JESU Conqueror (Hydra Head / Daymare) 2cd 28.00
Who thought the dreamiest, fuzziest bliss pop record of the year would come courtesy of the same man responsible for the soul crushing might of Godflesh's Streetcleaner, and someone who once called Napalm Death home? Well, actually we sort of did. Especially since last year's Silver ep, on which Justin Broadrick's Jesu took the already fuzzy dreamy metallic crunch of their debut, and injected it with all sorts of unlikely glistening pop and muted indie jangle, creating an impossibly pretty metallic dirge pop, equal parts Godflesh, My Bloody Valentine and M83.
And as if to prove that Broadrick indeed has a heart of pop beneath that crushing downtuned exterior, we now have the Conqueror, which if anything, pushes Jesu's sound even further into the glistening dreamy realm of pure pop. But fear not, we're not talking sugary sweet, treacly pop music cheese, no this is Jesu after all, spawn of Godflesh, so there's no shortage of dirgey rhythms, BIG crushing guitars, lurching tempos, thick swaths of buzz and fuzz, but it's all just window dressing for some seriously pretty pop. The opener is shockingly poppy, with sweet melodic hooks, tinkling piano, breathy vocals, all processed and wrapped in a fuzzy dreamlike haze. An immediate classic for sure. The rest of the record strikes a delicate balance between the dirgier heaviness of the first Jesu record and Broadrick's newfound love of the jangle and swoon, each track a glistening pop gem, placed delicately into a blown out landscape of loping drum crush and thick shimmery guitar buzz, coruscating sheets of distortion wrapped tenderly around heartfelt epics, soaring vocals, and dreamy melodies.
We don't so much hear some Godflesh / M83 hybrid now as we do the dirgey dreamlike murky bliss of nineties New Zealand legends Bailter Space, or the heavier side of the shoegazer spectrum, Swervedriver, Chapterhouse and the like. It's a captivating sound for sure, and a logical progression, and while it's distinctly less metal, there is still much heaviness to be had, even at its most soft focus and glimmering, the guitars retain their buzzy crunch, and the tempos are always dirgey and machinelike, but all the sharp edges have been smoothed out, and the rhythms maybe seem more languid than mechanical, and the fuzzy blissy poppy core of each song seems to radiate from within like some alien sun, giving each song, no matter how heavy, a soft burnished glow.
So you might wonder why the heck the new Jesu is $28.00? Well, we figured that like us, you'd probably rather spend a little bit extra and get the gorgeous Japanese version, with its elaborate silver printed slipcover and more importantly, an ENTIRE EXTRA DISC nearly thirty three extra minutes, two epic tracks, featuring in its entirety, the music from Jesu's new 12" on Aurora Borealis (which we haven't even gotten yet). And it is most definitely worth it. Two 15 minute tracks, each epic and majestic, huge throbbing fuzzed out guitars, pounding rhythms, drifting minor key melodies, thick washes of blissy psychedelia, soft processed vocals, the first a crushing dreampop dirge harkening back to the first Jesu record (albeit a bit poppier), the second an almost ambient guitarscape of layered melodies, murky vocals and shimmery rhythms, so good. So worth it.
And the packaging, WOW! A double disc digipak, housed in a thick plastic slipcover, a silver cityscape superimposed over the washed out grey of the digipak, with a booklet, lyrics, Japanese liner notes and of course a Japanese style obi.
MPEG Stream: "Conqueror"
MPEG Stream: "Old Year"
MPEG Stream: "Transfigure"

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (Temporary Residence) 2cd 14.98
We've always been fans of Explosions In The Sky. One of the post Mogwai, post Godspeed outfits so adept at crafting super epic and emotional instrumental soundscapes -- post rock, math rock, jangly pop, chamber music, all sort of whipped into grandiose cinematic swells. But past records, while sounding amazing, with the right balance of mood and metal, hush and heaviness, still stuck a little too close to the template of their forbears. EITS were like the perfect mix of Godspeed and old more bombastic Mogwai. And not much more. Nothing wrong with that really, it just never totally blew us away.
But All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone is different. And it does blow us away. In a big way. It still sounds like EITS, and thus still sounds a bit like Godspeed and Mogwai, but like any great band in the last 20 years, it's not who you steal from, or what you steal, it's how you make what you steal your own. And EITS have made epic instrumental post rock all their own. The opener is everything this sort of music could and should be. Super dense and dramatic, spacious and emotional, opening with keening high end melodies over big jangly guitar strum and huge percussive For Those About To Rock blasts, the guitars slowly intertwining and drifting off, fading to a moody minor key post rock drift, underpinned by layer after layer of fuzzy blissy guitar and a motorik rhythmic shuffle before the completely perfect bridge, a spaced out melody, all dynamic and epic, that will definitely give you goosebumps, before launching into a full on heavy math rock groove, incorporating that same hair raising melody, with some killer drumming and a veritable orchestra of guitars.
The rest of the record plays out in similar, albeit slightly less bombastic fashion. Each track perfectly leading into the next, an expansive post rock epic, separated into movements, chiming guitars, thick riffs, each track gloriously tangled and emotional, with long stretches of cinematic ambience, some shimmering strings, glistening melodies, lush harmonies, bits of piano, and some amazingly expressive drumming.
All Of A Sudden also includes a bonus disc, an entire remix of the album, each track reworked by a different artist. Jesu turns the epic opener into a fuzzier, blissier, and toward the end a MUCH heavier beast. Adem's remix is all low key and abstract, acoustic guitars, simple percussion and glistening chimes, a whispery shadow of the original. The Paper Chase wraps the original track in a glorious swirl of murky ambience, adding a stuttery drum machine rhythm and all sorts of strange sonic filigree. Mountains gives their track a serious Pop Ambient makeover, stretched out and languorous, swirling and shimmery, ending with a long expanse of solo piano. Four Tet's reimagination is the most dramatic, a blissed out shuffling electronic workout, all processed drums, shuffling and skittering, with the original track nestled beneath layers of synth fuzz and strange subtle FX. Finally, labelmates Eluvium transform the album closer into a fuzzy smear of pixelated ambience, that builds and builds, much like the original, but in this version, into a blown out, super distorted fuzzy dreamscape.
Two version of the same record, both stunning! So recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The Birth And Death Of The Day"
MPEG Stream: "Welcome, Ghosts"
MPEG Stream: "The Birth And Death Of A Day (Jesu Mix)"

FURZE UTD: Beneath The Odd-Edge Sounds Of The Twilight Contract Of The Black Fascist / The Wealth Of The Penetration In The Abstract Paradigms Of Satan (Candlelight) cd 13.98
We talk a good game about different black metal bands being the weirdest or most fucked up, the most damaged, even the most retarded, and there are plenty of bands vying for that top spot, whether they know it or not. But the count is finally in. and Furze are the hands down winner. This latest blast of whatthefuck grimness proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Let us count the ways. This new record is in fact TWO new records, making the full title of the album UTD: Beneath The Odd-Edge Sounds Of The Twilight Contract Of The Black Fascist / The Wealth Of The Penetration In The Abstract Paradigms Of Satan. Phew. Then there's the song titles: "Demonic Order In The Eternal Fascist's Hall", "Beneath The Wings Of The Black Vomit Above", "Deep In The Pot Of Fresh Antipodal Weave"... and it only gets stranger. Besides the baffling lyrics inside there is also a warning: "Don't stop the Furzement! 'Furze' is the name of the blade on The Reaper's scythe. Furze is the one and only trademark of the one and only Reaper, made (that vibration in the whole wide world called) "music" !!! That fire which burns (Candlelight) and that which penetrates golden walls by organic thorns (Furze) supports to take heed approach the Reaper." Indeed. Then there is a completely confusing thanks list, some truly strange iconography, and finally the center panels of the booklet are simply an advertisement for Furze's other two albums (because apparently the original artwork, featuring a drawing of Jesus fucking Mohammed, was just too shocking). Alrightee then. All of that would be a bunch of pretentious crap, if the music didn't sound just as fucked up and demented. But it does, maybe even moreso.
It's hard to even explain what this sounds like, it is obviously black metal, lots of buzz, loads of distortion, blast beats, growled shrieked vocals, but every one of those elements is totally tweaked. The guitars first and foremost, tinny and razor sharp, slippery and all tangled up, impossibly convoluted riffs, produced in some weird way that allows the guitar to go from ear piercingly loud to murky and muddy, often in the same phrase. Then there are the drums, insane and splattery, blasting and octopoidal, sometimes a blast way down in the mix, sometimes a stumbling fill spilling out all over the next part. The vocals are similarly damaged, shrieking, growling, mumbling, howling, sometimes super distorted, sometimes sounding like they are being shrieked from a hundred yards away, sometimes it sounds like they are being spat right in your ear. And the production?! Holy fuck, drums explode swallowing the rest of the sound whole, before the song eventually blasts forth, the guitars duel with the vocals, a damaged dance to the death, it's almost like Faxed Head producing Benighted Leams, with occasional guitar contributions from Greg Ginn and a doped to the gills Yngvie, mix in some drunken fretless bass and some underwater yodeling vocal bits and some freaked out psychedelic guitar skree, all played through a tiny practice amp. The sounds, and the recording, and the concept, is it possible that this is all just accidental? No, it's TOO weird, too bafflingly obtuse, too perfectly skewed -- this guy is a genius. And the thing is that even within all this confusional sonic damage and demented blackness, these songs are catchy, really catchy, how can some convoluted buzzing slippery buzz saw riff get stuck permanently in your head? Or some shrieked line of obtuse black poetry? Only Woe J. Reaper, the man who is Furze, knows for sure.
So completely and utterly recommended. Black metal record of the year for sure...
MPEG Stream: "A Life About My Sabbath"
MPEG Stream: "Demonic Order In The Eternal Fascist's Hall"
MPEG Stream: "Mandragora Officinarum"

FURZE UTD: Beneath The Odd-Edge Sounds Of The Twilight Contract Of The Black Fascist / The Wealth Of The Penetration In The Abstract Paradigms Of Satan (Candlelight) lp 17.98
We talk a good game about different black metal bands being the weirdest or most fucked up, the most damaged, even the most retarded, and there are plenty of bands vying for that top spot, whether they know it or not. But the count is finally in. and Furze are the hands down winner. This latest blast of whatthefuck grimness proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Let us count the ways. This new record is in fact TWO new records, making the full title of the album UTD: Beneath The Odd-Edge Sounds Of The Twilight Contract Of The Black Fascist / The Wealth Of The Penetration In The Abstract Paradigms Of Satan. Phew. Then there's the song titles: "Demonic Order In The Eternal Fascist's Hall", "Beneath The Wings Of The Black Vomit Above", "Deep In The Pot Of Fresh Antipodal Weave"... and it only gets stranger. Besides the baffling lyrics inside there is also a warning: "Don't stop the Furzement! 'Furze' is the name of the blade on The Reaper's scythe. Furze is the one and only trademark of the one and only Reaper, made (that vibration in the whole wide world called) "music" !!! That fire which burns (Candlelight) and that which penetrates golden walls by organic thorns (Furze) supports to take heed approach the Reaper." Indeed. Then there is a completely confusing thanks list, some truly strange iconography, and finally the center panels of the booklet are simply an advertisement for Furze's other two albums (because apparently the original artwork, featuring a drawing of Jesus fucking Mohammed, was just too shocking). Alrightee then. All of that would be a bunch of pretentious crap, if the music didn't sound just as fucked up and demented. But it does, maybe even moreso.
It's hard to even explain what this sounds like, it is obviously black metal, lots of buzz, loads of distortion, blast beats, growled shrieked vocals, but every one of those elements is totally tweaked. The guitars first and foremost, tinny and razor sharp, slippery and all tangled up, impossibly convoluted riffs, produced in some weird way that allows the guitar to go from ear piercingly loud to murky and muddy, often in the same phrase. Then there are the drums, insane and splattery, blasting and octopoidal, sometimes a blast way down in the mix, sometimes a stumbling fill spilling out all over the next part. The vocals are similarly damaged, shrieking, growling, mumbling, howling, sometimes super distorted, sometimes sounding like they are being shrieked from a hundred yards away, sometimes it sounds like they are being spat right in your ear. And the production?! Holy fuck, drums explode swallowing the rest of the sound whole, before the song eventually blasts forth, the guitars duel with the vocals, a damaged dance to the death, it's almost like Faxed Head producing Benighted Leams, with occasional guitar contributions from Greg Ginn and a doped to the gills Yngvie, mix in some drunken fretless bass and some underwater yodeling vocal bits and some freaked out psychedelic guitar skree, all played through a tiny practice amp. The sounds, and the recording, and the concept, is it possible that this is all just accidental? No, it's TOO weird, too bafflingly obtuse, too perfectly skewed -- this guy is a genius. And the thing is that even within all this confusional sonic damage and demented blackness, these songs are catchy, really catchy, how can some convoluted buzzing slippery buzz saw riff get stuck permanently in your head? Or some shrieked line of obtuse black poetry? Only Woe J. Reaper, the man who is Furze, knows for sure.
So completely and utterly recommended. Black metal record of the year for sure...
MPEG Stream: "A Life About My Sabbath"
MPEG Stream: "Demonic Order In The Eternal Fascist's Hall"
MPEG Stream: "Mandragora Officinarum"

----*
----* Highlights :
----*

ARIEL PINK Witchhunt Suite For World War III (Melted Mailbox) 12" 19.98
On his recent trip to San Francisco, Ariel Pink made time not only for a secret gig at one of our favorite dives but also for a trip into AQ with his colorful entourage. He not only came to shop, but he also just so happened to come armed with this ultra-limited one-sided 12", a record none of us knew even existed.
Everyone remembers where they were on Sept 11, 2001, and somehow it didn't surprise us to find out where Ariel Pink was on that monumental day, inside his bedroom with his four track right at his side. In his own words this record is: "An epic 17-minute prog-pop suite, literally recorded September 11th, 2001, inspired and addressing the hot-off-the-press adrenaline rush of our nation in shock, caught in real time."
And we have to say that this is pretty much everything we would have hoped for. Classic Ariel Pink stretched out and laced with maximum paranoia. Fuzzy lo-fi pop with spazzed out instrumental passages that's so in its own world you can't help but want to join Mr. Pink in there too. We only have a handful of these left and once they are gone they are gone for good, so good luck!

ARKANSAW MAN s/t (Radium / Table Of The Elements) cd ep 11.98
An amazing lost artpunk artifact from the early eighties San Francisco punk rock scene, and we're talking really lost, as no one we know had even heard of these guys, but from the very first note we were smitten.
The opener is a super spare and spacious bit of post punk dub, subtly groovy, a throbbing new wave bass line, sounding like Gang Of Four or Interpol slowed waaaaaaaaay down, a simple krautrock beat peppered with handclaps, some dissonant guitar clang and a bit of moody post rock strum and jangle, with the occasional huge dissonant wash of atonal horns. Dark and creepy and almost danceable at times, that is if your dance of choice is some sort of zombie shuffle.
The other three tracks are not nearly as spare, but have the same sort of angular clang and low slung groove, the vocals sort of sung spoken, the rhythms loping and tribal, guitar harmonics ringing out, bits of angular riffage, vocals very reminiscent of Slint actually, laconic and buried way down in the mix. Stumblingly propulsive, the mix occasionally engulfed by some weird low end swell and some damaged electronics, the whole thing lurching and lumbering amidst a swirl of off kilter guitars and dubbed out ambience, it's sort of like Gang Of Four mixed with Slint mixed with This Heat. Which, we hardly need to tell you, is a very good thing indeed.
MPEG Stream: "The Ballroom"
MPEG Stream: "Angels / Aliens"

BJORKK, HENRIK NORDVARGR & BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE VS. KENJI SIRATORI Hypergenome666 (Old Europa Cafe) 2cd + 2x3"cd 63.00
Black ambient terrorists MZ412 were and are the definition of "true Swedish black industrial" and were one of the first bands to successfully bridge the gap between dark ambience and black metal. The two main members never abandoned their vision, but instead, put MZ412 on hiatus while the two pursued and explored different sounds and sonic worlds. Nordvargr most prolifically in Toroidh, Folkstorm and under his own name, while Drakh began the Beyond Sensory Experience project.
Recently the two reunited and released a brand new MZ412 record (to be reviewed here soon) and recorded a brand new Nordvargr / Drakh album (coming soon on Andee's tUMULt label). Somehow they also found time to collaborate with Japanese writer and sonic assassin Kenji Siratori (who also collaborates with Pendro elsewhere on this list) on Hypergenome666, a massive multiple disc, art book project that is breathtaking, not just visually (with incredible artwork and design courtesy of Paul McCarrol) but sonically as well, featuring some of the most caustic, heavy and frighteningly menacing black ambience and dark drones we've ever heard.
Two discs, one features Nordvargr, the other Drakh and his Beyond Sensory Experience, each pitted against Siratori, whose main weapon is the word, both written and chopped and sliced and diced into strange verbal soundscapes.
The Nordvargr disc just might be the darkest heaviest thing we've ever heard from him. Creepy and cavernous, huge ominous swells and crumbling industrial crunch drift amidst disembodied monstrous growls and keening distant melodies. Black clouds hover above, spewing forth grinding bursts of electrical discharge, interrupted occasionally by strange dreamlike interludes, epic and majestic horns, processed vocals, looped and chopped, treated and affected, crumbling crunchy rhythms, thick swaths of blown out distortion and expansive smears of whirring ambient buzz and thick streaks of minor key color. This is one of the scariest sounding discs ever. So deep and dense, so many layers, so much going on, it's the sound of being lost in the underworld, wandering alone forever. It's strangely beautiful too.
The BSE disc finds Drakh also teamed up with (or against, hard to say) Siratori and that disc is nearly as sinister and bleak as Nordvargr's. A bit more rhythmic, with the voices and vocals pushed more to the fore, the rhythms a lurching framework for the various low end streaks, swirling and shimmering. The voices are transformed into alien black shapes and back again. Dense and thick, a crumbling world of delicate drones and thick slabs of grinding distortion. More blissed out and ambient, dreamy and soft focus, but no less threatening or evil sounding. The discs are similar enough that they could be collaborative, some lost MZ412 disc, or a new Nordvargr / Drakh, but different enough that they stand on their own, offering light where the other offers dark, or more accurately, offering more dark...
The text and song titles and lyrics are all the work of Siratori and are dense and confusional, equal parts stream of consciousness, cyber punk and whatthefuck, "amorphous anthropoid, sympathy cell waves, acidhumanix, biocapturism..." it goes on and on, some impossible otherworld of reanimated corpses and time travel and cellular warfare and who knows what else. Dizzying and overwhelming and totally fascinating. The artwork somehow reflects that, at once modern and futuristic, classic and strangely surreal, naked figures, deformed babies, all sorts of religious iconography, corpses, genitals, industrial machinery, skulls, blood, welts, tentacles and tendrils...
All housed in an oversized fold over slipcover, inside a folder with the discs mounted inside, full color postcards, and a perfect bound book of Siratori's bizarre text.
While they last, we have the super limited version (only 300 copies!!) which includes two extra 3" discs. The first is Kenji Siratori - Sound Monologue : Hypergenome666, which features Siratori's spoken word, processed and tangled up into strange electronic soundscapes, skipping loops, and dense reverb drenched rhythms, all circling the haunting and mysterious words, grinding and blown out, super distorted and crumbling into strange shards of sound. The other is BSE vs. Nordvargr + Kenj Siratori - Tragedy Cell, featuring all three, collaborating, or battling, a glacial, frostbitten black wasteland, vocals swirl and are swallowed up, huge slabs of distorted low end blacken the sky, disembodied rhythms hover amidst whorls of whirring buzz, everything bathed in crackle and hum...
So absolutely stunning in every way.
MPEG Stream: HENRIK NORDVARGR BJORKK VS. KENJI SATORI "Acidhumanix"
MPEG Stream: HENRIK NORDVARGR BJORKK VS. KENJI SATORI "Corpse City"
MPEG Stream: BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE VS. KENJI SATORI "Seed"
MPEG Stream: BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE VS. KENJI SATORI "Amorphous Anthropoid"

BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL s/t (Bindrume) cd 9.98
The ritualist forest flecked dark ambience of the band Ruhr Hunter has always managed to somehow transcend its ambient classification and appeal to the metal crowd as much as to the ambient drone crowd. Not sure what it is, the foresty bent, the bold Teutonic iconography, the music's distinctly dark elements, or maybe folks could just tell that some metal was lurking within them thar dark drones...
And as if we needed proof, along comes Blood Of The Black Owl, the buzzing black metal project of Chet Scott, the man behind Ruhr Hunter. And true to form, this is no run of the mill black metal band, Scott expands his baritone guitar / drums palette to include stuff like thunder gong and brass tubular bells, organ, young ox horn, antique celestaphone, environmental recordings and black clay ocarina. It's almost like a blackened metallicized Ruhr Hunter.
The sound is an hypnotic, repetitive midtempo Burzumic buzz, often slowing down to a dirge like crawl, each track a relentless trudge through mud and swamp, thicket and forest, the riffs looping and cycling, mantra-like, the vocals a guttural growl one second, an anguished wail the next, in the background are howling wolves, birdsong, strange percussion, a truly mysterious black brew. Much of the record dips into dark ambience, and being that this is basically Ruhr Hunter, those passages are captivating, a dark dreamy ambient interludes underpinned in places by slow motion riffing, in others by chantlike vocals, and still others by throat singing, it's all very haunting and mournful, but this is NOT a RH record, so those brief passages are merely transitions, the songs themselves, the riffs and the melodies, weave their own dark magic, dismal and depressive, as doom as it is black, a mesmerizing fuzzy landscape of black riffs and simple pounding rhythms, gloriously bleak, strangely dreamlike, and most definitely imbued with the spirit of some ancient black forest.
MPEG Stream: "Kills In Timber"
MPEG Stream: "The Thunderous Hooves Of Two Goats In The Sky"

CAINA I, Mountain (God Is Myth) 3" cd-r 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the first in a super limited series of 3" cd-r's dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft. This inaugural installment comes from UK one man black metal horde Caina, whose debut record indeed bore a passing resemblance to AQ faves, Lurker Of Chalice, the weirder side project of Leviathan's Wrest, but managed to be it's own strange black beast.
And if anything, I, Mountain is even stranger, with barely any black metal, in fact there's very little here that might be considered metal at all. But that in no way means this isn't dark, or mysterious or subtly heavy.
I, Mountain is an instrumental interpretation of Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness, and is an intense sonic journey.
The first five minutes are a blissy dreamy drift, muted acoustic guitars, glistening and shimmering, it's not until five minutes in that the tenor becomes ominous, with haunting crumbling production and mysterious minor key ambience. Then it's about halfway through before we get the first hint of anything resembling metal, and even then, it's thick clouds of noxious distortion, drifting in the background, a sort of black ambience, but this quickly gives way to a churning doomy sludge, downtuned guitars, thick waves, layer after layer, slowly shifting and pulsing.
Finally, with only minutes to go, the metal kicks in, but it's no black blast, instead a propulsive metallic dirge, thick guitars, and pounding simple drums with the occasionally splattery fill, trudging resolutely forward before the drums drift off, leaving dense peals of processed guitar to swirl and shimmer ominously before the dark ambience fades to black.
I, Mountain is tracked as a single 20+ minute track, although in the booklet, the sections are separated into movements. Packaged in a slim jewel case, with a 4 panel booklet and a thick card insert with a photo of Lovecraft on one side and an essay on the other. Nice!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! We got 20, and it's already out of print, so when we run out, we will not be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

CAMBERWELL NOW All's Well (ReR) cd 18.98
After the big This Heat boxset bombshell dropped last year, and made everybody fall in love with that seminal, '70s experimental UK prog-punk band all over again, we expect that there's even more folks now who'll be stoked that this collection of This Heat drummer Charles Hayward's quite excellent '80s output with his band Camberwell Now has been reissued, in a brand new deluxe digipack format. That's right, if you want more This Heatishness beyond the Out Of Cold Storage boxset, you want this!
Recorded circa 1982-1985, the fifteen songs compiled here (from Camberwell Now's three vinyl releases plus a cassette comp track) are pretty darn essential for any fan of This Heat, featuring as they do one of the most important components of the This Heat sound, Hayward's signature drumming style. You'll know it when you hear it. His thin, fragile vocals and poetic, politically-charged lyrics are also a significant part of the picture, with the other members of Camberwell Now also making significant contributions to their sound, which incorporated tapes, field recordings, autoharp, ethnic instruments, kazoo, keyboards, etc. A potent mix of energetic rhythms and dreary melodies. For fans of This Heat (obviously), though this is less hard-hitting and more song-based than some of their work. Fans of '80s Robert Fripp may also feel at home with portions of this. But it also occurs to us that there are some recent artists that seem to share something (just something) with Camberwell Now, like Dean Roberts and, perhaps especially, Richard Youngs.
Not only is this new edition cheaper than the one we had before, it's in nicer packaging, with extra notes and photos and artwork, and has also been remastered by the band. Yay!
MPEG Stream: "Working Nights"
MPEG Stream: "Sitcom"

CHERRY BEACH PROJECT Silo II (Mystery Sea) cd 17.98
The latest in the Mystery Sea label's ongoing exploration of "night-ocean drones", which as we've mentioned in the past, is precisely what these discs sound like. Dark, moonlit nights, rippling black seas, and drones, glorious drones!
Cherry Beach Project is the Canadian duo of Joda Clement and Nigel Craig, and Silo II was indeed recorded in a silo, at Cherry Beach, an industrial wasteland, on an abandoned peninsula in Toronto, know as a place, where "off the record" police activities occur, and all manner of crime. The area has since been demolished, but on the nights of recording, the duo were forced to abandon their equipment in the midst of some sort of violence, forced to return the next day to retrieve their equipment, only to be pursued by several unidentified men. With that sort of story behind the recording of Silo II, one might expect something more jagged, or harsh, or extreme, but instead, the sounds here, are glistening and delicate, massive stretches of shimmering space separating low end thrums and sparkling upper register glimmers, each note hovering gently like dust motes caught in moonbeams. Drops of water, send sonic ripples skyward, deep cavernous groans and distant chimes swirl lazily in wide open fields of reverb, huge barely audible rumbles permeate the proceedings, offering up subtle sonic support, bumps and random percussive thumps surface occasionally out of near silence, but just as quickly fade away. Definite nods to Japanese field recordists Toshiya Tsunoda, as the silo is as much a part of the action as the sounds created within it. So mysterious and dark, spacious and abstract, minimal and haunting.
Like all Mystery Sea releases, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc numbered, and gorgeously packaged in striking full color artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

CHRISTA PFANGEN Watch Me Getting Back The End (Die Schachtel) cd 17.98
The Die Schachtel label's "Zeit" series devoted to current acts from the Italian avant-garde/indie-rock underground has a couple new releases out now -- discs by Christa Pfangen (reviewed here) and Angelo Petronella (which we'll try to get to next time). The Zeit series started off with the fabulous self-titled album by a band simply named A, hopefully you've checked that one out already (we highlighted it on list 248). This cd is almost just as good. Their fragmented, abstract electro-acoustics, and use of silence as well as sound, definitely puts Christa Pfangen in the same experimental ballpark as A, 3/4hadbeeneliminated, Giuseppe Ielasi, Stefano Pilia, Renato Rinaldi, Larsen, Sinistri/Starfuckers, and other artists from this happenin' scene. Playing "guitars, drums, voices, objects, electroacoustic devices", Christa Pfangen is in fact a duo, comprised of Andrea Belfi (who also has a new solo album out on Hapna by the way) and Mattia Coletti. These ladies have named their band Christa PFANGEN in some sort of odd tribute to Nico, whose real name was Christa PAFFGEN...but beyond that we don't think this has much to do with Nico or her music, though maybe there's some harmonium on here somewhere!
A tangle of nervous drumming and ambient drones, all staticky and stuttery, Watch Me Getting Back The End is both challenging and pretty... they've got a moody melodiousness to 'em not unlike 3/4hadbeeneliminated, or Jewelled Antler projects such as Thuja and the Blithe Sons. Certainly there's a lot here for even the not-so-experimental indie pop fan to mellow out to. String-born notes fall like leaves from a tree, melodies blow away in a gentle wind of drone, whispering voices caress the ear... so nice!
As with all Die Schachtel stuff, the packaging is super spiffy -- a digipack with embossed cover art.
MPEG Stream: "I'm Leaving"
MPEG Stream: "The Nail, The Eye"

CIRCLE (FEATURING VERDE) Tower (Last Visible Dog) cd 13.98
What? Another disc ALREADY from our favorite Finnish psych/space/prog/metal/drone/wtf? rockers, the one and only Circle? Good grief, we're still reeling from their amazing Miljard two cd set on Ektro, and their even more recent, mindblowing Tyrant disc in the limited edition Latitudes series! Who do they think they are, Acid Mothers Temple? Well, to be fair, this new album Tower wasn't actually supposed to come out until April. But it seems that one of the Last Visible Dog label's distributors, gripped perhaps by Circle-mania, accidentally jumped the gun on the release date and started shipping it early -- so, well, here it is! And we can't complain, who wants to wait when a new Circle is concerned?? Especially when we're all trying to keep up with (as it says on the face of this cd) the "NWONWOFHM", in other words, the "New Wave Of" the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal"... which, as it turns out, isn't in any way metal at all! Nope, the all-instrumental Tower follows Miljard in exploring the really really pretty side of the Circle sound. But unlike Miljard, which was slowly unfolding, almost stately, Tower has much more of an uptempo, rapid pulse.
The album seems to divide into two parts. The first four tracks flow together in sort of suite, burbling beautifully and hypnotically...just so so pleasant. No heavy riffs, nothing edgy at all. Then there's a pause, and the remaining two tracks reveal something of a darker, more mysterious sound. Just a bit though, like a bright sunny day edging towards twilight, the knowledge of the coming night starting to seep into one's consciousness, some clouds drifting in as well, but the sun still shining...
Also, you'll note that this album is billed to Circle "featuring Verde" -- referring to special guest Mika Rintala, who has played with Circle and their jazzier cousin Ektroverde as well, and whose solo albums, recorded under the Verde monicker, we've raved about here before. We're not sure how to judge the "Verde-factor" here, but we do note that in addition to playing on this album he also recorded and mixed it. Maybe this does remind us a bit of some of Ektroverde's output, come to think of it... there's definitely a spaced-out, jazzy fusion groove here, of shuffling drums and chiming synths, that makes for a relaxing soundtrack we wouldn't feel foolish recommending to fans of The Necks and Miles Davis as well as Ektroverde, Verde and Circle too of course...
Now we wonder, what will the NWONWONWOFMHM be like? At this rate, chances are we'll find out sometime soon...
MPEG Stream: "track 4"
MPEG Stream: "track 5"

ENCOMIAST Espera (H/S Recordings) cd 9.98
Another gorgeous collection of thick glistening drones from the man known as Encomiast. Whereas his Havens record that we listed a few months back was a more varied affair, dabbling in grinding industrial soundscapes, fuzzy ambient flutter and everything in between, Espera finds him in a more minimal, seemingly more subdued musical mood.
The tracks are still varied, but they are much more static, these are deep dark drones, the variations are subtle, each track is a slow shifting glacial sonic expanse, layered and dense, most of the tracks drift long darkly, all ominous low end, with some barely there streaks of upper register harmonics, a bit like an even more minimal SUNNO))) at times, but just as often referencing Chalk and Coleclough, even Organum, massive and thick, each stretch of sound a nearly static dirge. Gloriously bleak and dreamily dark and dreary. Essential listening for the drone obsessed for sure.
And as this is an older release, that we got directly from the band, we may not be able to get many more of these once we run out...
MPEG Stream: "Annel"
MPEG Stream: "Mechyn"
MPEG Stream: "Arthroscope"

FROZEN SHADOWS Hantises (Holy) 2cd 11.98
We've been trying to track down records by this Canadian black metal horde for ages, but with no luck, when suddenly we got an email from a label that just happened to be run by the Frozen Shadows guy. And not only was the label amazing, focusing on grim frosty black metal from Quebec (see Sombres Forets reviewed elsewhere on this list), they also had copies of this, the most recent Frozen Shadows full length, which also comes with their first demo as a bonus disc!
So what is it exactly, that had us so keen to track down music from this band? Hard to put into words, but seconds into the first track you'll see exactly why. A furious frosty blast of blackness, the Canadian Blizzard Beasts for sure, a perfect blend of classic Norwegian black metal and a more sort of raw buzz. Drums way up in the mix, so blast beats are thick clouds of noxious rhythm, the guitars thick and icy, the vocals a demonic rasp, but FS have their own angle, some cool midtempo bits, with thick swirls of keyboard and haunting clean guitars, stretches of dirgey pummel, but for the most part, Frozen Shadows blaze furiously through fields of grim buzz and icy blur.
And as weird as it may seem, the bonus disc might be even better. Recorded way back in 1996 and it sounds like it. Just as grim and frosty as the new disc, but even more fast and furious, the relentless buzz and freakishly fast blasts, haunting chantlike vocals, a buzzy lo-fi production that manages to still be thick and heavy, everything just a little bit more raw and Nordic sounding. In fact, on first listen you'd be hard pressed to not think this was some classic slab of Norwegian blackness.
Two amazing blizzardy blasts that should most definitely satisfy your grim frost fix.
MPEG Stream: "As Old As Time Itself"
MPEG Stream: "Des Siecles D'Epitaphes"
MPEG Stream: "Battered Souls"

GREAT FENCES OF AUSTRALIA (Dynamo House) cd + barbed wire 33.00
We're discovering this a bit late in the game, it was originally released way back in 2002, but a customer only just turned us on to this, and we immediately knew this was definite AQ material. So we got every copy they had left, which ended up being about 30. It's already out of print, so odds are these might be the only copies we ever see.
Two violinists, Jon Rose and Hollis Taylor wandered the Australian outback, bows in hand, and proceeded to play various fences, of which there are thousands, running for miles and miles in all directions. And as it says in the liner notes, a fence with out barbs will carry sound for kilometers!! It's very reminiscent of Ellen Fullman's long stringed instrument or Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Gennaro's Long Wires In Dark Museums or even Alan Lamb's singing telephone wires, taut wires stretched out for feet, yards, miles even, each plucked and bowed, struck or rubbed, and each creating its own unique sound.
And the sounds!! It's nearly impossible to believe that some of these sounds are in fact just old rusty fences along the road somewhere in Australia. Some of the sounds are so musical, some so completely alien, all completely remarkable.
Each track is named for the fence being played, sometimes its location, or the condition of the fence ("Missing Fence Posts Fence"), the duo even play the infamous "Rabbit-proof fence" which alternately emits a high pitched creak or a low metallic rumble. The sounds of the other fences run the gamut, massive clanging, strange garbled alien sounding buzz, every variation of metallic shimmer, from glistening to grinding to throbbing, some fences when struck sound like laser blasts, others like muted bells, one fence in particular emits harmonic overtones that almost sound like Tuvan throat singing, some massive clanging a la Einsturzende Neubauten, and on and on and on. You might think too, that a compilation of various fences buzzing and clanging wouldn't make for a very consistent listen, but the opposite is true, each track perfectly links to the one before it, some fences surface briefly, while others drone on and on, part of it might be the surrounding ambience, birds, trucks driving past, foot steps, the crunch of gravel underfoot, the creak of old windmills, it all makes the disc seem like one long wide eyed and mysterious wander along highways and dirt roads, beneath a blazing sun or a glowing moon, all to the haunting siren song of the various fences, singing to you as you stroll...
Packaged in a deluxe oversized box with photos and some notes on the outside, and a little window so you can see an actual length of barbed wire fence mounted inside, and be sure to lift out the tray, beneath it there are extensive liner notes, loads more photos and a map of where each fence played on the disc is located! So cool.
MPEG Stream: "First Grid At The Dog Fence"
MPEG Stream: "Perimeter Femce Of Communications Site"
MPEG Stream: "Hits And Rumble, No 3"
MPEG Stream: "Electric Fence"
MPEG Stream: "No.2 Rabbit Proof Fence"
MPEG Stream: "Trumpet Fence"

HARMONIA Deluxe (Lilith) cd 16.98
A few lists ago we raved about the reissue of Harmonia's first album Musik Von Harmonia and now Lilith has thankfully reissued Harmonia's follow-up release from 1975, Deluxe. Although we loved Harmonia's first album, Deluxe is, dare we say, even better!! Made up of Michael Rother from Neu! and Moebius and Rodelius from Cluster, on Deluxe they are joined on a few songs by Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, making the line up on this record a kosmiche supergroup of epic proportions! While the first record was tipped in the balance towards the Cluster side of things in terms of sound and the improvised process in which it was made, Deluxe has more of a Neu! feel as the tracks are more composed and song oriented, and for the first time contain vocal elements. Plus the motorik grooves are more rocking, with a real drum kit used more often than the drum machines creating a pulsating drive on par with Neu! 75, recorded that same year. But that's not to say Deluxe doesn't have its Cluster moments, as the two final tracks bring us down into some beautiful pastoral territory with the sounds of a stream with ducks and frogs near the Cluster studio in Forst can be heard amongst the warm and percolating analog synths. This is beautifully packaged tri-fold digipak with liner notes by Asmus Tietchens, who still owns some of Cluster's original analog equipment, and lots of photos including the awesome back cover of the trio lounging by the river in an obvious nod to Neil Young's On the Beach. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Walky-talky"
MPEG Stream: "Monza (Rauf Und Runter)"

HARMONIA Deluxe (Lilith) lp 16.98
A few lists ago we raved about the reissue of Harmonia's first album Musik Von Harmonia and now Lilith has thankfully reissued Harmonia's follow-up release from 1975, Deluxe. Although we loved Harmonia's first album, Deluxe is, dare we say, even better!! Made up of Michael Rother from Neu! and Moebius and Rodelius from Cluster, on Deluxe they are joined on a few songs by Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, making the line up on this record a kosmiche supergroup of epic proportions! While the first record was tipped in the balance towards the Cluster side of things in terms of sound and the improvised process in which it was made, Deluxe has more of a Neu! feel as the tracks are more composed and song oriented, and for the first time contain vocal elements. Plus the motorik grooves are more rocking, with a real drum kit used more often than the drum machines creating a pulsating drive on par with Neu! 75, recorded that same year. But that's not to say Deluxe doesn't have its Cluster moments, as the two final tracks bring us down into some beautiful pastoral territory with the sounds of a stream with ducks and frogs near the Cluster studio in Forst can be heard amongst the warm and percolating analog synths.
This is beautifully packaged 180 gram vinyl with liner notes by Asmus Tietchens, who still owns some of Cluster's original analog equipment, and lots of photos including the awesome back cover of the trio lounging by the river in an obvious nod to Neil Young's On the Beach. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Walky-talky"
MPEG Stream: "Monza (Rauf Und Runter)"

ISHIZUKA, TOSHIAKI In The Night (PSF) cd 16.98
We dug the latest record from legendary Japanese drummer Toshiaki Ishizuka so much (we made it a record of the week in fact!), that we decided to track down more of his music, and managed to get a bunch of copies of this, 1999's In The Night.
Ishizuka is a legend in the Japanese underground music scene, having founded Japan's first radical political punk combo Zuno Keisatsu, as well as having played and recorded with Kan Mikami, Keiji Haino, Masayoshi Urabe and loads more.
But when he is behind the kit, armed with an arsenal of percussion and noisemakers, he is less of a drummer and more of a sonic alchemist, a soundscaper even, using the drum kit in very un-drummer-like ways. Most of In The Night is ambient, percussive, dreamy and abstract, but not necessarily rhythmic in the strictest sense of the term. Although at the same time this record is nothing BUT rhythm. Dense swirls of cymbal sizzle, brief squalls of tom toms swell and then fade, little bursts of tribal freakouts are underpinned by dizzyingly minute splatters of hand drums and cymbal crash, drums are rubbed and scraped, strange textures become near drones, hyena like chatter is somehow coaxed from drum heads, thick washes of metallic sound spreads out from vigorously beaten gongs, tiny melodies are plucked out on tinkling chimes, random bits of percussion lope and stutter, subtly intertwined with cymbal swish and strange resonant rumbles, even some occasional chanting vocals. One track does in fact feature Ishizuka seriously rocking the kit in full on freaked out free jazz mode, but even going for it with sticks, he still has a strange and subtle mastery of the kit. So cool. Essential for drummers, and the drum obsessed, but haunting and mysterious enough for anyone into dark droning rhythmic abstraction...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

JABLADAV Dead As Duck (self released) cd-r 7.98
For a band that didn't exist for very long, only had one record and who have been broken up for years now, SF's mighty Weakling still cast a pretty long shadow. We still sell Dead As Dreams like crazy, more and more people are professing their undying love for Weakling's black grandeur every day, and band after band, some more subtly than others are displaying in their music, some serious Weakling worship. Wolves In The Throne Room are a recent example, they obviously expanded on the sound but there are moments where WITTR are a dead ringer for Weakling. Then there is Jabladav, who almost come off as a sort of Weakling homage, what with the very Dead As Dreams-ish title, the album artwork, and of course Weakling topping the thanks list, which also includes Burzum, Darkthrone, Black Flag, Ildjarn and Wolves In The Throne Room. But Jabladav, seem to approach metal from a distinctly non-metal background. It's subtle, but noticeable. Black Flag in the thanks list should give you some indication. Not that this isn't black and buzzy, heavy and thrashing and brutal, it is, one man, just guitar bass, mellotron and drums, but there is a distinctly post rock, punk rock vibe that permeates much of Dead As Duck. Take out some of the thick swaths of dramatic keyboards and insane bursts of double kick drumming, and sometimes you're left with some very Greg Ginn-ish angular metallic post punk. But when all is said and done, Jabladav whip up some serious black skree, with buzzy crunchy guitars dominating the mix, some murky drumming, bits of bass here and there, a little keyboards, mostly instrumental, but when there are vocals, they are a haunting croon, much like the madman in Urfaust. There are even some dreamy folky interludes. Fucking awesome stuff for sure. We've been playing this like mad since we got it. So if you dig any of the aforementioned bands (we might even include in the list Earl Shilton, Carcass, even the Champs maybe) you'll definitely love this! LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Dead As Duck"
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For A Winter's Decention"
MPEG Stream: "Zarqawi Mortus"

JABLADAV Dead As Duck (self released) cassette 3.00
For a band that didn't exist for very long, only had one record and who have been broken up for years now, SF's mighty Weakling still cast a pretty long shadow. We still sell Dead As Dreams like crazy, more and more people are professing their undying love for Weakling's black grandeur every day, and band after band, some more subtly than others are displaying in their music, some serious Weakling worship. Wolves In The Throne Room are a recent example, they obviously expanded on the sound but there are moments where WITTR are a dead ringer for Weakling. Then there is Jabladav, who almost come off as a sort of Weakling homage, what with the very Dead As Dreams-ish title, the album artwork, and of course Weakling topping the thanks list, which also includes Burzum, Darkthrone, Black Flag, Ildjarn and Wolves In The Throne Room. But Jabladav, seem to approach metal from a distinctly non-metal background. It's subtle, but noticeable. Black Flag in the thanks list should give you some indication. Not that this isn't black and buzzy, heavy and thrashing and brutal, it is, one man, just guitar bass, mellotron and drums, but there is a distinctly post rock, punk rock vibe that permeates much of Dead As Duck. Take out some of the thick swaths of dramatic keyboards and insane bursts of double kick drumming, and sometimes you're left with some very Greg Ginn-ish angular metallic post punk. But when all is said and done, Jabladav whip up some serious black skree, with buzzy crunchy guitars dominating the mix, some murky drumming, bits of bass here and there, a little keyboards, mostly instrumental, but when there are vocals, they are a haunting croon, much like the madman in Urfaust. There are even some dreamy folky interludes. Fucking awesome stuff for sure. We've been playing this like mad since we got it. So if you dig any of the aforementioned bands (we might even include in the list Earl Shilton, Carcass, even the Champs maybe) you'll definitely love this! LIMITED TO TWENTY COPIES, each cassette hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Dead As Duck"
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For A Winter's Decention"
MPEG Stream: "Zarqawi Mortus"

KAYO DOT / BLOODY PANDA Don't Touch Dead Animals / Fever / Circle And Tail (Holy Roar) lp 17.98
We've long been fans art metallers Kayo Dot (who were born from another band we loved, metallic chamber prog weirdos Maudlin Of The Well) and they just keep getting better and better, weirder and weirder. And who better to get matched up with for a split lp, that outsider art sludge combo Bloody Panda? Who, much like Bathtub Shitter, we liked before we even heard em cuz how can you not with a name like that?! And thankfully their sound more than lived up to the high expectations we had because of the name.
Anyway, these two groups are pretty well matched, different enough to keep things interesting, but similar enough to ensure that most folks who dig one, will most likely dig the other.
Kayo Dot start things off with the side-log "Don't Touch Dead Animals", which begins with some creepy female spoken word before lurching into some woozy dark jazz, blissy and warbly underpinned by thick (yet subtle) metal guitars. The sound is slithery and late night, like a metal tinged Bohren or DJ Shadow. Eventually, this dark lounge groove builds into some serious metallic crunch, with wailing horns and anguished female vocals, and truly killer drumming. A glorious trainwreck, blown out free jazz groove all tangled up in some dirgey heaviness. Pretty great.
Bloody Panda counter with what starts out as just a simple caveman plod, with distant moaning metallic guitars, a weird sort of doomy ambience, but it pretty quickly amps up into a massive churning slab of doomy sludge. Guitars are huge and downtuned, poured over everything like viscous goop, the vocals are bizarre, some chanted and crooned, others garbled and alien sounding. There are brief bits of post rocky bliss, and some weird ambient spaciness, but for the most part, this is the sound of a huge Bloody Panda, trudging through tarpits and molten rock, leaving a swath or ruin behind it, crushing everything in its path.
Pressed on super swank grey and brown splattered vinyl, and housed in an eye popping full color gatefold sleeve.

LOINEN s/t (Blind Date / Streaks) lp 17.98
It makes sense and everything... Finland is dark and cold, with a winter that is bleak and inhospitable, forests, and huge expanses of frosty tundra, but it still seems impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that there can be a seemingly neverending stream of gloriously depraved doom that continues to emanate from our favorite far away land. But who's complaining? Not us that's for sure. We can't get enough frozen Finnish weirdness, especially when it's of the doomy and sludgelike variety. And Loinen is most certainly both sludgelike and extremely doomy. But that's not nearly all.
Loinen (parasite in Finnish) traffic in "nihilist sludge core" and while that may be true, they do manage to add some interesting little sonic twists to what could be just another tarpit trudge through a downtuned wasteland. Which is not a bad thing, not at all, we could happily spend the rest of our days wrapped in a pair of headphones, crawling through a sonic wasteland as black as pitch, but when a band can create a bleak landscape that manages to transcend the typical, we're all the more thrilled.
The core sound is of course familiar, crumbling downtuned and ultra distorted guitars, churning riffs, pounding drums, and the glacial groove of dual bass crunch and drum pound makes up the framework of this whole disc, but Loinen, take a few liberties. One is a strange flair for the dynamic, no static slow motion riff trudgery, instead, the guitars, crunch and grind, stop and start, allowing lots of space to seep in, and building strange rhythms out of the doom. Very reminiscent of Dutch hypno-rockers Gore at times, with the churning looped vibe and the hypnotic repetitive arrangements. But the weirdest part of Loinen's doom-iverse is the vocals, a haunting croon, like some impossible mix of Scott Walker and Urfaust, sure there are howled demonic shrieks, but they spend most of the time buried way down in the mix, coming to the surface here and there, but it's those creepy soulful vocals that add an unexpected dimension to Loinen's doomy dirges. Turning some tracks into expansive epics that almost sound like some sort of doom metal Swans. Plus they even cover obscure Finnish punk legends Terveet Kadet! Awesome!
Packaged in an eye popping gatefold, all scrawled black and white madman illustrations, the sort of art you'd expect to see on the wall of a cell at an insane asylum, a tattooed figure, a toothy grimace, all sorts of crosses and clouds, little beasts and lots and lots of text. Cool.
LIMITED TO 524 COPIES!!!

MANSET, GERARD 1968 (Xenon) cd 18.98
Gerard Manset is an underground French treasure, recording records since the late '60s but always avoiding the public spotlight, refusing to do interviews, appear on TV or play any of the other silly games often required to attain mainstream success. With a totally seductive voice, and lush arrangements that are as powerful as they are beautiful, this album recorded during the student riots in Paris in 1968 has become one of those discs we can't stop listening to! There is an urgency and passion in these songs rarely heard in modern music. Manset has the same kind of presence and elegance as folks like Serge Gainsbourg, Caetano Veloso, Michel Polnareff and Scott Walker. This is not ye-ye fluffy French pop. Don't get us wrong we love that stuff, but what makes Manset so damn great is how his songs are so melodic and catchy while also being so sensual and impassioned. Totally smart arrangements that will appeal to both psych and pop lovers. We recently learned that Manset has an extensive back-catalog and we can't wait to start getting our hands on as much of it as possible, but until then let's all get swept up in 1968!
MPEG Stream: "Animal On Est Mal"
MPEG Stream: "L'Arc En Ciel"

MATMOS For Alan Turing (Vague Terrain) 3"cd 8.98
This limited pressing 3" cd from local sound alchemists Matmos continues in the same conceptual vein as their last major release, The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast, where each track was dedicated to a musical, philosophical or literary figure (Boyd McDonald, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Larry Levan, etc.). The material for this cd was originally commissioned by members of The Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Matmos took the opportunity to create three pieces for one of their scientific heroes, Alan Turing. Who is Alan Turing, you ask? Well, Alan Turing was an English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer who became a pioeering figure in modern computing, and who contributed much to the debate about artificial intelligence and whether machines could ever develop consciousness and independently think (ever hear of the Turing Test?). But what makes Alan Turing an even more interesting and ultimately tragic figure for Matmos is the charges that were brought against him in the early fifties of "acts of gross indecency" for admitting to a sexual relationship with another man. After being put on probation and ordered to undergo hormone therapy, Turing ate an apple laced with cyanide. His death was ruled a suicide. Taking cues from Turing's work with cryptographic devices (otherwise known as the Enigma Machine) and his personal effects including postcards he sent to his lover before his suicide entitled Messages From The Unseen World, Matmos gained access to an actual Enigma machine and were able to use its sound for this recording. Enlisting help from David Tibet of Current 93, and Clodagh Simonds of Fovea Hex, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Matthew Curry and Mark Lightcap, Matmos have created three beautiful and touching pieces paying tribute this important and tragic figure. Limited to 1000 copies, and highly recommended!!!
MPEG Stream: "Enigma Machine For Alan Turing"
MPEG Stream: "Messages From The Unseen World"

MONUMENT OF URNS Cruelty (Hand Hewn Timbre) 3" cd-r 4.98
THE RETURN OF THE URNS!! THE THIRD URNS!!
We've been waiting patiently, almost a year now, for the next installment in Monument Of Urns' creeping crawling, and slowly coalescing masterpiece. A timeless epic, so massive, it can only be presented 20 minutes at a time. Each chapter a massive single track, each a piece of some unimaginable grand design. Each immaculately designed and presented. Each somehow impossibly heavier than the last. First there was The Ancient Method. Then there was The Destroyer Of All. And now, there is Cruelty.
Another all too brief missive from the mysterious dark lord who guards the Monument Of Urns.
Cruelty is another soul smiting slab of ultra sludge, a plodding doom metal behemoth, trudging endlessly forward, knee deep in murk and mire, wreathed in clouds of black buzz, a monstrously monolithic dirge, laying waste to any and all who kneel before it. In addition to the demonic growls, there seems to be some sort of strange monk like chanting, giving Cruelty a sort of demonically liturgical feel. The riff and pounding rhythmic pummel repeat like some sort of hellish mantra, over and over for nearly fifteen minutes, before the riffs devolve into a swirling black morass, over which harsh vocals struggle to be heard, the cries of a tortured soul, soon huge black hole pulses of downtuned crush drop from the sky, threatening to rent our puny planet asunder. The beast arises and continues its relentless rampage, until finally, all that is left is the chanting of those mysterious monks, praying that the beast will never return...
Essential doom for the Skepticism, Moss, Bunkur, Esoteric, Khanate, Corrupted, Earth and SUNNO))) sets... And like the other two installments, gorgeously packaged in a fold over sleeve, printed with woodcut images and strange calligraphic text, the 3" cd-r affixed to the inside.
All must worship before the Monument Of Urns.
Or perish.
MPEG Stream: "Cruelty (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Cruelty (excerpt 2)"

MUHLY, NICO Speaks Volumes (Bedroom Community) cd 15.98
Although young enough to be their son, Nico Muhly seems to have a great grasp of the kind of elegance in chamber music that folks like Steve Reich and Philip Glass have developed over the last several decades. The first release on a new label from Iceland, Muhly's name is no upstart in Icelandic music circles as he helped Bjork on Medulla as well as for her score to Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9. The company Muhly keeps gives pretty good insight into the majestic and moving music that he creates. As well as Bjork, Muhly has also collaborated with Philip Glass on lots of stage and film works, and Antony of Antony & The Johnsons, who appears on the last track here. Muhly has a sensitive songwriting hand which keeps the songs on Speaks Volumes subtle enough to remain riveting but with enough emotional weight to keep us coming back for more. So very nice!
MPEG Stream: "Clear Music"
MPEG Stream: "Pillaging Music"

MUNDY, MARC s/t (Companion) cd 14.98
We really like this album, but went through a few phases in appreciating it. First off, when we heard about it, we were like, cool! This first-time-on-cd reissue of an extremely obscure, self-released 1971 LP checks out pretty well, on paper: it was a one-off record of tragic love songs done in late '60s psych pop style written and recorded by a teenager from Cyprus recently relocated to New York City. Heck, Middle Eastern psych, we can't get enough! But when we actually heard it, at first it was a little hard to get past how odd it sounded -- it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Marc Mundy's voice and lyrics eventually charmed us, but it's easy to see why he never make it big on the pop charts in the USA, with his foreign accent and amateur (but decent) singing skills. Then there's his lyrics, written in English, which perhaps explains how awkward his turns of phrase can be -- though again, in the end we found ourselves marveling at his heartfelt, heartbreak poetry. Such lyrics as "baby I love your lips / when they're wet with wine and desire / I love your hair / when it is messed up in the wind / baby I love your arms / when your soft, warm flesh touches mine / I love your eyes / when the lovelight lies / not for me the cold, calm kiss of a virgin / not for me / the bless of a saint..." might at first seem like typical love song stuff, but not really... coupled with his so-sincere delivery, Marc's words will find their way closer to your soul than most pop music lyrics ever do. Maybe it's the atypical metaphors, situations and stories that crop up in his songs, some of which must be inspired by the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern folk songs he'd heard in his youth.
For example, "How Can I Marry This Language" is about a father refusing to allow his daughter to marry the song's narrator, in language that he (the frustrated narrator/suitor) can't even understand. It's actually (intentionally, we think) humorous, which isn't the case with most of the sad, melancholic material on this album! Another track, "The Tragic House", is about an empty, abandoned house where the narrator's love used to live, before she vanished to who knows where, or why. Yup, super sad and melancholic. There's definitely lots of stuff on here if you ever need material for a breakup mix tape!! "Our Love Can Never Be", "Give Up Your Pride", "I'm Crying Your Name", "Don't Love Me Anymore", and others...
Yet despite the sadness, these songs percolate along, Marc taking the melodic lead on vocals and guitar, accompanied by a now-anonymous band of musicians, sounding vaguely exotic while also of its time and place (the Greenwich Village coffeehouse folk-rock scene, also home to The Devil's Anvil you'll recall). Ethereal female backing vocals also add to the lovely moodiness...
This reissue is one of those wonderful finds you've got to thank some obsessed collector for, and comes complete with lyric sheet and new liner notes. And it's fully authorized by Marc, whom we're told gave up on music as a career soon after this album was originally released and now lives back on Cyprus, teaching school (and hopefully not still pining for lost loves!).
MPEG Stream: "How Can I Marry This Language"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Love Me Anymore"

PICCHIO DAL POZZO s/t (Vinyl Magic) cd 22.00
Perhaps you're familiar with that kick ass Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word compilation on Delay 68? It's sure been a big seller hereabouts. One of the bands that compiler Andy Votel introduced us to via that collection was an Italian group by the name of Picchio Dal Pozzo. Their track "La Merta", in all its gently gorgeous glory of tinkling, buzzing, and wordless vocal "aaaah-aaaahhing", made us curious to hear more by them! Turns out "La Merta" was taken from this, their self-titled debut originally released in 1976 on the Grog label. And indeed it was indicative of the mellow and mysterious delights of this album, a work of cosmically spacey, jazz-inflected, psychedelic chamber-prog inspired by the Canterbury sounds of Robert Wyatt era Soft Machine (indeed, it bears a dedication to "Roberto Viatti" aka Robert Wyatt). They were probably into Terry Riley too. Yet nothing prepared us for track three, this record's ten-minute masterpiece, the suite entitled "Seppia" that freakin' blew our minds with its droning, throbbing, Magmoid, synth-sizzling heaviness. Wow! Have the Boredoms heard this?? So, a very nice record indeed, with at least one track that just takes things to another level entirely. Seriously, if you're like us you'll being playing that one over and over again. Instantly a new Italian prog fave here -- half the AQ staff bought copies for themselves!
MPEG Stream: "La Merta"
MPEG Stream: "Seppia"
MPEG Stream: "La Bolla"

RILEY, TERRY Reed Streams (Elision Fields) cd 14.98
An absolutely stellar reissue of Terry Riley's debut album from 1966, Reed Streams.
Containing two long pieces, "Untitled Organ" and "Dorian Reeds", we see the initial foundations of Riley's spiritualized minimalism that would culminate in the wide releases of A Rainbow in Curved Air and In C a few years later. "Untitled Organ" is a series of four- and eight-note patterns exchanged and interchanged in idiosyncratic modulations inevitably creating a third complex pattern. The effect is rigorous, repetitious and astounding for its lack of delay effects. "Dorian Reeds" makes use of more undulating and circular pulsations but this time is aided with tape echo to create a more time-altering effect. But the real treat of this reissue is the bonus track from 1970 of "In C (mantra)" performed by L'Infonie, a ragtag group of French-Canadian free players directed by Walter Boudreau. What L'Infonie adds to this piece is the use of propulsive percussion jettisoning this classic piece of conceptual music into a grooving krautrock tribal spree. Highly Recommended!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Dorian Reeds"
MPEG Stream: "In C (Mantra)"

STRIBORG Nefaria / A Tragic Journey Towards The Light (Southern Lord) cd 13.98
The return of our favorite one man Tasmanian rain forest black metal horde, the mighty Striborg, whose damaged outsider lo-fi black buzz has held us in its thrall since the very first time we heard it years ago. Even though this is only the second Striborg release we've managed to get enough of to review and list, there have actually probably been more like a dozen full lengths from Striborg so far...
And lord knows we've tried to track down enough copies of those old releases to list, but as they are all self released on Striborg mainman Sin Nanna's own label, they've been mighty tough to get a hold of. Thankfully, he's taken to tacking on old out of print records at the tail end of new records. So here we've got the brand new full length Nefaria, coupled with his '95 demo A Tragic Journey Towards The Light. And the amazing thing is that even after all that time, and all those releases, the sound is just as lo-fi, fucked up and damaged as ever. The atmosphere is creepy and gloomy, the vocals a strangled croak swathed in reverb, the drums a stumbling thrashing mess, a dank black buzz that writhes and squirms, filthy and mysterious and so fucking awesome. There are some haunting ambient tracks too, whirring warbly synths drifting wraith like, sometimes with a lurching subtle beat buried way down in the mix, but for the most part, it's all damaged buzzing blackness, wrapped around bizarre arrangements and loads of lo-fi hiss and whir. Amidst the weirdness there are some breathtaking moments, moody and emotional and strangely haunting, like the first half of closer "Black Apparitional Void" a slowcore midtemo Burzumy buzz replete with distant keyboard melody and gorgeous minor key melodies, as lovely and sorrowful as it is buzzy and black, with bizarre muddy swells that briefly swallow up the entire song before quickly receding back into the murk, before the song lurches into a dizzying squall of buzzing guitars, processed vocals, and bizarrely recorded drums, the rest of the track going from lo-fi to even more lo-fi and back again.
But then we're only scratching the surface as far as lo-fi is concerned, cuz up next is Striborg's very first recording, A Tragic Journey Towards The Light, which is so lo-fi and so liberally sprinkled with effects, that at times it stops being black metal and becomes some weird swirling morass of black sound. The drum machine is doused in reverb, doubling and blurring, almost like some hyperspeed dub, during the super dynamic start and stop parts, the vocals and the drums are so caked in FX, that they sound like some sort of children's TV show special effects sounds, and the vocals, a garbled tongue twisting whatthefuck stream of growls and guttural yelps, the guitar a squiggly distorted streak over the churning blur beneath, so completely over the top and confusing to listen to, but so completely and impossibly catchy. This is the Striborg that ensorcelled us back in the day, and it sounds just as amazingly fucked as ever!
MPEG Stream: "Nefaria"
MPEG Stream: "Somnambulistic Nightmares"
MPEG Stream: "Garmonbozia"
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Shadow Of Silence ('95)"

TARKUS s/t (Repsychled) cd 15.98
What's this? Maybe the cover, all-black but for the name Tarkus, caught your eye? Holy grail time here, people. We've been wanting to get this album on cd FOREVER. There was a hard-to-find LP reissue some years ago, but we'd never yet found a cd version -- until now, at last, and it's a totally legit one from the master tapes! Released (barely, in an edition of just, like, 50 copies) in Tarkus' native Peru back in 1972, this is an album to go down in the annals of heavy rock, proudly belonging to the pantheon of proggy proto-metal!!! We'd definitely rank this with favorites of ours in that truly cult realm, other early '70s stuff like Necronomicon and Night Sun and Eduardo Bort and Steamhammer's Speech!
It may be that they're named after the ELP's 1971 album Tarkus (you know, the one with that freaky armadillo/tank on the cover), but they don't sound much like ELP in any event. While progressive rock is part of their sound, this Tarkus come across more like a bizarro hybrid of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and some of the more out-there and baroque Italian prog outfits of the era, rather than ELP. It's music that's dark and doomy and powerful and psychedelically dosed, sometimes with really weird operatic vocals -- and always with about a zillion cool, heavy guitar riffs. It's meant to be played LOUD. Shouldn't be hard to comply!
With some very pretty melodies and acoustic moments, Tarkus somehow seem like a '60s garage psych act (which they previously were, Tarkus being formed by members of Peruvian psych-pop group Telegraph Ave.) in possession of a crystal ball that enabled them to gaze into the future to be anachronistically inspired by Black Sabbath's Sabotage album, which was released three years later in 1975 (we'll have to assume that crystal ball had a place to plug in earphones).
This comes packaged in a gatefold, miniature LP styled sleeve. There's a folded color insert, another black and white lyric sheet, and also separate liner notes in both Spanish and English, which make mention of the band dressing like monks when they made one of their rare live appearances.
And by the way, we'd somehow suspect that Portland's Danava have heard this record. If not, they should -- we think they'd like it! And we think you will too, if any of the above raving and referencing strikes a chord!
MPEG Stream: "El Pirata"
MPEG Stream: "Team Para Lilus"

TROUM & ALL SIDES Shutun (Old Europa Cafe) cd 19.98
For their first full length since 2003, German instrumental organic drone alchemists Troum have teamed up with Nina Kernicke aka All Sides to create one of the most amazing records we've heard in ages. A gorgeously expansive single track, epic and cinematic, dark and delicate...
Beginning life as the guitar based drone unit Maeror Tri, the band morphed into Troum and expanded their sonic palette to include all manner of instruments including guitar, bass, voice, accordion, balalaika, flute, mouth-organ, melodica, gong and even field recordings. Every record since has slowly expanded their sonic universe, but Shutun is a revelation.
The sound is dramatically different from past Troum outings, so one has to assume that Ms. Kernicke has something to do with the new direction. That said, it's impossible to tell who is doing what. This single 51 minute piece is like an organic entity, a living sound, shifting and stretching, subtly changing shape assuming new forms. From the strange processed voices that open up the piece, creating a strange pagan sort of ritual, the voices are quickly subsumed by soft metallic shimmers, that seem to materialize from out of nowhere. A hypnotically looped refrain that glistens and glimmers, the sound is not dense at all, but nearly weightless. Within these delicate shimmers are darkly melancholic melodies that repeat mantra like, creating super intense emotion, and occasional muted bursts of resonant sound, huge billows of metallic rumble like massive bells slowed way down. The result is impossibly lush and dreamlike. cinematic and dramatic. It's like an impossible blend of Oval's Diskont, the blissed out blur of Pop Ambient, and the sepia toned fuzzscapes of Tim Hecker. But Troum and All Sides, take those sounds and blend them into something new and unique, looping certain parts, stretching out others. Drone music can be dark and ominous, but to imbue it with such emotion and such intensity, is a rare thing indeed. About 11 minutes in, the whole piece becomes saturated with some intense minor key miserablism, it's impossible to not get chills, or to imagine the music as the backdrop for some incredible tragedy. The sound of terror, heartbreak, loneliness, it's amazingly powerful. And that's just the first half of the record.
About halfway through the record, the lush sonic backdrop recedes, leaving a slow shimmery landscape of bleak minimal rumble and slow droning swells. The creaking and groaning in the background are definitely reminiscent of the ghost ship minimalism of Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste. And this portion of Shutun plays out as a similar sonic journey. A creeping musical terror, an endless walk into a grey nothingness. But before everything fades to black, a strange pulsing machinelike throb surfaces, a crumbling, heroin house pulse buried beneath roiling swirls of hiss and creaking ambience. Eventually, the clouds clear, the strange relentless murky rhythm becomes more sporadic and scattershot, and the gloom dissipates, leaving warm muted streaks of color in the sky, with the haunting looped melody from the beginning resurfacing, but just briefly and barely as a not-really-there ghost-like coda. So completely spellbinding.
Packaged in a printed metal canister with a textured paper and silver ink insert.
MPEG Stream: "Shutun (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Shutun (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Shutun (excerpt 3)"

V/A Bay Area Funk 2 (Luv N' Haight) cd 16.98
Oh yeah! With so many great collections of golden-era soul/funk coming out in the last couple years chronicling the wonderful sounds that came out of scenes in different parts of the country and abroad it makes perfect sense that there should be some collections detailing the amazing soul & funk that came out of our very own backyard, right here in San Francisco and throughout the bay-area during the '60s and '70s. Like their great collection of soul & funk from Michigan on the Searching For Soul comp, Luv N' Haight have once again hit solid gold with a totally stellar collection of should have been big time hits that mostly slipped under the radar on a more national scale. From the heartbroken soul of Mary Love, the always reliable Sugar Pie DeSanto, the tripped out funk of San Francisco T.K.O.'s, the charismatic hip shaking sounds of Little Denise Stevenson and the gut wrenchingly gritty funk of Primevil, this collection is pretty much super solid from start to finish. We can't get enough of the raw good stuff, from a time when Soul & Funk was done so totally right. Fans of the Eccentric Soul series and of all vintage soul & funk, this is a definite must have!
MPEG Stream: MARY LOVE "Born To Live With Heartache"
MPEG Stream: LITTLE DENISE STEVENSON "Hip Breakin'"
MPEG Stream: PRIMEVIL "Stop Look Listen"

WORMWOOD Starvation (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
Finally on cd! (And still available on super deluxe double lp):
We reviewed the first Wormwood record ages and ages ago. At the time we described them as sounding like " Eyehategod with keyboards, a black metal Neurosis, a nastier, less spaced-out Tarantula Hawk..." Reading that just now only reminded us just how much we dug these guys. So where the heck have they been? Well, if this new record is any indication, they've been holed up in some black cave somewhere (one equipped with a jam pad and a recording studio) getting weirder, more fucked up and even better that they were before.
Eyehategod and Neurosis are definitely huge influences, but the band has gotten even slower and dirgier, and it definitely suits them. Take EHG and Neurosis, but toss some Corrupted, some Asunder, even some Isis into the mix, and you'll be getting close. But then there's keyboards, ALL OVER THE PLACE. And they're not subtle or minimal, they're just not used for ambience, they are psychedelic and proggy and give the proceedings a definite psychprog black metal vibe. Weird. But so cool. Take some super heavy, murky crusty epic metal, howled vocals, wild drumming, bombastic and ultra pummeling, then add in the keyboards, break it down every once in a while into some super tripped out psychedelic passages, where the keyboards hit prog overload and the drums get all tribal. Sort of Neurosis meets Cradle Of Filth? Whatever it is it's cool.
But the second lp is where stuff gets really good. Side three is almost entirely taken up by "No True Altruism", an epic dirge of haunted house cinematic doom, or something, it sounds like Corrupted channeled through Goblin, slow and lumbering with bursts of sludgy pummel, blasts of double kick drumming, grinding overblown bass, absolute horror movie prog sludge nirvana.
Side 4 is all a single track, a mind blowing coda to a record that was already pretty brain melting, "Gluttony" is a massive chaotic dubbed out whirl of what-the-fuck sonics and processed sludge weirdness. It sounds like a remix, sort of, with huge walls of backwards guitars, garbled backwards vocals, weird processed rhythms, bits of Terminal Cheesecake, Butthole Surfers all whipped into a maelstrom of Corrupted meets Teenage Filmstars sonic fuckery, but still murky and muddy and impossibly doomy. Wow.
Packaged in a killer, mini reproduction of the original lp gatefold sleeve, with creepy cool artwork and lyrics and liner notes inside!
MPEG Stream: "Passages Of Lesser Light"
MPEG Stream: "Release From Expectation"
MPEG Stream: "Gluttony"

ZA FRUMI Chapter 3: Shrak Ishi Za Migul (Waerloga) cd 14.98
It's been a long wait, but now, after 5 years, we return to the ongoing saga of Uglach and his band of Orcs. You heard us, Orcs! We know some of you have been waiting like a kid at Christmas for the next installment. But those of you who are new to the wonderful world of Za Frumi, are in for a treat. An entire world, a wild cast of characters, most of them Orcs, the entire drama played out like a radio play, complete with the sounds of battle, music, and most importantly dialogue. Yep, dialogue. Except for brief passages in Dark Elf, all delivered in actual Orcish (aka Black speech).
Where as chapter 2 was heavier on the music with much less focus on the story and thus less dialogue, chapter three is all about the story, tons of action, loads of dialogue, all printed in the cd booklet too so you can follow along. And it's not necessary to have heard the first two chapters to get into chapter 3, as Uglach recalls the events of the first two chapters at the beginning of the disc (although the speech is in Orcish).
The music is cool too, heavy on the brooding dark ambient, with rumbling drones, and haunting melodies, simple martial drumming, epic sweeping strings, occasionally the music slips into a more sort of Renaissance Faire sort of folk, but as the majority of the story is a tale of death and destruction, war and revenge, the music is suitably dark.
And even if you have no interest in the fate of the Orcs, or the life of Uglach and his friends, or the story at all, purely as a sound document, Shrak Ishi Za Migul is a captivating listen, equal parts, radio drama, soundtrack, field recording and high concept art piece. So good.
It had been so long since we had visited Uglach's world, we had almost forgotten how bracing it was, what a dangerous and vicarious thrill it was to ride alongside the Orcs in battle, to grieve the dead, to drink and sup, and to luxuriate in the epic and majestic sounds of the mighty Za Frumi!!
MPEG Stream: "Intro"
MPEG Stream: "Baurukat (Imprisoned)"
MPEG Stream: "M