HARMONIA Live 1974 (Water) cd 16.98
Record covers like this one just aren't fair. Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius hiply dressed on a platform in an abandoned train station with their backs turned to the audience playing all manner of amazing looking analog electrical equipment: synths, farfisas, banks of tone generators, oscillators, patch bays, stacks of amps, leaning guitars, and cords everywhere, amongst racks of machines with all sorts of knobs and levels. It just makes us soooo jealous. Not only for such beautiful equipment, but also nostalgic for this period of time in Germany in the early seventies when so much thoughtful and incredibly inventive music was being produced. First Amon Duul II, Can and Faust then Kraftwerk, Cluster, and, Neu!, with Harmonia being the perfect synthesis of the latter three bands both in sound and personnel. Especially when you see the back cover and you get a closer look at the band and you can tell the trio just have this alchemical connection with each other and the sounds they make. Each member is focused but self-assuredly calm. Not exactly what you would expect from a band whom Brian Eno once called "the world's most important rock band". Not that much of the world had ever heard of them. Nor is it what most folks consider rock music to be.
So this is it! We've been reading about this for months, and it's finally here: a live document of a now legendary show on March 23rd, 1974 at Penny Station in Griessem, Germany. Not that it really matters that this is live, as their is no applause or chatter to clue you in, just bits of mumbled talking as the songs wind down at the very end. Harmonia members attribute this to there being only 50 or so people in the audience most of which were either too stoned to clap or too unsure at what points the songs begin and end. Doesn't seem to matter to the band anyway as we've already seen their backs were to the audience the entire time. But for a live document the sound quality is impeccable and what's even better all of the tracks performed weren't on any of their recordings, giving us, thirty-three years later, 5 new vintage Harmonia tracks to pore over. Most of which are over 9 minutes long.
Recorded between Harmonia's woozy debut, Musik Von Harmonia, and its more rock-leaning follow-up, Deluxe, Live 1974 is the logical conglomeration of both sounds, sort of like the merging of Terry Riley-ish repetitions with Robert Fripp's or Heldon's spacey and searing guitar extrapolations. But unlike conventional rock bands, Harmonia's music doesn't climax or necessarily change all that much, making their deceptively simple musical structures more akin to trance, electronica and slow disco. Beginning with the slow burn of "Schaumberg", an 11 minute epic of Rother's sinewy guitar lines that build and loop over gentle pulses of Moebius's programmed percussion and Roedelius' repetitive tonal keyboard patterns merging into a more sped-up and hypnotic version with bass rhythms on "Veteranissimo", an extended 17 minute meditation on "Veterano" from Musik Von Harmonia that breaks down to quiet heartbeats before slowly building again. "Arabesque", the shortest track at five minutes, does away with the percussive elements altogether, instead focussing on overlapping patterns of melodic synth and guitar before slamming into the loping quarter-hour stoner lurch of "Holta-Polta", then finally culminating in the blissful pastoralism of "Ueber Ottenstein".
It's been a stellar year or two for krautrock reissues as most of the Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Harmonia, Popol Vuh and Michael Rother catalogs have been reissued, re-introducing to the world the proto-new age realms of seventies German kosmiche music at a time when we can easily see its influence weaving through so many new bands like Arp, The Alps, White Rainbow, Lichens and Sylvain Chaveau. Always timeless, and never dated, Harmonia, like most of their German contemporaries mentioned above, were the most important rock band in the world simply because they cared about what they did, kept it simple, never indulged, and always left us wanting more.
MPEG Stream: "Schaumberg"
MPEG Stream: "Veteranissimo"
MPEG Stream: "Holta Polta"

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3/4HADBEENELIMINATED Theology (Soleilmoon) cd 24.00
Italian avant outfit 3/4hadbeeneliminated offer up a new cd... it's a little pricey but that's 'cause they splurged on the packaging. We'll talk about that in a second, but first the music. If you've heard their previous work, like the Hapna release A Year Of The Aural Gauge Operation (an AQ Record Of The Week in 2005), you'll know to expect fractured and mysterious soundscapes, a densely textured drone-zone constructed from field recordings, record crackle, improvised acoustic instruments, radio static, fragments of piano melody, electronic treatments, whispered Italian voices, turntable scratchings, reel-to-reel tape manipulation, synthesizer sinewaves, scattered percussion, and more. That's a zone we LOVE to visit. There's two long tracks, lots to explore, all manner of curious creakings and cracklings, shifting rhythms and rumblings abounding within 3/4hadbeeneliminated's carefully crafted and/or improvised music. At times quiet and meditative, at others noisier and distorted, but always (to our ears) utterly gorgeous and compelling. Aligns quite nicely with the likes of the Jewelled Antler collective, the Finnish forest foraging of Kemialliset Ystavat, and of course others in the experimental underground Italian scene of which the members of 3/4hadbeeneliminated are a part.
As for the packaging, start with a plain cardboard box, a little over six inches square and one inch deep. Open it up and you'll find a slightly smaller hinged wooden box, each one hand-painted with wax paper decoration. Open that up and there's the cd, in a colorful fabric sleeve, with a paper insert listing the track titles (revealing each one to be a suite of sorts btw). Certainly nicer than the standard jewel case... though one slight drawback is that the cd itself is likely to be coated with a layer of dust from the wooden box, so you'll have to gently wipe it clean or you might find it skipping and glitching out (which would fit in with some of their musical methodology, actually). Indeed, this rustic, elaborate cottage industry packaging is certainly reflective of the rough-hewn, intricate mystery of their music, which deserves such unique treatment.
By the way, there's also an even more expensive new vinyl-only limited edition LP by these folks, a totally different album using these recordings as a basis for recomposition, called The Religious Experience, simultaneously released on Soleilmoon. We just a have a couple in stock right now but hopefully can get more and give it a review sometime soon, although simply we can say it's a nice companion to this...
MPEG Stream: "I Am Daughter"
MPEG Stream: "The Cradle"

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS s/t (Killer Pimp) cd 13.98
We'd been hearing about this band quite a bit, often touted by reviewers as being "the loudest band in New York", which is all well and good, but that sort of thing generally doesn't translate very well on record. What we can tell you, is that more than any band we've heard in ages, these guys have their My Bloody Valentine, Loop, Spacemen 3, Jesus And Mary Chain chops down pat. But before you get all exasperated as we would be likely to do, we do realize that the bands who actively rip off some or all of those bands couldn't be counted on your fingers even if you had a thousand hands. And most of those bands steal the sound, but then have no idea what to do with it anyway. And most of them don't even get the sound right.
So it's definitely saying a lot, when we can say that, yes, these guys owe EVERYTHING they have to MBV and Jesus And Mary Chain and Loop and Spacemen 3 but still manage to totally rule. And somehow, they manage to make all of this borrowing sound totally fresh and original and exciting, and loud and heavy and like they just might have made our new favorite record.
From the first track these guys have it nailed. Murky, fuzzy, lo-fi, super blown out, with a weird buzzy guitar sound, wrapped around an almost gothy Interpol-ish bassline and keyboard melody, but when the vocals came in we were immediately transported to Psychocandy era Jesus And Mary Chain, the vocals and melodies and even the drums buried beneath clouds of billowing crumbling distortion. The second track is even more in-the-red and distorted, a crashing wave of dissonant guitars, that gives way to some almost Stereolab like Neu!-worship, and some sing songy indie boy vocals, which of course are summarily crushed by the moaning massive bursts of guitar fury and what sounds like bleating horns in the chorus.
"To Fix The Gash In Your Head" begins with sputtering drum machine and is quickly ensconced in thick minor key swells all dramatic and gothy, and the other distinct side of the band is revealed, a sort of super charged extra heavy Depeche Mode, which is in no way a bad thing. But on this track especially, the vocals are super Dave Gahan, with some industrial Skinny Puppy-isms thrown in for good measure, but still the heart of the song is a throbbing synthy new wave. And it sounds amazing!
Later tracks veer from swirling washed out wall of sound dronerock, to murky doom pop, to super eighties John Hughes soundtrack electro-pop, to grungy distorted Grebo, to throbbing Joy Division miserablism, to rocking Swervedrivery shoegaze, to shimmering glimmering M83 blisspop, but always liberally doused with waterfalls of coruscating white light guitars, sheets of roiling feedback, massive walls of buzz and hiss. Noisy and chaotic and furious and epic but always with a heart of pure pop and a halo of washed out guitar shimmer. So great.
MPEG Stream: "Missing You"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Think Lover"
MPEG Stream: "To Fix The Gash In Your Head"
MPEG Stream: "The Falling Sun"

AI ASO Chamomile Pool (Pedal) cd 19.98
A couple of years ago Japan's Ai Aso served up an absolute dreamcake of an album titled Lavender, then last month she teamed up with Wata of Boris for an amazing book and 7" set. Ai's delights keep on coming with this, her latest full length. Her cooing Japanese waif vocals float like fallen blossoms atop a blurred watercolor stream of effected guitar and steady programmed Casio-esque rhythms. Taking a dip in this Chamomile Pool will surely have the same calming effect as the tea of the same name. We imagine it'd even make a great substitution for traditional baby lullaby fare. This will definitely soothe children of all ages, but the overall serenely elegant tone ensures its adult appeal too. Not an abrasive tone in sight, everything is smooth, soft and so very enchanting. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Date"
MPEG Stream: "Hundred Years"

ALCEST Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde (Profound Lore Records) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!! Been waiting to get more of these forever.
We've been gushing over French black metal outfit Ameseours for a while now. Their amazing blend of buzzing blackness and indie jangle. Like nothing we'd heard really, but was exactly what we always wanted, nay needed to hear, just didn't know it. As we mentioned in our review of their record, various members of that group also do time in the much more black metal Peste Noire, whose most recent record FolkFuck Folie we also reviewed recently, and in both reviews we lamented the fact that we were never able to get the ep by yet another related band, the even less metal, more blissy Alcest. And while that 2 song disc does in fact seem to be out of print, this here is the brand new full length, and besides being amazing, and one of the prettiest records of the year, it's absolutely and entirely not the least bit metal. AT ALL. 
Which is in no way a bad thing, it's just perplexing that black metal folks have been touting this as one of the best metal records of the year, even ever. Much like Ameseours, Alcest is all about indie jangle, and blissed out shoegazey pop, but where Ameseours, mixes that sound with a more traditional buzz and blast, resulting in some strange blackened hybrid, a sort of indie jangle black metal, Alcest, jettison the metal entirely, leaving nothing but gorgeous, dramatic, epic, blissful pop perfection. And this is simply that, perfect pop. The guitars are still distorted and slightly heavy, and there is some double kick drum action, but that stuff is so wrapped up in dense smears of glistening chordal thrum and breathy emotional vocals, simple acoustic guitar picking and buzzing fuzzed out grooves, that it just sort of gets absorbed into Alcest's divine dreamy drift. 
We talked about Justin Broadrick channeling the spirit of early nineties shoegaze pop in Jesu, but Alcest sound like they were transported directly from that era, yanked from a field of similarly minded sonic explorers like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Swervedriver, Chapterhouse, and the like. It almost seems pointless to mention anything about the band's black metal pedigree, since if you were going on sound alone, you would be hard pressed to not imagine this was some legendary college rock record from 1992, each track glorious and glistening, the guitars soaring, epic and majestic, all major key, a walls of sound, rich and thick and lustrous, the bass mirroring the guitar, simple subtle harmonies, everything tangled into lilting bliss pop epics, while over the top drift soft fuzzy vocals, both male and female, that almost even more than the music recall that specific musical era.
Absolutely the finest slab of blissed out, post My Bloody Valentine dreampop indie jangle drift we've heard in forever. Just listen to the sound samples and we think you'll be just as smitten as we are... 
MPEG Stream: "Printemps Emeraude"
MPEG Stream: "Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde"
MPEG Stream: "Les Iris"

AUDIOPAIN The Switch To Turn Off Mankind (Vendlus) cd 11.98
"Faster to death with the throttle at max / as I introduce Mr. Neck to Mr. Axe". Yeah! With lyrics like that, and a headbanging maelstrom of speedy riffs to match, this is Thrash Metal all right! But unlike a lot of today's self-professed "old school" thrash bands, Norway's Audiopain aren't primarily an exercise (however deadly) in '80s nostalgia. It's retro thrash, yeah, and they did title one of their older discs 1986, but we get the idea that they're thrashing with no regard for trends, in a more modern, blackened way, maybe 'cause they don't present themselves in formula thrash fashion (at least not on record, we don't know what they look like live). The imagery of their cd packaging isn't about spikes and leather and fists in the face. Or nuclear bombs and radiation symbols. It is dark and evil looking, signifying "extreme" metal for sure, but doesn't try to look like an old Kreator or Nuclear Assault album, y'know? It's a lot artsier than that (though not as creative as the unique packaging of their previous album for Vendlus, 2004's The Traumatizer). However, when you hit "play", you'll hear that this sure IS thrash metal, that would have given any moshpit back in the eighties quite a workout. 100 percent aggro, heads down, faster than a shark, razor-sharp, thrash-til-death metal, that will have your neck thoroughly wrecked before the 27 minutes of violently concentrated force on this six-song cd have barely begun.
And while the lyric quoted at the start of this review (from the title track) is certainly the sort of thing an Exodus or Destruction would have come up with back in the day, much of the rest of the lyrics here are way more cryptic and oblique, with seeming themes leaning towards the black metal side of things, anti-religious and evil and obviously misanthropic. You get the idea that Audiopain wishes there was indeed a Switch To Turn Off Mankind. And if we sell this to any kids, their parents will surely be looking for the switch to turn off Audiopain...
MPEG Stream: "Alliance"
MPEG Stream: "Holy Toxic"

BONGZILLA Stash and Methods For Attaining Extreme Altitudes (Relapse) cd 14.98
What is it with stoner rock, and its seemingly unending appeal to those of us who don't smoke pot. Perhaps it musically induces a similar mindstate and headspace as getting totally blazed, but how the heck would we know. Yeah, it's heavy and brutal, downtuned and crushing, groovy and brutal, but there's something else going on in there, it's gotta be the pot! And if smoking pot DOES actually sound/feel like this, then we're totally kicking ourselves for abstaining for the last 30+ years.
If any one band truly embodies the sprit of stoner metal, it would have to be Bongzilla. C'mon, they're called BONGZILLA after all!! And while the name might have you thinking these guys are some kind of joke, this shit is deadly serious. These guys may love their weed, and sing about it incessantly, but they totally destroy, wielding their skull crushing stoner doom riffage like stoned cavemen atop prehistoric dragons, bong in one hand, bloodied axe in the other. Similar to how Japan's serial killer obsessed stoner rockers Church Of Misery lace their songs with news snippets and sound samples of all their favorite killers, Bongzilla tracks are packed with news and propaganda, radio broadcasts and snippets of conversation, all about pot and smoking pot, the value of pot, the legal issues, facts about harvesting, police reports, sometimes replacing the vocals all together, the band will lock into a killer groove and just pound it into the ground, over a constant litany of pro pot propaganda. But hell, it fits perfectly. And eventually that stuff becomes just part and parcel of Bongzilla's sound.
Which in other hands might be overbearing, cuz if a band doesn't have songs, and RIFFS, then nothing else would matter. But these guys kill, the riffs thick and distorted, groovy and weirdly catchy, some tracks a plodding ultra doom dirge, others furiously rocking sludge, the vocals a near black metal screech, the drums pounding and massive, but it's ALWAYS all about the riffs (and the weed). And the riffs here are massive and hooky, super distorted and blown out, hypnotic and so so so heavy.
This reissue compiles Bongzilla's smoking debut, Stash, and their follow up ep, Methods For Attaining Extreme Altitudes, a three song chunk of ultra sludgy stoner doom, culminating in the nearly 14 minute stoner metal epic "Smoke / I Love MaryJane", which begins at a pretty serious clip, before slipping into spaced out bleary eyed smoke drenched ultra doom, a minimal plodding trudge, bordering on Khanate territory, building gradually to a chaotic Hawkwind meets Monster Magnet stoner space rock freak out, all swirling distorted guitar, washes of keening feedback, more snippets and samples, the whole thing eventually blissing out into a buzzing droning tribal outro.
We can only imagine how good this stuff must sound stoned, or maybe if you were -actually- stoned, they would cancel each other out and you would hear nothing but silence. Whatever...
Needless to say, this shit is WAY recommended, for stoners and straight edge stoner sympathizers alike...
MPEG Stream: "Gestation"
MPEG Stream: "Sacred Smoke"
MPEG Stream: "Smoke / I Love MaryJane"

BRODSKY, STEVEN'S OCTAVE MUSEUM s/t (Hydra Head) cd 11.98
It's been a weird wild ride for Cave In. But admittedly a ride all of their own making. They began life as a crushing post-metalcore behemoth, easily holding their own alongside such other sonically likeminded bruisers as Cavity, Coalesce and Deadguy. Then the band morphed into a strange arena pop band, ditching much of the heaviness for hooks, much of the downtuned pummel for radio friendly bombast. Metalheads were stunned and seemed to have written off the band completely, but some of us actually dug the new direction. And it really wasn't that big a surprise as the band was often described as Slayer meets Radiohead, so they were just leaning toward the latter, a part of their sound that was present anyway. Sure we missed the Cave-In of old, but heck, who were we to argue with another kick ass pop band? Then after dabbling with a major label, the band returned to their old label with a sound, which while retaining some of their new found poppiness, was definitely a return to form in terms of heaviness.
Now while all this was going on, Cave In frontman Stephen Brodsky was constantly recording on his own, forming side projects, releasing all sorts of distinctly unheavy records, solo and acoustic, poppy and pretty, ostensibly all the stuff he wasn't able to explore in Cave In. And just like with Cave In, we pretty much dug most of what we heard (minus a misstep here and there) so we were pretty excited to hear this disc from Brodsky's new band Stephen Brodsky's Octave Museum. But we weren't prepared for THIS, or to be as totally blown away as we were.
Brodsky's sound here with his Octave Museum is definitely pop, an ultra catchy mix of understated Beatles-esque poppiness and big heavy catchy power pop. Like some strange mix of Radiohead / Muse / Queen / Jellyfish / Big Star / Redd Kross / the Posies... Bombastic and orchestral, epic and expansive at one moment, stripped down and jangly the next. Every song is a pop gem. Brodsky's voice often slips up into a gorgeous falsetto soaring above glorious tangles of crunchy riffs, dense complicated drumming, little flurries of new wave-y FX, wild keening leads, the vocals and the lead guitar often getting all wrapped up in amazing harmonies. There's definitely a sixties vibe, and more specifically some serious Beatles worship, but it seems to be filtered through the brainy quirkiness of XTC, and then sometimes supercharged, the guy was responsible for Until Your Heart Stops after all!
That said, this is NOT metal at all, not really ever HEAVY, it's pure, nearly perfect pop. At it's heaviest, it's a hefty chunk of kick ass power pop, but this record's not really about heavy, it's all about mood and melodies, hooks and harmony...
Fans of old school jangle pop as well as lovers of more modern metallic poppy crush will for sure freak out for this, and any one who digs any of above mentioned bands as well as groups like Sloan, Silver Sun, Ryan Adams, the Jayhawks and other AQ pop faves should definitely check this out... it took us a while to get around to reviewing it but we're so glad we did, it's awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Kid Defender"
MPEG Stream: "Kill The Queen"
MPEG Stream: "Voice Electric"

BURNING SAVIOURS Nymphs & Weavers (Transubstans Records) cd 17.98
Long hair, bellbottoms, loud guitars, Swedish accents... and they spell fire "phyre". It's the new Burning Saviours. What more do you need to know?
Ok, here's the quick recap. First there was Witchcraft, the Swedish band that magically conjured an authentic sounding seventies stoner/doom/psych thing a la Pentagram, Black Sabbath, and a host of other early '70s bands more obscure (many of them wielding both flutes and Mellotrons along with the heavy, proto-metal riffs). Then we discovered *another* seemingly timelost Swedish band, Burning Saviours, who were almost more Witchcraft than Witchcraft. Not a case of one band ripping off the other, more a case of both bands liking Pentagram, Sabbath, and the self-same host of obscure '70s proggy proto-metal acts... and being equally talented at bringing their influences to life. They both debuted with self-titled albums. Then Witchcraft released Firewood, and Burning Saviours released Hundus. It was kind of like having four Witchcraft (or Burning Saviours) albums instead of two! Fans debated which band was "better" but why bother, we love 'em both.
Earlier this year Witchcraft released their third album, the much-lauded The Alchemist. A definite step forward for them, if not a break with the past. And now Burning Saviours have come out with their third album, Nymphs & Weavers. For them too, something a bit different. Maybe a lot different, 'cause they have had to make some lineup changes. Their original vocalist/guitarist decided to leave the band to pursue his academic studies, so they replaced him with a new singer -and- a new guitar player.
The new Burning Saviours is still a heavy-riffed '70s-styled retro-proto-metal affair, never fear. But they have diverged from the "Witchcraft" sound of their previous albums to some degree, perhaps in large part due to the different voice and style of their new singer. Unlike his predecessor, he sounds nothing like Bobby Liebling of Pentagram (remember, Burning Saviours is named after a Pentagram song). He definitely brings in with him more of a traditional Swedish folk influence (he plays flute too). They had that before, of course, the folkiness, but it's more pronounced now, more like a metal Dungen or something. His sometimes solem, soaring vocals remind us a bit of the the singer on New Dark Age, the pagan masterpiece by UK epic doomsters Solstice. Apart from the singer, who Burning Saviours fans will either get used to or not (we're certainly warming to him but do miss the old guy), the this album already seems as comfortably classic as something actually from 1971 or so, full of the usual righteous heavy rock riffage, stick-in-your-head melodies, Heepish organ jamming, electric folk-prog jiggery, and, like Witchcraft too when they ham it up on stage, a bit of whimsy -- it features the heaviest song ever to boast a title like "Dreaming Of Pastries"!
MPEG Stream: "Pondhillow's Finest"
MPEG Stream: "The Spellweaver"
MPEG Stream: "Hillside Mansion"

CHAUVEAU, SYLVAIN Nuage (Type) cd 15.98
Since 2000 Sylvain Chauveau has been making delicate and minimal musics, composing for dance and film and playing live on bills with the likes of Fennesz and Sigur Ros. But it wasn't until this record that we really took note of his delicate touch, creating soft fragile sounds that perfectly capture solitude and frozen emotion. All the tracks here were originally recorded for two films by Sebastien Betbeder. Strings and piano are the main instruments, played with a perfect restraint that helps create a lush and somber beauty. The music on Nuage has made us think of the clear airy sounds of Jon Luther Adams, the melancholic beauty of Michael Cashmore, the collaborations between Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamato and recent record of the week alumni Erik Enocksson. All very fine company to be in. And such a perfect record for the chill of winter. Sounds that can give our hyperactive minds a moment to simmer and slow down. So nice!
MPEG Stream: "Fly Like A Horse"
MPEG Stream: "Nuage II"
MPEG Stream: "Andrea's Hands"

CIRCLE Vaahto (Trensmat) 7" 8.98
ATTENTION FINNISH MUSIC FREEKS AND CIRCLE OBSESSIVES!!! ULTRA LIMITED CIRCLE 7" ALERT!!! Fans of these freaky Finns best act fast as this is a super limited, already out of print, brand new seven inch single featuring two preciously unreleased songs. In Trensmat's series of ultra limited 7", usually limited to 100 copies or less, we convinced the label to double their pressing, half of which came to aQuarius, but needless to say, like all things Circle, these will not last long, and once they are gone, they are gone forever...
So here you go, two new tracks, of that instantly recognizable motorik Circular hypnorock. No metal, or ambience, this is the classic Circle sound, the A side is Circle at their most stripped down, the drums and guitars locked into a constant loop, the bass following right along, so mesmerizing and seemingly endless, the vocals a barely there whisper, while off in the distance lurk all manner of random clatter and mysterious percussive events. Right in the middle there's an awesome stumbling atonal guitar 'solo' before the band slips right back into that same groove. Goes on and on and if we had our say it would have kept right on going and filled up both sides of a 12".
The flip side is another single riffed hypnojam, a bit less languorous and a little more propulsive, very krautrocky, with lots of harmonica (!) and the vocals much more of a focal point, higher in the mix and leading the groove behind them. Throughout the song are cool tripped out new wave-y synth washes, lazily draped over that impossible catchy Circle rhythm. The end though holds a bit of a surprise with a super bizarre harmonized low vocal coda, a bit like a chorus of Orcs, creepy and kind of what-the-fuck, cool to, and it's Circle, so you should be prepared for them to toss in an Orc chorus now and then.
Cool packaging, a very metal Circle logo, designed by Krypt (who we can only assume is Krypt Axeripper aka Jussi of Circle) sinking into a Finnish seaside, while on the flip is a strange pencil drawing of four guys who look nothing like Circle. Pressed on red vinyl, and as we mentioned above, SUPER SUPER LIMITED AND ALREADY OUT OF PRINT AT THE LABEL!!!

CLARKE, DAVE I Love Techno (Music Man) cd 16.98
Who would have thought we'd be freaking out over a compilation called I (Heart) Techno, 'cuz, barring some particular strains of techno, we (or more specifically in this case, I) don't actually (Heart) techno all that much. Chain Reaction, Kompakt, Pop Ambient, Plastikman, Gas, Thomas Brinkmann, Richie Hawtin, are all great, sure, but as a whole, techno has to be really fucked up and weird, murky and mysterious and minimal to hit the spot. But holy shit if this stuff doesn't totally destroy. Especially the first track. And to be honest, we had this comp in stock, and had been listening to the first track and ONLY the first track for months. It is the minimal techno jam of the year. Never heard of Christian Smith or John Selway but their track "Coming Storm" is fucking perfect. It had us wishing they had done a Villalobos and stretched it out to fill a whole cd. But that's what the repeat button is for.
So we eventually did listen to the whole comp, and it's really really great, but even so, the first track is SO GODDAMN GOOD that even if the rest of the comp was total and complete shit, it would be well worth highlighting and spending $15 bucks on.
So what has us all in a tizzy? It's hard to explain really, it's minimal, but not murky, the rhythm is loud and hard, the beats thick and crunchy, but right out of the gate, it's like two beats all tangled up, slightly out of phase, so it sounds like techno galloping, as the two beats compete, other bits of percussion join in, and the sound somehow manages to get more busy and chaotic, but without losing the minimalism that makes it so appealing. Like Plastikman and Thomas Brinkmann remixed by Oval, but then housed up just a bit. Or imagine a way heavier less murky but no less Heroin-y Chain Reaction. Eventually, some throbbing bass joins the melee, and it's downright grooving, but still in a weird haunting minimal abstract way. Female vocals drift into the picture, but they're not diva style, they're cold and clinical, an alien sonar throb offers a melodic counterpoint to her chilling sung spoken vocals, smoothly morphing into the next trackŠ
Phew. Before we go one, and talk about just how goddamn good this whole comp is, let us again stress how amazing that first track is, and how badly we NEED to hear more from these guys. Okay, on with the rest of the review.
Since it's a mix, the first few tracks seamlessly morph from the super minimal opener, gradually shifting, the house elements becoming more and more pronounced, but everything so static and hypnotic, that you almost don't notice the change until you're 3 or 4 tracks in. Raudive's "Magnetic" is the perfect follow up to "Coming Storm", a simple melody and rhythm looped over and over and over, various other rhythmic bits and strange electronic squelches joining the fray, before dropping out again, and leaving just the skeletal framework, and those haunting female vocals again. By three or four tracks in, we're definitely in more traditional house territory, but the sounds are so alien and repetitive, it's pretty mesmerizing. And definitely has us reconsidering our non-love of most house music. The whole rest of the disc, while not reaching the pinnacle of the opener, or even the follow up, still retains a certain cold droning hypnotic quality that is pretty hard to resist. The disc finishes off with "The Same" by the problematically monickered Velvet Underwear, who offer up a killer slab of chilled euro disco electro house, the main melody looped amidst huge bass throbs and crunchy crumbling synths, over which, the vocalist, who sounds like a frigid but VERY sexy European dominatrix, delivers her lyrics in a cool aloof monotone, eventually dropping out and letting the track unwind in a killer coda of buzzing serpentine synths and throbbing basslines. So awesome, even (and maybe especially) for the house-phobic and dancefloor averse amongst you...
MPEG Stream: CHRISTIAN SMITH & JOHN SELWAY "Coming Storm"
MPEG Stream: RAUDIVE "Magnetic"
MPEG Stream: VELVET UNDERWEAR "The Same"

COHRAN, PHILIP & THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE The Malcolm X Memorial (Mississippi) lp 14.98
This jazz classic, now available on vinyl, housed in a super deluxe gatefold jacket, another awesome limited lp artifact from Portland's Mississippi Records...
Philip Cohran is a true unsung hero in the history of cosmic jazz. He played with Sun Ra in the late '50s and '60s and was a cofounder of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). In the late '60s he ran the Afro-Arts Theater in Chicago, which was the location of this mesmerizing concert that Cohran performed with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble as a tribute to the late Malcolm X. Originally released on LP on Cohran's Zulu label, the record has been out of print for ages and commanded big dollars from those lucky enough to track down a copy. Lucky for us this amazing performance is now available on cd for the first time. The first track starts reeeeal slow before the fire starts to burn hotter and hotter as the performance goes on. With an ensemble that included trumpet, trombone, tuba, conga, guitar, bass, percussion, sax, cornet and vocals from Sister Ella Pearl Jackson, this is some seriously forward thinking jazz, just dripping with soul and consciousness. Like the more melodic moments of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and early Sun Ra, this is totally essential and one of the best jazz reissues we've heard in quite a while!
MPEG Stream: "Malcolm X"
MPEG Stream: "El Hajj Malik El Shabazz"

COHRAN, PHILIP AND THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE On The Beach (Kelan Zulu / Katalyst Entertainment) cd 11.98
Finally, this avant afro-jazz classic has been repressed, repackaged and re-released. On The Beach compiles tracks from the late '60s output of Philip Cohran, one of the founders of Chicago's AACM and an early member of Sun Ra's Arkestra. While Sun Ra looked toward outer space for inspiration, Phil Cohran (himself an astronomer and mathematician) and his ensemble found manifestations of cosmic spirituality here on earth. Mining different musical traditions such as jazz, rhythm & blues, European classical, "Eastern" music, but most specifically reaching into elements of African experience and heritage, the ensemble builds complex rhythms around melodic elements usually provided by Cohran's "frankiphone", a gorgeously buzzing bell-like electrified thumb piano of his own design.
On "Unity," which appeared on the excellent Oulele comp a few years ago, the percussion-heavy groove is anchored by the steady droning of Cohran's violin uke. The results go beyond "jazz," even when adding modifiers like avant- or afro-. This is soul music on a higher plane. So beautiful and powerful, this work fits into a larger picture that includes the afro-centric work of John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago's free-funk explorations with Fontella Bass, and Fela Kuti's consciousness raising jams. Members of the Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to play with the likes of Miles Davis and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The cd is lovingly packaged in a hand letterpressed sleeve and contains two more tracks than the vinyl version.
RealAudio clip: "Minstrel"
RealAudio clip: "Unity"

CRANDELL, RICHARD Spring Steel (Tzadik) cd 15.98
As much weird, loud, obtuse, and left of the margin music that we love and champion here, we also never shy away from music that we know is undeniably beautiful. Whether it's the majestic West African Kora music of Djibril Diabate and Lanaya or the evocative piano compositions of Lucian Cilio or the sweeping elegance of The Rachels. There is a long list of music that we cherish that manages to be both so beautiful and filled with soul. Richard Crandell deserves a spot right on the top of our all time beautiful music list. Playing the mbira (the thumb piano) to mesmerizing perfection, his last record was one of our favorites of 2004. Three years in the making and Spring Steel is another batch of stellar minimalist compositions that make us melt every time we hear them. There is a tenderness and focus to Crandell's playing that has the ability to make everything else in the world just fade away as you let his soft hypnotic sounds entrance you. Crandell is a rare performer, with such a delicate touch and impeccable taste.
Spring Steel sounds almost like Colleen paying homage to Steve Reich. Methodical and skilled yet so filled with soul and soothing power.
MPEG Stream: "Inner Circle"
MPEG Stream: "Japanese Lullaby"
MPEG Stream: "Spring Steel (A.K.A Ichiro 51)"

DIVANITY Leaden (Total Rust) cd-r 7.98
This one's pretty much a no brainer for you doomlords and drone freeks out there. From the same label that brought us the horror funereal doom of Wraith Of The Ropes, the epic majestic blackened doom of Mourning Dawn, and the mega multiple o'd ultra doom of Funeralium, comes this, the debut demo from Israeli doom merchants Divanity. Sloooooooow, sick, plodding, crushing, miserable, abject, harsh, hateful, brutal, hellish, slow motion ultra mega funeral ambient doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. And if that wasn't enough to get you doom-ed ones salivating, Divanity also just so happens to feature members of Israeli noisemakers Grave In The Sky, Lietterschpich and Poochlatz, so you know there's some twisted, demented, fucked up, noisy weirdness lurking in there as well.
Leaden is one track, one long slow musical death march. A thick low-end drenched crawl, a trudge through thick black tar, the vocals an anguished howl, a crushing, pummeling chunk of supreme sludge, heavy and nearly static. Not sure why they stopped at 15 minutes, this is the kind of sound that could have continued on for hours, forever, oozing forever onward, swallowing up everything in its path. The weird thing is that the main riff is surprisingly catchy, not always noticeable, but every once in a while, you realize there's a nifty little hook buried in there somewhere, but if you're not looking you'll miss it, being way too busy having your skull caved in by the bands relentless plod. Gloriously and fantastically slow and heavy, just how we like it. If you need bands, think Moss, Khanate, Planet Aids, Bunkur, Catacombs, Otesanek, Monarch, Monument Of Urns, Nihill, Whitehorse, Stumm and that sort of dire musical decay.
MPEG Stream: "Leaden"

DUKKHA / BLACK VOMIT Be My Second (Frequency Thirteen / Night Angels Serve) cd-r 8.98
The return of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!!
A few lists back we listed two discs of mysterious blackened post rock ambient epic weirdness, one from a band called Skultroll, the other from a group called Ice Bound Majesty, both offering up tangled sounds not easily to pin down. The hypno krautrock of Circle, the dirgey black doom of Bunkur, mixed with epic space prog, damaged drones, and whatever the fuck else those weirdos could cram in.
So as we continue to fly through copies of both, it seemed like maybe it was time to dig deeper into this bizarre black scene of freaky fucked up musical madness, dubbed by these outfits True Sheffield Black Psychedelia, and needless to say, it is indeed black, most definitely psychedelic and oddly enough, also from Sheffield!
So this time around we picked up a split, two more mysterious Sheffield combos, Dukkha, and the appetizingly named Black Vomit.
The odd tracks are Black Vomit, three long ones, culminating with a nearly 20 minute closer. But what the heck does Black Vomit sound like? Not as black as you might think. The opening track is a gorgeous drum heavy krautjam, the drums plugging along, with little double kick drum flourishes, relentless and motorik, as a huge warm washed out black cloud of swirling fuzz and hissy shimmer drifts in, a bit like Tim Hecker, dense and layered and constantly shifting, thickening as the song progresses, shot through with streaks of feedback and speaker rattling low end pulses, little flurries of effects and grinding industrial whir, sounds like a dronemetal Necks or a way more blessed out and dreamy Pharaoh Overlord. The second Black Vomit track, clocking in at nearly eleven minutes, is a much blacker beats, the middle portion a chaotic psychedronemetal freakout, the drums a blurry blast, the guitars tangled and angular, all wrapped up in a throbbing low end buzz, eventually mellowing out and stretching out into a hissy buzz drenched static drone, beneath which the sounds of frogs and crickets, bits of TV or radio broadcasts, a drifting barely there bit of simple guitar strum, super intense and creepy and cinematic. The final track, The Black Vomit's closer, a bruising 19 minute jam is a long form ambient sprawl, beginning with some epic tribal drumming, some industrial clatter, and thick corrosive drones, before the drums drop out leaving just the low end to drift and throb, swell and shift, a gorgeous dreamy thrum, until the drums kick back in near the end, finishing off with a flurry of mathy chaos, the drones and buzz building in tandem, a corrosive final moments prog psych blowout.
Then there's Dukkha, who sound like Black Vomit's kissing cousins. Their opener is nearly 23 minutes long, and is a loping post rock dirge, the drums a simple pound, the bass looping and loping in the background, the guitar in thick sheets buzzing dronelike, and occasionally locking into weirdly groovy stoner jams and then unwinding again into static sheets, the vocals a demonic distant wail, the riffs surfacing and locking into endless loops and super hypnotic hypno metal jams, like a crusty black metal Gore. The second track sounds like the first one, with the drums pulled out, the whole thing dipped in a bucket of busted effects pedals, and dumped over a wall of feeding back amplifiers. Maybe the 'dub' version of the first track, a Dense cloud of fucked up electronics, jagged melodic fragments, freaked out FX, and massive groaning walls of crumbling ultra distorted slow motion riffing.
Fucking awesome. Black enough for the true grim kvlt, but rhythmic enough to appeal to folks who dig Circle, This Heat, Aluk Todolo and the like and who aren't averse to something equally rhythmic, but way more blackened and brutal.
MPEG Stream: BLACK VOMIT "Squalltomb"
MPEG Stream: DUKKHA "Clod"
MPEG Stream: BLACK VOMIT "Eblis, Laced On Herba Sacra"

FEAR FALLS BURNING Once We All Walk Through Solid Objects (Tonefloat) 5lp box 88.00
This one has been a long time coming. Especially for us. The long rumored, even longer in the works 5lp Fear Falls Burning collaborative remix collection came out a while back, but when our box arrived from overseas, the box was smashed, and while the lps were all in perfect condition, the outer sleeves were not, so we had to wait patiently for them to make more sleeves, specifically for us, and then pray that the box of new sleeves showed up without also being crushed by the Postal Service.
Well, finally, the box arrived and the new sleeves were as close to perfect as we could hope. And thus we can finally list this ambient guitar drone masterpiece. One of our favorite purveyors of blissed out guitar doomdirgedrone, remixed, reworked and reinterpreted by a bunch of bands that couldn't be more kick ass if we had picked them ourselves!!! And gorgeously packaged to boot!
Let's start with the music. Five lps, twenty minutes a side, over three hours, one band to a side, the source material for each side original recordings by Fear Falls Burning, each artist, adding, removing, remixing, or reimagining the sounds given to them by FFB, the results uniformly gorgeous.
The first side is Bass Communion, who turn FFB's droning guitars into chiming choral blissy bell like tones, which eventually build into thick buzzing Spacemen 3 like drones, but which near the end slip back into whirling soft focus ambient drift. The flip side features Final, the solo guitar project of Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, etc.). Broadrick takes his FFB material and stretches it out into a moody meandering soundscape of layered distorted strum and thick crumbling swells, a lovely slowcore guitar drone, peppered with bits of melancholy melody and subtle harmonies.
The second disc starts off with Freiband, aka Frans De Waard, the most minimal of the bunch, a glistening dark ambience, a slow trawl through fields of ephemeral sonic sparkle and soft drones rumbling way off in the distance. The B side of disc 2 is Harvestman, the solo project of Neurosis' Steve Von Till, and his take on FFB is a haunting dark psychedelia, thick slabs of reverbed guitar allowed to drift through the ether, chunks of almost metallic riffing surface throughout, but are suffused with muted shimmer and soft whispered whirring.
The A side of disc 3 is Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel, and his FFB source material is transformed into a glorious keening ur-drone, all upper register buzz over a wash of shifting overtones and blurred chordal resonance, like drifting on some ominous black sonic sea, haunting and subtly ominous. The flipside is Byla, featuring one of the guys from Behold The Arctopus, but don't be expecting any weirdo tech metal, nope, the do Fear Falls Burning proud with a wall of grinding feedback that is smeared into a weirdly soothing high end drone, while downtuned guitars warble and pulse, shimmer and drift, abstract melodies floating atop the rumbling low end, like some disembodied Appalachia.
Disc 4's A side is occupied by perennial AQ fave Aidan Baker (Nadja), one of the only collaborators here who added nothing, no extra instruments, used only the original tracks given to him, but the results are just as unique, a mysterious landscape of ghostly echoes and whispered guitars, long stretches of blisssy drift and dark washes of distorted hiss. The B Side is occupied by Johannes Persson, whose track is a sea of big billowy downtuned riffs, reverberating and fading out above buzzy angular riffs, everything washed out and blurred beneath layers of fuzzy rumble, a strangely active ambience, with a bit of twang ala more modern Earth, eventually building to a gorgeous Godspeed like crescendo.
The A side of the final disc features another long time AQ fave, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma of local space drone alchemists Tarentel, who creates a dark murky dronescape rife with subtle glitches, and grinding distorted guitar smeared into smooth swells, a constant droning buzz running throughout, everything effulgent and haloed in glistening otherworldly glimmers, weirdly enough the darkest and most ominous of the bunch. And finally, finishing things off, is 3/4hadbeeneliminated's Stefano Pilia, who unfurls a warm folky drift, with occasional distorted drones surfacing here and there, all washed out sun dappled and so serene, finally building to an epic and intense soft shimmery crescendo.
Needless to say, if you're a fan of Fear Falls Burning, any of the collaborators, or experimental guitar ambience and dark droning drift, this is totally essential.
The packaging is pretty dang deluxe too. Each lp is pressed on ultra thick 180 gram crystal clear vinyl, the liner notes printed on the lp labels, each lp housed in it's own printed PVC sleeve, blue metallic ink, allowing the clear lp to be visible through the blurry blue images and text, all housed in a library / analogue tape style cardboard outer sleeve, printed in full color. So gorgeous.
A note to vinyl obsessives. These are not sealed in plastic. The design is such that the outer sleeve bends and gets damaged easily, so we removed the outer plastic wrap, and inserted a 12" cardboard flat inside the box alongside the lp sleeves, which protect the lps, and keep the outer sleeve from being damaged. And when shipped these will be extra carefully packaged for their arduous journey to your doorstep.
Already sold out and out of print. We have a bunch, but as always, these probably won't be around for long...

GALBRAITH, ALASTAIR Orb (Nextbestway) cd 14.98
Oh Alastair, how we have missed you. Although there have been a handful of reissues, a collaboration here and there, and those incredible long wires discs, there's something magical about the strange world Galbraith is able to conjure up give a whole record to work with. A dizzying blend of folky freaky lo-fi experimental pop, handmade instruments, ambience and noise, all held together by some ineffable magic that very few possess, but some, like Galbraith have mastered and seem to unfurl effortlessly.
Orb is the first proper solo record in years and also marks the re-activation of Galbraiths Xpressway label, now called Nextbestway. And once again, we're transported to some mysterious glade, where a strange man is hunched over a small arsenal of sound making devices, and like some sort of mad scientist is assembling an endless series of perfect little sonic gems.
The opening track is so immediately warm and recognizable, with it's warped warbly organ, and Galbraith's haunting multi tracked vocals, reminding us once again, that long before Neutral Milk Hotel, Galbraith was shaping similarly powerful little spiritual pop songs, and "Here Not There" is no different. Less than two minutes, but in that brief span, he's able to lull and soothe, trip out and transport. The second track is even shorter, less than a minute, but it's a killer chunk of billowy krautrock drift that finishes in a flurry of digital skipping.
Galbraith has a sort of Guided By Voices thing going, giving us tantalizing glimpses of incredible hooks, cool moody riffs, fluttering bits of sweet folk, but then nips them in the bud, songs that could very well stretch on for hours, slip away after minutes, sometimes seconds, creating these brief magical flourishes that have us returning over and over to sample briefly, always wanting more.
Like all Galbraith discs, the sounds are disparate, but interconnected, clattery feedback drenched Dead C style noise rock, with crumbling distortion and fuzzy sheets of synth, murky detuned folk ramblings, keening scarping strings, high end skree and metallic reverberations, utterly heartbreaking perfect pop, stretches of field recordings overlaid with soft shimmery drones, wheezing organs and delicate plucked strings, thick swaths of dense guitar buzz and super distorted vocals, black metal via NZ noise rock, meandering abstract Appalachia draped over soft swells of mumble and drift, warm warbly guitar and every possible combination in between.
So lovely, so magical and so totally mysterious. Galbraith is truly a bard from beyond, a songsmith who transcends genre, perhaps even time and space. And we're so glad to have him back.
MPEG Stream: "Here Not There"
MPEG Stream: "One Direction"
MPEG Stream: "Lost"
MPEG Stream: "Bird Ghost Viola"
MPEG Stream: "Short Dream FOr Fire Organ"

GOAT WITCH Live At Cumbersome Records - Oct. 30th 2005 (We Empty Rooms) cd 13.98
After digging heavily on Australian doom merchants Fire Witch, we discovered the less heavy and more sprawling and post rocky Goat Witch, featuring some of the same members, whose Blind record was a huge hit around these parts.
So now we have another Goat Witch disc, called Live At Cumbersome Records, which appropriately enough was recorded live, and features an expanded line up of two drummers, three bass players and one guitarist, which includes ALL the members of Fire Witch as well as a bunch of other Aussie noisemakers.
Like Blind, this disc shrugs of much of the doom, treading into more Godspeed like waters, long sprawling slow building epics, where the drums offer up textures and filigree as often as actual beats. You think with three basses this would be a bloody sludgefest, but instead, the basses are subtle, woven into a shifting latticework of low end, allowing the guitar to drift and ring out, riffs floating above the thick swirling swells. Eventually the drums do kick in, but not in a crushing doom way, instead, the sound gets even more mathy and post rocky, the drums hyperkinetic, the guitars slippery and slithery, suddenly it's some krautrock spacerock hypno jam, relentless and hypnotic, eventually breaking down into some seriously dreamy drift, shifting streaks of guitars, muted tribal drumming, moody and smoldering, slow burning and ominous, thick cymbal swells, culminating in a tripped out mathy outro, all effected guitars throbbing basses. And that's just the opening 42 minute salvo.
The second track is almost like a dubbed out version of the first. Beginning with bits of scraped guitar, abstract bass drift, bursts of chaotic drum splatter, long stretches of near ambient shuffle, sometimes coalescing into almost Morricone sounding grooves, or tripped out mathy minimalism, getting pretty heavy toward the end, but not so much metal as thick swaths of spaced out psychrock, fluttering feedback, grinding bass lines, stuttering rhythms, finishing off with a brief burst of furious ultra tight riff rock, before stumbling to a halt.
Two tracks, 72 minutes. Heavy, dark, mathy, krauty, spacey. Folks who are gonna love this know who they are. You dig White Hills, Monster Magnet, Godspeed, Circle, Necks? Metallic post rock? Ambient drone doom? Mathy psychedelic krautrock? Yeah, we thought so...
Packaged in a cool mini DVD style sleeve, full color artwork and a full color insert.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

HARUMI s/t (Fallout) cd 16.98
Fallout is one of those reissue labels whose gargantuan output has some quality control issues but when they strike gold, we're always, like their catchphrase, blown away. Recent Fallout gems have been Malachi, Friar Tuck and Fraser and Debolt, but when this Harumi record came in, we knew it had to be good. And boy, is it! Recorded in New York in 1967 by Tom Wilson who helmed records by The Velvet Underground, Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel, the self-titled debut of Japanese musician and singer Harumi is one of the best instances of East-meets-West influences. Acid-tinged fuzzy folk pop with lots of phase shifting and reverbed vocals largely played on a range of traditional Far Eastern instruments, this album features plenty of sample-heavy passages. The album is anchored by the two final tracks. One a mesmerizing 13 minute sitar-soaked spoken word piece called "Twice Told Tales of The Pomegranate Forest" and the other the 17 minute garage rocker, "Samurai Memories" featuring extended bits of conversation in Japanese from members of Harumi's family. Highest Recommendation!!
MPEG Stream: "Talk About It"
MPEG Stream: "Sugar In Your Tea"
MPEG Stream: "Twice Told Tales Of The Pomegranate Forest"

HECKER, TIM Atlas One (Audraglint) 10" 10.98
By now we shouldn't have to go into too much detail about our undying love for the mysterious music of Tim Hecker. Just have a gander at the AQ website for much gushing over Hecker and his gorgeously gauzy sonic soundscapes. This new 10" is no different. One single epic, split into two movements, two sides, both dramatically different, but both absolutely beautiful.
Part one, side A, is the more intense of the two. Looped and processed guitars overlapping and all tangled up into gloriously softly roiling swirls of sound, melodies like snakes squirming and slithering and wrapping themselves around each other. Sitar like buzzing keening metallic high end, swooping backwards then drifting forward again. Here and there gentle lilting bits of finger picked guitar surface as do thick washes of distant crumble, everything deftly woven into a blurred slow moving dense and detailed sonic drift. At times it almost sounds like a symphony for tuning orchestras, a soft cacophony melted down into something, gauzy, dreamily indistinct and otherworldly.
The second half, which takes up all of side two, is much more glistening and effervescent, sparkling glimmery high end, little melodic trills fluttering and pulled apart, allowing the notes to drift and settle , the various elements gradually blurring into one another, the streaks and smears like slow burning comet tails of sound. Plucked guitars pepper the night sky like twinkling stars, all viewed through a cracked kaleidoscope, a washed out fog of hushed shimmer and slow moving blurs of indistinct beauty. Absolutely gorgeous.

HIS NAME IS ALIVE Sweet Earth Flower - A Tribute To Marion Brown (High Two Recording Co.) cd 15.98
Without knowing why or how, the idea of the recently more soulful, perpetually Beach Boys obsessed pop group His Name Is Alive tackling a record of tracks by legendary jazz saxophonist Marion Brown, seems not just unlikely but maybe even ill advised.
So we were pretty surprised and thrilled when we finally wrapped our ears around this disc. A dark smoldering expansive ambient jazz sprawl, His Name Is Alive, seriously channeling the spirit of Marion Brown, in such a way that is at once totally faithful but also, quite modern and radical.
Most of the tracks are languorous and laid back, and sometimes sound like a jazzier No Neck Blues Band, a sort of fluttering free folk, the sounds drifting like smoke, the percussion sizzling and shuffling, the horns moaning softly, lots of tinkling chimes and little flurries of piano, gorgeously soft focus and hypnotic.
There are a few live tracks, which is where the band really cut loose, and embrace the noisier side of Brown's oeuvre, "Capricorn Moon" the first live track, is much boppier, the drums and bass locked into a sort of muted exotica, while the horns bleat wildly over the top, the sound very African, and dipping into some serious Ethiopiques territory here and there. The next few songs return to the blissy jazzy tranquility of the first few, until "Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim", which starts off all dreamlike, but by the end, is a squall of thick distorted guitars and skronky saxes, a serious free jazz duel.
The two part "Geechee Recollections" is another slow burning jam, all exotic percussion and thick rubbery basslines, wailing sax, shuffling skittery drum lines, moody meandering piano, the second half a super minimal late night jazzy sprawl, like a less repetitive Necks, but the same sort of mysterious murky swirl.
The record finishes off with a live version of the opening track, sticking close to that same smoky late night shimmer, but with the horns more active and up in the mix, the drums a bit more propulsive, some wah guitar, managing to sound just a bit more fierce, but without losing that blurry blissy sultriness...
This is so good. We used to love love love His Name Is Alive. They even played an instore here, which was a blast. They sort of lost us though lately with their ever intensifying soul leanings, but this record is absolutely gorgeous, and has definitely restored our faith in Warn Defever and company, plus anyone so into Marion Brown is aces in our book.
A portion of the proceeds of the sale of this cd goes to the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, which is also quite cool...
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Earth Flying"
MPEG Stream: "Juba Lee Brown"
MPEG Stream: "Geechee Recollections I"

JAY, JEREMY Airwalker (K) cd ep 5.98
Wow! We've got ourselves a big time winter crush! A youngster living in LA, Jeremy Jay has made an ep that we've been playing on repeat pretty much nonstop since we first got our ears on it. By far the best thing K has put out in ages. While it's a brand new record it has a charm and feel that made many of us think it was some amazing lost gem from the early eighties. Tapping into the poppier side of the early Factory vaults, Jeremy Jay's Airwalker reminds us of great early '80s records by The Wake and The Go-Betweens. He's like some amazing twee incarnation of Ian Curtis. Imagine Kings Of Convenience doing Joy Division covers. This is one of those rare records that just about everyone on the AQ staff has been smitten by. It's pretty impossible not to get swept away by his young fey pop chops filled with a richness and spark that demands you to pay attention. Somehow managing to cover both Blondie and Siouxsie & The Banshees while making those songs his own, this is a kid we're pretty certain the world will be taking notice of very soon. We haven't been this enamored with a new, young indie-pop voice in ages. This could very well sneak on to some of our best of 2007 lists. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Airwalker"
MPEG Stream: "Angels On The Balcony"

JAZZFINGER Orange Sauce / Peace Factor Fashion (alt.vinyl) 8" square lathe cut 26.00
We haven't heard from these guys in a while. Which more than likely just means we somehow missed out on about a million super limited cd-r's and cassettes and wax cylinders. But we weren't about to miss out on this one. Another in alt.vinyl's series of ultra limited 8" lathe cuts (the Prurient one is featured elsewhere on this list).
As always, the boys are in fine form, offering up confounding and confusional loveliness and sometimes not so loveliness.
Side one sounds like Nurse With Wound doing the soundtrack for an afternoon soap opera, with a melodramatic organ wheezing and whirring in a sea of partially plucked guitars and dense clouds of shimmering feedback, metallic clang and all sorts of grind and crackle and crunch and glitch and buzz. All deftly woven into something surprisingly listenable, almost like some super lo-fi dada-ist Pop Ambient jam.
The B side is a gorgeous minimal, lazy and languid, slowly unfurling Taj Mahal Travellers like organic drone, all drawn out billowy buzz, drifting over a spare stretch of low end shimmer, very meditative and serene. Occasionally over the top drift little flurries of percussion, bells and shakers, very tribal and ritualistic. Both sides are pretty dang awesome.
And like all the releases in the series, this is a custom hand cut, Peter King lathe cut, 8", and it's SQUARE!!! Packaged in gorgeous square and triangular die cut sleeves, super fancy textured paper, with a paste on front cover and a printed insert, each insert hand numbered, each release LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!

KOBAYASHI Dasselbe In Grun (self released) 7" picture disc 5.98
We get so much stuff to listen to. Literally hundreds of cds and lps and tapes every month. We do our best to listen to everything. And many all time AQ faves and big sellers came from the piles and piles of stuff folks send in. But every once in a while, we come across something that's been sitting forever, for ages, we finally listen to it and are blown the fuck away! In cases such as those we do our best to get in touch with the band or label and order a bunch for the store. Often they don't even remember sending them, but are psyched that we're finally ordering some. As much as we're psyched to be listing it, and probably kicking ourselves for waiting so long to discover it.
But in some cases, it's been so long, that maybe the piece of paper or the note that came with the records has disappeared or gotten lost, and then we end up digging around on the internet trying to track them down so we can get them for you all to check out. Lucky for us, the guys in Kobayashi took it upon themselves to send us a whole stack of their 7"s (not recommended generally by the way), however that was months and months ago and it was only a few days ago that we finally checked it out, and whattayaknow, it's pretty goddamn great. So if you're in the band, drop us a line! If you're not, by all means pick up one of these killer chunks of obtuse metallic grind.
The sound is tough to describe, it's definitely grindcore, classic sounding for sure, but with lots of slow dirgey bits, chunks of doom, weird angular riffing, spastic rhythms, jagged guitars, dual shrieking vocals, short and sharp, but not always fast and furious, sometimes just gnarled and chunky, but laced with bursts of furious buzz, chunks of churning low end, lurching tempos, and occasional blast beats. There's a bit of powerviolence, a bit of grind, some crustiness for sure, and a whole lot of metal, all tangled up into a pretty serious slab of grinding atonal, freaked out brutality. The packaging is amazing too. It's a picture disc, housed in a thick red vinyl sleeve, one side is the song titles over little black blocks, the other side a man's head, but pull the disc out, and the blocks turn into letters, the lyrics to the songs, and the man's head removed from the sleeve suddenly reveals the skeleton beneath the skin. A sort of 3-D style red and blue disappearing ink thing. Plus the band members have names like Tommyknocker and Ziggy Starfuck, and are credited with instruments like sticks of fatality, screams of brainstrain, frantic rhythms and immortal throat. What's not to love? Pretty cool stuff.

LSD-MARCH Nikutai No Tubomi (Beta-Lactam Ring) 2cd 17.98
It's Japan's LSD-march at their heavy psych droney mostest, this time just the duo of guitarist Shinsuke Michishita and drummer Ikuro Takahashi, laying down two discs worth of Tokyo flashback style murk and grime...well especially on Disc 1, which is entirely one long song, the title track. It's a slow-building densely textured piece, a 39 minute slithering dark psychedelic guitar solo set amidst thick waves of distortion effects and cymbal washes... perfectly paced and hypnotically foreboding. Gradually the pulse quickens, vocals murmer o'er the miasmic throb, and the living ghost of Les Rallizes Denudes nods approvingly... this piece's payoff being its own mesmeric momentum. When the end does come, after an appreciable increase in volume and noise from the disc's beginning, you can imagine amps falling over, toppling like the monolith in 2001. Boris fans should approve of this metallic rumble.
Disc 2 features eight individual pieces, and offers a mediative comedown from disc one's climactic intensity (at first), track one "Aubade" being composed of tingling bells. "Elephant" is next, and is a weird one, a pattering of drums accompanying atonal string scrape that maybe suggests an elephantine trumpeting sound? The disc continues in an equally weird and diverse manner, all the tracks much more intimate and oddly experimental in sound than the more usual LSD-march issue electric storm of disc 1. It's more-or-less acoustic up to track 5, "Love", which stomps on some pedals for a distorted electric (distorted vocals too) dubby noise rock stumble. And then track six enters into some sort of ritual drone ceremony or something... all of this is pretty cool, LSD-march letting their hair down and doing something completely different from track to track, like we said in an experimental spirit, culminating in track 8, "Holy Ghost", a festive freakout for harmonica and scattered percussion. Perhaps their tribute to Albert Ayler, to hazard a guess.
It's like these two discs, one a long-form, heavy-duty improv, the other a potpourri of creative freaky ideas, are the intended out-there companions to their recent, much more tightly song-based album Constellation Of Tragedy on Important, a recent AQ highlight. Nikutai No Tubomi comes as equally recommended!
Oh, and lest we forget, this is a NUMBERED, LIMITED EDITION OF 500 COPIES!!! And comes in a fancy, thick gatefold package.
MPEG Stream: "Nikutai No Tubomi (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Stone"
MPEG Stream: "Love"

MARBLEBOG Forestheart (Autopsy Kitchen) cd 13.98
Since we first heard the name Marblebog, we somehow just knew this obscure Hungarian horde would be a fast favorite, before we had even heard a note of music, and man were we right. The last record, 2004's Csendhajnal, now unfortunately out of print, was a huge hit at AQ, the perfect balance of swirling synthy ambience, and mournful melancholy Burzumic buzz, so we had been anxiously awaiting the reissue of 2005's Forestheart ever since, and now it's finally here.
This duo from Hungary mix traditional Hungarian folk, modern grim black buzz, and blissed out ambience into epic swaths of blurry blackness, woven from loping minor key guitars, simple mostly midtempo drumming, strangled croaked vocals, and while the parts might sound similar to black metal obsessives, it's not just the parts, it's how they're played, and recorded and arranged, the mood and the timbre, the sound and the feeling as much as the actual riffs.
And while the riffs are of course amazing, it's the feel more than anything that make Marblebog so special. Everything is dripping with such sadness and sorrow, not just minor key, but whole arrangements and progressions perfectly assembled to evoke strange feelings, heartbreak and woe, death and destruction, so mournful and melancholy, sweeping swells of buzzing sound, with incredible dynamics, and bits of melody that swoop in out of nowhere and are immediately swallowed up again.
The appropriately titled "Opening" is a brief stretch of swirling krautrocky synth, peppered with haunting animal like FX and creepy scrapes and groans, all drenched in reverb and delay, hovering beneath a pale moonlit sky. This intro opens up into the sort of title track "I Am The Forestheart", a glorious blast of melancholy blackness, with a main riff as catchy as it is dark and depressive. Part way through the band shift gear, and slow down into a strummed folky interlude, a jig like melody, Jew's harp, the sound of wind and rain, a haunting spare drift.
There are three more longish tracks, all channeling the same forest spirit, looped cyclical black buzz, suffused with hypnotic drones and unlikely little melodic flourishes, everything muted and murky and dreamlike, often breaking down into simple acoustic guitar drifts, before picking back up again. The harrowing over the top vocals of the first records are now much more settled into the background, more a part of the music, almost like another layer of buzzing drone, but still just as harrowing and anguished.
The final track is a 13+ minute ambient soundscape of shimmering synths, and mad scientist lab FX, burbling and gurgling beneath, dreamy washes of high end drift, strange muted percussion, some seriously Goblin like keyboard creep, and eventually some awesome lurching downtuned guitar, not so much crushing and heavy as creepy and thick, cyclical and hypnotic, a gorgeous lurching dream doom.
MPEG Stream: "I Am The Forestheart"
MPEG Stream: "A Tempest Never Calming Down"
MPEG Stream: "Closing"

MARBLEBOG Forestheart (Autopsy Kitchen) lp 13.98
Since we first heard the name Marblebog, we somehow just knew this obscure Hungarian horde would be a fast favorite, before we had even heard a note of music, and man were we right. The last record, 2004's Csendhajnal, now unfortunately out of print, was a huge hit at AQ, the perfect balance of swirling synthy ambience, and mournful melancholy Burzumic buzz, so we had been anxiously awaiting the reissue of 2005's Forestheart ever since, and now it's finally here.
This duo from Hungary mix traditional Hungarian folk, modern grim black buzz, and blissed out ambience into epic swaths of blurry blackness, woven from loping minor key guitars, simple mostly midtempo drumming, strangled croaked vocals, and while the parts might sound similar to black metal obsessives, it's not just the parts, it's how they're played, and recorded and arranged, the mood and the timbre, the sound and the feeling as much as the actual riffs.
And while the riffs are of course amazing, it's the feel more than anything that make Marblebog so special. Everything is dripping with such sadness and sorrow, not just minor key, but whole arrangements and progressions perfectly assembled to evoke strange feelings, heartbreak and woe, death and destruction, so mournful and melancholy, sweeping swells of buzzing sound, with incredible dynamics, and bits of melody that swoop in out of nowhere and are immediately swallowed up again.
The appropriately titled "Opening" is a brief stretch of swirling krautrocky synth, peppered with haunting animal like FX and creepy scrapes and groans, all drenched in reverb and delay, hovering beneath a pale moonlit sky. This intro opens up into the sort of title track "I Am The Forestheart", a glorious blast of melancholy blackness, with a main riff as catchy as it is dark and depressive. Part way through the band shift gear, and slow down into a strummed folky interlude, a jig like melody, Jew's harp, the sound of wind and rain, a haunting spare drift.
There are three more longish tracks, all channeling the same forest spirit, looped cyclical black buzz, suffused with hypnotic drones and unlikely little melodic flourishes, everything muted and murky and dreamlike, often breaking down into simple acoustic guitar drifts, before picking back up again. The harrowing over the top vocals of the first records are now much more settled into the background, more a part of the music, almost like another layer of buzzing drone, but still just as harrowing and anguished.
The final track is a 13+ minute ambient soundscape of shimmering synths, and mad scientist lab FX, burbling and gurgling beneath, dreamy washes of high end drift, strange muted percussion, some seriously Goblin like keyboard creep, and eventually some awesome lurching downtuned guitar, not so much crushing and heavy as creepy and thick, cyclical and hypnotic, a gorgeous lurching dream doom.
MPEG Stream: "I Am The Forestheart"
MPEG Stream: "A Tempest Never Calming Down"
MPEG Stream: "Closing"

MEADS OF ASPHODEL, THE Life Is Shit e.p. (Firestorm) 7" 9.98
More distinctly not very black metal weirdness from some of our favorite black metal weirdos. If you might remember back to the most recent Meads release, In The Name Of God, Welcome To Planet Genocide, we were all sort of knocked for a loop by the band's new direction. Or directions. From the very Crass like cut and paste political cover art, to the punky crust and other weirdness inside, these freaks had gone and outweirded even their own weird selves. So now we have the latest single, and it seems, at least for these three songs, the band have abandoned the black metal entirely. All covers. All classics. Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts and The Stranglers. All done pretty straight, not black metallized or anything, just raw crusty pounding melodic old school punk rock. The Stiff Little Fingers cover is a jam, an awesome song so done straight it's still an awesome song, the vocals appropriately raspy, the guitars buzzing and the drums pounding. The Ruts cover features original Ruts guitarist Paul Fox and sounds as kick ass as the original. The only place things get extra weird is on the final track, the Stranglers cover, where the vocals are strangely processed and sound about as close to black metal as anything here, but then we've got Mirai from the band Sigh with insane blasts of crazy prog synths, and some new wave female background vocals. Sounds like a bit of a mess, and it sort of is, but it's also awesome and totally rocks in this amazingly unhinged way.
Meads fans who were thrown off by the lack of buzzing blackness will be even more confused by this triple shot. But if you're into metal and punk rock, you could do way worse than hearing these killer tunes revamped and twisted up a bit by the always brilliantly baffling Meads.
Cool old school black and white skull cover. All the records are hand numbered and signed on the label by all the band members. Probably limited too...

MILE END LADIES STRING AUXILIARY, THE From Cells of Roughest Air (Bangor) cd 14.98
What do you get when three ladies from groups like Godspeed You Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion come together to form a "string auxiliary"? One intense and beautiful album, that's what! With cello, viola and violin employed with full force, this is a record that maintains a compelling tension from start to finish. Almost what you would imagine Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca or Steve Reich would come up with if they were to use a string ensemble to score a lost Hitchcock film. Suspense filled sounds played with a piercing perfection. Kind of like a more forceful version of the Rachels' with the same elegant touch but a punchier disposition. This is totally recommended! Came out a while back (last year) but we only just mangaged to get some more in, it's a Canadian import. Not sure when/if we'll be able to get more when we run out...
MPEG Stream: "Sequences of a Warm Front"
MPEG Stream: "Thunderheads and Radar"

MURMER We Share A Shadow (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 15.98
Proprietor of the Framework radio show on Resonance FM for many years now, Patrick McGinley has implored his listeners to "open your ears and listen" to the world at large, presenting an impeccable series dedicated to field recordings and its use in composition. So, it goes with out saying that the field recording and the found object are commonplace within McGinley's own sound art constructions which he records under the moniker Murmer (and not Murmur, mind you!). Given his predilection for wandering throughout the European countryside for all that it has to offer (not just limited to environmental sound), his recorded output has been somewhat limited. We Share A Shadow is his first proper solo album in almost three years, although his collaboration with Jonathan Coleclough did stand out as one of the dronemusik highlights of 2006. Consisting of two very long pieces, We Share A Shadow is a notably restrained album whose dark beauty reveals itself with a slow and deliberate pace. The first untitled piece opens with sheets of cold rain scuffing the smooth arcs of bowed metals, whose Feldman-like swell and collapse recalls the late period work of Bernhard Gunter. As the rain gently fades, a composite drone emerges out of those rasps and vibrations from the bowed metals and intensifies through dissonant timbres subtly agitating the shimmer and filigree of the gilted drone. Throughout, windswept debris ricochets across the stereo field casting an ominous cloud onto the sustained tones. The second piece is an even darker affair with a motor grinding against a piece of metal in the distance while a somber, almost doomscape piano plods in the foreground. With plenty of low frequency rumbles and spectral activity lingering in the background, this piece is almost like KTL remixing Xenakis at 16 RPM. Needless to say, this is an incredible album.
Gorgeously packaged in hand water-colored / letterpressed sleeves, LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"

NJIQAHDDA Njimajikal Arts (E.E.E. Recordings) 2cd-r 19.98
With a name like Njiqahdda, and a record title like Njimajikal Arts, all the text written in some unreadable Eastern script, and cover art consisting of lush green foliage and nothing else, with the promise that this was some mysterious alchemical psychedelic naturalist atmospheric doomed black metal, you know we were seriously intrigued. But at the same time, we really had no idea what to expect. We got these from E.E.E. one of our current favorite labels, home to all of the amazing unblack metal we've been raving about forever... so at first we assumed it was another unblack metal offshoot of one of the many E.E.E. bands, but the label assured us it wasn't. Later we discovered, it was actually a sort of experiment to see if folks reacted differently to stuff on E.E.E. if they thought it wasn't Christian. So, after all, it ends up, it is actually guys from Flaskavsae and Drommer, who together have whipped up one of the weirdest and most gorgeously fucked up (un)black records of the year. Which is saying a lot considering how twisted and far out most of the E.E.E. stuff is...
Where to start? Two discs, looooong tracks, weirdly washed out buzzing post rock, with lots of clean guitars and haunting atmospherics, all tangled up with thick blasts of dense black buzz, and with super freaked out production and lots of unlikely and not very metal sounds and arrangements.
The opening track, "Blister Within The Hive" is based around a super Slinty' guitar riff, looped and repeated, the drums weirdly staggered and mathy, the vocals a muted mumbly howl, super distorted and demonic, but not like black metal, more like noise rock. The main riff shifts and gets more and more dramtic and lush, while the vocals become more distorted and more unhinged, transforming into swirling clouds of harsh hiss and blurred white noise. With the repeated almost looped riff, it's like an un-black metal Circle, relelntless and mesmerizing, and totally hypnotic. The guitars and drums slowly fade out leaving a twisted, slithery buzzing low end drone, super minimal, as it crawls through a field of glitch and shimmer, like some cd-r drone record.
The second track, "A Tale Of Ancient Tergue" is more traditional black metal, but it's all relative. A loping Burzumic midtempo buzz, with tho seame freaked out alien vocals, the drums and cymbals super hot and way up in the mix, threatening to overload everything, the main riff and melody surprisingly melancholy and catchy, again locking into a continuous loop, until the main riff drops out, and suddenly a haunting chorus of voices takes over the main melody, humming and crooning over the still poundin and crashing drums, creepy and so beautiful. All hovering in a thick cloud of swirling FX and spaced out shimmer.
The disc finishes off with the nearly half hour long "Blue Wintry Days", a doomy surge through fields of hissing white noise buzz, the guitars soaring, the drums again sizzling white hot all over the place, mournful and melancholy, but so weirdly washed out at times it sounds like Tim Hecker vs. Burzum vs. Merzbow. About halfway through the various elements become less and less distinct, and the song transforms into an almost static blur, before shifting back into a dark doomy plod, but still always, a bit more mathy and post rock and spaced out that any black record has a right to be. And we love it.
The second disc is just two long songs. The first, "Ancient Tergue Recital" begins all ambient, with deep cavernous drones and birdsong, shimmering metallic reverberations and delicate chimes, a sparse ambient sprawl, that builds and builds, getting darker, and more ominous, the melodies turning minor key, but continuing to drift, a tranquil black ambient lullaby wrapped around a lilting and haunting music box melody.
The final track, "The Wintry Grey" is another long ambient workout, this one even more minimal than the first, more in line with Coleclough or Chalk, minimal and nearly static, subtle overtones shifting gently as the various layers rub against each other almost imperceptibly. A keening high end draped over a warm whirring low end, the two all tangled up in a divine dreamy drift.
Definitely one of the coolest, darkest, weirdest, doomiest, dreamiest (un)black metal records of the year.
MPEG Stream: "Blister Within The Hive"
MPEG Stream: "A Tale Of Ancient Tergue"
MPEG Stream: