SUNBURNED CIRCLE The Blaze Game (Conspiracy Records) cd 15.98
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.Ý
The sound on first listen is like some sort ofÝalien world music, with dense, but laid backÝtribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,Ýwhispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.Ý
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnoticÝ"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, stillÝmurky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtleÝrepetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.Ý
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
MPEG Stream: "Majava"
MPEG Stream: "Heinavelho"
MPEG Stream: "Vuoren Valloitus"

SUNBURNED CIRCLE The Blaze Game (Conspiracy Records) lp 15.98
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.Ý
The sound on first listen is like some sort ofÝalien world music, with dense, but laid backÝtribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,Ýwhispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.Ý
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnoticÝ"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, stillÝmurky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtleÝrepetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.Ý
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
MPEG Stream: "Majava"
MPEG Stream: "Heinavelho"
MPEG Stream: "Vuoren Valloitus"

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS Colossal Youth & Collected Works (Domino) 3cd 19.98
Young Marble Giants' minimal masterpiece, Colossal Youth, receives yet another reissue (the fifth or sixth to date)! This one is extra super special because it's a three cd set which compiles ALL of their previously released music! So you not only get the fifteen songs that make up the Colossal Youth album, but also a five song Peel Session from 1980, six songs from their 1981 Testcard EP, three from the Final Day single, sixteen from their 2000 Salad Days album, and their first ever recorded appearance titled "Ode To Booker T" from the 1979 compilation Is The War Over?.
Needless to say, it's a cause for celebration! Absolutely essential listening. This UK trio's existence was ever so fleeting, and they only had one proper album, but what a leftfield classic it is. It sounds *totally unique*, like nothing before and pretty much nothing since. Amid the aggression and edginess of the post-punk movement, YMG emerged as a remarkably stark, understated and utterly engaging wonder. It has made an enormous impact in the many years since its original release in 1980. Seriously, this is one of those classic albums that has influenced tons of musicians (Hole even covered "Credit in the Straight World", but don't hold that against YMG!). It ranks up there with, like, The Velvet Underground's first record, Neu!, the Raincoats, Pere Ubu's Modern Dance, etc., etc.
Their music's simplicity is deceptive. A very hushed, metronome-sounding drum machine ticks out the tireless beat of each song like a friendly clock, and its neutral tone is also reflected in Alison Statton's girlish, earnest, not always pitch-perfect vocals as well as in the muted string strum of Stuart Moxham's electric guitar. Spartan, angular strikes from the same guitar punctuate this steady atmosphere as a frail organ does its wheezing, bleating melodic best and Philip Moxham's rubbery bass line hesitantly bends and bounds. Minimal and no-frills, yes, but somehow there's so much more going on, and so much more expressed than its quietness belies. The songs are tiny and simple and total perfection. Powerful and totally f**king timeless and yes, very highly recommended.
As we mentioned above, we believe this just might be the fifth or sixth edition, and we hope that it's kept available forever and ever and ever!
MPEG Stream: "Brand - New - Life"
MPEG Stream: "Searching For Mr. Right (Peel Session)"

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ARMPIT Reach Out (Dreamtime Taped Sounds) 5xcd-r 26.00
It's been ages since we've heard from NZ combo Armpit (also occasionally known as Thee Armpit). Past releasesÝ(on PseudoArcana, Celebrate Psi Pheomenon and Pink Skulls)Ýhave been huge faves around here, and this latest seems to be no different. Armpit seem to thrive when given plenty of space to stretch out, when allowed to sprawl, their bizarre blend of dreamdrone and murkpop and thudrock is transformed into something otherworldly and divine, trancelike and intense, epic and gorgeously confusional.Ý
Their finest moment as far as we're concerned was their double cd The Praying Mantis, two plus hours of strange and wondrous sounds for sure, but now we have what might be the ultimate Armpit document (never thought we'd ever type that phrase), a massive FIVE cd-r set, 4+ hours documenting Armpit's strange musical universe. The set opens with a 12 minute Dead C like free rock jam, so very murky. The various instruments are hard to separate from one another. It's like a strange organic being, made up of percussive thud and rumbling feedback, mumbled voices and the smeared whir of distorted guitar, but with a glorious pop core, glowing in there, buried under layers of hiss and crunch. And while the record swerves and veers all over the place, the sound of this track is sort of a touchstone to which Reach Out always seems to return.
Over the course of the five discs, the sound drifts widely from the aforementioned murky blurry free rock, to blissed out folky jangle, to super abstract raga like skree, to billowy soft focus drone, often some strange tangled blend of all of those. Blissed out, meditative, dreamy, hypnotic, occasionally abrasive, always fascinating and just so goddamn good. Fans of stuff on either PseudooArcana or Celebrate Psi Phenomenon will find this to be essential for sure, and anyone looking to get gone in some mystical murky world of strange sound could hardly do better than this one right here.Ý
The packaging is as mysterious as the music within. All the cd-r's packaged in multicolored sleeves, with what seem to be bits of found art, includes an insert/poster, almost no liner notes at all, no song titles, all housed in a sewn fabric bag. And as if we even needed to tell you, limited as all get out...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

AXOLOTL / D YELLOW SWANS / GERRITT s/t (Root Strata) lp 14.98
This long sought after, long out of print cd-r, released originally on the Jyrk label way back in 2005, is available again for a limited time -- now as a super swank, ultra limited lp from Jefre Cantu Ledesma's (Tarentel) Root Strata label.
Triple threat SF free noise cd-r tag team match up between some names you should probably know by now, Axolotl, the Yellow Swans, and Gerritt. With three times the firepower you might think that would mean three times the noise, but be prepared to be surprised! And soothed. That's right, three lengthy tracks that lean more toward the dreamy minimal drone and the shimmering sheets of sonic skree than the all out noise attack. The first track is a slowly shifting gritty electronic soundscape of hazy melody and electronic buzz and hiss, eventually building into a louder, yet no less swath of drone and glitch hiss. Track two is a bit more in your face, with rich slabs of distorted chords and warm warbly drones, with swooping melodies and electronic mosquito buzz. The final track is twenty minutes of thick churning low end grind and grumble, pulsing with some buried beat, until the whole thing explodes into a huge wall of thick electrogrit and fuzzed out feedback screech. Wow. Really nice.
Limited to 500 copies we think.
MPEG Stream: "One"

BROTZMANN, PETER OCTET Complete Machine Gun Sessions (Atavistic Archive FMP Edition) cd 15.98
Never was a title better chosen. The juttering salvo of massed horns that opens this record is machinegunnery indeed. Legendary hardblowing German free jazz saxophonist Peter Brotzmann is still around today taking names and kicking ass, but he's perhaps best known for this album from 1968, a recording that embodies all the radical turmoil of that year, remaining a powerful statement of energy, anger, & freedom even today. For '68, this was among the ultimate in "extreme" music, regardless of genre. The amplified antics of most rock bands (with the possible exception of free jazz aficionados the MC5) couldn't touch it. Of course, we're ignoring the subtleties of this music in stressing that. But if the extremity hooks you in, that's fine. And it's certainly true that Machine Gun was the spiritual ancestor to such modern noisy-jazz-industrial acts as 16-17, Borbetomagus, and John Zorn's Painkiller. Apparently "Machine Gun" was Don Cherry's nickname for Brotzmann, and the album Machine Gun is basically Brotzmann times 8, he got a whole band who could play at his level of ferocious intensity, a screaming, skronking collective improv blowout, but one that's directed, organized into a killing machine of concentrated force when necessary, or subsides, chests heaving, into still-clattering lulls of relative calm and abstract beauty at other times.
The Peter Brotzmann Octet responsible for Machine Gun was really an all-star lineup, many musicians still well-known in the realm of European free jazz: Willem Breuker (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Evan Parker (tenor sax), Fred Van Hove (piano), Peter Kowald (bass), Buschi Niebergall (bass), Han Bennink (drums), and Sven-Ake Johansson (drums). That's some lineup. If you're familiar with those folks, chances are you've already heard this album, but if not, well it's one to get. And while it's been in print as an import cd on Free Music Productions (FMP) for some years, it hasn't always been easy to find. So it's great that it now takes a well deserved place in the Atavistic Unheard Music Series as a domestic cd release, and even better that they've added a bunch of bonus tracks to it! Extra alternate takes, and the only recorded LIVE version of "Machine Gun", from the '68 Frankfurt Jazz Fest. Plus there's new liner notes from Unheard guru John Corbett.
MPEG Stream: "Machine Gun (Second Take)"
MPEG Stream: "Responsible (Second Take)"

BROWN, JAMES Soul On Top (Verve) cd 17.98
2006 ended on a sad note for music lovers everywhere as the Godfather of Soul passed away, but in true JB style he picked one of the highest profile days of the year (Xmas morning) to make his grand exit. It was a pretty fitting way to go out, as his whole life was about exclamation points, fierce grunts, dynamite dance moves, hard earned sweat and full throttle expression. Since his passing we have been digging in our record collections pulling out all his recordings and listening in awe to what the amazing legacy he left behind. There is no doubt that he was one of the greatest songwriters and performers of the last century!
With that in mind we wanted to highlight a record of his that maybe not everyone was familiar with but we think shows the range and undeniable power of his presence. Reissued a few years back, Soul On Top was recorded in Hollywood in 1969 with the Louie Bellson Orchestra conducted by Oliver Nelson. And wow, what a standout performance... Brown belts it out with a conviction that shows his long running love of jazz jammed right up next to the soul and funk spirit he helped cultivate. Soul On Top is so over the top in all the right ways! Huge drums and horns creating such a big sound that JB then slams right out of the field with his voice, sounding as strong as ever, radiating in its prime. Almost like some magical version of James Brown doing a Vegas show but not as a bloated lesser version of himself as most Vegas performances tend to be but at the very peak of his performing prowess. This has some of the best howls and screams ever to come out of that man's mouth for sure, and it also shows the great range and versatility he had as we works his way with some big band and pop standards, a totally smoking version of Hank Williams "Your Cheatin' Heart", as well as reworking some of his own classics. While it's unlike most everything else he did, we think Soul On Top is one of his most shining and captivating achievements!
MPEG Stream: "Your Cheatin' Heart"
MPEG Stream: "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World [Unedited Version]"
MPEG Stream: "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag [Unedited Version]"

DARKESTRAH Epos (No Colours) cd 15.98
Being one of only three black metal bands hailing fromÝKyrgyzstan according to the online authority Encyclopaedia Metallum, and featuring a female vocalist, must make Darkestrah one of the most unique BM outfits going, but on first listen, neither of those attributes are all that readily apparent. Certainly, the harsh strangled demonic howling vocals did not immediately strike us as particularly feminine, and the glorious hypnotic buzz didn't seem all that region specific, but the more, and closer you listen, the more those elements do seem important, keeping Darkestrah from sounding like just another bunch of boring buzzing blackness...
One half hour plus epic, separated into movements, beginning withÝthe gentle sound of a burbling brook, the fuzzy white noise like ebb and flow of waves crashing on the sea shore, until those tranquil sounds areÝjoined by distant keening guitars, a long drawn out buzz, that eventually solidifies into a gorgeous melancholic riff, draped over simple midtempo drumming, intense and epic and blown out, eventually exploding into a black burst of raw grimness, but never losing that melancholic vibe. Repetitive and hypnotic, with killer drumming and furious guitar buzz, until all of a sudden in come cellos, and then the song is transformed into a sweeping Godspeed like expanse of beautiful blackness...
About halfway through, the sound of the surf returns, soon overtaken by tribal drumming, Viking like riffing, a bit of chanting, eventually bursting into some seriously Burzumic pound, with more soaring riffage and really intense unlikely mathy arrangements, eventually stretching out into a long form static buzz, while over the top strings soar and flutes flutter, again transforming the song into a swoonsome black lament, eventually fading out into just the sound of wind and sea....
MPEG Stream: "Epos (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Epos (excerpt 2)"

DRAGONS, THE BFI (Ninja Tune) cd 14.98
Wow. Imagine Captain & Tennille, Shuggie Otis, and Broadcast making a record together. Or even Gary Wilson and United States of America making some skewed electronic but totally weird and catchy seventies yacht rock (ok, we realize that may sound terrible to some folks, but it really works awesomely here!). The Dragon brothers, Doug and Dennis (of Surf Punks fame!), sometimes joined by their other brother Darryl (aka "The Captain" of Captain and Tennille!) and sister Carmen on harp, recorded BFI (short for Blue Forces Intelligence?!) in Malibu during the early seventies inspired by surfing and the explosive late sixties west coast music scene of The Doors, Byrds, CSN, etc. Unfortunately, all the connections they had as a popular musical family in Los Angeles (their father was a well known conductor and symphony arranger in Hollywood) gave them great studio access but didn't yield the recording contract they were looking for. Most of the labels they shopped it to liked the record but didn't see any single potential. So the masters were shelved and the brothers went their separate ways. It wasn't until DJ Food from Ninja Tune contacted Dennis Dragon to ask permission to use a Dragons' track ("Food For My Soul") from an obscure surf movie soundtrack for a mix tape he was making, that it was discovered that a whole Dragons album was recorded. Thankfully Ninja Tune resurrected BFI from the musical graveyard because it's fast becoming one of our favorite "buried treasures". Full of Moog grooves, break beats, jazz inflected piano, and high and low male voices, BFI is one of the most surprising and eccentrically sunny LA records we've heard in these parts in awhile that sounds completely timeless. Highly recommended! Oh, and if you loved the reissue by hippy surf psych band The Farm on EM Records, these are some of the same guys responsible for that album!
MPEG Stream: "Amplified Emotion"
MPEG Stream: "Sunset Scenery"
MPEG Stream: "Big Mike Requiem"

DRAGONS, THE BFI (Ninja Tune) lp 25.00
Wow. Imagine Captain & Tennille, Shuggie Otis, and Broadcast making a record together. Or even Gary Wilson and United States of America making some skewed electronic but totally weird and catchy seventies yacht rock (ok, we realize that may sound terrible to some folks, but it really works awesomely here!). The Dragon brothers, Doug and Dennis (of Surf Punks fame!), sometimes joined by their other brother Darryl (aka "The Captain" of Captain and Tennille!) and sister Carmen on harp, recorded BFI (short for Blue Forces Intelligence?!) in Malibu during the early seventies inspired by surfing and the explosive late sixties west coast music scene of The Doors, Byrds, CSN, etc. Unfortunately, all the connections they had as a popular musical family in Los Angeles (their father was a well known conductor and symphony arranger in Hollywood) gave them great studio access but didn't yield the recording contract they were looking for. Most of the labels they shopped it to liked the record but didn't see any single potential. So the masters were shelved and the brothers went their separate ways. It wasn't until DJ Food from Ninja Tune contacted Dennis Dragon to ask permission to use a Dragons' track ("Food For My Soul") from an obscure surf movie soundtrack for a mix tape he was making, that it was discovered that a whole Dragons album was recorded. Thankfully Ninja Tune resurrected BFI from the musical graveyard because it's fast becoming one of our favorite "buried treasures". Full of Moog grooves, break beats, jazz inflected piano, and high and low male voices, BFI is one of the most surprising and eccentrically sunny LA records we've heard in these parts in awhile that sounds completely timeless. Highly recommended! Oh, and if you loved the reissue by hippy surf psych band The Farm on EM Records, these are some of the same guys responsible for that album!
MPEG Stream: "Amplified Emotion"
MPEG Stream: "Sunset Scenery"
MPEG Stream: "Big Mike Requiem"

DROWNING THE VIRGIN SILENCE Tone (Goat Eater Arts) cd-r 9.98
A mysterious new release from Goat Eater Recordings, who in the past have brought us exclusively recordings from ambient drone technicians Hoor-Paar-Kraat. But this one comes from one man band Drowning The Virgin Silence. Like all the Goat Eater stuff we've seen, this too is presented in a beautifully hand crafted artful sleeve, and the music inside is not all that far removed from the sounds of Hoor-Paar-Kraat, but where HPK is dark and desolate, heavy and often on the verge of being abrasive, the music of DTVS is much more soft and shimmery, the opening track almost sounds like it could have come straight off a Pop Ambient collection. Looped murky melodies, set adrift on a rippling sea of whir and rumble, drowsy and hypnotic.Ý
None of the rest of the record is nearly so poppy or melodic, but it is all super engaging and mysterious, each song, a strange and haunting assemblage of voices and unnamable instruments, snippets of sound, looped samples and all sorts of subtle effects. "Hummingbird" is a disembodied conversation all tangled up in dark swirls of echoey sound, the 10+ minute "Untitled" is a long stretch of mumbled ambience, dotted with cricket like skitter and haunting melodic shadows. "A Pair Of Scales Stripped Bare, Even" is a dense blur of industrial sound, high end scrape and skree blended into a churning low end undercurrent, static but somehow with a bit of forward momentum at the same time. The record finishes with the epic "Phaedra", a gorgeous smear of chordal whir and shimmery drone, all washed out and indistinct, melodies buried beneath the murky surface, all occasionally coalescing into soft swells and long stretches of blurred fuzz. So nice.Ý
Packaged in a beautiful hand screened cardstock sleeve, super minimal and striking.Ý
LIMITED TO ONLY 70 COPIES! Each one hand numbered of course...
MPEG Stream: "Thread"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

EMMANUEL, J.D. Wizards (Dreamtime Taped Sounds) lp 17.98
New age gets a bad rap. And rightfully so in many cases, but it's not fair to paint it with such a broad brush, there have been plenty of artists who have dabbled in new age, explored meditative musics, and made some amazing sounds. When it's done right, it can be dark and lovely, deeply spiritual, soothing and hypnotic, complex and intense, without being cheesy. All of the modern DIY drone music should be evidence enough, what is all of that if not a contemporary extension of new age music... dreamy, contemplative, mesmerizing, minimal....
Here we have a lost legendary 'new age' synth classic from 1982, from J.D. Emmanuel, while unknown to us, according to some friends of AQ and some customers definitely had a certain hipster cache, tracks and whole records being outsider music holy grails...
With song titles like "Attaining Peace" and "Prayer" and "Focusing Within", Wizards - Music Of Other Memories, is a five part meditation realized in extended synthesizer soundscapes, gorgeous, languorous, all soft focus melodies, soaring and shimmery, stretched out into blurry streaks of sound, peppered with the muted bloop bloop melodies, nestled deep down in the shimmery softness.
Some of the tracks are more active, one almost proggy and spaced out, another sounding a bit like a more dreamy Kraftwerk, all propulsive synthesized krautrock.
Absolutely recommended for fans of Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, IASOS, Terry Riley, Steve Reich as well as the softer side of all the modern cd-r dronemusic we all love so much...

ERASE ERRATA Alphabet Series U (Tomlab) 7" 6.98
Hot on the heels of the great new Jenny Hoyston record that we're in love with comes a little 7" from her main act, Erase Errata. We're so happy that Tomlab is on a mission to save the seven inch, as it will always be one of our favorite music listenin' formats. Nothing better then a little slab o wax from one of your favorite bands. Erase Errata are in top form here as we know they love 45's as much as we do, so they wouldn't dare just put some throwaway tracks on one. These two exclusive tracks explode with the passion and late night urgency that have become trademarks of their sound. Tapping into the early spirit of P.I.L in a way that sounds so fresh and gripping. Songs that you will want to listen to over and over and no better way to do that then by laying down the needle to the wax again and again. Seven inch perfection!

FAUST So Far (Polydor / Universal) cd 17.98
One of the BEST RECORDS EVER. That's right. And I don't think we're really going out on a limb with that claim. Certainly one of the best krautrock records ever (as are pretty much all the Faust albums, actually). This, Faust's second album, originally released in 1972, has been reissued numerous times over the years, for a while as an expensive Japanese import only, then in the crucial Wumme Years box set, and most recently by Collector's Choice as a two-on-one with Faust's self-titled debut. We still stock that for the budget-minded amongst you, but since this is such a classic, we figure some folks will want this newer, nicely digipacked reish all by its own. Unlike the two-fer, the cd booklet here includes all the full-color images (one illustration per song) that came as art prints with the original vinyl. And as well, there's new liner notes and vintage photos in there as well. Nice.
But let's get back to this best records ever business, for those that weren't already nodding in agreement. It's the missing link between The Velvet Underground and The Boredoms, we're telling you. Just listen to the mantric opener "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" and tell us they weren't influenced by the VU... yet taking things way further into the trance-zone, pioneering the minimal post-rock sounds of many popular indie bands today... Circle ferinstance! And for sure the Boredoms. Also, without Faust, chances are, no This Heat. No Nurse With Wound. Yep they were pioneers all right. And still sound plenty fresh 'n weird today. So Far reigns in the sound collage craziness of their selt-titled debut, tightening up into actual song-form-iness, even getting into some pleasantly lyrical poppiness... but always ready to do something violently eccentric. "Daddy, take the banana!"
MPEG Stream: "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl"
MPEG Stream: "No Harm"

FENNESZ Hotel Parallel (Mego) cd 16.98
Originally released in 1997, now finally available again, the debut full length from Viennese experimentalist guitarist Christian Fennesz. Long before the fuzzed out blurry sounds of folks like Tim Hecker and other DIY dronesters were everywhere, and the technology for processing sound was super readily available, Fennesz was a laptop alchemist, a guitar deconstructionist, transforming his axe into a strange sound making device, capable or producing the most gorgeous and alien of sounds.
Hotel Parallel is a lot different than later Fennesz releases. Where those were soft focus and sun baked, glistening and shimmering, Hotel Parallel is much darker, more abrasive, harder edged, the sounds much more intense and brutal, but without losing any of their beautiful mystery.Ý
Listening to this again now, it's kind of mind blowing to believe the sounds here are all guitar. From dense swirls of speaker clogging hiss, to glimmering Niblockian stretches of static high end blur, to tangled swirls of glitch and swoop, backwards fffffft and gnarled melody, to grinding low end chunks of sound, angular and abrasive, to barely there billows of whispery low end, streaked with muted melody, to epic My Bloody Valentine like cacophonies of distorted pop ambient almost house music to super minimal Chain Reaction throb and pulse. Some of these tracks sound like the recent Field record, or some of the more abstract Kompakt stuff, but this was 10 YEARS AGO! AND IS ALL GUITAR! How the fuck do all of these sounds come out of a guitar? Who the hell cares? An absolutely gorgeous breathtaking epochal work of guitar experimentation, that few have rivaled in the decade since...
This reissue is super swank, six panel digipak, printed in green on white with subtle spot varnish, it includes some extra stuff too, a bonus track from a long out of print 7" (limited to 100 copies) from 1996, a super beautiful droney blurry murkscape, and an absolutely breathtaking video, perfectly reflecting the sound of Fennesz visually, all glitchy and grainy and so gorgeous...
MPEG Stream: "Sz"
MPEG Stream: "Nebenraum"
MPEG Stream: "Blok M"

FORGOTTEN WOODS Forgotten Woods / Through The Woods (No Colours) cd 15.98
For a band we had thought at one point to be dead and buried, Norway's legendary black metal weirdos Forgotten Woods have been pretty high profile lately, with an unexpected (and unexpectedly amazing) new album, a bunch of reissues, the ever popular 3cd box setÝBaklengs Mot Stupet, and now this, the first time on cd for both FW's 1993 demos, the self titled Forgotten Woods and the follow up Through The Woods, both primo slabs of ultra grim and kvlt lo fidelity buzz.Ý
It's easy to see, even in the early stages of the band, that they were one seriously cracked bunch, the sound not just lo-fi, but damaged and bizarre, the riffing is simple and old school, but super low in the mix, with the crashing thrashing pounding drums way more prominent, but not nearly as much as the croaked blackened growls, the strange Gollum-like growls, some seriously harsh and alien vocals, perfectly suited to the crumbling blackness in the background. Going from stumbling chaotic buzz, to lurching doomy pound, Forgotten Woods conjure up some seriously fucked up and freaked out black atmospheres...
The self titled demo is the more brittle of the two, all high end hiss and soul shearing buzz, whereas Through The Woods ups the production values just a bit, and the sound is definitely heavier, but also murkier and muddier, which again suits their skewed vision. Also things seem to get way weirder (if that were even possible), hinting once again at the bizarre blackened beast they were soon to become, with angular atonal melodies, damaged off kilter leads and even weirder vocals, from shrieks to shouts, all tangled up into dense black squalls of sound.
MPEG Stream: "Winterly Battle Over Northland"
MPEG Stream: "Inside The Witches Cave"

GHQ California Night Burning Dreams (Not Not Fun) LP + CD 14.98
Latest from this underground super group. Featuring folks from the Magik Markers, Hototogisu and Double Leopards among others. This is probably the most laid back and mellow thing we've heard from these folks. The whole first side is a spare and spacious stretch of raga like drone and disembodied Appalachia. Guitars buzz way off in the distance, drifting amidst clouds of folky flutter, wheezing harmonicas, an almost Morricone Western vibe, desert-y and desolate, but mysteriously lush and lovely. The sounds grow in intensity here and there, getting more raucous and abrasive, the guitars scraped and metallic, all bathed in thick swells of whirring shimmer, but always seeming to settle back down into another dreamy drift.
The flip side is split into two movements, the first is a longform slab of chaotic free folk skree, the instruments all blurred and smeared into a constantly evolving and shifting swirl of sound, dense and layered and lovely, the second half a rumbling wall of thick guitar ambience, a whirling buzz that manages to be epic and majestic, while remaining minimal and mysterious.
All recorded live apparently, but also comes with a bonus 3" cd-r, of the band live in Seattle, in its own little full color minisleeve.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen (Corps-Morts) cd-r 7.98
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed.Ý
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten.Ý
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick.Ý
That filthy black musick was this, the first recorded document by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track.Ý
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and Amacoma all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, untiil your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, thisÝ whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinningÝ back into the fray.Ý
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment.Ý
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
MPEG Stream: "Leichenbergen"
MPEG Stream: "And The Waters Shall Prevail Upon The Earth"

GOAT WITCH Blind (We Empty Rooms) cd 13.98
Folks who have been digging the crushing sludgedoom heaviness of Aussie doomlords Fire Witch would do well to check out the darkly dulcet tones of fellow Aussies Goat Witch. Two witches hmmm... Well, yeah, it seems that these two bands are related, sharing members, maybe even all the members, the sound is similar anyway, a glorious lurching slow motion doomic groove, spaced out and abstract.Ý
Downtuned riffs grind and throb, the drums are massive, recorded super hot, wild fills spattering the otherwise sprawling minimal crush. A bit of mathy chaos spilled out over an oozing black backdrop. Like the drummer for Hella playing in Khanate maybe.Ý
But this isn't pure doom, not at all, melodies lurk everywhere, and the busy drumming, and subtly clever riffing give the whole thing a serious post rock vibe, which is definitely a good thing here. Some of the build into extended, nearly cinematic crescendos, sounding like some noise rock doom drenched Godspeed, and others stretch way out and get all blissy and krautrocky, turning Goat Witch's doom into something more akin to Circle or Salvatore or Tortoise or even a heavy metal Necks, loping and repetitive and super hypnotic, epic and grandiose.Ý
Definitely one for the broad minded doomlords out there and would most certainly hit the spot for all the postrockmetalheads into Pelican and Isis and Conifer and Tides and other like minded combos...
MPEG Stream: "Take 2 Part IV"
MPEG Stream: "Take 2 Part V"

GODHEADSCOPE A City Out Of sight (God Is Myth) cd 10.98
Some of you may know the name Matt Rosin from past collaborations with AQ faves Dead Raven Choir, but here, as Godheadscope, he is now calledÝM. Kolophonium, and is single handedly attempting to craft a sort of classical black ambience, the label suggests Arvo Part conducting and arranging a performance by Corrupted, which sounds amazing, and while we see what they're getting at, we're not sure that's wholly accurate. The label also suggests that Godheadscope is for fans of Wolfmangler, Boris, Jesu, Dead Raven Choir among others, and that really just sort of sounds like it would be for most aQuarius customers then, eh?
But this is indeed an epic and gorgeous chunk of experimental ambience. And unlike most offerings falling under the same banner, this is not simple or really minimal, not guitars against the amps SUNNO))) style drone, not lo-fi single note drones, no this is dense and layered, composed and arranged. The songs are set up in gradually developing movements, strings and synths woven into delicate frameworks, allowed to breath, to expand and contract, to swell and pulse.
The record seems to be separated into two movements, the first two tracks, are like a sonic wave pool set in motion, then slowed down and stretched out, dark languorous waves of sound, that ebb and flow, gorgeous and glacial, with extended spaces between the notes, a truly majestic and cinematic sprawl, but within the swells, there seems to be a lot going on, synths and guitars, even voices, all smeared into strangely lush organic drones, twisted into strange lovely shapes.Ý
The second half of the record is much more tranquil, still adhering to that swell and shimmer pattern, but everything softer and more spare, an ambience to balance the first half's energy, culminating in the moody drift of the final number, lush pianos laid over a haunting field of electrical crackle and anguished distant wails, woven into a jazzy shuffle, sounding like a super abstract tribal Necks, some freaked out kosmiche free jazz that unwinds into a gorgeous piano / feedback coda, trailing off into nothingness...
MPEG Stream: "Room Of Light"
MPEG Stream: "Joy/Grime"

GOG Past The Deepest Gate (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) cd-r 8.98
Gog is definitely one of our favorite modern purveyors of droning doomic filth. From the massive downtuned multiple o'd doom ofÝNoriah Mills to the more abstract but no less heavy split with Apparatia (the one with the metal cover we just reviewed, only a few copies left), it's as if Gog the man is on some hell-bent mission to explore the foulest pits of hell and dredge up the crustiest, doomiest, ugliest, foulest sonic ooze in existence.Ý
And we're fully supportive of this endeavor, as we're the ones who benefit. We're the ones with an insatiable appetite for all things grimy and sludgy, slow and low and heavy heavy heavy....
We got this slab of black ambient brutality at the same time we got the split, but we only got a fraction of the copies we requested since this one is already out of print. We have about fifteen of these in stock, so be prepared to leave empty handed, but at least the most fleet fingered amongst you doom obsessed will leave here with a big sick grin and an earful pockets full of oozing black beauty.
Four tracks, about a half hour, the opener is a stone cold black ambient doom classic, thick glacial slabs that shift and growl, pulse and throb, blown out and distorted, crumbling and overdriven, heavy and thick, but seeming to decay before our very ears. A gorgeous melancholy melody rendered in black tar and allowed to melt in the hot sun, clogging your ears and speakers.
The rest of the disc is not so distorted, a bit more tranquil, but with hints of the doom metal that lurks just below the surface, thick swirling washes of rumbling crumbling whir, chunks of fragmented riffs, doused in reverb and sent spinning into the ether, dense foghorn like swells, crazy hyper delayed and dubbed out squalls of hiss and static, snippets of distant percussion, whirring soft shimmer, all slowed down and smeared into glacial black blurs, settling at the bottom of your speakers like some sort of hellish doomdrone silt. Awesome.
And again, already out of print, only 15 copies or so in stock, once these are gone that's it.
MPEG Stream: "The Invaders Have A Search Beam"
MPEG Stream: "The View From Under A Rock"

GROUP INERANE Guitars From Agadez (Sublime Frequencies) lp 25.00
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies! We're beginning to think with all this hidden music to be discovered and lost classics to be recovered, there's definitely no point in having so many new bands, we oughta just have some of them swap their gear in and just join the hunt for all this amazing music we miss out on...
But until then we've got the Sublime Frequencies fellas on the case, and this latest discovery has definitely got to bee one of the best yet. Group Inerane are spearheading the Tureg Guitar movement, inspired by the musicians who used this music as a political weapon in the Libyan refugee camps in the late eighties, early nineties. This is how the blues should sound. Groovy, intense, funky, emotional, dark, gorgeous, the guitars grinding and crunching and wailing, slithering and soaring, accompanied by chanted and sung vocals, that are perfectly woven into the lush fabric of the various guitar parts. The riffing is fluid, but also bit jagged and rough. The opening track is a killer. One of the most amazing and intense songs we've ever heard, worth the price of admission alone. Just guitar and vocals, chunky and propulsive, but also weirdly slippery and sinewy, the melody swaying back and forth from major key to minor key, an incredible hook and the riff, well, one of THE best riffs ever.
Most of the rest of the record is more a sort of African surf rock, fuzzy and twangy, with surfy guitar, soaring vocals, the whole thing wild and festive, jubilant and celebratory, but hold up, the final track on side one, "Nadan Al Kazawnin", is something else entirely, with its super distorted grimy guitars, a totally blown out in the red production, the riff looped and hypnotic, the vocals intense and heartfelt, the whole song howling and buzzing, sounding as gorgeously fucked up and raw as some experimental indie avant noise group, the guitar is indescribable, incendiary and white hot, all tangled up with the vocals, and bathed in distortion, wouldn't be out of place on some super limited cd-r... Totally amazing.
Pressed on super thick vinyl. Packaged in a heavy duty, full color gatefold sleeve, with tons of photos and liner notes...
LIMITED ONE TIME PRESSING OF 1000 LPS!

HORSEFLESH Journey To The East (Chambara) cd-r 6.98
It's frustrating how long it takes us sometimes to get around to reviewing stuff, especially when it's something we've had for a while and have been digging a lot. Such is the case with the strangely named Horseflesh, a one man band from right here in SF, who weaves some alchemical musical magic that sounds a little like a cross betweenÝWolf Eyes and Expo 70, which is not a bad thing at all. Long tracks that are equal parts seventies space kraut, spare industrial ambience, and guitar based free noise dronemusic...
Opening with someÝmurky minimal folk, with simple looped acoustic guitar figures, strange rattling percussion, all wreathed in a fuzzy smokey ambienceÝeventually growing more and more droney and subtly blurred as the track progresses. The disc slowly mutates, each track setting up the next,Ýwarm smears of soft edged distortion draped over barely there guitar curlicues, shimmering resonant thrum, and streaks of muted feedback. A super reverbed soundscape of delayed scrape and grind, all washed out, looped metallic shimmer, that gives way to a lugubrious low end drift, all fluttering harmonics, distant melodies, muffled percussive chimes, and gradually become more and more distorted and becomes a dense Fenneszian buzz,Ýa crunchy slow motion abstract doom, a plodding downtuned riff, pulled into long low strips strewnÝover the top of drunkenly keening jagged melodies that swoon and warble. A grinding hissy harsh landscape of stumbling percussion and processed guitar whir, swirling chaotic space FX and rumbling reverberant drones, like some noise band set up and performing in the crashing surf of some alien sea... The closer is a gorgeous lilting folky prog jam, with fluttering flutes, steel string guitars, summery melodies, that becomes less and less cohesive as the track progresses, the instruments dropping off one by one, until all that is left is a dreamy drifting super high end melody, a soft shimmer of feedback sculpted into something ethereal and lovely...
Packaged in cool hand screened chip board sleeves, with a photocopies insert.Ý
MPEG Stream: "The Hollow"
MPEG Stream: "Tectonic"
MPEG Stream: "Breathe Of Infinity"

JABLADAV 3K Hum (self released) cd-r 7.98
Hot on the heels of the recent Black As Pitch record, one man band Jabaldav returns with a much more abstract outing... Whereas BaP, and the previous release Dead As Duck, were both homages of a sort to SF black metal legends Weakling, albeit filtered through some Black Flag damage and some fucked up black studio magic, 3K Hum sounds basically like what the title would lead you to imagine. Longform drones, drawn out expansive low end soundscapes, still black and haunting, brutal in their own way, but more hypnotic, more trancelike, owing more to SUNNO))) and Niblock than Immortal and Ildjarn.Ý
The opening track is nearly 15 minutes of digital burble, tape hiss and amp buzz, woven into a slow simmering stretch of glitch-pocked shimmer, like strange malfunctioning machinery, floatingÝalong a slow flowing black river, sputtering and struggling to make more than buzzes and bzzzt's, immersed in a deep resonant sonic flow. Eventually, a riff enters the fray, but it's soooo slow, and weirdly digitized, it's more like a dense cloud of overdrive tone, thick and roiling, keening and white hot, before drifting off again, leaving nothing but a strange Morse code sort of Raster-Noton click and buzz ambience...
The second track is much more smoothed out, a gorgeous languorous sun baked crawl, long distorted notes stretched way out, flecked with sharp bits of overdriven buzz, a lazy metallic minor key threnody, burning hot but slowly, smoldering and intense, very alien, but warm and hauntingly emotional. This is followed by a brief series of Close Encounters like tones, that occasionally overheat and become super distorted swells, before reverting again to gentle drifting harmonics, before the 'bonus track' (which is NOT on the cassette), a massive 44 minute epic, a gorgeous washed out drift, shades of Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck, and other masters of soft focus blur, like the soundtrack for some weightless drift through space, distant glimmers, barely there melodies, soft warm melodic swells, little shards of FX, like lost transmissions from some dying satellite, slipping effortlessly from ominous and dark, to dreamy and hopeful, this track all on its own is like an entire record in and of itself, but of course manages to be the final part in 3K Hum's multi part epic... So lovely...
And also on the cd (and not on the tape), is a brief coda, a weird robotic blur of buzzing tones and crumbling distortion, haunting and speaker shredding, but again in its own black buzzing way quite pretty...
The cd is packaged in a DVD case, with full color cover, and two full color inserts.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!! Each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Translucent Sails"
MPEG Stream: "3K Hum"

JABLADAV 3K Hum (Epicene Sound) cassette 5.00
Hot on the heels of the recent Black As Pitch record, one man band Jabaldav returns with a much more abstract outing... Whereas BaP, and the previous release Dead As Duck, were both homages of a sort to SF black metal legends Weakling, albeit filtered through some Black Flag damage and some fucked up black studio magic, 3K Hum sounds basically like what the title would lead you to imagine. Longform drones, drawn out expansive low end soundscapes, still black and haunting, brutal in their own way, but more hypnotic, more trancelike, owing more to SUNNO))) and Niblock than Immortal and Ildjarn.Ý
The opening track is nearly 15 minutes of digital burble, tape hiss and amp buzz, woven into a slow simmering stretch of glitch pocked shimmer, like strange malfunctioning machinery, floatingÝ along a slow flowing black river, sputtering and struggling to make more than buzzes and bzzzt's, immersed in a deep resonant sonic flow. Eventually, a riff enters the fray, but it's soooo slow, and weirdly digitized, it's more like a dense cloud of overdrive tone, thick and roiling, keening and white hot, before drifting off again, leaving nothing but a strange Morse code sort of Raster-Noton click and buzz ambience...
The second track is much more smoothed out, a gorgeous languorous sun baked crawl, long distorted notes stretched way out, flecked with sharp bits of overdriven buzz, a lazy metallic minor key threnody, burning hot but slowly, smoldering and intense, very alien, but warm and hauntingly emotional. The tape finishes off with a brief series of Close Encounters like tones, that occasionally overheat and become super distorted swells, before reverting again to gentle drifting harmonics. So lovely... (btw: there are two extra tracks on the cd-r, one 44 minutes long!)
The tape is packaged in a cool full color fold out sleeve.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!! Each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Translucent Sails"
MPEG Stream: "3K Hum"

JGRZINICH Rudiment Of Two (Edition Sonoro) cd 16.98
It's easy to get lost in the sounds from John Grizinich, as his slippery compositions for abstracted field recordings impart a stupifying hypnosis when listening to them. While we've had a couple of his solo discs, most of the work that we've encountered by John Grzinich has been through collaborations with the likes of Michael Northam and Seth Nehil. And even though both of those artists have a particular fondness for the drone, it seems as though Grzinich was responsible for directing those collaborations into the depths of sonorous hypnogogia. This was especially true for the impeccable Grzinich / Nehil album Gyre, and the same could be said for the Grzinich / Northam disc The Absurd Evidence. Yet, this sensibility becomes all the more obvious when Grizinich strikes out on his own, as is the case on his stellar 2007 album Rudiment Of Two.
Released by the British drone-artist Paul Bradley on his new Edition Sonoro imprint, Rudiment Of Two contains three lengthy tracks, which engage Grzinich's preferred strategy for vulcanizing field recordings into elegantly serpentine tonalities. Through revolving sets of fluctuating bellows and incrementally changing drones, Rudiment Of Two come across as a painterly take on BJ Nilsen or Jonathan Coleclough. Typical of Grzinich's sound is the trickle of rain on the album's massive 30 minute centerpiece, which activates a silvery auditory filigree amidst the reverberation and metallic vibrations. With the rattle of a heavy iron bell, the crackling textures begin to swarm into a full spectrum chorus of miniscule ticklings that eventually condenses into a bleary drone shot towards infinitude. A really fantastic album from an under-recognized artist.
MPEG Stream: "Pebbles and Star"
MPEG Stream: "Bounds and Magnitudes"

KONONO NO.1 Live At Couleur Cafe (Crammed Discs) cd 12.98
Yay! These AQ faves -- everyone's faves -- from Kinshasa are back with another exciting dose of their "Congotronics". Chances are, especially if you're a regular AQ customer, that you know all about 'em already, and maybe even got to see them at one of the shows that (lucky for us!) they've played over the past couple years in San Francisco. Live is where it's at for them, a sweaty, joyous, unstoppable, never-ending groove heavily laced with the sound of their signature instrument: the DIY homebuilt electric amplified African thumb-piano (called a likembe). In the hands of Konono No.1, it produces a bright, burbling, somewhat distorted, almost-electronic-keyboard sort of sound that we immediately fell in love with way back when we first heard the band. But that of course is not all, there's plenty of percolating percussion underpinning the likembe melodies, over which they do exuberant vocal toasts and call-and-response chants. When they get going full-on, you'll want to turn it up LOUD and let the whole neighborhood enjoy the energetic density of Konono No.1.
Eight tracks, 52 minutes total, recorded live (sounding great!) in Belgium. Some songs you might recognize from versions on the previous two Konono discs (Lubaku and Congotronics), others are previously unrecorded. All will get your body moving, guaranteed. This is dance music, nothin' but. At home alone, unwilling to dance? It'll still bring a mesmerized smile to your face for sure.
MPEG Stream: "A.E.I.O.U."
MPEG Stream: "Nsimba & Nzuzi"

LITMUS Planetfall (Rise Above / Candlelight) cd 13.98
We're pretty sure that the guys in England's Litmus, a new space rock / stoner metal outfit on Lee Dorrian of Cathedral's Rise Above records (home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft among others), won't mind us -- and everybody else who reviews this -- saying that, basically, Litmus is a more modern, much more metal, version of Hawkwind. If you're at all familiar with the peculiar genius of that British prog/psych institution, particularly their early '70s classics like Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Space Ritual, you'll hear the Hawkwind just as soon as you start spinning Litmus' debut album Planetfall. And that's no bad thing. In fact, we're all for it. This is awesome!
Litmus kick out an absurd, energetic overload of outer space anthems, mixing headbanging riffage that Lemmy would love with a mad scientist's laboratory's worth of sci-fi bleeps and swooshes, on songs with titles like "Destroy The Mothership" and "Expanding Universe (Twinstar Pt.2)". The album's centerpiece is the 15 minute fourth track, "Under The Sign", a triumphant and impetuous epic full of heavy heads-down chuggery and soaring refrains. Among the five psychic space warriors in the band, there's one guy credited with playing these three things: "Mellotron, synthesizers, and gong". So prog! As are the contents of the cd booklet: pages of lyrics (we assume) inscribed in some sort of alien glyphs or ancient runes or something. We also appreciate that the "space noises" with which this disc is abundantly and enthusiastically littered are mixed pretty much higher than just about anything else. It really makes it sound like Litmus are rocking out from within some sort of cosmic storm of chaotic radiation. Where else are you gonna hear the howling Hawkwind blowing with such gusto? We doubt that the actual Hawkwind, in whatever incarnation they currently exist, could match this. Only maybe Acid Mothers Temple comes close, but they aren't metallized OR poppy enough to be exact competition for what Litmus is doing here. Voivod circa "Outer Limits" and old Pink Floyd are also orbiting in proximity to Litmus, with the likes of Tarantula Hawk and Morkobot somewhere in nearby space.
All 72 minutes of Planetfall are utterly black-hole dense with bombastic, hooky, Hawkwindy space metal gloriousness. Even if you haven't ever heard Hawkwind, this is recommended (but of course then you should check 'em out too)!
MPEG Stream: "Under The Sign"
MPEG Stream: "Tempest"

MABUSES, THE Mabused! (self released) cd 13.98
We'd been going through a sort of Shimmy Disc revival lately, digging out all of our old favorites, the first Gwar record, Bongwater, Dogbowl, Jellyfish Kiss... We had sort of forgotten how good all that stuff was. One of our favorites though was this little Brit pop gem by a band called The Mabuses. One of the most perfect slabs of clever hook filled pop ever. The track, "Kicking A Pigeon", has to be, all hyperbole aside, one of the greatest and most lyrically bizarre pop songs EVER. So much so that on hearing it, Allan went on a tear trying to track a copy down for himself (and fear not, Andee is trying to figureÝ out a way to reissue that record on tUMULt!).Ý
We were sort of just enjoying this pop flashback, when our pal Brian at WFMU emailed to inform us that not only were the Mabuses still in fact a band, they were playing shows AND had a brand new record. So we got in touch with the band and here it is, a glorious new record from one of our favoritest pop bands, The Mabuses.Ý
There's no point in comparing the sound of this record to the Shimmy Disc one, since most folks probably missed it entirely, but for those who remember, the sound is relatively unchanged, lush and slightly twee, jangly guitars, soft horns, strings, all very lush and classic sounding, with clever lyrics and dreamy vocal harmonies, but with some BITE too. Some songs are super washed out and dreamy, others are angular and propulsive. The sound borrows from much that came before, but manages to distill it all into something, that once you've been Mabused, can sound like no one else. Bits and pieces of bands like theÝHigh Llamas, Steely Dan, Robyn Hitchcock, Cardinal, Jellyfish, that classic Flying Nun sound... that should give you a rough idea...
Every song here is a pop gem, but "Byayaba" might be the new "Kicking A Pigeon", a super catchy riff, sharp edged and distorted, the vocals doubled and delivered in a commanding baritone, like a pissed off more punk rock Magnetic Fields, then there's the strange garden party strings and horns jam of "Garden Devils", the fuzzy slithery grind of "Russian Roulette" featuring Kramer on bass, the harpsichord pounding Jellyfish jam of "Seasider"... it's just all so good...
To be totally honest, on first listen we couldn't help but compare Mabused! to their self titled record on Shimmy Disc, but the more we listen, the more this disc has grown on us, unfolding like a garden full of strange and wonderful flowers, and now, it seems to be permanently stuck in our players. Total pop nirvana! So so recommended.Ý
Gorgeously packaged too, a super elaborate die cut digipak, with a massive fold out poster / lyric sheet.
MPEG Stream: "Dark Star"
MPEG Stream: "Seasider"
MPEG Stream: "Mirth"

MARDUK Rom 5:12 (Regain) cd 14.98
For a band much loved by the metalheads around these parts, there's a serious dearth of Marduk albums on the AQ site. Only four out of maybe a dozen full lengths. WTF? No excuse, other than just too much amazing metal to cover...
So let's try to right that wrong!ÝWe meant to get going on Marduk reviews again when Mortuus from Funeral Mist joined on vocals. We couldn't think of a better combo, the blazing buzz of Panzer Division Marduk, and the grim frosty howl from Funeral Mist, but it seemed most long time fans were super bummed on the change, we however were not. Even though we never got around to reviewing 2004's Plague Angel, it ranks as one of our favorite Marduk records.Ý
So for those new to Marduk, the thing with them, is they are fast. Really fast. Furious, relentless, the embodiment of pure black buzz. Lots of folks found the band to be boring because of the lightspeed blur the band seemed to constantly inhabit, but we reveled in their blazing blackness. So we were pretty surprised by this latest disc, sure the band had dabbled in midtempos in the past, even a bit of dirge here and there, but Rom 5:12 is pretty heavy on the midtempo Burzumic buzz, and even the doomy downtuned plod, but fear not those chunks of blackness are surrounded on all sides by that classic ultrafast Marduk buzz.Ý
The opening track is all spacious and mathy, even post rocky, sounding not unlike recent Deathspell Omega, lots of gnarled squalls of blackness amidst almost groovy black riffing. The second track though returns Marduk to more familiar ground, but not for long. Check out track three. "Imago Mortis", it's downright pretty, sort of major key, with huge sweeping melodies, a dirgey dramatic breakdown in the middle, and a pounding groove laden back half, all complex and mathy, but not at all blazing fast. The weird thing is it really suits them. It makes the perfect balance for the blinding lightning strike of the other more typically furious and fast numbers.Ý
Probably the coolest song on Rom 5:12 is "Accuser/Opposer", which featuresÝAlan Averill aka Naihmass Nemtheanga from Primordial and Void Of Silence, who adds a whole 'nother dimension with his throaty wailing clean vocals, sounding quite a bit like Mike Scalzi from Slough Feg at moments, wrap your head around that, Slough Feg vocals over dirgey Marduk, hell yeah.Ý
What else to say? This totally rules, much more varied than past releases, but still with plenty of ultra fast fury and black buzzing blast, but with a whole lot more going on. Definitely one of our favorite Marduk discs...
MPEG Stream: "Accuser / Opposer"
MPEG Stream: "The Levelling Dust"
MPEG Stream: "Cold Mouth Prayer"

MEKURYA, GETATCHEW & THE EX Moa Anbessa (Terp) cd 17.98
We joked in some past reviews that Dutch experimental world music label Terp must be paying our salaries considering how much love we give their releases, but c'mon, you've heard them! You've bought them! LOTS of them! And like us you've played them all to death. Every single one is amazing, so exciting musically, so emotionally resonant, some of the most unique and moving music we've EVER heard. And as if to drive the point home, we have not one, but TWO new releases from Terp on this week's list, one, a gorgeous final live recording from blind Ethiopian vocalist Mohammed 'Jimmy' Mohammed who passed away recently, and this, a wild live blowout from legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, jamming with Dutch avant rockers The Ex and other like minded friends...
We've been trying to list this forever, but we kept selling out of them in the store before we could get it reviewed and up on the site. Finally though, we have enough, so it's time to once again get your Ethiopian groove on...
But with a twist. The twist being The Ex, everyone's favorite Dutch avant rockers who have always had a thing for world music, so much so that members of the Ex are directly involved in the running of Terp. So it makes sense that given the opportunity, they would jump at the chance to jam with the legendaryÝGetatchew Mekuria. So here we have it, what sounds like one of the wildest musical parties ever! Oh how we would have killed to be there. Must have been a stone cold blast, but at least we have this here recording to ease our pain...
The record seems to be split right down the middle, half the songs are Ethiopian classics, given a bit of an angular post punk vibe, due in no small part to the fact that the band playing them is in fact the Ex, and the other half, the ones with vocals, sound like Ethiopian flavored Ex songs... We lean more toward the former, but both are pretty great.Ý
Imagine your favorite Ethiopiques record, butÝway more bass heavy, a fuzzy distorted throb, along with jangly angular guitars, all underneath that oh so recognizable sax, wailing and soaring, practically singing, emotional and gorgeous. A few tracks areÝgroovy and smokey and sultry, sounding like they could have come straight off of Ethiopiques 4, andÝeven the all time Ethiopian groove classic "Musicawi Silt" here gets a sort of funkgroove makeover, with percussive guitar clang, blooping bass, the song was already funky, but in a different way, the new version is a little more tightly wound, but in a good way, you could maybe call it Ethiopian postpunkgroove or something. And there's also anÝamazing solo jam "Tezeta", with Mekuria just making the sax sing, an extension of his being, going from full on skronk, to melancholy drift, oozing emotion and passion. The crowd reaction afterwards says it all. The rest of the record is packed with the above mentioned Ethiopian Ex style jams, which are awesome and wild and are definitely kinetic and ebullient, but the vocals are definitely an acquired taste...Ý
As with all Terp stuff, tons of photos and extensive liner notes...
MPEG Stream: "Musicawi Silt"
MPEG Stream: "Aynamaye Nesh"
MPEG Stream: "Tezeta"

MOHAMMED, MOHAMMED 'JIMMY' Hulgizey - In Concert (Terp) cd 17.98
We joked in some past reviews that Dutch experimental world music label Terp must be paying our salaries considering how much love we give their releases, but c'mon, you've heard them! You've bought them! LOTS of them! And like us you've played them all to death. Every single one is amazing, so exciting musically, so emotionally resonant, some of the most unique and moving music we've EVER heard. And as if to drive the point home, we have not one, but TWO new releases from Terp on this week's list, one, a live disc from legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, jamming with The Ex and friends, and this, a sadly posthumous live release from blindÝEthiopian vocalist Mohammed 'Jimmy' Mohammed.Ý
We raved about Mohammed's other release on Terp, the completely mind blowingÝTakkabel! And as we mentioned before, his life story is just as dramatic and intense and emotional as his music. He became blind as a child, an apparent curse after his parents had him baptized against the warnings of a local fortune teller (God wanted him to be Muslim), spent years homeless on the streets, eventually rescued and cared for, enrolled in a school for the blind, where money was raised to help restore his sight, but the money was stolen, and his eyesight never restored, eventually becoming a nightclub singer renowned for his interpretations of songs by legendary vocalistÝTlahoun Gessesse (who you probably remember from several volumes of the Ethiopiques series).
But whereas much ofÝTakkabel! was tangled and angular and complex, recalling Aavikko weirdly enough, with guest drumming from improv legend Han Bennink, this live disc is much more laid back and dark, a very personal sounding and intimate recording, the band spreading out a lush tapestry of sound over which Mohammed weaves his magical moods. His voice is divine and as powerful as it is subtle,Ýdistincitive and expressive, soaring and dancing nimbly across impossible melodies, the interplay between the vocals and the instruments is divine. The guitar like krar unfurling simple melodic fragments, the percussion simple and propulsive, a simple spare framework for Mohammed to explore as he sees fit, his vocals wild and acrobatic, intense and passionate, so mysterious sounding, but also utterly warm and inviting.Ý
The last two lengthy tracks are the most reminiscent ofÝTakkabel!, with the addition of sax, the rhythms a bit more off kilter and danceable, the whole sound a bit more funky and groovy, VERY Ethiopiques sounding. Hard to imagine the crowd in attendance not dancing wildly in the aisles...
The proceeds from sales of this cd will go toward a just-founded Jimmy Fund, created to care for his wife and his children, one of whom was born right after his death.
MPEG Stream: "Sethed Seketelat"
MPEG Stream: "Mela Mela"
MPEG Stream: "Eywat Setenategagn"

MONO Gone: A Collection Of EPs 2000-2007 (Temporary Residence) cd 11.98
With all the talk of metallic post rock, or post metal, or whatever, bands like Isis and Pelican and the Grails and Conifer and Tides and a bunch of others always get referenced, but it seems like folks forget about Japan's Mono, who traverse similar sonic territory, but in many ways do it a whole lot better.Ý
We've loved pretty much everything we've heard from Mono, but this singles and rarities compilation has really kicked our asses, so much so, that whenever someone is playing this in the store, inevitably anyone else working, or anyone in the store shopping, ends up heading to the counter to find out what's playing.Ý
The thing with Mono, sure their loping moody post rock soundscapes are gorgeous, expansive and epic, they definitely hold their moody melancholy own in the esteemed company of bands like Mogwai and Godspeed and Sigur Ros, but they make that sound their own, steeped with emotion, gorgeous melodies, and deft arrangements, but where they really shine isÝin the heavy parts, they don't just get louder, and they don't just unleash big downtuned riffs, they EXPLODE into dense swaths of noisy fury, often drawn out into length stretches of swirling static and glitchy crunchy white noise, dizzying and gloriously suffocating. The end of "Black Woods" is the perfect example, what begins as a jangly mathy workout, builds into a full on fury, with the drums crumbling into clouds of cymbal sizzle, the guitars becoming jagged shards,Ýenormous cresting waves of feedback swallowing everything whole, abrasive and intense, caustic and furiously fiery, sounding a bit like maybe Merzbow got a hold of the tapes. Elsewhere, the band seems to let loose any semblance of song structure, allowing the guitars to spill out of the amps like thick black pools of sound, but always to be deftly drawn back in by some gorgeous spidery guitar line, or simple soft melody.
And while the proceedings definitely tend toward the loping and melodic, the drawn out and pretty, and don't get us wrong, a whole record of nothing but Mono's dreamy moodiness would suit us just fine, it's the band's ability to simply destroy, to musically torch everything within sight, to turn guitars and drums into incendiary devices, all without ever completely letting the song crumble into chaos, always eventually finding their way back to a place of beauty and melody, that really makes Mono so special.
Lost compiles all of Mono's essential musical odds and ends: their track from the split album with Pelican, two out of print eps, their track from the TRL Thankful compilation and all the tracks from their Travels In Constants disc.
Amazing packaging too: die cut tray card, with the cd visible through the back of the jewel case, and a corresponding die cut slip case, which also allows the cd to be visible, the whole thing ends up looking like some cool mysterious map like buried treasure artifact.
MPEG Stream: "Finlandia"
MPEG Stream: "Black Woods"
MPEG Stream: "Yearning"

MOORE, THURSTON Trees Outside The Academy (Ecstatic Peace) cd 12.98
On his first song based solo outing since 1995's Psychic Hearts, Thurston shows us that he's not afraid of the acoustic guitar or even super pretty melodies. With a great supporting cast at his side including J. Mascis, Samara Lubelski, Gown, Christina Carter, Leslie Keifer and his SY comrade Steve Shelley, Moore has made a superb rock record that shows off his great songwriting skills and his surprisingly dreamy touch. While Moore is usually thought of in regards to electricity and his fondness for noise, it's always been his sprawling guitar playing and ability to make rock songs that swoon with such dignity and grace that we think makes him so special. It should come as no surprise then that Trees Outside The Academy has a sound and feeling that is pretty reminiscent of recent Sonic Youth outings like Rather Ripped and Murray Street, but stripped down to their core with lush violin accompaniment on many of the tracks, and Moore's instantly recognizable guitar playing and vocals. Thurston continues shine, proving once again that he is never going to fade away, not with so many great songs still hidden up his sleeves!
MPEG Stream: "The Shape Is In A Trance"
MPEG Stream: "Honest James"
MPEG Stream: "Trees Outside The Academy"

MULLER, THIERRY Rare & Unreleased 1974-1984 (Fractal) cd 22.00
What could be cooler than a French guy in the '70s, hanging out with naked chicks and teetering stacks of analog synths, making underground DIY futuristic psychedelic new wave punk drone proto-industrial music??? Uh, not much. Particularly when said French guy (Thierry Muller) is so good at it. Longtime AQ list readers might recall us raving some time ago about something called Ilitch and something else called Ruth, both bands/projects of Muller reissued on the Fractal label. Now, those discs are all out of print (why? they should repress!), but the label has just presented us with a collection of mostly previously unreleased material from the man's various projects over the period indicated in the subtitle... and even the stuff that has been available is super rare. None of it included on those previous Fractal cds of Ilitch and Ruth. For the uninitiated, let us say, Thierry Muller was a French pioneer in the realm of electronic/prog/punk weirdness, an "early Industrial" genius indeed! This disc is all the proof you need. There's material from five different Muller led projects: Arcane (1974), Ilitch (1975), Breaking Point (1978), Ruth (1978), and Crash (1984). The progression, if we can generalize, from "band" to "band" is from the more abstract, lo-fi distorted homebaked soundscape-psych displayed by Arcane all the way to the robotic sci-fi FX pop of Crash. But it's all got a kind of tense krautrock meets the new wave vibe, and if you like the likeminded work of Muller's countryman Richard Pinhas (Heldon) you should check this out! You could buy it just for the blissful 28 minutes of Ilitch's 1975 "Un Jour Come Tant d'Autres" and get your money's worth. Highly recommended!!
MPEG Stream: ARCANE "Punkhardlove"
MPEG Stream: BREAKING POINT "Breaking Point, Pt.1"
MPEG Stream: RUTH "Mon Pote"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Il Segno (Starlight Furniture Co.) cd 14.98
One of our favorite jams from this Italian space drone duo, originally released on lp only back in 2003, now reissued on cd with two loooong bonus tracks.
Il Segno continued MCIAA's skewed trajectory of deconstructed outer space blues and scraping drone-y minimalism utilizing a wild array of poper and toy instruments. Il Segno is a two part epic (due probably to the fact that it was recorded for vinyl), the first part the more subdued, with the buzzing of long wires, like a slowed down sitar, under mumbled Italian spoken word, creating a dreamy, drawly, syrupy soundscape. Near the end of part one, things pick up a little with the introduction of crackling, scraping, feedback and what sounds like distant peeling sirens. Part Two is like outerspace Jandek, a minimal, deconstructed blues jam (if something this lugubrious and hazy can be called a 'jam'), just heavily reverbed, plucked guitars notes, hanging effortlessly in the ether, while scattered percussion drifts by like shooting stars, with the occasional supernova of cascading cymbal wash, all partially obscured by distant Skullflowery skree, tinkling chimes and warm moaning drones.
For the reissue, the duo have whipped up another two parter, the cryptically titled "AC-1" and "AC-2", clocking in at 7 and 16 minutes respectively. Part one is a dizzying slippery soundscape of scrapes and shimmers, bits of high end and soft peals of melody all slipping and sliding against each other, like a hundred tiny little pieces of metal being rubbed against the strings of amplified guitars, creating a strange symphony of high end soft skree. Part two is a way murkier affair, as if the track before was dragged through the mud, rolled up in thick swirls of reverb, and then broadcast through a rickety old PA, with the bass cranked and the treble knob lopped off completely. A muddy trawl that slowly transforms into a loping slithery disembodied space blues peppered with soft streaks of feedback and bloopy swooshy psychrock FX.
Gorgeously packaged too, various shades of green, with strange diagrams printed in clear reflective spot varnish over all that green.
MPEG Stream: "AC-1"
MPEG Stream: "Il Segno"

NAIMA, TONY & THE BITTERS Dismember (Tosom) cd 15.98
Hard to resist a record with a bloody teddy bear on the cover, its fuzzy arm torn off and laying in a pool of blood, bone and sinew and gristle exposed. The record simply titled Dismember. Even harder to resist when you realize it's actually a country band, covering songs by Swedish death metallers Dismember, and far from being a joke, it sounds amazing, grim and dark, twangy and catchy, the twang and shuffle offset by horns, which add a strange funeral vibe to the proceedings.Ý
Some of the song titles sound like they could very well actually be country songs, "I Saw Them Die", "In Death's Cold Embrace", "Dreaming In Red",Ýbut others maybe not so much so: "Where Ironcrosses Grow", "Let The Napalm Rain"... The record begins with a brief whispery intro,Ýhushed female vocals, crooning all intimate right in your ear, before the band launches into a rollicking campfire stomp, all minor key twang, shuffling percussion, warbly Hammond organ,Ýinsistently strummed steel string guitar, and a world wearyÝwhiskey soaked drawl, culminating in aÝsoaring epic chorus with the repeated line "I tasted blood, now I want more". Sounds like it could be the Old '97's or Sixteen Horsepower. Even a little Decemberists. Elsewhere the band dip into truckstop honky tonk, old time folk, gorgeous languorous swampy blues, epic o