POWER PILL FIST Kongmanivong (Graveface) cd 12.98
Who would have thought that an Atari 2600 would be the instrument of choice in the new millennium, but as technology moves forward in leaps and bounds, seems like the most forward thinking sound makers are reaching back, WAY back. Souped up Gameboys, home soldered circuit boards, old school analog synths, even the recent Tristan Perich release which did the 8bit-ers one better (or more precisely seven better) by creating a suite of music assembled from ONE bit sounds, as low as we can go. For now.
But for our generation, there's just something about the sound of 8bit buzz and crunch, the video games of our childhood, the strange alien computer soundtracks, it may push lots of nostalgia buttons, but you didn't have to grow up in the early eighties to dig that sound.
So here we have the first release from Ken Fec, one of the folks responsible for the tripped out bubblegum electro pop dreaminess of Black Moth Super Rainbow, who for his alter ego as Power Pill Fist, seems to have gone back to his childhood home, pulled all the boxes out of the basement, and plugged every video game and antiquated game console from his youth into a 4-track, run it through his fractured pop sensibilities, a bank of damaged effects, and voila. The cool thing is this is not a 'noise' record. There are some seriously noisy moments for sure, but at its core Power Pill Fist definitely has a glowing pulsing energy crystal pop heart. Albeit a pop that is way more freaky crunchy fuzzy trippy and whatthefuck than most. And it's flecked with bits of skittery electronica, downtempo hip hop, and whatever else Fec had up his sleeve or in his head at the time.
Originally this was touted as a record that was almost a straight recording of Fec PLAYING an Atari 2600, which would probably have been amazing, but this is way more musical and composed. There do seem to be some guitars, and some extra percussion, lurking within and beneath all the crunchy fuzzy buzz, but it's that buzz and crunch that defines the record. Give this thing BIGGER beats and you can almost imagine Daft Punk or Justice rocking some of these tracks in a DJ set. The disc opens with a murky bleep filled jam, the warbly melody and scratchy rhythm buried beneath thick layers of hiss and whir, wrapped around a simple way-down-in-the-mix guitar strum. It somehow manages to be lo-fi and lush all at once, some weird krautrocky Nintendo jam. The follow up is all big lurching drums and warbling blown out synths, that sounds like something Beck would jump all over. Some of the other tracks are much noisier, but even then, soft melodies, and haunting song fragments lurk below the surface. Then there's songs like "Chuckanut Drive" that sound like they could have been, should have been, heck, maybe actually were the soundtrack to some super obscure video game, bits of ­other games-, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, etc. cannibalized and recontextualized into some new old game, but liberally sprinkled with dizzying synth squiggles and an extra layer of stuttering buzz.
In between all of these blown out, almost-electro fuzz drenched 8bit jams, lurk subtly simple, bedroom recorded interludes, the strangely metallic minor key minimal strum of "Contours Gaining Shape" or the washed out low end droning whir of "R4eactor", and sometimes Fec will offer up a bit of abstract synth / 8bit experimentation or a more arcade-centric soundscapes like the straight video game field recording sound collage of "The Meat Tree" (sounding quite a bit like one of those Arcade Ambience discs), but it's always right back into another awesome grinding buzzy video game electro pop adventure.
Imagine Pan Sonic produced by J Dilla run through a Colecovision. Or think Donkey Kong meets Rastan, chopped up and reassembled by the Flaming Lips. Or Autchre recording a new record using only a busted up old acoustic guitars and the guts of a Sega Genesis, or some crazy psychpop jam session, but with Intellivision consoles instead of guitars. Weird and warped, fuzzy and fun, heavy and crunchy, poppy and druggy and just fucked up and freaky enough to keep our ears buzzing and ringing non stop.
MPEG Stream: "Sagadraga"
MPEG Stream: "Chuckanut Drive"
MPEG Stream: "YFF, Lou Pappans"
MPEG Stream: "Fisticus 2:36"

LEVIATHAN Massive Conspiracy Against All Life (Moribund) cd 15.98
We talk about 'long awaited' releases all the time, records we hear about well before their actual release date, forcing us to wait and wait and wait, but few records have been as eagerly anticipated, or generated so many emails from customers as this, the latest from SF black metal behemoth Leviathan. Especially considering the rumors circulating that this may indeed be the final recording from Wrest and his one man band, Leviathan. If it is indeed a swansong, it's hard to imagine a more fitting or more powerful farewell-and-fuck-off.
Even being a huge fan and voracious devourer of black metal, we would be hard pressed to tell lots of BM bands apart. It's the nature of the beast in some ways. But the second we threw this on, even if we hadn't known what was playing, there's no mistaking the sound of Leviathan, the guitar tone, those demonic croaked vocals, the dizzying lush black buzzscapes, the convoluted song structures, the weird mathy rhythms and the incredible riffs.
Massive Conspiracy is not a huge departure from the sound of Tentacles Of Whorror, if anything, it just takes all the elements of that record and pushes them just that much further out. The sound is a bit more dense, more epic, the drumming is amazing (especially after the switch from electronic drums to real drums) the compositions more sprawling and expansive in scope. Which is saying a lot since past Leviathan records were pretty dang epic and sprawling already.
The sheer hatred of the titles is certainly expressed in the music as well, this is some scathing, hateful furious sound.
The record begins with some strange static, hissing drone-like buzz, ominous ambience beneath it, a haunting melody, then Wrest's howl and the record explodes in a flurry of rapid fire riffing and relentless blasting, but only briefly, the song immediately switches gear into a lurching lope, then right back into the blast. The song is peppered with super dense squalls of high end buzz, streaks of ultradistorted skree, while beneath all sorts of murky melodies lurk, almost like some old 78 was left playing in the background, giving the track an incredible creepy vibe, the last half of the song wraps itself around a slithery downtuned staccato riff, a gorgeously grim dirge that pounds its way to a burst of black chaos at the finish.
The second track is all whirring synths, loping drums, and Wrest's gurgling growl, a weird skeletal ambient dirge that is soon swallowed up by keening high end guitars, crunching downtuned churn, and some super freaky almost operatic vocals, the middle of the song is all full speed freaked out intensity, before again, the song locks into a super riffy groove, much like the opener, before finishing off in another black blaze.
The rest of the record follows suit, weaving super elaborate soundscapes of black metal buzz, and moody mathy meandering, dense black ambience, and swirling low end drones, the tracks rife with parts and bridges and confusional changes, all masterfully wound up into dense convoluted blackened, that while on their own are strange enough, are also peppered will all manner of sonic weirdness, be it slippery peals of woozy, dizzying melody, garbled vocal fragments, soaring harmony guitar melodies, super obtuse dynamics,
All culminating in the final two tracks. "Vulgar Asceticism" is definitely the most fucked, and maybe most amazing song Wrest has ever recorded. Even the opening, with its muted riffing and murky bass throb, staccato riff, and weird Greg Ginn-ish scrape and grind, before the song takes off. And the main riff is super warbly, almost sounding like he's playing with a slide, the notes wavering and detuning, only to be yanked back in line, and then bent way out of tune again, the result a blurry seasick lurch, exacerbated by the dynamics, the riffs often slipping into strange start stop stutters, until the song reaches it's middle stretch, the bass and drums locked into a relentless midtempo blast, while layers of guitars, and various riffs slip and slide, waver and warble, a super dizzy expanse of funhouse mirror blackness that is as fucked up and far out as it is amazing and masterful.
The closer, "Noisome Ash Crown" is an appropriately somber end to Massive Conspiracy, maybe even Leviathan itself. The whole first half a funereal crawl, a bleak grim landscape of whirring thick black ambience, and strange squalls of processed vocals, squiggles of distorted guitar, the drums a solid framework for the drifting abyss above. A strange washed out, gauzy black ambient bridge, gives way to a crushing almost industrial dirge, the melodies majestic and sorrowful, the vocals harrowing and harsh, the drums furiously flailing before transforming into muted little tangles, the rest of the song following suit, a dark minor key outro that gives way to the same black static that started the record.
The first limited pressing comes in a red digipak, featuring some seriously twisted original artwork from Wrest on the cover. Inside lurks a 12 page full color booklet, with more freaky drawings, lyrics and no liner notes.
NB. this officially comes out on Tuesday (3/25) so we can't sell any in the store 'til then, but of course mailorder folks can go ahead and order it now, to get in the mailorder queue...
MPEG Stream: "Vesture Dipped In The Blood Of Morning"
MPEG Stream: "Merging With Sword, Onto Them"
MPEG Stream: "Made As The Stale Wine Of Wrath"

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AHMED, ILYAS Between Two Skies / Towards The Night (Digitalis) 2cd 21.00
FINALLY! FINALLY!! FINALLY!!! Lots of you probably remember when we listed these discs a few years back, both were cd-r's back then, and both were limited to about 50 copies. We got so many orders, and rightfully so, Ahmed's sound as and is gorgeous and spare, simple and spacious, darkly emotional and sweetly mournful. Ilyas promised to make more cd-r's for all the people who ordered them, but somehow, he never managed to make it happen. We waited and waited and waitedŠ But you know what? That's okay now, as Digitalis has thankfully stepped in and taken Ahmed's first two cd-r's and reissued them as real cds, and in some super deluxe packaging to boot.
For those who missed out on the cd-r frenzy way back when, Ahmed is a guitarist, pianist, and crafter of drones, but guitar is his main instrument. He explores a sonic steel string world similar to folks like James Blackshaw, Jack Rose and of course John Fahey, dense little tangles of minor key finger picking and lush metallic strum. Darkly melodic, and strangely timeless sounding. Moody and so so gorgeous. Fans of the above mentioned guitarists will absolutely want this, even just for the Towards The Night disc, which finds Ahmed doing his best modern Appalachia, and he does it so well, completely mesmerizing and intense and emotional and impossibly lush.
On the other disc, Between Two Skies, Ahmed takes his guitar, that ghostly Appalachia, all subtle and subdued, washed out and weary sounding, and sets it amidst mysterious and lush sounding soundscapes, tinkling piano, long drawn out vocal parts, slightly reminiscent of Sigur Ros, wordless, warm and fuzzy, unfurling like another layer of sound, the atmosphere gauzy and dreamlike. All the while the guitar weaves delicate little melodies, little blurs of soft focus sound wrapped in shimmering drones and warm whirring ambience.
Both discs are distinctly different, but manage to sound perfect together, each subtly complimenting the other. Folks who were lucky enough to get those cd-r's the first time around, have probably played them to death and can no get some much sturdier replacements, and for everybody else, a long overdue to get lost in Ahmed's mysterious and lovely soundworld.
Beautifully packaged in a thick two color offset printed cardstock gatefold sleeve, with a printed cardstock insert. Remastered by Pete Swanson of The Yellow Swans with extensive liner notes from David Keenan.
MPEG Stream: "Black Midas"
MPEG Stream: "As Those Above"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Shumsun"

AJILVSGA Winter Hunt (Abandon Ship) cassette 4.50
Third release in almost as many weeks from this relatively new drone-doom duo, half of which just so happens to be Brad Rose, Digitalis head honcho, as well as member of the North Sea, Corsican Paintbrush, Jade Emperor, the Golden Oaks and probably a few more that we're forgetting.
But don't let that fee folk pedigree fool you. This new outfit, Ajilsvga is certainly free but not folk at all. Exploring a world of near static heaviness similar to like minded folks in SUNNO))), Sunroof!, Vulture Club, Half Makeshift, but leaning toward the lugubrious sludgey ambient doom side of the slow and low spectrum.
On Winter Hunt, it's a thick squall of buzz and rumble, guitars, or organs, or synths, but mostly guitars we think, all set on stun and allowed to unfurl thick waves of thick viscous low end. A swirling morass of grinding glacial low end, sheets of crumbling distorted chordal whir, off in the distance, keening tones floating above the roiling rumbling below, a heaving heaviness, strangely soothing and meditative as much as dense and intense.
Fans of the above mentioned bands will dig this big time, as well as anyone into the low, slow and heavy, the dark, dense and drone-y.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Package in full color two sided sleeves.

AXOLOTL Live (Loci) cd-r 8.98
Even though Axolotl was San Francisco based, for some reason it was always difficult for us to get many of his releases. Most were extremely limited, a few times we managed to get merely a handful before they disappeared, but for the most part they came and went before we even discovered they were out.
Axolotl may have moved away, but he also started up his own little label, concentrating on releasing various bits of sonic Axolotica. Live shows, impromptu jams, and various other recorded sonic happenings. And thankfully this time we have a direct line to the source, and we've got copies of all three titles in the first batch. All packaged in miniature dvd-style cases, with photocopied covers and some with a little xeroxed insert. And while we're not sure just how limited these are, we're fairly sure it's VERY.
Live is a collection of live recordings (duh) from all over the globe, two from London, one from Glasgow, one from Amsterdam, one from right here in San Francisco, and two live on KALX. The London shows are much noisier than normal, dense clouds of crumbling distortion, static and hiss, but as always, melodies swirl beneath the skree, the various textures changing shape constantly, dizzying, and on the very dreamy pleasant side of noisy. The Glasgow show is a rich thick fluid drone assembled from glowing layers of burnished guitar shimmer and distant choir like vocals. The first KALX show is a deep tripped out druggy swirl, voices and fragments of melodies, all spinning drowsily, the second a super percussive steel string workout that sounds like solo dulcimer or something. San Francisco is a tripped out tribal drug jam, murky percussion, a haze of high end jangle, fluttering feedback, and tiny little squalls of buzz and skree. And finally, the Amsterdam show, a long stretch of high end hiss, manipulated tape, and fuzzy warbly static, all woven into a surprisingly dreamy drone. Once again, fantastic stuff.
MPEG Stream: "London"
MPEG Stream: "Glasgow"

AXOLOTL Trade Ye No Mere Moneyed Art (Loci) cd-r 8.98
Even though Axolotl was San Francisco based, for some reason it was always difficult for us to get many of his releases. Most were extremely limited, a few times we managed to get merely a handful before they disappeared, but for the most part they came and went before we even discovered they were out.
Axolotl may have moved away, but he also started up his own little label, concentrating on releasing various bits of sonic Axolotica. Live shows, impromptu jams, and various other recorded sonic happenings. And thankfully this time we have a direct line to the source, and we've got copies of all three titles in the first batch. All packaged in miniature dvd-style cases, with photocopied covers and each with little xeroxed insert. And while we're not sure just how limited these are, we're fairly sure it's VERY.
Trade Ye No Mere Moneyed Art is the first release on Loci, and is everything we've come to love about Axolotl. Slow drifting mursckapes, swirls of muted percussion and disembodied guitar blur, soft edged effects, thick layers of whirring synth, crumbling bits of distortion, long static rumbles, subtly shimmering overtones, insectoid buzz, electronic glitch, and thick blown out sun dappled dreamlike drones. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

AXOLOTL AND WEYES BLUHD Sciamacy (Loci) cd-r 8.98
Even though Axolotl was San Francisco based, for some reason it was always difficult for us to get many of his releases. Most were extremely limited, a few times we managed to get merely a handful before they disappeared, but for the most part they came and went before we even discovered they were out.
Axolotl may have moved away, but he also started up his own little label, concentrating on releasing various bits of sonic Axolotica. Live shows, impromptu jams, and various other recorded sonic happenings. And thankfully this time we have a direct line to the source, and we've got copies of all three titles in the first batch. All packaged in miniature dvd-style cases, with photocopied covers and some with a little xeroxed insert. And while we're not sure just how limited these are, we're fairly sure it's VERY.
The third release in the inaugural batch of Loci releases finds Axolotl teaming up with someone called Weyes Bluhd. On the first track of two, the duo create some sort of super distorted ghostly folk, where the vocals are crumbling effects drenched moans, surrounded by streaks of feedback and bursts of glitch and crunch, melodies assembled from jagged fragments of sound, all in a murky muddy soundscape of fuzzed out ambience, eventually building to a serious chunk of chaotic free psych blowout, overblown and WAY in the red.
The second track is like a shadow of the first, a whispery shimmer to the openers crunchy buzz, the vocals lonely moans, the instrumentation nothing but barely there slivers of high end shimmer, a lonely guitar drifting through the ether, the surrounding ambience fuzzy and gauzy, some serious abstract ghost town blues.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

BARN OWL Smoke Loom Ceremony (Blackestrainbow) cassette 8.98
Barn Owl have become quite the talk of the psych/drone/folk scene in the last year and for very good reason. The duo have released some great limited edition cd-r's on Digitalis and on their own, and their intense and trance inducing live shows have reeled in many believers, including us! Tapping into ritual drone and spiritual psychedelia this two song cassette recorded at a festival in Echo Park a few months ago is further proof that this is one of the most promising bands roaming the underground at the moment. While there are no shortage of psych drone acts these days, there is something so concrete and real about the sounds Barn Owl conjure up. Kind of like if newer Earth was less spaghetti western and more engaged in exploring LaMonte Young's dreamhouse. There is a patience and subtlety in Barn Owl's music that is way beyond their young years. They use guitars, drums, banjo, harmonium and voice to travel upwards to some magical place filled with dust, dirt and delight. This one is super limited too, so it'll be gone in the blink of an eye.
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"

BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW Dandelion Gum (Graveface) 2lp 21.00
When this record first came out, we all dug it, quite a bit, so we wrote a little blurb about it, sold a bunch. But somehow, this record, and this band, has continued to grow on us, big time! This, and the two BMSR reissues, get played incessantly, and now in retrospect, we LOVE LOVE LOVE this record. So much so that we feel like maybe we should go back and rewrite the review and gush endlessly. And maybe we will. Eventually. But for now, this record, this aQ fave, this genius chunk of dizzying synth pop perfection, has been reissued on vinyl, SUPER LIMITED, an ultra deluxe double lp, pressed on extra thick swirled pink vinyl, super heavy full color gatefold sleeve, each hand numbered, all in the upper 400's as it's already out of print, each with a scratch and sniff bubblegum bubble on the front cover! And as if that weren't enough, there's also am exclusive bonus track, that's not on the cd, and is only available HERE!
Until we have time to rewrite the review, and blather on endlessly about how much we love it, this short and sweet review will have to do:
In pretty much every respect, this sprawling new album from Black Moth Super Rainbow is overflowing with whimsy and trippy fun -- from the lengthy head-scratchin' song titles to the color-drenched cover art to the Bruce Haack-y vocoded vocals to the breezy ten-speed rollerskate synthesizer'd funkiness. Imagine if Black Dice or the Flaming Lips took a swing at electro and new wave, and your brain might go into a delirious tizzy with the delightful chew of Dandelion Gum.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! We only got 15. Already out of print, so sorry, these will probably go crazy quick...
MPEG Stream: "Jump Into My Mouth And Breathe The Stardust"
MPEG Stream: "Neon Syrup for the Cemetery Sisters"

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER For The Sickly Weaklings (Gnarled Forest) lp 11.98
Latest slab of aural sickness from these Northwestern miscreants, whose love-it-or-hate-it monicker is actually not a bad barometer of what is to be found within the grooves. Sure, if you took Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, and melted it down into some thick ooze, you'd be close to the murky dirgey buzz of BSBC, but you'd probably have to add a heap of Wolf Eyes, Whitehouse, a pinch of SUNNO))), and a dumptruck or two full of downtuned guitars and melted down Marshalls.
This is easily the harshest and heaviest thing we've heard from these guys, bordering on some sort of full on doom sludge, with huge roiling waves of crumbling blown out distortion, shrieking feedback, all over a massive industrial pummel, wrapped in dense swirling clouds of white noise and being pelted by jagged bolts of buzzing crunch. There's even some super abstract, but almost-metal riffing drifting around in the murk, the whole thing eventually collapsing into total needle destroying chaos. And that's just the first side.
The B side is less dense, and less overtly heavy, but just as intense and brutal. A black sonic something shot through with super distorted howled vocals, grinding metallic buzz, sheets of blown out guitar blurred into burnt out blackened drones. Wolf Eyes better up their game, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer are definitely angling for the underground black drone doom throne.

BOSMANN, KARL Eskalation (You Don't Have To Call It Music) lp 38.00
We almost didn't list this, as we only managed to get 5 copies of it, and all of our distributors told us it was out of print. But just for the heck of it, we contacted the label directly, and they still had a stash that they were willing to sell us, which is a good thing, cuz it's amazing! And it's CRAZY expensive, but when you see it (and hear it) you'll realize it's pretty much well worth it.
Never heard the name Karl Bosmann before, but he seems to be sonically aligned with the doomdreamdeathdrone crowd. And that's precisely what this is, although a bit more varied than usual, this one's definitely for the SUNNO)))-set (ummŠ sorry), a huge old chunk of low end drone. Multiple variations on the glacial near static crawl, some glimmering and effervescent, others grinding and thick, crumbling and abrasive, at least one seems to be all processed vocals, looped and smeared into some weird Steve Reich-ian drone and coupled with a wash of minimal low end shimmer, and one is all detuned guitar strum and disembodied buzz. Easy to hear some Wolf Eyes and definitely some Vulture Club. All of side 2 is a single slow burning sidelong epic, very Fear Falls Burning sounding, beginning as a whispery shimmer, building to a massive clamorous Sunroof! style din.
And let's not forget the packaging. Holy shit, it would be worth it even if the record sucked. Embossed metallic silver on matte black jacket, inside a metallic silver on black insert, a metallic silver on black sleeve, even the record labels are reflective silver, super striking and SO worth the extra scratch.

CAVE Hunt Like Devil (Permanent Records) lp+cd 13.98
REPRESSED AND BACK IN STOCK! This Record Of The Week from list 286 proved to be super popular, deservedly so. And thus the first pressing diappeared in no time. So if you didn't get one yet, now you've got another chance!
At first glance, it might be difficult to know what this record is all about. The sleeve is just a photo of trees and leaves, a dense overgrown forest. Pull out the cd, that too is cryptic, just some random letters on the disc, the sleeve, an old crinkled photo from some seventies porn mag of a topless cowgirl with a gun in her mouth. There's an insert, with a bunch of strange shapes, the word CAVE right at the top. But we know what it is. We've been waiting for this disc for ages. The debut recording from, wait for it... CAVE! Who just so happen to be the spacerock krautrock dronerock riff heavy jam band side project of one Warhammer 48K, who were already spacey and krauty and droney to begin with, so needless to say this is some seriously kick ass, aQ freakout worthy shit.
For the attention span impaired, howabout some Hawkwind, Can, Circle, Lightning Bolt, Pharaoh Overlord? Sounds good huh? Well, it's easy to hear bits and pieces of all of those bands in the sound of Cave, a dual drummer-ed riff heavy psych rock, that takes single riffs and hammers at them, pounding and pummeling, repetitive and mesmerizing, a sort of kraut flecked hypnorock, but with all sorts of strange twists and turns, bizarre arrangements, baffling breakdowns, but woven into longform jams that should have anyone into the above mentioned bands frothing at the mouth.
The opening track is a gorgeous little tangle of minor key melodies, looped and repeated, over a tense distant drone, thick swaths of keyboard whir over soft tangles of acoustic guitar and space-y backwards guitar swoops, but then the opening riff of the second track kicks in, and it's all fuzzy and feral, the greatest riff Pharoah Overlord never wrote, and they just hang on it, way longer than any normal band would, FOREVER, before the drums kick in, and they're off, a relentless and hooky groove, with brief blasts of super dynamic chaos, before slipping right back into it. Keyboards lay still more hypnotic melodies over the top, vocals, when there are any, are shouted way down in the mix, or are wordless falsetto la-la-la's, adding more texture and sonic complexity than anything. The dual drummers mix it up spitting out occasional tribal squalls, sometimes thick swirls of staticky fuzz wash over the proceedings, but their propulsive fortitude never falters. The first two tracks would almost be enough. Nearly 12 minutes of heavy freaked out space jam nirvana. You can practically feel the walls heaving and the sweat dripping through the speakers. You'll probably need a lie down afterwards. But there's no time, cuz hell, there's 6 more tracks to dig through. The sound is punk rock, lo-fi, but lush and epic, damaged and delirious, like garage rockers raised on Magma and Faust, there's plenty of Neu! in there, Stereolab too then, but it's way heavier than that, the guitars crunchy and thick, occasionally opening up into wailing psychrock blowouts, the drums getting more and more distorted and frenzied. Imagine an amphetamine fueled Circle or Can, but via the basement, the sound a sweat soaked drug drenched mostly instrumental kraut groove
Mathy, murky, like the fucked up younger brother of Yes, a Neanderthal krautrock, laced with awesome grinding space rock riffage, blown out squalls of ur-psych, flurries of percussive splatter, chanting cult vocals, bits of what the fuck vocoder (!), but for all the weirdness, the core sound of Cave is THE RIFF. Whether it's a warbly synth, or a superdistorted guitar, or tra-la-la vocals, they all align themselves with that riff, the mission, to entrance, to ensorcel, a heaving, pulsing, throbbing mass, the sound magnetic and irresistible. Endless jams that aren't really, but feel like they should be. Like they are anyway. Transcending the laws of time and space, dragging us kicking and screaming, bouncing and bobbing, into some blissed out basement at the end of the universe, where we subsist of nothing but riffs, drums and FX. We never want to leave.
Killer packaging, it's an lp AND a cd, same music on both, fold over full color sleeve, full color one sided cd sleeve (all described above) and a full color thick cardstock insert. And of course, limited, only 500 copies!
MPEG Stream: "HLD 2"
MPEG Stream: "Hunt Like Devil"
MPEG Stream: "Seans Inner Ear"

CAVITY Laid Insignificant (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
They just don't make bands like Florida's Cavity anymore. Or I guess maybe they do, but now they just make 5 or six bands out of the ingredients that made up Cavity back in the day. Not to sound like an old man, but these days most bands have 'A SOUND' and they stick to it. Cavity on the other hand were pretty tough to pigeonhole. Sure they were heavy. And they were metal. But also punk. Sorta grindy too. They tended toward the sludge-y end of the sonic spectrum, but in the middle of some sub Sabbath dirge they'd explode into a furious thrashing grind only to immediately slow back down to some impossibly glacial Khanate like crawl, complete with tortured shrieks, and buzzing droneguitar.
This record, originally recorded way back in 1997, sounds as fresh as it did a decade ago. Someone joked recently that super hyped duo No Age were punk rock for people who had never heard punk rock before. Which is not entirely fair to No Age as they are an awesome band, but there is some truth to the fact that lots of bands these days borrow pretty heavily from the past, without a lot of fans realizing it. No Age are kick ass and wild and fun, but they're not necessarily reinventing the wheel. That's also true with a lot of heavy bands these days. If Cavity were bunch of kids and Laid Insignificant was a super limited cd-r, or a one sided etched 12", labels would be lined up around the block to put something out by these guys, kids would be losing their shit. But just because this record is ten years old is no reason they still shouldn't. This is epic mindblowing heaviness. Furious and freaked out, sweaty and brutal and visceral. Elsewhere on this list Allan talks about Vincent Black Shadow in terms of sheer blown out sweat soaked pure rock and roll power. The same could be said about these guys, just leaning a little more toward the extreme side of the sonic spectrum. Back in the day, no band could touch Cavity live OR on record, and listening to them again, it seems like nothing has changed. The guitars are massive, the riffs incredible, heavy and melodic and thick as shit, the drums HUGE and pummeling, the songs super catchy, even when they're all tangled into buzzing blasts, or sprawled out in huge black oozing pools, the hooks remain intact. And vocalist Rene Barge has the wickedest raspy howl this side of Eyehategod. About as EMO as that kind of voice can get. Which also keeps these songs from turning into wanky riff fests. These are SONGS, dark and dense, complex and hypnotic, groovy and crushing, utterly headbangable for sure, certain to fill a pit in the blink of an eye, but at the same time, musical enough to be serious headphone bliss for the hard and heavy.
Not sure what else to say. These guys ruled. And still rule. This just proves it all over again.
MPEG Stream: "Laid Insignificant"
MPEG Stream: "The Woods"
MPEG Stream: "9 Fingers On The Spider"

COLTRANE, JOHN Africa / Brass (Impulse) cd 12.98
This was Coltrane's debut for the new Impulse label in 1961 and what a first impression! His quartet at the time: McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones, were backed by a large brass orchestra conducted by Eric Dolphy (though there has been conflicting reports over the years that actually give more credit for the orchestration to Tyner). The 16 minute opener "Africa" is one of Coltrane's most masterful compositions (and that's saying a lot!). It features two basses with Art Davis joining Reggie Workman as Coltrane wanted to create a piece using African rhythms instead of 4/4 or 3/4, so he spent lots of time listening to African music for rhythmic inspiration and came up with something that forty years later still sounds so damn soulful and pleasing.
While we sometimes dig all the bonus tracks that come on reissues, it often can get a bit tiresome so we're actually glad this was reissued just as the original album was released with just three songs, a short sharp 30 minutes of true musical genius.
MPEG Stream: "Africa"
MPEG Stream: "Greensleeves"

COPE, JULIAN Japrocksampler (Bloomsbury) book 30.00
FINALLY! REPRINTED AND BACK IN STOCK!
One of the best album covers ever, for the Flower Travellin' Band's 1970 debut LP Anywhere, a photo of that band as naked Japanese hippy freak outlaw bikers ridin' free, adorns the cover of this book. Good choice! If that doesn't look cool to you, you don't need this volume. If it does, then queue up! The subtitle: "How The Post-War Japanese Blew Their Minds On Rock 'N' Roll" is perfectly illustrated by that cover picture.
Let's back up, though. British author Julian Cope, originally best-known as something of a rock star (with The Teardrop Explodes in the '80s and his subsequent solo career) has also long been entertaining and informing us all as a writer, an expert on the heavy and the ancient: both the stone circles of Megalithic Europe, and the stoned rock n' roll of the psychedelic/progressive variety, yesterday and today. His happenin' website, Head Heritage (www.headheritage.co.uk) should be bookmarked by everyone who looks at OUR site. Way back when, over a decade ago, Julian Cope published a slim little paperback volume called the Krautrocksampler, one fan's obsessive, opinionated look back at the wondrous krautrock scene of the '70s. If you've got one, you're lucky, they're out of print and hard to come by these days, going for $$$ on eBay (er, anyone with a spare copy, please contact Allan at the store, he foolishly never bought it when we used to sell 'em and has regretted it ever since, maybe we can work out a deal...). Another reason to pick up this new Japrocksampler while you can!
It's about the same approximate dimensions as the Krautrocksampler, but thicker (over 300 pages!) and hardcover, with color plates depicting various rare album covers in the center of the book, and black and white graphics throughout. Nicely done, the paper stock and binding bringing back memories of a particular type of book we used to have in school.
And, as you have probably figured out, it's the Japanese '70s rock companion to Cope's krautrock treatise. But because the Japanese underground music scene of the same era is comparatively a lot more obscure over here in the West, Cope had to do a lot more in-depth research to give us all a real history lesson, starting off all the way back in the aftermath of WWII. Moving forward, he devotes much attention to the experimental composers of the sixties, like Toshi Ichiyanagi, and (for a time) his wife, Yoko Ono. All sorts of radical "actions" and conceptual sound art get their due. Other early chapters include include investigations of the homegrown "Eleki" scene (Japanese surf music, sort of) and the "Group Sounds" phenomenon (Japan's reaction to the British Invasion). Then Heavy Rock hits, with freaks and festivals, and Cope digs with utmost detail into the behind-the-music stories of such artists as cover stars Flower Travellin Band, Speed, Glue & Shinki, and, perhaps most crucially ('cause they're so mysterious and influential), Les Rallizes Denudes. In all cases, he reveals lots of stuff we didn't know. Regarding Les Rallizes, ferinstance, apparently their original bass player was involved in a JAL jetliner highjacking back in 1970, which lead to innocent Rallizes leader Takeshi Mizutani being trailed by CIA agents, which may help explain his legendary reclusiveness!
The Japrocksampler also provides plenty of info about important intersection between the avant-garde theater scene and rock n' roll in the early '70s, with a chapter on the brilliant J.A. Caesar. There's also pages and pages on the Taj Mahal Travellers, Far East Family Band, the Tokyo Kid Brothers, and much much more. It's exhaustive, impressively connecting all kinds of dots. Probably equally obsessed fanboys will have facts to check and nits to pick (we're thinking of our pal JW in particular) but really, where else are you gonna find all this info in English?? And so entertainingly written? Nowhere. Anyone who's read the Krautrocksampler, or visited Head Heritage, knows that Cope's got a knack for writing that's both enthused and erudite, a bit like Lester Bangs with footnotes. You don't even really have to know (or have heard) what he's talking about to fall under his spell, which is helpful 'cause the one big drawback to reading the Japrocksampler is the frustration most folks are gonna have trying to track down and listen to a lot of the music being discussed. We do our best to stock a good selection of '70s Japanese psych/prog/experimental reissues, whatever we can get by bands like the Taj Mahal Travellers and Flower Travellin' Band, but even we had to cry when looking over the section of the book devoted to lengthy reviews of Cope's top 50 favorite Japrock albums. Some we've got, others... someday we hope! Maybe this book will spur some more reissue action.
Can't come up with too many criticisms, other than that he slams some records we like (Foodbrain!), seemingly omits Flied Egg, and we guess we're not sure exactly how politically correct the term "Japrock" is, though it's not any worse than saying "krautrock" when you think about it...
Basically, this is a fascinating read for anyone curious about the effects of rock n' roll on the artsy underbelly of an "alien" culture. A must have if you're already into this stuff, of course, but also totally recommended if you're just a little bit curious about this "secret history" 'cause of being exposed to all the wild, freaky sounds currently being made in Japan by bands like the Boredoms, Boris, and Acid Mothers Temple.

CREBAIN / LEVIATHAN split (Anti-Xtian Terror) lp 16.98
FINAL PRESSING OF THIS ESSENTIAL SLAB OF BLACK METAL VINYL!! As before, limited like crazy, we got a bunch, but can't promise how long these will be around...
Originally released on Andee's tUMULt label in a limited run of 666 copies (of course), this grim blast of West Coast Black Metal is now available once more on vinyl! USBM heavyweights Leviathan and Crebain each offer up some of their best and blackest material (and in the case of Crebain, still some of his ONLY material, the only other releases being the demo reissued by tUMULt)
As you might have guessed, this is still incredibly limited of course, only 500 copies pressed, and as with other super limited stuff like this, only one per customer please...
The black cloud over sunny California grows and grows, with each addition to its dark army and each new missive from one of its elite! Black metal has found a strong foothold in this unlikely location. Xasthur, Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain and a small dark likeminded legion lurk in the shadows, far away from the fun and the sun, unleashing some of the most raw and uncompromising black metal we've ever heard.
AQ pal Wrest and his genius one man avant black metal outfit Leviathan returns with what may quite possibly be his best, most intensely weird material to date. We just can't get enough of his dark and violent, totally skewed take on grim frosty black metal. And for this release he teams up with relative newcomer Ancalagon The Black and his outfit Crebain. Not quite as weird as Leviathan, Crebain channels his darkness through a more thrashing Darkthrone/Mutiilation style.
On this split, Wrest takes his ultra distorted inhuman vocals, pummelling hyperspeed blasts, and violent riffery to a whole 'nother dimension, and moves even further away from his contemporaries, both in terms of sound and concept. There are certain sonic similarities for sure, but Leviathan has such a personal and undiluted take on the black sounds that so obviously flow through is veins. For every blast beat and every buzzing riff, there's some stuttery, fucked up breakdown, or extended blissed out ambient soundscape, or rhythmic mathrock workout, or strummy clean guitar jangle, or weird production with all sorts of glitches and strange sounds. The ambient parts here are definitely some of the most beautifully creepy we've ever heard, from a metal band or otherwise. And the metal, well, by now you should know few can touch Leviathan when it comes to black metal brilliance. And the thing is, Wrest doesn't think any of this is weird. He just makes the sounds he hears in his head, and they sound right to him. And they are right, but in such a beautifully weird way. His half of the split ends with a straight ahead and super necro cover of cult early '90s San Francisco metallers Von's "Blood Angel." Nice.
The other half of this is Crebain's first official release, having previously only released a super limited cd-r demo last year, and it's just as good as that demo led us to hope. This is as raw and buzzing and blazing as it gets. Where Wrest is a master of arranging, creating moods and ambience, Ancalagon is a master of the riff. An unbelievably good guitarist, these riffs are lightning fast and swarm into your ears like a plague of locusts. Thrashing and chaotic, Crebain is a furious no-nonsense metallic onslaught. Programmed drums allow the rhythms to keep up with the madness inducing riffery. Occasionally things slow down to midtempo, and then it becomes quite obvious that Crebain is actually writing catchy songs, not just an insane series of parts. Melodies and almost-groovy riffs propel loping hypnotic dirges towards their eventual obliteration via hyperspeed blasts and that blurry Crebain riffery. Fucking great.
This split is another nail in the coffin containing the corpses of the Nordic metal elite, as black metal's California contingent threatens to thaw their frosty corpses with the soul shearing rays of its black sun!
Gorgeously packaged in a super deluxe gatefold sleeve, with all new artwork, pressed on nice thick vinyl, with both Leviathan and Crebain getting their own slab of BLACK BLACK vinyl. AWESOME!
MPEG Stream: CREBAIN "Retribution"
MPEG Stream: CREBAIN "The Burden Of My Despair"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Ruminating In Hatemagick"

EGYPT s/t (Lyderhorn) lp 14.98
How many bands can you name from Fargo, North Dakota? None. That's the number we came up with. Ever hear of the stoner doom outfit Egypt? We hadn't either.
But this here 4 song mini lp will change all that.
This short lived band hailed from North Dakota, and only managed to commit to tape these 4 tracks, but doomlords and stoner rock freeks will definitely wish there was more where these came from. Lurching doomic slow and low, heavy on the bass, heavy on everything really, but the songs were pretty reliant on thick bass grooves and the pounding drums, lazy sunbaked Kyuss-y riffs were then draped over the top, plenty of wah guitar, and wailed, SUNG not screamed vocals, that were also reminiscent of the late great Kyuss.
This is not funeral doom, or ultra doom, this is groovy stoner doom, classic metal filtered through the sound of old school doom. Sabbath, Pentagram, that sort of thing, heaped with some Kyuss, left out in the desert to bake, doused in LSD, just enough to give it a slightly psychedelic vibe, and let loose. Most of the songs slink along for ages, growling and simmering, slithering darkly, all low end groove, before exploding into furious space rock freakouts, wicked wah guitar solos, thick crunchy rhythms and those impassioned FX soaked vocals. The label suggests that Egypt will appeal to fans of Sleep, Sir Lord Baltimore and Deep Purple, which is definitely true, but expand that to include anyone into classic metal, fuzzy psych rock, and heavy doom metal. And again, fans of Kyuss, and THAT sound, will eat this up.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Mastered By James Plotkin. Amazing eye popping packaging, super thick gatefold sleeve, black and white on the outside, full color and psychedelic on the inside, printed with a spot varnish, super super striking.

ENCOMIAST Bathed In Sunlight (Crucial Bliss) cd-r 8.98
What to say about this guy that we haven't already. A long time aQ fave, every one of his records an absolute drone bliss gem. That's really the most difficult part of this job a lot of the time. First time out, a band's debut, it's easy to gush and get all poetic describing a band's sound, even with the second record, we're usually able to come at it from a different angle, to further describe the sound in a way that conveys what we're hearing through words. But after that, it gets a little rough, especially with a band whose sound remains fairly consistent. On the one hand, we could just say, "it's awesome, buy it", and that's all folks will really need if they're already a fan, but with every release, there are always a few more folks who are discovering a band for the first time, and their discovery is as valid as that of the folks who got the first super limited long out of print cd years back. And thankfully, most of the bands worth listening to record after record, do in fact alter their sound a bit, growing, progressing, exploring, Encomiast are no different.
Thus we have the latest from one man dronescaper Encomiast, on Crucial Bliss, the, uh, blissier sublabel of the more heavy oriented Crucial BlastŠ
From the first few notes, we're transported to some swirling sonic nether region, where everything is slightly out of focus, blurred around the edges, lit from within, sun dappled and misted with glistening dew, warm whirling washes of sound drift weightless, voices are pulled apart into their constituent parts and allowed to float freely through the ether, swirling and realigning themselves into dreamlike melodies, in fact the overall sound of Encomiast is so very dreamlike. Fans of Kompakt's Pop Ambient sound will probably wonder why they haven't heard this guy on one of those comps. The sound is appropriately breathy and blissy, soothing and serene, the opening track is the perfect soundtrack for somnolent drift. The second track is another bit of low end shimmer, but introduces some Eastern sounding percussion, tablas maybe, but very minimal and spare, spread out over a creeping doom chord progression, laced with swirling steel string guitar, gorgeously moody and dramatic.
The next track too, offers up minimal percussion, and some minor key steel string guitar, which instead of sprawling into some sort of moody ambience, takes the shape of some super abstract folk, lilting vocals way down in the mix, the melody sorrowful and melancholy, there's even some fluttering flute. The second to last track returns to more familiar Encomiast ground, a billowing dronescape of metallic shimmer, a sea of softly reverberating gongs, cymbals, and other chimes and bells, smoother out into long drawn out tones, and woven into what sounds like soft voices and whirring organs. Quite lovely.
The biggest surprise is probably the closing track, which begins with soft strummed acoustic guitar, crooned vocals, what sounds like strings in the background, until about the last two minutes, when the drums kick in, some distorted guitars swoop in, and the track is transformed into a slightly metallic soaring shoegazey coda before drifting off again in a fading cloud of processed cymbals and tribal percussion.
Gorgeously packaged like all Crucial Bliss releases, a full color two panel sleeve, the front panel folded over like an obi, revealing the full color, hand sewn sleeve inside, as well as a full color two sided insert with liner notes. And as always, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
MPEG Stream: "Pumpkin"
MPEG Stream: "If The Night Commands It"

FAIRPORT CONVENTION Unhalfbricking (Water) cd 15.98
The first four Fairport Convention albums are cannon, no doubt about it. But while many may disagree with the inclusion of the first album, the one before Sandy Denny joined, and their full on embrace of traditional folk material on the fourth, Leige and Lief, pretty much all Fairport fans can agree that their second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, and third, Unhalfbricking are their very best. Thankfully Water has reissued both.
Unhalfbricking? What the hell does that mean? Perhaps the title was alluding to the transitional shedding of American rock elements that had featured more prominently on their first two records and laying the foundation towards redefining a traditional British sound. Sure there are still Dylan covers, in fact three of them, but the exiting of Ian Matthews brought in another Fairport stalwart, fiddler Dave Swarbrick which tipped the balance musically towards classic British folk. And what's more British than this cover? We think that's Sandy Denny's parents. So awesome! Of course, strong songwriting doesn't hurt, and Sandy Denny contributes her most famous song, "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" and the equally haunting "Autopsy". But the finest moment of the album (and prescient of their future sound) goes to the eleven minute take on the traditional tune, "A Sailor's Life". Rumor has it, that they recorded this song in a single take because Denny, suffering from a cold, didn't think she could sing it more than once (though she wouldn't stop smoking). It's definitely the band at their peak and one of the finest recordings they made. Unfortunately, as we mentioned in the "What We Did On Our Holidays" review, the band was cursed and this was the last record for teenage drummer, Martin Lamble, who died in a freak accident involving the band's van. This cemented their future foray towards traditional material as the band refused to play live any of the music that they previously recorded with Lamble. But it's the air of that legendary rock curse (which would also tragically claim Sandy Denny, eight years later) that gives the early music of Fairport Convention it's mysteriously bewitching and dark edge. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Autopsy"
MPEG Stream: "A Sailor's Life"
MPEG Stream: "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"

FAIRPORT CONVENTION What We Did On Our Holidays (Water) cd 15.98
The first four Fairport Convention albums are cannon, no doubt about it. But while many may disagree with the inclusion of the first album, the one before Sandy Denny joined, and their full on embracement of traditional folk material on the fourth, Leige and Lief, pretty much all Fairport fans can agree that their second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, and third, Unhalfbricking are their very best. Thankfully Water has reissued both.
What We Did On Our Holidays is our definite favorite. If there were one classic British folk-rock record we could recommend, it would be this one, mainly because it's so unclassic sounding. Here is the band at their most adventurous and unsettled, moving into different territory with each song. Mixing covers of American songwriters Joni Mitchell and Dylan with a wide array of original numbers and spirited takes on traditional material, we're taken through a trip of lively blues stomps, eastern mysticism, ghostly ballads and the best pairing of male and female vocal harmonies from Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny. Fairport Convention had the blessing of being made up of many other talented songwriters and musicians as well, including Richard Thompson, Martin Lamble, Simon Nicol, and Ashley Hutchings, but they were forever cursed by never having the same line-up twice on any of their records. While replacing former co-lead singer Judy Dyble (Giles, Giles and Fripp, Trader Horne) with Sandy Denny definitely upped their musical profile, this was sadly the last record for Ian Matthews. He went on to found Matthew's Southern Comfort and then later pursue his own solo work, but it just wasn't on the same par as his work on the first two Fairport albums. This is arguably the best line-up they had which makes for our highest recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "Book Song"
MPEG Stream: "Tales In Hard Time"
MPEG Stream: "She Moves Through The Fair"

FUCK BUTTONS Street Horrrsing ( ATP) cd 15.98
Fuck Buttons? Please just ignore the name for a moment. We're glad WE did, and actually gave this band a listen... 'cause, fuck if they don't push our buttons. The pleasure ones, big fat buttons labeled massive super distorted heavy electronic drone fuzz pop damage. Really we were surprised, though maybe the colorful cover artwork that kinda makes this look like a Black Dice record should have been an indication that this Bristol UK duo was gonna be cool, despite their name. They're energetically exotic and hypnotically repetitive and just chock full of sheer noise fuzz bliss, bulldozering over buried melodies, tribal weirdness, and equally distorted screaming vocals, though this is mostly an instrumental, rhythmic throb. These six fairly lengthy songs wrap the listener's ears in a multihued steel wool blanket of abrasive warmth, made from such shimmering sonic elements as ambient piano, motorik machine beats, and thick spaced out synth. And just when you think it's already pretty darn fuzzed out, they flip a switch or step on a pedal or something and then the REAL fuzz kicks in.
Definitely for fans of Growing at their most SUNNO)))-y. Also we might say this sounds like Vulture Club doing the vacuuming over at Gang Gang Dance's house, playing Jesu and M83 albums real loud while they do so. A beautiful blend of noise and drone and bright shining eternal pop loveliness...
The very first track, "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" might be our favorite though we're crushed out on the whole album. But this song really sums it up, it IS the album the way the first song on the Mammal's Lonesome Drifter WAS that Mammal album too. This track has got the pretty, ringing piano part to start with, gloriously building up into the choppy fuzzed out throb we soon learn is Fuck Button's modus operandi. Damn this is good -- and there's even vocals amidst this heavenly buzz that sound like they could come off some cvlt black metal album.
So yeah Fuck Buttons, cool band, dunno about the name. Seems like Fuck is the new Super or Jesus or Black, as bandnaming trends go. There's been The Fucking Champs, Fuck I'm Dead, and of course, Fuck. But more recently, bands named Fucked Up, Holy Fuck, and now Fuck Buttons have made the scene... always hilarious when they get popular enough to be played on the radio or mentioned in the mainstream press. Not so hilarious when spam filters prevent AQ list subscribers from getting emails with our reviews. But whatever, we swear a lot ourselves anyway, sorry about that. Anyway, fucking recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Love For Planet Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Bright Tomorrow"

FUCK BUTTONS Street Horrrsing ( ATP) lp 15.98
Fuck Buttons? Please just ignore the name for a moment. We're glad WE did, and actually gave this band a listen... 'cause, fuck if they don't push our buttons. The pleasure ones, big fat buttons labeled massive super distorted heavy electronic drone fuzz pop damage. Really we were surprised, though maybe the colorful cover artwork that kinda makes this look like a Black Dice record should have been an indication that this Bristol UK duo was gonna be cool, despite their name. They're energetically exotic and hypnotically repetitive and just chock full of sheer noise fuzz bliss, bulldozering over buried melodies, tribal weirdness, and equally distorted screaming vocals, though this is mostly an instrumental, rhythmic throb. These six fairly lengthy songs wrap the listener's ears in a multihued steel wool blanket of abrasive warmth, made from such shimmering sonic elements as ambient piano, motorik machine beats, and thick spaced out synth. And just when you think it's already pretty darn fuzzed out, they flip a switch or step on a pedal or something and then the REAL fuzz kicks in.
Definitely for fans of Growing at their most SUNNO)))-y. Also we might say this sounds like Vulture Club doing the vacuuming over at Gang Gang Dance's house, playing Jesu and M83 albums real loud while they do so. A beautiful blend of noise and drone and bright shining eternal pop loveliness...
The very first track, "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" might be our favorite though we're crushed out on the whole album. But this song really sums it up, it IS the album the way the first song on the Mammal's Lonesome Drifter WAS that Mammal album too. This track has got the pretty, ringing piano part to start with, gloriously building up into the choppy fuzzed out throb we soon learn is Fuck Button's modus operandi. Damn this is good -- and there's even vocals amidst this heavenly buzz that sound like they could come off some cvlt black metal album.
So yeah Fuck Buttons, cool band, dunno about the name. Seems like Fuck is the new Super or Jesus or Black, as bandnaming trends go. There's been The Fucking Champs, Fuck I'm Dead, and of course, Fuck. But more recently, bands named Fucked Up, Holy Fuck, and now Fuck Buttons have made the scene... always hilarious when they get popular enough to be played on the radio or mentioned in the mainstream press. Not so hilarious when spam filters prevent AQ list subscribers from getting emails with our reviews. But whatever, we swear a lot ourselves anyway, sorry about that. Anyway, fucking recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Love For Planet Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Bright Tomorrow"

GANG WIZARD Live In Paris (Abandon Ship) 3"cd-r 4.50
Latest from these fucked up noise makers. A sort of collective, every record a brain melting brew of whooped howling vocals, angular distorted guitars and chaotic percussion, this live set no different. 18 minutes but with about twice that crammed in somehow. Dense and destructive, a screaming whirling skree filled fury.
It's not hard to imagine a stage full of squirming sweaty bodies, judging from the crowd sounds in the more minimal parts, it sounds like the folks on stage just might outnumber the folks in the crowd.
The drums are a stumbling tribal pound, the vocals shriek and howl, moan and wail, the guitars go from sheets of acidic buzz, to tangled, damaged lurch, feedback everywhere, impossible to tell if the shrieks are part of the music, or the crowd getting swept up in the band's pure joy and making such an intense and ear shredding racket. In the red, blown out, crumbling, damaged, distorted post-post-post punk verging on complete musical collapse. The band slip into serious grooves here and there, but never for long, always seeming to be barely holding it together, the band gleefully letting it fall to pieces, rolling around in the shattered song structures and fragmented melodies, only deigning to try and reel it all in if they feel the fuck like it, and thankfully they rarely do.
A gloriously chaotic and challenging free for all. Recommended for the iron eared and and the noise obsessed.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Package in full color two sided mini dvd style sleeve.

HARDWICK, GARETH Waiting For The Penny To Drop (Install) cd-r 13.98
The last we heard from Gareth Hardwick, and actually also the first we heard, was on a collaborative lp with long time aQ fave Machinefabriek (we have a few copies left, see elsewhere on the aQ site), the two made for a good combination, each offering up their own take on modern minimalism and abstract dronemusic.
But in that context, with two sonically like minded composers, it was difficult to figure out who was bringing what to the sound of that record.
So this is the first glimpse we've gotten of Hardwick solo and we're quite smitten. Two loooong tracks, both recorded live in 2007, both quite beautiful and sublime. The first is a pure, barely shifting drone, at least initially, very Niblock like, but focusing more on the purity of the tones instead of how they interact. Deep slow motion swells, the tones warm and glowing, rich and lush, but simple and streamlined. The track shifts here and there, the tones shifting subtly, some stretches sounding almost chordal, others so simple and quiet, the tones seem to be drifting through a vacuum. Near the end, streks of high end are draped over the warm languid swells, offering up a brief subtle counterpoint, adding a bit of soft tension.
The second track is similarly structured, but the tones sound more like notes coaxed from a guitar and allowed to drift lazily, ring out almost endlessly, stretched and smeared into deep soft blurs, again toward the end, the various tones seem to come together into chords and the sound becomes gently lush and sun dappled, dreamy and soft focus before fading out completely.
So so lovely. Fans of muted, minimal drone music, Coleclough, Chalk, Murray and the like, should definitely explore the sounds of Gareth Hardwick, and folks into the hazy drift of Pop Ambient style shimmer, might just dig this more minimal take on that sound as well.
Fantastic packaging too. A printed full color cd-r, housed in a plain black sleeve, with a full color textured plastic transparent insert, slightly longer than the sleeve so the transparent top edge sticks out.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Cambridge, 14th November 2007"
MPEG Stream: "Vidreres, 13th April 2007"

HOPKINS, CLUTCHY Walking Sdrawkcab (Ubiquity) cd+dvd 16.98
Last list we featured a release by the mysterious Clutchy Hopkins, a hippie recluse who was the son of a Motown engineer, and who recorded these amazing instrumental jazz funk tracks sometime in the eighties or early nineties and then disappeared. Rumors have been circulating that this was actually an alias for DJ Shadow or Cut Chemist, as like Bigfoot, only a few people claim to have seen Clutchy Hopkins.
Well, Ubiquity, has released another batch of Clutchy tracks along with a dvd with clips from an unreleased documentary about this mysterious figure. Of course this does little to shed any light on whether this is fact or fiction or a little bit of both. According to the dvd, the tapes were found with a bunch of homemade and middle eastern instruments by a junk collector in Hawthorne, CA. The homemade instruments including a really cool flute wired up to a wah device, a modified electric kalimba, and a mini-electric organ were kept by the collector while the tapes were sold to a friend. Supposedly there were enough tapes to release ten albums, and they were shopped around to various places, and two full albums (including this one) were released. The rest of the tapes were allegedly stolen back and hidden by the junk collector who is now in prison somewhere in Southern California. Other testimonials come from a masked Mexican record collector who fought over the same record, a hippie lady in Venice Beach who lived with Clutchy for three months before he disappeared and a Seattle record store who has some grainy footage of someone believed to be Clutchy shopping. Meanwhile we learn from these testimonials that Clutchy was not only an amazing multi-instrumentalist, but an artist, visionary architect and spiritual philosopher as well. On paper, it sounds so absolutely far-fetched, yet most of the folks on the dvd actually seem quite genuine. So we're really confused. But like the last review, we're gonna stick with our gut and just wholeheartedly buy into this. Why, because the music is awesome for one, and this release also shines a light on another soul obscurity, Darondo, who guest vocals on a track. Whether Darondo recorded the song with Clutchy or was added in later is still a mystery, they didn't include him in the interviews. Recommended!
NB. the dvd portions of this review don't apply to the vinyl format...
MPEG Stream: "Sound Of The Ghost"
MPEG Stream: "Love Of A Woman (feat. Darondo)"
MPEG Stream: "Para Los Ninos"

HOPKINS, CLUTCHY Walking Sdrawkcab (Ubiquity) lp 22.00
Last list we featured a release by the mysterious Clutchy Hopkins, a hippie recluse who was the son of a Motown engineer, and who recorded these amazing instrumental jazz funk tracks sometime in the eighties or early nineties and then disappeared. Rumors have been circulating that this was actually an alias for DJ Shadow or Cut Chemist, as like Bigfoot, only a few people claim to have seen Clutchy Hopkins.
Well, Ubiquity, has released another batch of Clutchy tracks along with a dvd with clips from an unreleased documentary about this mysterious figure. Of course this does little to shed any light on whether this is fact or fiction or a little bit of both. According to the dvd, the tapes were found with a bunch of homemade and middle eastern instruments by a junk collector in Hawthorne, CA. The homemade instruments including a really cool flute wired up to a wah device, a modified electric kalimba, and a mini-electric organ were kept by the collector while the tapes were sold to a friend. Supposedly there were enough tapes to release ten albums, and they were shopped around to various places, and two full albums (including this one) were released. The rest of the tapes were allegedly stolen back and hidden by the junk collector who is now in prison somewhere in Southern California. Other testimonials come from a masked Mexican record collector who fought over the same record, a hippie lady in Venice Beach who lived with Clutchy for three months before he disappeared and a Seattle record store who has some grainy footage of someone believed to be Clutchy shopping. Meanwhile we learn from these testimonials that Clutchy was not only an amazing multi-instrumentalist, but an artist, visionary architect and spiritual philosopher as well. On paper, it sounds so absolutely far-fetched, yet most of the folks on the dvd actually seem quite genuine. So we're really confused. But like the last review, we're gonna stick with our gut and just wholeheartedly buy into this. Why, because the music is awesome for one, and this release also shines a light on another soul obscurity, Darondo, who guest vocals on a track. Whether Darondo recorded the song with Clutchy or was added in later is still a mystery, they didn't include him in the interviews. Recommended!
NB. the dvd portions of this review don't apply to the vinyl format...
MPEG Stream: "Sound Of The Ghost"
MPEG Stream: "Love Of A Woman (feat. Darondo)"
MPEG Stream: "Para Los Ninos"

ILLUSION OF SAFETY Sedation & Quell (C.I.P.) 10" 11.98
Just a few weeks ago, we openly wondered where Illusion Of Safety had been for the past few years. Well, it turns out that Dan Burke (the principal director of the ensemble at the moment) has entered a renewed period of activity now that IoS is 25 years old. This milestone has not softened the psychologically dark currents of one of America's finest producers of post-industrial abstraction and silence-plus-noise sound construction. Sedation & Quell is the first of many releases slated for 2008, being a vinyl-only release pressed on translucent gold vinyl.
Sedation bristles with low end frequencies capable of delivering catatonic states. Vinyl crackling and warm swathes of radio hiss billow out of the deep deep deep dronings, and huge oceanic swells of growling frequencies offer a lethargic rhythm to this dark ambient opus. On Quell, a brusque crunch of electronic malfunction is followed by a steady hypnosis of rumbling drones which in turn are engulfed by a wash of hiss and white noise. While it's not the aggressiveness of Prurient or Merzbow that Illusion Of Safety is going for, there is a malevolent strain to this production, as if Machinefabriek were to gingerly steer towards power electronics ever so slightly. Very well done!

IRON BITCHFACE Pulse Pounding Cyberslam (Slut Factory) cd 8.98
Iron Bitchface. Some names just tell you all you need to know about a band. If your response to the words Iron Bitchface was "Umm, euuuw, whatever, ok, wellŠ" or something along those lines, then you might as well stop reading right now. But if you immediately thought "FUCK YEAH!" as you brushed your Misfits style devillock away from your corpsepainted face, your obsidian painted nails shining in the black light glow of your cave like domicile, and hitched up your leather biker pants, after lacing up huge Frankenstein boots, your be-spiked wrists and fishnet clad arms scarred from dancing wildly in the pit, whirling and thrashing on a very grim dancefloor.
Or if you're like us and just love you some fucked up freaked out synth drenched digital hardcore gabber-grind black metal. We reviewed a split release from Iron Bitchface ages ago, and ever since we had been waiting anxiously for this, their first proper non cd-r full length. If you got the other disc you know what's in store for you here, and you're probably DYING for more. If you've yet to experience the grinding glory of IB, you're in for a treat, that is if a treat for you is being pummeled by buzzing synths, programmed blast beats, howled vocals, Atari 2600 jams and furious riffing.
Long stretches of synthy ambience, Goblin-y haunted house soundtracks, all gloomy and proggy give way to garbled digital freakouts and soul shearing blasts of howling black metal, bits of 8-bit glitch pepper the tracks, sometimes becoming full on lo-fi old school techno jams, usually quickly turning back into grinding black buzz, but more often than not, all of those sounds at the same time, for a head spinning brilliantly confusional, heavy as fuck, weird as all get out black metal / techno / video game music hybrid.
Packaged in a mini dvd style clamshell sleeve with full color cover/insert.
MPEG Stream: "Push The Start Button"
MPEG Stream: "Text Bleeding"
MPEG Stream: "The Wizard Has Shot The Food"
MPEG Stream: "Game Over"

ISLAJA Blaze Mountain Recordings (Ecstatic Peace) cd 12.98
Islaja is pretty much our dreamdate... 'cause after all, doesn't the collective AQ personals ad state that we're really into Finnish forest freak folk? And gentle late night moodiness? And heartbreakingly beautiful, breathy vocals, sung in a language we don't understand? Droning yet melodic psychedelic soundscapes? Yep, we're swooning over here. We even think it's kinda cute that young miss Islaja (aka Merja Kokkonen) is flipping the bird on the album cover! But, we're a little jealous of the shirtless dude standing next to her, that must be her partner Jukka Raisanen, who along with Kokkonen herself plays the music heard here. We also have to contend with Thurston Moore (hey, he's a married man), who has stepped in to arrange Islaja's first domestic release on his Ecstatic Peace label, after three wonderful previous releases on the Finnish label Fonal that had us (and presumably Thurston) swooning when we all first heard 'em.
This new Islaja is just as good as any of those. Actually, Blaze Mountain Recordings is a live album, featuring versions of some songs originally found on Islaja's Fonal releases (like "Pete P" from Ulual Yyy), performed with perhaps even more intimate magic. This collection of songs is as dreamy and drowsy sounding as you'd expect, full of twilight melodies and chiming abstraction.... and sorta sounds like the Jewelled Antler folks on a dreamdate of their own with the lovely Islaja. Delicate and mopily relaxed, or sometimes dark and sinisterly nervous, always with the restraint of small sounds (some played on toy instruments?) that allow Islaja's singing (a bit Cat Power, a bit Bjork) to carry the day. Swoon swoon swoon, our hearts are yours Islaja.
MPEG Stream: "Emoa Ikava"
MPEG Stream: "Pete P"

JOLY, RENE Chimene (Magic) cd 19.98
One of our favorite reissues and new/old discoveries of last year was the passionate and powerful work of Gerard Manset. We immediately fell hard for his rich and textured songs which showed the more intense side of '60s and early '70s French Pop. So we were immediately intrigued by this collection of songs by Rene Joly when we saw that the orchestration was credited in part to Gerard Manset. But once we listened, it turned out to be Joly's voice that grabbed our attention right away. Full of drama, fire and beauty we couldn't believe that this was the first time his amazing voice had made it into our ears. It made us think of what Antony & The Johnsons might have sounded like if they were from France in 1970, or maybe Bryan Ferry doing Edith Piaf covers.
Even some of our friends who grew up in France had not heard of Joly so we don't feel quite as bad for not hearing him until now. How glad we are that this gem of French orchestral psychedelic pop has finally risen to the surface, brought to us by the same label that brought us the great Pop Made In France compilation highlighted last time. Prog fans will even want to check this out for the great King Crimson cover "La Cour Du Roi Musicien" (The Court Of The Crimson King). Majestic sounds filled with cinematic flair, and bubbling with grandeur and rich color. Joly's commanding voice sweeps us off our feet every time we listen. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Chimene"
MPEG Stream: "La Cour Du Roi Musicien"
MPEG Stream: "L'Amour Fut Doux"

MAUSOLEUMS, THE Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire (Chinese Workers Labor Union) cd-r 8.98
The long overdue return of aQ faves The Mausoleums, whose last record was a confusional swirl of grim black buzz and weird jangle pop, blown out bliss and thick dense noise. A record we fell in love with, on the recommendation of an aQ customer, long before we discovered that The Mausoleums was in fact a he, and not a they, and just so happened to be a beloved aQ mailorder customer!
For this second record, the Mausoleums seem to have turned down the buzz (just a bit) and turned up the pop. That's right. POP. Not that there wasn't pop all over the last Mausoleums disc I Am The Mausoleum, but the opening track on Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire, "Livelihood", is a gorgeous organ drenched slab of crunchy distorted shoegaze jangle. And we're not talking about the new wave of "metalgaze" that so many metal bands seem to be glomming onto, this is just glorious and resplendent and soaring, shimmering blisspop nirvana, the guitars jangly but washed out and fierce, the melodies sprawling and sun drenched, the sound crumbling and gloriously distorted. In fact, one song in and we're thinking it well worth the price of admission.
But it doesn't take long for the band to dip back into their other true love, the next track, "The One Who Sees", finds the band returning to a furious blackened buzz, howled vocals, pounding drums, insect like riffage, but even then, the sound is still rife with disembodied pop jangle and soaring guitar buzz, an impossible hybrid that sounds way better than it should. The next track is neither, instead a dense processed soundscape of soaring guitar feedback, little curlicues of buzzing melody, looped stuttering drums, dizzying minor key strum, all tangled up in a gloriously seasick hypnotic whirl.
"Thief" begins as straight up pop, like some super distorted Pavement outtake, or lost Sebadoh jam, all fuzzy jangle and simple propulsive drumming, until the vocals come in, a super distorted black metal shriek, bringing with it another layer of buzzing blown out distortion.
And so it goes for the rest of the record, careening from glorious shoegaze distortion drenched buzz pop, to in-the-red lo-fi black metal crunch, but with those two various sonic strains constantly bleeding and leeching into the other, resulting in the record's finest moments, the impossibly dense, epic, majestic guitar drone shoegaze blowout of "Old Woman In The Woods", impossibly heavy, yet gorgeously melodic at the same time, the strange distorted folky raga buzz of "His Reward", the frenetic ultra distorted surfy twang of "Skeletal" and finally the brief closer, "The Bees", a lovely chunk of overdriven steel string Appalachia that near the end explodes into a brief blown out buzz-drenched burst of looped digital fuzz.
Be warned, these are hand made, each and every one. And by hand made, we mean, made by hand, with scissors, and glue, and perhaps not a ruler anywhere in site. Each copy is different, most of them strangely fitted together, a paper gatefold, some slightly smaller than others, some seriously skewed, the color varied from copy to copy, some slightly wrinkled, some almost normal looking, others like maybe they were made as an arts and crafts project at a grade school. But heck, that just adds to the coolness, and makes each one TRULY unique. Cool cover image (but one that has been used before, several times, sadly) and a full color thick paper stapled insert. And probably limited as most things like this usually are...
MPEG Stream: "Livelihood"
MPEG Stream: "The One Who Sees"
MPEG Stream: "Fertile Depths"
MPEG Stream: "Thief"

MCCANN, SEAN Flutter Oasis (Digitalis) cassette 8.98
Another crazy limited cassette release. This one from a name we'd never heard before, Sean McCann, but judging from this tape, we'll definitely want to be hearing more.
The sound is super distorted and in-the-red, lo-fi and warbly, like it was recorded on some old thrift store tape on a busted up tape recorder, the guitar being the focal point, but rendered in numerous un-guitar-like sounds and setting, simple strums are distorted to the point of complete collapse, strange effects make the tape sound like it's skipping, vocals howl and croon, everything super washed out.
Some tracks are warm and whirring and warbly, almost old timey sounding, everything shimmery and dreamlike, circus like melodies, kitchen sink percussion, and a soft focus patina of fuzz and buzz and whir, the tape continually slowing to a crawl, or skipping and hiccupping like the stop and record buttons getting pushed, others are dense and chaotic, but with the same sort of sun dappled summer dreaminess, the distortion and the tape drop outs as much, if not more of, a part of the sound than the actual instruments.
Noisy, but that sort of soft noise, dreamy, but not sleepy, instead a sort of druggy bleary eyed drift, think lo-fi folk or pop, via Merzbow, filtered through Philip Jeck and Tim Hecker, recorded by Faxed Head, and played back on a Dictaphone with dying batteries plugged into a massive P.A. with blown speakers. So cool.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!! In beautiful silk screened sleeves, with a printed insert, each tape hand numbered.

MENACE RUINE Cult Of Ruins (Alien8) cd 15.98
What to make of a black metal band that has releases on both the Alien8 (Nadja, Merzbow, Acid Mothers Temple) and Tour De Garde (Ash Pool, Marblebog, Tomb Of..., Uno Actu) labels? That they're probably pretty weird? They are. And intense too. This is some sick stuff. Also beautiful, if you, like us, have fallen under the spell of this most extreme aesthetic, if you're someone whose eyes/imagination can scan the soot-blackend skies of an apocalyptic otherworld, and still spy flights of swans and stars beyond.
Menace Ruine, from the "frozen north" of Quebec, are the mysterious male/female duo of S. de La Moth and Genevieve. This James Plotkin-mastered Alien8 release is their debut album, after one demo (being reissued as a cassette on Tour De Garde). MR's original black metal art really made an immediate impression upon us despite how easily jaded we can be with the glut of black metal out there. It's the unholy layering of sometimes melodic feedback-sculpted ambient drone howl, with machine gun blasting... long stretches of atmospheric synth heavily infiltrated with sheer noise and distortion, scattered further with clanging industrial raw rhythms. There's almost 20th c. avant-garde moments of majesty, like some Romanian electronic composer gone insane in his or her sound laboratory, and others that with the occasional female vox bring to mind Wolves In The Throne Room wandering in another dimension. Or simply blaze with the burning black metal fires of not mere churches but whole civilizations.
For Alien8's first foray into the troo cvlt world of black metal, they couldn't have done much better, with a release that's indeed (oc)cult and true but also experimental, and not something that we've heard already a thousand times before, a rarity indeed! Fiercely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Process Of Bestialization"
MPEG Stream: "Sky As A Reversed Abyss"
MPEG Stream: "Bonded By Wyrd"

NEVER PRESENCE FOREVER / UNGEROMIMIZU split (Lyderhorn) 7" 4.50
Super bizarre 7" match up, that will have weirdo music freeks flipping out. Two bands, with essentially nothing in common, each exploring extreme and opposite ends of the sonic spectrum, both completely ruling. And in one case, completely baffling.
The A side is a band from Virginia called Never Presence Forever. Never heard of em? We hadn't either, but all it took was this brief 7" sampling to have us wanting to hear way more. We were sort of expecting some furious black metal, or damaged noise, but instead, NPF offer up some gorgeous creeping dark ambience, low rumbling strings, deep metallic reverberations, all mournful and melancholy, cinematic and haunting.
The flipside is a whole other something. A band, or a guy, called Ungeromimizu, whose sound is a sort of lo-fi black metal Whitehouse, a square wave damaged synth blown out psychnoise screamo, that is so intense and noisy and freaked out, we weren't sure if we were loving it or hating it. But it only took a few second for us