers of damaged demented bizarre baffling freaked out and fucked up black metal rejoice!! We couldn't be more excited if there was a brand new Benighted Leams record. FINALLY, we're able to review and list a record from one of our all time favorite outsider one man black metal bands, Striborg. Most folks have probably never actually heard Striborg, even though this will mark release #15 or thereabouts. But it wasn't for lack of trying on our part. We have been completely obsessed with Striborg since we first heard him a few years back and have been trying to get enough copies of ANY of his releases to list. Everytime we found someone who carried Striborg records, we would order 30 or 40 or 50, and would get 1 or 2. Or more likely none. We even resorted to writing letters to the band (he apparently lives in a shack in the woods with no phone and no computer!) And while most folks have never -heard- Striborg, you've probably at least heard OF him. Whether it was in an aQuarius review, we've referenced Striborg as the ultimate outsider black metal band in reviews of records by black metal weirdos Dead Reptile Shrine, Lugubrum, Draugar, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden and more, or on the recent black metallized SUNNO))) record Black One, which even had a track named for the dark mastermind behind Striborg Sin-Nanna.
But what is it exactly about Striborg that has everyone freaking out?
Five words for you: Tasmanian rain forest black metal! And it's just as grim and weird and as amazing as that might lead you to believe. We have Southern Lord to thank for this, the first readily available Striborg release, which continues his tradition of combining multiple releases on single cds, this one includes the brand new 2006 recording. Embittered Darkness, as well as the super rare Isle De Morts release recorded almost a decade ago, way back in 1997.
So what exactly does Tasmanian rain forest black metal sound like? Definitely grim, and lo-fi, ultra personal, demented and damaged, Benighted Leams, Abruptum, Dead Reptile Shrine, Necrofrost, Emit, Furze, Urfaust and all the rest of the baffling black metal hierarchy should give you a rough idea, but Striborg, is even further out, way more fucked up, more strangely psychedelic and freaked out, a doomy drone drenched black buzz, a growling fuzzy missive from the depths of some dark netherworld.
Haunting washes of gauzy synthesizer, mournful minor key acoustic guitars, dreary overcast swaths of depressive melancholia, and you think other black metal bands are buzzy?! Striborg take that black buzz and whip it into a furious freaked out frenzy, a guitar buzz like a million bumble bees, but sped WAY up, a prickly, fuzzy swirl, even at it's most doomy and plodding, Striborg drenches everything in that overblown buzz, a thick sandpapery ambience, that is the metal equivalent of walking through the pouring rain, under a full moon, through a graveyard at the edge of the world. Sin-Nanna growls and gurgles his obtuse black ravings in an impossibly creepy animalistic voice, somewhere between a rabid dog, a tiny demon, and a wicked old witch, often everything will drop out and all that will be left is a buzzing tangle of hissing harsh vocal and fuzzed out black riffing. Buried in the murk and mire are weird, rehearsal space drums, really flat and dry sounding, erupting in spastic and chaotic burts, not just blast beats, but instead bizarre blasts of percussive tangle amidst stretches of almost punk rock drumming, although most of Embittered Darkness is spent at a crawl, a buzzing midtempo dirge, as doomy as it is black, if not more so. Imagine an ultra lo-fi doom metal Xasthur, slow motion misery dotted with occasional barrages of black metal buzz and once in a while surges of slithering black ambience.
So totally creepy and beautiful, fucked up and gorgeous, a massive soul crushing slab of doom drenched black metal brilliance.
Isle De Morts, from 1997, is a lot more traditional, and a lot faster, almost every track a frenetic and frenzied burst of blackened and buzzing brutality, lo-fi but completely blown out and in the red, channeling Transylvanian Hunger era Darkthrone, but filtered through Striborg's cracked sonic kaleidoscope, rendering what might have been just some classic Norwegian BM worship, as a creepy and cracked world of ultrabuzz and overblown acidfried blackness, blast beats so fast they sound like radio static, guitars so buzzy and blurry they turn into thick washes of crumbling prickly sound, and croaking toadlike vocals so high in the mix it sounds like the band is in a different room. So gloriously fucked up and freaked out. One listen is all it takes to see why Striborg towers above all his bizarre black metal contemporaries, ruling the doomed and damaged kingdom of ultrapersonal black metal dementia with an iron fist, a busted 4-track and a growing legion of buzz hungry minions!
MPEG Stream: "Wrapped In A Cacoon Out Of Harm's Way"
MPEG Stream: "Race Of Apathy"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Veils Of Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Descending From A Black Sky"

AN ALBATROSS Blessphemy (Of The Peace-Beast Feastgiver And The Bear Warp Kumite) (Ace Fu) cd 14.98
The Pitchfork blurb on the sticker proclaims this record to be "the trippiest record in the history of the world". While that might be a wee bit of an exaggeration, this most certainly is one of the weirdest wildest psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records EVER (C'mon, Pitchfork, at least when we spew some ridiculous hyperbole, it's absolutely true!! Haha)!! Not that there have been a whole lot of psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records, but there's a reason for that. This shit is NUTS. So freaked out and dense and complex and hard to pull of. Anyone can crank their keyboards and channel an inferior version of the Locust, but An Albatross seem to have some real link to classic prog, although it's filtered through some impossibly skewed, cracked and demented postpunk, grindcore sensibility. 18 songs, 26 minutes. One's even a three part epic clocking in at a whopping 4 minutes. Keyboards wiggle and slither, whipping wildly like a garden hose turned on full blast and let loose to swing like a mad cobra dosed with angel dust, striking at everyone within reach, drums are spastic, and hyperkinetic, like BB's fired from a cannon, a dizzying splatter, guitars grind and churn, melodic one second, harsh and screeching the next. ALl of these elements tangled up into hyper complex, ultra obtuse knots of super complicated, multi part mini grindprog epics, stop / starts, blazing bursts of hyper blast, brief stretches of serene acoustic dreaminess, warm washes of thick synth whir, blissed out drones and crunchy bouncy blasts of new wave, even some horns find their way into the chaos. Above it all, the vocalist screeches and growls, diving and twisting and turning, dodging and ducking, offering shrieked unintelligible platitudes tucked between jagged shards of post punk stutter and epic convoluted prog. This is like a spazzy, grindy, confusional 21st century Magma, mixed up with bits of Locusts and Lightning Bolts maybe, but with a truly unique sound, due perhaps to their prog rock heart of gold. One of our favorite new records. Furious and freaked out, fast and fucked up but still so goddamn catchy and listenable. And so so so great!!!
MPEG Stream: "In The Court Of The Bear King"
MPEG Stream: "Lysergically Yours, My Psychedelic Bride"
MPEG Stream: "Dimensional Gymnastics"
MPEG Stream: "Trust The Sun, The Symphonic Sunrise"

AN ALBATROSS Blessphemy (Of The Peace-Beast Feastgiver And The Bear Warp Kumite) (GSL) lp 13.98
The Pitchfork blurb on the sticker proclaims this record to be "the trippiest record in the history of the world". While that might be a wee bit of an exaggeration, this most certainly is one of the weirdest wildest psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records EVER (C'mon, Pitchfork, at least when we spew some ridiculous hyperbole, it's absolutely true!! Haha)!! Not that there have been a whole lot of psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records, but there's a reason for that. This shit is NUTS. So freaked out and dense and complex and hard to pull of. Anyone can crank their keyboards and channel an inferior version of the Locust, but An Albatross seem to have some real link to classic prog, although it's filtered through some impossibly skewed, cracked and demented postpunk, grindcore sensibility. 18 songs, 26 minutes. One's even a three part epic clocking in at a whopping 4 minutes. Keyboards wiggle and slither, whipping wildly like a garden hose turned on full blast and let loose to swing like a mad cobra dosed with angel dust, striking at everyone within reach, drums are spastic, and hyperkinetic, like BB's fired from a cannon, a dizzying splatter, guitars grind and churn, melodic one second, harsh and screeching the next. ALl of these elements tangled up into hyper complex, ultra obtuse knots of super complicated, multi part mini grindprog epics, stop / starts, blazing bursts of hyper blast, brief stretches of serene acoustic dreaminess, warm washes of thick synth whir, blissed out drones and crunchy bouncy blasts of new wave, even some horns find their way into the chaos. Above it all, the vocalist screeches and growls, diving and twisting and turning, dodging and ducking, offering shrieked unintelligible platitudes tucked between jagged shards of post punk stutter and epic convoluted prog. This is like a spazzy, grindy, confusional 21st century Magma, mixed up with bits of Locusts and Lightning Bolts maybe, but with a truly unique sound, due perhaps to their prog rock heart of gold. One of our favorite new records. Furious and freaked out, fast and fucked up but still so goddamn catchy and listenable. And so so so great!!!
MPEG Stream: "In The Court Of The Bear King"
MPEG Stream: "Lysergically Yours, My Psychedelic Bride"
MPEG Stream: "Dimensional Gymnastics"
MPEG Stream: "Trust The Sun, The Symphonic Sunrise"

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AESTHETIC MEAT FRONT Embalmer Tapes (Dissected) (Old Europa Cafe) cd-r 12.98
As you probably well know by now, we here at AQ have long been fans of manipulated found sounds and field recordings -- dogs barking, ice melting, whatever -- either on their own, captured just as they were heard, or better yet, twisted and smeared into drones and soundscapes, reimagined as completely alien worlds of sound. And while the source material may not be obvious, just knowing where the sounds come from, can make the listening just that much more thrilling. And the creepier and more unlikely the source sound the better. And it sure doesn't get any creepier than this. Sure Matmos used the sounds of rhinoplasty and various other procedures to concoct their abstract electronica, but Aesthetic Meat Front used only the sounds of a corpse being embalmed for Embalmer Tapes. Every single sound, whether it's the casual whistling of the embalmer, the slow rumble of processed suction sounds or the clang of metal instruments dropped in bloody metal trays, each and every sound was captured deep in the sublevels of a funeral home, while an embalmer removed all the fluids from a corpse. Euuuw. But sonically, WOW!
Sometimes the sounds are instantly recognizable, the above mentioned whistling and clatter of surgical instruments, snippets of conversation heavy with the reverb of a small tiled room, small motorized pumps, footsteps, but more often, the sounds of suction, and the sounds of the machines pumping, are stretched out into warm whirring rumbles, or chopped up and reassembled into hissing blasts of fuzz and grrr. But mostly this is a weird warped world of drones, from dreamy and shimmery, to harsh and jagged, all imbued with the specter of mortality, life most fleeting, the great abyss, the sounds already sonically ominous and foreboding enough, but even more so on a psychological level, knowing the source of every sound, engendering a creepy dark ambient atmosphere thick with the heavy hanging shroud of death. So awesome.
SUPER LIMITED!!! WE GOT THE LAST 20 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!
MPEG Stream: "Post Mortem Sludge"
MPEG Stream: "Sectional Injection (Is Necessary)"

AKBAYRAM, EDIP s/t (Shadoks Music) 2cd 19.98
Glad tidings for Turkish psych freaks, or those soon to become Turkish psych freaks (just give this a listen!): here's a new must-have collection crammed full of swirling, fuzzed-out electric saz, impassioned vocals, and traditional Turkish folk gone funk! If you are indeed into the groovy East-meets-West psychedelia that flourished in Istanbul back in the '60s and '70s, artists like Mogollar, 3 Hur-el, Baris Manco, and Erkin Koray, chances are you may already be familiar with Edip Akbayram and his band Dostlar (formed in '73), as a while back we reviewed a compact disc reissue of Edip's circa '76 album Nedir Ne Decildir and gave it a hearty recommendation. This new Edip Akbayram double disc on the Shadoks label contains 24 tracks, including ten of the 14 cuts found on that previous reissue (meaning, if you already have that cd, you still will want this for the whole disc and then some of songs you don't have... and you can't get rid of the Nedir reissue either if you want those four songs that don't overlap). So this is definitely the Edip set to get at any rate.
The colorful music of Edip Akbayram and Dostlar is pretty much the hardest-rockin' all the Turkish psych acts of the era we've heard... darn heavy in spots. The Anatolian folk-rock of the sixties is blended with a polyester '70s wah-wah funked-up progginess here. It's vibrant and colorful music to make you feel like you're in some smoky, swinging nightclub on one of the warren of narrow, twisting side-streets off of the hip main drag Istiklal in the Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul, back in the day, sweating on the dance floor or sitting back, sucking on a hookah.
The cd booklet is full of cool photos, and a page of liner notes, giving Edip's bio but no info on the tracks themselves, we're just told that they're from his first two albums and singles. However, they do include English translations of the song titles, which should give some idea of Edip's seemingly dire outlook on life (or the outlook shared by his Turkish folk sources), with such songs as "Sorrow And More Sorrow", "Miserable", "In Vain", "Our Village Is Full Of Smoke", "Don't Touch My Sad Soul", "Tyrant", "Gallows Pole" and even "My Car Broke Down"! Sounds like a bummer, yet many of these tracks are amazingly upbeat musically!
Edip definitely belongs high up in the reissued ranks of all the incredible, obscure, groovy sixties/seventies psych sounds from all around the world that we can't get enough of here at AQ: Os Mutantes, San Ul Lim, Mogollar, Blo, Bango, Brincos, Krysztof Klenzon, Juan de la Cruz, Los Dug Dugs, He 6, the stuff on comps like Cherrystones Rocks, Welsh Rare Beat, Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, Studio One Funk, etc. etc. etc.
MPEG Stream: "Deniz Ustu Kopurur"
MPEG Stream: "Yakar Inceden Inceden"
MPEG Stream: "Arabam Kaldi Yolda"

ALVARIUS B s/t (Abduction) cd 14.98
It goes without saying that the Sun City Girls often exhibit splashes of hallucinatory brilliance throughout their pseudo-eastern psychedelia mashed with cinematic grandeur and way-fucking-far-out esoterica, but at the same time, the Girls have a bad habit of releasing way too much meanderingly psychotic material that definitely tries the patience of even the most die-hard SCG fan. Curiously enough, the smattering of solo recordings from the Bishop brothers, Sir Richard Bishop and Alvarius B (aka Alan Bishop), have managed to avoid the failings of some of the SCG recordings. The reissue of the first Alvarius B record clearly demonstrates this (as well as the 2005 vinyl-only record Blood Operatives Of The Barium Sunset). Recorded between 1981-1989, many of Alan's severely mangled folk-songs are curiously prescient of the current flourishing of acid folk fingerpicking. At the same time, these fucked-up lo-fi indie-spluttering instrumentals sound like an excessively complex Sebadoh tune played by one guy with a tuneless guitar. Either way you look at it, here's one of the great recordings from one of the Bishop brothers. It went out of print quickly the first time it was released on vinyl back in 1994. We hope it won't happen again.
MPEG Stream: "Track 3"
MPEG Stream: "Track 11"

ATAVIST s/t (Invada) cd 15.98
Sludge is like a drug. Those of us who are hooked, can never get enough. And the heavier or weirder it gets, the more we need every fix to be just a little bit slower, a little bit heavier, a little bit more fucked up and freaked out. This stuff is already pushing the limits of how slow and heavy it can go, you can only get so slow and heavy before notes and melody and any sort of tonal color disappear completely resulting in what is essentially a super dense drone (and lord knows we love those too!!) so most of the bands that have been supplying us with our sludge fix of late have pushed the limits of slow and heavy obviously, but have mostly managed to twist their particular take on the sludge and the doom and the drone into seriously creepy and contorted shapes.
Thus we have Atavist. On first listen, they seem to be trudging down the same black and glacial path as Khanate, plodding Neanderthal drums, crumbling downtuned grit caked guitar rumble, and of course super processed demonically gurgled growls and shrieks. A horrifying and harrowing slow motion journey through the blackest pits of hell for sure. That along would be enough to have us jonesing. But then Atavist mix in some super unlikely elements. First, they actually rock. Not the whole time, but sometimes, they slip into an actual stonery doomic riff, and the tempo picks up, not too much, more like moving from steamroller tempo to runaway dumptruck tempo, but it definitely rocks, heavily and furiously, but never strays from the sludge too long, always slowing back down like said dumptruck plunging into a stretch of road where the tar has melted into black quicksand. The other unlikely element is a certain strange melodic flair, which seems unlikely, but somehow fits perfectly nestled amongst the surrounding doom. From the dreamy, propulsive post rock buried within the first track, gorgeous minor key guitar arpeggios, and shuffling loping almost krautlike rhythms (sounding at moments like a more dirge-y Katatonia) to the delicate intro to the second track, a glistening framework of soft melancholy melody and subtle simple bass lines, all drifting in a swirl of ambient haze (complete with a super creepy sample from the movie Session 9). There are even some blasts of full on freenoise freakout.
But Atavist at their core, are sludge pure and not so simple. Mighty hellbeasts wielding impossibly heavy slabs of ultrasludge, hurling dense chunks of black sound, moving in slow motion, but laying waste to all who cower before them. Neverending Eyehategod-ish high end feedback, dirge-y superdistorted bass grooves slowed waaaaaay down, until they're almost just big muddy smears of low end, guitars so low they sound like they're being dragged behind a truck through a tarpit. Those of you who have been fiending for more Khanate, Eyehategod, Moss, Bunkur, Monarch or who just need your head dunked in hot tar and beaten with feeding back guitars once in a while, may have just found the perfect prescription for your deathdoomdronedirgesludge fix.
MPEG Stream: "31:38"
MPEG Stream: "20:11"

BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT s/t (Matador) cd 14.98
FINALLY BACK IN STOCK, now that the official release date is here!
With its custom packaging which includes amazing "tripping" rainbow glasses that you can wear and see stars and colors all summer long, this is a record you are gonna want to get your hands on as soon as you can. You often hear people talking about a record that has warmth. But you don't always really melt in that supposed warmth. With their new full length and first outing for Matador. Brightblack Morning Light (we think they might slightly change their name on everything they put out) have made a record that makes you melt in all the best possible ways. With the morning light added to their moniker, Brightblack have made one of the most perfect morning records we've heard in ages. This is the kind of record you put on right when you get up, sun is shining through the windows, slight breeze caressing your neck as Brightblack's Rabob and Nabob let their laid back, trance inducing southern charm seep deep into your pores. There is an overall ambiance to this recording that allows their soothing vocals and rich instrumentation to come together so perfectly as one. You can hear the influence of South American psychedelia, all warm and seductive, you can also hear bits of Americana transmitted with all the right haze and glaze. This is THE summer record, to serenade you as you while away the long warm days in bed all summer long. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Everybody Daylight"
MPEG Stream: "All We Have Broken Shines"

BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT s/t (Matador) 2lp 16.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL, WITH ONE BONUS TRACK NOT ON THE CD!!
With its custom packaging which includes amazing "tripping" rainbow glasses that you can wear and see stars and colors all summer long, this is a record you are gonna want to get your hands on as soon as you can. You often hear people talking about a record that has warmth. But you don't always really melt in that supposed warmth. With their new full length and first outing for Matador. Brightblack Morning Light (we think they might slightly change their name on everything they put out) have made a record that makes you melt in all the best possible ways. With the morning light added to their moniker, Brightblack have made one of the most perfect morning records we've heard in ages. This is the kind of record you put on right when you get up, sun is shining through the windows, slight breeze caressing your neck as Brightblack's Rabob and Nabob let their laid back, trance inducing southern charm seep deep into your pores. There is an overall ambiance to this recording that allows their soothing vocals and rich instrumentation to come together so perfectly as one. You can hear the influence of South American psychedelia, all warm and seductive, you can also hear bits of Americana transmitted with all the right haze and glaze. This is THE summer record, to serenade you as you while away the long warm days in bed all summer long. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Everybody Daylight"
MPEG Stream: "All We Have Broken Shines"

CELESTIIAL Desolate North (BindRune) cd 12.98
There was a time where all you had to do was add umlauts to every vowel (heck how about a few consonants too?) to make your band name more evil. More mysterious. For glam rockers it simply meant changing s's to z's, BOYZ, TOYZ, NOYZE... oh and changing i's to y's, and double o's always helped... Bad Noose. But recently, there have been several examples of grim black and doom metal bands adding an extra 'i' for no apparent reason. When it was just French black metallers Mutiilation, we thought, okay, they're just French and little bit strange, or maybe it was a typo but they thought it was cool. We can dig that. But now with Minnesotan funereal doom lords Celestiial jumping on the double 'i' bandwagon, we're beginning to think something is going on. Something sinister. Er... siiniister we mean.
Anyway, we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for more of the evil double 'i' but in the meantime, Celestiial has more than just the 2 i's going for them. They also have a gaggle of o's. that's right. Celestiial are definitely one of those bands who have earned the multiple o'd doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. They're in the tradition of bands like Skepticism, Thergothon, Disembowelment, Evoken, Winter and more modern practitioners of the ultradoom like Catacombs, Esoteric and the like, but Celestiial are no ordinary doom band, sure their songs are lengthy and glacial, guitars are nothing but black smears in a starless sky, the plodding drums are dropped reverently amidst a bleak and barren sonic landscape. Vocals growl and gurgle and float weightless like some dark wind. Celestiial's doom is even more spacey and blissed out than any of their influences. The guitars are thick and dense and tuned impossibly low, but they sound soft, like someone shaking out a huge black blanket and letting it settle over you, blocking out all light. The programmed drums are so dense with reverb, and the cymbals seem to sizzle endlessly, the percussion just turns into a wash of hiss and whir, that adds a strange fuzzy glow to the already murky and blissy sound. The other thing you can't help but notice, is the sound of nature, everywhere, in every song, crickets, wind blowing through the trees, frogs, whippoorwills, thunder, rain falling on leaves. You know how Skepticism sounds like it was recorded in a forest? This is like that too but it's not metaphorical, it really has forest sounds. It's almost like their is some black doom funeral procession, trudging through the forest, lit only by torchlight, the creatures of the night, gathered just outside the circle of fire. So intense and strangely serene, especially for a 'doom metal' record.
And the thing is it's not just for effect. Celestiial are from Minnesota and are quite possibly the first reflective, isolationist, naturist doom band ever. From the band's website: "Celestiial was created to mirror mysticism in nature. Its heart lies not in its medium but in its dreams. It is a reflection of astral light shown upon the earth--sinking into its soil--waiting and dreaming. It wishes to be the pulse of woodlands and water. Nothing more? Understand that funeral doom isn't always slow for the sake of being slow. It is slower than the beat of the human heart. Its pulse is dead. The pulse of CELESTIIAL aims at being completely parallel to continual motion in everything of this earth. From the seasonal changes to representations of myth."
Woah. But if you really listen, Celestiial's slow motion doom does sound perfectly at home amidst the sounds of nature. Like some living breathing shadowy doomic creature living among the insects and wild birds, lurking in tree tops and curled up upon soft piles of wet leaves. It's almost like a doom metal version of recent record of the week Osmose, by Ariel Kalma, but instead of synths and rainforests, it's doom and dark forests. And as if to further tie the music to the land, and the peoples of the land, Celestiial incorporate an unlikely selection of traditional instruments into their slow motion dirges, such as Celtic harp and Native American flutes.
All of that, strange instrumentation, nature sounds, the two i's, combine to make this wonderfully weird, hauntingly mysterious and quite possibly one of the dreamiest and most blissed out doom records ever!
MPEG Stream: "Haunting Cries Beneath The Lake Where Our Queen Once Walked"
MPEG Stream: "Lamentations In The Citadel Of God"

CHALK, ANDREW Vega (Faraway Press) cd 24.00
Sometime back in 2005, Andrew Chalk manufactured a tiny edition of what had been rumored to be the soundtrack to a self-produced film entitled Vega. When several journalists published their findings about the magnificent drones housed within that instantly out-of-print cd-r on Brainwashed.com and in The Wire, many of Chalk's die-hard fans were left disappointed at the existence of what might have been one of their favorite Andrew Chalk recordings had they ever had the opportunity to actually hear it.
While Mr. Chalk maintains a very quiet demeanor and hardly ventures into the public eye these days, he's been hard at work ensuring that his recently formed Faraway Press actually keeps up with the orders for the records that he's been recording. Vega is one such record that he so dearly wanted to re-release sooner, had it not been for the inevitability of delays. It's clear to see why delays would have been incurred on the packaging for Vega, as the original cd-r was housed in a filigree of black lace surrounding a paper sleeve, which amounted to a delicate and frustratingly time-consuming process in terms of putting together each cd-r. Hence, with the second edition of Vega, this time a proper CD, Chalk has expedited the hand-assembly process with an elaborately printed piece of heavy cardstock, sporting a similarly elegant lace pattern.
As for the music within, Vega is simply stunning. Far more vaporous and free-floating than the previous solo outing The River That Flows Into The Sand and certainly more so than any of the Mirror recordings, Vega acts as an aural narcotic, sedating the listener through a constantly shifting, slow motion churn of chiming guitar drones, almost resembling the kosmische-tinged melancholia heard in the Aeolian String Ensemble's dronescaping. As bleary and amorphous as Chalk's drone-clusters are, he's always had the knack for keeping them just dissonant enough so that they do not fall into the ambient trap of background music. Sublime as ever. Recommended just like all of his other work.
MPEG Stream: "Vega 1"
MPEG Stream: "Vega 3"

CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS Shores (Northern Sky) cd 12.98
Not any black metal band can share a split with the mighty and mighty bizarre Urfaust, with their blustery buzz and crazy crooning. But Finland's Circle Of Ouroborus were well up to the task. In fact they actually sound quite bit like Urfaust, albeit in a way more damaged way, which is saying a lot.
On the split with Urfaust we reviewed recently, Circle Of Ouroborus offered up their own cracked take on buzzing black metal, murky almost punky, super lo-fi, practice space production, mumble warbly guitars, drums tinny and buried in the mix, and a totally demented vocalist wailing in a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling. We thought they sounded a bit like a grim black metal Fall.
On Shores, the band stretch out a bit, but still hew close to the sound they share with their sonic brethren in Urfaust, a loping lurching, midtempo buzz, sing songy melodies, a murky black swirl, downtuned and droney, but stumblingly propulsive. Seasick and swaying drunkenly, these tracks sound more like blackened versions of some eighties British post punk band than some cult black metal band. And when the vocals kick in it pretty much seals the deal. When Mark E. Smith dies, and the Fall are no more, he'll strike a deal with the devil, come back from the dead, and this is where he'll end up. Crooning, in that nasally whine, sing/speaking for some mysterious jangly black metal post punk rock band. And if there was any doubt, Circle Of Ouroborus cover "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division. It's not particularly black either, it's gloomy and gothy and propulsively punky, guitars slide and slither, the vocals a dark croon. It almost sounds like a lo-fi live recording of Interpol or some long lost Damned track. Which is a very good thing for sure. It's just weird that these guys exist as a underground, grim and cult black metal band, when sonically, they owe as much to punk rock, and goth rock, and new wave as they do Darkthrone or Mayhem. Sure there's plenty of buzz and suffocating black atmosphere, but to truly dig this you'll definitely need either a love of totally bizarre and not entirely black metal, or a soft spot for classic newwavepostpunk (Fall, Wire, Gang Of Four, Joy Division) or preferably BOTH! And we definitely have both in spades, so as you might imagine this is WAY recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Nothingness"
MPEG Stream: "She's Lost Control (Joy Division)"
MPEG Stream: "Invocation"

COLECLOUGH, JONATHAN Period (Anomalous) cd 14.987
You may have noticed that we reference the British sound artist Jonathan Coleclough when talking about the pinnacle of dronemusik or attempting to draw comparisons to another artist whose work shares a similar depth; but if you're not familiar with Coleclough (as he's been less than hyper-prolific in recent years), Period is the quintessential album for Coleclough and remains one of the all time greatest drone records to find its way into our hallowed halls. Out of print for many years, Period is available yet again. Here's what he had to say when it originally came in 2001:
Jonathan Coleclough began collecting field recordings and transforming them into emphathic dronescapes back in 1989, around the same time he began corresponding with Colin Potter about his ICR cassette projects. Since then, Potter and Coleclough have worked closely on a number of projects starting with Andrew Chalk and Darren Tate in Ora, and culminating more recently with their well-received Low Ground collaboration. Period again finds Coleclough employing the production / engineering talents of Potter (who has also been working quite intently with Steven Stapleton in Nurse With Wound). Throughout his career, Coleclough has defined himself as a sound organizer, modifying acoustic events and field recordings to enhance the emotional resonance that he finds in those sounds. Here on Period, Coleclough draws all of his sounds from a Bluthner grand piano, surrounding the spartanly placed clusters of impressionistic notes with a complementary set of delicately fluctuating drones. Coleclough does well to accentuate the sublime reverberant decay that follows the piano's sustained tones. Furthermore, Potter offered his interpretation of the source material entitled "Periodic" which effectively erases the obvious references to the piano and leaves behind a densely tangled web of calm reverberations. As a whole Period stands as an amazingly rich and balanced piece of work on par with Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon and the Cindytalk piano improvisations.
MPEG Stream: "Period"
MPEG Stream: "Periodic"

DEAD C Trapdoor Fucking Exit (Siltbreeze) cd 10.98
We kind of wish distros and labels would do house cleaning more often. A few lists ago we got copies of a couple super rare long out of print Birchville Cat Motel releases, then a few weeks ago one of our distributors found a secret stash of the long out of print Skullflower cd IIIrd Gatekeeper (Allan and Andee's favorite btw) and this week Tom, the mighty overlord of the Siltbreeze empire, cleaned out his basement and found a dusty little pile of this legenday NZ freenoisepop gem from the godlike Dead C, Trapdoor Fucking Exit. We pounced on them immediately as this is most definitely one of our all time favorite records, and a record so subtly influential, that without it, you could pretty much wipe the entire modern noise rock slate squeaky clean. Sure, the Skaters and Wolf Eyes and The Grey Daturas and the Yellow Swans would all be around, but they'd probably sound more like jangly indie pop the grinding free noise weirdness. For if anyone deserves the credit/blame for launching a thousand bands that perform sitting on the floor twiddling knobs, it's the Dead C. But wait! The Dead C were no knob twiddlers, no they were a goddamn bonafide rock band. Bass, drums, guitar, but with the most basic of instrumentation, they were able to conjure up totally inhuman and unholy squalls of sound. And this was not just noise, the Dead C, at least in the beginning, crafted soft focus, ultra personal pop songs stripped to the bone, the musical flesh peeled off, leaving a rickety percussive framework, draped with mumbled crooned sad boy vocals, all totally wrapped in dense billowy clouds of guitar swirl and thick streaks of fluttering feedback. The ultimate corrosive, deconstructed, detuned, angular, abstract, noise / pop / rock hybrid.
A bit like other bedroom NZ bands of the time, but with that fey 4-track dreaminess completely drenched in lo-fi hiss and grit. Song structures totally subverted, almost like the Chills with a full frontal lobotomy and a airplane hanger full of amps or a clan of cavemen attempting to play the Clean's greatest hits. Elsewhere, the crooning vocals are replaced by distant Gregorian style chanting, serene and ghostlike, but still buried under luxuriously lo-fi washes of ultra murk. Trapdoor Fucking Exit is a confusional crawl of machine gun snares, grinding guitars, slow burn instrument rumble, careening, stumbling rhythms, chaotic ambience, claws-on-concrete guitar scrabble, drum splatter, feedback freakout, but all seemingly effortlessly harnassed into some strange, haunting, detuned and damaged indie noise pop. The Dead C would eventually ditch the pop element almost altogether, concentrating more on texture and sound, but for a brief moment, way back in 1990, the diametrically opposed sound worlds of lo-fi bedroom pop and corrosive free noise freakout collided and formed a brilliant and briefly blinding burst of glorious pop flecked free noise beauty. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
And remember this is waaaay out of print, we got a handful from the Siltbasement and we're not sure how many more there are lurking in corners or in old boxes, so we figure once these are gone they are probably gone for good.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Mighty"
MPEG Stream: "Krossed"

EMIT / VROLOK Musikalisches Opfer / Pestilence 1440 (Goatowarex) cd 14.98
Last year, in our never ending quest for the weirdest black metal ever, we discovered the mysterious and perplexing Emit. And while technically they may in fact be black metal, realistically, they are more of some sort of ambient, ethereal, damaged drone outfit, spewing a deconstructed, abstract whatthefuck crash, clang and creep. Definitely black, but more in mood than sound. Either way, we were totally taken and were super psyched to discover a new record from these freaks, a split with Vrolok, more on them later. On their half of this split, Emit start off the proceedings with all vocals, the first track a soft shimmery swirl of ghostly reverbed vocals, floating and drifting, the second track is more vocals, this time some sort of monkish chant, low and liturgical, over a whirring distant drone. It's only by track three, that any sort of 'metal' becomes evident, but even then, it's metal of the most abstract fucked up kind. A buzzing blasting burst of lo-fi blackness, that starts of blazing but as it forges forward it falls apart more and more, each separate element becoming more distorted and more twisted and tweaked, until it's like listening to Darkthrone on a transistor radio through an endless series of funhouse mirrors. Woah! The rest of the tracks delve deeply into a dark realm of medieval ambient drones, a sort of more damaged Abruptum, with haunting atonal detuned guitars, and creepy tiny monster vocals, occasional bursts of super distorted black buzz and sonic shrapnel, but for the most part, a dizzying onslaught of chaotic creepiness and bizarre blackness.
Vrolok while not nearly as weird as Emit, are definitely a bit more overtly black metal, but are the perfect match for Emit with their furious and fucked up black buzz. From the tumultuous blast of blazing lo-fi blackness of the first track "Hellchoir (Pestilence 1440)", a snarling, squirming riff, tangled up with lightspeed blast beats and buried under all sorts of suffocating sonic sludge, to the weird martial soundscape of "Black Chemical Waltz", a super blown out simple drum beat, amidst swirls of subsonic drones and buzzing weirdness peppered with creepy distorted snatches of found sound and bits of conversation, to the epic blackness of "Inverse Devotion" sounding like a glorious collision between Xasthur and Immortal, albeit recorded on a busted 4-track, to the epic closer "Between The Astral Shades", which starts off as a shimmering creeped out ambient soundscape, turns into what sounds like Bathory recorded in a high school gymnasium, and finally morphs into an ultra distorted seasick black dirge, replete with anguished howls and washed out black drone guitars, the whole thing blurring into a glorious blackened dronedrenched waltz.
More absolutely essential bizarre blackness for sure!
MPEG Stream: EMIT "Death's Black Diadem"
MPEG Stream: EMIT "Infinite Lucidity"
MPEG Stream: VROLOK "Hellchoir (Pestilence 1440)"
MPEG Stream: VROLOK "Black Chemical Waltz"

INVISIBLE 5 A Self Guided Critical Audio Tour Of Highway I5 by Amy Balkin, Tim Halbur & Kim Stringfellow (Invisible 5 / Greenaction / Pond) 2cd 15.00
This is as much a piece of amazing sound art as it is a critical catalogue of environmental abuse and a tribute to the folks working to solve those problems. EVERY SINGLE CENT from sale of these discs (that's all fifteen bucks from each), will be donated by us to support Greenaction For Health & Environmental Justice (check it out: http://www.greenaction.org). But this is not just a great cause that directly affects us all, this is an amazing sonic travelogue. Essential listening for fans of sound art, as well as anyone concerned with the state of our earth and the way pollution affects our communities.
For those of us who have spent years driving up and down highway 5, all of these locations will be immediately recognizable. However, this is a depressing, but also inspiring, glimpse at spots on the map that have existed as just blurs on the side of the highway. This long in the works project plays like a series of This American Life vignettes, chronicling the environmental abuses along Highway I-5, which runs the length of California including random field recordings, incidental music and interviews with concerned families, activists, children and members of various communities. This project covers points From Hunter Point in Bayview to Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, and is a self guided critical audio tour which attempts to illuminate the "invisible toxic landscape" by focusing on the story of people and organizations struggling for environmental justice. Two discs, one focuses on North, Hunters Point to Kettleman City, the second disc is South, from Alpaugh to Boyle Heights. Each stop along the tour is infamous for some environmental violation or another. Some are obvious (Livermore), some not so. But each directly effects families, their health and homes. It's enormously inspiring to hear these folks talk about what is being done, but simultaneously so depressing to realize how shortsighted so much of modern industry and local government can be. And it's so creepy to think about all the stops along highway 5 from every road trip, just random pit stops for gas, food, bathroom breaks, whatever, and to learn what sort of thoughtless abuses were occurring in all of these places, really intense, and sad because you know these instances are merely the tip of the iceberg.
You can hear the sounds of children playing, families talking, birds chirping, cars whizzing by, wind and rain, footsteps, ambient clatter and background noise, other discussions, as well as dreamy background music, all a dense rich sonic background to this series of totally engaging interviews.
Packaged in a gorgeous full color 6 panel fold out sleeve, with a massive booklet, with maps, and liner notes, extensive notes on each location, the environmental abuse, and each interviewee. This definitely makes us want to take an Invisible 5 roadtrip, stopping to observe the carelessness of humanity, and hopefully be inspired to help bring about change.
So by all means BUY THIS NOW. It's totally amazing to hear and see and listen to. Incredibly well researched and obsessively assembled, totally timely and something that directly affects us all, especially here since in this case all of these locations are in California, but you know you could do a project like this on any highway in any state in the country, which is indeed a very sad thing.
SO DO YOUR SMALL PART. BUY THIS NOW! DIG THESE AMAZING PEOPLE, THESE FASCINATING SOUNDS, AND REMEMBER, 100 PERCENT OF THE PROCEEDS OF THIS DISC GO TO SUPPORT GREENACTION FOR HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE!! AND WE CAN GUARANTEE THAT AFTER LISTENING TO THESE STORIES YOU'LL FEEL LIKE DOING SO MUCH MORE. WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT!
MPEG Stream: "Bayview Hunters Point - SF"
MPEG Stream: "Livermore"
MPEG Stream: "Aqueduct"
MPEG Stream: "Kettleman City"

JAZZFINGER Winter's Shadow Between Two Worlds (Curor) cd-r 5.98
Finally another sonic transmission from the mysterious and elusive Jazzfinger. The last we heard from these murky noisesmiths was a VERY expensive, super limited, gorgeously deluxe cd-r way back in 2004, and we, like you were absolutely smitten. We had long been fans, but that was the first release we were able to get enough copies of to reviews. Low profile or not, here was a band who had been lurking on the fringes of the underground, crafting their own dark and wondrous ambient drones and mumbled freerock explorations and who we wanted, nay NEEDED to hear more from. And is if in response to our prayers, what should suddenly appear? A brand new full length from this UK ensemble. And for those of you put off by the almost $30 price tag of their last release, or those of you who just missed out since it was so limited, well here's your chance to dive in.
Sonic brethren to folks like Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra, and often sharing a similar penchant for the ur-drone and various mighty swells of sound, Jazzfinger have managed to in fact carve their own, darker, more minimal path. Almost like a rock band covering Coleclough or Chalk. Jazzfinger are not so much ones for huge squalls of guitar or woodwinds, instead these guys creep and crawl, a low rumbling exploration of dark corners and shadowy otherworlds, of dusty forgotten trunks filled with old objects, abandoned buildings overgrown with foliage, and wide expanses of barren terrain, colored only by moonlight and the slow whirring drift of their gauzy sonic fog. Strings buzz and shimmer, long form drones stretch way out, while underneath subtle sounds shift and swell, percussion is minimal, a softly struck bell here, a brief clatter of tiny pipes there, only adding color, not rhythm. Melodies drift forth like distant foghorns barely audible through the clouds of a dark and stormy night, guitars are plucked, and strummed, but not to fashion riffs, more to unleash a series of reverberating waves, that build and build, layer upon layer, a thick, head spinning monochrome crawl, organs wheeze out delicate melodies over the omnipresent buzzing steel strings, creating a soft music box like raga, the sound here is definitely dark, and ominous, but suffused with warmth, and life, a subtle glow, an inner light that makes each stretch of slow shifting ambience feel alive and dense with emotion. A totally breathtaking journey through a mysterious universe of dark buzz and warm shimmer.
Super limited and so totally essential.
MPEG Stream: "Rabbit Wolf Reflection"
MPEG Stream: "Roman Tide"
MPEG Stream: "Chair"

MOLINA, JUANA Son (Domino) cd 15.98
Juana Molina hails from Argentina where she was once a sitcom television star until she gave it up to pursue music. And we're so happy she did 'cause over the last few years she's made some really beautiful records. With a remarkable seductive voice and sparse interesting instrumentation beneath, she creates a sultry and inciting mood that totally wraps you up in its womblike warmth. With a voice that has the same melting beauty as sonic seductresses like Astrud Gilberto, what's so great about Molina is that while her voice is breathtaking, there is so much more to her music. Evoking much emotion but never hitting the listener over the head with overly maudlin sentiments or romantic drivel. Subtly experimenting with delicate sounds and electronics yet keeping songs strong and in tact. Creating a sound that is both very modern and totally timeless. It would be so easy for someone with a voice as beautiful as Molina's to just push her vocals way out in front of the mix and make polished straightforward pop records, but luckily she chooses to create interesting and textured songs using her voice as another element, no more important that some swoonsome guitar or shuffling rhythm. Another fantastic album. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Malherido"
MPEG Stream: "La Verdad"

OS MUTANTES Mutantes E Seus Cometas No Pais Do Baurets (#5) (Universal / Polydor Brazil) cd 19.98
One more time, welcome to the mixed-up Technicolor tropicalia psych-pop pleasuredome that is the music of Brazil's one and only Os Mutantes! This, their fifth album, from 1972, was their last with original vocalist Rita Lee before the band headed off into way proggier '70sness on later efforts of that decade, and it's one splashy send-off all right. We've said before that Mutantes discs #1 (Os Mutantes) and #2 (Mutantes) are the absolute must-have essentials, with #3 (A Divina Comedia Ou) running a close third... but #4 (Jardim Eletrico), reviewed last list, and this fifth one too are also full of great Mutantes moments that fans should certainly hear! (And it should be added that if you dig Yes, tracking down some of those subsequent Mutantes efforts might be worth it as well...)
It should come as no surprise to Mutantes aficionados that as a collection of songs, Mutantes E Seus Cometas No Pais Do Baurets is all over the place, from the McCartneyesque, Moog sizzling "Balada Do Louco" to the groovy, wacked-out prog-funk of the nearly 10-minute long title track. You'll hear peppy '50s rockabilly pastiche ("Posso Perder Minha Mulher, Minha Mae, Desde Que Tenha O Rock And Roll"), Zep-heavy fuzz rockers ("A Hora E A Vez Do Cabelo Nascer"), lovely folkiness ("Vida de Cachorro"), and a honky tonk piano beerhall singalong ("Todo Mundo Pastou II"). And one of Allan's (but not necessarily everybody else here's) favorite tracks has got to be the ultra kitschy, goofy "Dune Buggy"... there's certainly lots of humor and bizarre bits woven in and out of pretty much all these tunes, again as per Mutantes' usual modus operandi (as is the Beatles influence felt throughout). Definitely a fun listen!
MPEG Stream: "A Hora E A Vez Do Cabelo Nascer"
MPEG Stream: "Vida de Cachorro"
MPEG Stream: "Dune Buggy"

RAKHIM s/t (Qbico) lp 25.00
ATTENTION CIRCLE OBSESSIVES AND FINNISH MUSIC FREAKS. THIS IS A CIRCLE SIDE PROJECT, IS LP ONLY, AND is VERY VERY LIMITED!!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's dig in. Circle freaks are obviously gonna want this no matter what, it's a single sided half hour jam from Jussi and Janne of Finnish drone rockers Circle. But don't expect this to sound anything like Circle. Well, okay, it sounds a little like that live Circle record Mountain, droney and dark and minimal. What it really sounds like to us is like Circle side project Dr. Kettu with all the bones removed, leaving some sort of dark and tribal ambient krautrock. Rakhim is a super stripped down primal tribal duo, just drums and vocals and tons and tons of effects, which the duo employ to effortlessly kick up quite a dense druggy fug. Swirling clouds and sonic squalls, a murky dronescape lo-fi and dubbed out, strange guttural grunts, freaky whispers, drums-down-the-stairs clatter, dubby FX, wordless vocal melodies, all doused with reverb and distortion, and tangled up with some abstract percussive tribalism. Some sort of Finnish space aged pagan ritual. Vast expanses of whoooosh and whiiiir and swooooosh over chaotic free jazz drum splatter and subtle shuffling skitter. Very tripped out, druggy, super muddy, mega freaked out sososo psychedelic. Could almost be some long lost, recently discovered Faust jam caught surreptitiously on tape way back in the day. Awesome.
One sided heavy marbled white vinyl, packaged in a cool, very Dead C looking black and white sleeve.

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE The Sun Awakens (Drag City) cd 14.98
It's such a nice day out and we'd really rather just sit in the sun and listen to this disc than review it, so why don't we just say: another great Six Organs album! and leave it at that, ok? Not ok? You want more from us than that? Well it IS another great album from this Ben Chasny fellow, whom for us is definitely tops among all the current crop of psychedelic guitar-pickin' folkies. Whether he's lending his weary voice to some lovely acoustic pop balladry, or blissing out on the fretboard in Fahey/Basho rustic raga mode, or harking to the spaghetti western soundtrack sound of Bjorn Olsson, or channeling krautrock spirits for a heavy duty distorted electric guitar jam, Chasny -- with a little help from his friends -- shines on this album. Maybe his best yet! Gorgeous, moody, yes indeed.
Of course, sitting in the sun listening to this might not be the idea. The Sun Awakens this is called, but it's more likely that the music on here will generate grey clouds to blot out the sun, casting shadows from some other time and place of pagan worship. Particularly when you get to the droning darkness of the mysterious, moaning, album-closing "River Of Transfiguration", an extended 24 minute ceremony of a song featuring the bass playing of Al Cisneros of Om and Sleep fame. Oh yeah. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Black Wall"
MPEG Stream: "The Desert Is A Circle"
MPEG Stream: "River Of Transfiguration"

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE The Sun Awakens (Drag City) lp 14.98
It's such a nice day out and we'd really rather just sit in the sun and listen to this disc than review it, so why don't we just say: another great Six Organs album! and leave it at that, ok? Not ok? You want more from us than that? Well it IS another great album from this Ben Chasny fellow, whom for us is definitely tops among all the current crop of psychedelic guitar-pickin' folkies. Whether he's lending his weary voice to some lovely acoustic pop balladry, or blissing out on the fretboard in Fahey/Basho rustic raga mode, or harking to the spaghetti western soundtrack sound of Bjorn Olsson, or channeling krautrock spirits for a heavy duty distorted electric guitar jam, Chasny -- with a little help from his friends -- shines on this album. Maybe his best yet! Gorgeous, moody, yes indeed.
Of course, sitting in the sun listening to this might not be the idea. The Sun Awakens this is called, but it's more likely that the music on here will generate grey clouds to blot out the sun, casting shadows from some other time and place of pagan worship. Particularly when you get to the droning darkness of the mysterious, moaning, album-closing "River Of Transfiguration", an extended 24 minute ceremony of a song featuring the bass playing of Al Cisneros of Om and Sleep fame. Oh yeah. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Black Wall"
MPEG Stream: "The Desert Is A Circle"
MPEG Stream: "River Of Transfiguration"

SMITH, BARTON Reelizations One & Two: The Sound Of Barton Smith (EM Records) 2cd 29.00
There is a very fine line between schizophrenia and a totally eclectic diverse creativity and we seem to enjoy music most when that line remains really blurry. This 2-cd set, recorded between 1980-82 by electronic alchemist Barton Smith definitely straddles that weird blurry line. One moment basking in tender beauty while the next moment flourishing into a noisy wall-of-sound. Very little was known about Smith. The fact that Smithsonian Folkways originally released these tracks on vinyl back in the early '80s, and still Smith remained a relative unknown, just adds to the mystique. The first disc opens up with what sounds like gamelan influenced percussion on homemade instruments, followed by pastoral pretty meandering guitar and then underwater sounding rumblings drenched in primitive sounding electronics. We have been totally intrigued and in awe of these recordings since we first got this set in a few weeks back. Listening to it nonstop, and trying to think about how this was received in the early '80s when even now it still sounds so ahead of its time. Former AQ-er Windy came in recently and jumped for joy to see this on the new arrivals rack, telling us how she scored an original vinyl copy years back at a flea market and it's always been a record she found so weird and wonderful and special. Outside of Windy, we haven't really come across anyone else who knew anything about Barton Smith. We've come to discover that these were recordings he made for modern dance troupes and we can only struggle to imagine bodies moving to his ever changing sounds. While for most musicians it can be tricky and problematic to change gears and sounds so often within an album, there is something so natural and lucid and smooth about the extremes explored on Reelizations. We can't think of many musicians who have the ability to explore such a wide range with this much success and intrigue. Moondog's versatility and eclectic output is someone who came to mind when trying to figure out how to classify Mr. Smith. From acoustic tranquility to electric outbursts this had us picking up on a totally diverse range of reference points: Sandy Bull, Jim O'Rourke, This Heat, Koji Asano. And for sure you could start seeing how years later groups would start exploring similar sonic atmospheres. Black Dice, Excepter, Loren Connors are some who come to mind. Scott even suspects that Kieren Hebden might have heard this at some point, as there is a really good chance that the Barton Smith track "Lotus" was sampled on the Four Tet album Rounds.
This is a record that we can't stop listening to or thinking about. We hear so much music everyday, when something kicks our ass this hard we know we've discovered something really special.
As with all releases on the fabulous Japanese reissue label EM, this is gorgeously packaged, coming in an oversized double jewel case, with a huge booklet, tons of photos and lots of liner notes -- those unfortunately all in Japanese.
MPEG Stream: "Azirthmyth"
MPEG Stream: "Roland No.119"
MPEG Stream: "The Musical Box"
MPEG Stream: "Lotus"

SONIC YOUTH Rather Ripped (Geffen) cd 15.98
Rather Ripped is a rather right-on title for this new SY album. Stripped down and back to basics, the core group of SY is back (Jim O'Rourke is out) and have made a totally great rock record. Poppy and catchy, but without losing their knack for soundscapery skree. Kim Gordon sounds more present and commanding then she has in a while (and a lot less whiney and singsongy), and Thurston is at his dreamiest and most laidback. This is the first SY record in ages to immediately seep into your soul after only a few listens. The great thing about SY is how they truly are A BAND. The sum of their parts comes together to create something WAY more fully realized then any of them could make on their own. Lee Ranaldo sings his song with so much intensity and his guitar sound remains totally, unmistakably his. Steve Shelley continues to keep the beat simple and solid, letting the rest of the band stray and wander. And of course Kim & Thurston are right up front effortlessly demonstrating that it's totally possible to age with dignity and passion while continuing to seriously rock. While it seems like some folks stopped listening to SY at some point in the past, "their last good record" (Daydream Nation, Dirty, etc.), the truth is, that unlike almost any other band around, Sonic Youth have been making really great records for the last quarter-century (totally check out recent under appreciated outings like Murray Street and Sonic Nurse). There is an ethos and undying spirit in their songs that continues to thrive and grow, change and mature, and it still gives us goose-bumps and has us throwing our fists into the air!
MPEG Stream: "Do You Believe In Rapture?"
MPEG Stream: "What A Waste"
MPEG Stream: "Incinerate"

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----* New On the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies label :
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V/A Radio Thailand: Transmissions From The Tropical Kingdom (Sublime Frequencies) 2cd 16.98
Of all the Sublime Frequencies collections, the various 'Radio' compilations are definitely our favorites. But at the same time they are also maybe the most problematic, It seems somehow disingenuous to travel to another country, turn on the radio, record several hours worth of music and sound, come home, put those recordings on a cd and then sell them. Not just disingenuous but quite possibly dishonest. It also seems a little weird to be thrilled by all the 'crazy' sounds we hear on the radio in these various countries. A guilty pleasure, very much that aspect of cultural tourism. "The music there is SO WILD!! And SO WEIRD!!" And it seems inconceivable that someone from some other country would come to the US, and do the same thing, returning to their countries to release discs packed with shock jocks, and crappy pop music, and morning zoo's and dry NPR discussions and modern rock and Loveline. But you never know. Although part of the reason that something like that would probably NOT happen, is that American culture, from the music to the clothes to the television shows, is already so invasive, there's probably not a corner of the world where people aren't discussing Lost or Paris Hilton or Brad and Angelina's baby or rocking out to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers. But the music and culture of these other countries does not have the same sort of universal reach. So it is actually quite a thrill to hear all of this amazing music, all of these voices, ads and commercials and songs. It's absolutely fantastic. It's just worth thinking about all that other stuff once in a while and realizing that in a sense, even just listening to these discs, we are guests, and we are digging the work and art, the livelihood and passion of hundreds of musicians and vocalists and deejays and artists. And we are digging it. A whole lot.
The first few 'Radio' compilations were a little too schizophrenic, only allowing us to hear a few seconds of a song before the dial was spun and we were bombarded by some new burst of musical randomness. It was pretty amazing in a totally overwhelming ADD short attention span sort of way, but they rectified that, realizing it was just as dizzying but way more satisfying if we got to hear whole songs. So here we are.
Radio Thailand, two whole discs culled from 15 years of recordings, captured between 1989 and 2004. A wonderfully confusional blur of Thai radio craziness, and crazy it is. A glorious hodge podge of everything under the sun, including cheesy eighties Indian disco, bizarre Thai arena rock, with wailing guitar leads, and murky Casio style rhythms, English language radio announcements, funky hip hop rock with guttural Muppets like vocals and a braying donkey chorus, complete with Knight Rider synths, Thai style Miami bass, with bumping beats and rapid fire rapping, goofy funky ska, groovy late night lounge funk, old soundtrack music, fuzzy, old school soul with big boomy drums and sweet horns, weird American style rapid fire commercials, distorted shortwave transmissions, haunting otherworldly piano, what sounds like Thailand's answer to Humpty Hump, but with wild swaths of LOUD synthesizer, full on sitar jams, Japanese style pop, sixties girl group harmonies, groovy exotica, radio dramas, solo blues vocals, and all sorts of traditional Thai musics mixed in with this dizzying barrage of music and voice and sound.
So totally amazing!
MPEG Stream: "Lam Barometer"
MPEG Stream: "21st Century Perspiration"
MPEG Stream: "543 Years Ahead of YOU"
MPEG Stream: "Giant Catfish Fry"
MPEG Stream: "Krung Thep Marketing"
MPEG Stream: "Space Station Hilltops"

V/A Radio Algeria (Sublime Frequencies) cd 14.98
Of all the Sublime Frequencies collections, the various 'Radio' compilations are definitely our favorites. But at the same time they are also maybe the most problematic, It seems somehow disingenuous to travel to another country, turn on the radio, record several hours worth of music and sound, come home, put those recordings on a cd and then sell them. Not just disingenuous but quite possibly dishonest. It also seems a little weird to be thrilled by all the 'crazy' sounds we hear on the radio in these various countries. A guilty pleasure, very much that aspect of cultural tourism. "The music there is SO WILD!! And SO WEIRD!!" And it seems inconceivable that someone from some other country would come to the US, and do the same thing, returning to their countries to release discs packed with shock jocks, and crappy pop music, and morning zoo's and dry NPR discussions and modern rock and Loveline. But you never know. Although part of the reason that something like that would probably NOT happen, is that American culture, from the music to the clothes to the television shows, is already so invasive, there's probably not a corner of the world where people aren't discussing Lost or Paris Hilton or Brad and Angelina's baby or rocking out to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers. But the music and culture of these other countries does not have the same sort of universal reach. So it is actually quite a thrill to hear all of this amazing music, all of these voices, ads and commercials and songs. It's absolutely fantastic. It's just worth thinking about all that other stuff once in a while and realizing that in a sense, even just listening to these discs, we are guests, and we are digging the work and art, the livelihood and passion of hundreds of musicians and vocalists and deejays and artists. And we are digging it. A whole lot.
The first few 'Radio' compilations were a little too schizophrenic, only allowing us to hear a few seconds of a song before the dial was spun and we were bombarded by some new burst of musical randomness. It was pretty amazing in a totally overwhelming ADD short attention span sort of way, but they rectified that, realizing it was just as dizzying but way more satisfying if we got to hear whole songs. So here we are.
Radio Algeria. A sampling of wonderful sounds from the Mediterranean coast, all the way to the Saharan desert. According to the liner notes, the music represented here includes sacred Islamic traditional music, Berber folk, Andalusian Orchestral music, Tuareg, modern Arabic pop as well as Guesba, classic early Rai, Khabyle and Saharaui, ummm, sorry to say none of us actually know what any of those in the last batch sound like, but needless to say, like the rest of the 'Radio' series, this is a wild, eye opening ride through the airwaves of Algeria. Compiled from recordings made in 2005 of AM, FM and shortwave broadcasts, this is a heady mix of musics new and old, the sound is definitely Middle Eastern, with plenty of tracks sounding almost Bollywood, and a definite French music influence all over the place, the sounds range from modern sounding hip hop double dutch but with the melody played by a snake charmers flute, cheesy eighties schmaltz, groovy twangy buzzing dreamy psych pop, old timey fuzzed out Eastern jazz (like a Middle Eastern Django Reinhardt), killer sixties sounding fuzz rock, that almost sounds like the Butthole Surfers at points, groovy sing songy folk, MTV style romantic ballads, flamenco guitars, and crooned vocals, keening fiddles, tribal drums, some Middle Eastern sounding blues, with sweeping strings and weeping melodies, wild solo female vocals drenched in reverb and soaring, warm operatic male vocals, glossy melancholic pop, shuffling rhythms, strummed acoustic guitars, murky modern pop rock and militaristic big band marches, all interspersed with different variants of local and regional musics. All totally fascinating and completely overwhelming and one of the most amazing sonic travelogues ever! If only the stereos in our cars could pick up Algerian radio, we'd most likely never listen to anything else ever again!
SO RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Disco Maghreb"
MPEG Stream: "Exterior Grooves"
MPEG Stream: "Evaporating Borders"

V/A Ethnic Minority Music Of Northeast Cambodia (Sublime Frequencies) cd 14.98
The Cambodians have a long and troubled history, rife with oppression and persecution. Whether it's the Khmer Rouge, the French, the Siamese, the Vietnamese, and even the Americans, as a people, their survival was always in doubt. This strife resulted in a rich musical landscape, music being an escape, but also a means of storytelling and passing on history. A rich oral tradition imbues almost all Cambodian music. While past forays into Cambodian music have focused on Cambodian ROCK, the sort of reimagining of Western pop, resulting in off kilter, buzzing psychedelic Eastern pop versions of popular Western songs, this comp focuses more on the music of the ethnic minorities, simple instrumentation, mostly vocal, with gongs, simple stringed instruments and primitive bamboo flutes, but if anything the music is so much more passionate and unique. Tales of love and loss, war and death, bombings and of course the terrible aftermath of the Khmer Rouge.
The opening track is an old man, laying in a hammock, singing tales of local legends and his voices is totally amazing, a growling creaking, rumbling, super resonant hum, equal parts chanting and throat singing, while in the back ground, you can hear conversations, creaking porches, children laughing, birds chirping, in fact almost every track here is performed right on the spot, whether it's outside the house, in the front room, in a hammock, on the side of the road, always surrounded by the sound of life and other lives. The second track is performed by 5 old men, playing 5 large gongs, set up outside their house, a low keening vibration, soft muted melodies, dreamy and shimmering, a swirling soft soundpool while in the background children again laugh and play, adding a strange joyous effortlessness to the glistening drone, later a female vocalist sings over the top, a lilting, mournful lament. Elsewhere, a female midwife sings an acapella song, a delicate wavering croon, warbling and wavering, but so rich and beautiful, while voices swirl around her. Like she just decided to start singing, right there amidst a crowd of random passersby, which she probably did. Later, a love song, simple fingerpicked guitar and sweetly sad improvised female vocals, while on another track, a 10 stringed instrument made from bamboo and a hollowed out gourd is strummed and picked, creating a sparkling web of buzzing high end melodies and delicate high end tangles, while later five gong players unfurl a warm wash of simple steel drum like melody, accompanied by a male vocalist, a flute player and 8 female virgins who clap along and offer up a chant responding to the male vocals.
This is literally a stroll through another culture, observing and learning via music, and it feels like music is everywhere, in houses, on the street, in shops and on the shores of the river, people talk and laugh, play and work, always surrounded by music, clapping and singing, melody and harmony, completely mesmerizing. And obviously very very recommended.
Includes a big booklet with lots of photos and extensive liner notes.
MPEG Stream: OLD MAN IEN "Brao Legends"
MPEG Stream: KAVET MEN & BRAO WOMAN "3-Day Ceremony"
MPEG Stream: BRAO FEMALE SINGER "Midwife Song"
MPEG Stream: 5 GONGS & 8 VIRGINS "Call & Response"

PHI TA KHON Ghost Of Isan: Thailand's Psychedelic Ghost Festival (Sublime Frequencies) dvd 22.00
It starts with an old man firing a rusty old shotgun into the sky, and from that point on, it's a dizzying three days of festivities, music, dancing, and lots and lots of drinking. Oh and quite a few giant phalluses. A local medium deems what day to begin, and on that day the three day festival of Phi Ta Khon commences, a tribute to ghosts and demons, which occurs at the beginning of the rainy season, and is meant to ensure healthy and bountiful crops. Like all the Sublime Frequencies DVD's it's a fascinating and overwhelming experience. A new world, a completely wild and wonderful celebration, a community banded together, dancing and singing and drinking toward a common goal. And it definitely feels like you are right there. Houses and people, animals, foliage, musicians, parades and processions. And rice wine. A whole section is dedicated to Isan's liquor of choice, and the Phi Ta Khon festival does indeed involve much drinking. Pretty much every stage of the festival is marked by ritualistic imbibing of spirits. Which might go to explaining why it's such a crazy three days.
Another important part of the festival is the creation of incredibly elaborate masks, so intricate and amazing, beautiful and creepy. A dizzying array, from long fanged demons, to mysterious winged bird creatures, to super colorful, kabuki style headdresses. Part of the festival used to involve tossing the masks into the river at the end of the festival, but folk art collectors would fish the mask out of the river to sell them, so now they are saved to be used again, or the mask makers sell the masks themselves.
And the phalluses. Everywhere. Puppets, masks, staffs, all in the shape of giant vividly painted members. It is supposedly good luck to touch the wooden members. They provide comic relief and encourage licentious behavior.
It's totally mind blowing to experience another culture's customs so immersively. For many of us who might never get a chance to visit Thailand, these dvd's are amazing tools, helping us to learn about, understand and enjoy the art and music and culture and magic of other peoples. It's also amazing to note how little violence and aggression there is even with three days of nonstop drinking. Hard to imagine something like that ever happening here without at least one fight or someone getting shot.
The dvd comes with a bonus short film, Spirit House, a video tour of various Spirit Houses filmed over repeated visits to Thailand. Spirit Houses are a bit like our graveyards but so much more colorful and intricate. Supposedly these houses are home to departed loved ones and guardian spirits and are decorated as such, bright colors, multiple levels, lots of windows and doors, small statues, shapes and images, a gorgeous brief glimpse into the spirit world. With haunting musical accompaniment by the Climax Golden Twins.
Finally, the accompanying music is fantastic, it's Molam, which was featured in a previous installment of the Sublime Frequencies cd series, a glorious lively festive music, characterized by lilting almost yodelled male / female vocals, mouth organ, performing traditional Thai songs, often arranged for modern instruments, but still closely connected to the past (Butthole Surfers lifted a Molam classic for their song "Kuntz" on Locust Abortion Technician).
Absolutely amazing. And of course very recommended. As is the Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan cd which we also stock!

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SMITH, STEVEN R. Lineaments (Emperor Jones) cd 14.98
Any avid reader of the AQ list will be well aware that we've long been huge fans of Steven R. Smith, his solo records, his work in Mirza, Thuja, Hala Strana, all totally amazing. So we were super excited recently to find out that Mr. Smith had a stash of some long out of print titles. We took everything he had, which unfortunately wasn't a lot, so if you want to nab one of these, best be quick! Since these titles have been out of print for ages, once this last handful of these titles are gone, they are gone for good.
After relocating to Los Angeles, several years back, Smith continued to contribute to San Francisco avant-drone-improv-rock ensemble Thuja but at the same time released a handful of solo records before beginning to record as Hala Strana. Lineaments is one of our favorites, a fantastic solo album of his distinctively cinematic psychedelia. In a better world, Smith's work would get the same universal acclaim as the syrupy melodrama of Sigur Ros or the socially conscious marches of Godspeed! You Black Emperor. But as it stands, Smith's revelatory instrumentals of bittersweet leitmotifs and sublime crescendos remain one of the greatest secrets in the expansive realms of avant-rock. Where Thuja explores the theatre of atmosphere, Smith's solo work is firmly grounded within a simple, yet very expressive use of melody. Smith announces the beginning of each of the songs on "Lineaments" (as with his previous recordings) with a lilting melodic stanza for fuzzed organ or drone guitar which repeats itself throughout the entirety of the song. Around this basic structure, Smith builds incremental layers of sound through complementary overtones, golden applications of spring reverb, and scribbled flourishes from additional organs, guitars, violins, and other less typical instrumentation. While Smith's solo process involve a considerable amount of multi-track production, he -- like Thuja and the interconnective Jewelled Antler gaggle -- relies upon spontaneity in the construction of these scores to give his music a floating effortlessness. "Lineaments" is no exception and definitely gets the thumbs up from Aquarius.
WE ONLY HAVE 20 COPIES IN STOCK! After that, this is gone forever!
MPEG Stream: "Dust On Coils"
MPEG Stream: "The Morning Cart"
MPEG Stream: "Petersson Alms"

SMITH, STEVEN R. Death Of Last Year's Man ep (Emperor Jones) cd 8.98
Any avid reader of the AQ list will be well aware that we've long been huge fans of Steven R. Smith, his solo records, his work in Mirza, Thuja, Hala Strana, all totally amazing. So we were super excited recently to find out that Mr. Smith had a stash of some long out of print titles. We took everything he had, which unfortunately wasn't a lot, so if you want to nab one of these, best be quick! Since these titles have been out of print for ages, once this last handful of these titles are gone, they are gone for good.
Here's what we had to say about this gorgeous ep when we first listed it way back when:
New, old material from AQ fave Steven R. Smith (Mirza & Thuja). Four covers done by Mr. Smith that were released previously only on vinyl, two from a now out of print 7" and two never before released tracks. If you've heard Steven R. Smith's other recordings you're probably aware that he excels in the art of whiskey soaked, tape saturated drone rock. His cover of Leonard Cohen's "I Tried To Leave You", which starts off the disk certainly testifies to that. All the best moments of the Dirty Three, but with the balls of the Velvet Underground and somehow wrapping into it all the garagey psychedelia of Six Organs of Admittance or Vibracathedral Orchestra. Along with the Cohen' track are covers of the Smiths ("Death of a Disco Dancer"), the Grateful Dead's old standby "Morning Due" (equally brilliantly liberated a la Einsturzende Neubauten's version) and a cover of Muzsikas' "Regen Volt, Soka Lesz." And, we might add, all done as instrumentals. For those of you who haven't heard his albums yet, this is a really great introduction to Smith's mysterious and romantic sonic world!
WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT A DOZEN COPIES IN STOCK! After that, this is gone forever!
MPEG Stream: "I Tried To Leave You"
MPEG Stream: "Death of a Disco Dancer"

SMITH, STEVEN R. Tableland (Emperor Jones) cd 14.98
Any avid reader of the AQ list will be well aware that we've long been huge fans of Steven R. Smith, his solo records, his work in Mirza, Thuja, Hala Strana, all totally amazing. So we were super excited recently to find out that Mr. Smith had a stash of some long out of print titles. We took everything he had, which unfortunately wasn't a lot, so if you want to nab one of these, best be quick! Since these titles have been out of print for ages, once this last handful of these titles are gone, they are gone for good.
Fifth (almost) full-length release by ex-local drone rocker Steven R. Smith (of Thuja and Mirza.) Right before the recording of Tableland, Steven invested in a brand new 8-track recording deck and "Tableland" could well be considered a christening of the new machine. It's probably important to note that the move from 4 tracks to 8 tracks does not equate with a move to overproduction. No, the lush and saturated qualities that are so indicative of Steven R. Smith's recordings are still here to envelope you like a warm wool blanket on a cold day. Five new instrumentals make up "Tableland" and Steven fills out his lonesome arrangements with reverb drenched guitars, bowed metal stringed instruments (possibly zithers?), swelling organs, bells, drums, piano and various other instruments resulting in grainy film scores for non-existent films. So totally gorgeous.
WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT 10 COPIES IN STOCK! After that, this is gone forever!
MPEG Stream: "Blood Partridges"
MPEG Stream: "A Celebration"

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----* Selected New Arrivals :
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1/3 OCTAVE BAND Navigation By Light (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
Another new jam from New Zealand's 1/3 Octave Band, courtesy of Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, etc.) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. Packaged as always in the immediately recognizable wallpaper sleeve, this is some serious soft focus, gauzy and dreamy and free floating minimal bliss for sure.
Four tracks, 49 minutes, each track a lengthy drift through delicate worlds of subtle sound. From a barely audible whir, flecked with distant high end melodies and crystalline glimmering, to creaking cavernous murmurs, to almost industrial dronescapes, to haunting cinematic soundscapes, but with all the jagged edges worn away into smooth soft shapes. This is the music of dreams. Music from another world. The sound of wandering somnambulant through some soft space, eyes closed, mind open, and drifting heavenward.
MPEG Stream: "Magnetic South "
MPEG Stream: "Semaphore"

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O. Have You Seen The Other Side Of The Sky? (Ace Fu) cd 14.98
Y'know, if we somehow kept EVERY Acid Mothers Temple (or AMT related) release in stock, we'd have to move to a bigger store! Perhaps we'd be forced to annex the bead shop next door (that would be cool) and then somehow fit several miles of additional shelving in there. One could peruse the endless aisles of this expanded, comprehensive Acid Mothers Temple section on foot, but that would be tiring. Probably it would be a better idea if we installed a moving sidewalk, or invested in a fleet of those motorized, up-right Segway scooters for customers to use. Each equipped with a very large basket, of course. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, we'll have to be realistic and simply maintain a small selection of our AMT faves, and of course stock their new releases as they (ahem) trickle in. Such as this one!
Have You Seen The Other Side Of The Sky? is Ace Fu's follow-up to AMT's excellent Gong-tribute Iao Chant From The Cosmic Inferno, but unlike that fairly focused record this is more of a psychedelic smorgasbord of all the usual, unusual AMT ingredients -- spacey shortwave transmissions, one-legged flute freakery, acoustic folk balladry a la Ghost, goofy song titles, droning fake ragas, throat singing, heavy fuzzed-out mayhem, and more... all good stuff we like! Well, except for the goofy song titles ("Asimo's Naked Breakfast: Rice and Shrine"? "I Wanna Be Your Bicycle Saddle"?).
There's six diverse tracks here, including a killer half-hour epic, that all really deliver on the established AMT aesthetic. Fans will be pleased. And even though our building plans for an Acid Mothers Temple dedicated wing of Aquarius Records remain a pipe dream, we'll certainly make space for this particular AMT release in our crowded racks for the foreseeable future, it's a good one!
MPEG Stream: "Interplanetary Love"
MPEG Stream: "Attack From Planet Hattifatteners"

ADAMSON, BARRY Stranger On The Sofa (Central Control International) cd 14.98
While we have in the past been fans of Adamson's soundtrack without a movie vibe, (most notably, the all time classic Moss Side Story) this more song-oriented and vocal heavy affair feels a bit late in the lounge. It still gives off a soundtrack sort of feel, but with synth-stabs, slap bass, as well as strange narrative elements from Anne Chancellor, which creates a soundtrack that seems to be from an eighties B-movie now shown only on the Spanish channel late at night. Perhaps its because Adamson plays all the instruments himself, which is a commendable feat in itself, but we wish that all that effort made for a more rewarding listen.
MPEG Stream: "The Long Way Back Again"
MPEG Stream: "Deja Morte"

AXOLOTL / THE SKATERS split (Catsup Plate) lp 14.98
Some vinyl tag team action from these two Bay area based frenzies heavyweights. Axolotl offer up three lengthy tracks, a warped warbly hiss drenched ambient drift with distant singsongy vocals, a soft shimmery cinematic soundscapes, all soft edges, sparkling and glistening, and a crunchy super distorted blown out bliss out. All different but with a distinct certain something that ties them all together and makes them uniquely Axolotl. The Skaters counter with a side long epic, weird birdlike electronics trill and flutter, affected guitar jangles and floats dreamlike, hypnotic vocal loops, lurch and shimmy and eventually blend into a single smeary sound, the whole track dense and murky and warbly and lo-fi but as always so totally soft on the ears.
Gorgeously packaged as are all things on Catsup Plate, this time, metallic textured gold ink on a black sleeve, hand screened with a photocopied insert. SUPER LIMITED. Already out of print at the label, so we might not be able to get more unless they press more!

BATES, MARTYN / TROUM To A Child Dancing In The Wind (Transgredient) cd 14.98
For those well acquainted with the prose of Aquarius Records, the German duo Troum should be a familiar reference to any one keen on dark dronescapes; but Martyn Bates is something of an enigma to us despite being a stalwart of neo-romantic British art-rock thanks to wealth of recordings with his group Eyeless In Gaza. Blessed with the angelic voice of a classic crooner, Bates certainly fits in with the theatrically inclined singers such as David Sylvian, Scott Walker, and Gordon Sharp. Even when Eyeless In Gaza began under the banner of post-punk, Bates' impassioned delivery enveloped the anti-pop sensibilities with a majestic aura that probably repelled just as many potential fans that might be swayed by his rapturous clarion. To be completely honest, we've never been entirely convinced by Bates or Eyeless In Gaza, despite numerous attempts by lifelong fan and AQ pal Loren Chasse to convince us otherwise. In working with Troum on To A Child Dancing In The Wind, Bates has presented himself again as the occultish troubadour, but with Troum's dark elegance wrapped around his voice, we may need to reconsider. Nocturnal for sure, but hardly as overwhelmingly dark as some of the other Troum records (i.e. Tjurkurppa 2 or Sigqan); To A Child Dancing In The Wind has Troum wrapping shadowy drones and their slow motion churn of heavily processed guitar, accordion, harmonica, and bass as the tapestry for the celestial hymns scribed by Bates. For those transfixed by David Sylvian's collaborative efforts with Fennesz on Blemish, we would hazard to guess that you'll find this album equally as emotive and beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "To A Child Dancing In The Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Mad As The Mist And Snow"

BE YOUR OWN PET s/t (Ecstatic Peace / Universal) cd 11.98
Are you sad that the Yeah Yeah Yeah's seem to have gone all '80s pop? Still looking for that blistering loud, fast and fun rock sound with some strong commanding female vocals at its helm? Then Be Your Own Pet have got your fix for sure. Creating quite a buzz in the last couple years with their full throttle rock sound planted firmly in punk rock as well as in the garage. This definitely had us thinking a bit of the glory of The Gits, a young PJ Harvey doing Stooges covers, and yeah, the urgency of the YYY's on their first ep and full length. They've won the heart of Thurston Moore whose Ecstatic Peace has been putting out their records and this is one of those rare instances where the hype seems to make sense as this is some great rockin' fun.
MPEG Stream: "Bunk Trunk Skunk"
MPEG Stream: "Fill My Pill"

BELIEVER #35 2006 Music Issue magazine + cd 10.00
With this latest issue of our favorite new magazine, The Believer, we're wondering, is it a music magazine? Or is it the hipster Harper's? Or is it somewhere in between? Regardless, it's a great read, and this one IS their music issue which is always amazing, and always sells out quick, so don't dawdle. Juana Molina is the cover star, rendered lounging in her bedroom listening to music, surrounded by posters of Elvis, Sinatra, and Stephen O'Malley (!) drawn by the brilliant Charles Burns. As always, the music issue comes with a cd, this time featuring Juana Molina, Neung Phak, Calexico, Six Organs Of Admittance, Destroyer, Feist, Marissa Nadler, Blood On The Wall, and ATTENTION SUNN 0))) NERDS, an exclusive Stephen O'Malley track!!! And a bunch more. Inside the magazine you'll find a bizarre analysis of Paul Anka's "My Way" incorporating Sinatra, Elvis, Sid Vicious and more, a piece about the Eurovision Song Contest (the most watched television show everywhere but in the US, and recently won by Finnish heavy metal monsters Lordi), Interpretations of various breakup duets: the Pogues' "Fairytale Of New York", the Human League's " Don't You Want Me?", the Jesus & Mary Chain's "Sometimes Always" and a handful of others, Nick Hornby's favorite recent reads, Hornby on Lurie and the Lounge Lizards and the best show he's ever seen, saxophonist David S. Ware, Douglas Wolk writes about an online musical phenomenon, a handful of book reviews, a conversation between the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, Argentinean singer songwriter Juana Molina, a brief history of rock music, Southern rapper Bun B from UGK, this months advice column featuring NPR mainstay Sarah Vowell, a conversation between novelist Don DeLillo and rock critic Greil Marcus, and finally an interview with one half of the SUNNO))) drone metal duo, Stephen O'Malley.
As always the whole thing beautifully laid out and eminently readable!

BISHOP, SIR RICHARD Plays The Sun City Girls (No Fidelity) 7" 6.98
The Sun City Girls' Sir Richard Bishop, recorded live in 2005, tackling two prime Sun City Girls tracks, solo on steel string acoustic guitar, and the results are quite lovely. Gorgeous, stripped down acoustic versions of "Space Prophet Dogon" (maybe our favorite Sun City Girls song ever) and "Esoterica Of Abyssynia", both retain some of their Eastern flair, but sound more like some lost Basho or Fahey track. So cool.
Packaged in a plain brown cardstock jukebox style sleeve. Not sure how limited this is, probably very, we have about a dozen.

BJERGA / IVERSEN The Trumpets Of Silence (Rural Faune) cd-r 10.98
We won't go into too much detail with this one as it was limited to only 71 copies of which we got the last 20.
This Norwegian duo have a pretty lengthy discography, but somehow this is the first disc we've gotten enough of to list (and unfortunately we only got 20 so they'll be gone before you know it). Utilizing a wide array of electronics and amplified objects, Bjerga and Iverson craft a rich world of pulsing and pulsating sound, crackles and squelches, snippets of conversations, shortwave interference and all sorts of random electronic filigree are embedded in warm rivers of rumbling drone and glistening streaks of keening high end shimmer. Glitch and grit pepper huge washes of murky ambience, while multiple layers of sounds slowly shift and drift. Dark and mysterious, droney and lovely.
Limited to 71 copies, each one hand numbered, in a cool heavy fabric sleeve, -most- but not all of 'em packaged with a gorgeous see through leaf, and tied shut with a little piece of twine.
MPEG Stream: "The Trumpets Of Silence"

BLUMEN DES EXOTISCHEN EISES Karawane der Mystiks (Psycho-path) cd 11.98
Germany, circa 1984. A gaggle of krautrock diehards were (we imagine) locked in a room with a plethora of instruments, toys and objects and not allowed to come out until they'd done some sort of justice to the communal freak-out legacy of such early '70s kosmische bands like Amon Duul I and Siloah. They might still be happily locked in that room, for all we know, but the disjointed, damaged, distorted recording they made was pressed up and privately released on vinyl in a limited edition of 100 copies in 1986. That LP, Karawane der Mystiks, has apparently become an extremely sought-after (or at least very hard to find) latter-day krautrock rarity, and has now been officially reissued on compact disc for the limited edition acid-folk cd-r lovin' / Arthur magazine readin' / "new weird America" who dig old weird Germany crowd to freak on.
This disc consists of sixteen tracks (including three "bonus-titel") of lo-fi, chaotic krautrock jamming that at its best achieves a sort of fucked-up raga-like trance state, like a retarded Franciscan Hobbies or a more raw and hippy Axolotl, perhaps. A few parts are a bit too peppy for us, or cacophonously annoying if you're not in the mood, but mostly this is a weird, wailing pow-wow that we're glad has been dug up from obscurity. Of course, it's still pretty darn obscure! And by the way, about the only thing in English on the packaging is the term "Camelshithippies" found in one of the song titles.
MPEG Stream: "Die Katakomben Von Goa"
MPEG Stream: "Dehliagara"

BYRD, ROB / KRIS THOMPSON / WISTERIAX Easter Invocation (lildiscs) 3" cd-r 8.98
Third (but first we've had) in a new series of ULTRA LIMITED hand made drone / ambient cd-r's (we'll try to list the other two soon) from this new boutique label specializing in short form 3" cd-r's of dark drone drenched ambience.
This disc, Easter Invocation, features guitar, theremin (courtesy of Kris Thompson of The Lothars), and processed cello, all stretched and twisted, tangled and warped into a single 21 minute soundscape of gauzy creep and haunting shimmer. Simple, heavily reverbed martial percussion, muted and murky, more of a pulse or a throb than a pound, underpinning a landscape of distant low-end swells, slow building waves of creak and moan, soft swirls of hiss and fuzz, languorous stretches of slow motion rumble. Dreamy but also quite dark and ominous.
ULTRA LIMITED and painstakingly hand assembled. Tiny 3" black fold over sleeves, with a glossy full color image affixed to the front, sealed at the bottom with two rivets, tied with a ribbon, with a little circular badge. Inside the disc nestles between two sheets of gorgeously textured paper, hand printed and so lovely.
VERY RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Easter Invocation (excerpt)"

CAMERA OBSCURA Let's Get Out Of This Country (Merge) lp 14.98
Also on vinyl...
Goodness! Between this new Camera Obscura album and the latest ones by Essex Green and Mojave 3, we're floating up up 'n' away to the dreamy pop heavens. These days these Scots seem to have more of a skip in their step. They're sounding sorta like a frisky kid sister of Broadcast! If we take their album title literally we're going to do so on a magic carpet ride through swirling clouds of warm vintage keyboards and organs graced with the sweetest vanilla custard female vocals. Yum!!!
MPEG Stream: "Tears For Affairs"
MPEG Stream: "The False Contender"

CATLANDGREY s/t (Milk And Moon) cd 12.98
Imagine the sweeping epic grandeur of Godspeed You Black Emperor, the glistening frosted filigree of Sigur Ros and the dark folk gravity of Steve Von Till of Neurosis' solo work all combined within one album. Sound good to you? It sure does to us! Such is the case with Catlandgrey's self-titled album. Utter sprawling gorgeousness. Simple spare drumming spread out over swoonsome dreaminess and moody melancholia, horns moan, bells chime, guitars shimmer and drift, vocals whisper and croon, everything wrapped in a glistening mist of reverb, flecked with tiny glimmers of electronica glitchery. So nice.
Packaged in a hand numbered black digipak with a tiny flying cat photo affixed to the front and a googly eye!
MPEG Stream: "The Night Before Thanksgiving (Tale Of Jesus Jose)"
MPEG Stream: "An Attempt To Reach The Hand Of God (Lacking Rhythm)"

CELTIC FROST Monotheist (Century Media) cd 14.98
It's been *how many* years that Celtic Frost fans have been waiting for this??? Well here it is! The first new album from Switzerland's extreme avant-garde metal pioneers since 1989's Vanity/Nemesis. We don't want to make you wait any longer, so we'll keep this review brief. What you want to know is, is this a disgrace to the hallowed CF brand name or did they manage to live up to their idiosyncratic and influential legacy?? Well, we think they have done the latter, and boldly too. (Besides, how can you disgrace the legacy when you've already made glam mistake Cold Lake like 20 years ago? though we hasten to add, Cold Lake is actually one of our FAVORITE Celtic Frost albums, perversely enough.)
Spinning Monotheist makes us think that CF mainman Thomas Gabriel Fischer has been listening to a lot of old Godflesh lately, not a bad thing! This has that uber-doomy industrial vibe to it, complete with feedback squeals and shuddering beats. Not dancey industrial, but factory/machine industrial. All that heaviness is accompanied by a large dose of melancholic melody. Add Tom's dramatic, almost Bowie-like spoken-sung vocals (and more than one instance of his famous death-grunt "uhh!"), and you've got a Teutonic, twisted, Type-O gothy, doom/industrial/prog/classical/black metal, non-rehashed return from Celtic Frost that's no disappointment at all. Uhh!!!
While supplies last, we've got the import slipcase digipack version with bonus track.
MPEG Stream: "Obscured"
MPEG Stream: "Domain Of Decay"

CIRCLE OF DEAD CHILDREN Zero Comfort Margin (Willowtip) cd 14.98
We've had these for a while now, meant to list this ages ago, not sure what happened, but regardless, here you go, the latest, greatest blast of grinding death metal brutality from the brilliantly named Circle Of Dead Children. A furiously fast, ultra downtuned selection of brief blasting bursts of death metal drenched ultragrind, most clocking in at under a minute, but even the briefest blasts pack in a million parts and a billion notes. Head spinning, ear splitting, mind meltingly technical grind, think Discordance Axis, Creation Is Crucifixion, Cephalic Carnage, you know the sort of blazing destruction we're talking about. Plus awesome cover art and killer song titles like "No Tears Fall Through Hollow Eye Sockets", "Chemical Goat". Just what you need for that next gore soaked, techgrind, mathmetal fix for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Zero Comfort Margin"
MPEG Stream: "No Tears Fall Through Hollow Eye Sockets"
MPEG Stream: "Chemical Goat"

CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS The Knives Beneath (True Face Of Evil) 7" 8.98
Circle Of Ouroborus recently shared a split with AQ faves, weirdo black metal crooners Urfaust and nearly stole the show. Not heavier really, and maybe not weirder, just so completely different. Like a black metal Jandek maybe. A new genre born, Jandekian black metal. Detuned guitars, acoustic strumming and picking, atonal clean vocals, all very minor key and mournful. We just can't get enough. You can read about CoO's new full length elsewhere on the list, but we also managed to get just a handful of this ultra limited single, where on which Circle Of Ouroborus go even further into the indie jangle doom left field. Woozy seasick guitars underpin strange sung / spoken vocals, not really metal at all, more like a fuzzed out Joy Division or a black metal Velvet Underground. Indie jangle, muted buzz, loping rhythms, minor key melodies, slightly processed vocals, a little gothy, doomy, depressive, less heavy than just haunting and creepy.
Limited to 400 copies, each copy is hand numbered and comes with a lyric sheet. We only got a dozen so act fast!

CITAY s/t (Frenetic) lp 11.98
NOW ON VINYL thanks to our friends at Frenetic...
Wow! We haven't been this excited about a new project in quite a while. Citay is a new band created by Ezra Feinberg (occasional contributor to Piano Magic) along with Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, and about a million other projects). What an amazing exercise in how you can take from influences that have been exhausted by so many in all the wrong ways yet somehow find a way to discover the gold that's never been mined before. According to Feinberg, Citay is influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, and Heart...but wait don't think this is about irony or played-out 70's rock worship. Citay get to the blissed out acoustic moments of the above mentioned bands (think Queen II, Sabbath Vol.4) to create something that sounds so fresh, breezy and full of the right kind of dirt and sunlight. With an onslaught of guitars (mostly acoustic and including some 12 strings), nice textural sounds created by mandolin, flute, organ, piano, vibes and a an overall sound that is hard to talk about without using really over the top words like...perfect! They nailed how this kind of record should sound. The guitars are so sweeping yet intimate, the vocals seep into your skin and all of a sudden it feels like the longest summer day ever, the kind that you never want to end. We can't stop listening to this and each time we do, all we can think about is finding our old huffy and riding through dirt lots as the sun shimmers down on us and we pedal through twilight. So totally recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Nice Cuffs"
MPEG Stream: "Seasons Don't Fear The Year"
MPEG Stream: "Sticks"

CLEAR PEOPLE Clarity (Manhand) cd-r 8.98
Like all Sunburned Hand Of The Man releases, this is another fleeting glimpse into the mad, sonic abstract sound world of these psych rock ne'er do wells. And like all SHOTM releases, we grabbed as many of these as we could from the band when they were drifting through, probably never to get more. And we got about 15 copies which is all they had left, so if you want one of these, act fast and be prepared to be disappointed.
Not a SHOTM record proper, this is some sort of Sunburned offshoot, featuring mainman John Moloney and a few other folks, using mostly voices and electronics, a bit or percussive clatter and some grinding guitar fuzz, to cobble together a bizarre growling, grumbling, squeaking, skronking, belching, squeaking, swirling soundscape of abstract vocalizations, mysterious buzz, kitchen sink clang, and instrument buzz and whir. Pretty far out even by already damaged SHOTM standards.
Packaged in that instantly recognizable brown cardstock sleeve with color artwork affixed to the front, and two inserts, one xeroxed and one a little transparency.
And again, we only got about 15 of these, probably never to get more so don't dawdle!!
MPEG Stream: "The Blow Me Down Syndrome"
MPEG Stream: "Clearance"

CLIPD BEAKS Preyers (Tigerbeat6) cd ep 10.98
A bird of a different feather has joined the formerly very electrono-art-brat-centric label Tigerbeat6. Now based in Oakland, CA these former Minnesotans' sound is one of molasses-thick, raw, churning goth-industrial and post-punk. On this their second release (their first on Tigerbeat6), Clipd Beaks are heavy on the dank gloom and murk, leaving little room for breath. A full length is promised soon. Cool stuff.
MPEG Stream: "No Horizons"
MPEG Stream: "Hash Angels"

CORSANO, CHRIS / PAUL FLAHERTY Full Bottle (Ultra Eczema) lp 25.00
Another blast of modern free jazz from this dynamic duo. A drums and sax duel to the death, but what a way to go! Corsano's jazzy splatter, shuffling skitter and pummeling pound up against Flaherty's wild and wooly world of skronk and skree. They've been playing together so long, it's almost like listening to one four armed, four legged, two mouthed man single handedly (um... you know what we mean) deconstructing the history of jazz over the course of 12"s of vinyl. Highlight has to be another Corsano drum detour, a long stretch of dream like ambience that turns into a drums only jam, not so much a drum solo as an eminently listenable exploration of every part of the drum kit. Awesome.
Limited to 400 copies and we only got FIVE COPIES, and it's already out of print. DRAT! So act fast.

DARKESTRAH Embrace Of Memory (No Colours) cd 14.98
Usually, you pretty much know what you're in for when a band proclaims boldly right there on the sleeve, that they perform "Pagan Black Metal Art Exclusively!" And then when you take into account the fact that Darkestrah just so happens to include the drummer from Nargaroth, well then you know for sure you're in for some glorious buzzing, stumbling, midtempo blackness. And indeed, Embrace Of Memory is rife with fuzzy tranced out riffs, super repetitive drone-y arrangements, pounding drums, subtle layers of synth, and howled vocals. Definitely plenty of nods to Nargaroth, but you can also hear hints of avant black metallers Forgotten Woods and early Enslaved. Incredibly catcy melodies are somehow snuck into super buzzy black riffs, the tempos shift from sea sick waltzes, to not quite blasting blastbeats, to pouding dirges, but always mesmerizing and hypnotic, droned out and almost blissy, while managing to still be heavy and brutal.
Two other interesting things that make Darkestrah stand out: one, the vocalist is a woman, although she looks just like one of the guys in the heavily coprsepainted photo, and her harsh demonic howl does not sound all that feminine, but for an almost exclusively male genre, it's pretty dang exciting, and she does have one serious set of glass gargling, bile spewing pipes. And two, Darkestrah just might be the only band we've ever heard who hail from Kyrgyzstan!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Black Cathedral"
MPEG Stream: "Sign Of War"

DATURAH s/t (Graveface) cd 9.98
Oooh. Nice one here for fans of Mogwai and Mono and the like... Germany's Daturah are quite adept at that style of dynamic soft-loud mesmerization, being both gently melodic and heavy too. It's easy to lose oneself in this lulling but loud set of really pretty post-rock.
Daturah bring the depresso-drone hammer of melancholy down with some force on these three stretched-out, mostly-instrumental epics. Some half-buried voices are to be heard, tranmissions lost in shortwave ether, drifting in the mix, a la Godspeed or Nadja. But the focus is on the magnificent oceanic swells of guitar. On "Warmachines" they really manage to rock out, whereas other parts of this are suffused with light, lightness.
If you like Mogwai, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Growing, Cult Of Luna, Isis, etc., this is 45 minutes of music you'll also like, we're pretty sure!
MPEG Stream: "Warmachines"
MPEG Stream: "Shoal"

DE DYSTER, EDMOND Selectie 01 (Ultra Eczema) lp 25.00
Ultra limited lp only reissue of long lost seventies analog synthesizer music from mysterious Belgian musical recluse Edmond De Dyster. These tracks were recovered from unmarked tapes recently discovered, recorded sometime in the early to mid seventies. De Dyster had been recording for years, not to release, just for himself, before his family even realized he was making music nearly a decade later. A sort of lo-fi, bedroom Conrad Schnitzler, De Deyster created dense and rich fuzzed out synthscapes, buzzy and fuzzy, with psychedelic outer space FX swooping all over the place, lots of tape hiss, instrument buzz, creepy alien melodies, like a much more abstract and damaged Tangerine Dream. Crumbling rumble, grimy grit, whirring distortion, birdlike trills, strange minor key melody fragments, long passages of dreamlike bloop and bleep. So cool.
Packaged in a beautiful full color sleeve, featuring washed out family photos of the artist as a young man. Also includes liner notes and a full sized insert.
Limited to 400 copies, already out of print, and we only managed to get about 20 so act fast!

DEATHPROD 6 Track (Rune Grammofon) 10" 25.00
Ultra limited, vinyl-only 10" record collecting tracks from various sources as remixed by legendary producer and dark ambient dronelord Deathprod. It sounds like the idea here was to take the already impossibly dark and doomy originals and attempt to make them even more gloomy, murky and black. And the results are quite gloriously grim. Tracks from Nils Petter Molvaer, Murcof, Larsen and Deathprod himself get reworked into utterly bleak and dismal doomscapes, still warm and thick but equally oppressive and desolate. Cavernous slow motion rumbles, smeary black ambience, all suffused with black hole desolation and utter sonic abjection. Two of the tracks do manage to reach out from the murk, but just barely. The first, by Cloroform, is still minimal and murky but it's wrapped around a muted percussive soundscape, like an underwater slow motion pipe fight. Soft shimmery clank and clatter beneath an ocean of dark ambience. The other, another track from Nils Petter Molvaer, is dreamy and slightly more melodic with slowed down rhythms, and distant keening melodies drifting gently a slowly shifting ocean of subsonic rumbles and whispery whirs. Quite beautiful.
Minimally packaged in an all black gatefold sleeve and with an oversized 10" booklet with liner notes and lots more blackness.

DEVENDRA BANHART White Reggae Troll (XL) 12" 6.98
Special one sided, vinyl-only single featuring the 10 minute long "White Reggae Troll". This half-reggae / half punk disco jam, often performed live as an encore, shows Banhart stretching the freak-folk genre down a few different rollicking avenues. We believe this is a one time only pressing, so once they're gone we're not sure we can get them in again! Plus it's called WHITE REGGAE TROLL!!!

DISEMBOWELMENT Discography (3XM Productions) 3lp 38.00
These are finally in!! It's already out of print, but we got 30 copies, half of which are already sole via pre-order, so we have about 15 copies, so act fast, these will be gone before you know it.
The first (and LAST) diSEMBOWLEMENT vinyl release EVER. Limited to 500 copies worldwide, only 200 copies in the US, of which we got 30 copies and won't ever be able to get more. Packaged in a black box with a black foil stamp. Includes a full color poster and a patch!!
Just the sight of that immediately recognizable underlined, lower case 'd' logo sends shivers up our spine. Some of you already know exactly what we're talking about, and just reading this far has probably got you all in a tizzy as well. For those of you who are new to the lower case 'd', prepare yourself for diSEMBOWELMENT!! Even the name, replete with mandatory case change, conjures up all sorts of bleak lifeforce snuffing, soul crushing sensations, at least for fans of mysterious otherworldly doom and bizarre slow motion grind!!
diSEMBOWELMENT were but a brief flash in the underground doom metal scene, existing for a scant three years in the early nineties, but in that time, they recorded one of the all time classic HEAVY records ever, Transcendence Into The Peripheral. A mind blowing record that somehow melded extreme brutality with delicate beauty, a record that totally changed the way some of us listened to heavy music. Referring to the music of diSEMBOWELMENT as doom might give folks the wrong impression. This is not regular old doom like Black Sabbath or My Dying Bride, it's not even funereal doom like Skepticism or Esoteric, although it definitely spends most of its time a lot closer to the slow motion sludge end of the spectrum. diSEMBOWELMENT most definitely inhabit their own unique sonic space. It's slow, sure, but not always, bursts of pounding blast beats will erupt from a bleak tranquil soundscape, guttural inhuman grunts, machine like percussion, buzzing riffs, all intertwined into a blazing near-death metal onslaught, but it's not long before big reverb drenched guitar melodies begin to fall like some sort of black rain, the metallic pummel sort of stumbling to a seasick lumber, turning the whole thing into a creepy crawl, lurching, plodding, downtuned guitars and spare, simple rhythms, a crushing slow motion dirge, with haunting atonal clean guitar parts and moaning melodies. And even during these vast expanses of atmospheric tranquility, you can never rule out a sudden blast beat, or a throat shredding vocal part, or a sudden crushing riff. The magic of diSEMBOWELMENT though is that somehow the metallic crush and the melancholic ambience are perfectly balanced. The whole thing is a dark and depressive, minor key and mournful masterpiece. But it's all so fucking heavy! Even the not-so-heavy parts manage to sound completely massive and totally crushing! So intense and emotional and just absolutely beautiful. Yep, beautiful. Lovely even. Like few records we can remember, and certainly one of the only records this heavy and brutal that manages to be absolutely beautiful. Sonically it's a bit like Napalm Death's Scum, and Carcass's Reek of Putrifaction, that classic Earache sound, a bit lo-fi, lots of reverb, big drums, buzzing guitars, all boiled down into a viscous blackened sludge, sprinkled throughout with brief melodic flares and occasional glistening guitars, like rays of sunlight just barely penetrating the suffocating atmosphere of thick low hanging riffs and bleak, brutal ambience.
Disc one contains all of Transcendence Into the Peripheral, and hell, we would have been happy with just that, a long overdue reissue of one of our all time favorite discs. But disc two contains the quite rare Dusk ep, as well as a rare compilation track and the five track Mourning September demo, all of it suitably genius!
Obviously totally and completely essential.
MPEG Stream: "The Tree Of Life And Death"
MPEG Stream: "Your Prophetic Throne Of Ivory"
MPEG Stream: "Cerulian Transience Of All My Imagined Shores"

DISSECTION Storm Of The Light's Bane (The End) 2cd 11.98
Long overdue, super deluxe double disc reissue of this long-time Aquarius favorite / black metal classic. After a not-so-great past few years for Dissection, including a lengthy jail sentence for frontman Jon Nodtveidt, and a recent disappointing 'comeback/reunion' record (not yet reviewed here), this black classic returns to remind us just how mindblowingly kick ass Dissection really were. And while of course this is a fave of all the metalheads around here, and our metal-lovin' customers, it's also loved by the less metal inclined -- for instance, former AQ staffer Byram, not normally a big metal consumer, ranks this as one of his favorites amongst the Nordic hordes. In fact, it's one of the few metal cds in his collection. It's that great. It came out originally in '94, reissued as a digipak a few years back, and now sees a super duper double disc re-release with a whole disc of bonus tracks (more on those later).
With Storm of the Light's Bane, Dissection perfected their melodic, blackened Swedish death metal approach -- that means TRUE, original metal, with elements of everything from Morbid Angel to Mayhem to Iron Maiden, suped-up and super-grim, with raspy vocals, wicked drumming (the guy is AMAZING), truly memorable, majestic melodies, and tons of cold winter atmosphere. They take long breaks to let their acoustic guitars gently weep, then tear back into the brutal, razor-edged rifferama. Serious stuff, seriously great. This was to be their last album, a mighty swan song, as Dissection called it quits soon after when their frontman ended up in jail as accessory to murder -- but their -very- tangential role in any of that over-sensationalized Scandinavian black metal true crime stuff has nothing to do with why you should be interested in this band. Like we said, the band reformed last year when Nodtveidt got out of jail, and just recently released a mediocre new record, but it couldn't hold a candle to Storm Of The Light's Bane, nor could most metal records actually. Dissection was a brilliant band, and Storm of the Light's Bane is an all time classic that belongs in every metal collection. If you haven't already gotten this album, here's your chance. And even if you already have one of the previous versions, the extra disc might make it a necessary repeat purchase.
The second disc is crammed with bonus tracks and unreleased material. First up, the Storm Of The Light's Bane unreleased alternative mix '95, which might have been for completist nerds only, but a closer look reveals an extra track not on the album proper. Then there's two tracks from an unreleased 1994 demo. And finally the Where Dead Angels Lie ep, also remastered. Lots of liner notes and packaged in a spiffy slipcover. SO RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Night's Blood"
MPEG Stream: "Where Dead Angels Lie"
MPEG Stream: "Soulreaper"

DISSECTION The Somberlain (The End) 2cd 11.98
Long overdue, super deluxe double disc reissue of another long-time Aquarius favorite, the debut from Sweden's black/death metallers Dissection. While not as much of a stone cold classic as their Storm Of The Light's Bane album, this is still a totally kick ass, ultra essential slab of classic Swedish death metal. After a not-so-great past few years for Dissection, including a lengthy jail sentence for frontman Jon Nodtveidt, and a recent disappointing 'comeback/reunion' record, this black classic (along with the godlike Storm Of The Light's Bane) returns to remind us just how mindblowingly kick ass Dissection really were once upon a time. This came out originally in '93, was reissued as a digipak a few years back, and now sees a super duper double disc re-release with a whole disc of bonus tracks (more on those later).
This reissue of Dissection's debut long-player, recorded in 1993 at Dan Swano's studio definitely sets the template that the band would perfect with their second and arguably best record Storm Of The Light's Bane, but on its own is a gorgeously black, slightly rougher and rawer version of Dissection's soon to be classic sound. Epic and melodic, with majestic riffs and folky acoustic interludes, but also quite fast, heavy and brutal. Here Dissection established their "blackened" style of Swedish Melodic Death Metal, a sound that would be copied by many a band, but few would be able to come close to Dissection's black blazing fury. Storm Of The Light's Bane might be the one to get first, but both are essential for sure!
The bonus disc is jam packed with extra goodies: unreleased live recordings from 1995, the Into Infinite Obscurity 7", a 1992 demo, the Grief Prophecy demo from 1990, a rehearsal from 1990, and Satanized rehearsal also from 1990. All tracks remastered from the original mixes. Lots of liner notes and packaged in a spiffy slipcover.
MPEG Stream: "Black Horizons"
MPEG Stream: "The Somberlain"

DREAMS (THE SKATERS) s/t (New Age Cassettes) cd-r 9.98
Another super limited cd-r release of underground noisiness, this time from Dreams, a Skaters side project. We only managed to get a handful of these, so act fast, they'll be gone in no time.
Those of you familiar with the Skaters, already know they are masters of the free floating murk, a clattery chaos harnessed into dense smears of sound. A while back we reviewed a 7" by the Pan Dolphinic Dawn which definitely hints at what you can expect from Dreams, mostly because it's the same person, James Ferraro, one half of the Skaters, and Dreams is another example of the leaf not falling very far from the tree (and again begs the question, why make a solo record that sounds exactly like your band), but that's definitely okay, since we love basking in the murky muted shade of the Skaters' sound. If anything, Dreams is a bit murkier, less active, more of a drifting murmur. There's definitely lots going on sonically, but Ferraro renders all that action in subtle shades of grey and greyer, melodies, and voices, and riffs and whatever might be part of the overall sound, enter a whole new world once they're captured by Ferraro's four track. It's a bit like sitting at the foot of an empty well, watching storm clouds drift back and forth way above, constantly altering the ambient light, dusky, to dark, to darker, to pitch black and back again. Creepy and haunting and ominous but also strangely beautiful.
SUPER LIMITED. WE ONLY GOT A HANDFUL OF THESE, AND AS ALWAYS WE'RE NOT SURE IF WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

ECA, LUIS Y LA FAMILIA SAGRADA La Nueva Onda Del Brasil (Vampisoul) cd 16.98
Here comes another lost gem from Brazil. This time it's from 1970 by a group led by the thrilling piano playing of Luiz Eca (who was in Tamba Trio / Tamba 4). This is dazzling and bright dynamic pop swimming in samba, African rhythms, and an undying pep that radiates throughout the recording. Joining Eca is a cast of 13 adding an onslaught of sounds and voices to the affair. The seven minute opener "Homen Da Sucurasal /Barravento" is one of the best lead off tracks we've ever heard! Catchy, bizarre and all the right and unexpected twists and turns. As the record plays out its samba roots are explored. On it, and throughout the album you can hear hints of the sounds of many bands that would came decades later like Stereolab and White Magic, of course all drenched in a samba vibe that would make Sergio Mendes proud.
MPEG Stream: "Homem da Suc / Barravento"
MPEG Stream: "Las Vamos Nos"

ELITE Bekmorkt (No Colours) cd 8.98
Everyone went nuts for Bifrost, the latest release from Norwegian black metallers Elite that we reviewed a few lists back, so while we're waiting to get retocked on that we figured we oughta list the ep that came out right before Bifrost. Elite have definitely earned their highly problematic monicker as they are indeed musically elite, the new wave of TRUE Norwegian black metal. Following in the black festering footprints of their BM forefathers, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Darkthrone, Ulver and the like, Elite buzz and blast brilliantly and blackly. Each of these four tracks is a dizzying black swirl, thrashing and chaotic, wild spiked blurs, epic melodic riffing wrapped in thick dark swirls of harsh ambience, the drums a relentless pound and blast, vocals harsh and hateful, and is the case with the best black metal, strange haunting and hook filled melodies lurk just beneath the black buzzing surface. So good. Elite indeed.
MPEG Stream: "Antican"
MPEG Stream: "Misteltein"

ENSLAVED Ruun (Candlelight) lp 16.98
Now available on vinyl!
Some years back, a new album from Norway's Enslaved was an occasion for pagan celebration only among those few who honestly appreciated "Viking" black metal of EPIC quality... people like AQ's Allan for whom a band in tunics and tights was indeed "cool". But more and more folks came around to this band's undeniable if eccentric brilliance (and their stage clothes have become less archaic). Now they're one of the biggest acts in the world of "extreme metal" and the release of a new album like this one (Ruun being their ninth full-length in a 13 year career) is a big deal. As it should be. We've always made a big deal about Enslaved's albums here at AQ, as you may know, going so far as to make 2000's Mardraum a Record Of The Week. So as always, excitement ran high here for this new disc. And our reaction to it is similar to how we felt about their last one, Isa -- it's obvious immediately that Ruun is another proud entry in the Enslaved discography, and one that promises to be a grower too. The carefully crafted, complex collision of aggro black metal and '70s inspired prog rock (a la Rush, Genesis, King Crimson) that Enslaved have been perfecting (or, at this point, could be said to have perfected!) is in full effect, each composition holding hidden secrets to be revealed only on repeat listens, while not for a second stinting on the venemous METAL that you want right of the gate. Already there's certain tracks that we just want to keep hitting "repeat" on.
Grutle's vocals still alternate between vicious rasping growls and "clean" Viking vox, the music similarly incorporating both jagged metallic riffing (stormwracked seas, longboats tossing) and spacier, more melodic symphonic passages (astral travels to ancestral lands beyond the stars)... the classic Enslaved dynamic at work! Though maybe there's something smoother about such transistions nowadays as Enslaved have matured (if not mellowed). Or maybe we're just used to it now. What we do know for sure is that Ruun's technical, emotional, majestic music for the discerning headbanger will earn Enslaved even more plaudits, not to mention the usual well warranted comparisons to Sweden's Opeth, who have been travelling a similarly progressive path from black metal roots. But we also hear traces of such Nordic BM bands as Emperor and Satyricon -- and of course Voivod, and psychedelic grandaddies Pink Floyd, on the album's dreamier moments.
MPEG Stream: "Path To Vanir"
MPEG Stream: "Heir To The Cosmic Seed"

EVOLUTIONARY JASS BAND Change Of Scene (Community Library) cd 16.98
The strangely monickered Evolutionary Jass Band features two ex members of free noise abstract improvisors Jackie-O-Motherfucker, and while that pedigree definitely informs the sound of the EJB, their sound is much more aligned with traditional jazz, a mix of dark New Orleans funeral jazz and skittery post bop, but all sort of laid back and dreamy, dark and dolorous. Horns don't skronk so much as swoon and shimmer. Dark tones shift and slide, drifting thick and rich over dense tribal drumming, and simple slippery bass. There's even some sitar to add some droney buzz. The EJS are a pretty big ensemble, but it doesn't sound cluttery or crowded, each player contributes and deftly interacts with the rest of the group, but also knows when to let someone else step forward.
This will definitely hit the spot for modern jazz-heads, and might even appeal to the more traditionally inclined, but folks who dig the abstract clatter and free form drift of bands like JOMF, No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and the like, might dig this too. It could be their gateway to a lifelong love of jazz, which is at least partially responsible for informing the new breed of improvised abstraction that is all the rage these days.
Great stuff.
MPEG Stream: "Aunt Dot"
MPEG Stream: "Change Of Scene"

EYEHATEGOD In The Name Of Suffering (Century Media) cd 12.98
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Take As Needed For Pain, Andee's favorite, and this, Dopesick, their third, and part three of final EHG's godlike sludge trilogy. They would continue to make records, great records in fact, but the first three remain untouchable to this day.
Here's Allan's favorite EHG album (Andee's favorite is Take As Needed For Pain, but this is a close second!), their dark and dirgey debut In The Name Of Suffering, first released in 1990 on the French Intellectual Convulsion label, later re-issued domestically by Century Media, with the original's gross medical cover pictures prudently tucked inside now reissued again, with new liner notes and bonus tracks. When this came out, EHG immediately joined the Melvins, Skullflower, and Hellhammer in the pantheon of the heaviest, most fucked up bands ever. Misanthropic metallic misery, complete with samples of Charles Manson's wisdom. Later EHG albums are good too, but this one was may quite possible be their finest moment. If you are one of Aquarius' "doom" customers and you don't have this disc, we urge you, in the name of suffering, get it!
Extra stuff: Four bonus tracks taken from an unreleased 1990 demo, revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "Depress"
MPEG Stream: "Children Of God"
MPEG Stream: "Hit A Girl"

EYEHATEGOD Take As Needed For Pain (Century Media) cd 12.98
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Dopesick, and this one, Andee's favorite Eyehategod record, Take As Needed For Pain.
Their debut was a hateful, feedback drenched trawl through a world of sludge, creeping and slithering, uncompromisingly brutal and crushingly heavy. Pretty much defining the sound of ALL sludge to come. With Take As Needed For Pain, they added a little bit of that NOLA groove (you know, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Acid Bath, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, etc.) to their sound, making their plodding shrieking sludge, a tiny bit more melodic and dare we say, catchy at moments. But take that with a grain of salt, melodic and catchy for a band like Eyehategod is still about a million times more caustic and corrosive than almost any other -heavy- band. It's really strange to revisit these EHG records and realize how many bands these days sound EXACTLY LIKE EYEHATEGOD!!! It's almost criminal. Sort of similar to the way SUNNO))) were basically an Earth tribute band, it's almost like EVERY one of the new breed of sludge bands is in fact an Eyehategod tribute band. But hey, who's complaining, it's a dark and disturbing sound we can never seem to get enough of. And as long as EHG are getting the props they deserve, then hell, bring on the sludge!!! Fans of ANY of the above mentioned bands who do not own this, are required by ALL THAT IS UNHOLY to pick this up immediately!!!!!!
As far as bonus tracks, Take As Needed For Pain is probably the best of bunch, 3 tracks from the long out of print Ruptured Heart Theory 7", a track from the also long OOP split 7" with 13, and two tracks from another long gone 7", another split with fellow sludge mavens 13.
Includes revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "Blank"
MPEG Stream: "Shoplift"
MPEG Stream: "Kill Your Boss"

EYEHATEGOD Dopesick (Century Media) cd 12.98
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Take As Needed For Pain, Andee's favorite, and this, Dopesick, their third, and part three of final EHG's godlike sludge trilogy. They would continue to make records, great records in fact, but the first three remain untouchable to this day.
In The Name Of Suffering was a hateful, feedback drenched trawl through a world of sludge, creeping and slithering, uncompromisingly brutal and crushingly heavy. Pretty much defining the sound of ALL sludge to come. With record number 2, Take As Needed For Pain, they added a little bit of that NOLA groove (you know, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Acid Bath, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, etc.) to their sound, making their plodding shrieking sludge a tiny bit more melodic and dare we say, catchy at moments. But take that with a grain of salt, melodic and catchy for a band like Eyehategod is still about a million times more caustic and corrosive than almost any other -heavy- band.
So with Dopesick, the groove factor is cranked up a little bit more, making Eyehategod here sound like the scariest, heaviest, druggiest, sludgiest stoner rock band EVER. But again, EHG in stoner rock mode, still outsludges them all, a groove flecked avalanche of slow motion ultradoom, screeching feedback, shrieking throat ripping vocals, blackhole downtuned guitars, all churning in a black sea of sludgemetal tar, lurching, and trudging and so fucking awesome!
Three bonus tracks: two alternate versions and one the appropriately titled "Dopesick Jam", an epic, lengthy freaked out psychedelic slab of glorious drugsludgedoom! Includes revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "My Name Is God (I Hate You)"
MPEG Stream: "Ruptured Heart Theory"

FAR BLACK FURLONG HAIDD (Barl Fire) cd-r 11.98
LAST COPIES EVER!!!
From the same label that brought us discs by James Blackshaw, the Floating World, Robert Horton, Lamp Of The Universe and Rameses III comes this limited cd-r from Far Black Furlong. Recorded live, outdoors, in the barley fields on the Welsh / English border, Haidd is a half hour of moon lit free folk drones. The sound of pale moonlight washing over the landscape like a soft grey coat of paint. A squirming shuffling, scritchy scratchy crosshatched backdrop, over which slow foghorn like drones drift and hover, horns wheeze out long mournful melodies that float just above the whirling background ambience. Like floating on the ink black sea, slowly drifting, little swells lifting you up and letting you back down, gently and so barely rhythmically. It's the sea, or the forest, or the desert, the sound of space and sky and dark nighttime colors that go on forever and ever.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Already sold out at the label. Once those are gone, we won't be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "HAIDD"

FINAL FANTASY He Poos Clouds (Tomlab) cd 15.98
First of all -- remember what we hope your mom told you about judging a book by its cover or a record by its title. No doubt about it, this boasts a pretty terrible title... so much so that we were tempted to not even order any. But, ok we got that out of the way now, so on to the music...which is not terrible at all... in fact it's amazingly super good! We've been hearing bits and pieces from this young Canadian, Owen Pallett over the last couple years. His violin work with The Arcade Fire, touring duty with The Hidden Cameras, interesting live covers of Joanna Newsom songs, articles praising him in the NY Times. His debut album was pretty hard to come by so it's been this, his sophomore release that will be most people's introduction to his complex and grandiose approach to pop song writing. Like a more angsty Sufjan Stevens he arranges smart pop songs with multi-instruments and lots of peaks and valleys. Final Fantasy displays a bare emotional honesty that recalls Xiu Xiu and label mates Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, a dramatic flare that rivals Rufus Wainwright, a melancholy side similar to Stephin Merrit and a complex approach to song structure that would make Van Dyke Parks proud. If any of those aforementioned names get your attention then for sure this is a new kid on that smart emotional epic pop rock block that you're gonna want to get to know. Just stand back in case he does indeed poo clouds...
MPEG Stream: "Song Song Song"
MPEG Stream: "The Arctic Circle"
MPEG Stream: "Many Lives -> 49mp"

FOVEA HEX Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent : Two / Huge (Die Stadt / Janet) cd ep 16.98
The Second chapter of Clodagh Simonds experimental voice project trilogy continues to explore the tenuous boundaries of traditional songforms while collaborating with some heavyweight electronic composers such as Brian Eno, Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio) and Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound). Simonds is best known for her early '70s work with British Folk outfit Mellow Candle (she also appears on Current 93's new record), and her voice here remains tethered as pulsating sounds of harmonium and glass instruments, trumpets, and electronics float like ghosts through the ether-like arrangements. Like the previous chapter, it's very short, clocking in about 19 minutes, which may call into question the expense. But this project is not about casual listening. Like reading an Emily Dickinson poem (as the sticker on the front compares this to), you are meant to ponder and drink in every nuance, turn of phrase and weight of breath. Put your player on repeat, and you will not hear the same song twice.
MPEG Stream: "Huge (The Joy of Trouble)"
MPEG Stream: "While You're Away"

FRENCH RADIO Elements (Breaking Wheel Imprint) cd-r 9.98
An album many years in the making, Elements is the debut offering from French Radio, a collaborative effort between Bruce Anderson (MX80), Jim Kaiser (Petit Mal), and Andy Way (Maleficia). The record has finally been released, graced with cover art featuring the ever-eccentric drawings of M.S. Waldron / irr.app.(ext.). In many ways, the album is curiously prescient of our recent fascination with all things on the Lampse label, in particular that Jasper, TX record I'll Be Long Gone Before My Light Reaches You although realized through the context of grizzled improvisation instead of a loosely sutured structuralism. Each of the four tracks on Elements represent the primordial fundamentals: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Through their constructions of guitar, turntable, tapes, and boat-loads of effects, French Radio conjures an interconnected sound between all of their base elements. The flanging tone-float activity of mangled electricity into distant clouds of din, crackle, and spectral dust has the threatening aura of an electrocutioner's chamber buzzing with high-voltage tension. Unrecognizably abstracted vocal collages culled from varispeed tapes and reverse spun turntables spiral in and out of the ominous clouds, topped with squalid layers of thunderous distortion alternating with mournful half-melodies strummed on Anderson's guitar. Limited to 100 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Water"

GREY, NICK & NICHOLAS DAVIS Les Eaux Territoriales (Milk And Moon) cd 12.98
A dark and dreamy drift through a late night world of moonlit sound from this UK driftrock slowcore duo. Silky serpentine guitar lines, moody meandering dreaminess, hushed whispery vocals, simple brooding dark ambient swirl, disembodied melodies. So so lovely. Like your favorite Low songs, set adrift in outer space, reflecting the twinkle of distant stars, shimmering in the soft vacuum of space. So absolutely gorgeous and otherworldly.
Packaged in a hand numbered black digipak with a tiny square piece of mirror affixed to the front.
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

HAILS & HORNS MAGAZINE Issue No. 1 magazine 4.95
There's always room in the world for a new music magazine, especially one obviously undertaken with a passion for the music covered inside, well written and interestingly laid out. And we're always in need of a new metal magazine for sure. Considering Terrorizer is so hard to get, Decibel can be a bit too snarky and ironic sometimes, and Metal Maniacs is a good read, but ultimately really light weight. So we're pleased as punch that there's a new metal mag on the block. The appropriately titled Hails & Horns. This is issue number one, so we can assume they're still feeling their way around, but even so, this is a pretty great magazine heavy on the metalcore for sure, but plenty of death/black/thrash/doom as well, and jam packed with tons of articles. It feels really thin, but open it up and it's a bit hard to believe how many bands are covered. There's only a few pages of reviews in this first issue, instead the focus is on metal news and articles and interviews with band after band after band. On the cover, Underoath. Inside, an interview with Tom Araya of Slayer, a look at the Finnish metal / black metal scene, a history of the West Memphis Three (three kids imprisoned for supposedly murdering three local children, but more realistically imprisoned for being goth rock weirdos / individual thinkers) and an update on recent developments in the case, columns from Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and Kurt Ballou from Converge, in the studio with Norma Jean, Misery Signals and more, as well as articles about / interviews with Poison The Well, Ministry, Summoning, Rammstein, In Flames, Amorphis, Children Of Bodom, Behemoth, Cathedral, Atreyu, Sepultura, Fall Of Troy, Arch Enemy and a whole lot more.
Plus every issue will come with a cd featuring new and unreleased songs. This time around: Goatwhore, Satyricon, Misery Index, Torche, Shadows Fall, Underoath, Arch Enemy, Cattle Decapitation, Unearth, Eighteen Visions, Artimus Pyledriver and lots more.
Not bad for five bucks!

HEAVY WINGED s/t (Rural Faune) cd-r 10.98
We won't go into too much detail with this one as it was limited to 75 copies of which we got the last 20. Heavy Winged are a NY psychedelic, dronerock combo with lots of buzzing drone guitar, tribal drums, blissed out riffing, think Dead C, recent aQ faves Burnt Hills, Hawkwind, plenty of that Loop/Spacemen 3 droning riffage, lots of My Bloody Valentine shimmer, and plenty of strange and wonderful ambient guitar action, swoops and swoons, buzzing and droning, looping and squealing. Pretty fucking awesome.
Limited to 75 copies, each one hand numbered, packaged with a cool little prehistoric looking little plant frond, tied shut with a little piece of twine.
MPEG Stream: "Concrete Glass"
MPEG Stream: "Death Instinct"

HELIOS Eingya (Type) cd 15.98
For his second release under the moniker Helios Keith Kenniff (also of Goldmund) has crafted pretty gauzy post-rock instrumentals from feathery melodic wisps of guitar, keyboards and electronics set atop soothing dronescapes. Imagine an album filled with solely the hushed, delicate atmospheric passages of artists such as Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Mum, Album Leaf, and many artists on the Temporary Residence label. Really really lovely. A blissed out soother.
MPEG Stream: "First Dream Called Ocean"
MPEG Stream: " The Toy Garden"

HERBERT Scale (Accidental / !k7) cd 17.98
There are a many sides to the busy and talented Matthew Herbert. Some people know him for his more experimental outings, like last years Plat Du Jour which was an excellent political record and statement against the corporate food industry using food, coke cans, apples crunching, pigs in shit, etc. as the source material for a very adventurous and successful outing. Others know him simply as Herbert, one of the most innovative 'house' producers of the last decade. And for others his name rings most familiar for his skilled remixes for the likes of Bjork, Jamie Lidell, Soft Pink Truth, Super Fury Animals, Harold Budd, etc. In many ways Scale feels like the follow up to Bodily Functions, his 2001 album which mixed warm recordings, danceable beats, creative arrangements, and the sultry vocals of Dani Siciliani. For Scale, Herbert went all out. Whether it was recording a drummer under water, an orchestra at Abbey Road or using the sounds from fuel pumps and coffins as source material, one can listen to this record and not know any of that and just revel in its totally pleasurable overall sound. With Siciliani singing as beautifully as ever, and melodies that are so irresistible, this is that sort of smart and seductive dance record that sadly is so rare to come by these days.
MPEG Stream: "Something Isn't Right"
MPEG Stream: "The Movers & The Shakers"
MPEG Stream: "Just Once"

HERESI Psalm II - Infusco Ignis (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskopt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Liothe"
MPEG Stream: "Bevingad Och Forledd Med Horn"

HOOR-PAAR-KRAAT Asha Dasha (Goat Eater) cd-r 8.98
We hate to do this to you again, but here goes. This is a super limited (only 42 copies), gorgeously hand assembled cd-r release from the mysterious Hoor-Paar-Kraat. We only got a dozen or so, but at least that means 12 AQ customers will be among the chosen few.
Dark meandering soundscapes of creaking ambience, cavernous drones and slow burning rumble. Processed metallic clatter, whirring spacious muted murmur, occasional roars of ultra distorted feedback, drenched in FX and stretched into squirming streaks of fuzz and grit and all manner of serene drift and delicately diffused bliss.
So totally captivating. We promise next time we'll try to get ALL of them, but for now, act fast before these are snapped up.
The packaging is pretty fantastic as well. Thick textured oversized sleeves with a super wide rough edged Japanese style obi embossed with vines and ivy, a hand numbered insert with songtitles affixed to the underside, the obi attached to the sleeve with tiny black rivets, the textured paper of the sleeve artfully stained with dark watercolors, and signed by the artist. The disc too is off-white with water color splatter and is also signed by the artist. WOW!
MPEG Stream: "Purifying Order"
MPEG Stream: "Torment Of The Metal"

HOT CHIP The Warning (Astralwerks) cd 15.98
Hot Chip follow up their debut with an even more satisfying collection of smart and fun electronic pop. With a more assured yet equally creative and satisfying sound, this record seems less self-conscious and more realized than Coming On Strong. Listening to Hot Chip sort of feels like going to a disco with super sweet nerdy boys in glasses. They have no problem shaking their asses yet manage to stay sensitive and intelligent at the same time. Even at their most catchy there is something bittersweet underneath it all that makes Hot Chip such a satisfying and pleasing listen. Folks who like The Postal Service, more recent Notwist and have Daft Punk records in their collection should check this out for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Colours"
MPEG Stream: "(Just Like We) Breakdown"

HUSH ARBORS Since We Have Fallen (Harvest Recordings) lp 21.00
Quite possibly one of the nicest lp packages we have seen. Definitely top 10. Hard to even know how to describe it. You sort of have to hold int and unfold it and feel the texture and the heft. Wow. Thick textured cardstock, fastened all over with black rivets, the whole thing embossed and letterpressed with black ink, abstract designs and very classy looking calligraphy, the back is die cut about half way down, so it opens like a barn door, split down the middle, held shut by black string, once opened, it reveals the 180 gram lp nestled inside as well as still more embossed design and text. So gorgeous.
And the music is definitely deserving of such over the top extra attention. A reissue of a long out of print cd-r, Hush Arbors explore a dark murky side of their soul, a drifting cloudy otherworld of soft freefolk bliss, flecked with all manner of detuned guitars, warped melodies, creaking percussive clatter, shimmery effervescence, but with a definite ominous edge, a lo-fi Third eye Foundation recording for Siltbreeze maybe? But with more twang, and more shuffle, and more delicate dreaminess. So nice.
An essential dreamfolk / free folk / folknoise / dronetwang artifact beautifully preserved and offered up again for a very limited time.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each copy hand numbered, we got a bunch but these definitely won't last.

JESUS WITH ME s/t (Psycho-path) cd 11.98
Not sure what that band name really is all about. This ain't gospel music by a long shot! Jesus With Me was a quartet of Russian-Americans based in New York City, and this cd is a posthumous release documenting the recorded remains of their noisy, energetic, fucked-up jamming, inspired by Japanese psych, krautrock, and (perhaps) their spiritual yearnings. Thus, you get pounding drum clatter and throbbing bass rumble amid a miasmatic cloud of crazed dual guitar distortion on the two long tracks here, with some anguished screams thrown into the mix as appropriate. Imagine Acid Mothers Temple all had a really, really bad day (car towed, guitar stolen, bong busted, beard caught in zipper, lost eBay auction for Gong rarities, that kind of a day) and were trying to cathartically capture it on tape. It's loud, improvised, heavy duty psychedelic free rock freakery not far removed from, say, that Burnt Hills disc we listed a few weeks back, as per the thing we said in that review about "getting super high and diving head first into a huge pile of drums and guitars".
MPEG Stream: "Silence In The Space Of Half An Hour (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Silence In The Space Of Half An Hour (excerpt 2)"

JETT, JOAN Bad Reputation (Blackheart) cd 16.98
Ahh, the almighty reissue! They bring your old forgotten faves back into your line of vision 'n' hearing and perhaps give you those warm nostalgic fuzzies for days past. We have to admit that we seldom hear anyone proclaiming to be a big Joan Jett fan, but we know you're out there! Now's the time to celebrate 'cause we just got two of her reissues in stock ready to join her brand new full length Sinner. Bad Reputation was her second album which was originally released back in 1981, and its return had a bit of a preliminary resurfacing in 1999 when the classic title track was chosen as the opening theme music for the awesome cult tv series Freaks And Geeks a few years back. But Ms Jett has never really been that far outta earshot, has she? Still kicks the furious bad girl ass this many years later. Recently remastered and sporting a handful of bonus tracks and live footage from '82, '83 and '98. Raw rawkin' rebel grrrrrl fun.
MPEG Stream: "Bad Reputation"
MPEG Stream: "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"

JETT, JOAN AND THE BLACKHEARTS I Love Rock N' Roll (Blackheart) cd 16.98
Ahh, the almighty reissue! They bring your old forgotten faves back into your line of vision 'n' hearing and perhaps give you those warm nostalgic fuzzies for days past. We have to admit that we seldom hear anyone proclaiming to be a big Joan Jett fan, but we know you're out there! Now's the time to celebrate 'cause we just got two of her reissues in stock ready to join her brand new full length Sinner. I Love Rock N' Roll was her third album -- and first with her backing band The Blackhearts -- which was originally released back in 1981. Still kicks the furious bad girl ass this many years later. Recently remastered and sporting a handful of bonus tracks and live footage from '83 and '84. Raw rawkin' rebel grrrrrl fun.
MPEG Stream: "I Love Rock N' Roll"
MPEG Stream: "(I'm Gonna) Run Away"

KID 606 Pretty Girls Make Raves (Tigerbeat 6) cd 10.98
Kid 606 keeps up his prolific nature with another release on his Tigerbeat 6 label. This time out the tongue in cheek title gives a hint to the sounds he's brewed up on this outing. Unapologetic '90s sounding techno, with all song titles followed by a listing of the beats per minute. With most songs falling around the 120-136bpm range this is some four on the floor dance till it gets bright out again, pills be kicking in, peaking so nice, dance tracks. Rave Rave Rave. With his heart & spirit in a disco somewhere in Berlin but his body still planted in our backyard in Oakland. Wild.
MPEG Stream: "Let It Rock"
MPEG Stream: "Meet Me At The Bottom"

KRIEG / BAEL The Church / Bleeding For Him (Akedia Rekordz) picture disc 16.98
Super limited (500!) picture disc reissue of these two slabs of black brutality. One side features Bael, who spew forth an ugly, super blown out, ultra distorted black thrash, furious and so fast it often slips into a black blur (reminds us a bit of Diamatregon). Super lo-fi and recorded way too hot (in a good way), all the levels in the red, you can practically feel the evil seeping through the speakers. Originally released in 2003, features a bonus track with Imperial from Kreig on vocals! The flipside features the mighty Krieg, and it's a vinyl reissue of The Church mini cd from way back in 2001. Mega murky and also extremely lo-fi, but where Bael are blasting and blinding, Kreig are muddy and murky and mournful. Plodding midtempo depressive black metal, blasting drums over fuzzed out riffs, hateful and harsh. Also includes an exclusive bonus track, a cover of Earth's "Charioteer" which is awesome. Clean guitars picking out a majestic melody, a spare melodic dirge, meditative and hypnotic, with creepy snatches of conversation mixed in, not heavy as in huge guitars and pounding drums, but heavy like ominous and subtly dark. Cool. Weird that Nachtmystium covered the same Earth track as a bonus track on a recent cd. Hmm....
Black and white picture disc, one side is a blurry washed out photo of some ruins or old church, the other side features a creepy diseased hand.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

LADYHAWK s/t (Jagjaguwar) cd 16.98
Debut album from a Canadian band that you can be sure has a healthy collection of both indie rock and classic rock records that they hold near and dear to their hearts. Crunchy guitar and emotive vocals that echo both '70s rock a la Neil Young & Crazy Horse/CSNY, as well as indie rock luminaries like Dinosaur Jr, Will Oldham, and later era Husker Du as well as roaming some of the same territory as label-mates Black Mountain (which makes sense since some of the folks in Ladyhawk also do time in Black Mountain).
MPEG Stream: "My Old Jacknife"
MPEG Stream: "Drunk Eyes"

LAUHKEAT LAMPAAT The Most Pollo (Qbico) lp 25.00
Another mysterious transmission from some haunted forest deep in the wilds of Finland (featuring special guest, AQ fave Lau Nau). And it's everything we've come to love about our deep listening wanders through the deep dark woods. An abstract stroll through a barely there sound world, nothing but creaks and shuffles, breathing, footsteps, instrument buzz, electronic hum and random clatter. Eventually a wheezing horn makes it presence known, and is soon joined by chiming bells and muted percussion. Slowly, the sounds grow and build in volume and intensity, eventually coalescing into a massive Sunroof! like skree, replete with flurries of bells and percussion, swirling swooshing FX like wild stormy winds and mumbled distant drums. And that's just side 1. Side 2 skips around a bit from caveman freejazz with spazzy hand drums, muted percussion, grunted vocals and jazzy skronk, to an ambient symphony of creaking and keening high end very reminiscent of John Cale, to a weird buzzing raga like Eastern groove with the only discernible rhythm to be found, a droney stumbling stagger. Very cool.
Pressed on thick vinyl and packaged in a full color sleeve with killer yarn monster cover art!

LITHOPS Queries (Sonig) cd 14.98
Lithops is the alter ego of Jan St. Werner, best known for his main outfit, Mouse On Mars. It's been a few years since he's made a Lithops record and it's actually sounds quite refreshing to our ears. There was a period of time a few years ago that it seemed like one couldn't walk down the block without being bombarded by IDM records from every direction. But hearing one of the most talented fellas of said genre doing what he's always done best is kind of hitting the spot right now. Songs that slowly weave in and out of themselves, orbiting in a lucid space that drifts and wanders so nicely. While other times building up to actual beats and rhythmic moments, with some of his trademark undertones that have made his work in Mouse On Mars so memorable. One of our favorite electronic releases in quite some time!
MPEG Stream: "Wackler"
MPEG Stream: "Tenson"

MAGNET Issue 72 -- July / August 2006 magazine 3.50
We're all music nerds, and most of us love reading about records as much as we like listening to them. Reviews, interviews, articles, even looking at ads to see what new records will be coming out. And we all have our favorite magazines, whether it's the modern new music of the Wire, or metal and all things heavy and extreme covered by Terrorizer, neofree folk and jazz like in Signal To Noise, the random hipster bullshit of Vice, and then there's tons of killer zines, Oaken Throne, Salt, etc... So it's easy to forget about -that- magazine. You know the one. Solid, stalwart, distinctly indie rock, covering all the classics, and new favorites, even a handful of next big things, so simple and sturdy and reliable, it often gets overshadowed by its flashier, hipper counterparts. Kind of like the best friend in teen movies, the one who is always there for the main character, the girl that is all crushed out on the asshole football player, while the best friend, who is of course in love with here, gets forgotten and overlooked and ignored, who is is always there to mend a broken heart, offer up a hug, or some cookies, give up hundreds of reviews of the newest indie rock releases, interview loads of killer bands and... okay we're getting confused here. We're talking about Magnet, a pretty dang cool magazine that does get ignored sometimes because it's not as wild or way out or hip as some other rags, but continues to cover a pretty wide swath of indie rock and cover it well. This month, on the cover, Belle & Sebastian, and inside, articles about and interviews with Eddie Vedder, Scott Walker, TV On The Radio, Sonic Youth, Stephin Merritt, Richard Ashcroft, Mojave 3, Juana Molina, Rainer Maria, Red Krayola, Band Of Horses, World Party, Black Angels, Yo La Tengo, Danielson Famile, Sparta, Walkmen, Elf Power, Built To Spill, Okkervil River as well as a kick as history of Homestead Records. Check it out!

MARKKU LAHTELAN SIRKUS Vol. 1 (Kevyt Nostalgia) cd 13.98
This Finnish duo don't make it easy to describe their music, that's for sure -- but at least we got the magic word "Finnish" in there right off!
The very first track here, "Kun Tulet Tarpeeksi Lahelle, Muutun Perhoseksi", explores moody, cinematic, improvised post-rock textures, building to a noisy, intense climax over the course of 13 minutes. The next, "Nurin Lentaa Lintu", is more of a droning electronic soundscape, abruptly joined by primitive percussion and guitar freakery. Some of the other tracks are even more abstract and ambient, constructed of hiss and crackle, cello and cassette sound collage. Or at one moment this will be all placid and mellow, maybe acoustic guitar and bongos to the fore, before switching with the next track to a weird percolating proggy funky free jazzy thing. A diverse success, and quite carefully crafted/edited, it seems. Fans of other weirdness from Finland (like Avarus and Doktor Kettu) and elsewhere for that matter should check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Kun Tulet Tarpeeksi Lahelle, Muutun Perhoseksi"
MPEG Stream: "Vimikoynnoksen Tytar"

MARZURAAN / SINK split (Thrashwax) 7" 7.98
The return of UK sludgelords Marzuraan, squaring off against the simply monickered Sink.
Those of you unfamiliar with the dark black sludge of Marzuraan would do well to become acquainted, especially if you have a taste for things like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, SUNNO))), Monument of Urns, Monarch and the like. This is maybe the best Marzuraan track yet. Speeding up their tarpit sludge just a smidge so they end up sounding here like Dutch hypnometallers Gore at 16 rpm. Fucking awesome. A whole record of this would instantly become our most listened to disc of the year, mark our words. The flipside is taken up by the noxious black noise of Sink, a swirling, sludgy wall of hissing fuzzed out blackened ultra noise, harsh and horrific, a good foil to the slow motion sludge drenched groove of the Marzuraan track.
Limited to 333 copies, half on clear vinyl (we got all clear vinyl!) comes with a big fold out poster, and packaged in a thick cardstock, striking two color screened sleeve!

MORD Christendom Perished (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Yay, more quality black metal from those connoisseurs of corpse-painted cultishness at the Southern Lord label! We and they are usually in excited agreement about the good stuff, as underground BM goes, and Polish (living in Norway) duo Mord are no exception. Fierce, brutal, and deathly, this one's for those who like the fast faster and more fasterer style of bands like Marduk, Gorgoroth and 1349. They're in such a hurry that they've dispensed with song titles, the tracks here are just labeled "Opus I" through "Opus IX" (skipping "Opus VIII" for some reason we don't know). And pretty much each one of these speedy paroxysms of christ-hating grimnity is adorned with a slightly WTF? guitar lick, pay-attention tempo change or electronic fx embellishment that will occasionally have you interrupting your headbanging frenzy to stare at your stereo and go "cool!".
Also, something we mentioned a couple years back when Southern Lord put out a Mord 7": their drummer is named Necrolucas. We love that. The hypothetical AQ house black metal band will feature Necroandee, or maybe Necrocup, in tribute.
MPEG Stream: "Opus I"
MPEG Stream: "Opus II"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT / KENOMA Split (Translation Loss) cd 12.98
New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
MPEG Stream: MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT "Sleepwalk Powder"
MPEG Stream: KENOMA "The Nature Of Empire"

MUELLER, JON & JIM SCHOENECKER The Interview (Longbox) cd-r 9.98
Jon Mueller's career as a percussionist began in the early '90s after studying jazz with Hal Russell and steadily marching into the territory of avant-garde improvisation. One of the many projects Mueller has embarked upon is the Collection of Colonies of Bees, which also features Jim Schoenecker, Mueller's partner in crime for The Interview. With a cyclical build of scraping cymbal sonorities, Mueller is the one to speak first, which perhaps makes him the interviewer and Schoenecker the interviewee as he responds with a series of tinnitus-inducing set of tones. The gravitational pull of minimalism is only so strong on The Interview, as the glistening drones and delicate scrapes from the two musicians continuously detour after abrupt changes and erratic sinewave tweakings. Mueller and Schoenecker steadily build the muffled tappings, low-end throbbing phase patterns, and shattered piercings into a detached, cold crescendo of shortwired electronics before collapsing into a restrained fizzing of activity. Phew.
MPEG Stream: "The Interview (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "The Interview (excerpt 2)"

NETHER DAWN, THE / 1/3 OCTAVE BAND Live At Sound & Fury (Sound & Fury) cd-r 12.98
Another killer (and super limited, argh) release from Sound & Fury, a killer record store / label in Australia, who recently decided to close down the shop, but will continue to book tours, have shows and release records, lucky for us! This disc is a live to minidisc recording from a massive New Zealand freenoise show featuring a who's who of AQ faves and kick ass NZ underground legends: Birchville Cat Motel, 6Majik9, James Kirk from Sandoz Lab Technicians, and of course the Nether Dawn and 1/3 Octave band.
The Nether Dawn are Antony Milton (PseudoArcana, Mrtyu, etc.) and AQ pal Jon Dale, who teamed up for this 15+ minute set of soaring ur-drone and dense thick hum and shimmer. Big low pulses of sound tangled up with sparkling high end, glistening melodies and mumbled heavily affected vocals. A blast of cosmic space out along the same lines as Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! and the like but with a softer, more dreamlike focus. Nice.
1/3 Octave Band follow up with their own lengthy jam, a near 17 minute slab of chiming metal, clanging percussion, super reverbed pipefight, little swirls of high end feedback, reverberating chimes, and a soft shimmery skree, that about halfway sort of slow down and stretch out, into a languid, sunbaked guitar/electronics free jam drift. A shimmering cascading flow of warm reverberant chords, flickering feedback, and subtle but distinct minor key melancholia. So nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, WE GOT THE LAST 25 OR SO. Packaged in really nice brown paper, sealed with a black stamped wax seal, each copy hand numbered with a printed inner sleeve and a unique full color, actual photo.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

OHSEES, THE (OCS) Grave Blockers EP (Rock Is Hell) 6"vinyl + 3"cd 21.00
FINAL COPIES!! AND THEN THESE ARE GONE FOREVER!!
We're not going to go into too much detail with this as it is limited to 51 copies of which we managed to snag a whopping 15! So act fast. This is indeed pricey but it sure is cool (and remember only 51 copies IN THE WORLD!). Ohsees is the new spelling for OCS which is the one and only John Dwyer (Coachwhips, Pink And Brown, Dig That Body Up It's Alive, etc) and features a 6" lathe cut, with two tracks recorded in NY, and a teensy little 3" cd-r featuring 6 tracks recorded at home. Ohsees are a strange bunch, and this set is no different, from soft abstract folk, to dreamy drones, to squalls of noisy weirdness, all weird and wonderful and so good. Packaged in an oversized pink and black sleeve, 3" cd affixed to the inside, amidst the liner notes, 6" lathe cut in its own sleeve, each one hand numbered. These will be gone before you can blink. Sorry.

ORGANORGANORGANORGAN s/t (Seedy R! / PseudoArcana) cd-r 12.98
We just got a batch of new cd-r's from a new label called Seedy R!, a sub label of the already kick ass PsuedoArcana label run by Antony Milton. The Van The Van, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this curiously titled disc.
Organorganorganorgan is exactly what you might imagine, 4 organs. Played by Sam Hamilton, Stefan Neville, Campbell Kneale and Antony Milton. Recorded live at a NZ art gallery, these chaps plugged in their fan driven chord organs, and proceeded to unfurl an expansive tapestry of whirs and warbles and wheezes, rich and dense. Slow shifting layers of epic warm sound. A half hour of thick slithery shimmery drone, wreathed in a cloud of subtle overtones and muted melody. So nice. Palestine, Sunroof!, Nitsch, Gurdjieff, and other masters of the extended organ drone... you get the idea.
Packaged in a brown paper sleeve, with a hand stamped 'R' on one side, and a killer psychedelic illustration of four madmen wildly abusing their .. ahem.. organs, on the other.
MPEG Stream: "One"

OTOMO YOSHIHIDE / BILL LASWELL / YOSHIDA TATSUYA Episome (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Yes, Otomo Yoshihide (Ground Zero, etc.) + Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins, etc.) + Bill Laswell (Painkiller, etc.), that's right! A trio sure to intrigue any avant-Japanophile or Tzadik label lover. In fact, lots of folks will probably buy this on the strength of just one or two of those names alone, and why shouldn't they?
Otomo fans will be interested to know that his instrument here is the electric guitar, not the turntables for which he is better known, and he wields his axe with much muscle on Episome's five long tracks, which give free reign to Yoshida's limber drumming, Laswell's liquid low-end, and Otomo's slashing, slow-burn six-string. It's powerful, confident and moody amped-up improv from these three skilled vets.
MPEG Stream: "Fudge"
MPEG Stream: "Substantiality"

PELICAN Australasia (Interloper / Hydra Head) 2lp 17.98
Now (again) on vinyl...while it lasts! Here's our review of this, the 2003 release from big and getting bigger indie-metal heroes Pelican:
Chicago instru-metallers Pelican are back, with the full-length follow up to their brilliant "Untitled" debut ep. Like that disc, this is almost the perfect blend of heaviness (METAL heaviness, to be precise) and post-rock. There's prettiness and precision, darkness and dynamics. From slow and powerful downer grooves to mellow melodic interludes to rapidly riffing, sheer super heavy metal, could Pelican do it any better? There's even one track where they've got a guy playing the singing saw. It's freakin' beautiful. Influenced by epic black metal, academic minimalist throb, psychedelic Floydian rock, and the post-rock of their hometown (among much else) these guys have shaped their band into contenders for the avant-stoner throne, positioning themselves somewhere between Mogwai and Melvins, with some flashes of Morbid Angel. Or, imagine the Growing's The Sky's Run Into the Sea album (AQ Record of the Week back in September 2003 you'll recall) as performed by The Fucking Champs! It has the oceanic warmth of Growing's droning heaviness lashed to some more mathy, metallic constructions. Our customers who love all things heavy (Isis, Boris, Gore, 5ive, Tarantula Hawk, Dead Meadow, etc.) and who have a soft spot for spacier, sleepier stuff too should dig these six tracks for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Drought"
MPEG Stream: "(no title)"

PIPETTES, THE Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me (Memphis Industries) cd single 7.98
Stomp stomp stomp your feet! Clap clap clap your hands! There's another great group joining the rest of the pep squads on the pop playing field! For the first and title track of this 2-song cd UK gals The Pipettes come bursting forth with the most exuberant of pop ditties. What sets them apart from other current bouyant groups such as The Go Team and Tra La La are the sweet '60s girl group styled vocals. So delicious! You might've caught a glimpse of The Pipettes on the recent Rough Trade Shops Counter Culture 2005 compilation, but these fleeting encounters are simply not enough. More please!
MPEG Stream: "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me"

PORT O'BRIEN When The Rain Comes (self-released) cd 8.98
On the opening track of their debut album When The Rain Comes, Oaklanders Port O'Brien struck us as being quite vocally reminiscent of the frailty of This Heat (particularly their vocals in "Fall Of Saigon" from their self-titled album). From there though mainman Van Pierzalowski keeps things much more in a straightforward rough-hewn folkiness mode that in turn brings to mind early Bright Eyes. Some rousing whistlin' and hollerin' embellish the tune "Split" which is followed by the ultra hushed delicate number "Dance With Our Ashes". Nice.
MPEG Stream: "Two Suns"
MPEG Stream: "Split"

RACCOO-OO-OON The Cave Of Spirits Forever (Time-Lag) cd 14.98
Probably the best part of this record has been getting to hear Allan pronounce it exactly how it looks. "Hey Andee, did we get more of those Raccoo - Oo - Oon cds?" "I'm sorry which ones did you say?" "You know, the Raccoo - Oo - Oon cds!" Hee Hee.
Okay, maybe that's the -second- best thing, cuz you know what? This disc is pretty dang kick ass. We get so used to all these labels doing cd-r's and limited run cd's and lathe cuts of dark and droney dreaminess, soft folkiness, it's easy to forget that there's a whole underground of ROCK. And that lots of these dreamy folk rockers can actually rock. And on the first track here, Raccoo-Oo-Oon do indeed ROCK, albeit a tweaked and twisted sort of rock.
It's a sweaty, snarling, slithering chunk or rawk, barbed blasts of pounding angular new wave garagestomp, fuzzy. murky production, a clattering kitchen sink drum kit, super blown out, scrabbly psych guitar and howled crazyman vocals. Like the Make-Up if they had been attacked by an actual raccoon with rabies, and then forced to play anyway, twitching and frothing at the mouth.
But the rock then dissipate, as if Raccoo-Oo-Oon got it out of their system, at least for the most part. The next track is a weird lo-fi jazzy shuffle, with a warm horn melody, big simple drumming, like a free folk / free jazz mashup. The next track takes off in yet another direction entirely, a blown out guitarscape, drenched in sun dappled reverb and sizzling cymbal shimmer, so dreamy and drifty. The rest of the tracks sort of meander and wander, through sunny meadows, and shaded woods, fluttering flutes, shimmering guitars, warm wheezing organs, drifting horns, occasionally little fragments of that opening rock song resurface, a brief blast of super punishing riffing, only to be quickly dragged back down and picked apart, the various bits and pieces reincorporated into the dreamlike sound, spread out and stretched into more and more layers of sound, tripped out, schizophrenic, psychedelic and pretty fucking great!
Gorgeously packaged like everything on Time-Lag, this time in a deluxe 3 panel, hand screened sleeve, and a REAL cd, not a cd-r, but still limited, of course.
MPEG Stream: "Cave Of Spirits"
MPEG Stream: "Under The Deck"

RACONTEURS, THE Broken Boy Soldiers (V2) cd 14.98
We hardly need to write anything about this disc, as it's a band that features the White Stripes' Jack White. For most folks that seems to be enough. If you've even glanced at Rolling Stone or Spin or any music video channel, you're probably sick to death of this band already, without hearing note one. And White has been ubiquitous in publications like Star and Us Weekly, his breakups and dating habits, right there alongside Brad and Angelina, Vince and Jen, and all the baby Apples and Shiloh's. But all that stuff serves to do is to distract from what is in fact a fucking killer pop record. And while White's voice features prominently, as do his songwriting and guitar playing, all completely killer by the way, this record is all about his bandmate Brendan Benson and his perfect pop pen. This is no White Stripes side project, instead this sounds more like the latest and greatest Brendan Benson record, that just so happens to feature Jack White. Benson has been making perfect pop records for years, quietly outdoing all of his pop rivals. Benson's One Mississippi is probably one of the greatest pop records you never heard. As was the follow up Lapalco. Benson's got a killer voice, a great ear for melody, and a seemingly effortless knack for spitting out ultra perfect pop, but with plenty of loud guitars. An unsung power pop hero for sure. So it's a bit sad that it takes teaming up with his longtime pal White to get heard by more than a handful of indie pop hipsters, but so be it. And the fact is that the combination of White's voice and guitar teamed up with Benson's is pretty much unbeatable.
This record is great. Ignore all the press bullshit, all the photo shoots and all the hype and just dig in. The opener, "Steady As She Goes" might just be the pop song of the year (and peep the killer video featuring the band racing soapbox derby style featuring Pee Wee Herman as a nefarious race saboteur!). Awesome harmonies, strange studio FX, crunchy guitars, all wrapped around a hook that will get stuck in your head FOREVER. The rest of the record, while never quite reaching the pop perfection of the opening track, is still pretty dang great. Leaning strangely toward some lost seventies radio rock, a hard rockin' pop sound, Zeppelin III, Steve Miller Band, Beatles, etc., but with a serious hard pop sheen. Fans of the Posies, Sloan, Silver Sun, Apples In Stereo and all things glistening Beatles-esque Big Star-ish, big guitar, soaring harmony, foot stomping, hand clapping, kick ass power pop!!
MPEG Stream: "Steady As She Goes"
MPEG Stream: "Hands"

RADIO 4 Enemies Like This (Astralwerks) cd 14.98
On Enemies Like This, the Radio 4 boys continue their remarkable hybrid reincarnation of The Clash and Gang Of Four for the hip NYC party set. After the somewhat disappointing last album Stealing Of A Nation back in 2004, they get a little closer to the punchy sound of their 2002 DFA produced album Gotham -- that was a match made in dance-punk heaven. This album was appropriately and deftly produced by Jagz Kooner (who's that?! the producer for sleek dance-rockers Kasabian and Primal Scream), the guitars are full and sinewy, the vocals are sneeringly present with lots of hooky lines, the drums smart like the snap of a tight elastic waistband and the bass maintains a deep dub-inflected grooviness. No, not original, but very catchy and well done.
MPEG Stream: "Too Much To Ask For"
MPEG Stream: "Grass Is Greener"

REHTAF RUO Boiled In Goat Blood (Demonolatry) cd 13.98
THIS BIZARRE SLAB OF BLACKNESS FINALLY BACK IN STOCK!!
A customer recommended we check out Rehtaf Ruo (Our Father backwards, how very evil!) describing them as more insane and out there sounding than Benighted Leams. Well, we could hardly resist after that! Happy to report that Boiled In Goat Blood is indeed quite possibly (one of) the weirdest, most fucked up black metal records we have ever heard. And that's assuming you could even classify this as black metal. It's so bizarre it's a bit hard to describe. We were a little cautious throwing this on, the first track was a haunting and creepy slow motion drone, obviously an introduction, but black and ominous enough. Then the record proper started and we were floored, blown away by the sheer musical perversity on display, so damaged and abstract, and so goddamn scary sounding, it really couldn't be more black. The riffs are so lo-fi and so murky, they don't even sound like guitars, more like fuzzy drones, not like Burzum fuzzy, but completely indistinct smears of sound, and the drums are right down there with the guitars, barely audible, except for the occasional REALLY LOUD burst of impossibly fast double kick drum that sounds like a jackhammer or a woodpecker, very static and industrial. But it's the vocals that define Rehtaf Ruo, from a harsh hoarse growl, to a super affected hellish gargle, to a burping grunt, the vocals are SO FUCKING FRIGHTENING. Way more evil than most BM frontmen, it helps that the vocals are WAY louder than the music, their only competition those bursts of spastic double kick, or the occasional very evil Rigor Sardonicous style trash can lid cymbal crash. There are some intensely bizarre moments of abstraction, a track that sounds like a more black metal Jacula, some murky martial percussion beneath raspy invocations, super sudden fade outs, chiming church bells, some creepy ambient soundscapes made from guitars so distorted they crumble into what sounds like radio static, strange looped freakouts that sound like a more fucked up Jeck or Basinski, or even recent AQ faves WOLD, grizzled guitar clang and the sounds of chains against stone, and of course some ridiculously anguished vocal torture. The final track is a massive ten plus minute horrorscape, of super processed drums, wild hysterical vocalizing, clattery dungeon percussion, moaning minor key melodies, but to get there, you'll have to crawl on your hands and knees, bloodied and blackened, through a field of fire and broken glass, corpses and barbed wire and some of the weirdest black metal EVER.
MPEG Stream: "Churchburner"
MPEG Stream: "Cold Black Occultism"

REPLACEMENTS, THE Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? - The Best Of The Replacements (Sire) cd 17.98
What's weird is there was a double disc greatest hits compilation released back in 1997, featuring a disc of classics, and a disc of random covers and what not. But what the hell, every decade or so it's probably good to look back, and remind all the young punks that the Replacements still totally rule! These guys truly had the goods, and if the new songs included here are any indication, still do. From record one, the Mats were totally one of the greatest band ever. Punk as fuck, wild and drunken, some shows perfect, some shows embarrassing debacles, every song a stone cold killer. Hook filled and heartbreaking. Epic and fist pumping, head banging, beer drinking perfect rock and roll. In the nineties every single mixtape ever made was required by law to feature at least one Replacements song. Okay, that's not really true, but it sure as hell should be. Lord knows we put "Answering Machine" on pretty much every mix tape we made.
This is definitely for newbies only (or obsessives who need the new tracks). Pretty much every record up until Pleased To Meet Me is a must own, and even Don't Tell A Soul has a handful of great tracks. But this is definitely a killer introduction, or an awesome ready made mix cd if you're too lazy to make your own. From the blistering pissed off punk of "Kids Don't Follow" complete with a recording of cops breaking up an early Mats gig (listen close and you can hear a teenage Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum yelling "FUCK YOU MAN!") to the lilting heartache of "Skyway" to the bad ass rock of "Bastards Of Young" to the heartbreaking emo misery of "Answering Machine" to the perfect pop of "Alex Chilton", hard to go wrong. This record should definitely have the intended effect of making you want to own every sing one of the records that these tracks were culled from. If not, well then you have no heart, you are just some sort of jaded rock and roll casualty. But maybe, these tracks will get your blood pumping and renew your love of pure and primal RAWK. It does that to us every time.
So in case there's any question, yes, you get all the ol' Placemats faves like "Unsatisfied", "Left Of The Dial", "Alex Chilton" and "I'll Be You". Quadruple yay!! And the new tunes are pretty dang good too. Considering how weak the last few Replacements records were, these two tracks kick serious ass, especially the super rocking "Message To The Boys" sounding like it could have been a Pleased To Meet Me b-side.
Absolutely and totally essential (at least until you get your ass in gear and get all the records proper)!
MPEG Stream: "Kids Don't Follow"
MPEG Stream: "Answering Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Bastards Of Young"
MPEG Stream: "Alex Chilton"

SCORCH TRIO Luggumt (Rune Grammofon) 2lp 27.00
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Such a good name for this band! At least right from the get-go with the slash and burn 12-minute opening track it sure seems appropriate. That's some searing and scorching electric guitar there! The album closes with another double-digit epic as well, and in between the trio of guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim, bassist Haker Flaten and percussionist Paal Nilsen-Love do let up and explore a variety of grooves and moods, from ominous textural soundscaping, to roiling slide workouts, to y'know, burbling sorta melodic stuff that might pass for 'jazz' of the highball-in-hand, nightclub variety. Although, the electric element of about-to-explode skronk always seems just under the surface. Fans of Nels Cline's various bands know the feeling, and ought to enjoy Bjorkenheim and co.'s own, similar brand of 'dangerous' electric jazz... Heck the type of AQ customer for whom names like Cline, Sharrock, Russell, McLaughlin, Takayanagi, and the like mean something (and occupy a portion of their record collection) stand a good chance of being quite happy if they give this a listen. All of those are all individually quite different of course but it's that rock-aware, energetic and amplified style of electric guitar improv (with dense guitar/bass/drums interplay) that this fits right in with, y'know.
MPEG Stream: "Kjole Hole"
MPEG Stream: "Furskunjt"

SEHT Federacy Boot (PseudoArcana) cd-r 12.98
Latest cd-r from NZ sound sculptor Stephen Clover otherwise known as Seht. Three tracks, nearly an hour of soft sonic sweetness, warm beds of barely there glitch and click underpin thick rich billowy clouds of cotton candy like organ drones, airy and slowly shifting and overlapping, melodies ghostlike and nearly transparent. Occasionally the organ drifts off leaving a strange hissing minimal fuzz, dense and rife with subtle rhythm and not quite melodies, like some muted guitar riff pulled apart and spread out into a delicate gauze. Or like an alien insect buzzing out some simple message, expressing itself in subtle shades of grey. The final half hour track begins as soft swell of keening high end trill before dispensing with the subtle shadings altogether, allowing the organ to step forward and offer up huge thick swirls of sound, still peppered with subtle glitches and unlikely hiccups and jumpcuts, this is like some epic Charlemagne Palestine jam, but played through a PA with faulty wiring, a stuttery soundscape of warm organ melody and implied rhythmic interference. So cool.
MPEG Stream: "Old Feet Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "Old Feet Pt. 2"

SENOR COCONUT Yellow Fever (Essay Recordings) cd 16.98
A German electronic artist living in Chile doing samba versions of Japanese electro-pop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra. Well it would only sound absurd if it were anyone else but the ever so loveable Senor Coconut. With him, it's a no brainer. After paying homage to Kraftwerk on the now classic and sadly out of print disc El Baile Aleman, and exploring all sorts of covers on his instant party hit "Fiesta Songs". This carries on in the same fun samba-with-a-twist spirit of those recordings while actually featuring all three members of Yellow Magic Orchestra at different points throughout the record. Also making appearances are members of Mouse on Mars, Dee-Lite and Nouvelle Vague. Senor Coconut has proven himself to be some sort of a hipster Les Baxter for his generation. Appropriating other musical cultures, with tongue in cheek and earnest respect living side by side. Most of all he continues to provide some playful fun to a world that is often all too serious for its own good.
MPEG Stream: "Yellow Magic"
MPEG Stream: "The Madmen"

SMOG Rock Bottom Riser (Drag City) cd ep 5.98
If your copy of Smog's last full length A River Ain't Too Much To Love has gotten buried beneath the year's worth of cds that followed it, this cdep brings two of that album's songs back to the top of the stack in new even more achingly beautiful versions including one of the album's best, suitably the title track here. Ahh, such deep velvety melancholia! To sweeten the deal even further there's a couple of previously unreleased, non-LP tracks and a video for "Rock Bottom Riser".
MPEG Stream: "Rock Bottom Riser"
MPEG Stream: "Bowery"

SOIL SING THROUGH ME (Manhand) cd-r 8.98
FEATHERS and SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN! Not much else to say. Especially since we only managed to get about a dozen of these, and as with all SHOTM related releases, it's very likely we will never see these again. So if you do want one, be quick on the buzzer or be prepared to be disappointed.
Soil Sing Through Me is a wild whirring improvised abstract free for all collaboration between folks from both of these two underground outfits. The sound seems to fall much closer to the Sunburned end of the spectrum, with huge freeform dirges, wild Dead C like drumming, layers of whirring distortion and amp buzz and gritty reverb. Sonically, this definitely sounds like some lost release from NZ, some unreleased Xpressway cassette, Dead C, Trash, Gate, This Kind Of Punishment, A Handful Of Dust, a whirling suffocating skree, a dense drone dripping freerock space jam, psychedelic and totally mind melting. AWESOME!
Packaged in a super trippy, massive psychedelic fold out poster.
And again, only about a dozen of these, so odds are these will be gone before you can blink...
MPEG Stream: "Four Hands Carveed The Figure With Four Breasts"
MPEG Stream: "Sick Mothers"

SPIDERWEBS Away Away (Jyrk) cd-r 5.98
Spiderwebs is Tom Carter (of Charalambides) and Sandy Ewen (of Weird Weeds) both on guitar, and kicking up a druggy psychedelic skree, maybe the heaviest freakout on either of these guitar slingers' resumes up to this point. Huge staticky squalls of grumbly guitar, wrapped in gauzy sheets of feedback. Like someone grated up a huge chunk of vintage Hawkwind and a weighty slab of classic Sunroof! and then sprinkled it liberally all over New Weird America. Equal parts noisy and lovely. A blissed out blown out psych guitar drone duel to the death.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES AND ALREADY OUT OF PRINT, SO THESE ARE THE LAST 15 OR SO COPIES EVER!!!
MPEG Stream: "Away Away One"
MPEG Stream: "Away Away Two"

SPIDERWEBS / MIKE TAMBOURO AND MATTHEW MCDOWELL / KEENAN LAWLER Strands Formerly Braided (Music Fellowship) cd 14.98
A gorgeous slab of blissfolk improv from these free folk underground dreamweavers. Three separate tracks from 3 likeminded ensembles. First up, Spiderwebs (Tom Carter (of Charalambides) and Sandy Ewen (of Weird Weeds)), offer up a glistening ambience, spacious and hushed with chiming harmonics and slowly unfurling melodies, soft and shimmery, spaced out slow drifting soundscapes of keening guitar swells and crystalline abstraction, haunting drones floating and fluttering, melodies whirling like tiny dustdevils, so lovely. Next up is Mike Tambouro And Matthew McDowell who spin a dense web of strange electronic sound and warm whirring guitar, swells and swirls of moaning bells soft slow drones, a deep pool of sonic shimmer beneath lonely back porch strum and twang. A drone drenched, mysterious Appalachia. Finally, Keenan Lawler lets lengthy buzzing guitar lines sprawl loosely across super spare soundfield, each note, each chord, sliding and bombinating, raga like buzz and loping abstract country twang, loose and skeletal, haunting and otherworldly. Another amazing installment in the Music Fellowship's Triptych series!
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

STERBEND Dwelling Lifeless (No Colours) cd 15.98
The thing that usually makes a band stand out. REALLY stand out. Is the vocalist. It can make or break a band. A mediocre band can become great the minute a singer opens his mouth. But that same moment can just as easily send us diving for the eject button. In black metal vocals rarely make or break the band, as the sonic breadth is quite narrow, growling monster like grunts or shrill demonic shrieks. Or maybe somewhere in between. But a black metal vocalist CAN send a band spiralling into bizarre baffling outsider metal territory, and those are often the bands that we find ourselves digging the most. There's the Ethel Merman like croon of Urfaust, the atonal tuneless Jandekian warble of Circle Of Ouroborus, the anguished shriek of Weakling, the sorrowful over the top wailing of Silencer or early Bethlehem. ALl of these bands are great, but what makes them REALLY great is their abstract off kilter demented approach to the vocals. Thus we have Sterbend. The music is awesome, a blurry Burzumic buzz, midtempo, a moody black blur, relentless simple drumming, huge washes of melancholic keyboards, buzz and buzz and more buzz all over everything. But it's the vocalists that push this WAY into the world of damaged demented whatthefuck black metal. A howling anguished agonized scream, squeal, shriek, hard to know what to call it, take the high pitched wail of Weakling, mix it with the over the top caterwaul of early Bethlehem mix in some shrieking terrified teenager a la Bathtub Shitter, and then up the hysterical level a hundred fold, and now we're talking. Wild and insane and so creepy and fucked up sounding. It's so completely over the top it almost sounds truly terrifying. Track three is the ultimate demonstration of the vocals dedication, opening with a symphony of screams, the vocalist's multi-tracked shrieks of anguish colliding and mixing and swirling into an ear splitting head spinning frightful cacophony before the dirgey black metal buzz kicks in. Woah. Pam thinks it sounds like some fucked up county fair Haunted House, and it sort of does, but the sort of haunted house you never come out of alive!!!! Weird and wacked. And really amazing.
For a limited time we have the super limited, hand numbered (500 copies) silver silkscreened solid black jewel case version. Once those are gone it's back to the rregular jewel case version with you!
MPEG Stream: "Depressing Paths Through Fullmoon Forests"
MPEG Stream: "Einsamfeit"

STILL FLYIN' Time Wrinkles On (Antenna Farm) cd 8.98
Who'd expect a big bunch of pasty Bay Area indie rockers to form a reggae group? You'd probably be a bit suspicious of their intent, wouldn't ya? But Still Flyin' are without an ounce of irony. There's simply no room for it when there's such a truckload of genuine enthusiasm for the music. Yes, it's quite a surprising turn of events, innit? They frolic on the bright sunny side of reggae with lots of buoyant melodies and exuberant vocals. This is fun, feel-good music with not a cloud in the sky. Their good time van seats over a dozen including frontman Sean Rawls, Brian Girgus (Trackstar, Lowercase), Yoshi Nakamoto (Aisler's Set) and it used to include Wyatt Cusick (Trackstar, Aisler's Set) too before he moved to the distant shores of Scandinavia.
MPEG Stream: "Rope Burn"
MPEG Stream: " Coupla Smokes"

SUBMARINE RACES s/t (In The Red) cd 13.98
This Chicago threesome (led by Ian Adams formerly of The Ponys) are doin' their darndest to bring back the delightful, syrupy, squishy sounds of '80s twee popsters who did their best to bring back the delightful, syrupy, squishy sounds of '60s sugar pop. Lots of super jangly guitars, cute organ bits and bashful boy vocals. Psst, there's a cover of Neil Diamond's terrific pop tune "The Boat That I Row" near the end of the cd that's well worth stickin' around for. Ahoy there, perky goodness that's maybe more suited for pajama parties than submarine races! Smooch!
MPEG Stream: "Get Yourself Together"
MPEG Stream: "The Boat That I Row"

SWEET, MATTHEW Girlfriend (Volcano / Legacy) 2cd 23.00
During the years 1990 through 1993 there was a burst of absolutely incredible pop music. A few in particular come to mind: The Posies' Frosting On The Beater, Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, Velvet Crush's In The Presence Of Greatness, Redd Kross' Third Eye and this one by Matthew Sweet. Oh yes, our love for these albums is like an everlasting gobstopper.
The seeming direct descendent of Big Star, The Raspberries and America, Mr. Sweet's Girlfriend is filled with ache in your heart, heart on your sleeve, lump in your throat pop at its best. Power pop that is. Big guitars, huge choruses, amazing harmonies, and hooks galore. There is probably not a person alive who doesn't immediately recognize the intro to "I've Been Waiting" or the chorus to "Girlfriend". This was the sort of pop music that oozed emo before emo was cool! The other interesting thing about Sweet's Girlfriend was the backing band, featuring two very un-pop players, Robert Quine (Richard Hell & The Voidoids) and Richard Lloyd (Television) who gave the record some punky punch and added all sorts of unlikely guitar parts, which helped make Girlfriend so much more than just another commercial pop record. The band also featured some other equally unlikely contributions from folks who played with K.D. Lang, Velvet Crush, Scritti Politti, and Material as well as Mr. Lloyd Cole himself.
This swank reissue comes packaged in a deluxe double digipak with a slipcover and tons of photos and liner notes as well as a whole extra disc, featuring the companion to Girlfriend, Goodfriend, a disc of home demos, alternate versions, as well as killer covers of Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" and John Lennon's "Isolation". Awesome!
MPEG Stream: "I've Been Waiting"
MPEG Stream: "Girlfriend"

TAUSSIG, HARRY Fate Is Only Once (Tompkins Square) cd 14.98
The Tompkins Square label who puts out the Imaginational Anthem compilations (volume 2 of which is reviewed elsewhere on this list), has reissued the 1965 sole private press record of finger-picking guitarist Harry Taussig. A contemporary of John Fahey and Robbie Basho (Taussig's only other recording is on a 1967 Takoma label compilation featuring both Fahey and Basho), Taussig's repertoire explores blues, ragtime and Americana, covering songs from Reverend Gary Davis and Elizabeth Cotten as well as other traditional songs. Comparisons to Fahey will of course abound, but there are definite differences in their playing styles. Most notably Taussig's exploration of stark ragtime idioms and stricter adherence to songforms, leaving less room for the excursionary meditations that Fahey fostered.
While this reissue is remastered with original liner notes and photos, our only complaint about it is the lack of Taussig's back story. What happened to him? Is he still alive? Perhaps the mystery is what the title eludes to. Fate is Only Once.
MPEG Stream: "Blues For Zone VII"
MPEG Stream: "Dorian Sonata"

VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR Still Life (Virgin / EMI) cd 16.98
Ok, here's another one for ya from the nice new reissue series of albums by these '70s prog faves of ours, Van Der Graaf Generator. We're trying to list 'em all (eventually) just 'cause we think if you like prog or really any sort of unusual, emotional rock music you should at least give VDGG a try. If you make it to the end of the 12+ minute "Childlike Faith In Childhood's End" on this album, for instance, chances are you will be a convert! We'll admit they might be a bit of an acquired taste, 'cause VDGG are darker and weirder than the general run of classic British prog a la Yes and Genesis and even (closest comparison) King Crimson. And even if you're down with the "usual" blend of epic length songs, pastoral pop, symphonic keyboards, virtuosic playing, and complex compositions, with VDGG you've also gotta handle a good deal of saxophone and the exceedingly dramatic vocal stylings of singer Peter Hammill. So you've been warned. But if you shop at AQ you probably like a challenge!
The prog rock juggernaut known as Still Life was VDGG's sixth album, dating from 1976 (during the band's second-wind peak era in the mid-'70s) and is full of all the poetry and pain you should expect from a classic VDGG album, all the grand melody and raw fist-clenched vocal monologues, the extremes of gentleness and angsty intensity... yes indeed a fine place to plunge into the VDGG oeuvre if you haven't already.
It's hard to explain, but as much as we love the flash and fantasy of other prog bands, like ELP for instance, VDGG are just the more psychological, serious artists.
This reissue comes remastered, with copious liner notes and printed lyrics and a previously released bonus track -- "Gog" (10:26) recorded live in Wales in '75.
MPEG Stream: "Pilgrims"
MPEG Stream: "La Rossa"

VAN THE VAN Road To Kyogle (Seedy R! / PseudoArcana) cd-r 12.98
The launch of yet another cd-r label, this one, cleverly titled Seedy R!, is a sub label of the already kick ass PseudoArcana label run by Antony Milton. This disc is supposedly the result of a van trip up the Eastern coast of Australia, in one tiny van, packed to the rafters with Milton as well as the dronepsychrock band 6Majik9, and of course musical instruments, fast food containers, dirty clothes, sleeping bags, lots of pot, and most importantly, a tape recorder!
The result is an abstract lo-fi tribal jam, a stripped down Wicker Man on wheels, a Sunburned No Neck road trip, the air thick with smoke, as well as dense swirls of keening snakecharmer like melody, detuned guitar scrabble, tin can percussion, fuzzy kazooscapes, long dreamy drones, but instead of any sort of effects, the entire recording session is swathed in that immediately recognizable 'driving-down-the-road-with-the-windows-wide-open' sound, a natural delaychorusreverbdistortion, that adds a fuzzy hiss and a whipping whir to these skeletal psych jams. Pretty dang cool.
Packaged in a brown paper sleeve, with a hand stamped 'R' on one side, and a map of said van journey on the other.
MPEG Stream: "Marrakesh"
MPEG Stream: "Highway Passin'"
MPEG Stream: "What Is This?"

VOADKA SOAP Un Chand Pyramdelier (self released) cd-r 9.98
Final pressing of this super limited tour cd-r from Spencer of the Skaters. We only managed to get a handful of these, so act fast, they'll be gone if you blink.
Those of you familiar with the Skaters, already know they are masters of the free floating murk, clattery chaos harnessed into dense smears of sound.
Spencer by himself doesn't stray that far from the Skaters' sound. Maybe adding more texture and melody to his murky muddy soundscapes. Bells are chopped into stuttery whistles, melodies are picked apart and flung into dizzying swirls, voices and electronics float in a thick miasma of whirring distortion and glistening shimmer. Then it sounds like the whole thing was dunked in mud and rolled in dirt and leaves and then left in the sun to sort of ferment, giving off all sorts of druggy, vision inducing fumes. The tracks are clipped and chopped and strangely edited only adding to the druggy bliss.
SUPER LIMITED!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Four"
MPEG Stream: "Five"

WIZAR'D, THE Follow The Wizard (Rusty Axe) cd 9.98
It's hard not to love the Wizar'd. C'mon, "Wizar'd"??? Exactly. What the fuck? Is it a verb, like "you'll get Wizar'd?" Or is it just some ancient spelling of Wizard, taken from some old dusty book of spells. Is Wizar'd darker and more evil and mysterious than the tired old traditional Wizard? Either way, the Wizar'd traffic in classic epic old school doom. Or according to the cd booklet "Crushing Gothic Slime". Massive plodding true doom from down under. The Aussies explore their inner Sabbath, each track rife with plodding tempos, mournful minor key melodies, slow motion downtuned riffs, soaring clean vocals, folky acoustic breakdowns, stonery grooves, psychdoom guitar leads, even some soaring King Diamond-ish wails, tons of reverb and loads of haunting dark ambience, think Witchfinder General, Candlemass, Reverend Bizarre, Trouble and of course Black Sabbath. The first time we listened to this, it sounded a bit too doom derivative, and the vocals were really strange, almost TOO strange, but the more we listen to this, the more we find ourselves returning again and again and again, and now those weird vocals, sort of Ozzy meets the chantlike drone of Om are quite possibly our favorite part. Recommended for the demented and doomed!
MPEG Stream: "The Devil In The Woods"
MPEG Stream: "Life Eternal"

WOE COLOSSUS First: In A Silent Way, Second: Vanilla (State Of Distress) 12" 14.98
If you've been paying attention to the Aquarius New Arrivals list (c'mon folks, it's summer now but the school of AQ is still in session, and you're gonna get quizzed on this list later) you'll have come across our recent review of a cd by a heavy, rhythmic British avant-rock outfit with the odd name of Hey Colossus. A great album for those into sludgy, repetitive riffing, maybe like the Melvins meet Circle but more aggro than that.
Hey Colossus already employ no less than three guitars to make their noise but on this vinyl-only EP they've teamed up with another UK band called Woe (a skronky, heavy duty improv jazz beast) to get really really loud and ugly/pretty on two tracks, one of 'em a cover of Miles Davis' "In A Silent Way" believe it or not!! With nine musicians -- including two drummers, two trumpeters, two bassists, keyboards and all those guitars -- this has got some serious avant-heft. "In A Silent Way" has never sounded so ominous and heavy, and the flip is full of militaristic rumble as well. Great stuff! Limited to just 200 copies, on nice thick vinyl, and we have but a handful.

YOKOTO, SUSUMU Wonder Waltz (Lo) cd 14.98
We have always preferred Yokota's ambient works to his more danceable efforts. It's hard to beat the sublime and playful shimmer of Symbol or the delicate kosmiche vibe of Sakura. On Wonder Waltz, Yokota tries to bridge these two worlds that orbit each other but it never quite touches down. The results are mixed. With too many ideas, and too many female guest vocalists (Kahimi Karie among others), the music tries too hard for likeability. While there is some really pretty stuff here, a lot of it ends up sounding like music for upscale car commercials.
MPEG Stream: "Capital of Daisy"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Go Sleep"

ZERO 7 The Garden (Atlantic) cd 14.98
Joining many of their contemporaries who've hooked into that smooth '70s soft rock revival, Zero 7's third full length takes the UK duo of Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns further away from their early downtempo groovi-tronica leanings. The Garden is a lush, silken (but not overly slick) production with much more focus on traditional song structures, not to mention more engaging personality courtesy of guest vocalists Jose Gonzalez and Sia Furler. For folks who dig the distinct breezy Euro-mellowness of artists such as Air, Kings Of Convenience and Nicolai Dunger.
MPEG Stream: "Future"
MPEG Stream: "Seeing Things"




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V/A California (Troniks / Ground Fault) 10lp box set 85.00
When Erik Hoffman of Ground Fault hand-delivered this monumental 10LP box crammed full of the most guttural noise, splattered improv damage, cosmic drone headcrack, and low-brow Dada absurdism that California has to offer, he threatened that he could have made this thing even bigger. Fuck. Bigger than 10LPs with 20 different bands abusing your turntable? Yeah, fuck is right! In alphabetical order, the California box features Amps For Christ, The Cherry Point, Joe Colley, Control, Gerritt, GX Jupitter-Larsen, Moth Drakula, Open City, Oscillating Innards, Damion Romero, Rubber O Cement, Sixes, The Skaters, Solid Eye, Spastic Colon, Tralphaz, John Wiese, Xome, R.H.Y. Yau, and Yellow Swans. Sure you may say, Yellow Swans currently hold residency in Portland, so why the hell are they on this compilation? Details, details, details... FYI, they were Californians until a few months back... You already know if you need this.

V/A Imaginational Anthem Volume Two (Tomkins Square) cd 15.98
Second Volume of American Primitive guitar explorations from both the old and new schools, showcasing the diverse styles of its strongest players. While the patron saint of this movement is still John Fahey, the resonant strains between generations exemplify how far the movement has grown while allowing each artist to retain their own voice. Representing the old school this time around are Billy Faier, Michael Chapman, Peter Lang (re-doing a piece from the early '70s), Fred Gerlach and a rare live recording of Robbie Basho from the Venus in Capricorn era. The New school is represented by James Blackshaw, Jose Gonzalez. local Berkeley muscian Sean Smith, Christina Carter from Charalambides, Jack Rose (also featured on Vol. 1), Jesse Spearhawk, and British Banjo player Sharron Kraus. From traditional Americana, to eastern inflected ragas, shimmering 12 string washes to minimalist banjo odes, this is a fine set of excursionary guitar.
MPEG Stream: JAMES BLACKSHAW "River of Heaven"
MPEG Stream: SHARRON KRAUS "Looking for the Hermits Cave"
MPEG Stream: ROBBIE BASHO "Kowaka D'Amour"

V/A Studio One DJs Volume 2 (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00
Most of us have come to know the DJ as a behind the scenes mover and shaker, not so much the star attraction, but more of a journeyman, playing the records, not playing ON the records, but the DJ in the heyday of reggae and dub culture was very much right in front of the action. The main attraction in most cases. Often adding their own voice loud and proud over the top of whatever sounds happened to be spinning. Screaming, singing, rapping, goofing, adding much of the DJ's individual personality to the dubbed out grooves. Soul Jazz has once again used its master key to the Studio One vaults for this, the second collection of Studio One DJ's. Digging deeper into the dancehalls of Jamaica in the 70's and coming out with a bunch of gems. If you're a fan of all things Soul Jazz, Trojan, Dancehall and the like, this is absolutely essential.
MPEG Stream: PRINCE JAZZBO "Pepper Rock"
MPEG Stream: SOUL VENDORS "Whipping The Prince"
MPEG Stream: BIG JOE "Get Out Baldhead"

V/A Studio One DJs Volume 2 (Soul Jazz) 2lp 24.00
Most of us have come to know the DJ as a behind the scenes mover and shaker, not so much the star attraction, but more of a journeyman, playing the records, not playing ON the records, but the DJ in the heyday of reggae and dub culture was very much right in front of the action. The main attraction in most cases. Often adding their own voice loud and proud over the top of whatever sounds happened to be spinning. Screaming, singing, rapping, goofing, adding much of the DJ's individual personality to the dubbed out grooves. Soul Jazz has once again used its master key to the Studio One vaults for this, the second collection of Studio One DJ's. Digging deeper into the dancehalls of Jamaica in the 70's and coming out with a bunch of gems. If you're a fan of all things Soul Jazz, Trojan, Dancehall and the like, this is absolutely essential.
MPEG Stream: PRINCE JAZZBO "Pepper Rock"
MPEG Stream: SOUL VENDORS "Whipping The Prince"
MPEG Stream: BIG JOE "Get Out Baldhead"

V/A Terrastock Six (Secret Eye) cd 12.98
The Secret Eye Label who hosted the latest Terrastock music festival in Providence RI this past April have put together this compilation of 11 exclusive tracks from some of the festivals highlighted acts such as Bardo Pond, Kinski, and the Magic Carpathians including many Secret Eye bands (surprise, surprise). While this compilation showcases some of the best acts of the neo-psych scene, from the overdriven space rock of Paik and Major Stars, and the abstracted shambolic noise of Avarus and The Spacious Mind, to the far flung folk of P.G Six and Fursaxa, it fails to completely convey the musical and generational diversity that is part of the festival's huge appeal. Revival acts such as Bridget St. John and Pearls before Swine are not included, while the psych-pop of Green Pajamas, the punk noise of Lightning Bolt and the acoustic traditions of Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, and Marissa Nadler are unrepresented. But that might be a lot to ask for from a single disc. So it's best not to look at this compilation as a cohesive festival document, but rather as a good solid dose of spacey psych majesty. Limited to 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: FURSAXA "Water Moon"
MPEG Stream: THE SPACIOUS MIND "Learning City People to Walk In the Woods Quietly"
MPEG Stream: KINSKI "Festival Short Circuit"

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JANDEK Glasgow Sunday (Corwood) dvd 14.98
Even though we know the mystery man known as Jandek has lately been playing shows here and there, a new pick up band in each city, a who's who of underground musicians acting as his sidemen, it was still an absolute thrill to see the man up on stage on this DVD, documenting his first ever public performance. It's hard to explain. We literally had knots in our stomachs, hairs raised on end. Watching a shadow, in the dark, strap on a guitar and then step into the light. This was Jandek for fucks sake!! Live and in the flesh. After years of supposition, did he actually exist, was it a hoax perpetrated by some way too clever hipster musician, was he insane, was that really even him on those record covers. None of it mattered. Because there he was. Tall and skeletal. Dressed all in black. A black hat pulled low. And while he was much older and much more gaunt, he was immediately recognizable from those iconic album cover images.
This, like maybe most Jandek releases, is for diehards only. His atonal deconstructed blues, off key and mournfully moaning, is definitely an acquired taste. And this live performance finds him at his most atonal for sure. Backed up for this performance in Glasgow back in 2004 by Richard Youngs on bass and Alex Nielson on drums, they add a certain stumbling free jazz vibe to Jandek's tortured blues dirge stagger. But hell he sounds great, and looks great too. Part of us was a bit disappointed that he finally decided to play live, but another part of us watched in awe as a mystery came to life, while somehow remaining as mysterious as ever.
Absolutely essential for every Jandek fan.
NTSC, all region, aspect ratio 4:3, three possible viewing choices: "Camera 1", "Camera 2" or the "2 camera mix edit."


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----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed :
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If you want to order one of these, just do a search on the item, when then click on the buy button!

5IVE "Versus" (Tortuga) cd ep 10.98
AHMED, ILYAS "Century Of Moonlight" (Time-Lag) cd-r 11.98
AMPS FOR CHRIST "Every Eleven Seconds" (5RC) cd 14.98
AREA C "34.23 / Catchment / No Perfect Waves / Speed Studies" (AreaC Music) 4 x 3"cd-r 22.00
B.B. BLUNDER "Workers' Playtime" (Long Hair) cd 23.00
BAKER, AIDAN "Oneiromancer" (Die Stadt) 2cd 30.00
BAKER, AIDAN & ULTRA MILKMAIDS "At Home With" (Infraction) cd 14.98
BAL-SAGOTH "The Chthonic Chronicles" (Candlelight) cd 14.98
BARDO POND "Ticket Crystals" (All Tomorrow's Parties) cd 15.98
BASHO-JUNGHANS, STEFFEN "Unknown Music II: Transwarp Meditation" (Preservation) cd 15.98
BATTISTI, LUCIO "Amore E Non Amore" (Water) cd 14.98
BEHERIT "Drawing Down The Moon" (Candlelight) cd 13.98
BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME "The Anatomy Of" (Victory) cd 13.98
BLACK DICE & JASON FRANK ROTHENBERG "Gore" (Picture Box, Inc.) book 29.95
BLACK FUNERAL "Ordog" (Behemoth) cd 14.98
BLACK, FRANK "Fast Man, Raider Man" (Back Porch) 2cd 17.98
BOXCUTTER "Oneiric" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
BURIAL "s/t" (Hyperdub / Cargo) cd
CARPENBORG, STAFF AND THE ELECTRIC CORONA "Fantastic Party" (No Label) cd 21.00
CARTER, TOM "Glyph" (Digitalis) cd 12.98
DISSECTION "Reinkaos" (Black Horizon) cd 11.98
F/I "Paradise Out Here" (Lexicon Devil) cd 16.98
FUTUREHEADS, THE "News And Tributes" (Vagrant) cd 14.98
GAMELAN SON OF LION "Metal Notes" (Locust) cd 14.98
GAPING MAW "Two Improvisations" (aRCHIVE) cd 9.98
GARRIE, NICK "Nightmare of J.B. Stanislaus" (Rev-ola) cd 16.98
GENGHIS TRON "Dead Mountain Mouth" (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
GHOSTFACE KILLAH "Fishscale" (Def Jam) cd 12.98
GREGOR SAMSA / RED SPAROWES "Split" (Robotic Empire) cd 12.98
GUILTY CONNECTOR "Beats, Noise, and Life" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
GULTSKRA ARTIKLER "Pofigistka" (Lampse) cd 15.98
HARDAL "Nereden Nereye!" (Underground Masters) cd 21.00
ICE CUBE "Laugh Now, Cry Later" (Lench Mob) cd 16.98
IELASI, GIUSEPPE "s/t" (Hapna) cd 16.98
JAZZY JAY "Cold Chillin' In The Studio" (Strong City) cd 14.98
JETT, JOAN "Sinner" (Blackheart) cd 16.98
JONES, WIZZ "Legendary Me" (Sunbeam) cd 16.98
JOTUNSPOR "Gleipnirs Smeder" (Satanas Rex) 16.98
KALEVALA "People No Names/Boogie Jungle" (Walhalla) cd 21.00
KAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEF "Remixed" (Staubgold) cd 15.98
KAMPFAR "Kvass" (Napalm) cd 17.98
KATATONIA "The Great Cold Distance" (Peaceville) cd 16.98
KAWABATA MAKOTO "Inui 1" (VHF) cd 13.98
KAWABATA MAKOTO, ANLA COURTIS, ROKUGENKIN "Kokura" (Riot Season) lp 15.98
KEEP OF KALESSIN "Armada" (Candlelight) cd/2lp 14.98/21.00
KIRKEGAARD, JACOB "4 Rooms" (Touch) cd 15.98
KNUT "Alter" (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
LEADBELLY "Borrow Love And Go" (Masked Weasel) cd 14.98
LORD BUCKLEY "The Royal Court Of Lord Buckley" (El Records) cd 16.98
LUCAS, JEFFREY LUCK "What We Whipser" (Antebellum) cd 12.98
MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "Faux Depart" (Yik Yak) cd 10.98
MARBLEBOG "Csendhajnal" (Turanian Honor) cd 13.98
MELVINS "Houdini Live 2005 - A Live History Of Gluttony And Lust" (Ipecac) cd 15.98
METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY (Warner) dvd 29.00
MILIEU "Beyond the Sea" (Infraction) cd 14.98
MINUTEMEN "We Jam Econo" (Plexifilm) dvd 24.00
MULLEN, GEOFF "thrtysxtrllnmnfstns" (Entschuldigen) cd 14.98
NOAHLEWIS' MAHLON TAITS "Six Pieces For Dancing" (EM Records) cd 17.98
NORTHWINDS "Chimeres" (Black Widow) 2lp 26.00
NOXAGT "s/t" (Load) cd 14.98
OBSESSED, THE "Lunar Womb" (Meteor City/20 Buck Spin) cd/lp 14.98/14.98
OCRILIM "Anoint" (I & Ear) cd 13.98
OHSEES (OCS) "The Cool Death Of Island Raiders" (Narnack) cd 14.98
OV "The Moon Is Down" (Jewelled Antler) cd-r 12.98
OVO "Miastenia" (Load) cd/lp 14.98/11.98
PAN-AMERICAN "For Waiting, For Chasing" (Mosz) cd 15.98
PARSONS, GRAM "The Complete Reprise Sessions" (Warner / Rhino) 3cd 32.00
PETER BROTZMANN GROUP "Alarm" (Atavistic) cd 14.98
PHONOPHANI "s/t" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
PRIESTESS "Hello Master" (RCA) cd 13.98
RAUHAN ORKESTERI / LAUHKEAT LAMPAAT "Sylissain Oot" (Ache) cd 14.98
REPLIKANT RUMBA ROCKERS "s/t" (Nonplace) cd 16.98
REYNOLDS, BEN "Outmospheric" (Digitalis) cd 12.98
SATIE, ERIK "Francis Poulenc Plays The Piano Music Of Satie And Poulenc" (El / Cherry Red) cd 16.98
SATYRICON "Now, Diabolical" (Century Media) cd 14.98
SAVIOURS "Crucifire" (Level Plane) cd 13.98
SAWAKOT "Omnibus" (Community Library) cd 12.98
SCHULZE, KLAUS "Irrlicht" (Revisited) cd 16.98
SORIAH "Chao Organica In A Minor" (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 14.98
SPIDER "The Way To Bitter Lake" (Spidersongs) cd 11.98
SPOERRI, BRUNO "Gluckskugel" (Finders Keepers) cd 21.00
STROLLERS, THE "Waiting Is" (Underground Masters) cd 21.00
SUN DIAL "Other Way Out / Other Way In" (Relapse) 2cd 14.98
SUN DIAL "Return Journey" (Relapse) cd 12.98
SWITCHBLADE "s/t [2006]" (Cyclop Media) cd 15.98
TANGO SALOON "s/t" (Ipecac) cd 14.98
TANGORODRIM "Unholy And Unlimited" (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
TELESCOPES, THE "Taste" (Rev-Ola) cd 17.98
TIED & TICKLED TRIO "A.R.C." (Morr Music) cd/dvd 21.00
TRIPLE BURNER "s/t" (Madrona) cd 14.98
TWILIGHT SINGERS, THE "Powder Burns" (One Little Indian) cd 16.98
ULTRA MILK MAIDS "Oldies Vol. 1" (Manifold) cd 14.98
UTON "Mystery Revolution" (Digitalis) cd 12.98
V/A "From The Kitchen Archives No. 3, Amplified: New Music Meets Rock 1981-1986" (The Kitchen) cd 21.00
V/A "Ikiteru Kachi Ari: A Tribute To Jojo Hiroshige" (Alchemy) cd 21.00
V/A "John Peel And Sheila: The Pig's Big 78s - Beginner's Guide" (Trikont) cd 16.98
V/A "Zanzibara 2: L'Age D'Or Du Taarab De Mombasa - 1965-1975 / Golden Years Of Mombasa Taarab" (Buda Musique) cd 15.98
VENETIAN SNARES "Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
WALKER, JEFF UND DIE FLUFFERS "Welcome To Carcass Cuntry" (Fractured Transmitter) cd 17.98
WEISS, DAVID "Virtuoso Saw" (EM Records) cd 19.98
WELLS, BILL & MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "Osaka Bridge" (Karaoke Kalk) cd 15.98
WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON "Track 4" (Room 40) cd 16.98
WOLOK "Servum Pecus" (Eerie Art) cd 15.98
WORMS OF SABNOCK "Dark Harmonies" (Firestorm) cd 14.98
WRIGHT, PETER "Red Lion" (Digitalis) cd 12.98
YIKES "Secrets To Superflipping" (Upset The Rhythm) cd 10.98
ZAO "Fear Is What Keeps Us Here" (Ferret) cd 16.98
ZAVORASH "Nihilistic Ascension And Spiritual Death (N.A.S.D.)" (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
ZORN, JOHN "Moonchild" (Tzadik) cd 16.98

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ABOUT MAILORDER


Please place your order via our website.

[1] We will contact you to verify your order and let you know when it will be shipped. Please note that occasionally it may take a day or two for us to reply. We are not a faceless bunch of computers replying to your order -- we are human beings!

[2] If we are out of some of your items and we think we will get them within the same week, we can wait to ship. Or... If it's going to be more than a few days to complete your order, we will ship what we have and then will contact you as the remainders arrive.

[ note ] Due to the everchanging nature of the independent record business, we are not responsible for listed price changes (due to supplier price changes) and often cannot update our site fast enough to reflect these changes, but we will always try to let you know of any differences.


DOMESTIC SHIPPING :
--------------------------------
1-2 items $4.50 USPS Priority Mail
3+ items $6.50 UPS Ground

Further Explanation (Please Read!):
Within the USA, an order of 3 or more items will be shipped via UPS ground for a flat fee of $6.50. These packages are automatically insured and trackable.

However, if your package contains just 1 or 2 items, we will ship your order via USPS Priority Mail, and charge you $4.50 for shipping. These packages are NOT insured or trackable, sorry. So if you desire those safeguards, please request UPS delivery at the $6.50 rate. You must mention this in the comments field of our online order form.

Also, please note that UPS will not ship to PO Boxes. If you only have a PO Box, we can ship packages of 3+ items via US Postal Service and charge you by weight according to their rates. Special shipping needs (e.g. UPS Next Day) are also do-able, just ask.

Another important note: box sets DON'T (usually) count as one item. Sorry. A box set will generally bump you up into the "three or more items" category. Y'know, they're big. Boxes.


INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING :
-------------------------------- For foreign customers we ship via US AIRMAIL ("Letterpost"). Your price is based on the actual cost of shipping plus $1. You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package, No Correspondence" category and see the price for "Letterpost". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)


We highly recommend insurance for your international package, but it is very expensive! You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package, No Correspondence" category and see the price for "Parcel Post". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)


INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE :
-------------------------------- You are hereby forewarned that Aquarius is not responsible if your international package gets lost in the mail. Insurance is your only recourse if your records never show up. Since the terrible events of 9/11, mail service has been slow and undependable... and while we haven't experienced any *confirmed* permanently lost mail, insurance might provide some additional piece of mind in this time of upheaval. We strongly recommend it. But yes, it is very expensive. It's your choice. Again: Aquarius is not responsible for lost mail, so if you aren't willing to take a (slight but real) risk, please buy the insurance.

International insurance is very expensive! In fact often the insurance costs more than the value of your package, in which case it obviously does not make sense to insure it. You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package, No Correspondence" category and see the price for "Parcel Post", which is the way insured packages are sent. 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)

For example: for a one-pound package worth $18 going to England, shipping without insurance is about $8. But with insurance, the shipping / insurance total is over $16!

It is your reponsibility to check the international rate calculator in order to determine whether or not you want international insurance. If you tell us you want international insurance, we will add it to your order no matter how much it costs!


PAYMENT :
-------------------------------- Payment is via credit card: Visa, MC, Discover, and Amex. Money orders are accepted only from customers within the USA. If you must pay by money order, you have to confirm the order with us through email or phone BEFORE you send any payment. We cannot take personal checks for mailorder, sorry!


QUESTION?
-------------------------------- Email the mailorder department: mailorder@aquariusrecords.org

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SOME SELECTED UPCOMING RELEASES


----} June 27th
Isan "Plans Drawn In Pencil" cd on Morr
Four Tet "DJ Kicks" cd on Studio K7
Carpathian Forest "Fuck You All" cd on Season Of Mist
Merzbow "Minazo Vol. 1" cd on Important
P.I.L. "Metal Box" 3lp reissue on 4 Men With Beards

----} also in June, soon
Hammers Of Misfortune "The Locust Years" cd on Cruz Del Sur
Boris "Droneevil" 2cd version on Inoxia
ZU "Igneo" cd domestic version with bonus remix tracks on Frenetic
ESG "Keep On Moving" cd/2lp on Soul Jazz
5 more Last Visible Dog releases...

----} July 11th
V/A "Touch 25" cd on Touch
Sufjan Stevens "The Avalanche: Outtakes" cd on Asthmatic Kitty
Oneida "Happy New Year" cd/lp on Jagjaguwar
Paavoharju "Uskallan" 7" on Type
Machinefabriek "Lenteliedjes" 7" on Type
Residual Echoes "Mfi Gbsp" cd/lp on Invada
Vetiver "To Find Me Gone" 2lp vinyl release on DiCristina

----} July 18th
Solar Anus "Skull Alcoholic" 2cd on tUMULt
Bible Of The Devil "The Diabolic Possession" cd on Cruz del Sur
Sandy Bull "Still Valentine's Day" cd reissue on Water

----} July 25th
Gorgoroth "Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam" cd on Candlelight
Boris "Pink" 2lp domestic vinyl on Southern Lord
Bonnie Prince Billy "Cursed Sleep" cdep/12" on Drag City
Spoon "Telephono & Soft" 2cd on Merge
Motor "Klunk" cd on Mute
Brotzmann/Mangelsdorff/Sommer "Pica Pica" cd on Atavistic
Excepter "Alternation" cd on 5RC
Erase Errata "Nightlife" cd/lp on Kill Rock Stars
Laura Veirs "The Triumphs and Travails of Orphan Mae" cd on Kill Rock Stars
Laura Veirs "Troubled By the Fire" cd on Kill Rock Stars
Darkthrone "Soulside Journey" LP reissue on Candlelight
Darkthrone "A Blaze In The Northern Sky" LP reissue on Candlelight
Darkthrone "Transilvanian Hunger" LP reissue on Candlelight
Darkthrone "Under A Funeral Moon" LP reissue on Candlelight
Grave "As Rapture Comes" cd on Century Media
Bill Fay Group "Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow" LP reissue on Drag City
Dead Prez & Outlawz "Can't Sell Dope Forever" cd on Affluent
Otto Von Schirach "Maxipad Detention" cd on Ipecac
The Knife "Silent Shout" domestic cd on Mute
Les Savy Fav "3/5" cd reissue on Frenchkiss
more Fela reissues

----} also in July, delayed from June
Burning Saviours "Hundus" cd on I Hate Records

----} August 8th
Heads "Under the Stress of a Headlong Dive" domestic cd release on Alternative Tentacles
Detroit Cobras "Lost And Found" cd/lp on Sympathy For The Record Industry
Wire "Chairs Missing" LP reissue on 4 Men With Beards
Wire "Pink Flag" LP reissue on 4 Men With Beards
Ani DiFranco "Reprieve" cd on Righteous Babe
Keak Da Sneak "The Hits" cd on Moe Doe

----} August 15th
Robbie Basho "Venus In Cancer" cd on Tompkins Square

----} August 22nd
Tortoise "A Lazarus Taxon" 3cd + dvd box set on Thrill Jockey
Ludicra "Fex Urbis, Lex Orbis" cd/lp on Alternative Tentacles
Gossip "Listen Up" cdep on Kill Rock Stars
v/a "Burn To Shine 03: Portland, OR" dvd on Trixie
Wooden Wand & The Sky High Band "Second Attention" cd/lp on Kill Rock Stars
Inca Ore & Lemon Bear's Orchestra "Birds In The Bushes" cd on 5RC
Boxhead Ensemble "Nocturne" cd on Atavistic
Farina + Gray + McBride "Out Trios Vol. 4" cd on Atavistic
Supersystem "A Million Microphones" cd/lp on Touch and Go
Uzeda "Stella" cd on Touch and Go
Zakarya w/ Marc Ribot "413 A" cd on Tzadik
Jamie Saft Trio "Trouble - The Jamie Saft Trio Plays Bob Dylan" cd on Tzadik (w/ guests Mike Patton, Antony...)

----} September 5th
Jucifer "If Thine Enemy Hunger" cd on Relapse

----} also upcoming, sooner or later
Magma "Mythes et légendes Vol. 1" dvd on Seventh (end of June?)
Striborg "Embittered Darkness /Isles de Morts" LP release on Southern Lord
Hella "Acoustic" cd on 5RC
Xiu Xiu "The Airforce" cd on 5RC
Vandermark 5 "A Discontinuous Line" cd on Atavistic
Tara Jane O'Neil "tba" cd on Quarterstick
Lucifer "Big Gun" LP reissue on Dynamic Vinyl

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Quote of the week:

"How come pink is punk rock, and trees are metal?"
-- Pam / AQ mailorder mistress


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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanLaurenAshleyPamJasonChristineKerryIrwin and Scott