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"

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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: "Margim Iz Za Kala (Escape From The Keep)"

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----* More tapes! Some Black Metal And Some Finnish Folk :
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HYPOTHERMIA / DURTHANG Lead Yourself To Failure (Northern Sky Productions) cassette 5.98
You might remember Hypothermia from their amazing split with Dimhymn a few months back, and we review the killer Durthang tape elsewhere on this list. But these two Swedish purveyors of bleak lifeless doomic black metal are the perfect match up.
Hypothermia's side is an ultra lo fi blast of midtempo buzz, super murky, almost like a practice space recording, with strangled vocals, and some killer riffing. Definitely some serious cult black brutality.
The flipside is two loooong tracks from Durthang, and further convinces us that this could very well be one of our new favorite black metal hordes. A strangely clean sound, but nice fuzzy riffing and way up in the mix drumming. Mournful melodies over relentless double kick drumming. Cool arpeggiated guitar lines over swirling buzzing blackness and blown out distorted vocal shrieks. A darkly depressive Burzumic buzz wrapped around melancholy minor key misery. So good. And so far the only Durthang recording available are on ultra cult cassette tape only!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

NIHILIM Dead And Forgotten (Insikt) cassette 5.98
An ultra brief blast of grim, depressive, doomy ambience, from this Swedish one man horde known as Nihilum. Also spreading his harsh hateful message of metallic doom and gloom in the groups Durthang and Hypothermia, Nachtzeit, the man behind Nihilim, here weaves lush, lonely synthscapes of minor key melody, rumbling drones, soaring faux strings, and mournful melancholia, all over drawn out pulses and epic sweeping expanses of slow shifting fuzz. A gloriously lo-fi dark ambience, cinematic and sad, weirdly dramatic and hauntingly pretty.
Not so much metal, or doom, or even heavy really, as lilting and lovely, dark, dreamy and depressive.

RITES OF CLEANSING Nemesis (Nightfog Productions) cassette 4.00
Mysterious ep of ritualistic black metal from this German duo. Sorath, "visionaire and heralder" and Aer, "moulder of ritual ambience", whip up a strange black metal brew, some tracks are long slow stretches of roiling ambience, which give way to harsh slow motion doomic dirge, howled vocals, and lurching tarpit riffage, before suddenly exploding into blasts of Nordic style buzz, with stumbling double kick drumming, insectoid riffing, and strangled cries, all tangled into a murky black swirl. Others, are raw bursts of pounding midtempo riffage, simple metallic stomps, grim and frosty. A weird blend of classic Norwegian style black metal Mayhem and a more necro primitive black blast that totally slays in its own murky muddied lo-fi way...

V/A Puistokiitajainen (Carabus Hortensis) (Bem Bole Cassettes) cassette 5.98
FINNISH WEIRD MUSIC OBSESSIVES will not want to pass this up. The strangely named Puistokiitajainen compilation collects haunting and lovely, mostly acoustic tracks from another circle of the Finnish music underground that we have seemingly barely scratched the surface of. Not a single band name we recognize: Adolf Hiller, Amigo Result, Krax Orchestra, Parta & Viikset, Esko Mrk, Tomi, Pulkkinen, Monuments In The Horizon, Jump P.A. And The Guitar That Wasn't Mine, Kanttoripoika, Stories, Jan-Erik & His Band Of Banjos, Neljakakkonen, but we're willing to wager at least a few name we know might be involved. But it hardly matters, every track here is a gem. Dark and folky, detuned and deconstructed, dreamy and drifting. acoustic guitars crumble and drift, wrapped in dense swaths of tape hiss, harmoniums and accordions wheeze out old timey ambience, metallic percussion and random clinks and clatters shimmer way down in the mix, whirring stretches of tinkling ambience butt up against birdlike FX and looped angular guitar, field recordings, and tiny tangles of warm dreamlike strum, each track totally unique, but somehow sonically linked to each other, like a strange sampling of the long lost works of some recently unearthed alien Appalachia, all muted twang and abstract ambience. So nice.

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----* Selected New Arrivals :
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AEREOGRAMME My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go (Sonic Unyon) cd 14.98
Whoa, this new Aereogramme full length really unveils a new side of the band. They're downright gentle, romantic, and dare we say, emo even. Most notably they traded in their thick metal-leaning bottom end for spiraling stratospheric strings. Perhaps it's the altitude, but this album's overall sound comes across as much thinner and more brittle than last year's Seclusion, but no less epic. For the first half of My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go, everything -- from the piano to the guitars to the strings to the percussion -- is played with a contemplative, often delicate touch. Drifting atop this spacey gauziness are timorously sensitive male vocals. Think more Flaming Lips and maybe Frog Eyes than Mogwai and Isis. The hefty Aereogramme of old does resurface briefly at the album's midpoint, the sixth song "Living Backwards", injecting an effective dose of tension and gravity into the proceedings.
MPEG Stream: "A Life Worth Living"
MPEG Stream: "Living Backwards"

AFFAIR, THE Yes Yes To You (Absolutely Kosher) cd 13.98
New York quintet The Affair make some good ol' feisty power pop in which the robust female vocals of Ms Kali Holloway take center stage. Very much in the kickass traditions of Blondie, Ronnie Spector and Katrina And The Waves. Sounding like she's got one heckuva chip on her shoulder, we'd bet Holloway's not one to take things sittin' down... and neither will you when you give this a spin. You'll be up on your feet bounding around your living room. Loads of fun!
MPEG Stream: "Dead Letters"
MPEG Stream: "Left At The Party"

AFRIKA BAMBAATA, DJ Death Mix "2" (Paul Winley) cd 13.98
As influential and prolific as Afrika Bambaata is, it's always baffled us how damn hard it actually can be to get your hands on his music. Luckily we finally managed to get copies of this, a previously ultra rare mix that Bambaata whipped up back in the day. A 20+ minute continuous-mix made in the early '80s showing off his legendary chops and demonstrating loud and clear how he was able to dig into crates of records and create an instant party.
MPEG Stream: "Death Mix 2"

AFX Analogue Bubblebath 4 (Rephlex) cd ep 9.98
Recently reissued, Analogue Bubblebath 4 originally appeared in 1994 under Richard D. James' acid damaged moniker AFX. This four track EP opens with a huge, rolling techno breakbeat whose machinist rigor bears similarities to James' rhythmic structure for the Aphex single "On" and the Polygon Window track "Quoth". Instead of one of his mad-scientist melodies, James merely plants an overblown scream to punctuate the fourth measure of his rhythmic pulse. Back in the day, there were plenty of technohedz who weren't too keen on this track for its overt bloodcurdling vibe; although in comparison to the recent horror IDM excesses of Venetian Snares, this is hardly sounds like a transgressive number anymore. Solid nonetheless. James flushes out the remainder of the EP with less bombastic pieces, more in keeping with the sound of the Richard D. James LP with deftly manufactured acid percolations over midtempo fractured breaks and plenty of bubbly ambience.
MPEG Stream: "Elephant Song"
MPEG Stream: "Sloth"

AGENTS OF ABHORRENCE Character Dissection (Numerical Thief) lp 15.98
This brutal blast of glorious grind from down under is finally available on vinyl. One sided, the other side etched and it looks AMAZING! All new art, gatefold sleeve. So killer.
Here's what we had to say about the cd when we first got it in:
Not sure what it is about the number 9 but it somehow figures heavily into the mythos of these mysterious grindlords from Australia. Their first release was a super limited 9". This latest disc, another blown out blast of pummeling technical grind, is 9 songs packed into 9 ultradense minutes. Hmmm. 9. 9. 9. Upside down is... 6. 6. 6. Ahem, anyway... As with all great grind, these guys pack more riffs and parts into 9 minutes than most bands can manage in an hour! 9 mini epics, each a dizzying squall of whirlwind riffs, shrieking vocals, chaotic drum splatter and a wall of low end that hits you like a block of concrete to the sternum. The guys in Whitehorse hipped us to these guys so you can get an idea of the sort of heaviness we're talking here. But where Whitehorse destroy with glacial malevolence, AoA annihilate with frenzied fury! Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Dead End"
MPEG Stream: "Heart(less)"
MPEG Stream: "Sleepwalker"

ALHAJ, RAHIM When The Soul Is Settled: Music Of Iraq (Smithsonian Folkways) cd 16.98
We can always count on Smithsonian Folkways to bring us amazing reissues from decades past (Elizabeth Cotten, Roscoe Holcomb, Leadbelly, and of course countless compilations from all over the world). But it's always such a nice surprise when they release something that is actually contemporary. Such is the case with this outing by Rahim Alhaj. Born in Baghdad, Alhaj started playing and studying the oud when he was just 9 years old and began giving concerts as an early teen. A student of Muni Bashir (we hope you checked out his amazing album that we listed last year!), Alhaj is a master of the oud whose skills are undeniable. The record has a a kind of solemn strength that makes it the perfect thing to listen to when you want everything else in the world to fade away so just these sounds can surround and envelop you. Alhaj is able to conjure sounds from the oud that manage to be both lovely and arresting. With percussion accompaniment courtesy of Souhail Kaspar this record reminds us of the rich musical heritage of a land that is too often only thought of in terms of war and despair. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "Taqsim Maqam Sika"
MPEG Stream: "Taqsim Maqam Hijaz"

APPLES IN STEREO New Magnetic Wonder (Yep Roc) cd 16.98
Hurrah! Those delightful lil' Apples In Stereo have come bursting back from a much too long absence. Yes, it's been five long years since we last heard from these Elephant Six collective pop dynamos, but from the bright eyed and bushy tailed sounds of New Magnetic Wonder it's as if they never skipped a beat. Some things never change... head Apple Robert Schneider is still carrying a mighty big torch for Brian Wilson, but he's visiting the E.L.O. camp occasionally on a few tunes here too. This is some seriously yummy pop! Recommended for everyone young and young at heart and particularly those with a big sweet tooth. Not recommended for diabetics or old fogeys.
MPEG Stream: "Sunndal Song"
MPEG Stream: "7 Stars"

BAJA Maps / Systemalheur (Still) cd 16.98
Baja is a German collective revolving around a composer by the name of Daniel Vujanic. By the sound of things, Baja see themselves in neither Germany nor Mexico, but in Chicago circa 1995 when Gastr Del Sol was deconstructing any number of musical tropes into their own rigid signature sound. Both of the two long-form Baja tracks are decentered compositions of angular guitar plucking, ECM jazz motifs, elliptical bass riffs, painterly splatters of multiple horns, and stumbled percussive rhythms.
MPEG Stream: "Maps"
MPEG Stream: "Systemalheur"

BLACK FOREST / BLACK SEA s/t (Music Fellowship) cd 15.98
Moody n' beautiful fourth album of improv-folk-drone from this Providence duo (plus some friendly guests, as usual, including Italy's Stefano Pilia). The two long tracks here incorporate mellow, meandering folkish melody and haunting old-tymey female vocal holler amid gentle psychedelic guitar drift and sometimes-harsher electronic feedback textures. If there's a leafy glade in a mystical, musical forest where you can find the Jewelled Antler posse jamming, and another clearing occupied by a picnicking Kemialliset Ystavat, then for sure a winding path through that same forest will eventually lead you to the campsite wherein Black Forest/Black Sea are so calmly, lovingly, free-form-freaking out. Quite nice! By the way, BF/BS's first album, released in 2003 on the Last Visible Dog label and now out of print, was *also* self-titled -- this one's all new.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

BLOC PARTY A Weekend In The City (Vice) cd 15.98
Yep, this one is sure to have the Vice Magazine scene frothing at the mouth! And in this case, it's not just for love of irony, shock and grossout. This is a mighty fine album! Hopefully the anti-Vice crowd won't be dissuaded from checking it out... Anyhoo, much like a number of their hyped-to-the-moon hipster dance rock contemporaries of a couple years ago, Bloc Party have wisely shifted their focus and expanded their sound since their hot shit Silent Alarm debut. The band has risen to the challenge of shedding the decidedly one-dimensional '80s fueled dance punk trappings, but unlike many of those same contemporaries, they haven't desperately transformed themselves into something alienatingly unrecognizable. Although we did pause for a moment of uncertainty during the first song to make sure that this was indeed Bloc Party, as the album progresses the familiar voice of Kele Okereke rings through. On A Weekend In The City Bloc Party are definitely not in it for the vacuous, line cutting party time. Although the infectious, driving insistence of tracks such as "Hunting For Witches" and "Uniform" definitely getcha up and bring to mind The Faint and Pulp respectively, the shadowy, heady swoon of songs like "The Prayer" aligns them more with TV On The Radio. Darker, moodier, heavier, sturdier and above all else more deeply personal, Bloc Party are aiming for so much more than a one night stand, and they succeed enormously. Pretty great!
MPEG Stream: "Hunting For Witches"
MPEG Stream: "On"

BUCKLEY, TIM Lorca (4 Men With Beards) lp 15.98
Most known for being his "difficult album", Tim Buckley shocked a number of his fans when he released this 1970 record, his first for David Geffen's Asylum label. Extending his vocal gymnastics to almost wearying avant garde extremes and infusing jazz improvisation with folk instrumentation, Buckley led the way for artists like Joni Mitchell, Judee Sill and Phoebe Snow (all Asylum labelmates) to distinguish their highly individualized singer-songwriter leanings from their folk and folk-rock progenitors. Reissued on beautiful 180 gram vinyl. The way it was meant to be heard!

CAUSTIC WINDOW Compilation (Rephlex) cd 15.98
In 1992, Richard James issued a handful of mysterious singles under the moniker Caustic Window, all the while maintaining his vangarde reinterpretations of UR acid trax and post-rave breakcore with occasional detours into chimingly playful melodies topping eerie drones and shuffling rhythms. Given the timeframe when these tracks were created, they have a lot more in common with the first chapter of the Aphex Twin album Selected Ambient Works Volume One. Caustic Window has often been sited as the most abrasive of the Aphex Twin side projects; and while there are some numbers which Alec Empire clearly used as a springboard for his Digital Hardcore ethos, there's plenty of lilting electronica for the Boards Of Canada crowd. Of course, all of the original Caustic Window singles disappeared very quickly, and reappeared about 10 years ago on the self-evidently titled album Compilation. That set went out of print, which brings us to the modern day where the Rephlex has reissued this material once again so that Richard D. James' electronic brilliance can continue to tickle our ears and rattle our bones.
MPEG Stream: "Joyrex 14"
MPEG Stream: "Cordialatron"

COLDWORKER The Contaminated Void (Relapse) cd 12.98
Although lots of folks consider death metal to be dead, and around these parts, it takes something pretty fucking mindblowing to get us all excited about death metal again, at least one of us (Jason) still thinks death metal is alive and kicking. Granted, we have to admit to the fact that a lot of so called death metal these days is mostly played by asymmetrical-haircut/eyeliner/women's jeans-wearing EMO dudes, and even though we do dig a lot of that stuff, it is NOT really death metal! Or even real metal for that matter.
"Real" death metal still exists, but it takes a creative mind, a knack for original arrangements, as well as the ability to "shred", and those elements can be found in abundance on the debut album from former Nasum drummer Anders Jakobsons' new grindbeast Coldworker.
Surrounding himself with a few more-than-capable young guns with riffs and chops to spare, the boys in Coldworker come right out of the gate at full throttle -- not quite a full blast-beating grind, but this is DEATH METAL first and foremost! The tempo stays pretty much at a breakneck pace throughout the entire CD, with the occasional thick breakdown and raging thrash blasts scattered throughout making the record not so monotonous and "same old-same old" that seems to be plague lots of metal records these days.
You can tell that this is definitely "Nasum-influenced" -- Mr. Jakobson has a pretty unique and unmistakable signature sound, Coldworker still stands on its own. But if you need one of those "recommended if you like" things, it would probably be safe to that if you dig the brutal dirt-grindage of Brutal Truth or Hellchild mixed with classic Left Hand Path era Entombed (yes!), the precise riffing of Necrophagist and the off-kilter "quantum physics" and tortured throat roar of Converge or Coalesce, then this will definitely hit the spot. It's definitely the perfect music for packing mail order at 8:30 in the morning, so it should work for you as well, anytime!
A killer debut for a band that we hope to see raise the bar for other bands attempting to blur the line between death/thrash/tech and grind metal.
Good luck with that...
MPEG Stream: "The Interloper"
MPEG Stream: "D.E.A.D."
MPEG Stream: "An Unforgiving Season"
MPEG Stream: "The Contaminated Void"

COLDWORKER The Contaminated Void (Relapse) lp 16.98
Although lots of folks consider death metal to be dead, and around these parts, it takes something pretty fucking mindblowing to get us all excited about death metal again, at least one of us (Jason) still thinks death metal is alive and kicking. Granted, we have to admit to the fact that a lot of so called death metal these days is mostly played by asymmetrical-haircut/eyeliner/women's jeans-wearing EMO dudes, and even though we do dig a lot of that stuff, it is NOT really death metal! Or even real metal for that matter.
"Real" death metal still exists, but it takes a creative mind, a knack for original arrangements, as well as the ability to "shred", and those elements can be found in abundance on the debut album from former Nasum drummer Anders Jakobsons' new grindbeast Coldworker.
Surrounding himself with a few more-than-capable young guns with riffs and chops to spare, the boys in Coldworker come right out of the gate at full throttle -- not quite a full blast-beating grind, but this is DEATH METAL first and foremost! The tempo stays pretty much at a breakneck pace throughout the entire CD, with the occasional thick breakdown and raging thrash blasts scattered throughout making the record not so monotonous and "same old-same old" that seems to be plague lots of metal records these days.
You can tell that this is definitely "Nasum-influenced" -- Mr. Jakobson has a pretty unique and unmistakable signature sound, Coldworker still stands on its own. But if you need one of those "recommended if you like" things, it would probably be safe to that if you dig the brutal dirt-grindage of Brutal Truth or Hellchild mixed with classic Left Hand Path era Entombed (yes!), the precise riffing of Necrophagist and the off-kilter "quantum physics" and tortured throat roar of Converge or Coalesce, then this will definitely hit the spot. It's definitely the perfect music for packing mail order at 8:30 in the morning, so it should work for you as well, anytime!
A killer debut for a band that we hope to see raise the bar for other bands attempting to blur the line between death/thrash/tech and grind metal.
Good luck with that...
MPEG Stream: "The Interloper"
MPEG Stream: "D.E.A.D."
MPEG Stream: "An Unforgiving Season"
MPEG Stream: "The Contaminated Void"

COLLEY, JOE Hive (Ferns) 3" cd 9.98
A few months ago, the French label Ferns published a brilliant 3" CD from mnortham who created an homage to his father, the race car driver, through a ecstatic droning collage of racetrack recordings. The very next release from the label happens to be from the Bay Area's Joe Colley, who in turn, composed a unsettling piece dedicated to his father as well, the beekeeper. We simply could not help notice the coincidence of the fatherly inspiration found on these two recordings, and wonder if the next couple (i.e. Small Cruel Party and Giancarlo Toniutti, if you must know) will follow the same pattern in creating sonic portraits. As you probably could ascertain, Colley's Hive is sourced from beehives, with many of the recordings processed and mangled. With the resultant sounds being much less destructive / misanthropic than those heard on Psychic Stress Soundtracks or Desperate Attempts At Beauty, Colley pursues a relatively subtle composition through the anxious energy of bees rattling within a hive and swarming drones that have been hushed into a peculiarly dreamy cloud of soft white noises. Hive is incredibly well executed, but the lack of anything overtly abrasive, toxic, or downright meanspirited in a Colley piece can be a little unsettling, as we had braced ourselves for the swarm of bees to erupt from the speakers in a nightmarish attack of razor-sharp distortion. But after the second and third listens to Hive, we sank into the rich buzzing sounds wondering if this is how it sounds to have a colony of bees placidly crawling over one's head. Very nicely done.
MPEG Stream: "Hive 1"
MPEG Stream: "Hive 2"

COMMON ORACLES Ragas (Creeping Big Spiders) cd-r 5.98
First release we've listed by Common Oracles, a one man electric guitar raga ensemble based in the US, but recorded in New Zealand. And the sound is definitely New Zealand, it's impossible not to hear some Dead C, although we hear just as much Skullflower and Sunroof, and maybe a little No Neck. Needless to say, this is some underground guitar nirvana. The opener is a 15 minute slow burn that begins all slippery and wiggly, fingers all over the fretboard, notes all tangled up in dense little squalls, but mysteriously imbued with plenty of melody, albeit, buried under swirls of psych guitar chaos, before eventually morphing into some upper register snake charmer Ur-drone. The second track is a total 180, with simple electronic rhythms and whooshing swooping analog synths, like a new wave lo-fi Tangerine Dream or something. Weird but pretty cool. But it's all about the nearly half hour final track, a detuned blues jam stretched into a mantra like rage, riffs, repeated over and over, the blues getting lost in thick streaks of guitar thrum, eventually smoothing out into a creeping glistening melodic shimmer, before exploding into a frenzied psychrock coda.
Packaged in hand made, painted and taped sleeves, constructed from old LP jackets, with Xeroxed artwork affixed to the front and a photocopied insert inside.
And of course, super limited...
MPEG Stream: "Raga For The Dislocation Of Valuable Objects Into A Black Hole"
MPEG Stream: "Jamaica 2028"

D!O!D!O!D! Ghost Temple (PSF) cd 17.98
The latest from Tokyo's PSF label isn't one of their usual offerings of free jazz, outsider improv folk, or garage psych... it's not even "Japanese noise". It's actually Chinese noise. Not that that sounds much different from the Japanese variety! The oddly named D!O!D!O!D! are a raucous n' rowdy guitar and drums duo hailing from Hangzhou, China. Guitarist Li-Jianhong and drummer Huang Jin lay it on thick here, freaking out with the best of 'em. Crashing, clattering drum battery versus scrabbling, feedback guitar overload. Non-stop madness. If loud n' noisy improv is your thing, if you dig Hijokaidan and Ascension and Rudolph Grey and Harry Pussy and suchlike skronk and skree, you'll be happy PSF hooked up with these two frenzied Chinese noisniks to bring you this disc. Includes liner notes in English translation.
MPEG Stream: " UnUnn?"
MPEG Stream: "Meen_Mo"

DANAVA s/t (Kemado) lp 11.98
Now On Vinyl! Here is what we said about this album upon its cd release last year:
A few months back, we listed a one-sided, one-song 12" vinyl record that was a teaser for this, the debut album from Portland, Oregon's magnificent Danava, an eagerly awaited release 'round here for sure. And so we'll pretty much recap a bunch of what we said in the review of that 12", which featured their epic tune "Quiet Babies Astray In A Manger", also found on this disc: we first heard this stoner-garage-prog-metal combo on the Invaders comp of happenin' hipster heavy psych metal that the Kemado label released earlier this year. Their track was one of several highlights on that collection. We went to go see 'em when they played in Oakland with Parchman Farm not too long ago, and even more recently in The City when they were supposed to be opening for Witchcraft, and in both instances the Danava boys SLAYED, shredded, and (incidentally to the music) were all really skinny. Awesome band. Basically a rollicking, rippin' power trio with extra psychedelic embellishments from keyboards and electronics. If we were a label, we'd have signed 'em in an instant, and that's what Kemado wisely did some time ago. This resultant product comes close to capturing the excitement of their live show, while revealing other aspects we didn't hear whilst headbanging. It's got a reworking of their killer tune "By The Mark" from the Invaders comp, plus the aforementioned 12" track, and three others that are equally masterful, like "Eyes In Disguise" (hearing a hint of Black Sabbath in the vocal line on that one). When the fleet-fingered guitarist gets goin', and when the drummer and bassist lock in, Danava build to pure, amped up, enthused rocka rolla ecstasy and almost could just as well be a totally instrumental band and get away with it, but they have the bonus of actual decent singing capability and vocal hooks as well. Recommended if you like to rock.
MPEG Stream: "Maudie Shook"
MPEG Stream: "Longdance"

DEAD MACHINES / DAMION ROMERO / JOHN WIESE Friday the Thirteenth (Anarchymoon Recordings) 2lp 28.00
With a lineup like that you'd probably be expecting some sort of ear splitting noise free-for-all. A blasting batch of brutality designed to melt your speakers into little black puddles, to send your neighbors diving for the phone to call the cops, the sort of N O I S E that is gloriously and literally unlistenable. Well, in this case, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
In fact all four sides of this quadruple live set, are downright listenable, if not actually lovely here and there. An epic 4 sided dark ambient dronefest, that while hitting the spot for the usual suspects, will definitely also appeal to the drone minded among you as well as the Earth / SUNNO))) dronedoomdirge obsessed.
John Wiese of Bastard Noise and about a million other projects starts things off not with a bang, but a rumbling whir, a slowly unfurling blanket of crumbling fuzz and hiss, muted minimal ambience rife with pulsing low end and thick rivers of black shimmer. This is dark ambience more than noise, strange disembodied melodies, drifting all ghost like, haunting and surprisingly pretty, but without ever losing its overall bleak and ominous vibe. Definitely the best thing we've heard from Wiese.
So at this point we sort of expected Dead Machines to kick it up a notch, and they do, sort of. Beginning with a grinding symphony of buzzing analog synths and fuzzed out feedback, but that quickly gives way to a very Wolf Eyesian industrial ambient wasteland, clang and rumble, creaking and crumbling clatter, barely there dreamlike whir, distant high end melodies, downright blisssful before a coda of thick buzz and roaring damaged noise (but even then, it sounds really fuzzy and washed out)
It's up to Romero then, to get things good and noisy, but surprise surprise, Romero follows suit, offering up maybe the most tranquil and drone-y set of the bunch, thick undulating low end throb, overtones shifting and beating against each other, sounding like a doom metal Phill Niblock. Gorgeous and dreamy but still dark and menacing.
The final track, taking up all of side 4, features this fearsome foursome, Romero, Wiese and the two Dead Machines, teaming up for an epic and one would assume chaotic and noisy collaboration, but once again, we're thrown a serious curveball. Instead of all four piling up on top of each other and making a huge loud mess, they deftly intertwine their sounds into a subtle dark drift. Only once exploding into a full on noise drenched onslaught, spending most of the time rumbling and whirring and weaving a dense and dreamy world of dark drones, and mysterious sonic shapes. Really fucking awesome.
Double lp, pressed on THICK black vinyl, packaged in super elaborate, three color silkscreened fold over sleeves and LIMITED TO 515 COPIES...

EARLIES, THE The Enemy Chorus (Secretly Canadian) cd 14.98
Whoa The Earlies' new album has thrown us for a loop! The Enemy Chorus is the band's first album proper -- their previous releases having been eps and a 2005 compilation cd of said eps titled These Were The Earlies. It's a glorious expanse of elaborate orchestral rock/pop layers infused with an earthy twang. This half Texan half British band is crafting music on an ambitiously stratospheric scale that brings to mind Radiohead or Flaming Lips, but which is also darkly grooving along the lines of TV On The Radio. Vocal comparisons alternate between the alienated throaty emotiveness of Peter Gabriel, the smooth drowsiness of The Doves' Jimi Goodwin and the weathered duskiness of Mark Lanegan. Moodily hypnotic and very cool!
MPEG Stream: "No Love In Your Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Enemy Chorus"

EL PERRO DEL MAR s/t (Memphis Industries) cd 10.98
The Swedish pop gems keep coming and we are super glad to finally welcome to AQ the debut cd of Sarah Assbring or as she is known musically, El Perro Del Mar (The Sea Dog). We had the import of this a while ago and have been waiting patiently for this domestic version. Imagine the aural equivalent of a vintage Margaret Keane painting... y'know, those saucer-eyed, forlorn ragamuffins who sort of resemble Hope Sandoval. Quite girlish and just a little bit tweaked, she combines Brill Building pop with the voice of a kittenish Kate Bush or Jane Birken. The songs here are sweet confections of love's seemingly cruel humor, heavily influenced by the doo-wop arrangements of Bacharach and Phil Spector. Catchy and occasionally melancholy, El Perro Del Mar's debut is one of the best sensitive pop records of last year.
MPEG Stream: "Candy "
MPEG Stream: "Party"

EXTRADITION Hush (Vicious Sloth Collectibles) cd 24.00
Extradition were an obscure early seventies Australian psych-folk group very much influenced by the British Folk revival, in particular, Fairport Convention and Pentangle. Fronted by singer, Shayna Karlin, whose high timbre voice falls somewhere between Pentangle's Jaqui McShee and June Tabor, and multi-instrumentalist and sometimes singer Colin Campbell, who wrote most of the bands material. What sets them apart is how they shade their haunting and graceful compositions with an adventurous use of natural elements as instruments including leaves, branches, water, sticks and stones along with more exotic instrumentation of Chinese and Turkish gongs, harmonium, harpsichord, tablas and a Lebanese bell tree. This creates a more alchemical binding of music and nature that transports us to another place rather than grounding us in a traditional past. This cd contains the whole of their lone 1971 album plus six bonus live tracks including covers of Tom Paxton's "Hold On To Me, Babe" and Leroy Carr's "In the Evening" which was also covered by Karen Dalton. Beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "Original Whim"
MPEG Stream: "Minuet"
MPEG Stream: "A Moonsong"

GREATER THAN ONE Kill The Pedagogue (Brainwashed) cd 9.98
When this arrived in the shop, there was a collective cry,"Whoa, Greater Than One? What ever happened to them?" Well, it turns out that the once prolific industrial dance duo ceased to be after Lee Newman died of cancer in 1995. While the pairing of Lee Newman and Michael Wells had a handful of fantastic if agitated Greater Than One albums that graced the Wax Trax! catalogue throughout the late '80s and early '90s, they were also a leading proponent of the bleep techno sound that marked the early incarnation of Warp Records in recording as Tricky Disco. Needless to say, Kill The Pedagogue predates all of that stuff, having been originally released back in 1985 as a self-released cassette. Greater Than One had much more in common with the rhythm and noise collages of Throbbing Gristle and TG's many disciples (esp. Hunting Lodge, Portion Control, and Hula) through distorted tape loops, media samples disfigured through warbling varispeed tricks, and post-Cabaret Voltaire drum machines pushed toward exhaustion with their tumbling patterns of tribal rhythms. Given that the original cassette was a mere 28 minutes long, those fine folks at Brainwashed filled out the disc with MP3s including all of the material from another self-released cassette from back in the day called Lay Your Penis Down plus a bunch of photos and the like.
MPEG Stream: "Kill The Pedagogue 1"
MPEG Stream: "Lay Your Penis Down 1"

HIGH MOUNTAIN TEMPEL Pacific Sky Burial (Axaxaxas Mlo) (Lotus House) cd-r 7.98
This is our first exposure to the High Mountain Tempel duo, and everything, from the design, to the name, to the sound, is very ritualistic indeed, like the sounds of some dark ceremony performed in some ancient temple atop, well, some high mountain.
Strange and haunting monk-like chants recur throughout the record, usually, wrapped in deep resonant drones, moaning foghorn like rumbles everything drenched in reverb and delay, like hearing everything through the sacrificial smoke of the most recent sacrifice.
Elsewhere bird calls mirror disembodied guitar melodies, the various sound fragments allowed to drift and then settle on the ground, the proceedings all wrapped in a thick murky ambience, as if suddenly the treble knob was turned all the way down and the bass knob all the way up, the melodies muted and muddy, like some dark slow moving stream, flowing gently beneath a black sky, and trees alive with small and mysterious creatures. In fact this whole record is rife with the sounds (manufactured or sampled, not always easy to tell) of various beasts and fowl, a very 'lost in the jungle' vibe permeating the proceedings.
The last chunk of the record is a gloriously glistening, lugubrious crawl, thick swells of sparkling sound wrapped around twisted low end shapes, all drifting lazily into some mysterious dark wood...
Packaged in a swank black fold over sleeve, screenprinted in gold metallic ink, with a photocopied insert with liner notes and song credits.
MPEG Stream: "Tempel Walk"
MPEG Stream: "Harkonen Veda"
MPEG Stream: "drugsmeditationhypnosis"

HOLY SEE, THE Fucking Physics (Digitalis) cd-r 7.98
This is the second release we've listed from The Holy See, the ferocious Tarentel side project featuring two members of that ambient bliss rock ensemble. But you won't find any ambience here, or rock for that matter, but plenty of bliss, that is if your idea of bliss is blown out white hot slabs of coruscating feedback and dense squalls of shimmering guitar skree. Which if you're anything like us, most certainly is!
The opener is just that, a 25 minute ur-drone, massive and throbbing and pulsing, it's like 100 Skullflowers and 100 Sunroof!'s all playing at top volume through the same amplifier. Beautifully distorted and in the red, overblown melodies swallowed whole by thick sheets of metallic shimmer, everything cracking and crumbling before your very eyes, a soothing sonic shower, like dunking your head into a pool of molten sound.
The brief two minute blast of the second track is more of the same, a lightning bolt of grinding blown out electronic buzz, but it's the last track where everything changes.
The corrosive skree of the first track is dialed back a bit, so it's more of a low level sea of glitches and grinding malfunctioning electronics, but beneath, is a strangely serene soundscape, gentle melancholy melodies hover and drift, a warm and languorous shimmer wrapped in dense swirls of fuzzy sonic psychout, eventually building to a fever pitch, but managing to not become 'noisier' just more dense and intense.
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

HOWE, CATHERINE What A Beautiful Place (Numero Group) cd 15.98
The Numero Group label starts 2007 on the softer side of things with this obscure British gem from singer Catherine Howe. For those of you who enjoyed the Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies Of The Canyon compilation, that the Numero Group released last year, then this might just be up your alley. Mellow and melancholic, Howe has a soulful voice that's similar to Dusty Springfield or Bobbie Gentry, underscored by soft orchestral jazz arrangements (courtesy of Bobby Scott) that remind us of early A&M records or John Cameron soundtracks like Kes. In fact this seems more like the kind of soft British album Trunk records would have re-issued, but that goes to show what an unpredictable label Numero Group really is. Recorded for Reflection Records in 1971, What A Beautiful Place sank into obscurity when the label folded shortly thereafter. While we have never heard of her before this, Howe recorded two more albums after this one and has recently started recording again. This is a perfect record for a rainy day or Sunday morning with a nice hot cup of tea.
MPEG Stream: "Up North"
MPEG Stream: "What A Beautiful Place"

I'M FROM BARCELONA Let Me Introduce My Friends (Virgin) cd 19.98
I'm From Barcelona is a pop music army, or at least a pop brigade. Sergeant Emmanuel Lundgren (on hiatus from his former band Valley Days) has teamed up with TWENTY EIGHT of his closest friends to, somewhat unexpectedly, bring you Let Me Introduce My Friends. Although all twenty-eight band members have appeared on stage at once (and a one-time show band they thought they would be), the album sounds a bit more like a tag team effort. Each individual song is not indicative of a band with so many members but a sum of its parts. The power chord guitar riffs reminiscent of the glory days of Kindercore Records, muted trumpets and xylophones present in some songs are replaced in others by banjos, keyboards and (possibly the only sign of such a large band in a single song) choiresque multi-person harmonies much like those of The Polyphonic Spree. Unfortunately, I'm From Barcelona may lose the battle in lyrical depth, but they win the war for creating an album that not only reminds listeners of giddy feelings often conjured up by new love or the first days of spring, but may be a nice soundtrack for these moments as well.
MPEG Stream: "Oversleeping"
MPEG Stream: "Jenny"

JONES, NORAH Not Too Late (Blue Note) cd 17.98
Alright, after we got done coveting Ms Jones' dress that she's wearin' on the album cover, we set about listening to the music contained within. It is just as striking. Although she continues with her favored blend of jazzy pop, poppy soul, and old tyme Americana (unfortunately lumping her in with the Starbucks' set). Not Too Late leans more heavily on the latter more earthy, melancholic folksiness and is far less light and breezy in mood than either of her previous two albums. There's a touch more of an unpolished edge and smoky sass to her voice. Mind you, she's no less sultry and captivating, but Jones has slipped into increasingly somber, more worldly territory in which the air weighs heavy with heartache and despair. But all is not lost as the album's title seems to express, and her richly expressive voice glints with that glimmer of hope.
MPEG Stream: "The Sun Doesn't Like You"
MPEG Stream: "Broken"

KARK The Hermit (HP Cycle) lp 15.98
We had never heard of Kark before, but boy is this a serious slab of free sonic exploration! Kark are a revolving ensemble of over 50 musicians, and it sounds like it. Featuring various Louisville luminaries who also do time in Sapat, Valley of Ashes, Virgin Eye Blood Brothers, Son of Earth, Taiwan Death and others, The Hermit begins with some barely there glitch and crumble, a mumbled murky soundscape, which just sets the listener up to be knocked the fuck out when the group explodes into a furious blast of some sort of demonic big band jazz, a dizzying angular atonal jazz dirge, like Sun Ra possessed by the spirit of Merzbow, splattery drums and bleating horns, a cacophonous percussive chaos, free jazz gone haywire, but always, at least tenuously, linked to some shadow of traditional jazz. Some tracks seriously swing, albeit in a seriously unhinged manner, others sound like free jazz filtered through Masonna, like an orchestra being hurled down a thousand flights of stairs. Pretty amazing, probably too much for run of the mill jazz-niks, but the for the jazz-noise inclined this just might be pure heaven.
Packaged in a full color sleeve with a full color, and of course information-less, insert.

KAWABATA, MAKOTO Hosanna Mantra (A Silent Place) lp + 7" 45.00
It's really difficult to not start off every Acid Mothers Temple or Kawabata Makoto review with something about their ridiculous prolificacy. Which makes sense of course, especially when we're faced with a new release probably every two months, if not more frequently. But as we've stated before, the point is almost moot, as pretty much everything we lay our ears on is great! So it all boils down to how much you need, or how different each recording is, a sort of personal preference. Allan probably has 40 or 50 Keiji Haino albums, and probably thinks that is not nearly enough, whereas Andee has maybe one or two, and is positive that that's plenty.
So here we have the latest slab of divine psych from Acid Mothers Temple guru Kawabata Makoto, functioning here in his solo shaman incarnation (as opposed to his role in AMT's freaked out psych rock space rituals) and it's awesome. Really. A deliriously dreamy swirl of electric guitar, bouzouki and sitar, all woven into two sidelong tracks of glorious ur-drone! Glistening, sparkling expanses of slow shifting overtones and overlapping melodies, steel string buzz and deeeeeeeeeep resonant rumbles. Hard not to hear a bit of fellow countrymen Taj Mahal Travellers. The more static passages sound downright Niblock-like with their almost imperceptible sonic shifts.
LIMITED TO 550 COPIES, packaged in a super deluxe full color gatefold sleeve. And for a super limited time we have some of the version that comes with a bonus 7", pressed on red vinyl (ONLY 150 COPIES, WE HAVE ABOUT 15), two more brief bursts of buzz, with reverb drenched chant-like vocals added to the already buzzing, droning mix. So good.

KOENIG, GOTTFRIED MICHAEL s/t (Editions.RZ) 2cd 33.00
Gottfried Michael Koenig is a German-born composer who had spent a decade in the '50s and '60s working for the West German Radio (WDR) assisting the likes of Stockhausen and Ligetti. During this time, he became one of the pioneers of mid-century composition, showing the most panache for electronic composition, all the while maintaining a purist ethos for serialism and modernity as a whole. From the mid '60s until 1986, Koenig had also served as the director for the Institute of Sonology in The Netherlands. This 2cd compendium is an excellent overview of Koenig's work. Even if his compositions for piano and string quartets are slightly tedious, just skip those in favor of the electronic work, especially when Koenig pushes close to Xenakis territory on Terminus X (1967) with its growling electric tones and extended ruminations on static. Suite (1961) is a much more subtle piece with its minimal gestures of gurgling tone patterns coated in a plastic perfection.
MPEG Stream: "Suite"
MPEG Stream: "Terminus X "

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Lopez Island (Elevator Bath) cd 17.98
Lopez Island is one of the many islands that dapple the Puget Sound of Washington state, located about 150 miles NW of Seattle. It seems an isolated environment that probably attracts a good deal of outdoorsy types in the summertime; yet for the field recordist / composer Francisco Lopez, he explored the island's soundscape during the winter of 1999-2000 when sleet, snow, wind, and rain perpetually fell upon the island. Lopez has always been a consumate phonographer, with his typical strategies being acousmatic in nature, whereby he would extract and filter particular sounds from his recordings and build monolithic slabs of grey sounds elegantly shifting from near silences to tumultous crescendos. La Selva (and to a lesser extent Addy En Elpais De Las Frutas Y Los Chunches) remain the most highly regarded compositions through this strategy, with sounds becoming blurred into a miasma of turbulance, confusion, and intrigue. Here on Lopez Island, our man Lopez begins his composition with an extended passage of raw recordings, in particular there's the damp tactility of sleet sploshing amidst wet leaves and twigs. If anything, Lopez has set the stage for a very cold environment, followed by a brisk whistling of wind that Lopez slowly transforms into a thoroughly synthetic climax of sparkling drones and haunted siren songs that resemble the isolationism of BJ Nilsen, Stilluppsteypa, and the Hafler Trio much more than before. Since the release of his Live In San Francisco recording, we haven't been too keen on Francisco's output; but Lopez Island marks the inevitable return to excellence for Mr. Lopez.
MPEG Stream: "Lopez Island (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Lopez Island (extract 2)"

LOS NUEVOS SHAIN'S Singles 1969-1970 (Repsychled) cd 15.98
Along with the Tarkus album highlighted on this week's list, we've got more vintage Peruvian psych rock for you here -- a disc featuring rare and unreleased singles tracks circa 1969-1970 from Los Nuevos Shain's, the band formed by Enrique "Pico" Ego Aguirre, who had been the guitarist from garage rock legends Los Shain's (natch). Getting into the heavier sounds comin' out contemporaneously from England and California, Los Nuevos Shain's put their own stamp on covers of songs by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the Jefferson Airplane, Spirit, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and even Black Sabbath -- for us, it's their version of Sabbath's "Wicked World" that makes this a must have! Had to buy it just for that, to add to our collection of early daze Sabbath covers. (This puts 'em in the company of South Africa's Suck and Japan's Flower Travellin' Band to achieve the distinction of having recorded a Sabbath song way back when.)
Not to give you the idea that this is all that hard rockin' or heavy (for that, look to Pico's subsequent band Pax, reviewed elsewhere on our site). Sure, he does give the ol' fuzz and wah-wah pedals a bit of a stomp, though. Heck they do "Purple Haze". But this also has lots of dreamy poppiness on it too, and we're also quite taken by the boppy loopiness of the track "Guau Guau A Go Go", which features barking dogs in the mix! Basically, a trip to a paisley-painted Peruvian garage, some 37 years ago, to hear an enthusiastic band do a fun run-through of some familiar and not-so-familiar sixties tunes plus a few originals. And by the way, the music on this cd was taken from the master tapes (you know it, 'cause the booklet in this digipack features color photos of the original reels and tape boxes with handwritten labels!). Cool.
MPEG Stream: "Guau Guau A Go Go"
MPEG Stream: "Wicked World"

LUV MACHINE Turns You On (Rise Above Relics) cd 16.98
The Rise Above Relics label's first two releases -- Possessed and Luv Machine -- are bound to intrigue all fans of obscure, early '70s psych/prog heaviness...we know there's a few of you reading this! And both of these albums were recorded in the magical, mystical year of 1971 that we (well, Allan) is always going on about. The band at hand, Luv Machine, were originally from Barbados, but took their groovy psych-pop hard rock to the UK to try to make it big, revamping the lineup in the process with the addition of a few British musicians replacing members who got homesick for the West Indies. Definitely influenced by Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and sounding to us a bit like another obscure band of the era, The Next Morning (who also hailed from the Caribbean, by way of NYC instead of the UK), they're certainly a fun listen. Not terribly heavy at all, really, but still pretty cool -- cool enough that they became pals with The Sweet, who took 'em on tour to Italy! Yes indeed, a quite funky lil' band with plenty of fuzz guitar crunch and a sunny disposition. There's a few weak cuts, some stuff that just seems a bit "off", but then again that might be intentional weirdness (like the crazy sped-up tape manipulation that occurs at the end of "Maybe Tomorrow", for instance, and the more Jimi than Jimi styled vocals at times). Mostly though this is soulful and psychedelically quirky, a foot-tapping good time, dated but delightful. Imagine if you can a blend of Shocking Blue and the Band Of Gypsies...
This slipcased reissue includes all the tracks from their collector-coveted 1971 album (which boasted some "tasteless", "pornographic" cover art, not used by Rise Above Relics but fortunately at least reproduced inside the thick, heavily text and illustration laden cd booklet), plus six previously unreleased cuts.
NB. the track "Reminiscing" was written by Vernon Pereira of Possessed, and was recorded by that band on their album Exploration.
MPEG Stream: "Witches Wand"
MPEG Stream: "Everything"

LUV MACHINE Turns You On (Rise Above Relics) 2lp 29.00
The Rise Above Relics label's first two releases -- Possessed and Luv Machine -- are bound to intrigue all fans of obscure, early '70s psych/prog heaviness...we know there's a few of you reading this! And both of these albums were recorded in the magical, mystical year of 1971 that we (well, Allan) is always going on about. The band at hand, Luv Machine, were originally from Barbados, but took their groovy psych-pop hard rock to the UK to try to make it big, revamping the lineup in the process with the addition of a few British musicians replacing members who got homesick for the West Indies. Definitely influenced by Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and sounding to us a bit like another obscure band of the era, The Next Morning (who also hailed from the Caribbean, by way of NYC instead of the UK), they're certainly a fun listen. Not terribly heavy at all, really, but still pretty cool -- cool enough that they became pals with The Sweet, who took 'em on tour to Italy! Yes indeed, a quite funky lil' band with plenty of fuzz guitar crunch and a sunny disposition. There's a few weak cuts, some stuff that just seems a bit "off", but then again that might be intentional weirdness (like the crazy sped-up tape manipulation that occurs at the end of "Maybe Tomorrow", for instance, and the more Jimi than Jimi styled vocals at times). Mostly though this is soulful and psychedelically quirky, a foot-tapping good time, dated but delightful. Imagine if you can a blend of Shocking Blue and the Band Of Gypsies...
This gatefold reissue includes all the tracks from their collector-coveted 1971 album plus six previously unreleased cuts.
NB. the track "Reminiscing" was written by Vernon Pereira of Possessed, and was recorded by that band on their album Exploration.
MPEG Stream: "Witches Wand"
MPEG Stream: "Everything"

MASONNA Shock Rock (MIDI Creative) cd 27.00
And now for the third of our reviews of the three "Freakout Triplex" cds that were released in 2002 in honor of Maso Yamazaki's 15th anniversary (of noise/music making, presumably). There was a disc apiece dedicated to each of his main projects: Christine 23 Onna's Acid Eater (reviewed on list 255), Space Machine's 2 (reviewed on list 258), and Masonna's Shock Rock (being reviewed right NOW). These weren't readily available over here in the USA when they first came out, so we figured a bunch of you Japanese psychedelic/electronic/noise fans would be interested if we reviewed these, now that we can finally get 'em.
Masonna is Maso Yamazaki's best known project, his solo screaming noise guise. As harsh Japanese noise goes, Masonna's at the top of the heap, up there with the likes of Merzbow and Hijokaidan in a sort of unholy trinity. Quite prolific in the past, Masonna's discography is rather large to say the least. But you can be sure than ANY Masonna album you hear is gonna sound like just about the most insane noisy thing EVER. Shock Rock, his umpteenth cd release, is also as far as we're aware the last full-length Masonna album to come out... So it stands to reason that this could well be the noisiest. We're not talking trance-inducing drone like you might get from, say, Aube or even Merzbow, sometimes. We're talking short sharp shocks of feedback-attack noise, 31 tracks on this 46 minute disc. Ultra-distorted, deliriously painful, apoplectic EXTREME noise here! Which, paradoxically, can be a pleasurable, almost gleeful thing...though it's an acquired taste no doubt! Folks who already know and love the likes of Shinsen Na Clitoris (Vanilla, 1990) or Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Aureole (Alchemy, 1993) will want to add this to their collections. It's as spasmodically fierce as those classics. But for Japanese noise noobs, well, this might be like jumping in at the deep end! However, if you're not afraid, and/or simply want to get maximal noise for your 27 bucks, this surely would be the ticket!
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 16"

MOONDOG And His Friends 2006 (Moondog's Corner) cd 19.98
Finally on cd, this is an AQ favorite from one of our most beloved musicians of the last half century. This new edition includes 3 bonus tracks of some current day folks like Stefan Lakatos adding their own flavor to preexisting Moondog tracks. But of course the real gold here is the original record which is Moondog in his full glory! We only wish this reissue had a little bit more in the way of elaborate packaging as this just comes in a cardboard sleeve. Here is what our pal Dave Katznelson of Birdman Records said about this record when he reviewed it for us back when we had the 10" version in stock:
Originally released on Epic in 1953, this long-playing EP is one of the greatest artifacts of the blind New York percussionist available. On par with the excellent Prestige years, with a similar vibe. However, there is something darker here, with an almost acid edge...and the sounds come ripping off the well-mastered vinyl ever so thickly. This classically packaged ten inch boasts an instrumental round that is the precursor to the great All Is Loneliness To Me, "Rim Shot" which is reminiscent of Tyrannosaurus Rex's "Ruminy Soup", and two suites that brilliantly use lush strings behind the signature Moondog hypnotizing percussion. "Be a hobo and go with me," Moondog sings...and why not join him?
MPEG Stream: "Theme And Variation - Rim Shots"
MPEG Stream: "Tree Frog - Be A Hobo"
MPEG Stream: "Suite No. One Third Movement"

MOSKIITTO, VILLE Retkikertomuksia (Barl Fire) cd-r 11.98
Another mysterious Finnish troubadour, Ville Forss aka Moskiitto, explores a moaning creaking acoustic ambience, a clattery free folk wilderness, much like his countrymen Avarus, Anaksimandros and Vapaa.
Simple muted guitars strum and shimmer beneath a forest of sawed violins and bowed cellos, creating a dreamy, ramshackle stumbling acoustic folk. A haunting assemblage of scraped strings and mumbled buzz and wheezing reed instruments. Lengthy overlapping melodies unfurl into deep drones drone and ambient drifts, majestic and strangely stately, like some ceremonial ritual. Reverberating steel strings are the framework for the whole disc, their overtones spreading out like ripples in a pond, above which flutter mournful melodies and abstract sonic shimmers. At one point accordions drift in, their melodies floating above a tangle of stretched out guitar melody. Very blissfully rustic, like sitting around some crackling campfire deep in the forest, the music slowly shifting and changing shape as various travellers arrive and produce their own unique musical offerings. Nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "Kuundentoista Kautta"
MPEG Stream: "Kappalainen"
MPEG Stream: "Tiikeri"

MV & EE WITH THE BUMMER ROAD Green Blues (Ecstatic Peace!) cd 10.98
After releasing a legion of limited cd-rs and vinyl only releases of droney, and smoky, arcane mystical acoustic weirdo raga from the Vermont backwoods (which we loved!!), Matt Valentine and his partner Erika Elder have finally released an album that is neither limited nor expensive. Marking their debut on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! Imprint, Green Blues is a more straight ahead roots-rock album than we've heard before from this camp, which ultimately makes this release pretty disappointing. There's no doubt to what the "green" in the title refers to, as Valentine and Elder have been for many years living off the grid in a wood cabin and making lots of heady music. But here they seem to have been listening to their Neil Young, Grateful Dead and Canned Heat records a little too long, making their honest hippie affirmations veer into near-comical shtick. On the plus side, it's thankfully short and it does gets better as it goes along with the songs getting longer and stranger with less singing towards the end. Maybe this is just a one-time kink in a long string of amazing releases. Let's hope next time, they'll take a step back from the bong.
MPEG Stream: "East Mountain Joint"
MPEG Stream: "Big Deal"

OMFO We Are The Shepherds (Essay Recordings) cd 16.98
Anytime you can get metalheads to start dancing and smiling you know you got some special skills! The latest offering from Amsterdam based and Ukrainian born electronic prankster/mastermind German Popov (aka OMFO), has been making all sorts of folks tap their foot and start grinning goofy wide smiles as we've been blasting this from our stereo. We Are The Shepherds picks up where Trans Balkan Express left off, with old world eastern European sounds given a proper weirdo kick in the ass. It makes so much sense that this outing was co-produced by kindred spirit Atom Heart (aka Senor Coconut) as these two have such a grasp on making electronica that's as goofy as it is good, so spazzy and well crafted. Sort of like Aavikko doing world music! The last three times we've been playing this folks who are usually camped out in our metal section couldn't help themselves and had to take one of these home with them. So fun and undeniably charming!
MPEG Stream: "Shepherd Disco"
MPEG Stream: "Tequila Gang Bang"

ONO, YOKO Yes I'm A Witch (Astralwerks) cd 15.98
We can't help but love Yoko Ono. I mean c'mon, who else at her age could rock those face-blocking shades and look so incomparably awesome? Plus, apart from some really schmaltzy songs (i.e. "Children Power") she has recorded, arguably more often then not, some pretty damn amazing music (Plastic Ono Band, Fly, Feeling the Space, Season of Glass). Here, she enlists the help of a wide array of indie-music collaborators including Peaches, Antony and the Johnsons, Flaming Lips, Le Tigre, Polyphonic Spree, and Cat Power, who each chose a song from her back catalog and were given access to the multi-track masters to rework them how they wished. Most of the songs come from Ono's more songwriter-ly albums (Double Fantasy, Season of Glass, It's Alright, and Approximately Infinite Universe), with most of the artists keeping Ono's vocal tracks intact. Only Flaming Lips ventured further back and used vocals from "Cambridge 1969" one of John and Yoko's first performative collaborations of screeching shrieks and distorted feedback. Personally, we wished there were more songs selected from that period, better yet being done by artists of our choosing (c'mon, Circle re-doing "Mind Train"? You know you want to hear that!!). At first scan, this seemed like the type of hip remix compilation we dread, the kind which inevitably takes both artist and re-mixer down a notch by needlessly updating old songs through dated trip-hop, trance, or house idioms (she's done it before, more than once, even -- hence our wariness). Thankfully that isn't the case here. Most of the artists breathe new life into the songs through restraint rather than bombast, coming to a halfway point that is neither entirely Ono's nor her collaborators. Cat Power creates a duet with piano on "Revelations". Porcupine Tree deemphasizes the slow burn of "Death of Samantha" with acoustic guitar and atmospheric washes. Jason Pierce from Spiritualized takes the disco out of "Walking On Thin Ice" and gives it something more majestic and much colder. Even the electro and dance-ier tracks submitted by Peaches, Le Tigre, Shitake Monkey and Blow-up don't disappoint as you would expect but contribute a nice flow to the more subdued moments. All in all a surprising listen, and according to the Astralwerks website, this is not the end of it. Another Ono remix album is on the way later this year! Now, if they'd only reissue Fly (hint, hint).
MPEG Stream: "Revelations (w/Cat Power)"
MPEG Stream: "Walking On Thin Ice (w/ Spiritualized)"
MPEG Stream: "Cambridge 1969/2007 (w/ Flaming Lips)"

PERKINS, ELVIS Ash Wednesday (XL Recordings) cd 13.98
As artistically immersive in music as his father Anthony Perkins was in film, singer/songwriter Elvis Perkins sings beautiful folk pop songs that are blistered gently by electric guitar. Very reminiscent of The Kinks, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, Ron Sexsmith, and Elvis Costello. Absolutely dreamy and achingly heartfelt. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "While You Were Sleeping"
MPEG Stream: "The Night & The Liquor"

PERKINS, ELVIS Ash Wednesday (XL Recordings) lp 10.98
As artistically immersive in music as his father Anthony Perkins was in film, singer/songwriter Elvis Perkins sings beautiful folk pop songs that are blistered gently by electric guitar. Very reminiscent of The Kinks, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, Ron Sexsmith, and Elvis Costello. Absolutely dreamy and achingly heartfelt. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "While You Were Sleeping"
MPEG Stream: "The Night & The Liquor"

PHOENIX CUBE, THE Walking The Shore (Barl Fire) cd-r 11.98
The Phoenix Cube is the latest blast of glorious underground weirdness from the always reliable UK micro-label Barl Fire, and offers up our first taste of The Phoenix Cube, a varied collection of beautiful sounds. Some folky and dreamy, some spacey and psychedelic, which makes sense when you realize that the man behind the Phoenix Cube is a writer for psych rock bible Ptolemaic Terrascope...
The first track pretty much sets the tone, dark and dolorous, spaced out dreamlike and unpredictable, a lengthy abstract collage of the opening track, all distant drones, fluttering flutes, tribal drumming, spoken word snippets, tinkling piano, murky swirls of FX which eventually and quite unexpectedly breaks into some sort of skittering rhythmic workout. From there on out, the record drifts from morose balladic folk, to blissed out Hawkwindy space rock, to crumbling expanses of dark ambience, to shuffling hippy strum, to warm whirring organscapes, to the creepy final track, all rumbling didgeridoos and simple hand drums, a droning and divine pagan musical ritual.
Packaged in a full color sleeve with a printed full color cardstock insert.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "And Spirits Wake"
MPEG Stream: "Like A Ghost"
MPEG Stream: "Working, Not Working"

PLACES, THE Songs For Creeps (High Plains) cd 9.98
The Places' new album is filled with drifty, dreamy folk pop that every so often detours into more cacophonous realms. It makes for a slightly off-kilter and woozy listen (maybe that's where the creeps in the title come in?). Simple strummed acoustic guitars provide a warm blanketing foundation while the electric six-strings splinter off noisy shards. Lead singer Amy Annelle's voice has acquired a few more quirky earthy edges since we last heard her on Autopilot Knows You Best back in 2000. Indeed, these days her voice draws more comparisons to Julie Doiron, Lisa Germano and the Be Good Tanyas, than Karen Carpenter or Lois.
Quite affecting and wonderfully world-weary.
MPEG Stream: "My Weary Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Gold To Green"

RAM JAM Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Ram (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
We've been geeking out on, I mean rockin' out to, a bunch of the '70s and '80s hard rock/heavy metal reissues coming out on the UK's Rock Candy label... Plasmatics, Armored Saint, Billy Squier, Ted Nugent, Riot, a whole bunch of old favorites, done up all deluxe with nice packaging and copious liner notes. We've reviewed a few already. Here's another we like a lot.
First-time-on-cd for this 1978 album, the second and last from one-hit wonders Ram Jam. That one hit was their high octane cover of Leadbelly's "Black Betty" from their first album (do yourself a favor and look up the video on Youtube!!). So what has Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Ram got to offer? Well, though it didn't produce any hits, it's the better of their two records by far. With a revamped line-up, Ram Jam's hybrid bubblegum / biker blues roots are a thing of the past, the band now a lean, mean, polished, hard n' heavy rock outfit that fans of other, more popular commercial late '70s American rockers like Aerosmith, KISS, Foreigner, and Starz should dig... though at the time they apparently didn't, this record sales-wise spelling the end of Ram Jam's career. Dunno why, people must just not have heard it, as it's quite the party platter, full of kick ass lead guitar, powerful vocals, and energetic, catchy tuneage that would sound great blasting from your souped-up Camaro or custom-painted van...
But now here's a chance to hear this again (for the first time, if you're like us!) and give Ram Jam's swansong its due! Recommended to all rockers.
MPEG Stream: "Please, Please, Please (Please Me)"
MPEG Stream: "Hurricane Ride"

REDGLAER American Masonry (Anarchymoon Recordings) 10" 10.98
A killer slab of ultra minimal, low end soundscapes, from this LA noisemaker. Tangled shadowy shapes twist and slither, stretch and contort, a constantly shifting lowercase world of speaker destroying rumble and strangely sibilant buzz. This is thick and crunch and heavy and will probably cause damage to your speakers, but it's all muter and muffled, dragged down into the dark, so instead of being an all out noise assault, it's a beautiful and serene crawl through some black sonic underworld, ambient, but subtly harsh, dreamlike, but ominous and mysteriously fucked up. The sound can be cavernous one second, machinelike the next. Imagine the still warm corpse of Wolf Eyes, laid out on the slab, sliced wide open, all manner of microscopes and imaging devices trained on the various, still pulsing inner workings of the beast, well, the sound being picked up by the most sensitive of microphones, placed delicately within the carcass, are picking up the very sounds captured here.
Packaged in gorgeous chipboard sleeves, one side with a pasted on image, the front adorned with a simple symbol in metallic silver ink. Each one different. Really striking. Pressed on super thick vinyl, with a full color printed insert. LIMITED TO 330 COPIES!

RIO EN MEDIO The Bride Of Dynamite (Gnomonsong) cd 13.98
Stunning debut from New Mexican born singer and ukelele player, Danielle Stech-Homsy or as she's known musically, Rio En Media. Released on Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic's label Gnomonsong, it's easy to tell why Devendra pegged her as one of his favorite acts of 2006. With a voice like Sibylle Baier, The Bride of Dynamite is full of nineteenth century poetic romanticism with lyrics inspired by Paul Eluard, William Blake, John Ashbery and Freya Stark, the first western woman to travel the Arabian desert. Such wanderlust is shaded by a unique instrumentation of glockenspiels, bulba tarang (an instrument from Afghanistan), damaged electronic passages and the aforementioned ukelele. Siera Casady from Coco Rosie provides the back-up vocals while Vetiver's Andy Cabic, and Thom Monahan, who is the behind scenes sound wizard for many of Andy and Devendra's projects lend a hand on guitar and production work respectively Nice!
MPEG Stream: "You Can Stand"
MPEG Stream: "Friday"
MPEG Stream: "I See The Star"

ROCKMORE, CLARA Lost Theremin Album (Bridge) cd 16.98
Classical music doesn't get more "goth" than this. Elevating the Theremin from the realms of sci-fi and horror movie sound effects, Lithuanian-born child musical prodigy, Clara Rockmore is considered to be the most accomplished classical performer of this early electronic instrument and greatly assisted in its further development. With the stern temperament of a classical diva and the rigid eastern European beauty of a vampire, Clara Rockmore was an other-wordly virtuosa that completely hypnotized her audience with a ruthless dedication to her craft. Originally trained as a classical violinist, malnutrition made her unable to play past her teen years, eventually leading to her discovery of this newborn electronic device. Blessed with absolute pitch, and the ability to have extremely precise and rapid control of her movements enabled her to play the Theremin better than most other performers. Working with Leon Theremin in the early days of its commercial development in the United States, Rockmore made improvements on the original design to make it better suited as a performing instrument and also developed a sophisticated fingering system, which allowed her to accurately perform fast passages, and large note leaps. This is a previously unreleased album of classical pieces recorded in 1973 accompanied by her sister, Nadia Reisenberg on piano. While Rockmore elevated this unique instrument into the classical music world, the haunting pieces on this album never stray far from the gothic feel of those early romantic horror films. Spooky!
MPEG Stream: "Liebeslied"
MPEG Stream: "Nocturne in C# Minor"

ROMAN TORMENT / FEED THE DRAGON split (Anarchymoon Recordings) lp 10.98
This here is a noise record. No way to sugar coat it. There are bits and parts that are less than noisy, some subtle sonics and strange ambience, but ultimately, to dig this, you need a taste for NOISE.
Roman Torment is a blast of face melting ear shredding rooooaaarr. A dense smear of sonic chaos, grinding shrieking howling, thick crumbling masses of sound, blinding streaks of feedback, bursts of speaker shredding grit. Intense and thick and L O U D.
Feed The Dragon, are all about the noise too, but they creep up on it slowly, starting out with some minimal glitch and stutter, a swirling, scraping ambience, lots of low end and distant sonic gristle, before gradually building into a thick undulating swell of electronic buzz and rumbling sonic grind, sheets of skree draped over throbbing pulses of crunch and grind, that gets so thick and heavy near the end, it almost begins to resemble something distinctly metallic, like Earth or SUNNO))), but of course way noisier...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Pressed on super thick vinyl. with cool and creepy paste on art.

SCHULZE, KLAUS Timewind (Revisited) 2cd 21.00
Well, here is yet another monumental two cd Klaus Schulze reissue from Revisited who have previously reissued Irrlicht from 1972 and Cyborg from 1973. This time around we'll spare you Schulze's back story as you can read more about it in the above mentioned reviews.
Klaus Schulze's fifth album Timewind, his 1975 debut for Virgin Records has long been considered, in some circles, his masterwork. Yet quantifying Schulze's immense output in such a way is a difficult and slippery task. Surely signing to Virgin introduced him to a wider audience, but Timewind is hardly any more "accessible" than his prior output nor is it the kind of precedent to New Age music that you would expect from the label who released Tubular Bells. Dedicated to Richard Wagner, Timewind's two sidelong pieces further explore Schulze's fascination with starkly sensual and droning soundscapes, where icy synth pulsations converge with long tonal organ flights until these overlapping rhythms simultaneously gain and decrease in momentum becoming slowly bubbling Moog passages with shimmering electric washes. Like a windy barren landscape on some depopulated planet, Schulze's compositions read like epics of a post-human technological future. Included is a second bonus disc of two long unreleased tracks recorded around the same time and one recently recorded track that harkens back to a sound more affiliated with the late seventies output of Schulze's former band-mates in Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, which means it's awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Bayreuth Return"
MPEG Stream: "Solar Wind"

SIEGE Drop Dead (Deranged) cd 16.98
So many grind/metalcore/hardcore bands over the years owe more than a few pennies to Boston's hardcore/grind pioneers Siege. In fact, a lot of those bands owe them EVERYTHING!
Much like the length of their songs, their time as a band was brief, but in just two short years they laid waste to many with their intense sound and energy. Bands like Napalm Death and a whole slew of early Earache/Noiseville acts made pretty decent careers for themselves taking that Siege sound and running with it, some of them continuing to do it even now, in fucking 2007!
This cd collects all their compilation tracks as well as all the "official release" stuff, and while this ain't a very long player, Siege managed to get to the point REAL QUICK, without wasting much more than some picks, some guitar strings, a bunch of drumsticks and last but not least YOUR GODDAMN EARDRUMS! One of the greatest and heaviest punk (metal?) bands ever!
MPEG Stream: "Drop Dead"
MPEG Stream: "Walls"
MPEG Stream: "Sad But True"

SKINNY PUPPY Mythmaker (Synthetic Symphony) cd 16.98
When over the course of many years a cutting edge band's signature edge has been shamelessly pillaged -- and in turn become a mainstay of the edge-of-mainstream -- what are they to do when they decide to reunite? March out the old standards? Hopefully not. Resurface with a potent new strain? Perhaps. Ideally not end up sounding like a shadow of their former selves and a sound alike of younger upstarts. Unlike other veteran bands who've reformed after lengthy absences, Skinny Puppy fortunately haven't done the former. However, unlike other groundbreaking phoenixes such as Killing Joke, they also haven't returned to their fiery pulpit to school the new generation.
SP has always been detailed, monumentally monstrous and rich in intriguing sounds, but for Mythmaker, the group's interplay of chance/cut-ups and spin-the-radio-dial distortion adventures seem to have vanished. The difference seems to mostly lie in the choice to stop using tapes of media sources -- documentary television, radio, European and Canadian underground psychological horror films, and underreported war-reality-radio-broadcasts as surrealistic textures. This is most noticeable in two vital areas: the group's trademark collaged soundscapes crafted by Cevin Key -- now so few and far between, but markedly more than on 2004's reunion album The Greater Wrong Of The Right -- sound much less 'hands on' sculpted and more reliant on software rubik's-grids. In general, there's an absence of friction, tension and of ill-tempered spectral presences. As well, Nivek Ogre's 'singing' (i.e, not his former textural guttural Artaud-isms) are almost completely audible, being processed through a vocoder, with a heavy dose of 'stutter-edit' and auto-tune set to 'death grip' (we actually wish that they were even further effected, preferably to the point of incoherence because some of the rhyming lyrics are shockingly simplistic. Hard to believe that they came from the same poison pen as "Testure", "Harsh Stone White" or "Who's Laughing Now?" from VIVIsectVI, 1988). Ultimately, Mythmaker's atmospheres feel something like Richard Devine's industrial IDM processed through a faux-metal 'zombie America' video game soundtrack. One thing that has returned to a more prominent and welcome role is Key's artfully crafted drumming and percussion sounds. No playing shows up like the mesmerizing kraut-funk of Tear Garden's Last Man To Fly era recordings, mind you, but it's nice to hear some wood and metal mixed in with the filter swept electro-raindrop snares. Some of Ken Marshall's best mixing work can usually be found on Cevin Key's projects, and as usual, it slams. Overall, Mythmaker is a better record than its predecessor (although it does have a couple of 'oops' songs unfortunately and weirdly one is the opener "Magnifishit"!), and shows the group to be at the stylistic apex / end of this particular version of the 'Puppy sound.
Yep, SP are doing things they haven't done before, and for better or for worse -- you decide -- they've moved on, and are leaving the Skinny Puppy of old on the mantle to continue its disembodied haunt.
MPEG Stream: "Magnifishit"
MPEG Stream: "Politikil"

SLOAN Never Hear The End Of It (Yep Roc) cd 15.98
Sloan continue their Canadian pop rock reign with Never Hear The End Of It. The whopping thirty songs long running time might seems a little excessive and overwhelming, but we're not complaining. They pace the album well and keep the energy and focus up-up-up from start to finish. They don't tire and neither will you! With each subsequent album, Chris, Patrick, Jay and Andrew somehow keep things both bright'n'fresh and comfortingly familiar. They get increasingly polished, but never to the point of slick. Their four distinct voices deliver the swoonworthy boyish harmonies and their dual guitar attack launches out the electrifying riffs, embedding irresistible hooks at every turn. Absolute power pop nirvana for sure! Soooo good!
MPEG Stream: "Flying High Again"
MPEG Stream: "I've Gotta Try"
MPEG Stream: "Someone I Can Be True With"
MPEG Stream: "Ill Placed Trust"

SOMBRES FORETS Quintessence (Sepulchral Productions) cd 11.98
From the frozen North, and no, not Scandinavia, we're talking Quebec, the other grim frosty North, comes French Canadian doom flecked black metal outfit Sombres Forets, who manage to spin a thick black web of depressive buzz that rivals the blackened buzzscapes of fellow dark souls Xasthur, Make A Change... Kill Yourself and of course Burzum.
Sad and sorrowful, melancholy and mournful, this is not so much harsh and hateful as it is desolate and despondent. The sound is black, but the mood is doom, with occasional stretches of rumbling dark ambience, distant washes of soft focus keyboard, finger picked clean guitar figures, and subterranean whir. But it's the dirgey riffs, and the dour, depressive melodies, so emotional and miserable, so strangely catchy and haunting, that make these songs resonate so deeply. They almost sound like sad pop songs wrapped in spikey black cloaks and wreathed in a thick black fog. Beneath the surface, huge swells of doomic miserablism lurk, a faint shadow beneath the roiling blackness, rhythms shift and shudder, but ultimately, this is a bleak and strangely introspective journey through a damaged and damned black soul, rendered in blur and buzz. So dark, and dolorous, funereal and forlorn, and yet so strangely dreamlike and lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Le Royaume"
MPEG Stream: "L'Abime"
MPEG Stream: "Vents Des Desespoirs"

SUN KIL MOON Ghosts Of The Great Highway (Deluxe Reissue) (Caldo Verde) 2cd 16.98
Hurrah! This marvelous Sun Kil Moon album has been reissued by Mark Kozelek's own label Caldo Verde. Along with the original album comes a whole extra disc of a half dozen bonus tracks including an acoustic rendition of "Salvador Sanchez", two versions of "Somewhere" and a radio recording of "Gentle Moon".
Here's what we said about the 2003 release:
Attention all Mark Kozelek and Red House Painters fans gather 'round! Here's something new for you from the gent himself! Not surprisingly his new band sounds very much in the same vein as his assorted past work. Heck, his stellar bandmates include Red House Painters' Anthony Koutsos, American Music Club's Tim Mooney and Geoff Stanfield (ex-Black Lab). Each song is steeped in Kozelek's usual yearning melancholia and lyrical eloquence, all warmed by ample reverb. The highlight is the expansive, haunting 14 minute long "Duk Koo Kim", although "Carry Me Ohio" and "Last Tide" aren't far behind. As well, they fire things up a bit on the comparatively rockin' "Lily And Parrots". Sure to please fans new and old.
MPEG Stream: "Carry Me Ohio"
MPEG Stream: "Duk Koo Kim"

TAMBURO, MIKE Dance Enis Dance (Barl Fire) cd-r 11.98
Mike Tamburo is another in the burgeoning free folk cd-r underground who through no fault of his own has been overlooked on our weekly new arrivals list. We do our best, but it's pretty dang impossible to keep up with the hundreds of new releases every week, but now we've got the chance to introduce you to the amazing dark musical world of Mr. Tamburo.
Dance Enis Dance is a 32 minute piece for acoustic guitar, Tibetan bowls, chromatic harmonica, e-bowm slide, hammered dulcimer and effects. The result is a modern raga, an epic multi part piece, that could have just as easily been a series of songs, but they are all deftly woven together into the whole. The first part is a simple bit of Appalachian strum that is gradually smeared into a blurry, fuzzy ambience, an effulgent streak of slow shifting buzz. The second 'movement' is super subdued, a dark dark drift, with bells and chimes ringing out over a muted background of warm chords and steel string shimmer, eventually drifting off only to be replaced by a flurry of dulcimer notes, a dense cloud of tangled melody, which is eventually overtaken by thick slabs of crumbling guitar distortion, throbbing and pulsing. The last few minutes are a see-saw, veering back and forth between delicate steel string folk with dreamy slide guitar offering up haunting minor key melodies, to wild fervent strumming and back again, culminating in a strangely atonal bacchanalian psychedelic denouement. Really good stuff. We can't wait to hear more.
This cd-r is packaged in a full color sleeve with a huge insert, art on one side, liner notes (and a poignant tale) on the other.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "Dance Enis Dance (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Enis Dance (excerpt 2)"

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN s/t (Virgin) cd 13.98
Damon Albarn has quietly emerged from the shadows of 90's MTV fame with Blur's hit (No. 2 Song) to become one of the more interesting musical figures in the more mainstream realms of modern rock. From his travels to Africa that resulted in the great Mali Music album, his collaborative efforts in The Gorillaz, and even the last Blur record, Think Tank which was pretty much a solo endeavor and contained some really smart and somewhat somber pop songs. He's also been running a great record label Honest Jons who have released some amazing records old and new from the likes of Moondog, Candi Staton, Tony Allen, Las Malas Amistades, etc. The Good The Bad & The Queen is his latest project and he's assembled quite the all-star cast including Clash bassist Paul Simonon and legendary drummer (of Fela Kuti fame), Tony Allen, with production duties handled by Danger Mouse. Together they've created a really nice album of subdued pop songs with layers of warmth and an expansive and moody disposition. At times it even made us think of a more polished version of Three Mile Pilot's Another Desert Another Sea, and this for sure should appeal to fans of Pinback and Radiohead. This keeps growing on us listen after listen, revealing something more each time. For sure one of our favorite major label records in quite a while.
MPEG Stream: "Kingdom Of Doom"
MPEG Stream: "Behind The Sun"

WARD, M. To Go Home (Merge) cd ep 4.98
M. Ward picked the dandy Daniel Johnston cover out of his last album Post War's song selection to be the title track of this new ep. The song features Neko Case on backing vocals and she reappears on the fourth tune here too -- the splendid cover of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's "Headed For A Fall" which also features the star-studded support of Jim James, Mike Mogis, and Nels Cline. It's one of those songs that you'd hope would never end, but it does and you can't help but press 'play' once more. Two other non-album tracks round out the ep with Howe Gelb also dropping in for "Cosmopolitan Pap". Wonderful!!
MPEG Stream: "Headed For A Fall"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmopolitan Pap"

WHITE FUNGUS Issue 7 magazine 9.98
Latest issue of this eminently readable and gorgeously laid out New Zealand music and arts magazine. Always chock full of amazing obscurities and usually at least one or two artists or musicians you actually have heard of just so you don't feel completely out of touch. This issue features, a piece on the Pink And White Terraces, at one time, New Zealand;s "Eighth Wonder Of The World", installation artist Hany Armanious, artist and photographer Yvonne Todd, the mighty Merzbow (oh, we know him!), LA writer and filmmaker Chris Kraus, a bunch of drawings by artist Peter Robinson, Kiwi female fronted rap duo Coco Solid, a brief piece on the Dead C's Bruce Russell (we know him too!), a report on Christchurch's 4th Biennial of Public Art, an excerpt from the Biennial's blog, Korean 'junk' artist Choi Jeong Hwa, plus still more art, tons of photos, illustrations, drawings, some fiction, and more more more. All wrapped up in a striking full color cover. Awesome.

WYRD The Ghost Album (Millenium Music) cd 12.98
We've always been huge fans of Finnish black metallers Wyrd (not sure how you pronounce it, wuurd, or weird), their blend of blasting black buzz and Finnish folk was always hard to resist. The vibe was raw and grim, but with a lilting foresty feel to the less buzzy parts. Recently, all of the old discs have been reissued, we figured we'd finally be able to review all of those, but we thought what the heck, let's review the brand new one first and maybe work our way back, and then WOAH, have these guys thrown us for a loop or what, a HUGE stylistic shift has occurred in the Wyrd camp, and while we were sort of not into it at first, the more we listen to it, the more we're digging it. A lot.
Gone is the raw and the rough, the grim and the lo-fi, and in it's place a much more polished melodic doom, sounding at times a bit like Opeth if they were Finnish, or like some Spinefarm doom outfit. And while it's not as idiosyncratic as the older Wyrd records, it's pretty damn cool. Huge thick riffs, gorgeously melancholic leads, minor key melodies, gruff growled vocals, all midtempo and super polished. Like early Katatonia or even Khold, there's a definite sort of grungy vibe, each track anchored by a super hooky riff and that soaring minor key melody. Most of the tracks have a bridge where the song breaks down, sometimes into just the lead guitar harmonies, other times, a crackly acoustic version of the main refrain, but always, the band lurches back into action in that way that makes it nearly impossible to not start head banging. This may not have been what we were expecting, but damn if we're not WAY into this. Definitely for Fans of Katatonia, Khold and other melodic modern groove and doom outfits...
MPEG Stream: "My Ghosts"
MPEG Stream: "Daughter Of The Forest"
MPEG Stream: "They"

YOUNGS, RICHARD AND TIRATH SINGH NIRMALA s/t (HP Cycle) lp 15.98
We've yet to review a record from Tirath Singh Nirmala (aka John Clyde-Evans) which is quite a feat considering the substantial body of work he's been amassing of late (mostly cd-r's) but it sort of makes sense that the first recording to be featured on our list would be the one that finds Nirmala teamed up with AQ fave Richard Youngs. The two are so suitably matched, it's tough to tell who's doing what, and ultimately, it matters not a whit, as for the duration of this disc, these two have become one, and seem to effortlessly conjure up a perfectly blissful and bucolic primal forest ambience. It's tough not to hear shades of Avarus, Anaksimandros, No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand Of The Man, but Nirmala and Youngs manage to explore similar territory in their own unique way. The sound is at once primal, tribal and primitive. Simple percussion, reedy drones drifting over murky landscapes, wheezing wind instruments, breathy reeds and fluttering flutes, clattery hypnotic rhythms, slippery analog synths and swooping spacey FX, processed vocals, dense ambience and melancholy melodies, all woven into a gloriously glistening, and subtly tripped out, prismatic tapestry of sound. Wonderful.
Packaged in a gorgeous full color sleeve, with a tiny mysterious screen printed insert.

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V/A Can't Stop It! 2: Australian Post-Punk 1979-1984 (Chapter Music) cd 14.98
By the looks of the first two compilations that Chapter Music has released documenting the Australian post-punk scene, we (and probably a lot of other folks) could use a series history lessons into the finer points of Antipodean punk. Having unearthed two incendiary Primitive Calculators collections from that same time period, Chapter again strikes gold with a stunning collection of terminally obscure bands who were much more talented and intriguing than their lack of recognition might reflect. The only two bands that have even come across our radar are Severed Heads (but here with an incredibly primitive electronic sound and a female singer) and Microfilm (the amazing, Wire-esque dour post punk band fronted by Lisa Gerrand who later went on to form Dead Can Dance); but for everybody else, it's anybody's guess as to whatever became of them. Nonetheless, this comp confirms that the Australian take on post-punk agitation, no-wave convolutions and contortions, and new wave bleakness was as vibrant as what more well know scenes (i.e. New York, Berlin, London) had managed. As on the first comp (which featured a band called the Slugfuckers), volume 2 also sports a band with an incredible name: The Goat That Went "Om." Highly recommended
MPEG Stream: SYSTEMATICS "International Voltage"
MPEG Stream: SEVERED HEADS "Lamborghini"
MPEG Stream: MICROFILM "Centerfold"

V/A Getting Off! The Seductive Sounds Of 70's Adult Cinema (Lucky Monkey) cd 11.98
More funky fucked up soundtracks from lost porno films, a la the Deep Note compilations, but unlike those classic seventies jams, these all seem to be from the eighties and most of them seem to be borrowing themes from popular music and television shows, which sounds weird, and it is, but it also makes these pretty fun and freaky. Plus try to imagine folks doing the nasty to most of these songs and it's downright impossible. It more likely that you'll be imagining car chases, and poolside brunch on the Love Boat or some strange montage on Fantasy Island.
From "Move On" which is a total rip of that song that goes "Whatchoo gonna do when she says good bye..." with some very Steely Dan sounding instrumentation, to "I P Walk" which borrows heavily from that Rick Astley song "Never gonna give you up...". The best title of the bunch is definitely "Hawkwind And Fire", but instead of sounding like Hawkwind, it absolutely is the theme to some totally famous eighties TV cop drama. But the pinnacle of whatthefuck on this comp has to be "The Heist" which is actually the theme from People's Court!!! Who the hell is fucking to the theme from People's Court?!? Unless it's from some People's Court spoof porn movie, People's Pork or something....
The coolest track by far though is "The Bends" a groovy laid back heavy psych rock jam, with super out of place space age synths, all fuzzed out, the whole track peppered with weird damaged FX. Another track that makes it difficult to imagine folks fucking to it.
A pretty fun and fantastic listen all around, but it's definitely gotten us dying to see what sort of weird and wild sex could have possibly transpired to the demented strains of these far out tunes. Maybe the next porn music reissue, instead of just issuing a cd, should just go for it and reissue the actual porno? Just a thought...
MPEG Stream: "The Bends"
MPEG Stream: "Hawkwind And Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Disco Fever"
MPEG Stream: "The Heist"

V/A Halleluwah: Festival Of Enthused Arts - Sept. 1-2, 2006 Disjecta, Portland (Yeti) lp 14.98
Managed to get another handful of these super limited lps, so act fast:
Super limited vinyl document of the Halleluwah Festival Of Enthused Arts that took place in September 1-2 of this year curated by the same folks who do the killer yeti magazine.
Two sides, one quiet, one loud, a bunch of instantly recognizable names, as well as a bunch of unknowns (at least to us) all of it pretty dang amazing, so much so that we were kicking ourselves for missing the festival.
The quiet side features folk legend Michael Hurley, folk legend Vashti Bunyan and Tara Jane O'Neil, as well as White Rainbow, Holysons and Alela Diane. The sound leans mostly toward subtle twang, simple strum, and dreamlike croon, but there are some moments of blissy foggy ambient murmur and some fuzzy murky psychedelic blues.
The loud side features Deerhoof, Sir Richard Bishop and Valet (whose cd-r we raved about a few lists back) as well as three weirdly named ensembles: Nudity, Romancing and Yacht. The loud side veers all over the place, from weird psychrock tribal freakouts to blown out angular indie rock buzz to damaged minimal punk rock bounce to fuzzy psychedelic heavy riffed rock jams.
The packaging is just as impressive, a thick, plain white sleeve through which are visible strange looking inserts, each printed on super thick semi transparent cloudy plastic, the loud side is red on white with an illustration by Kevin Arrow, the quiet side is white on black, and features an amazing illustration by Unica Zurn, the partner of Hans Bellmer! Wow!!

V/A Improvised Music From Japan Extra 2006 Special Issue Berlin (IMJ) magazine + 2cd 28.00
Before you go get goin' too excited about this new issue of IMFJ, we gotta tell you a couple things. First the good news, yes this does come with not one but two full cds crammed with cutting edge music for you to check out. Lots of cool avant-garde experimentation. But, none of it's by Japanese artists. This is the "Special Issue: Berlin" and so it focusses on that European scene, including folks like Axel Dorner, Christof Kurzmann, Annette Krebs, Phillip Sollmann, F.S. Blumm, Tony Buck, Jason Forrest, Joe Williamson, Andrea Neumann, and many others (Germans, Italians, Americans, etc... just no Japanese!). Japanophiles thereby be warned. People who like minimal electronics and out-there improvised music in general though should still be quite interested! But (another but), also a bit frustrated, unless fluent in Japanese. Because unlike previous issues of IMFJ, this one has no English text -- the interviews, articles and reviews are all in Japanese. Kind of a bummer for us, eh? But, you still get the two discs of music, and some pictures and stuff to look at, so it might still be worth it if you're interested in hearing what these cats are up to in Berlin.

V/A On Isolation (Room 40) cd 16.98
Lawrence English has been one of the champions of Australian sound art, in both bringing international artists to Australia and in exposing the world to the finer recordings from his countrymen and women. In 2006, English had co-curated a conference / exhibition at the University of Tasmania on the subject of isolation in any number of political, aesthetic, and philosophical guises. In addition to the theoretical investigations of the event, English assembled an all-star cast of international sound artists to offer their own take on the subject of isolation. According to English, this CD "was provided to delegates attending a conference in Hobart in 2006 at the University of Tasmania to help awaken a deep imagination and engagement with these matters." The highlights from the compilation include the Borhen & Der Club Of Gore -like doomy vibes and atmospheres from Dale Lloyd, Stephen Vitiello's emphatic crack of electric noise that gently fades into driftwork / dronescape, the very special nothing music of Richard Chartier with the smallest of sonic ruptures located upon a vast plane of undulating bass rumbles, Jeph Jerman's quiet ritual with found objects set against the constant din of a nearby ocean, and Richard Francis & Nest's bleak soundfield of shortwave radio static and mournful guitar distortion. Lovely stuff.
MPEG Stream: STEPHEN VITIELLO "Something On My Back"
MPEG Stream: DALE LLOYD "Among The Many"
MPEG Stream: RICHARD FRANCIS & NEST "The Wine Cellar"

V/A Snatch Paste: An Assortment of Snatch Tapes (Vinyl On Demand) lp 24.00
An amazing and elaborately packaged vinyl compilation of tracks originally released on the infamous Snatch Tape Compilations, volumes one through three, which were first released way back in the late seventies / early eighties. Some familiar names: David Jackman of Organum, Storm Bugs, Philip Sanderson (who also put together this comp) as well as some names we've never heard or seen before: Alien Brains, The N4's, Orior and more. The interesting thing, is sonically, almost all of these tracks could be some strange cd-r micro release from two weeks ago. It's hard to believe these tracks are from more than 25 years ago. Not sure whether it speaks to the prescience of these artists, or the mighty debt today's crop of noisemakers owe to those that came before. Probably a little of both.
Needless to say, this will appeal to fans of the modern field of limited cd-r label free noise ambient sound makers, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, PseudoArcana, Digitalis, if you've been loving all that stuff, this will absolutely hit the spot.
Jackman offers up "Blues", which is indeed some sort of blues, but dense with buzzing steel strings and distant clatter, The Storm Bugs unfurl huge slabs of cavernous rumble and whir, a little Dead C, a little Organum, some wailing crooned vocals drift in and out, everything doused in reverb, Sanderson unleashes some strange alien new wave, muted drum machine rhythms, bloopy synths buried under fog horn bass rumble, primitive FX swirl and swoop, everything wrapped in a crumbling lo-fi ambience. Other tracks explore damaged synths, garbled vocals, primitive Plunderphonic soundscapes, malfunctioning electronics, and all manner of abstract lo-fi buzz.
Pressed on outrageously thick vinyl, and packaged in a gorgeous sleeve, matte finished with subtle embossing. So nice. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each sleeve hand numbered.

V/A Studio One Rub-A-Dub (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00
Every time we get a new Soul Jazz collection from the Studio One vaults we keep thinking ok this one is finally gonna be a dud, but that never seems to happen! This time out it's classic '70s era Studio-One with a grip of rare tracks from the likes of Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, The Ethiopian, Horace Andy, Jennifer Lara, and a whole lot more. Liner notes by music historian Chris Salewicz do a really nice job giving the music a context in the political and musical climate of Jamaica during the '70s. Yet more rock solid proof documenting just how rich and deep those Studio One vaults really are.
MPEG Stream: LEN ALLEN JUNIOR "White Belly Rat"
MPEG Stream: WILLIE WILLIAMS "Keep On Moving"
MPEG Stream: JUDAH ESKENDER TAFARI "Danger In Your Eyes"

V/A Studio One Rub-A-Dub (Soul Jazz) 2lp 24.00
Every time we get a new Soul Jazz collection from the Studio One vaults we keep thinking ok this one is finally gonna be a dud, but that never seems to happen! This time out it's classic '70s era Studio-One with a grip of rare tracks from the likes of Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, The Ethiopian, Horace Andy, Jennifer Lara, and a whole lot more. Liner notes by music historian Chris Salewicz do a really nice job giving the music a context in the political and musical climate of Jamaica during the '70s. Yet more rock solid proof documenting just how rich and deep those Studio One vaults really are.
MPEG Stream: LEN ALLEN JUNIOR "White Belly Rat"
MPEG Stream: WILLIE WILLIAMS "Keep On Moving"
MPEG Stream: JUDAH ESKENDER TAFARI "Danger In Your Eyes"

V/A Thankful (Temporary Residence) cd 11.98
Initially a very post-rock focused indie label, Temporary Residence has branched out over the years to become quite a mighty eclectic entity. This compilation literally picks right up from where the label's 2004's Thank You compilation left off. It features brand spankin' new, previously unreleased tracks by almost every artist that Temporary Residence has signed since Thank You was released. Present and accounted for: Eluvium, Caroline, Lazarus, Cex & Nice Nice, The Ladies, Sleeping People, By The End Of Tonight, The Drift, Mono and Anomoanon.
MPEG Stream: CAROLINE "Wonderlust"
MPEG Stream: LADIES. THE "Trapped In The Hobbit"
MPEG Stream: DRIFT, THE "Secret Waters"



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AFFLICTED MAN "The Complete Recordings" (Senseless Whale) 2cd 22.00
AIRWAY "Live At Lace" (Harbinger Sound) cd 14.98
AN ALBATROSS "Freedom Summer Live" (Kitty Play) 12" 10.98
ARBOURETUM "Rites Of Uncovering" (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
BE PERSECUTED "I.I." (No Colours) cd 15.98
BEE GEES "1st" (Reprise) 2cd 23.00
BEE GEES "Horizontal" (Reprise) cd 23.00
BEE GEES "Idea" (Reprise) 2cd 23.00
BELFI, ANDREA "Between Neck And Stomach" (Hapna) cd 16.98
BIRD AND THE BEE, THE "s/t" (Blue Note) cd 14.98
BLACK HOLE GENERATOR "Black Karma" (Ars Magna) cd ep 11.98
BUCKLEY, TIM "Works In Progress" (Rhino) cd 24.00
CALLA "Strength In Numbers" (XL) cd/lp 10.98/10.98
CASH, JOHNNY "At San Quentin - Legacy Edition Box Set" (Columbia) 2cd+1dvd 45.00
CLOUDS "Legendary Demo" (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
CORSICAN PAINTBRUSH "Aquarian Hymns" (Digitalis) cd 11.98
COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS, THE "Olidous Operettas" (Relapse) cd 12.98
DARKESTRAH "Epos" (No Colours) cd 15.98
DAYGLO ABORTIONS "Feed Us A Fetus" (God Records, Inc.) cd 16.98
DAYGLO ABORTIONS "Here Today, Guano Tomorrow" (God Records, Inc.) cd 16.98
DEAD CHILD "s/t" (Cold Sweat) cd ep 10.98
DENNIS DUCK "Goes Disco" (Poo-Bah) cd 14.98
DESPERATE MAN BLUES "Discovering The Roots Of American Music" (Cube Media) dvd 24.00
DESPERATE MAN BLUES (OST) (Dust To Digital) cd 15.98
DEUPREE, TAYLOR "1am" (12k) cd ep 11.98
DILLOWAY, AARON "Beggar Master" (Hanson) cd 14.98
DR. DELAY "Rajaz Meter" (Funk Weapons) cd-r 15.98
EMPEROR "Scattered Ashes" (Candlelight) book+cd 17.98
ENCOMIAST "Winter's End" (Lens Records) cd 9.98
EXMAGMA "3" (Daily Records) cd 30.00
FORTERESSE "Metal Noir Quebecois" (Sepulchral Productions) cd 11.98
FORTID "Voluspa Part II: The Arrival Of Fenris" (No Colours) cd 15.98
GANDALF "2" (Sundazed) cd 14.98
GILBERTO, ASTRUD "September 17, 1969" (Rev-Ola) cd 15.98
GREENHAM, LILY "Lingual Music" (Paradigm) 2cd 26.00
GREENLEE, SHAWN "Nysa" (Utech) cd 14.98
GRIMFAUG "Defloration Of Life's Essence" (Eerie Art) cd 15.98
GURDJIEFF, G.I. & THOMAS DE HARTMAN "Oriental Suite" (Basta) 4cd+book 113.00
HEADPINS "Turn It Loud" (Wounded Bird) cd 13.98
HORNA "Aania Yossa" (Moribund) cd 14.98
HUG "Heroes" (Kompakt) cd 15.98
HUSH ARBORS "Under Bent Limb Trees" (Digitalis) 2cd 21.00
JAN DUKES DE GREY "Sorcerers" (Wounded Nurse) cd 17.98
JOYLESS "Wisdom & Arrogance" (No Colours) cd 15.98
JR. AND HIS SOULETTES "Psychodelic Sounds" cd 17.98
KOHOUTEK "Hair On The Sidewalk" (Sockets CDR) dvd 14.98
KRAFTWERK "Radio-Activity" (Capitol) lp 12.98
KRAFTWERK "The Man Machine" (Capitol) lp 12.98
KRAFTWERK "Trans-Europe Express" (Capitol) lp 12.98
LAGHONIA "Unglue" (Repsychled) cd 14.98
M'LUMBO "Sacrifices To The Neon Gods" (Mulatta Records) cd 16.98
MAD DOG "Dawn Of The Seventh Sun" (RD) cd 19.98
MADLIB "Mind Fusion Vol. 4" (Madlib) cd 16.98
MADLIB "Mind Fusion Vol. 5" (Madlib) cd 16.98
MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "L'Autre Cap" (K) cd/lp 14.98/13.98
MOONDOG "Rare Material" (Roof Music) 2cd 30.00
MORRICONE, ENNIO "Morricone In The Brain (Blowing Your Mind With The Maestro)" (Bella Casa) cd 15.98
MRK1 "Copyright Laws" (Planet Mu) cd 17.98
NATH, PANDIT PRAN "The Raga Cycle, PalaceTheatre, Paris 1972" (Sri Moonshine) cd 15.98
NEGATIVA "s/t" (Prodisk) cd 14.98
NITSCH, HERMANN "Requiem Fuer Meine Frau Beate, Musik Der 56.Aktion" (Alga Marghen) 2cd 45.00
OBSCURUS ADVOCAM "Verbia Daemonicus" (Battle Kommand) cd 14.98
PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE "A Sweet Quasimodo Between Black Vampire Butterflies" (Cold Blue) cd 14.98
PETRONELLA, ANGELO "Sintesi Da Un Diario" (Die Schachtel) cd 18.98
PILIA, STEFANO "The Suncrows Fall and Tree" (Sedimental) cd 14.98
PINK FAIRIES "Never Neverland" (Tapestry) lp 35.00
PROFUNDI "The Omega Rising" (Profound Lore) cd 15.98
PROSCRIPTOR "Thoth Music(k)" (Tarot Productions) 7" 6.50
RAAIJMAKERS, DICK "Complete Tape Music Of Dick Raaijmakers" (Basta) 3cd 33.00
RZA "Afro Samurai (OST)" (Koch) cd 17.98
SACRED STEEL "Hammer Of Destruction" (Massacre) cd 17.98
SCHMICKLER, MARCUS "Demos" (A-Musik) cd 17.98
SHANNON, SARAH "City Morning" (Minty Fresh) cd 13.98
SHITMAT "Hang The DJ" (Wrong) cd 15.98
SPRIGUNS "Revel, Weird and Wild" (Acme) cd 21.00
SPRIGUNS "Time Will Pass" (Acme) cd 21.00
TELEGRAPH AVENUE "s/t" (Repsychled) cd 15.98
TIMES NEW VIKING "Present The Paisley Reich" (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
TIN HAT "The Sad Machinery Of Spring" (Ryko) cd 16.98
TRAFFIC SOUND "s/t" (Repsychled) cd 15.98
TRAFFIC SOUND "Virgin" (Repsychled) cd 15.98
TRANS AM "Sex Change" (Thrill Jockey) cd
TREES COMMUNITY, THE "The Christ Tree" (Hand Eye) 4cd 42.00
TROLLMANN AV ILDTOPPBERG "Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity" (Monolith) cd-r 10.98
TWILIGHT SINGERS, THE "A Stitch In Time" (One Little Indian) cd 6.98
UZ JSME DOMA "Live at Archa / Pudding Documentary" (Indies MG Records) 2dvd 35.00
V/A "Bombay Connection Vol. 1, Funk From Bollywood Action Thrillers 1977-1984" (Bombay Connection) cd/2lp 16.98/32.00
V/A "Bombay Connection Vol. 2, Bouncin' Grooves From Bollywood Films 1959-1972" (Bombay Connection) cd/2lp 16.98/32.00
V/A "Electric Gypsyland 2" (Ryko) cd 16.98
V/A "How Low Can You Go?" (Dust To Digital) 3cd 58.00
V/A "Reactions To Raaijmakers" (Basta) cd 21.00
V/A "Rock You Sinners! The Dawn Of British Rock and Roll" (Rev-Ola) cd 15.98
V/A "Sepulchral Productions Presents Waging The War" (Sepulchral Productions) cd 10.98
V/A "Tribute To Robert Moog" (Creme Records) cd 17.98
WALTER, WEASEL QUARTET "Revolt Music" (ugExplode) cd 11.98
WARPIG "s/t" (Relapse) cd 14.98
WHITE HEAVEN "Levitation" (Farside) 12" 26.00
WHOLPHIN DVD MAGAZINE "No. 3" (McSweeney's) dvd 15.95
WILLIAMS, LUCINDA "West" (Lost Highway) cd 14.98
XELA "For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights" (Type) cd 15.89
YOUNG, NEIL & CRAZY HORSE "Live At The Fillmore East March 6 & 7, 1970" (Reprise) cd 16.98
Z'EV / FRANCISCO LOPEZ "Buzzin' Fly / Dormant Spores" (Lapilli / Black Rose) cd 16.98
ZELIENOPLE "Ghost Ship / Mary Celeste" (Pseudo Arcana) cd-r 12.98
ZU & NOBUKAZU TAKEMURA "Identification With The Enemy: A Key To The Underworld" (Atavistic) cd 14.98

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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

----} real soon, maybe already here!
v/a"Ain't It Hard! Garage & Psych from Viva Records" cd/lp on Sundazed
Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues "The Soul of a Mountain Wolf" cd on Fractal
Ilitch "Lena's Life & Others Stories" cd on Fractal
Gandalf "2" cd on Sundazed
Pink Reason "Cleaning The Mirror" cd/lp on Siltbreeze
Jay Munly "Galvanized Yankee" cd on Smooch
Vocokesh "All This And Hieronymous Bosch" cd on Strange Attractors Audio House
Zodiacs "Gone" cd on Holy Mountain

----} also soon (shipping to us next week, supposedly)
SUNNO))) / Boris "Altar" 3lp version on Southern Lord

----} February 20th
Arab Strab "Ten Years Of Tears" cd on Chemikal Underground
Gallhammer "Dawn Of The Gallhammer" cd+dvd on Peaceville
Marnie Stern "In Advance Of The Broken Arm" cd on Kill Rock Stars
Eluvium "Copia" cd on Temporary Residence Ltd.

----} February 27th
Kemialliset Ystavat "Alkuharka" LP version on Beta-Lactam Ring Records
Tomutonttu "s/t" LP n Beta-Lactam Ring Records
Sonic Youth "The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities" LP edition on Goofin'

----} January/February
Inquisition "Nefarious Dismal Oration" cd on No Colours

----} March 6th
Amon Tobin "Foley Room" cd+dvd/2lp on Ninja Tune
Air "Pocket Symphony" cd/2lp on Astralwerks
Arcade Fire "Neon Bible" cd/2lp on Merge
RJD2 "The Third Hand" cd/2lp on XL
John Frusciante "Ataxia II" cd on Record Collection
Antibalas "Security" cd on Anti
Big Business "Here Come The Waterworks" cd on Hydra Head
Totimoshi "Ladron" cd on Volcom
Okkervil River "Black Sheep Boy (Definitive Edition)" 2cd on Jagjaguwar
Bright Eyes "Four Winds" cdep on Saddle Creek
Kool Keith "Ultra-Octa-Doom" cd

----} March 13th
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction For The Arts "La Grima (August 14, 1971)" cd on doubtmusic
v/a "Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation" 2cd on Numero

----} March 20th
Low "Drums And Guns" cd/lp on Sub Pop
Ted Leo and The Pharmacists "Living With The Living" cd/2lp on Touch and Go
The Decemberists "A Practical Handbook" dvd on Kill Rock Stars
The Locust "New Erections" cd on Anti
Adult. "Why Bother?" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey
Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid "Tongues" cd/lp on Domino
Swallow The Sun "Hope" cd on Candlelight

----} March 27th
Lesbian "Power Hor" cd on Holy Mountain

----} April 4th
Pole "Steingarten" cd/2lp on Scape
Throne Of Katharsis "An Eternal Dark Horizon" cd on Candlelight

----} April 17th
DHG (Dodheimsgard) "Supervillain Outcast" cd on Moonfog/The End

----} April 24th
Destroy All Monsters "Grow Live Monsters" DVD on MVD Visual

----} also in April
Abruptum "Evil Genius" cd reissue on Southern Lord

----} May 1st
Dungen new album on Kemado

----} May 15th
Boris w/ Kurihara "Rainbow" domestic cd version on Drag City

----} also upcoming sooner or later
Neurosis "Given To The Rising" cd on Neurot
Chubby Checker "s/t" cd reissue on Underground Masters <---yes, the psychedelic C.C. album!!
Bernard Parmegiani "Chants Magnetiques" cd on Fractal
Boris w/ Kurihara "Rainbow" LP version on Inoxia
Velvet Cacoon "Genevive" 2LP version
Velvet Cacoon "Northsuite" 2LP version
Earth "Hibernaculam" cd+dvd/lp on Southern Lord
Asbestosdeath "Unclean/Dejection" cd/lp on Southern Lord
v/a "Cherrystones Word" cd on Tlon Uqbor
v/a "Portland" 3lp on RRR
v/a "Texas" 3lp on RRR
v/a "D-I-Y" cd/2lp on Soul Jazz
v/a "Studio One Rub-A-Dub" cd/2lp on Soul Jazz
v/a "Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word 2" cd on Delay 68
Sonic Youth "Daydream Nation" 4lp reissue on Goofin'
Vibracathedral Orchestra "Thunderbold Wisdom" cd on VHF
Richard Youngs / Alex Neilson "Electric Lotus / Lotus Edition" cd on VHF

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KUSF & Lucifer's Hammer

-present-

HAMMERS Of MISFORTUNE

-with special guests-

ASUNDER

-and-

SLOUGH FEG

-live at the-

Great American Music Hall

859 O'Farrell Street San Francisco

Thursday February 22nd 9pm

$12 general admission

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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanLaurenAshleyPamJasonChristineIrwinMattScott and Sally