DARKSPACE III (Avantgarde) cd 15.98
There have been plenty of contenders so far for metal record of the year. The grim noise drenched buzz of Korean one man (boy) band Pyha, the fucked up almost industrial dramatic dirges of Urfaust, the freaked out flute flecked prog blackness of Quest For Blood, the blown out blacknoise of Nekrasov, Leviathan's latest (read: last) and greatest of course, Jumalhamara, Wrnlrd, Fen, Varghokarghasmal, Happy Days, Leaden, we could go on and on and on...
But the thing is, for any and all of those records to even be metal record of the year contenders, one simple requirement had to be met. That there was no new Darkspace record. And the fact that the long anticipated III was just released, means that all of those other records will have to settle for runner up status. Because the music of Darkspace is not just black metal, not just metal really, and in some ways not even simply music, Darkspace is in fact the sound of 'dark space', of vast black expanses, of collapsing suns and colliding galaxies, rendered in a black metal template, only insomuch as there are distorted guitars, harsh wailing vocals, and blasting drums, but even within a somewhat familiar framework, those parts become something alien in the hands of Darkspace, and are woven into epic black tapestries of sound, like ancient sonic maps, depicting the whole of the universe, all of creation, laid out before us in a series of super distorted noise drenched howling black blasts of drone and buzz.
The songs are long, and repetitive and hypnotic, so much so that they often seem to smooth out into pure drone, like staring at something until your vision blurs and the object is transformed into a series of streaks and smears, there are structures here, and parts, and melodies, but those basic elements are more often than not subsumed by furious roiling black clouds of buzz, a relentless blur that stretches into mesmerizing black shapes, the drums barely exist, if anything, they are the beast's bones barely visible through its skin, machinelike and industrial, rigid and dense, but wrapped in thick veils of rich thick blackness.
Synths are everywhere here too, but unlike most metal bands, Darkspace don't employ keyboards as delicate little melodic interludes, instead those swirling swaths are an essential part of the blackened soundscapes, adding soft swells of warm whir, or near static single note tension, adding a distinctly psychedelic vibe to the proceedings, like 1349 crossed with Tangerine Dream, but often bearing the brunt of the song's heft, relegating the buzzing guitar to a supporting role, but without losing any power or heaviness.
While most of the record is in fact spent droning relentlessly, one gloriously massive blown out ethereal blast of blurred buzz after another, when the band does shift gears, slowing things down into a sea sick chug, or a doomy pound, it only serves to sound that much more intense, but even then, when the band seems to be exploring something much more traditional, the chug and pound is routinely unfurling beneath a gauzy veil of swirling spaced out synths, peppered with glimmering star like harmonics, deep swoonsome swells, strange super effected guitar glimmer, most notably on the second half of "3.13" (all the songs are named numerically), an intense repetitive space math black groove that is as heavy and brutal as it is dizzying and ethereal, and the end of the final track "3.17", where for the first (and last) time, the band slows things down into much more traditional songform territory, a fingerpicked clean Slint style guitar melody, space-y synthesizers, simple understated drumming, a gorgeously melancholy and musical outro to a record that in its extreme and abstract beauty, up until the very last few moments, seemed to exist in a world entirely of its own invention.
As with all sounds transcendent, the magic here is ineffable, there is definitely some sort of musical alchemy going on. The sound of III is rooted enough in black metal orthodoxy to appeal to fans of the more traditional forms, but at the same time, the sound is so abstract, so free, the process is so transformative, that fans of all things heavy and dark, minimal and repetitive, should be equally enthralled. It's impossible not to hear elements of new age, of modern minimalism, of free drone, all deftly woven around an incredible collection of churning black heaviness.
Once again packaged in that immediately recognizable minimal black packaging, housed in a black and silver slipcover, adorned with mysterious diagrams of some 'dark space'.
MPEG Stream: "3.11"
MPEG Stream: "3.12"
MPEG Stream: "3.17"

CALE, JOHN & TERRY RILEY Church Of Anthrax (Wounded Bird) cd 16.98
More music needs to be like this! Open and unfettered yet baroquely mysterious and cryptic; taking strange careening detours that cast endlessly distorting sonic reflections. Minimal but complex, driving and repetitive, yet sloppily unraveling with a ponderous noisy pop undercurrent that is both reverent and perverse. Is this a rock record led by a chamber ensemble? Or an avant-garde composition ambushed by lurching bass and drums? Or both? Makes sense that this album is called Church of Anthrax and both of its high priests are one time Velvet Underground and Dream Syndicate members John Cale and the guru of minimalism Terry Riley.
This one time collaboration from 1971 has just been re-issued and it's never sounded better! Touching on experimental jazz, minimalist composition, free rock and baroque pop yet remaining elusive and restless, never settling neatly into any one genre. It was recorded at a time when such cross-pollination of sounds was not only new but very necessary. John Cale plays all sides of his musical personae returning to his avant-garde roots with LaMonte Young in the Theater of Eternal Music but infusing it with the noisy economy of The Velvet Underground and the poetic pop of his subsequent output. While Terry Riley allows his more purist minimal aesthetic to become looser and emotive, paving the way towards his soundtrack works a few years later. Add to it the shambling drums of Bobby Columby from Blood Sweat and Tears (uncredited here) and the strange guest appearance of little known singer, Adam Miller (probably best known for the sesame street song, "We all Live in the Capital I") and what we have is this truly odd and hypnotically amazing document. Something that sounds more Germany than New York, like a collaboration between Can and Ralf and Florian of Kraftwerk or between Faust and Cluster. Or more contemporarily and unlikely, say between Wooden Shjips and Shogun Kunitoki with a guest vocal appearance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead!
The title track opens with a deep low multi-horned drone before the bass and drums kick into what begins to sound like a more driving version of The Kinks'"Powerman". But instead of going into a formal song structure, the riff repeats with Riley's pipe organ laying circular filigree riffs over the top, maintaining a constant lurch forward, and glassy saxophone stabs and atonal guitar rising from underneath creating an uneasy rhythm that slowly unravels into a propulsively droney stew. The air clears for the beautiful "Hall of Mirrors in The Palace of Versailles" with Cale on piano and Riley on solo saxophone trading off building and lilting riffs that rise and coalesce into shimmering tones. It's the moment that feels unique to each of them: the melodic minimalism of Cale's Dream syndicate days, and the all night time-delayed sax pieces of Riley's "Poppy Nogood and The Phantom Band". But with its mirror imagery and gorgeous repetitions, it feels wonderfully cinematic like a lost score for Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad". The next track, "The Soul of Patrick Lee" is perhaps the strangest because it's the only one with vocals, which wouldn't be unusual for John Cale as he wrote it and it sounds like him, but oddly he relegates the singing duties to his friend Adam Miller, an obscure singer-songwriter who wrote a Partridge Family tune and sang the above mentioned Sesame Street song. This track provides a breather of sorts, a short baroque folk ballad interlude between the other longform pieces, but it's like a haunting theme that adds to the mysterious soundtrack feel of the whole record. "Ides of March", the longest piece, features chugging piano riffs and skittering drums over a looped but drunkenly lopsided groove that wavers in and out of sync, building in a weird way where all the notes that seem off finally becoming locked in and right. Closing the record is the short "Protege" which ups the vampy piano riffs and Moe Tucker like drums before careening into a swift blast of noisy distortion. A sudden ending to this curious record that leaves us wanting more. Thankfully there's the repeat button!
MPEG Stream: "Church of Anthrax"
MPEG Stream: "The Soul of Patrick Lee"
MPEG Stream: "Ides of March"

CORRUPTED Paso Inferior (Nostalgia Blackrain) cd 14.98
By now, most aQ customers are well aware of Japan's mighty Corrupted. Most we would guess, like us, are HUGE fans. Sure everybody loves Khanate and Moss and Bunkur and all the other monsters of modern slow motion sludge NOW, but Corrupted are the undisputed masters, and have been or more than a decade, THE forefathers, back when other bands were thrashing wildly, Corrupted were trudging along glacially, frantic riffing, nope, Corrupted were spitting out massive sheets of barely moving heaviness, blast beats, hardly, monstrous lumbering caveman pound. Plus they were singing in Spanish!
We've been waiting for ages, but finally, the first Corrupted full length, Paso Inferior, released originally in 1997, coinciding with their last trip to the states, has been reissued. Gussied up a bit, remastered, with some new artwork, a Japanese obi, but inside, it's still a brutally filthy, gloriously crusty, grinding sludgey pummeling ultradoom masterpiece.
One song, about 42 minutes, of massive, epic downtuned heaviness. So slow, and so minimal in places it's almost like a super heavy drone record, everywhere else, it crushes and pounds and puts pretty much every other funereal doom band to shame. It's not just the riffing and the drumming, or the growling hellish vocals, the core component of Corrupted's doom, seems to be forever trapped in a swirling cloud of squealing feedback, of buzzing distortion, of rumble and whir and grinding crunch and keening high end wails, a haunting ever shifting noisescape, that adds some serious subtle psychedelia to Corrupted's tarpit sludge. A veritable symphony of shrieks and skree, these walls of unwavering downtuned buzz are dragged behind this unstoppable metallic behemoth like some filthy black wake. If you suddenly removed the drums and the main riff, you'd almost have some fucked up Wolf Eyes or Prurient record. It's almost like an inadvertent mashup, punishing super heavy glacial doom, and freaked out FX drenched abstract free noise. The record opens and closes with several minutes of blown out soaring guitar drone, buzzing and swirling and all tangled up in smeared squalls of crumbling abstract psychrock, book ending Paso Inferior's expansive sprawling, incredibly intense, yet strangely beautiful doomic dirge, that while utterly grim and brutal, does manage to sound almost symphonic, as if somewhere in this churning black doom, the seeds of what Corrupted were to become, were already beginning to germinate.
So recommended. Absolutely one of the greatest doom/dirge/drone/sludge records EVER!!
MPEG Stream: "Paso Inferior Excerpt I"
MPEG Stream: "Paso Inferior Excerpt II"

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ABE VIGODA Skeleton (Post Present Medium) cd 13.98
Over the last few years Abe Vigoda have been creating quite a stir as latest in a long line of spirited bands from Los Angeles who have taken the sweaty spirit of punk rock and injected their own twists and turns and warped pop sensibility. Up until this point the band was always mentioned in the same breath as their fellow Los Angelinos No Age, whom they share a similar aesthetic and home turf all-ages venue of choice, The Smell. (This record was also released on a newly formed label run by one of the members of No Age.) But boy do they deliver the goods on Skeleton, so much so that it's just a matter of time until everyone starts freaking out and giving them some of the same sort of mass attention that No Age have enjoyed over the last couple years.
This is some seriously caffeinated and super charged now-sound. Sort of like Feels era Animal Collective but with an extra dose of angular punk and a big bottle of Jolt cola to wash it all down. There is also a really nice and subtle tropical vibe within much of the record, reminding us a little of some of that early '80s post-punk out of Brazil we dig so much. There couldn't be a more perfect month then August for our ears to latch onto this record as Skeleton is the perfect album to blast over and over as we try to hold on to the summer for as long as we can.
MPEG Stream: "Lantern Heights"
MPEG Stream: "Hyacinth Grrls"
MPEG Stream: "Visi Rings"

ACRE Monolith (Arbor) lp 14.98
We heart Acre, Dronelord from the Northwest. And this, his very first foray into vinyl. And it's a doozy, A single track, appropriately titled "Monolith", taking up both sides of the 12", sounding great at both 33 and 45, but of course we prefer 33 as it's slower and lower and thus thicker and heavier.
Those familiar with Acre know just what he's all about. Drone. Or DRONE.
Big, thick, endless stretches of sound, layers and overtones, seemingly simple but dense with texture and timbre.
"Monolith" is more of the same. Even more. It begins as a single tone, simple, minimal, and gradually builds and builds and builds until it is a subtly undulating stretch of singular sound. A deep pulsing synth drone, that seems to move and change shape, melodies and harmonies drift from within its nearly static mesmer, it's all very subtle, but so gloriously thick and fuzzy and textural and yeah HEAVY. Slap on some headphones and crank this and you're in for a sound induced headtrip of the highest order.
Not sure what else to say. For the drone obsessed this is ESSENTIAL, if you dug that Drone Drug record by the Skull Defekts we listed recently, if you love Phill Niblock, if you're already the proud owner of some of the Acre cd-r's, you know what you need to do.
Limited to 200 copies. How do we know? Because the artwork consists of the band name, the track title and the legend "Edition of 200". We got a bunch, but even a bunch isn't usually enough...

AEMAE / ARASTOO s/t (Isounderscore) lp 14.98
A long in the works collaboration from two aQ favorites, Aemae and Arastoo. We've listed both Aemae releases, but Arastoo has been a bit more elusive, with tons of super limited vinyl and cd-r releases, of which we've only ever managed to review 3.
Well, the two have come together, to produce this, the first in a new salvo of Bay Area sound art from Aemae, aka Brandon Nickell's Isounderscore label. And a pretty fantastic start. Arastoo plays the piano, and then the two shape and mold the piano into two side long pieces, both quite impressive.
The A side is mostly straight piano all the way through, some gorgeous fluid playing, some stunning arrangements, but the two subtly shape and twist throughout, adding mysterious little music box flourishes, sudden squalls of super high end skree, but those moments are actually quite controlled, the sounds sculpted onto dog whistle melodies, and haunting upper register textures. The subtle production tweaks really only augment, creating complimentary sounds, or add bits of ambience, allowing the piano to drift and sway and unfurl its melody, seemingly oblivious to what's going on around it.
The B side however, finds the sound of the piano obliterated, transformed completely into long shimmering streaks of layered metallic reverberation, a bit industrial sounding, layers of constantly shifting whir and rumble and hiss and roar, like a choppy sonic sea, building to a buzzing crescendo before settling back down into a tranquil sea of black ambience, as the piano returns, unfurling gentle, yet ominous minor key melodies, all very creepy and cinematic, but also quite lovely.
LIMITED TO 320 COPIES. Super striking silkscreened covers, with original artwork by Arastoo.

AJILVSGA White Path / Red Path (Peasant Magik) cassette 8.98
The fourth cassette from this East Coast minimal drone duo, half of which, as we've mentioned before, just so happens to be Brad who runs the Digitalis label.
This tape takes up right where the last one left off, a dark slowly expansive exploration of deep black minimalism, this one begins less heavy than the others, murky and mumbly, looped low end drifts out from the speakers like doomy ripples, soft pulses, distant throbs, part way through the sound gets all airy and swooshy, almost like some blackened new age. But that's just about when the sound thickens, and grows slightly more corrosive. A crumbling, grinding muted flow more soothing than heavy.
But flip the tape over, and we're back in the heavy guitar realm, with swirling streaks of buzz and pulsing effects, droned out chordal whir, intense blown out squalls of freaked out noise, dense swells of high end skree, everything warped and warbly and wrapped in damaged electronics and strange sonic glitches, an avalanche of fragmented riffage building to a Total like rrrroooaaar. Cool.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!! Comes packaged in a full color fold out cardstock insert, the tape wrapped in a cassette obi, screen printed on heavy textured paper and each one hand numbered.

ALVA NOTO Unitxt (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98
We love Alva Noto. His minimal rhythmic soundscapes are just so fantastic, dense and complex but at the same time impossibly simple and spare. And everything he does is so high concept. But in a way, that's not obvious just listening to the music. This may be art, high concept art, but the resulting sounds transcend art, and become music, and grooves, pleasing to the ear, not only the mind. 
Unitxt is Alva Noto's (aka Carsten Nicolai) return to 'the rhythm' after a handful of releases (in several different series) that were much more esoteric and ambient. Unitxt is still pretty ridiculously high concept, with the songs developed through various methods: one song is a portrait of Nicolai converted into sound, another is based on the golden ratio, a recitation of an endless row of numbers, another is based on a reading of the various items in Nicolai's wallet, credit cards, business cards, notes, just reading the words and numbers and converting the resulting information into sound. Endlessly amusing for sure, but it wouldn't mean shit if the music was bad. Thankfully, this is exactly the stuff we love from Nicolai, super clinical machine like soundscapes of skitter and glitch. everything sharp and clipped, the grooves far from funky, at least in the normal sense, but VERY funky in some sort of fucked up futuristic minimal robot dancefloor way. A few of the tracks feature vocals, but they're in German, and spoken quickly and rhythmically, making them less like lyrics and more like another overlaid rhythm (especially when the voice is just reciting numbers).
Imagine a huge white glass cube filled with robots, all hunkered over computers and drum machines, and synthesizers and equalizers, everything totally automated, huge gears turning, machines pulsing, the robots locked into the same motion over and over, a strange assembly line. At the end, a tiny speaker, facing a huge empty grassy field, a blue sky, nothing in the sky but a single white cloud. Perfectly ovoid. Out of the speaker comes this. That's what we imagine when we listen to Unitxt. Stripped down, cool and clinical outer space future robot anti-funk, laced with plenty of sculpted buzz and crackle, and shaped from bits of hiss and crunch. 
Tacked on to the end of the record, are a whole series of fragments and sound sources, each created from transforming an image or information into sound. These are 'Source Code Solos' to be played over the other tracks, or might assume, that with these sounds, and your own giant robot manned glass cube sound factory, you could make your very own Unitxt!
MPEG Stream: "U_07"
MPEG Stream: "U_06"
MPEG Stream: "U_04"

ALVA NOTO Unitxt (Raster-Noton) 2lp 23.00
We love Alva Noto. His minimal rhythmic soundscapes are just so fantastic, dense and complex but at the same time impossibly simple and spare. And everything he does is so high concept. But in a way, that's not obvious just listening to the music. This may be art, high concept art, but the resulting sounds transcend art, and become music, and grooves, pleasing to the ear, not only the mind. 
Unitxt is Alva Noto's (aka Carsten Nicolai) return to 'the rhythm' after a handful of releases (in several different series) that were much more esoteric and ambient. Unitxt is still pretty ridiculously high concept, with the songs developed through various methods: one song is a portrait of Nicolai converted into sound, another is based on the golden ratio, a recitation of an endless row of numbers, another is based on a reading of the various items in Nicolai's wallet, credit cards, business cards, notes, just reading the words and numbers and converting the resulting information into sound. Endlessly amusing for sure, but it wouldn't mean shit if the music was bad. Thankfully, this is exactly the stuff we love from Nicolai, super clinical machine like soundscapes of skitter and glitch. everything sharp and clipped, the grooves far from funky, at least in the normal sense, but VERY funky in some sort of fucked up futuristic minimal robot dancefloor way. A few of the tracks feature vocals, but they're in German, and spoken quickly and rhythmically, making them less like lyrics and more like another overlaid rhythm (especially when the voice is just reciting numbers).
Imagine a huge white glass cube filled with robots, all hunkered over computers and drum machines, and synthesizers and equalizers, everything totally automated, huge gears turning, machines pulsing, the robots locked into the same motion over and over, a strange assembly line. At the end, a tiny speaker, facing a huge empty grassy field, a blue sky, nothing in the sky but a single white cloud. Perfectly ovoid. Out of the speaker comes this. That's what we imagine when we listen to Unitxt. Stripped down, cool and clinical outer space future robot anti-funk, laced with plenty of sculpted buzz and crackle, and shaped from bits of hiss and crunch. 
Tacked on to the end of the record, are a whole series of fragments and sound sources, each created from transforming an image or information into sound. These are 'Source Code Solos' to be played over the other tracks, or might assume, that with these sounds, and your own giant robot manned glass cube sound factory, you could make your very own Unitxt!
MPEG Stream: "U_07"
MPEG Stream: "U_06"
MPEG Stream: "U_04"

ASHTORATH Darkstorm Entwinded (NOTHingness) cd-r 11.98
As we mentioned in the review of the Exxasens cd elsewhere on this list, Belgian label NOTHingness, a long time aQ fave, is no more. The folks who ran NOTHingness decided to close shop and start a new label called Consouling Sounds. But we did manage to get one last NOTHingness release, this gorgeous collection of haunting forest dronescapes from a Canadian outfit called Ashtorath. 
And yeah, drone records are a dime a dozen these days, but this is much more than just a drone record, it's more like a collection of creepy cinematic soundscapes which just happen to be intensely droney. The music of Ashtorath is moody and melancholic, dramatic and dark, haunting and harrowing. Beginning with the sound of insects in the night, thunderstorms, whipping wind, a tolling bell, it sets the stage for what's to come. A slowly unfolding sonic narrative, synths unfurl woozy melodies, mysterious drones and whirs lurk just below the surface, guitars wrapped in reverb ring out over the sound of rainfall, peppered with bits of muted glitch, moaning ghostly tones, creepy tinkling chimes, deep resonant rumbles, mysterious voices, warbly woozy music box melodies, this tuff is just so creepy and weird, definitely sounds like it could have been pulled right out of some super sinister underground arty horror film. A little bit neoclassical, a little bit dark ambient, a little bit horror movie score, some drone, and even some almost metallic distorted guitar, lurching and lumbering through a field of whirring weirdness on the last track.
Pretty and droney enough for the free noise drone rock cd-r crowd, but of particular interest to folks into Zombi, Goblin, Trollman Av Ildtoppberg, Ensepulchred, Zombie Battle Axe and actual horror movie music. 
SUPER LIMITED. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. We got the last copies...
MPEG Stream: "Stormshard"
MPEG Stream: "The Darkwood Forest"
MPEG Stream: "Of Ebon Wings"

BAD PARTY Coming Out Slowly (Animal Disguise) lp 13.98
From the same label that brought us the minimal hypnotic pummel of Mammal, and the shrill doomic psych sludge of Cadaver In Drag, comes Bad Party, another hateful noise drenched sonic assault on the senses.
This duo though takes a whole 'nother angle, kicking up a serious din of shitty programmed drum machine, huge moaning buzzing bass, yowled snotty vocals and sheets of squealing feedback. Falling somewhere between Big Black, Suicide and the Brainbombs, these two spew stripped down mechanical garage jams, a fuzzed out lo-fi party ruining stomp, minimal and stripped down, but still noisy as fuck, the lyrics nasty and mean and pretty fucking funny, woven into the lurching grooves and the almost new wave bass lines.
Some tracks get extra murky and grungy, while others sound almost well produced, but even at their cleanest (which is not all that clean at all) the proceedings are still showered in shrieking high end, and that awesome fuck-you caterwaul, you can almost picture these guys shirtless in huge stiletto heels and furs, trashing the stage with just a bass and a crappy old synth, sunglasses, booze and coke, and a cadre of ill behaved hangers on. Bad party indeed. Trashy and noisy and fucked up and fun. As long as it's not your party. Recommended.

BAKER, AIDAN Green and Cold (Beta-Lactum Ring) cd 22.00
One of our favorite Baker discs, out of print on cd-r, now repressed as a proper cd and available again, and of course packaged in one of those fancy Beta-Lactam sleeves. Plus weirdly, it's LIMITED TO ONLY 300 COPIES!! Here's what we had to say about the disc first time around:
Aidan Baker is back, still vying for the most prolific man in show business award (well, at least underground, free drone show business) with a double shot of washed out dreamy droniness. There's the latest from Nadja, reflecting his more metal side, and then there's this, the follow up to last year's Pendulum, which was a fantastic slab of glistening disembodied dronemusic. Green & Gold follows suit but with an interesting twist. Vocals. Lots of 'em. Baker is no stranger to singing, his whispery croon has graced more than a few of his releases, but on G & C, the vocals are a big part of the songs, and the songs are actual songs, with drums, and verses and choruses and everything. Well, sort of.
Some tracks, like the untitled opener, are indeed still just wispy slow shifting expanses of fuzzy dreamlike sound, which we can NEVER get enough of, but others, like "Chainsaw", are actual lowercase, slow motion, dark and dolorous slowcore pop songs. Simple murky guitar riffs, wreathed of course in all manner of reverb and soft focus fuzz, hovering over stripped down shuffling rhythms, while Baker croons softly over the top, a hushed almost whisper, sounding not entirely unlike Iron & Wine's Sam Beam actually. Even the music sounds a little like a blissier tarpit version of Iron & Wine. There is some definite twang there, subtle, but it's there, nestled amidst the delicate folky strum and the glistening sonic glimmer. Imagine an even more somnambulant Low, or Spacemen 3 at 16 rpm, a ultra druggy (druggier?) Galaxie 500, each track a pop song mumbled and murky, a moonlit crawl through a hazy landscape of shuffle and shimmer, of strum and twang, all wrapped up in soft swirls of shimmer.
Essential for fans of all things Jeck and Tim Hecker and Jasper TX and Machinefabriek and Grouper and Troum and Main and the like, but also worth a listen for more adventurous fans of Iron & Wine, Spacemen 3, Galaxie 500, Low and other slowcore drugrock dreaminess...
MPEG Stream: "---"
MPEG Stream: "Chainsaw"
MPEG Stream: "Merge"

BAKER, AIDAN I Fall Into You (Basses Frequences) cd 15.98
We're not sure how it happens really. We were joking in our review of the Nadja elsewhere on this list, that it wouldn't be an aQ list without a new Nadja. Then suddenly, we get an old Aidan Baker disc, one of our faves, reissued, then moments later, the mailman drops off another Baker disc, another reissue! So maybe we should alter our statement a bit, and say that it wouldn't be an aQ list without three or four discs by Baker/Nadja. Phew. 
We are really running out of things to say about Baker and Nadja. We definitely need someone to send us a new Nadja thesaurus. We do tend to like most everything he does. Baker has perfected a sound that definitely hits the spot, a dreamy dark droney one on his solo records, a blown out shoegazey metal one on Nadja discs. This disc originally came out as a cd-r on Public Eyesore way back in 2002, and is presented here as an actual cd, limited to 500 copies. And it's a good one. 
Back then there seemed to be a bit less space between the two sides of Baker's sonic personality. The opening and closing tracks here have doomy drums, everything bathed in a washed out woozy, glitchy and crackly, squiggly little effects, like it was some old old recording, moody and swoonsome and haunting, not really heavy, but more dense than most of Baker's more ethereal solo recordings. 
Between these sonic bookends, lie 3 tracks, 35 minutes of deep drifting tranquility, muted guitar strum, some distant drones, bits of glitch and hum, a stretch of shuffling jazzy drumming, and weirdly enough, some strange vocal samples. 
Obviously if you're a fan, and don't have this, or have the cd-r and want to upgrade, you'll definitely want this. And Baker newbies, this is as good a place to start as any.
MPEG Stream: "Lapse"
MPEG Stream: "Symbiosis"

BASS COMMUNION Molotov and Haze (Important) cd 14.98
While most folks probably know Steven Wilson as a member of modern prog rockers Porcupine Tree, or as the producer of several Opeth albums, around these parts, Wilson is best known as the man behind Bass Communion, an ever evolving drone project, whose last few records have definitely hit the spot for the aQ drone faithful. Treading similar sonic ground as Thomas Koner, Jonathan Coleclough, Andrew Chalk, and the like, he crafts expansive and delicate crystalline soundscapes, minimal and hushed, deep and resonant, deep tones, layered low end, all deftly assembled into a mysterious otherworldly droneworld. 
This latest disc finds Wilson dabbling in something a bit harder and heavier. Still using processed recordings of actual instruments as well as field recordings and apparently a laptop for the first time, two of the four tracks here are more in line with the more corrosive elements of the modern drone/dirge/doom movement. Instead of hushed and whispery, the opener here is caustic and crumbling, a field of ragged, distorted, blown out tones, a layered expanse of grinding buzz, but beneath it, angelic melodies shimmer and hum, transforming the track into something subtly beautiful, a sprawling prickly sonic squall wrapped around a dreamlike core. The other heavy track here is actually titled "Corrosive", and is again, well, corrosive, beginning with supercharged guitars, spewing fiery fields of freaked out high end, over a weird billowy bassline, which begins to define the track, as it becomes more propulsive and present, and that opening field of skree seems to move into the background, smoothing out into something weirdly more melodic.
The other two tracks, while more in line with the mood of past BC discs, also sound a bit more song-y. More composed and arranged, as opposed to more abstract and improvised. The sound is ethereal and ephemeral. Soft string-like swells define a mournful melody, traces of high end fill the sky above with streaks and melodic fragments, smoothed into clouds of chordal color, the whole thing very delicate, and subtly filmic, darkly moody and dramatic. The closer, appropriately titled "Haze", is indeed a hazy somnambulant drift, at least in the beginning, floating dreamily through a soft black expanse, a tranquil barely there ambience, supported by a deep pulsing low end. Part way through, a strange electronic buzz is introduced. It offers up a strange textural contrast, almost like someone is subtly shifting the dial on the radio, soft interference, buoyed by the music's sudden dramatic swells. The track gradually becomes more choral, the sounds resembling voices, woven into the softly swaying swell of the musical backdrop, culminating in an effulgent field of sun dappled high end, before fading softly into the background, as that unrelenting low end foghorn tone, leads us slowly and funereally to the finish.
MPEG Stream: "Molotov 1502"
MPEG Stream: "Glacial 1602"

BIPOLAROID E(i)ther Or (Surreal But Kind) lp 14.98
It's been 4 years since we last heard from New Orleans' goofily monickered Bipolaroid. We went a little crazy for their acid drenched Pink Floyd worship. And we were actually wondering what happened to them not too long ago, when weirdly enough, we got a call from a lawyer who was representing Polaroid and were thinking about suing the band! Fortunately, it seems nothing came of that, especially since only a little later we got a brand new Bipolaroid album in the mail. And thankfully it takes up pretty much right where the last one left off. 
Tripped out sixties style psychedelia, woozy and warbly and weary and druggy, whirring organs, shimmery guitar strum, wild drumming, soaring arrangements, swirling space-y effects everywhere, vocals that are a dead ringer for Syd Barrett's, often doused in delay or weird "Hurdy Gurdy Man" style FX, but like on the first record, Bipolaroid take their love of Floyd and supercharge it, adding a heaping dose of Hawkwind in places, creating an awesome space rock / sixties drug rock hybrid. Some of the songs are slow and slithery and sexy, with fluttery flutes, moody piano, and drawled mournful vox, others, like the opener, are wild and rollicking with the vocals nearly buried under a psychrock blowout, the drums all over the place, strings soaring in the background, and everything soaked in fuzzy organ, sounding all Deep and way Purple. The rest hover somewhere right in between, slipping effortlessly from strummed folky meander to propulsive trippy space groove and right back again.
Any one into classic psychedelia and sixties prog will most likely dig this a lot. And Elephant 6 folks might get into this as well, since it shares much of the same retro aesthetic. The recording definitely sounds of the time, and even the songwriting would be tough to peg as modern, in fact, you could definitely pass this off as some reissued unearthed psych rarity. But none of that really matters, ultimately, this is just a killer tripped out psych pop record, and like the first one, we find ourselves going a little nuts and playing it over and over and over...
MPEG Stream: "Day In The Life Of A Raincloud"
MPEG Stream: "Transparent Make-Believe"
MPEG Stream: "Cucumbersome"

BIPOLAROID E(i)ther Or (Surreal But Kind) cd-r 9.98
It's been 4 years since we last heard from New Orleans' goofily monickered Bipolaroid. We went a little crazy for their acid drenched Pink Floyd worship. And we were actually wondering what happened to them not too long ago, when weirdly enough, we got a call from a lawyer who was representing Polaroid and were thinking about suing the band! Fortunately, it seems nothing came of that, especially since only a little later we got a brand new Bipolaroid album in the mail. And thankfully it takes up pretty much right where the last one left off. 
Tripped out sixties style psychedelia, woozy and warbly and weary and druggy, whirring organs, shimmery guitar strum, wild drumming, soaring arrangements, swirling space-y effects everywhere, vocals that are a dead ringer for Syd Barrett's, often doused in delay or weird "Hurdy Gurdy Man" style FX, but like on the first record, Bipolaroid take their love of Floyd and supercharge it, adding a heaping dose of Hawkwind in places, creating an awesome space rock / sixties drug rock hybrid. Some of the songs are slow and slithery and sexy, with fluttery flutes, moody piano, and drawled mournful vox, others, like the opener, are wild and rollicking with the vocals nearly buried under a psychrock blowout, the drums all over the place, strings soaring in the background, and everything soaked in fuzzy organ, sounding all Deep and way Purple. The rest hover somewhere right in between, slipping effortlessly from strummed folky meander to propulsive trippy space groove and right back again.
Any one into classic psychedelia and sixties prog will most likely dig this a lot. And Elephant 6 folks might get into this as well, since it shares much of the same retro aesthetic. The recording definitely sounds of the time, and even the songwriting would be tough to peg as modern, in fact, you could definitely pass this off as some reissued unearthed psych rarity. But none of that really matters, ultimately, this is just a killer tripped out psych pop record, and like the first one, we find ourselves going a little nuts and playing it over and over and over...
MPEG Stream: "Day In The Life Of A Raincloud"
MPEG Stream: "Transparent Make-Believe"
MPEG Stream: "Cucumbersome"

BIXOBAL Number 4 July 2008 (Ri Be Xibalba) magazine 2.00
Issue #4, already! Good grief, this 'zine comes out so frequently, with such regularity, that's almost not 'zine-like. We mean, in our experience it's pretty standard, obligatory even, for every 'zine to begin with an apologetic note from the editor giving excuses for the current issue being late... instead, the best Bixobal's editor and publisher, Eric Lanzillotta (of Anomalous Records fame) can manage is to explain that he had TOO much material for this issue, so we can expect #5 to show up even sooner than ever!
Otherwise, however, Bixobal perfectly fits the old school 'zine mold... it's digest sized, black & white zeroxed, devoted to obscure, out of the mainstream subject matter, and full of true fannish (though expert) enthusiasm for said subjects, which should appeal to quite a few AQ customers, into the musical margins from the experimental to the ethnological. This issue is indeed packed, 55 pages dense with articles, overviews and reviews... specifically, an in-depth guide to the works of Japanese avantgarde percussionist and prog/jazz composer Stomu Yamash'ta, a look at the films of '60s/'70s Spanish auteur Fernando Arrabal, a rundown of the many limited edition releases from noisnik Raymond Dijkstra, and a tour diary from Japanese sound artist Akio Suzuki! Even if some of these folks aren't familiar to you, you'll probably become interested in 'em from reading these pieces.
We're looking forward expectantly to Bixobal #5... and #6, and #7, etc.... as there's always much that's intriguing and unexpected to be gleaned from this excellent 'zine (and at a bargain price).

CANTU-LEDESMA, JEFRE & PAUL CLIPSON The Phantom Harp (Root Strata) dvd-r 9.98
In the age of YouTube and MySpace, the idea of the music video has changed dramatically since the days of MTV (or at least the days when MTV actually played videos). In the past, only bands on major labels could make a video, often hiring a real director and dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, plenty of bands have videos before they even have a record out. Super 8, digital video, Final Cut Pro, anyone can put together their own video and have it look as good if not better than the classic videos of old.
Old news maybe, but the thing is, most bands seems to use the video as simply a promotional tactic, or an excuse to fuck around and film it. Instead of, dare we say, ART. In the underground though, it's not at all uncommon for like minded musicians and filmmakers to join forces. In fact, with the advent of live performances featuring laptops and other sedimentary sound making devices (when is someone gonna make a laptop guitar, so left out laptoppers can windmill and leap about with the rest of the band?), often it's the accompanying films that are way more compelling. Often, a show is touted as some band performing "with films by so and so", but in fact, more often than not, it plays out more like seeing a film, that just so happens to feature live accompaniment by some band.
Few labels have really taken advantage of this new technology as much as Root Strata, who have quietly and steadily been releasing a series of super limited dvd-r's, each featuring new compositions by a small handful of artists, coupled with original films. The results have been pretty sublime, the films tending toward the abstract and impressionistic, the music following suit. When watching / listening to these, it's hard not to imagine laying on the floor, propped up on cushions, lights low, the film being projected on a huge blank wall, the band hunkered over their instruments in the corner, which makes sense as that's most likely how these films/sounds were conceived. 
So we have two new super limited dvd-r releases, one from Zelienople and one from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Paul Clipson, both limited to 100 copies, both already out of print, so these are the only copies we'll ever get. 
This is the third collaboration between filmmaker Paul Clipson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, who also plays in Tarentel, and runs Root Strata with his partner Maxwell Croy. 
The Phantom Harp, as the title might lead you to believe, is in fact a reworking of the piece of the same name, originally released as a 3" cd-r and now out of print. Not only has the piece been reworked, but no it is accompanied by Clipson's gorgeous abstract images. The Phantom Harp is a super minimal sun dappled stretch of glimmering shimmering dreaminess, soft notes float like leaves in the summer sun, smears of high end wreath each note in glimmering sonic haloes, the pace is glacial, the melodies stretched out over minutes instead of seconds, a little ambient, a little new age, a little free drone, all deftly blurred into one smoldering sonic dreamscape. The visuals are super striking, and manage to fit perfectly with the sounds, all black and white, images of rain slicked streets, sun shining through the treetops, car headlights at night, images sometimes overexposed, blurred, superimposed, but mostly left to just play out, cityscapes, buildings, people rushing to and fro, light reflecting on water, shapes and textures, walls, grills, neon signs, restaurants, a soft, a dreamy faded super-8 travelogue. So nice.
Packaged in printed, folded papers sleeves, and again, LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, and already out of print.

COLD SUN Dark Shadows (World In Sound) cd 24.00
Dark shadows is right, dark shadows from a cold, old sun. Long dark shadows stretching across decades... This legendary 1970 demo recording from Austin, Texas psychedelic rock group Cold Sun has never before been on cd, and only just barely been on vinyl. There's record collectors sitting on desert islands somewhere out there, wishing they had a copy of this to keep them company. It's one of the most cult and obscure and oh so welcome psych reissues in recent memory, that's for sure. Well worthy of its whispered rep, Cold Sun is dark, spectral, tripped out garage-psych in the '60s Texas vein of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. Indeed, the guys from Cold Sun went on to back up Roky in his band the Aliens, not much longer later.
Band leader Bill Miller sings, in an fragile yet urgent drawl, sounding rather like Roky himself, and also plays acid-rock leads on an electric, amplified autoharp (that's right, autoharp, a zither that's usually more of a country/folk/bluegrass instrument) which really gives Cold Sun an outsider edge... and while there's also the requisite dose of fuzz guitar here, Cold Sun can't be reduced to the "fuzz monster" category. It's all together weirder and more affecting than that. Aside from Miller's autoharp, part of what makes it so strange and so special are his lyrics. Take for instance the opening few lines of track one, "South Texas" (if we've transcribed 'em properly): "You have seen the eyes of the geko staring out watching from the crack in the wall you were thinking of going right through but it's outside it's not you you have heard the voice of the gekos telling each other here comes another robot it's a swarm of night climbing dragons crawling out searching just walking cross the ceiling..." Except when he says "robot" it sounds like someone else is saying "human" at the same time. And it just goes on and on getting weirder and weirder, its emotional essence aided by the outsiderishness of the delivery, acid-serious and plaintive. Goes so perfectly with Cold Sun's lysergic layers of sinuous sound. Yep, you can see that this is an example, perhaps thee ultimate example, of that unique Texas, desert psych style... they've got their own, otherworldly, feverish tradition of that down there.
The Cold Sun demo (and not even all of it) was pressed to acetate in 1973 in an edition of just ONE copy. And then it was lost to the sands of time, until reissue label Rockadelic did an LP version in 1990 that caused a bit of a stir amongst psych-hounds... and was limited to only 300 copies itself. But THIS cd edition is the definitive one, including all the music from the demo tape -and- two live bonus tracks! (The live tracks, recorded in 1972, are of songs not on the demo, and are quite worthy, being just a bit hissier and lower-fi than the demo itself, and maybe slightly harder rocking.) It's also got enthusiastic liner notes from noted psych nerd Jello Biafra (!), and also from Cold Sun's Bill Miller himself. World In Sound has done a nice job with this holy grail reissue, we're sure they took the responsibility pretty seriously. Now everyone, at last, can hear these truly psychedelic, (cold) sun-baked sounds...
MPEG Stream: "South Texas"
MPEG Stream: "For Ever"
MPEG Stream: "Fall"

DWELLERS OF THE TWILIGHT Grey (Eichenwald Industries) cd 12.98
First release on a new label, co-conspirators as it were with long time aQ faves Paradigms, whose roster, as most aQ peeps know by now is a truly esoteric collection of metal, psych and drone: Hjarnidaudi, Titan, Utlagr, Amber Asylum, The Angelic Process, Wraiths, Ondo, Gnaw Their Tongues. But as Paradigms seems to be moving away from the metal side of things, it makes perfect sense that they would team up with a label that specializes in "jet black cutting edge extreme metal esoterica".
And thus we have Eichenwald Industries, who in some strange way do compliment the wide ranging Paradigms catalog, and with two new releases, show a surprising amount of breadth themselves. 
Elsewhere on this list you'll find the epic occult psychedelic doom metal of The Wounded Kings, while this right here is the debut release from Dwellers Of The Twilight, a French duo who channel the hateful blackness of groups like Anaal Nathrakh and Carpathian Forest (the bands that the label references), but also plenty of super clinical heaviness a la countrymen Blut Aus Nord, as well as a bit of that classic Scandinavian sound, we hear a lot of 1349 in the mix actually, with the impossibly furious drumming (programmed not played) and lightning fast riffing. The production is super tight and polished, the sound is massive and heavy, the band shift effortlessly from blazing blasts of black, to lurching doomy grooves, to long blown out guitardrones, to crushing megadoom, the fast bits rife with fucked up mathy twists and turns, the slow parts peppered with dissonant chords and woozy Deathspell like arrangements, and while there are plenty of experimental flourishes, the trippy ambient guitar buzz of the record's closer, the awesome stretch of murky muted full band rocking closing out "Domus Mundi", the abstract guitar drone dirge of the title track, as a whole, this is less experimental, and more a fierce and furious head shearing super technical black metal blast from below. Way recommended, for fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and pretty much anyone into the classic sounds of both French and Norwegian style buzzing blackness.
MPEG Stream: "Sovereign Of Sulphur"
MPEG Stream: "Domus Mundi"

EMPIRE AURIGA Auriga Dying (Moribund) cd 14.98
There aren't a whole lot of grim black metal bands from Michigan. And Empire Auriga aren't gonna do anything really to change that. They are grim, and black metal maybe, in their own way, but they're also industrial, gothy, a little new wavey, a bit shoegazey, even pretty poppy. In fact they're almost definitely more of all of those than they are 'grim black metal'. Yet they're on Moribund, and they are being touted as a sort of avant black metal outfit. We do see the appeal, black metallers have been expanding their horizons lately, opening up to bands like Brown Jenkins, Wrath Of The Week, Have A Nice Life, Nadja, and there have been groups like Blut Aus Nord and Spektr, distinctly black metal, but who have transformed their sound into something much more industrial and avant. 
So thus we have Empire Auriga, a duo from Michigan, Lansing to be exact, one guy on "communications", the other on "transmissions", and on repeated listens, we're gonna have to go out on a limb and say this isn't actually black metal at all, at least not in the traditional sense. The opener is all marital drumming, militaristic snares, over a nearly static sheet of slow shifting distorted buzz, some mournful horns (?) or at least a keyboard melody that sounds like horns, it ends up sounding like a metallic version of some medieval music, the vocals are a drawled sort of croon, more Joy Division than Darkthrone. And while it may not be black metal, it's still eminently cool. The next track is a lugubrious doomic trudge, super processed percussive pound, lots of drone and buzz, howled vocals buried in the mix, all very machinelike and lumbering, almost like a more washed out drone-y Godflesh. Later tracks get super industrial, the drums a mechanical pound, the vocals a demonic croak, again the melody distinctly medieval, almost like blackened Renn Faire music, others are just long stretches of staticky noise, buried radio transmissions, bursts of jagged interference, a weird sort of crumbling caustic drone, while still others are deep drifting stretches of creepy black ambience, rife with found sounds and disembodied voices. Only one track can really be called black metal, and even that one is pretty far out. The main riff is not so much a riff as a long drawn out buzz, the vocals are a strangled guttural growl, over the top a haunting Burzum like keyboard melody, but the cool thing about it, and exactly what makes it so not black metal, is the lack of propulsion, it's more like some fucked up buzz drenched ambient Whitehouse, really cool and creepy and grim, but only marginally black metal. 
All this talk about whether Empire Auriga is black metal or not, but to be fair, we could really care less, it's just the fact that they seem to get lumped in with other black metal bands, even though the connection is tenuous at best. But fuck it, we love black metal and we dig this big time. You won't necessarily love this if -all- you listen to is metal, but if you're into weird metallic noise, or dark rhythmic weirdness, or abstract blackness, or any sort of abstract arty heaviness, this is definitely all of that and more.
MPEG Stream: "Sorrowsong"
MPEG Stream: "Dreaming Of Breath And Stars"
MPEG Stream: "The Lurker"

ENGLISH, LAWRENCE Kiri No Oto (Touch) cd 16.98
Kiri No Oto is the first album that Lawrence English has released for the venerable Touch Music. This after a number of releases through his own Room 40 imprint, which bridged environmental recordings and somber electronics with sublime results; but there's been little to indicate that he would generate something as stellar as Kiri No Oto. The Japanese title loosely translates as 'the sound of fog' or 'the sound of mist.' Both are applicable to the extended blur that this Australian sound-artist generates, with its miasma of soft-focus distortion arching into long-form compositions of minimalism. The album doesn't exactly erupt, as the sounds are more soothing in their softened textures; but English cuts into one of his grey-mass drones with little fanfare. English slowly glides his 'sound of fog' down to a muffled static, then brings up tectonic rumblings and kicks the overdrive in on his distortion box (or more likely, some patch on ye olde laptop) for one of those digital distorto-drones that Tim Hecker and Christian Fennesz have been sculpting over the past few years. And yes, we'll throw in an obligatory My Bloody Valentine reference, well because there are plenty of parts here which have the blissed out wash of the ambient interludes on Loveless. Given that similar dynamics appeared on one of the last great Touch albums - BJ Nilsen's The Short Night - it made us wonder if these gestures toward static-laden, shoegazing noise bursts dappling the almighty drone were a coincidence for Touch, or if Touch were handing out particular Max/MSP patches to accommodate this sound. It's probably the former; but the similarities to many of the other Touch artists is too great not to comment. As with all of the Touch releases, Jon Wozencroft delivers his perfect design with an overcast sea-side photograph to match the depth, mystery, serenity, and subtle darkness of this very impressive album.
MPEG Stream: "Organs Lost At Sea"
MPEG Stream: "White Spray"
MPEG Stream: "Allay"

ENVY / JESU split (Daymare) cd 21.00
We've long been fans of Japanese rockers Envy, since they were furious hardcore thrashers, but over the last few records, they have been going through a pretty serious transformation, trading in much of their fury and aggression for deep introspection, their punk rock for post rock, and it definitely suits them. This latest ep, a split with the mighty Jesu, finds the band taking their sound even farther out, almost as if the songs were written specifically for Jesu. The first track is the perfect example, we actually weren't paying attention, and almost assumed it was in fact a Jesu track, the spoken Japanese vocals being the only giveaway. Beginning as a slow drift, the drums programmed, a nervous electronic skitter, before the band explode into some sort of droneblissdirge, distorted guitars, a thick wall of sound, laced with dreamy melancholy strings, Jesu fans who have been hankering for something else similar to get into might have just found their match!
The second song starts out all moody and meandering and post rocky, spidery guitar melodies, simple jangle, a bit maudlin and melancholy, the vocals breathless and buried, all very Slinty, a little Mogwai, well, actually a lot of Mogwai, some Explosions In The Sky, until with about a minute left the band explode in a frenzy of heaviness, a nearly hardcore blow out, but strangely, still cozied up to the drifty dreaminess of the first half of the song, like someone snuck in and added strings to some Converge jam, the results are truly unique and pretty kick ass.
The third song is almost the biggest surprise of the bunch, a big crunchy guitar super catchy indie rock jam. The only thing keeping it from being all over the credits of every teen movie is the growling monstrous barking vocals, but beyond that, the song is glistening and soaring, hooky with a total old school pop punk chorus, albeit dowsed in crunch distorted guitars. A bit schizophrenic perhaps, but has us dying to hear the next Envy full length. Lookout Explosions, these guys are definitely about to steal your post rock thunder, and in the process get it all tangled up with some indie rock and dronemetal to boot!
Jesu fans are a pretty loyal bunch, so most of you don't even need to know what this sounds like, and probably could care less about the band sharing this split, but what the heck, for those of you who are interested or are new to the slowly expanding Jesu universe, these two tracks, are a bit of a departure, but enough like 'classic' Jesu to hit the spot. The first track begins with a skittery lo-fi breakbeat, super old school, takes a few minutes but eventually crumbling distorted guitars tumble into the picture, and soaring fuzzy dirgepop melodies, the vocals breathy and eighties, a lot New Order, and barring the super obtuse song structure, this first track wouldn't sound at all out of place on the most recent M83 record. Very new wave-y, dreamy and melancholy, but with some definitely strange sonic shit going on, soaring high end streaks, the rhythms getting all chopped up and stuttery, some pulsing buzzing synths. It's not until halfway through that the guitars kick in, and they don't soar majestically, instead they're sort of simple and repetitive, and they're soon pushed to the background by the various other sounds, layer after layer of warm fuzzy swirls, until the end, when the drums drop out and the guitar unfurls lazily in a sea of static and crumbling sonic grit, a warm sun baked lo-fi fade out. Cool stuff. Definitely not the same old Jesu which is precisely what keeps it interesting, and makes every record a bit of a surprise.
The second track, and the record closer, begins with deep synthy bass, and glistening sonic twinkles, another slowed down stripped down breakbeat, skittering along beneath drone-y synthesizers, and softly effected vocals, once again channeling classic eighties dream pop. Until once again the track explodes into a murky blow out, the drums now a furious blast, the guitars woozy and super distorted, almost like Jesu speed metal, but never losing it's prismatic dreamlike bliss.
Great stuff from both bands. And while we're dying for more Envy, the more Jesu's sound slips ever closer to the eighties, the more we want the next split to be with sonic brethren M83. Or heck, at the very least Jesu should cover some New Order or Smiths...
MPEG Stream: ENVY "Conclusion Of Existence"
MPEG Stream: JESU "Hard To Reach"

EXXASENS Polaris (ConSouling Sounds) cd-r 11.98
For a while there, Belgian label NOTHingness was one of our favorite sources for grim droning black ambience. Pretty much everything they released was fantastic. Well, NOTHingness sadly is no more, but in it's place, has risen Consouling Sounds, a new label focusing less on dark ambient and dronemusic and more on post rock, space rock and drone rock, with a distinct focus on up and coming unknown artists. The label is split into two distinct entities. They recently released the Bungled & The Botched cd from Nadja (now out of print, sorry) via the 'Soul' imprint, home for established acts, and this, the debut from Spanish metallic post rockers Exxasens is the first release in their 'Con ' series, limited cd-r releases of unknown bands, offering people an inexpensive chance to check out some new sounds. 
As mentioned above, these particular sounds come via Spain, and the weirdly named Exxasens, who while choosing a somewhat overpopulated style, do manage to do their own thing. Their sound while definitely rocking, is more on the math/post side of things than the metal, at their heaviest, they sound like a lighter Isis or maybe more like a slightly more metal Mogwai, and those heavy parts soar more than pummel, but they balance well with the more loping introspective bits. Regardless, math rockers and post rockers will definitely be in heaven, these guys certainly push all the right buttons, the drumming is intricate and mathy with some intense squalls of rapid fire double kick, the guitars ring out, chiming majestically, there also seems to be some sort of keyboard action, or perhaps that's just some extra guitars, either way, it adds all sorts of texture to the proceedings. There are some cool production tape speed tricks, a bunch of samples, but of course no vocals, this is all instrumental, every track rife with slow building elaborate arrangements, epic melodies, and some killer chops, as well as a flair for crafting some subtly catchy tunes. 
Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Isis, Mogwai, Mono, Irepress, Souvenir's Young America, if that reads like your iTunes library, then, you probably will want to pick this up too...
Packaged in a cd sized dvd style plastic sleeve, with a full color insert. LIMITED TO 170 COPIES in two editions, both already sold out, so these are the very last copies.
MPEG Stream: "Polaris"
MPEG Stream: "Your Dreams Are My Dreams"
MPEG Stream: "Blue Space"

FUN YEARS, THE Baby, It's Cold Inside (Barge) cd 13.98
By now, everyone must be aware of how into turntables we are. The glitch, the crackle, the hiss. Similar to how everything sounds better slow, or backwards, everything definitely sounds better all wrapped in crackle and pop (how about something backwards, slow and crackly!!!). Anyway, we discovered The Fun Years a while back and were immediately smitten with their unique line up, a duo of baritone guitar and turntable. The mix proved perfection. The guitar providing most of the melody, the turntable offering up most of the texture, but sometimes deftly changing places. 
We played the heck out of that first record and were super excited to discover there was a new full length in the pipe and it does not disappoint. In fact, the new one is way heavier on the guitar, in fact the opening track might just be the best thing we've heard from these guys. As it was playing, Allan suggested it sounded like Philip Jeck playing Nadja-lite. Which is in fact not that far off the mark. The guitar is deep and resonant, unfurling a lazy minor key riff, the turntables creak and crackle in the background, offering up a stuttery staticky rhythm, the main riff has a bit of twang to it, and reminds us a bit of recent Earth, but underpinned by a subtle black swirl, a smoldering drone, eventually everything begins to bliss out and get all woozy and gauzy, and get really dense and heavy, the guitar and the turntable locked into a gloriously hypnotic loop, eventually building to a truly explosive finale. Man, once they lock in and the distortion begins to swell, we sort of wished this was the only song on the record and was gonna go on for another 30 or 40 minutes. But only until the next song started up...
The next track, not nearly as heavy, is just as darkly evocative, a crackly skipped piano loop wreathed in soft effects, the guitar offering up spidery melodic counterpoint, laced with super effected streaks of distorted guitar, a gorgeously mesmerizing repetitive loop that as far as we're concerned could go on forever. 
And so it goes, three more extended tracks, lumbering crackly loops, simple moody guitar melodies, haunting effects, deep thick drones, layers of hiss and fuzz, the final track a gorgeous post rock drift, jangly clean guitar, a murky scraping turntable loop finishing off with a sudden burst of what sounds like full on metal, blown out, blissed out, psychedelic, super distorted, but also all glitchy and damaged, hiccuping rhythms, the main riff throbbing beneath all the buzz, so fucking awesome. Fading out just as quickly, leaving just a a bit of needle in groove scratch and crackle as the disc runs out...
These guys just keep getting better and better. Dying to hear what they come up with next, and hell if they ever decide to expand to a trio and get a real drummer, well, they know where to find me!
MPEG Stream: "My Lowville"
MPEG Stream: "Auto Show Day Of The Dead"

GHAST / YOGA split (TDS / Choking Hazard) cd 11.98
Yoga is a pretty unlikely name for a black metal band. But then Yoga from Portland, Oregon are a pretty unlikely sounding black metal band. So much so that we're not even sure they really are black metal. Or metal. But they are. Sort of.
The sound of Yoga takes the lo-fi practice space recordings of grimmest of the BM outfits, and combines it with the murky muddy noise drenched blur of bands like Wold. But then take it even further rendering their sound so muted and lo fidelity that even when they're blasting furiously, it still sounds like a busted music box or an old black metal 78. And then there's the fact that Yoga spend a good amount of their time not blasting blackly, but instead, crafting synth heavy Goblin style film music, all throbbing bass and buzzing synths, creepy minor key melodies and tons of haunting ambience. Those songs too are wreathed in a foggy night-on-the-moors sort of murk, which ties those songs closely to the more blackened ones.
The strange combination of grim and Goblin, the tripped out fucked up recording quality, the damaged arrangements, the looped hypnotic quality, turn Yoga into something totally out there, most likely way to abstract and psychedelic and deliriously lo-fi to appeal to folks  looking for grim buzzing blackness, but for the rest of you, if you can try to imagine some impossible mix of Philip Jeck, Wold, Goblin, the Skaters and some of the super weird EEE unblack bands, all produced by John Maus and Ariel Pink, then you will flip for this.
The other band on this split, Ghast, are also not at all typical black metal, although they are much more distinctly metal than Yoga. Their sound is a super spare, slow motion blackened doom, still plenty lo-fi, the drums murky and down in the mix, the guitars more of a distant moan, sometimes soaring to the forefront, before drifting off again, the vocals super distorted and effected and harsh. All around this plodding blackness, creepy drones soar and shimmer, wail and keen, offering up a mournful abstract backdrop for Ghast's miserablist blackdoom. There's also a live track, where Ghast's sound is transformed into a crumbling blown out blackened drone, sounding almost like a metal band playing from behind a brick wall, the whole thing captured using a mic in a bucket of dirty water. The result is pretty fantastic, only the drums are at all identifiable, and then just barely, all the other instruments have been transformed into a mesmerizingly damaged, murky, muddy, sludgey pulsing drone. Awesome.
We got these direct from the band, and got the last copies, so once we run out, we might not be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: GHAST "La Noche Del Terror Ciego"
MPEG Stream: YOGA "Deep With-in The Cave Of Sesame"
MPEG Stream: YOGA "Littlefoot"

GIL, GILBERTO s/t (Frevo Rasgado) (Water) cd 15.98
Gilberto Gil's Frevo Rasgado is as true an archetypal expression of Tropicalia as one is going to find. As is always more or less the case with defining a genre, some portion of the mental gymnastics hinges on construction and projection. As humans trying to categorize things we like, we often blur the edges and collapse differences in service of our desire to be able to declare unequivocally: "I like Alternative!" Or Shitgaze, or Go-Go, or whatever crackpot concoction you've got brewing. So, all that said, this record does an incredibly good job of presenting a thorough and accessible example of a genre that is surprisingly elusive, now 40 years past its zenith. And perhaps what makes it elusive is the breadth of influence it incorporates, mixing bossa nova, rock and roll, Bahian folk music, myriad African forms, and even a brand of Portuguese blues called fado. The pastiche is so rich in fact that it's pretty easy to lose track of the ingredients in the blend. A good pair of headphones will certainly help you tease the detail out of the auxiliary percussion tucked under the horn section, or pull a thread of whistling out of a dense flute section. For those inclined towards this kind of sonic excavation, this record is a true pleasure.
But enough hemming and hawing about genre, because this record is much more. It's a gorgeous collision between two of Brazil's greatest auteurs. Gil, the once exiled pop star with more than 20 records under his belt, and the current Minister of Culture in Brazil, head to head with Rogario Duprat, something of a Tropicalian Phil Spector, and undeniablyŠ a fucking wizard. And both are in fine form, confident in their skills, expansive in their vision, technically inventive, and generally charming. Many of the melodies and the phrasings will be familiar to anyone whose spent time with the rest of the Rogario Duprat catalogue, especially A Banda Tropicalista Do Duprat, another classic from '68. However, Frevo Rasgado shows Gil also exploring a moodier and more atmospheric terrain. In particular the tracks "Ele Falava Nisso Todo Dia" and "Luzia Luluza" balance Gil's typically boisterous and winning vocal approach with a pensive, rainy-day production and arrangement aesthetic resulting in a sweet and sour treat you don't find often. Their sentimental gravitas is absolutely the stuff of soundtracks. Grab it before Wes Anderson does so you can have the pleasure of imagining or living the magic, before its potential is fixed in celluloid. Frevo Rasgodo is less of a guitar record than some of Gil's other records. Instead the many and varied horns, flutes, strings, and percussive ephemera drape the song structures in counterpoint, drawing your attention to the far reaches of what each song's core could imply. It's in this distance perhaps that the magic lies. Between whatever spare version of a song Gil first cooked up, and the spacious context and gallant style Duprat places it in. Anyone whose imagination has been piqued in regards to '60s and '70s Brazilian music by the likes of Animal Collective or Devendra Banhart should spend time with this record and uncover the origins. It's a full spectrum gift that keeps on giving.
MPEG Stream: "Ele Falava Nisso Todo Dia"
MPEG Stream: "Luzia Luluza"

GOLDMUND The Malady Of Elegance (Type) cd 15.98
There's another Goldmund record! And so soon after his gem Two Point Discrimination. For those new to the man and the band, Goldmund is Keith Kenniff (aka Helios) and his brand of solo piano music excels in borrowing from twentieth century composers like Feldman, Cardew, and Glass, and infusing them with the charm of folk melodies from the 19th and early 20th century. Over his last 4 releases, he has done a remarkable job creating a truly singular voice with great economy. The effect can be nostalgic, though the compositions are too clever to be pigeonholed as such. Additionally, the recording quality is phenomenally detailed and closely mic'd. One of the great pleasures in Goldmund's past recordings and on this one too, is all of the rich and textural sounds from the piano. You can hear the friction of the keys, and hear the thump of the hammers on the strings. All of this keeps the sometimes sepia drenched content in a generally forward thinking mode; a sort of autumnal nostalgia for next winter, and in time, next Spring. Kenniff lives in Boston and it shows. The whole thing is very New England, and more than a bit puritan, with its stark yet warm aesthetic. Above all it is truly listenable and well conceived music that doesn't really demand your attention as much as it generously wraps itself around whatever you were already paying attention too, and infuses it with a bit of wistful beauty or bittersweet melancholy. Very much recommended for those of you who find yourselves staring out of windowsŠ thinking.
MPEG Stream: "Finding It There"
MPEG Stream: "Now"

HALF MAKESHIFT Omen (Profound Lore Records) cd 13.98
We have yet to be disappointed by the restrained, doomic ambience that Half Makeshift (aka Nathan Michael) provides. More atmospheric than absolutely heavy (most of the time), Half Makeshift makes chilling chill out albums for the SUNNO))) scene. This new one is called Omen and it is indeed quite... ominous. It lets you get about 8 minutes into the first track before the crashing waves of distortion kick in. Even then, despite the volume, it still seems somehow hushed. And before the track is over, it retreats again into a melodic, melancholic realm of looping loveliness for guitar; spare and spacious and unhurried. Elsewhere on this album that pattern repeats itself, this moody work having a stretched-out set of dynamics like a somnolent post-rock band... it's quietly droning much of the time, adorned with plaintive piano and guitar, building a seductive sense of despair, that occasionally reaches level of cathartic release when Half Makeshift so subtly cranks it up and gets heavy. Loops and backwards effects and digital glitch figure into the mix throughout, but no vocals. Omen has a baleful prettiness to it that could appeal to fans of recent Earth, KTL, Fear Falls Burning, Nadja, Fun Years, and Oren Ambarchi amongst others.
And this time Half Makeshift makes its home on the Profound Lore label, who, not unlike the likes of Southern Lord, 20 Buck Spin, and often tUMULt, teeters on various edges of the metal/doom/drone/blackened/experimental zone, with releases from the likes of Alcest, Atavist, Nadja, Wold, and (reviewed last list) Krallice.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

HEAVY WINGED A Blanket Of Ash (self released) cd-r 9.98
Heavy Winged were in town a few weeks back, and let us have a bunch of this tour only cd-r, limited to just 50 copies, and thus, we assume, already well out print. 
Like the rest of their discs, a seriously frenzied chunk of repetitive psych groove blowout. The drums and bass locked tight, looped and cyclical, pounding out fiercely hypnotic jams, while the guitar, just wigs out, soaring and squealing, and grinding and chugging, spitting out squalls of glittering high end, and unfurling churning downtuned riffage, tightly wound for sure, but also loose as hell, the rhythm section solid as shit, letting the guitar go apeshit, and go apeshit it does. This seems to be a whole live set. The opener is as described above, while the second track begins all moody and meandering, with the guitar slipping and sliding over a lazy strummed bass and a a smattering of cymbals, it does get heavier, but much more drone-y and almost dreamy. The final track is a serious blow out, the drums tribal and frenetic, the bass a super distorted throb, the guitar offering up mostly streaks of feedback, eventually launching into some high end buzz and spray, while the drums pound relentlessly, the whole thing eventually crumbling to pieces. 
These guys kick so much ass, especially live, so for a handful of you, here's a chance to hear what all the fuzz is about. 
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. And already out of print.
MPEG Stream: "A Blanket Of Ash"

HUM OF THE DRUID / FIRE IN THE HEAD split (Audio Immolation Industries / Cipher Productions) lp 15.98
We recently reviewed a full length lp from Hum Of The Druid, Raising The New Wing..., a mighty caustic slab of noise drenched drones and fucked up ambience. For a record that harsh and harrowing, we really couldn't stop listening to it (and yeah, we have a few copies left). So we were psyched to discover a new record by them (him?), a split with another noisemaker we dig, but have yet to review anything by.
The Hum Of The Druid side is more of what we've been hankering for. A dense sea of crumbling distortion and blown out grit, a spray of grizzled amp buzz and all manner of hum and crackle and glitch. There are brief interludes of abstract ambience, laced with bits of feedback, but those are merely brief respites from the relentless onslaught. The HotD side ends with some super creeped out blackened drones, lots of distorted in-the-red low end, and tortured anguished howls buried way down in the mix, culminating in a super jagged speaker destroying crunch and glitch outro.
Fire In The Head most definitely hold their own, opening with slithery slowed down guitar drones, underneath creepy fucked up samples, plenty of buzz and glitch, all over a thick sea of processed rumbles and whirs, there's definitely an old school industrial vibe, intense and haunting, lots of vocal samples. It all builds to a seriously fired filed of static, underpinning cool super effected demonic vokills, doused in distortion and reverb. Super super creepy. The side ends with some awesomely distorted blown out rhythms, all stuttery and chopped up, like some damaged metallic noise dub. Cool.
Super nice packaging. Thick black sleeve with paste on covers on each side, and Rudimentary Peni fans take note, the Fire In The Head side features original Nick Blinko artwork! Also includes a printed insert / lyric sheet, and of course, it's ultra limited, and we only got a handful.

I AM SEAMONSTER Nebulum (Basses Frequences) cd-r 10.98
Another amazing release from Basses Frequences (and no, that's not a typo), a new-ish (mostly) cd-r label from France, whose gorgeous sounds and lovingly packaged super limited releases have definitely been hitting the spot lately. They're up to 6 or 7 releases by now, we listed the Tamagawa a few lists back, and elsewhere on this list you'll find a new release from Aidan Baker, and the latest from Irish drone outfit Wereju. 
But here, we have the debut (as far as we know) from the curiously (and cooly) named I Am Seamonster, and we knew we were were in for something special, after only a few seconds of "Nebulum". It's definitely drone music, but this is not cavernous doomy low end rumbles, or delicate high end shimmer (although we do love both), no, this is something much more akin to Fennesz or Tim Hecker or Philip Jeck. Washed out and gauzy, blurred and ethereal. It's like someone removed a 2 or 3 second chunk from a perfect pop song, and stretched it out to 500 times that, simple melodies pulled apart into indistinct streaks, notes and chords transformed into deep glowing slow burning drones. Or perhaps imagine taking some shimmery bit of pop and examining it under a microscope, glimpsing past all the surface stuff and examining the mysterious world within, the textures revealed offer up a whole new world of sound, all the various microscopic parts, music at the atomic level, a blurred soundscape of massive slow moving shapes, of slowly shifting textures, the sound all grainy and blurred, you can almost imagine this as the first shot in the musical version of that film when the camera pulls back from the inside of the molecule all the way back to the furthest reaches of the universe. Who knows what sort of song, or what kind of music might be revealed if we pulled back from the soft, intimate dreamlike sounds of I Am Seamonster, but it hardly matters, because if anything, we actually want to get closer, to go deeper, to shrink ourselves down and lose ourselves in IAS's mysterious microscopic soundworld...
Amazing packaging. The cd is seated in a black tray within a hinged metal tin, with a paste on front cover, full color sticker, and a sticker inside too with the liner notes. 
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Nebulum"
MPEG Stream: "Constellatrix"

IKEDA, RYOJI Test Pattern (Raster-Norton) cd 17.98
Been waiting for this for a while, the new Raster-Noton disc from Japanese electronic artist Ryoji Ikeda! There's a bunch of other new Raster titles that we're excited about too (Coh, Alva Noto, Byetone, etc.) but this is the one we were anticipating the most. Sure, lots of folks make electronic music of the experimental glitchy, clicky variety - like many of Ikeda's just-mentioned labelmates - but in our book, Ikeda is the KING. His precision architect(r)onic computerized clicks and cuts are on a whole 'nother level, totally hallucinatory and 3-D spatial. An immersive environment you enter at your own risk (of epileptic seizure, perhaps). But if you pass the test (of his relentless electronic pitter patter patterns) you'll be entranced and entangled.
And we're pleased to report that Test Pattern is yet another strobing, brutally stereo display of his skills. 16 binaryily named tracks, "Test Pattern #0001" to "Test Pattern #0000", that provide prickly pleasure with rapid, stuttery nano-beats, like a frantic Geiger counter on the fritz, or some sort of Morse code madness. Ikeda's techniques include both minimalist repetition, and sudden shifts; his skittering, synthetic slices of sound arranged in complex, rhythmic patterns, an omnidirectional aural assault of high pitched, panicked, hissing sine tones, and deeper bass hums n' buzzing drones... it's a pretty incredible collection of constructions, vibrant and varied within Ikeda's self-imposed electronic boundaries and specific sets of data-based building materials. As ever with Ikeda's output, recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Test Pattern #0010"
MPEG Stream: "Test Pattern #0011"

KLABAUTAMANN Our Journey Through The Woods (Vendlus) cd 15.98
REPRESSED! Now on Vendlus, formerly self-released. Here's our review from back on list #266 when we first raved about Our Journey...
Second disc from this mysterious blackened outfit, that just so happens to feature members of AQ faves Woburn House, a modern metallic post rock combo, who knocked our socks off with their recent Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine record on UK label Paradigms. Where Woburn house took math rock and metallized it, creating a sound much more akin to some unlikely blend of Shellac and Gore, in Klabautamann, they take the buzzing blur of black metal, and add all sorts of melody and strange convoluted arrangements.
The record opens with the crunch of winter footsteps and glistening arpeggiated guitars, a lilting swoonsome introduction to the record proper, which erupts out of the gates as track two lurches into black aktion, manic drumming, buzzing crusty riffage and growled demonic vocals. But that's where any resemblance to traditional black metal ends. The songs buzz and thrash and pound, but it's so much more melodic, with cool little Iron Maiden-y guitar harmonies, strange mathy breakdowns, all sorts of strange guitar parts lurking around and under the main riff, lots of jangle and shimmer, even at its fiercest, there always seems to be some sort of sweet melody lurking underneath. The riffs too are much more rock than black metal, giving the record another strange twist. Lots of parts even sound like a blackened Treepeople, with multiple guitar lines all tangled up into gorgeous melodic knots. So cool and so weird. Could very well be the perfect gateway black metal band for folks who may have been a bit shy about taking the plunge into the dark side. And for the rest of you, whose musical souls are already tainted, this is strange and twisted, mathy, melodic, buzzy and blackened heaven!
MPEG Stream: "Walking Through Twilight"
MPEG Stream: "Der Nock"
MPEG Stream: "Trolldance"

KOENJIHYAKKEI 070531 (Magaibutsu) dvd 13.98
While we know Japanese drummer extraordinaire Tatsuya Yoshida best from his infamous prog-core duo Ruins, it would seem that he's putting most of his copious energy into a different band these days, Koenjihyakkei. Actually Koenjihyakkei have been around for a long time (their first album came out in 1994) but we've always thought of 'em as sort of a Ruins side project, one of many, not Yoshida's main thing. However, now they're up to album number four (2005's Angherr Shisspa) and have just released *another* live DVD (their third! however, the previous two are out of print now) on Yoshida's Magaibutsu label. So they've been busy lately. Meanwhile, it sadly seems like Ruins is on, at the very least, a major hiatus, with nothing heard from that duo since 2002's Tzomborgha.
Of course, Ruins fans are probably also Koenjihyakkei fans. Naturally, since the latter band takes the Ruins' obsession with all things Magma to another level, in part by including keyboards, guitar, operatic female vocals, and woodwinds... it's all very over the top and insane (like Ruins) but, with, like six or eight virtuosos not just two. And it's less "punk" than Ruins sometimes seem, with more prog polish.
Fans (or prospective fans) should be interested in this live dvd, documenting a show at Starpine's Cafe in Tokyo, on May 31st 2007 (hence the title). Besides Yoshida, the lineup includes Yamamoto Kyoko on vocals, Ishibashi Eiko (heard with Yoshida on their recent duo disc Slip Beneath The Distant Tree) on keyboards and flute, Sakamoto Kengo on bass, Komori Keiko on soprano sax and clarinet, and none other than Hoppy Kamiyama on keyboards and vocals. Plus, guests Tsuboy Akihisa on violin and Imahori Tsuneo (from Tipographica, and also the Imahori-Yoshida duo) on guitar. All of 'em of course pretty much slay on their respective instruments and vocal duties. As is made abundantly clear on this disc's first six cuts, which find these musicians improvising in various small groupings. It starts off already in a pretty darn full-on mode, with a herky-jerky Yoshida and equally physical Komori Keiko in a wild duet. Crazy stuff. The second half of the program switches to proper Koenjihyakkei compositions, and (in case you didn't know) we're talking some complex prog bizness here, the utmost in "Zeuhl" stylings, beginning with the title track from Angherr Shisspa. They do two more from that album, and two off of Nivraym, and then for their grand finale, the band do a lively version of "Sunna Zarioki" from the very first Koenjihyakkei album. It's played with a great deal of relish, and the Komori Keiko's rah-rah stage moves are quite cute. Hearing these songs on record is one thing, SEEING and hearing them rip through them live is even more impressive.
There's only one camera, which occasionally zooms in for a (medium) close-up of the action but mainly stays with a full-stage view, getting everybody in. 12 tracks, 100 minutes, all region NTSC.

LATE YOUNG Nativity (Laughing Cops Unlimited) cd-r 3.98
Tantric no wave. If you can dig on the hypnotic and disturbing qualities of groups like Swans, or maybe a Godflesh with live drumming, you're getting close. Late Young isn't about one specific moment, the whole consumes itself. You've really got to enjoy the dark, suspended animation and become immersed within the dynamics of an aural onslaught. At the end, with a healthy session of reflection, you may feel closer to understanding, or coming to peace with what you've just experienced. It doesn't need any obvious, gimme hooks or sing-a-longs. It's more about creating an environment, teasing it up to it's maximum potential, then annihilating it. Picture Thom Wilson (who produced both TSOL and Christian Death) and New York no wave group Mars undergoing some animalistic transmogrification alongside His Hero Is Gone. Just fucking brutal, dark, repetitive, spiritual. This disc contains four tracks, each of which is an effects-soaked, fist full of mushroom nightmares. These particular recordings were born "out of sessions probing the helter skelter limits at the altar of guitar perversion, tom heavy foundation, and worship of holy reverb." It's also worth noting that this self-recorded and released collection contains one very attractive acetate insert. Late Young have also just obtained one brand new drummer, manifested here on Earth as Andrew of AQ's blackened, one-man favorite The Mausoleums. Let go, sit back, and be consumed.
MPEG Stream: "Suez Canal"
MPEG Stream: "Monochrome"

LAY, JOSH Poison Drinker (Sentient Recognition Archive) cd-r 8.98
This just might be our favorite new 'noise' record. The key to that statement being those little marks around the word noise. This is most definitely noisy. But it's not pure noise. It's textural. It's droney. Somehow it's weirdly melodic too. Hard to explain, it's a big ol' massive slab of grinding guitar drone, laced with shards of static, and streaks of high end skree, the low end undulates and pulses, creating a distinct, but super subtle melody, a dense rumbling support for all the high end weirdness happening o'er the top. 
Josh Lay for those who may not know, is in fact the drummer for fucked up avant noise doom combo Cadaver In Drag, and this here is what happens when you let THAT kind of drummer make his own record. Not sure what he's using, guitar, synth, 4-track, shortwave radio, effects. We like to think the cover of the cd is an actual photo of the recording taking place, a beat up old console turntable, two old blown speakers, a cow skull, a half drunk bottle of booze, and an upside down cross. Cuz, c'mon, put al that stuff together, it would have to sound a little something like this, At least we'd hope so. 
Two tracks, the first, the title track is the above mentioned 'noise', a gloriously heavy blown out crumbling damaged stretch of coruscating sound, weird that something so obviously harsh could be so listenable, but it really is. At one point some creepy horn comes in, maybe it's a synth, but it sounds like a horn, it blats for a second, then just lays down and forms another layer of buzz, tones warble and wail, almost like some radio shack built siren, and gets all tangled up in that thick viscous buzz. We literally can't stop listening to it. So much so, that it's only right now, that we actually made it to the second track, which is kick ass also, but much more subdued, a weird stuttery loop, locked into an endless rhythm, while beneath, the same deep ominous low end from the opening track buzzed and reverberates, as the track progresses, more and more sounds enter the mix, a microscopic symphony of beeps and buzzes, squeaks and squiggles, all just adding to the general dreamy noise drenched din. AWESOME!
And unfortunately LIMITED TO ONLY 80 COPIES! And we got all they had left so act fast...
MPEG Stream: "Poison Drinker"

LULL & BETA CLOUD Circadian Rhythm Disturbance (Laughing Bride Media) 3"cd-r 8.98
We only got a handful of these, and it was limited to only 100 or so copies anyway, so we won't get into too much detail. Most folks just need to see the name Lull and they'll be sold. Lull, aka Mick Harris, collaborates here with Beta Cloud, who a while back teamed up with Aidan Baker for a killer disc of dark buzzing dronemusic. But on Circadian Rhythm Disturbance, Harris and Beta Cloud team up for one 20 minute track of extreme dark ambience, loose barely there rhythms drift in and out occasionally, but this is all about the atmospheric low end, and it is LOW, a deep subterranean rumble that seems to swallow up all light, like the sound of some massive behemoth drifting slowly through the blackened deep, or some mysterious black shape drifting across the midnight sky, huge groaning drones and massive swells of rib cage rattling bass, smeared and blurred into a tidal sort of barely-rhythm, that subtly pulses and throbs, sucking the listener under, filling you ears with gorgeous soft black sound. 
SUPER LIMITED. Most likely already out of print at the label.
MPEG Stream: "Circadian Rhythm Disturbance"

MACHINEFABRIEK Vloed (Sentient Recognition Archive) cd-r 8.98
As is the case with Aidan Baker and Nadja, it almost wouldn't seem like a proper aQ new arrivals list without the presence of Machinefabriek, aka Rutger Zuydervelt, so we're quite relieved to have both. Actually, all three. 
This latest Machinefabriek recording captures three live performances, all in Amsterdam, recorded between 2006 and 2008 all looooong, the shortest 16 minutes, the longest 22. 
All three performances find Machinefabriek in fine form, offering up thick billows of warm guitar shimmer, fluttery staticky ambience, and at one point some uncharacteristically heavy super distorted metallic guitar, but here, it's not so much metal as simply a mighty drone, thick and throbbing and super intense. There are long stretches of near silence and super minimal high end drone, glimmering slow building crescendos, squalls of distorted choral buzz, warm whirring metallic reverberations, shimmery almost new age and dense black dronemusik, all the stuff we love about Machinefabriek, BUT, and this is what makes this disc so good, is that live, while still being dynamic and subtle, Zuydervelt also proves to me way more intense and aggressive than on his recordings. And thus, we must recommend!
LIMITED TO 180 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "06.07.2008 Bimhuis, Amsterdam"
MPEG Stream: "09.06.2006 Oude Kerk, Amsterdam"

MANBEARD / AVARUS Split (Tour CDR 2007) (Secret Eye) cd-r 9.98
This is the first we've heard from the brilliantly named Manbeard, the fucked up freak folk cabaret offshoot of old aQ faves Urdog. Here they share a cd-r with furry Finnish folk combo Avarus, originally a tour only release, and while it might not seem like it, weirdly it's kind of a good match. Manbeard are tough to explain. Very jaunty and sing songy, almost like sea shanties, big drums, dramatic WAY over the top vocals, angular riffing, a little bit gloomy and dark, gothic even, with squiggly synths, damaged percussion, and really twisted songs. And really bizarre overdubs, strange characters making announcements, speaking to the listener, adding their 2 cents to various songs. Definitely an acquired taste, but if you're into the same weird stuff we are, then acquiring it might not be that difficult. The weird thing is, this disc is jam packed with short-ish Manbeard songs, then right in the middle, tack 5 in fact, is the ONE Avarus song, a massive half hour jam, recorded live, all ramshackle rhythms, and detuned guitars, chanted vocals, fluttering woodwinds, raga like buzzing, stumbling druggy far out freaked out damaged outsider genius for sure. It sounds like a blast, like they just set up on the street in the middle of rush hour, and their merrymaking just sucked in a massive crowd, dancing and howling and whooping and wildly frolicking through the streets of Helsinki. At least that's what it sounds like. 
Then it's time again for more Manbeard weirdness, fragmented song experiments, fucked up drones, lo-fi off kilter bedroom folk, fractured dada-ist pop and whatever else crossed their twisted musical minds. 
In cool hand screened color sleeves, with printed inserts. We got these direct from The Manbeard when he was in town, and he mentioned these might be the last copies, so if we run out that might be it.
MPEG Stream: MANBEARD "Original Performance Of The Manbeard Denizens Folk Classic, Manbearde Folk Classic, Manbeard Factory"
MPEG Stream: AVARUS "Mayra Syo Junkun Ihmiseh"

MENEGUAR The In Hour (Woodsist) cd 13.98
One of the great things about working here at the aQ HQ is finding out how much shared musical history you have with your co-workers. Take, for example, a few months ago when our review for the new Dodos record referenced this totally obscure mid-'90s band from Western Mass called the Wicked Farleys. That one offhand mention got us all so amped up that it sparked a bunch of long, hyperactive, rambling conversations about our other favorite overlooked bands from that era. Even now, whenever someone comes into the store and asks about Vetiver, there are a few of us who will take the opportunity to reminisce loudly about how totally rad Andy Cabic's OLD band, The Raymond Brake, was (believe us, they were really rad). There's a whole host of fractured, whammy bar-worshipping rockers form the mid-'90s that we collectively wax nostalgic about here both in our reviews and our day-to-day conversations (The Swirlies, Pitchblende, Polvo, Erectus Monotone, as well as the aforementioned Wicked Farleys and Raymond Brake to name but a few!); we're crazy about these bands and their records still get plenty of play years later. So with all that in mind, take us seriously when we say that had we heard the first two records by Brooklyn-based indie rockers Meneguar (I Was Born At Night and Strangers In Our House, both on Troubleman Unlimited and both newly available at aQ) back in '95 that they would undoubtedly be included in aQ's hallowed pantheon of atonal pop bliss!
So, with all of that said, there was some serious trepidation on our part when we first gave The In Hour a spin as the record finds the band dipping into new, self-consciously 'experimental' waters. Generally, 'experimental' albums by rock bands are fraught with the potential for self-indulgent missteps, poor song choices, and a total disregard for the kind of intensive self-editing required of a fine pop record. Thankfully, Meneguar manage to avoid these pitfalls and make a record that, although different from its predecessors, is still a thoroughly enjoyable listen! The In Hour is definitely a scrappier affair, but there are still hooks and riffs a plenty. Maybe it's the fact that they've always had a bit of a fey touch to them that keeps the the melody-to-skronk ratio tipped to the tuneful side; or maybe the extended meanderings are kept to a bare minimum by the fact that several of the band's members are able to get their freakier ya-yas shaken out as part of Brooklyn drone-folkers, Woods Family Creeps (whose excellent self-titled debut we highlighted a list or two back).
Aside from the ghetto blaster meets trash can aesthetic of the recording, the most notable change from their earlier work is the subdued feel that permeates the record. The distortion and anthemic leanings are dialed down, making space for acoustic guitars that manage to both clang and chime, a healthy dose of crackle and hiss, and a whole lot of reverberating echoes bouncing hither and dither. Meneguar have managed a rare feat in the world of indie rock: stretching out and messing with their formula without completely losing sight of what makes them special in the first place. Despite the slightly more primitive approach to execution and production, the band hasn't forsaken melody or catchiness or chosen to dive headlong into the hissy, static, shitwave wash of which we've been hearing so much lately. This one is equally likely to appeal to fans of Woods Family Creeps, Barn Owl and the like as it is to fans of No Age and Eat Skull without sounding particularly like either tribe. At its core, The In Hour is a thoroughly enjoyable indie rock record that will give fans of bands like Les Savy Fav, Superchunk, GBV, Pavement and Archers of Loaf plenty to smile about. It's chock full of memorable, melodic gems that should provide ample mix tape fodder for the coming summer days. Hopefully, giving this one a listen will inspire some of y'all to check out their back catalog as well! Recommended for sure!
MPEG Stream: "We Own We Sell"
MPEG Stream: "Lynch The Swan Bar"
MPEG Stream: "Black Death"

MENEGUAR The In Hour (Woodsist) lp 14.98
One of the great things about working here at the aQ HQ is finding out how much shared musical history you have with your co-workers. Take, for example, a few months ago when our review for the new Dodos record referenced this totally obscure mid-'90s band from Western Mass called the Wicked Farleys. That one offhand mention got us all so amped up that it sparked a bunch of long, hyperactive, rambling conversations about our other favorite overlooked bands from that era. Even now, whenever someone comes into the store and asks about Vetiver, there are a few of us who will take the opportunity to reminisce loudly about how totally rad Andy Cabic's OLD band, The Raymond Brake, was (believe us, they were really rad). There's a whole host of fractured, whammy bar-worshipping rockers form the mid-'90s that we collectively wax nostalgic about here both in our reviews and our day-to-day conversations (The Swirlies, Pitchblende, Polvo, Erectus Monotone, as well as the aforementioned Wicked Farleys and Raymond Brake to name but a few!); we're crazy about these bands and their records still get plenty of play years later. So with all that in mind, take us seriously when we say that had we heard the first two records by Brooklyn-based indie rockers Meneguar (I Was Born At Night and Strangers In Our House, both on Troubleman Unlimited and both newly available at aQ) back in '95 that they would undoubtedly be included in aQ's hallowed pantheon of atonal pop bliss!
So, with all of that said, there was some serious trepidation on our part when we first gave The In Hour a spin as the record finds the band dipping into new, self-consciously 'experimental' waters. Generally, 'experimental' albums by rock bands are fraught with the potential for self-indulgent missteps, poor song choices, and a total disregard for the kind of intensive self-editing required of a fine pop record. Thankfully, Meneguar manage to avoid these pitfalls and make a record that, although different from its predecessors, is still a thoroughly enjoyable listen! The In Hour is definitely a scrappier affair, but there are still hooks and riffs a plenty. Maybe it's the fact that they've always had a bit of a fey touch to them that keeps the the melody-to-skronk ratio tipped to the tuneful side; or maybe the extended meanderings are kept to a bare minimum by the fact that several of the band's members are able to get their freakier ya-yas shaken out as part of Brooklyn drone-folkers, Woods Family Creeps (whose excellent self-titled debut we highlighted a list or two back).
Aside from the ghetto blaster meets trash can aesthetic of the recording, the most notable change from their earlier work is the subdued feel that permeates the record. The distortion and anthemic leanings are dialed down, making space for acoustic guitars that manage to both clang and chime, a healthy dose of crackle and hiss, and a whole lot of reverberating echoes bouncing hither and dither. Meneguar have managed a rare feat in the world of indie rock: stretching out and messing with their formula without completely losing sight of what makes them special in the first place. Despite the slightly more primitive approach to execution and production, the band hasn't forsaken melody or catchiness or chosen to dive headlong into the hissy, static, shitwave wash of which we've been hearing so much lately. This one is equally likely to appeal to fans of Woods Family Creeps, Barn Owl and the like as it is to fans of No Age and Eat Skull without sounding particularly like either tribe. At its core, The In Hour is a thoroughly enjoyable indie rock record that will give fans of bands like Les Savy Fav, Superchunk, GBV, Pavement and Archers of Loaf plenty to smile about. It's chock full of memorable, melodic gems that should provide ample mix tape fodder for the coming summer days. Hopefully, giving this one a listen will inspire some of y'all to check out their back catalog as well! Recommended for sure!
MPEG Stream: "We Own We Sell"
MPEG Stream: "Lynch The Swan Bar"
MPEG Stream: "Black Death"

MOPPERS, THE ( ) Manifest Destroy (Slow Destiny) (Custodian, Color Zoo Containers) cassette 8.98
We might normally scoff at a release limited to only 37 copies, but when you see the handmade miniature collage covers and hand painted tapes, you'll understand. Each one is hand made, a surreal landscape of humans with animal heads, fragments of buildings, mysterious shapes and figures, all done, tiny, to fit in a cassette. Folks who picked up the other releases on Custodian, Color Zoo Containers, will know what we're talking about. One had a cover, that was an intricate cut out insect, the other hand painted, each on folded transparencies. But it's not just the packaging that gets a lot of attention, the music inside is appropriately skewed and mysterious. This one is by a duo called The ( ) Moppers (space and parentheses required), half of which is the man responsible for C,CZC and the incredible packaging.
This is the document of a live show recorded back in 2004, and while it's difficult to pick out exactly what instruments are used, the result is a gloriously buzzy, crackly rhythmic soundscape, lots of glitchy crunch, throbbing distorted low end, soft chordal drones, some simple drumming, all super lo-fi and blown out, parts of this almost sound like a lo-fi noise rock Aluk Todolo, the same sort of abstract rhythmic mystery, but here, it's much more intimate, lots of little sonic events going on, what sound like music boxes, simple strummed guitar melodies, even some piano, but the various elements are distorted and woven into a loping field of thump and thud, of crunch and clunk, that seems to sprawl and drift, sometimes billowing into thick buzzing swells or harsh grinding distortion, but more often, meandering minimally.
Fans of Avarus and Uton and other Finnish sonic experimentalists will dig, as folks into minimal lowercase soundwork. Cool stuff. And remember. Limited to 37 copies, each one individually hand mad and numbered, we got more than half, but those won't last long...

NADJA Desire In Uneasiness (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
And they're back, once again, to test even the loyalty of their most faithful fans. Like clockwork, another list, another Nadja. It's difficult enough doing a list every two weeks. The thought of writing, recording and releasing an album every two weeks boggles the mind.
Okay, so we're exaggerating a little, but only a little. And in fact, this here Nadja, has been out for quite a while, but it went out of print before we could get enough copies to list, so we had to wait until it was finally repressed.
We may gripe about the ridiculous frequency of Nadja and Aidan Baker releases, but a lot of that has to do with having to review them. If we were a fan, and all we had to do was just kick back with some headphones and drift off, well, hell. Bring it on!
But as we've mentioned before, Nadja actually do manage to mix it up, each record exploring different facets of their sound, offering up new takes on their dirgey droney shoegaze-y doom. Desire In Uneasiness brings in a real drummer, and it's noticeable, the songs have a bit more swing, are a little less mechanical sounding, and actually do sound more organic. This record actually is strange in that even though it's split up into 5 songs, the guitar sound is super distinct, and they all seem to be in a similar key, and thus, the record plays out like a single extended song, which with some bands might be a huge complaint, but in the case of Nadja, it actually is pretty excellent.
The first track (movement?) might just be one of our favorite Nadja tracks yet. The new guitar sound is killer, super processed and almost alien sounding, but still thick and distorted. The drum sound is BIG, the main riff is a dizzying fuzzy swirling harmony, almost like some metal lead, slowed down and drenched in FX and distortion, mesmerizing and looped and hypnotic, the drum pounding away beneath that circular riff. The second track blisses  out a bit more, gets super shoegazey, a gorgeous washed out drift, that near the end slips into a strange almost funky shuffle.
Track three is super spare, the drums pounding along in an expanse of distant drones and swirling effects, sort of jazzy, a little bit dubby, stripped down and abstract, which gives way to part 4, a 15 minute long crush, channeling Godflesh and Loop, a churning spaced out groove, with the drums holding things down until things begin to drift apart, the looped guitar spiraling into the ether, while the drums gradually go from simple and tribal to sporadic and space-y. The final track is nearly 20 minutes, and finds Nadja doing their very best space rock, the blown out buzz and relentless pummel builds to a tripped out space-y, many minutes long blow out, that reminds us a bit of Terminal Cheesecake crossed with Hawkwind!
Another Nadja. Another good one. As long as you have room on your shelf, no reason to stop now...
MPEG Stream: "Disambiguation"
MPEG Stream: "Sign-Expressions"

NORDVARGR Helvete (Eternal Pride) cd 21.00
The return of black ambient darklord Nordvargr. A quick look at the aQ website reveals a long love and appreciation for the dark art of Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, from his early days in black ambient terrorists MZ412, to more recent guitar based dronemusik, to his collaborations with MZ412 Drakh, heck, Andee even released the last Nordvargr / Drakh disc on tUMULt. Needless to say, for folks into dark drones and ambient blackness, sinister soundscapes and bleak and abject sounds, it's hard to do any better than Nordvargr. 
While the last few discs have displayed a renewed interest in the guitar, with a much more song oriented approach, Helvete finds Nordvargr returning to the miserablist blackdrone world of his past, offering up some seriously intense and caustic brutality, a collection of grim, utterly hellish soundscapes, all crumbling low end, cavernous black rumbles, haunting mysterious blackness, a definite old school industrial vibe. This disc has been anxiously anticipated due to the fact that Leviathan's Wrest contributes vocals to one track, and his demonic croak is totally unmistakable. He growls and gurgles ominously over deep black drones and all manner of distorted crash and crunch, some seriously frightening stuff for sure. If you think stuff like Lustmord is way too lightweight, then this is definitely for you.
"Dronevessel Part II" is a harrowing expanse of dense metallic low end buzz, sprawling like the roots of some gnarled black tree, impossibly heavy and suffocatingly black. "Part III" begins with a series of strange grinding metal klaxons, before slithering back into the pitch black from whence it came. Drakh offers up vocals on "Exit Cult, Enter Hell", a super distorted snakelike hiss, draped over a crumbling churning black sonic sea.
The final track begins with almost a minute of near silence, before a raw metal buzz surfaces, stumbling blast beats, buzzing riffage, harsh demonic vocals, some full on lo-fi grim black metal for a brief moment, but it quickly blackens and slips back into sinister grimnity. But beyond that brief dalliance with the black blast, this is indeed a soul consuming black hole of sound.
This is easily one of the darkest, heaviest, scariest black drone discs EVER. And we don't make that proclamation lightly. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "I Helvetet I"
MPEG Stream: "Conjugation To Him"

OMAKE & JOHNSON Headiferous Unctabulum (Human Faculties) cd-r 10.98
If we were told that this disc was actually unearthed from the once-lost archive of a curmudgeonly pair of outsider artists who lived on some sodden island in the Puget Sound during the mid '70s, we could definitely be excused for believing it, and thus being completely wrong about the true identities of Vague Johnson & Thompson Omake. With every sound swaddled in tape hiss and occasionally thrown out of orbit by an unruly tape machine, the curious happenings on Headiferous Untacbulum could have easily come from that era of unkempt post-hippie / proto-Industrial expressionism (e.g. Taj Mahal Travellers, Nihilist Spasm Band, Nurse With Wound, etc.). These tracks are grimy psychedelic adventures of free-folk-drone-noise wanderings for homebuilt instruments which rumble and churn against a static field of modular synthesis. Elsewhere, long form drones from dissonantly bowed strings swell into huge clouds of radiant drones. Then, there are the hammered plucks across acoustic guitars with plenty of nods to Fahey and Basho that also emerge behind a pall of spring reverb, and stone-encrusted field recordings crashing through the mix with unexpected results. Top it all off is the hand-dyed envelope with a crusty smear of wax holding the package together. Wouldn't be surprised to see something from these two on Foxy Digitalis or Root Strata one of these days.
All that said, it turns out that Omake and Johnson are the work of contemporary Seattle based musicians Matt Shoemaker and Dave Knott, working through Shoemaker's arsenal of electronics and Knott's invented instruments recorded through a beat-up tape recorder. A really great piece of way-out there sound-field generation and free-folk splutter; and of course, it's super limited to about 40 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Warbler Query Decay"
MPEG Stream: "Strung Templar"
MPEG Stream: "Finally, And In Semi-4"

PADDED CELL Night Must Fall (DC Recordings) cd 22.00
Time for the noirishly groovy, '70s prog and funk infected, jazzily inflected debut full length from the UK's sinister, stylish Padded Cell. What time is that? About 2am maybe. Night must fall, indeed it must.
Those of you that picked up that excellent Milky Disco comp on Lo last year oughtta remember the track "Konkorde Lafayette", which also appears here in edited form. Padded Cell's contribution was a highlight of that comp, which also featured Studio, Sorcerer, Quiet Village and fellow DC artists The Emperor Machine, among others.
Almost entirely instrumental (there's only a couple of vocal cuts), generally dark and creepy and sometimes bleepy, Night Must Fall slow-burns through slinky, cinematic Goblinesque grooves that bring in some no-wave sax blat, and plenty of vintage analog synth zapp and bass brapp. Padded Cell certainly nods to Italo disco... and also the "disco not disco" NYC '80s downtown punk-funk scene - in fact Dennis Young of Liquid Liquid is this album's propulsive guest drummer! Imagine a spooky and suspenseful John Carpenter soundtrack gone dubby disco... Very cool, so cool in fact we had to import these directly from the label in England.
PS. we also got this on vinyl but unfortunately they all came with fairly badly bent corners...we'll try to get replacements but if you can't wait and want the wax, let us know...
MPEG Stream: "Savage Skulls"
MPEG Stream: "City Of Lies"
MPEG Stream: "Konkorde Lafayette (edit)"

PANTALEIMON Mercy Oceans (Dutro/Jnana) cd 14.98
No time like the present to catch up with the past. We missed the boat on Mercy Oceans when it first came out last year but last list you might remember that we couldn't stop gushing about the latest Pantaleimon record, Heart Of The Sun, which was actually comprised of reworked and retouched version of songs from this disc right here. We're happy to report that the songs in their original incarnation are just as stunning, stark and beautiful as the altered versions we fell in love with on Heart Of The Sun. Andri Degens has really made a place for herself far above and beyond so many of the modern folk herd. What makes Degens so special is the way she allows her songs to breathe and the great attention paid to creating such a rich and textured ambiance, which runs throughout the record. There are some really nice and tasteful guest spots by Baby Dee and Isobel Campbell and we can never get enough of Andri's stunning and breathtaking dulcimer. Her voice and delivery continues to remind us of two of our favorite artists, Bridget St John and Sibylle Baier and the songs on Mercy Oceans resonate with such dignity and beauty.
MPEG Stream: "The Sun Came Out"
MPEG Stream: "At Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "High Star"

PILLARS OF SILENCE s/t (s/r) cd-r 5.98
What a stunning debut! Pillars of Silence are a San Francisco band featuring members of Conspiracy of Beards and Brilliant Colors with an ensemble of talented friends who add nice touches throughout including Sean Smith, Jeffrey Luck Lucas and engineer Jesse Parsons, who worked the boards on other great San Francisco debuts by folks like Tussle, Pale Hoarse and Vetiver. But truth be told none of that matters so much, as it's the songs and music that Pillars of Silence have crafted on this debut that stand out so dramatically. These songs melt with such a satisfying and lasting warmth. Lush reverb, textured but never too busy instrumentation and such gorgeous vocals that come together to create songs that have that rare ability to feel both familiar and so totally new and refreshing. There are lots of comparisons to throw around, we hear the smoke and haziness of Mazzy Star and Opal, the crisp and truthful delivery of Smog and the lush and melancholic delivery of Moon Pix-era Cat Power. There are so many songs from this record that we already know will become staples of mixes we make for friends, crushes and true loves. Pillars Of Silence have earned themselves a place near Citay and Vetiver as another of San Francisco's finest songsmiths. Highly recommended! You best act fast on this one as they didn't press too many of them.
MPEG Stream: "Please Call Me"
MPEG Stream: "Ode"
MPEG Stream: "Guilty Hands"

POLE 1 2 3 (Indigo) 3cd 32.00
Between 1998 and 2000, Stefan Betke released three albums as Pole, producing some of the most influential electronica of that era. Emerging from Berlin where he worked as an engineer under Robert Henke (aka Monolake), Betke proposed a fragmented post-techno aesthetic that broke from the Chain Reaction sound which had been so prominent in Berlin at that time. Essentially, he reassessed one of the major influences upon Chain Reaction, that being Lee Perry, furthering the ghost in the machine echo and tape hiss accumulation, but through a novel digital synthesis upon a handful of malfunctioning electronic modules. Here, dynamic skittering blips, pinpricks of digital errata, and a perpetual cloud of simulated vinyl static fluttered amongst sporadic yet dubbed out thundercracks of drum kicks and a constant thrumb of digi-dub basslines. When Pole's first album came out (simply designated 1), no one was doing anything close to this; even Vladislav Delay's abstracted electro-dub had yet to be formed. By his second album (just called 2), the night-time digidub structures of Pole sharpened in focus, and the fragments of post-acid bleep and his static-cling grains of sound snapped in place against the dub. Melodies flickered in the distant space well behind the throbbing bass and crackling small noises, often times sounding eerily prescient of what Kode 9 and Burial would transmogrify into dubstep nearly a decade later. His third album (yup, it's 3) had become self-aware of the impact that Pole was having upon the global electronic scene, with the downbeat rhythmic stabs and delay-impacted sounds having been more aerosolized but no less convoluted. These three records are clearly the best work that Betke has produced, and they are now back in print as a triple cd set. Oh yeah, 4 bonus tracks. We like that.
MPEG Stream: "Fragen"
MPEG Stream: "Fahren"
MPEG Stream: "Uberfahrt"

PORTAL Seepia (Crush Until Madness) picture disc lp 16.98
Now that the cd version of this grim twisted Canadian death metal oddity is out of print, this here brand new picture disc is the only available version. It's a super striking picture disc housed in a nice thick full color sleeve. And of course, like most things of this ilk, somewhat limited. Here're what we had to say about Seepia when we reviewed the cd:
Gorgeous and long overdue reissue of this out of print death metal classic from Australia. But don't let the words death metal throw you. We're not huge fans of straight up death metal either. But this is anything but straight up. In fact this is most definitely one of the weirdest, most damaged death metal records we have ever heard. From the same label that brought us the truly bizarre WOLD record from a few lists back, this is sort of along the same lines as the no-wave death metal of Gorguts' classic Obscura record, Portal takes traditional death metal and douses it in chaotic noise, twisting the arrangements into serpentine blurs, so fast and furious that it almost becomes a buzzy blurry drone, any faster and it would be a full on noise record, like Total or Skullflower playing death metal maybe. But then on top of that, replace all the standard downtuned DM riffs with impossibly manic squiggly Black Flag like riffing, sounding quite a bit like little metal spiders running up and down the neck of the guitars. Riffs and squeals of feedback shooting out like bolts of lightning, the drumming impossibly complex and blasting away beneath the churning ocean of writhing riffs, the vocals just another squirming barely discernible presence amidst the super distorted tangle of metallic riffing and blasting drums. Sometimes all the disparate sounds lock into weird metallic stuttering loops, buzzing and repeating hypnotically. And every once in a while the metal dissipates into gorgeous, gauzy, ambient drones, whirring and shimmering, like old machinery and black and white films, backwards loops, strange pitch shifts and gritty industrial percussion, a dizzying swirl of abstract sound, very reminiscent of Jeck or Basinski, but those respites are brief and are soon swallowed up by further waves of Portal's confounding crush.
MPEG Stream: "Glumurphonel"
MPEG Stream: "Tempis Fugit"

RILEY, TERRY The Last Camel In Paris (Elision Fields) cd 14.98
Live, recorded for French radio in 1978, this archival album from minimalist composer Terry Riley is a gorgeous solo meditation for specially modified organ and plenty of delay, running about 54 minutes in length. It's not unlike Riley's classic Shri Camel record from around the same time - he says, "the musical materials of The Last Camel In Paris are second generational belonging to the family of Shri Camel while manifesting their own distinct shape and flavor". On Last Camel, Riley's gently piping organ tones and tinklings ceaselessly unfurl, slowly modulating, truly a lovely late night listen for anyone with an ear for Riley's special brand of New Agey, neo-classical, psychedelic minimalism. It's one long, continuous performance but has been conveniently broken into ten seamless tracks on this cd release "as a guide to compositional changes" in the piece, which does move into more and more intense, ever-repetitive realms as the disc progresses.
A most essential archival release for all Riley fans, despite the uninspiring album cover artwork (is that a solarized picture of a dream-catcher?). Inside the digipack, things look better, the foldout cd booklet having a black and white photo of the bald, bearded Riley in concert on one side, and liner notes (mostly in French, drat, though there is some text in English from Riley himself) on the other. Now, there's another Terry Riley reissue on this list, our Record Of The Week in fact, but don't fret, getting this along with Church Of Anthrax won't be too much of a good thing, just plenty of it!
MPEG Stream: "track 4"
MPEG Stream: "track 6"
MPEG Stream: "track 9"

ROGUE MALE Animal Man (Metal Mind) cd 17.98
Those of you who exhibited the good taste to purchase the cd reissue of Rogue Male's debut album, the 1985 NWOBHM classic First Visit, highlighted here recently, are all probably wondering when the reissue of the band's second and last album, 1986's Animal Man, would arrive, right? And you might also be wondering, just how well does Animal Man stack up against First Visit anyway? Well good news all around. It's finally here, and damn right Animal Man is just as good as First Visit, maybe even better. Which means: tough, hard rockin' '80s British metal, catchy, somewhat speedy, and still semi-futuristic (as far as their Mad Maxish costuming goes anyway... also note the computer voices at the start of side one).
Motorhead is still an obvious influence, some Thin Lizzy too. We're hearing both in the vocal dep't., which are sorta gruff and yobbish... kinda punk really. "The Real Me" reminds us of some Di'Anno era Maiden, specifically "Running Free" from Killers. Love the harmonica blowin' coda on that one too! There's definitely a punk, streetwise element to this band's metallic stylings, lots of take-no-shit attitude certainly. In fact, anyone in the market for an uplifting personal anthem might try out track three, "Take No Shit"!
At their most pogoish punk, the poppy unemployment protest rocker "Job Center" could be a Rezillos track. And at times, particularly when they work in the quasi-industrial "sci-fi" effects, this sounds a bit Killing Joke, actually. But their influences go further back - "You're On Fire" includes a nod to the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.
As with the First Visit reissue, this too is limited (2000 copies) and comes in a digipack. One bonus track this time, the non-album cut "Rough Tough (Pretty Too)" from the "Belfast" 12" ep that preceded Animal Man's release. The cd booklet includes lyrics, and biographical liner notes that yet again misspell Rogue Male as Rouge Male. Whoops.
Remember, if Andee and Allan here at AQ had gotten their as-yet-unnamed and still utterly hypothetical '80s metal reissue label off the ground already, THEY might have reissued the two Rogue Male albums themselves, if they could have. Rogue Male was top of their list - get this (and First Visit) to really understand why, maybe.
MPEG Stream: "The Real Me"
MPEG Stream: "Progress"

SIC ALPS U.S. EZ (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
Now that Iran seem to be dead. And the Church Steps are gone. And the Coach Whips are no more. Well, it's up to Sic Alps to keep the SF noise pop freak flag flying!
It always seemed that sonically, these guys belonged on Siltbreeze, and lo and behold, it has come to pass. For those who are new to Sic Alps, imagine a fractured noise drenched lo-fi garage pop, rife with blown out drums, simple detuned guitars, lazy drawled vocals, tons of reverb and distortion, all tangled up into some seriously catchy pop. Guided By Voices, Strapping Fieldhands, Pavement, but with plenty of hazy sixties psych, a killer lo-fi Phil Spector-ish wall of sound production, and a bit of corrosive noise and fractured amp buzz a la the Dead C. 
U.S. EZ leans way more toward the pop than the noise, many of the songs, eschewing any sort of noise or distortion completely, offering up instead, a sort of shimmery sixties soft pop, all jangly guitars, and reverbed background vocals, but elsewhere the band rocks pretty hard, channeling classic nineties slacker indie rock, through modern noise rock, via some fuzzy retro garage, the result as we mentioned before, often ends up sounding like a Beach Boys or Hollies record on Siltbreeze. Which should be recommendation enough. Dwyer from the Oh Sees says it's worth it just for the track "Gelly Roll Gum Drop"!!
MPEG Stream: "Gelly Roll Gum Drop"
MPEG Stream: "Massive Place"
MPEG Stream: "Bric Jaz"

SLEEPY SUN White Dove (Sol Diamond) 7" 5.98
Bluesy psychedelia packed far beneath a thick, heavy cloud of marijuana smoke. If you're willing to indulge and unlock the latent Creedence and Skynrd potential lying dormant within bands like Dead Meadow, eat an eighth, take this to the beach in headphones, and figure out just how far you can walk. Comprised of five members, Sleepy Sun musically grew together in Santa Cruz, eventually reaching the shores of the San Francisco Bay peninsula. And they do embody the popularly conceived vision of their hometown. Comfortable, a high drenched in fog, floating inland on ocean wind. Compositionally, things feel natural and free. Each instrument as integral as the rest. Breathing, moving. Always cohesive, without relying too heavily on the standard verse, chorus, verse format. Maneuvering in and around the beats, the lead vocalist's feelings, arrangements, and his both thoughtful and clever melodies bleed clear in the mix. In particular, "White Dove" is perfectly suited for a 7" release. It's essentially two separate movements, each expanding and contracting, showing one piece of the larger picture. These guys take the track and "smear it" across both sides. We've heard the full-length, and this excellent release is a glimpse of what lies waiting. (The album itself was recorded by Colin Stewart -- producer of Black Mountain and Destroyer) They're helping keep places like Santa Cruz weird. Literally a full-on trip soaked in feedback. Completely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "White Dove"

TAPE Luminarium (Hapna) cd 16.98
Some folks try really hard to create pretty sounds, but there are those special folks who just naturally have some preternatural ability to create majestic beauty without it ever sounding forced or contrived. The Swedish trio Tape are shining examples of just such a group, able to make lush and textured sounds that are as engaging as they are pleasing. After a couple recent reissues of older Tape recordings, we were really excited to find what their new record would sound like. And with the opener "Beams" we were greeted with what might be a contender for our favorite song of the year! A song that invites you in with warm swirling analog synths and takes you on such a dreamy ride that it feels like being on a tranquil slide up in the clouds as it takes delicious soft turns and dips through the sky. Luckily the rest of the record follows and flows with equal beauty and such a delicate touch. Tape really put to shame just about everyone else who try their hand at dreamy instrumental post-rock. Their songs aren't as simple as just being moody or melancholic instead they truly create their own world, one that glows with a cascading and illuminating vision. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Beams"
MPEG Stream: "Reperto"
MPEG Stream: "Mystery Mutiny"

TO BLACKEN THE PAGES A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction (Colony) cd 10.98
The world needs another SUNNO))) or Earth like it needsŠ well, it doesn't. Nor does it need another Slint, or a Mogwai, or a Justice, or an Animal Collective. Every time a band blows up, suddenly a million bands are there to get sucked along in their wake. But never was this phenomenon more egregious than with the new wave of doom/drone/dirge outfits. At the risk of repeating ourselves again, it seems like every band, heavy or otherwise, that features at least one member with a "drone side project" or a "minimal doom side project", barely keeping ahead of the various people dabbling in back metal, but we digress.
Like most things, it probably seems easy, but isn't. The whole leaning your guitar against the amp and letting it go, sure we joke about that in reviews, but it's way harder than that. Compare the millions of ho-hum guitardrone cd-r's to something like the last amazing record by Vulture Club (we still have some, if you haven't bought one, you should, really). It's like night and day. So we're always pretty cautious when we hear about a new guitar drone group or some doomdirge record we oughtta dig.
But once in a while, a group comes along, who only just barely fit into that whole genre, skirting it, creating something totally their own, with just the merest hints of sounds more familiar, like all great bands, borrowing and stealing freely, but not just regurgitating those sounds right back at us, instead, spreading them out in some underground lab, pulling them apart, exploring how they tick, dissecting them, then attempting to put them back together again, with some of their own parts, some sounds and songs that have been fermenting in a dusty corner of said lab, the results then something new, a patchwork of sounds, that in the right hands, can be deftly woven into something beautiful, something dark and mysterious, something like this.
A Semblance Of Something Appertaining to Destruction is the latest from the mysteriously monickered To Blacken The Pages, part four of an ongoing series in sound, a sprawling dirgescape that owes much to meandering post rock, downtuned slow motion sludge, drifty abstract doom, and the sort of heavy doomic countrified sludge that Earth has been exploring over the last few records.
Three tracks, the shortest 11 minutes, the longest nearly 18, each a dusty, moonlit drift, simple minor key twang, slowed down space rock riffage, streaks of feedback and buzzing distant drones, swirling FX, layers of guitar fuzzy and druggy. The opener, more than Earth or SUNNO))) or any of those, sounds much more in line with Loop or Spacemen 3, a drugged out soporific riff, that lumbers a little too slow to rock, even a little too slow to constitute any sort of groove. Instead, it's a dreamy droney drift, heavy and mutedly chuggy, churning onward through a sky of whirls and swirls and rumbles, underpinned by plenty of buzz and fuzz and blur. It's like a super slowed down way more abstract Loop, which we probably don't need to explain to you is in fact a very good thing.
The second track introduces drums, which do little to up the propulsion, this is still weary, dreary and delightfully spaced out. A super spare, abstract doomy lope, the sky above criss crossed with high end guitar skree, the drums supporting another blown out slow motion space rock riff, the whole track trudging across an endless expanse of shimmery buzz and swirling space-y effects. Everything muted and mumbly and lazily mesmerizing.
The final, longest track, ditches the drums, returning to the lazy smoky sprawl of the opener, but this time even more abstract, the central guitar part, drifting well below the constantly shifting layers of sound, coruscating high end, over billowing deep rumbles, a glacial, stately, almost funereal anti-groove, perfect late night, drift off, trip out slow motion space rock krautdrone. Fans of Earth and Expo '70 will dig especially, as in some ways, this does sound like a strange hybrid of the two, although all of you into the slow dreamy droney heavy minimalism would do well to check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Trek In"
MPEG Stream: "A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction"

TODAY IS THE DAY Supernova (Supernova Records) cd 14.98
Been meaning to get to this one for a while, it's something we absolutely *had* to highlight eventually, the long-overdue reissue of the crucial first album by this now veteran, always visionary noise rock/metal outfit. Mainman Steve Austin (vocals/guitars) has led a vast variety of TITD lineups over the years, having made eight studio albums to date, and Supernova is where it all started. When this first came out back in 1993 on the now-defunct Amphetamine Reptile label, we were immediately entranced and in fact almost frightened by this band's (at the time) fairly unique blend of atmospheric/ambient weirdness (via surreal sampling), melody, and heavy/hard rock action. Surely the most Satanic thing AmRep ever released, next to the God Bullies. Also, at the time, we'd have compared it to the likes of Steel Pole Bathtub, Oxbow, Engine Kid, Neurosis, Pain Teens... more recently, Old Man Gloom maybe.
Supernova's dozen tracks are full of both sheer beauty and terror; cruel, cryptic, compelling. It's a genius avant-metal mutation, ultimately more metallic than we knew back then (perhaps pioneering the "noisecore" genre), the band's violent hardcore/postrock riffage and distorted, angry vokills being moodily morphed with all manner of psychedelic sound FX fuckery and chaotic layers of vocal mumble and chatter, buried in the mix like crossed wires or intercepted transmissions... there's also stretches of proggily Frippish guitar, synth bleep, unidentifiable field recordings, including even some barnyard animal noises heard on one track. Today Is The Day keeps all this under control though, these are truly *songs*, mysterious and mayhemic but never too messy. The line between dreaminess, and nightmarishness, is often erased... they were definitely on to something here, as later output proved, Today Is The Day getting more overtly metal in later incarnations, maybe even more experimentally extreme, but never any more uniquely "Today Is The Day" than on Supernova.
This digitally remastered reissue now comes in a digipack, and the artwork is slightly altered from the original, and there's two bonus tracks too (from the '93 AmRep 7" single, "I Bent Scared"), but otherwise it's the same Supernova we know and love. In a word: Recommended!
Ok, now that that's finally out of the way (hey, it's always hardest to review the albums that you like the most, anxiously wanting to do 'em justice) we'll hopefully get to the *new* TITD album, Axis of Eden, soon. And also the same label's reissue of another TDID AmRep classic, Willpower, the ultra-intense follow-up to Supernova...
MPEG Stream: "6 Dementia Satyr"
MPEG Stream: "Blind Man At Mystic Lake"
MPEG Stream: "The Kick Inside"

U.S. CHRISTMAS Eat The Low Dogs (Neurot Recordings) cd 14.98
There's probably a perfectly good reason for this band being named "U.S. Christmas". We hope there is anyway. Regardless, that this disc (apparently the third so far, from this North Carolina based outfit) was released on Neurosis' label Neurot is of course a good sign, and indeed, Eat The Low Dogs is proving to be one of our favorite Neurot releases of the last little while, fitting in nicely with the likes of Guapo and Grey Daturas in the recent Neurot roster. Yep, this is good stuff! What sort of good stuff you ask? Heavy, dark, synth-swirling, psychedelic good stuff!
Turns out, U.S. Christmas play moody, echoey space rock. That's right, kinda like '70s Hawkwind. But with both more of an aggro metallic edge (though still slowed down and sleepy), and also more of a countryish one too (slide guitar evoking wide open spaces). You can imagine 'em out in the desert someplace, campfire burning, generator running, giant amps tilted upwards at a 45 degree angle to point at the starry sky, playing this stuff all night long 'til dawn comes or the drugs run out... the last track here is called "Pray To The Sky", actually.
The spaced-out sounds of synthesizers and Theremin abound, the whirring electronic FX here reminding us a bit of the whup whup whup of the jug on those old 13th Floor Elevators albums... a constant presence, but just another texture amidst real songwriting. Loping, heavy head nodding riffage and ragged, punk-angsty vocals are also part of the U.S. Christmas equation. Speaking of equations, how 'bout this one: Neurosis + Hawkwind + some twang + more space rock = U.S. Christmas. Or, if the Red Sparowes teamed up with Tarantula Hawk, or if Deadboy And The Elephantmen were channelling The Heads, or if the Galloping Coroners came from Texas instead of Hungary, those things too might sound something like this band. Quite recommended.
And who knows, maybe the -next- awesome heavy synthy space rock combo to come along will be inexplicably called Canadian Thanksgiving.
MPEG Stream: "In The Light Of All Time"
MPEG Stream: "Gallows Humor"

V/A Ed Rec Vol III (Ed Banger) cd 15.98
Volume twa! Or at least that's how the pronunciation sounds, yeah our French sucks here but that never kept us from leaving work sore from chronic head bobbing and rabid fist thrusting. Okay maybe not that extreme, but it's like our own mini rave here at aQ whenever this is bumped. Yep, it's the third installment of much hyped French imprint, Ed Banger Records. More pumping electro from the masterminds behind the more commonly used term, "the French touch" and a very consistent example of the description.
Within this compilation the Ed Rec roster explore new ground and take some unexpected yet intriguing attempts at chopping the hell out of samples, synths, and vocals, and turning them into full on grueling disco-house anthems. But not ALL of it's that jump up, dancey, semi-rave hype shit, they tend to unveil more of their hip hop roots this time around with the likes of label frontman, Busy P's number, "To Protect and Entertain" a collab with Murs from LA's underground hip hop troop The Living Legends, including a simple yet arduous analog synth melody rolling over boosty drum patterns to accompany Murs' simple yet catchy raps. Along with Spankrock's rap appearance on the indie-rave thriller "Back it Up" by Feadz, as well as new predominately hip hop label signees DSL, who deliver a new twist to French rap with "Find Me a World". But of course the majority of the artists shine most with their dancefloor thrashers and grinding synth driven tunes that we've grown to love. Veteran Mr. Oizo cooks up more of his signature punchy and spastic sample chopping techniques, horns and all, with everything in its right place to produce a bouncy yet fun rhythm. Then of course there's Sebastian who delivers a mind fuck of a track, "Dog", sampling, yes, a black metal tune and cutting it to shreds, guitars, screams and all, delivering a punishing yet addictive, sweatdriven "banger" that we like to call "metal house" if we may...(yeah we said). While Dj Mehdi delivers his blissful disco composition "Pocket Piano", not necessarily for the dancefloor but amazing "groove" music nonetheless! Simply put, Ed Rec 3 is a well rounded hype machine that's bound to work wonders at any given party. Truly one to check out!
MPEG Stream: KRAZY BALDHEAD "No Cow No Pow"
MPEG Stream: SEBASTIAN "Dog"
MPEG Stream: BUSY P "To Protect and Entertain"

V/A Ed Rec Vol III (Ed Banger) 2lp 29.00
Volume twa! Or at least that's how the pronunciation sounds, yeah our French sucks here but that never kept us from leaving work sore from chronic head bobbing and rabid fist thrusting. Okay maybe not that extreme, but it's like our own mini rave here at aQ whenever this is bumped. Yep, it's the third installment of much hyped French imprint, Ed Banger Records. More pumping electro from the masterminds behind the more commonly used term, "the French touch" and a very consistent example of the description.
Within this compilation the Ed Rec roster explore new ground and take some unexpected yet intriguing attempts at chopping the hell out of samples, synths, and vocals, and turning them into full on grueling disco-house anthems. But not ALL of it's that jump up, dancey, semi-rave hype shit, they tend to unveil more of their hip hop roots this time around with the likes of label frontman, Busy P's number, "To Protect and Entertain" a collab with Murs from LA's underground hip hop troop The Living Legends, including a simple yet arduous analog synth melody rolling over boosty drum patterns to accompany Murs' simple yet catchy raps. Along with Spankrock's rap appearance on the indie-rave thriller "Back it Up" by Feadz, as well as new predominately hip hop label signees DSL, who deliver a new twist to French rap with "Find Me a World". But of course the majority of the artists shine most with their dancefloor thrashers and grinding synth driven tunes that we've grown to love. Veteran Mr. Oizo cooks up more of his signature punchy and spastic sample chopping techniques, horns and all, with everything in its right place to produce a bouncy yet fun rhythm. Then of course there's Sebastian who delivers a mind fuck of a track, "Dog", sampling, yes, a black metal tune and cutting it to shreds, guitars, screams and all, delivering a punishing yet addictive, sweatdriven "banger" that we like to call "metal house" if we may...(yeah we said). While Dj Mehdi delivers his blissful disco composition "Pocket Piano", not necessarily for the dancefloor but amazing "groove" music nonetheless! Simply put, Ed Rec 3 is a well rounded hype machine that's bound to work wonders at any given party. Truly one to check out!
MPEG Stream: KRAZY BALDHEAD "No Cow No Pow"
MPEG Stream: SEBASTIAN "Dog"
MPEG Stream: BUSY P "To Protect and Entertain"

V/A Resonant Embers (Twenty Hertz) cd 21.00
Edition Sonoro is the parallel label to Twenty Hertz, both of which are run by the British drone artist Paul Bradley. Resonant Embers is collection of artists who have crossed paths with Mr. Bradley over the years and may be delivering work for Edition Sonoro in the future. There's irr. app. (ext.), jgrzinich, Ueboet, Colin Potter, Bradley himself, Maile Colbert with Tellemake, and Andrew Liles. AQ's beloved bewilderer of sound Matthew Waldron returns to his irr. app. (ext.) moniker with a disorienting chorus for vibrating objects, chiming strings, and distant moans phasing in a tripped out sonic equivalent to a funhouse mirror. Another favorite comes by the way of jgrzinich, who layers together windswept clatter from multiple recordings from high tension wires and the post-Soviet crumbled landscape of his current home in Estonia. A cold, sodden atmosphere oozes from these turnbuckle creaks and (literally) post-industrial ambience. Ubeboet is a newcomer to us, offering a majestic track of dark ambience haunted with distant strings and underwater operatic vocals. Colin Potter propagates a liquid drone from a series of harmonic belltones, which have all of the sublime power and angelic beauty of a Ligetti chorale. Paul Bradley constructs a series of interwoven guitar loops of midrange timbers that reflect similar ideas found in Aidan Baker's solo work. Maile Colbert flickers her voice through a series of looping devices and VLF recordings, recalling the early albums of Grouper but with Jarboe's vocal style instead. And finally, the comp is completed with a track from Andrew Liles, whose deeply minor chord piano keys and lilting gypsy violin have a noirish, horror film quality, perhaps in homage to Coil's lost soundtrack to Hellraiser?
MPEG Stream: IRR. APP. (EXT.) "Whickering mechanical parapropalaehoplophorous"
MPEG Stream: JGRZINICH "Animate structures No.1"
MPEG Stream: COLIN POTTER "Bella (direct current)"

V/A Victrola Favorites (Dust To Digital) book + 2cd 45.00
AT LAST, REPRESSED and REPRINTED and back in stock, this Record (Book) Of The Week honoree finally available again... Here's what we said when we made it ROTW, on list 284 earlier this year:
We're beginning to think, in addition to our biweekly Record(s) of the Week, we might just have to institute a Box Set of the Week. There's so many amazing reissues, so many collections of lost gems, we'd probably just make them Records of the Week proper if they weren't so expensive... this item is would be a good example. But you know what, screw it, for what you get, $45 bucks is not that much, a massive gorgeous book and two cds. So much amazing music, and fascinating graphics. Let's just do it. Record of the Week!!!
Alright. Feel better already. And it makes sense. If you're anything like us, and you sort of must be since you're reading the AQ list, this kind of HAD to be record of the week, everything we love, strange sounds from all over the world, dusty record crackle, tape hiss and vinyl warble, a beautiful music related objectŠ A total slam dunk. And there's the fact that EVERYONE who works here has one or wants one. Dust-To-Digital are like the new Smithsonian Folkways, constantly unearthing sonic treasures and then assembling them into beautifully curated collections. And we just can't get enough.
There was the Goodbye, Babylon box, collecting classic gospel music, housed in a huge wooden box with raw cotton and a huge book, the Fonotone Records box, 5 cds and a huge book in a cigar box with a bottle opener, The Art Of Field Recording set, that WAS just like a continuation of the Smithsonian Folkways series, and assorted other single disc reissues, all meticulously researched, fantastically laid out, and packed with some of the most amazing sounds you'll ever hear.
But this new one, Victrola Favorites: Artifacts From Bygone Days, just might be our favorite yet. Not only is it an amazing and head spinningly varied collection of musics, from African folk to country yodeling to Cantonese Opera, big band jazz to Hawaiian guitar to rhythm and blues, music from all over, Burma, Japan, Greece, Thailand, Portugal, China, Egypt, but the design is fantastic, a cloth bound hard cover book, with almost NO text, what text here is thoughtfully sequestered at the very end of the book. Where most boxes are packed with notes and recording info, the bulk of this handsome book is made up of gorgeous archival images, 78 labels, old record tins, posters, pamphlets, old greyed photographs, mailing labels, instruction booklets, all sort of Victrola ephemera. It would be well worth it just as an art book. Makes you dread the oncoming MP3 takeover, what will future generations discover of our music, old busted hard drives? None of these cool old sleeves, decaying from years of moisture and insects, gorgeous little visual artifacts offering clues as to the music contained inside.
But of course it's NOT just a book, included are two cds, a collection of various recordings drawn from the ongoing Victrola Favorites project, masterminded by AQ faves the Climax Golden Twins. Where old 78s are played on a vintage Victrola, and recorded with a microphone placed in front of the Victrola, none of that digitizing and cleaning up the sound, removing pops and clicks, this is all about the experience of listening to old 78's, sitting in a darkened parlor, in a big overstuffed chair, the air alive with dust motes, gorgeously crackly and timeworn sounds washing over you. And listening to these tracks, it does in fact feel just like that, or alternately, it's like hopping on a sonic time machine and traveling all over the world, different places, different times, a modern day Folkways, hopping in and out of times to capture brief snippets of sound and then moving on. So fantastic. If you love the Sublime Frequencies releases, and the Secret Museum Of Mankind series, this is essential listening. And the amazing thing is that even with all of these disparate sounds and styles, as a whole the collection flows if not seamlessly, in a way that is oh so pleasing to the ears.
Korean bamboo flute solos, amazing and amazingly insane yodeling, a bit of Arabian country dance music, super dramatic Greek folk music, super festive jug band music, Japanese kabuki, dark droning Indian ragas, recordings of Big Ben and traffic sounds in the UK and so much more. It's almost overwhelming. But not enough to keep us from wishing that there were ten more discs of this stuff!
So absolutely recommended.
And the packaging. WOW. Like we mentioned before, a clothbound hardcover book. In either red or white, with a Japanese style obi, packed with the above mentioned images, the liner notes and essay left for the final few pages, the cds, are uniquely held inside the front and back cover, in circular cut outs, beneath which lurk drawings of lac bugs, the insects whose secretions were used to make the resin used in the making of shellac records. Cool!!
MPEG Stream: GROUPO DE TOTOKO FRANCOIS "Bololo O Kolilo"
MPEG Stream: GUANGZHOU CANTONESE OPERA TROUPE "The Crow Flies Back To The Forest"
MPEG Stream: STELLA HASKIL "Mes Tis Polis Ta Stena (Alleyways Of Istanbul)"
MPEG Stream: MOZMAR CAIRE ORCHESTRA "Raks Baladi Hag Ibrahim (Country Dance)"
MPEG Stream: YIORGOS PAPASIDERIS/YIORGOS ANESTOPOULOS "Tora To Vrady Vrady (Now That Evening Has Come)"

V/A Well Hung: 20 Funk-Rock Eruptions From Beneath Communist Hungary - Vol.1 (Finders Keepers) cd 23.00
One of the most kick ass comps we've heard in a while! And there's been some good ones lately, of Nigerian '70s disco funk and French '80s electro punk, among others. But how can you beat funked up, progged out psych rock from Communist Hungary?? This comp resoundingly answers that question: you can't.
While this disc's title might be in poor taste this comp's curators exhibit EXCELLENT taste in groovy Hungarian psych/prog rarities from the sixties and seventies!!! Which is as you might expect, since these are the djs/diggers also responsible for such top notch sets as Welsh Rare Beat, Vertigo Mixed, and Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word. If you like those, you'll like this. (And, like us, will be eagerly anticipating volume 2, to be titled Hung Over, of course).
A couple of the bands here we know, only really 'cause of another B-Music related release, the disc by swingin' Hungarian sex symbol Sarolta Zalatnay, which featured her work with bands such as Locomotiv GT and Skorpios, both of which appear here along with a track by Zalatnay. In fact, the Hungarian scene was highly intertwined, as diagrammed by the handy "Well Hung Family Tree" that compiler Andy Votel has provided in the cd booklet... a cd booklet that by the way is super thick, packed with all the detailed liner notes from the knowledgeable Votel you could desire, color photos of the artists, album and singles covers, and a forward by none other than "Cini" herself, Sarolta Zalatnay! All the tracks are licensed from the source, Hungaroton Records, the whole thing sounds and looks great, it's an obvious labor of love. And what's not to love, 'cause all 20 tracks here are awesome. Tons of FUZZ guitar, swirling organ jamming, flutes going off, crazy instrumental breaks, wailing vocals, dancefloor filling beats galore. High energy stuff, man. Makes it seem like living under the heel of the Soviet boot of oppression wasn't all bad, at least these folks found the freedom of getting funky and freaky...
So, here's who's on here: Anna Adamis & Gabor Presser (the latter of whom has a big presence in many of these groups), Omega Redstar, Omega (2 cuts), Metro, Hungaria, Kati Kovacs (who sounds like Janis Joplin fronting Hard Stuff!), Katie Kovacs and Gemini, Corvina, Neoton, Tamas Somlo & Omega, Meteor & Demjen Ferenc, Illes (2 cuts from them too), Sarolta Zalatnay, Locomotiv GT, Nemenyi Bela and Atlantis, Piramis, Skorpio, and Bergendy.
From the fuzzy Bo Diddley shake of Omega Redstar, to the badass organ excess of Locomotiv GT, to the frantic funky synth sizzle of Illes (a band whom we recall from Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word as well)... well it's hard to pick highlights, they're all mega. Maybe Omega (sans Redstar) gets the nod for their epic 8 minute groover "Kergeskeziu Favagok", a full 3 minutes of which at least is occupied by a killer drum solo laced with field recordings of bird twitter! They also contribute a fuzzed out stomper a little later in the disc.
Ah, but it's all so good, Well Hung bringing together an amazing Eastern European melange of hard edged acid rock funk freakbeat that's part Chains And Black Exhaust, part wah wah '70s cop show kitsch, part Iron Curtain exotica... fun times in other words! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: CORVINA "A Tuz"
MPEG Stream: OMEGA "Kergeskeziu Favagok"
MPEG Stream: KATI KOVACS "Add Mar Uram Az Esot!"

VELNIAS s/t (God Is Myth) cd 14.98
The first proper full length from this Midwestern black metal trio. We missed seeing them live unfortunately when they were here recently, but they did drop off their new record, and it's pretty great. 
Just like the demo we listed a while back, these guys traffic in a classic black metal sound, old Emperor, old Ulver, Darkthrone, they're obviously channeling the Norwegian elite, but their take on it is definitely their own. Where before there seemed to be a lot of eighties style riffing mixed in, here the vibe seems to be much doomier, and there's still a definite Opeth vibe with all the more tranquil clean guitar stretches. But they also do some weird, distinctly not very black metal shit. One prime example is the end of the second track (all the songs are 12+ minutes), after a majestic / epic coda, the song devolves into a gloriously abstract drum heavy jam, the guitar ringing out, a single chord, static and droney and hypnotic, while the drums get all chaotic. We sort of wished that it would on like that for another 5 or 6 minutes. Maybe live. And the band definitely get into a sort of trancey thing, which is not that uncommon for black metal, but they manage to make it sound all murky and mysterious instead of just buzzy.
But beyond the various weird bits here and there, those almost-folky interludes, and various textural experiments, the band offer up a pretty solid take on classic raw old school black metal, lacing it heavily with doom, and, perhaps inadvertently, some serious math/post rock, the arrangements, and the riffs betray some Slint or something similar in their past, or it could just be that Slint's guitarists were closet metalheads. Either way, it keeps their sound unique, and has definitely helped keep this record on constant repeat around here.
MPEG Stream: "Into Arms Of Oak"
MPEG Stream: "Risen Of The Moor"

VILLALOBOS, RICARDO Enfants (SED) 12" 17.98
Ok, this one should be easy. Ricardo Villalobos is the minimal techno whizz from Chile (based now in Berlin) who made one of our very favorite techno albums ever, last year's very-extended-play "ep" Fizheuer Zieheuer, which has to be of the most hypnotically repetitive electronica artifacts we know of. His more recent Fabric 36 set was also a crowd pleaser here at AQ.
Meanwhile, the French band Magma is of course pretty much our number one '70s progressive rock obsession. It's practically a spiritual thing we've got about them. And like Villalobos, they're no strangers to hypnotic rhythmic pulsations, in their own proggy purview.
So, as soon as we found out that Villalobos had released a white label 12" based around sampled music by Magma, we wanted to hear it. We NEEDED to hear it. And when we did, we were quite pleased. Villalobos merges with Magma almost seamlessly, taking and looping a snippet of the Magma album Baba Yaga La Sorciere (the one featuring a version of Magma's classic Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh sung by a children's choir, we should note, which makes this even more awesome... and that's why it's called Enfants), then adding a techno beat to it. The minimalist melodic piano and the kids' Kobaian chant and the high-hat ticking go together elegantly, enchantingly, endlessly... it's about 17 minutes long! Simple, but effective. And very much a tribute to Magma, Villalobos giving credit where credit is due, just having some fanboy fun as a producer here, making his (and our) kind of techno/Magma hybrid. There's another 10 minutes on the flip, Villalobos focussing on percussion elements rather than the "chant", which we imagine that DJs could do some interesting things with.
We've been wanting to list this 12" for a while, and finally got enough copies in stock to do so thanks to Villalobos doing a second pressing (it's on his own label). Recommended!

WEREJU Monuments (Basses Frequences) cd-r 10.98
We last heard from Wereju was on a sprawling two track, double cd released early last year. The ambient drone side project of Irish ultra doom heavies Wreck Of The Hesperus, Wereju deviated from the mothership bigtime, their take on the slow and low a whole 'nother beast entirely, and then even not all that beastly. It wasn't massive or heavy or sludgey, instead it was dreamy and mysterious, the low end more soothing than corrosive. There were definitely some intense moments, but for the most part, the sound of Wereju was a gorgeous blackened late night shimmer. 
So here we have the follow up, released on Basses Frequences, one of our favorite new labels, who recently brought us that cool Tamagawa triple 3"cd-r with the origami lantern, and several other releases elsewhere on this list. Wereju, sonically, are a perfect fit on BF, this disc another two tracker, the first, a gauzy glimmering slow motion soundscape, the sound of a camera slowly panning across a barren landscape, cloaked in fog, wreathed in smoke, the trees barely visible, just dark shapes wrapped in whites and greys, rendered in gorgeous loooong tones, not all low end either, in fact, this is firmly in the upper register, distant keening high end streaks, smoothed into strange slithery melodies, bell like tones ring out, the decay stretching out forever, softly pulsing as the sound waves drift heavenward, beneath it all, a soft rumble whirs lazily, like an ancient engine powering this slow moving celestial body of sound. Shimmering, glittering, ethereal, the sound of sunlight on water, of sunbeams filtering through the clouds, infusing the otherwise barren soundscape with a soft burnished glow.
The second track, is a bit more ominous, a bit more minimal. Distorted guitars moan way off in the distance, a deep undulating low end, spreads out like a black cloud in front of the sun. Bits of feedback and reverbed melodies drift by, but where as the first track was day, this is most definitely night. Dark, ominous, shadowed, cloudy, lots of rumbling low end, but not quite disguising the soaring shimmering remnants of the opener, that seem to be lurking just below the surface, a softly churning, constant battle for sonic supremacy, light versus dark, high versus low, but a soft war, the two sounds not so much clashing, as bleeding into each other, black and whites become greys, the sound gorgeously languid and soft focus, a long, luxurious slow burning fade to black. Gorgeous. 
Incredible packaging too. The cd is seated in a black tray within a hinged metal tin, with a paste on front cover, full color sticker, and a sticker inside too with the liner notes. 
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "A Monument To What's Been Done"
MPEG Stream: "A Monument For Things To Come"

WORMWOOD Reversal Of Fortune / Communion (self released) 7" 8.98
We only really started getting into Wormwood in the last few years, a shame really as they've been at it since 1997, and have now, after 11 years, decided to hang it up. Commemorated by this 7", which is all the more sad, cuz it's fucking awesome.
The A side begins all tribal drumming, and crunchy detuned guitars, creepy buzzing synths and howled almost yelped vocals, crushing and dirgey and hypnotic and like a lot of Wormwood stuff heavily indebted to Neurosis and the other band of that time and scene. But the B side is THE jam. A furiously fierce slab of lurching stop start slow motion power violence. The drums and guitar locked into a stuttery abstract non-groove, the vocals howling along, getting into some serious Harvey Milk territory almost, feedback ringing out in the pauses a la Eyehategod, one of those parts that must make lesser bands weep openly, but it is Wormwood, so of course, they manage to confound, by switching gears partway through, and unfurling something more melodic, with some surprising female vocals, which give the track a strange sort of Viking black metal vibe. And then it's done. We'll miss 'em, but these two tracks are definitely a perfect so long and fuck off. And if you somehow missed their Starvation record, pick it up, you do not know what you've been missing.
Incredible packaging! Metallic silver ink on thick black cardstock, lyrics printed on the inside in some cool mysterious font, a full color photo affixed to the front with those antique photo corners, each one hand numbered, inside a thick cardstock insert, also printed in silver, with another full color photo affixed to it, the whole thing is super striking.
LIMITED TO ONLY 300 COPIES.

WOUNDED KINGS, THE Embrace Of The Narrow House (Eichenwald Industries) cd 12.98
Wow, what a surprising piece of downer metal artistry from a band we'd never heard of before! Though, we were curious about 'em 'cause this, their debut, is one of the first two releases from the new Eichenwald Industries imprint, which is closely related to the limited edition Paradigms label, who have put out a lot of cool stuff you probably have. On this, the Dartmoor, UK duo known as The Wounded Kings play classic, epic, dark doom metal (a la Sabbath) with an especially druggy, spaced out, very psychedelic vibe. The very first, and title track, sets the tone, being a three-part suite beginning with some proggy organ drone... soon joined by funeral paced, fuzzed-out guitar... and cleanly sung, eerie echo-effected vocals with a melancholic, Ozzyish croak to 'em. The album continues with much more in the way of morose heaviness, epic-ness, and ambience, full of the sort of sludgy riffs we like, having quite a haunted, occult vibe.
This should appeal to fans of both Electric Wizard and Witchcraft. Clearly their record collections include a lot of '70s psych and possibly also Italian prog too... there's hints of Goblin going on here with the organ and all. We might also cite Trouble, very early Cathedral, Fall Of The Idols, Wizar'd, Solstice, Reverend Bizarre, and early Candlemass (Epicus Doomicus era)... the obscure Detroit '80s act Coven too if you've ever heard them... all could be referenced to describe The Wounded Kings' somber sound. Definitely some recommended, traditional (but not too traditional) DOOM here, folks!
MPEG Stream: "Embrace Of The Narrow House"
MPEG Stream: "Melanthos"
MPEG Stream: "Master Of Witches"

ZELIENOPLE Land of Smoke (Root Strata) dvd-r 9.98
In the age of YouTube and MySpace, the idea of the music video has changed dramatically since the days of MTV (or at least the days when MTV actually played videos). In the past, only bands on major labels could make a video, often hiring a real director and dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, plenty of bands have videos before they even have a record out. Super 8, digital video, Final Cut Pro, anyone can put together their own video and have it look as good if not better than the classic videos of old.
Old news maybe, but the thing is, most bands seems to use the video as simply a promotional tactic, or an excuse to fuck around and film it. Instead of, dare we say, ART. In the underground though, it's not at all uncommon for like minded musicians and filmmakers to join forces. In fact, with the advent of live performances featuring laptops and other sedimentary sound making devices (when is someone gonna make a laptop guitar, so left out laptoppers can windmill and leap about with the rest of the band?), often it's the accompanying films that are way more compelling. Often, a show is touted as some band performing "with films by so and so", but in fact, more often than not, it plays out more like seeing a film, that just so happens to feature live accompaniment by some band.
Few labels have really taken advantage of this new technology as much as Root Strata, who have quietly and steadily been releasing a series of super limited dvd-r's, each featuring new compositions by a small handful of artists, coupled with original films. The results have been pretty sublime, the films tending toward the abstract and impressionistic, the music following suit. When watching / listening to these, it's hard not to imagine laying on the floor, propped up on cushions, lights low, the film being projected on a huge blank wall, the band hunkered over their instruments in the corner, which makes sense as that's most likely how these films/sounds were conceived. 
So we have two new super limited dvd-r releases, one from Zelienople and one from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Paul Clipson, both limited to 100 copies, both already out of print, so these are the only copies we'll ever get. 
We've only ever had one other release by Zelienople in the past, the gorgeous Stone Academy. A smoldering noise drenched folk, simple strum surrounded thick sonic swells, tons of effects, often evolving into a blown out druggy haze. The music here is similar, but a bit more post rocky, a little Velvets, a little Bohren. A simple main riff, repeating over and over, wreathed in reverb, the vocals a hushed plaintive murmur, while all around, those elements, softly swirl, streaks of blurred effects, spidery reverbed guitar melodies, all heavy with reverb and delay, the sound super laid back and weary, dreamlike and drowsy. Which perfectly suits the visuals, a film by Donald Prokop (and the band), an endless shot of the world passing by outside a car window. In the first half, the various sights are rendered an impressionistic blur, long streaks, fields of color vibrating, whirring past, sometimes the screen is mostly sky, peppered with glimmering streetlights, but often it's a a jittery assemblage of shapes and colors and lights, here and there, more of the landscape is revealed, eliciting a strange sense of melancholy, of loneliness, enhanced by Zelienople's moody musical drift. Near the end, the camera seems to be traveling through a series of tunnels, the film offering up long stretches of blackness between smeared glass views of passing towns. So lovely. 
Packaged in printed, folded papers sleeves, and again, LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, and already out of print.

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ANNIVERSARY, THE Devil on Our Side: B-Sides & Rarities (Vagrant) 2cd 14.98
Yay! It's been a while since we last heard from these dandy emo popsters - and actually the last time we did (2002's hyper-dramatic pop album Your Majesty) we weren't quite sure where our hearts sat with them - but this double disc of odds'n'ends compilation has renewed our warm fuzzy fondness for them. It's been about five years since the band split, and our indie emo pop itch has been in need of a good scratch! Heck, we'll even ignore the questionable omen that crossed our paths like a black cat when researching the band recently - the first thing that popped up on Google was a listing on the Hot Topic store website! Yikes. Anyhoo... pert, pretty, poppy and unfalteringly earnest, The Anniversary kept us all of us bopping along in our collegiate thrift store cardigans and Converse sneakers even if only in our imagination. Nestled into the punchy punky pop assembly of guitars, bass and drums you'll find fancy frills from woozy keyboards and violins, but it's the slouchy anxious boy/sweetie pie girl vocals that seal the deal! The contrasting voices were definitely a defining factor in the genre itself (you can hear it these days in bands such as Vancouver's Young & Sexy and Immaculate Machine). Disc 1 features b-sides and rarities from 1998, and disc 2 spans the quintet's career from 1999 through 2003 (including a cover of John Fogerty's "Lodi"). Awww, The Anniversary, we still heart you!
MPEG Stream: "Alright For Now"
MPEG Stream: "Diamonds And Daisies"

AVSKY Malignant (Moribund) cd 14.98
Hail Sweden's own grim hate-mongers (among many), Avsky. This is a band not intimidated by fiercely calculated genre boundaries, proudly celebrating the intersection between old style black metal, blackened death metal (a la lo-fi Hypocrisy), and charred crust punk. This is their second full-length in general, but their first for Moribund, specifically. While some may feel that the relatively high production value somehow cheapens the album, those interested in music and not just being kvlt will here be rewarded. Simply soak in the maleficent hate vibes, and lose yourself in a trance. Crushing guitars, searing riffs, blasting double-bass, and tortured, howling vocals. From mid-tempo to blast beats, it's all here. The bases are covered. Think old Darkthrone demos, Bathory, and Nattefrost all laying prostrate before Baphomet's throne.
MPEG Stream: "Cleanse the World"
MPEG Stream: "The Filth"

BLANKETSHIP Teen Sounds (Gigante Sound) cd-r 9.98
We've delighted to the many eclectic eccentric musical personas of the gents behind Bay Area indie label Gigante Sound (Dominic Cramp and Jared Blum) -- Qulfus, Borful Tang, Vulcanus 68, and Blanketship to name a few. Here's the latest from the latter with Mr. Blum at the helm. Teen Sounds is a jumbled, tumbled baker's dozen aural hijinksin' collages. Very strange and strangely varied, each is possessed with its own ample dose of the absurd. Much more dense and stewy that any of the previous Blanketship releases which were more breezy and exotica tinged. Quite reminiscent of Negativland, The Residents or John Oswald's Plunderphonics!
MPEG Stream: "Teen Sounds"
MPEG Stream: "Helpless Child"

BRONSON Waste Creeps (No Dice) cd-r 7.98
We sold out of these right quick, which was a surprise considering how we got them in the first place (see below), but we finally managed to get a handful back in, so if you missed out on it the first time around, you get one more chance, CREEP!
We got this crazy message via email one day:
"I am one of Paul Kersey's neighbor's kids. He told my dad to let him come over and jam with us from time to time. Last night we made some more songs. He scared us some, because he said now was the time to have the songs listened to. So then we recorded all our songs on to my computer. Please play them in the record store. Mr. Kersey said for me to find out where the songs can be played to creeps."
So of course we emailed and said "Right here!". Plenty of creeps here who want to hear some crazy rock noise from a band called Bronson, or maybe Bronson Wastes Creeps, we're not sure. So the discs showed up, and feature a picture of Charles Bronson on the cover pointing a gun at the camera, but the barrel of the gun is a microphone. And the songs are called things like "What Do You Do When Your Son Is A Creep", "Punk Rock Creeps", "Streets Without Creeps", you get it.
For those who don't know, Paul Kersey is the character Bronson plays in Death Wish, and thus, the sound of Bronson (Wastes Creeps), is a sort of filthy punky Stooges-y jam, chaotic stumbling drumming, guitars wrapped in distortion and phaser, chunky riffing, sort of a not as intense Brainbombs maybe, a bit of space rock, but over the top of those jams, Paul Kersey spits a stream of obscenities, an endless monologue about various weird shit, even some atonal karaoke style singing. Some of the tracks are just Kersey blathering on and on over a field of random samples, lots of creep bashing, goofy and dumb, but just wacked enough that weirdo music freaks will go nuts for this. Definitely something you might here on WFMU at 3am, which obviously means recommended, but only for the sort of folks into weird goofy shit, and who are up listening to freeform radio in the middle of the night. You know who you are.
MPEG Stream: "Beaurocratic Rat Fuck"
MPEG Stream: "Streets Without Creeps"

CIRCLE Arkades (Fourth Dimension) 2cd 19.98
BACK IN STOCK! At last... not sure if this actually got repressed, or if our supplier just found a few in a misplaced box or something, but we've got about a dozen of these now, and may or may not be able to get more. Probably not, actually. So if you missed it before, don't sleep on it now. Here's our review from back last summer....
Finland's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock, Circle, have slowly transformed into a sort of musical Jeckyll and Hyde. Beginning life with a twisted take on motorik murk, hypnotic riffing, relentless rhythms, and circular song structures, the band gradually became obsessed with metal, and thus Circle records got heavier and riffier, with more wild vocals and metallic bombast, resulting recently in a wildly productive explosion of Circle releases and Circle related side projects, the sludgey rifflords Pharaoh Overlord, the forthcoming Steel Mammoth records, and the most recent Circle release, Panic, perfectly reflecting their split personality split evenly between ambient whoooosh and grinding old skool punk rock. Confusing sure, but also wild and glorious and completely and totally kick ass.
But as Circle records generally got heavier and riffier, they were balanced by a series of lp only releases, all of which seemed to be meditative and droney and dreamy. But for listeners sans turntables, a whole side of Circle must have seemed like it was simply fading way. Well, now one of our favorite vinyl only releases from Circle has gotten re-released on cd, and with a bonus disc to boot (3 tracks, 40+ minutes). So those of you who were wondering what was going on over in Circle lp land, now's your chance to get a glimpse, and obviously all you Circle obsessives who have the lp already, will probably have to pick it up for the extra disc, essentially an entire new (live!) Circle record!
Here's a retooled version of our review of the lp when it first came out (folks who already own the lp, skip down to the end to read about the bonus disc):
Finland's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock return, with yes, another brand new record (previously lp only, now on cd), and their obsession (one of their many strange obsessions) with Southern Rock has finally reached critical mass. Not so much musically, although there are subtle hints here and there, as visually and conceptually. This set, recorded live on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU when Circle were in the states a year or two back is a monster. Two epic and massively long tracks, combining the metallic leanings of their later records (albeit subtly), with the murky propulsiveness of their earlier records, as well as their droney improvised abstract side (most noticeable on the lp only Mountain). It's kind of remarkable how all of Circle's disparate musical personalities fit so well together. But before we get to the music, let's talk about the sleeve. And the Southern Rock. The cover features a knotty pine background, riddled with bullet holes, two crossed pistols above the band name. Very Sergio Leone... The tray card features a band photo seemingly branded into the wood, with Circle donning cowboy hats and sombreros, whooping it up like that last freeze frame in an episode of Bonanza (maybe it was CHiPs, but Bonanza makes more sense here). Then there's Brian Turner's eyewitness account of the musical showdown that occurred when Circle showed up at WFMU to record their set printed like an old weathered Western town wanted poster. Woe was the pasty British garage band that felt Circle's wrath. Broken glass and tobacco spit figure prominently. And let's not forget the Confederate flag on one cd, and the crossed bandoleers on the other (the discs are labeled Rebel Platter and Bullet Platter after all).
Thankfully (or maybe not, some might be thinking) this Southern Rock doesn't filter all the way down to the music. Instead we've got more of that Circular genius we just can't get enough of.
The first track, "The Greatest Kingdom", begins as an abstract soundscape of spacey effected riffs, sort of blurry and drifty, above strange mumbled mutterings and what sounds like alien scat singing. The vibe is strangely dubby and Middle Eastern sounding. Eventually a warm wash of woozy distorted guitars builds into a monstrous swell of sound, warm and thick and sort of heavy, while buried beneath is a burbling cauldron of electronic squiggles and gurgling vocal sputters. Out of nowhere, like a beam of sunlight with a small flock of faeiries flitting about, comes a strange dreamy drift of almost renaissance faire sounding festive folk, which dissipates quickly into a swirl of speaking-in-tongues vocals and insect like electronics before drifting off.
Track two, "The Ghost Of The Highway", is a bit darker, with faux throat singing over ominous psych sludge riffing like classic Circle but slowed way down. Groovy and dark, peppered with subtle tribal percussion. Weirdly enough, that weird dreamy stretch of faerie flecked folk sunniness that surfaced briefly on side A, shows up again here in a slightly different form, and disappears just as quickly, returning to a VERY Circular propulsive groove. Drums skitter instead of pound, while a guitar drifts and stutters, sounding a bit like the guitar line from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" but way more druggy and psychedelic!
This double disc reissue tacks on a whole 'nother record, three more loooong tracks, the shortest ten minutes, the longest sixteen plus, and starts off sounding as Western as the artwork would have led us to believe. Lots of random shuffling, crowd noise, recorded live, a murky haze, like smoke in an old West barroom, then the riff kicks in, somewhere between classic spacey krautrock and Morricone spaghetti Western twang, the drums simple and propulsive, the riff slowly drifting and changing shape, while the vocals growl over the top, things like "Sixxxxxx, sixxxx, sixxxx" or "Kaaaaaaay, kaaaaaaay, kaaaaaay" and assorted other mumblings and guttural whispers. Very ominous and evocative. Right smack in the middle, the riff gives way to a strange chaotic interlude of sustained chords, simple rhythmic pulses, swooping synths, and wild nearly operatic vocals, before giving way to a simple drums only coda.
The second track begins with some strange rave-y synthesizers, wrapped around the same growled vocalizations, building and building, but never completely rocking out, instead, lingering in some endlessly repeating world of tension and no release, the synths looping, the drums mirroring the synths, and a wild array of vocals, some breathy and earnest, some wild and over the top, and of course plenty of mysterious grunting and growling.
And they close out the record with one of the highlights from their live sets, not the song necessarily, but the RIFF, a super kick ass, super rocking MEGA-riff, can't remember what record it's from, but what a riff, live it's the sort of riff that induces immediate headbanging, with a killer dynamic stop start "DAH DAH.... DAH DAH.... DAAAAAAHHHH", it's the kind of part in a song, you NEVER want to end, but leave it to Circle to confound, and after a few run throughs, the band pulls back and blisses out, into some strange, super extended FX drenched free floating jam, guitars hover and swirl, the drums a distant shuffle and skitter, the keyboards tinkling abstractly, vocals crooning dramatically throughout, like some theater production gone well off the rails, all culminating in a dense cloud of drum splatter, FX chaos, super affected vocals, and thick swooshes of instrumental buzz and blur. But just as you think it's over, in true Circle fashion, they explode back into action, and finish off with a blistering blast of THAT riff. Awesome.
So it seems that maybe we'll all have to keep waiting for the inevitable, that record they keep threatening us with, when Circle finally become a bizarre krautrock psychrock dronemetal version of the Marshall Tucker Band, but for now, just crack open that Jack Daniels, throw those boots up on the desk (careful with those spurs!), pull the brim of your ten gallon down over your eyes, put a little pinch between your teeth and gums, turn it up and drift off...
MPEG Stream: "The Greatest Kingdom"
MPEG Stream: "The Ghost Of The Highway"

CROM Hot Sumerian Nights (Forest Moon Special Products) lp 12.98
NOW ON VINYL!
Crom are funny guys. Their first record, The Cocaine Wars, featured one of the best album covers EVER, a Heavy Metal Magazine style painting of a hot babe in armor, riding a huge polar bear, across a vast tundra, covered in a thick layer of snow, that once the booklet was opened, was revealed to actually be mounds of cocaine being sniffed by a mighty Viking! The new record, features the band painted in the same style as the first record, all Vikings, wearing armor, swords at their side, one flipping the bird, trudging across another snowy expanse, that this time, turns out to be the fluffy bedspread of a sleeping Viking, warm and cozy beneath a polar bear skin, his arm around his sleeping wench. Needless to say we were sold before we even heard a note.
And musically, these guys are pretty goofy too, tons of short short tracks, as many skits and interludes and weird sonic experiments as there are proper songs. But the key to Crom is that A. They really are funny, and the skits, while often dumb or puerile or pointless, are in fact pretty hilarious, and B. The riffs KILL. To the point of being incredibly frustrating, as each song cuts off after only a minute or two, leaving the listener wanting more. Way more. But somehow, all of those metallic fragments, and all of the fucked up silly non-musical moments, are woven into one awesomely over the top, confusional genius mess.
The sound is part black metal, part classic metal, part grind, a little Fucking Champs, some death metal, a little doom, it's obviously the work of some seriously obsessive metalheads, with seriously short attention spans, but the songs when they kick in totally destroy, from furious thrashing blackness, to grinding churning chug, to what-the-fuck metallic free for all, to total classic old school majestic metal, often all in the same song, and then there's all the snippets from movies, the bits of dialogue, the weird whispered vocals chanting 'join us', the entire track made of the sniffle of cocaine sniffing (we assume), weird epic fade-in's that fade in to nothing, some seriously Melvins-y sludge, confusional collages of samples and downtuned riffage, but none of that shit would fly if the band weren't capable of rocking like mother fuckers, which they most certainly are.
Hot Sumerian Nights will probably frustrate the shit out of a lot of folks, but they could be quickly won over with a polar bear, a warrior babe, a wall of amps and lots and lots of blow...
MPEG Stream: "Wee Hours Of The Snowgoat"
MPEG Stream: "Thorgrimm's Lament"
MPEG Stream: "The Lurker Within"
MPEG Stream: "Grim Grey Gods"

CSS Donkey (Sub Pop) cd 13.98
You won't be finding any pompoms or pep squad cheers on this the sophomore full length from CSS! They're walking a different walk this time out. Geez, it's almost like a total alter ego. While we were definitely expecting and received an album bursting with sweaty energy from this Brazilian group, we weren't quite anticipating that they'd return with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. Yeah, it sure ain't all smiles and giddiness this time. And admittedly we're a bit disappointed that they've chosen to take this detour into more common girl-fronted modern rock fare, especially after such an exuberant and distinct debut. That said, if you dug the debut album that we reviewed recently by The Ting Tings or the latest Sons & Daughters release, CSS are here to deliver some like-minded punchy, sassy synth-pop for you. Much like the former, this album really made us think of Tegan & Sara kickin' it at some sleek after hours joint like they're Elastica or somethin'. So yeah, much darker in mood and attitude (check out "How I Became Paranoid"), Donkey is as apropos for late night club escapades as Cansei De Ser Sexy was for hot afternoon outdoor frolics. Who knows where they'll go from here!
MPEG Stream: "Let's Reggae All Night"
MPEG Stream: "How I Became Paranoid"

CSS Donkey (Sub Pop) lp 13.98
You won't be finding any pompoms or pep squad cheers on this the sophomore full length from CSS! They're walking a different walk this time out. Geez, it's almost like a total alter ego. While we were definitely expecting and received an album bursting with sweaty energy from this Brazilian group, we weren't quite anticipating that they'd return with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. Yeah, it sure ain't all smiles and giddiness this time. And admittedly we're a bit disappointed that they've chosen to take this detour into more common girl-fronted modern rock fare, especially after such an exuberant and distinct debut. That said, if you dug the debut album that we reviewed recently by The Ting Tings or the latest Sons & Daughters release, CSS are here to deliver some like-minded punchy, sassy synth-pop for you. Much like the former, this album really made us think of Tegan & Sara kickin' it at some sleek after hours joint like they're Elastica or somethin'. So yeah, much darker in mood and attitude (check out "How I Became Paranoid"), Donkey is as apropos for late night club escapades as Cansei De Ser Sexy was for hot afternoon outdoor frolics. Who knows where they'll go from here!
MPEG Stream: "Let's Reggae All Night"
MPEG Stream: "How I Became Paranoid"

CUTE LEPERS, THE Can't Stand Modern Music (Blackheart) cd 13.98
Not at all surprisingly this new band The Cute Lepers hail from garage pop rawk haven the Pacific Northwest. Why do we say that? Well, because they dish out super retro bubble power pop with all the genre's prerequisites - jangly electric guitar strumming, carefully picked out uncomplicated crunchy guitar solos, upbeat walkin' basslines, snappy drum beats, just as snappy handclaps, generous shakes of the tambourine, and girl group backing vocals. Remarkably faithful to both the original '60s and the late '80s revival sounds. It made us wanna dig out our old albums from Flop and Buzzcocks! They even use the appropriate fonts on the cover art! It's also maybe not at all surprising that this album has been released on Joan Jett's record label. In fact the first song sounds like some sort of bastard child of "Bad Reputation" and "Summertime Blues". Ultra snappy fun from start to finish!
MPEG Stream: "Terminal Boredom"
MPEG Stream: "Prove It"

EDEN EXPRESS Que Amour Que (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
Now Available On Vinyl!
While just about everything Holy Mountain puts out is awesome they also tend to focus on the heavier side of the underground musical landscape. With this debut by Eden Express they're showing their softer side, while managing to keep the awesomeness on full throttle! There would be no other time for this record to get released then smack dab in the midst of summer as this is some sun-soaked-tripped-out-bake-at-the-beach-psych-pop that we can't get enough of. Featuring one member of Cloudland Canyon, this is a group who understand how to evoke colorful and vivid sensations. Mixing Eastern tinged psychedelia with delicious hints of washed out samba with such an effortless and breezy delivery. This is a timeless sounding record that could just as easily be some lost early '70s South American psychedelic gem (which the cover design suggests) as much as a much more drugged out Antena or Brightblack Morning Light jamming on the beach with some Finnish folks like Lau Nau and Islaja at their side. Such delicious delay and reverb, just the right touches of flute and otherworldliness, and it's about time psych gets out of the forest and onto the sand. A record made to soak in sun and melt with.
NB. includes a cover of "Loneliest Person" by The Pretty Things.
MPEG Stream: "Skin De Sol"
MPEG Stream: "Swelling Moon"
MPEG Stream: "On The Beach"

FABULOUS COUNTS, THE Jan Jan (DBK Works) cd 16.98
Hard and heavy funk from the Motor City! This reissue of the Counts' sole album on Cotillion is full of floor shakers and skirt blowers, played with effortless authority by a staggeringly tight and muscular band. The Fabulous Counts' sound is HUGE: dueling saxes trade off leads, while off-kilter guitar and popping Hammond organ provides the melodic bed, and it all gets anchored together by a supremely funky rhythm section made up of drums, conga and bass. The result is an album of hard-edged instrumental funk that mixes the slickness one would expect from a top shelf Detroit band in the '60s with more Southern soul and R&B flourishes (there's definitely some chicken pickin' and honkin' sax happening here) to create a sound that is at once totally raw and powerful but still maintains an almost military degree of precision. We're going to give drummer Andrew Gibson a lot of credit for this, as his ability to beat the ever-loving shit out of his kit without losing a hint of swing is remarkable; it gives the rest of the band the freedom to stretch out and pushes the whole thing to some remarkable, sweaty, and deeply funky heights.
Jan Jan contains a mix of tracks taken from the band's early 45s, a few originals and a number of covers (James Brown's "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World," Sly Stone's "Sing A Simple Song" and a surprisingly great version of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" to name three). The tracks from the group's first two 45s are some of the standouts ("Jan Jan" and "Dirty Red" in particular), but the whole thing is solid. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "The Bite"
MPEG Stream: "Who's Making Love?"
MPEG Stream: "Girl From Kenya"

FAINT, THE Fasciinatiion (Blank.Wav) cd 12.98
Rad! If you're already a fan of this Omaha, NE band, you're gonna love this! And if you're an older (i.e., pre-Danse Macabre) fan you're probably going to love it even more 'cause it's juiced up with some earlier Faint elements (like some infectious hooks and saucy lyrics) that the band more or less ditched on their last album, Wet From Birth. That album had the band going in a more balls-out rock direction, and their live shows followed suit. Fasciination finds them getting back to the synthesizers and electronics - super textured, thick and gnarly! -- and perhaps increasingly so. They seem to have devoted much more attention to sculpting the sound design, but not at the expense of the aggressive energy and the songs themselves. Although their access to recording production resources has no doubt increased with their popularity, they haven't been blinded by the bright lights or technology. Nothing's too glossy and no one seems to be sitting on any laurels, they still sound like The Faint. As we've said before this band too often gets unjustly lumped in with the legions of dumbshit vacuous dance punk bands, but c'mon, it's usually just a new-wave prejudiced knee-jerk reaction to the synth sounds and arpeggiated basslines (something which the band no longer seems to rely on anyways!). If you dismissed them long ago, you just might want to give Fasciination a spin because while they're quite capable and willing to whip a dance party into a frenzy, The Faint have always had far more going on in both craft and intent. Released on their own label Blank.Wav.
MPEG Stream: "Get Seduced"
MPEG Stream: "Machine In The Ghost"

HOLD STEADY, THE Stay Positive (Vagrant) cd 15.98
The Hold Steady follow up their widely embraced third album Boys And Girls Of America with a mountain of more burly college radio ready rock that harkens back to the glory days of Husker Du, The Clash and The Replacements. Y'know what we're talkin' about - crunchin' electric guitars strummed by mannish fists, vocals sung through husky workin' man beards, and gang-style backing vocals probably contributed by everyone who was in the building at the time. However, The Hold Steady show their softer side getting a little more fancy pants with the addition of horns and harpsichord among other pleasantries. In fact, we'd might even liken them to the bleak weathered Scottish romantics The Arab Strap. All of these are of course good things in our books!
MPEG Stream: "Sequestered In Memphis"
MPEG Stream: "Lord, I'm Discouraged"

HOWLING WIND, THE Pestilence & Peril (Profound Love) cd 14.98
Not to be confused with Howlin' Magic, Howlin' Rain or Howling Hex! This Howling, the Wind one, is appropriately enough a black metal band. Of the more primitive, thrashing variety... screaming morbid cacophony, with deathgrunts and raw pounding riffs raging amidst a murky metallic miasma.
This duo is spearheaded by Brooklyn's Ryan "Killusion" Lipynsky, a musically misanthropic gentleman whom you may know from such fine bands as Unearthly Trance, Villains, and the (un)godly Thralldom, to which this project is perhaps the sequel. Here he (and Portland, Oregon based drummer Parasitus Rex) bring the noise old school black metal style. They definitely owe allegiance to the likes of Darkthrone and Hellhammer. There's some doomic dirge on here too, and 'ambient' bits as well.
And yep, The Howling Wind ain't a bad name at all for this - a lot of this really does sound like it's been recorded in a howling wind. That's more than the case on the final track, "The Inevitable Conclusion", which sounds like a howling wind itself, being rather more of a creepily abstract, droning, power electronics track than anything "metal".
MPEG Stream: "Sin Continuum"
MPEG Stream: "Deadlands"

ISEN TORR Mighty & Superior (Shadow Kingdom) cd ep 9.98
If you're a fan of the sadly defunct pagan British doomsters Solstice - whose final recording, New Dark Age, was one of the best metal albums of the '90s, or ANY decade (you can read our review of last year's reissue elsewhere on our website) - you should be chuffed about this.
A few years ago, former Solstice leader Rich Walker (who runs the cult Miskatonic Foundation label, and also now plays in Pagan Altar) assembled a triumphing true metal supergroup called Isen Torr, dedicated to 'Anglo Saxon Battle Metal' exclusively. The band featured, in addition to Walker on guitar: vocalist Tony Taylor (Twisted Tower Dire), Lovecraft-lovin' guitar whizz Perry Grayson (Falcon, Destiny's End), bassist Oliver Zuhlke (Ritual Steel), and drummer Martin Zellmer(Ritual Steel)...
They released a vinyl-only, limited edition 10" ep in 2003, and nothing since, possibly 'cause Walker hails from England, while Taylor and Grayson are Americans, and the rest of Isen Torr hail dwell in Germany. So, what's this then? It is, at long last, the compact disc version of that 10", including both epic songs/sides from the vinyl, "Mighty & Superior" and "The Theomachist", plus a bonus third track, a fairly different, instrumental demo version of the latter. 26:06 minutes total.
Written by Walker, musically these songs do sound sorta like Solstice, except for being rather faster and more Maiden-y. And in comparison to Solstice, Tony Taylor's high-pitched vocals are a bit more generically metal. But the lyrics are straight up Solstice. An example: "Through an undulating sea, Of proselyte harlequins/An empyreal harbinger, The hellae maleficent". That's typical Solstice vocabulary right there. Like we said, fans will be chuffed, likewise anyone into majestic, mighty and superior metal as well. Too bad this ep was never followed-up by the rest of their proposed trilogy of 10"s... On the other hand, we're glad the band didn't stick with their original old school insistence that their music would never, ever be released on cd...
MPEG Stream: "The Theomachist"

KISS Music From The Elder (Mercury / Casablanca) cd 10.98
I (Allan) have been going through a bit of a Kiss phase lately, as you already know if you saw my write-up of Dynasty last list. In that review, I said we needed more Kiss records on our website and I'd be trying to review a Kiss klassic every few weeks, as long as I continue on my current Kiss kick... I also suggested (threatened?) that the next one I'd review would be Music From The Elder, one of the least-popular Kiss albums ever. They didn't even tour for it. But it's also one of the strangest Kiss albums ever, and thus makes a perfect subject for review on the AQ site. It's also, I just found out, one of Andee's faves. So, here we go...
I'd been warily curious about this oddball album for a long time before finally picking it up. Why? Well, 'cause 1981's Music From The Elder was Kiss's misguided attempt at prog. That's right, Kiss doing a concept (koncept?) album! Or an imaginary soundtrack. That sort of thing. It was either Gene Simmons' or producer Bob Ezrin's brilliant idea, with Paul Stanley all for it too, though apparently Ace Frehley wasn't that into it (new drummer Eric Carr didn't get a vote). Commercially speaking, they should have listened to Ace, as The Elder stiffed sales-wise. And it's doubtful that The Elder earned Kiss any critical respect, either, though that's probably what they were hoping would happen. To be taken seriously as musicians... though why a band essentially famous for wearing clown makeup thought that would ever happen is of course a mystery!
As you might expect, plenty of The Elder is pretentious, with soundtracky, synthy orchestrated interludes, and a narrative that's on the murky side. Something about a immortal order of do-gooders finding and training a boy to become a champion against encroaching evil? There's a table and a rose and an odyssey and a character named Morpheus and some other stuff too. However, despite all that dodginess, it's also got some worthy songs on it that have been unfairly underrated and overlooked in the Kiss canon. Several of them, strangely enough, co-written by none other than Lou Reed! Fact. Though they don't sound much like The Velvet Underground...
It also includes one of Kiss's most medieval, metallic tracks up to that point in time, the galloping glory that is "The Oath". Paul Stanley breaks out the falsetto for that one, and it's simultaneously flowery and kick-ass. Kiss sounds a bit like fellow New Yorkers Manowar here, and maybe were responding to the rise of the NWOBHM.
Elsewhere, they're more like Styx, doing the pomp rock thing pretty well on such mellower, melodic cuts as "Only You", "Under The Rose", and the gentle lament "A World Without Heroes". I can see how fans would have found some of this even less acceptably Kiss-like than the disco-inflected Dynasty... but these tracks are growers.
Gene's plodding groover "Mr. Blackwell" (written with Reed) is another highlight. I'd love to hear the Melvins cover this one, I can practically hear it in my imagination. Meanwhile, Ace fans will be happy to hear from the Spaceman on the jaunty-sounding yet lyrically doomy "Dark Light" (wherein, despite his misgivings about this whole Elder idea, he contributes both his charmingly unpolished vocal stylings as well as some speedy guitar soling). The other track for which Ace gets a writing credit, "Escape From The Island" (what island?), is a crunching instrumental notable for his guitar solo as well.
And last but not least, album-ender "I" is definitely a decent Kiss anthem, uplifting & chest-beating ("I believe in me/I believe is something more than you can understand/Yes I believe in me"), with a cinematic voiceover dropped in to tie it to the "story line" of The Elder.
So, this is the album to get if you want to hear Kiss doing something a bit different. True, not many people did, but that doesn't mean it was all bad; in fact, it's much better than I expected. I've been spinning this quite a bit, actually. Consider it a contrarian cult classic. Its very failure as "Kiss product" really makes it all the more affecting emotionally, humanizing this oft-cartoony band somehow. And it's not like you've heard these songs a million times before, either. Hmmm... if I know AQ customers, chances are good that this will turn out to be our best selling Kiss title, by virtue of its very unpopularity everywhere else!
But, next time, I'll review something with actual hits on it, something less unusual/more essential, for those of you who don't have ANY Kiss in your kollection...
MPEG Stream: "The Oath"
MPEG Stream: "Mr. Blackwell"
MPEG Stream: "Only You"

LES TROUBADOURS DU ROI BAUDOIN Missa Luba (El / Cherry Red) cd 17.98
This recording of the Missa Luba - a version of the Roman Catholic Latin Mass filtered through traditional Congolese songs - was made in 1958 by a group of 45 teenaged boys under the direction of a Belgian Franciscan Friar named Father Guido Haazen. It's beautiful to the point that we're stumped as to what else we can say about it, which given how verbose we usually are is probably saying something. We will, however, relate an anecdote: a few days ago a woman came into the shop, spent a good while browsing the stacks, and eventually made her way to the counter to ask for a recommendation. She was hippie-fied in a particularly San Franciscan way, and the only direction that she gave us was that she wanted a record that was going to "open her mind to new possibilities" (we know this sounds like a Scharpling and Wurster bit, but we swear to God that this actually happened!). We scratched our noggins for a few minutes, asked her a few questions about what she did and didn't like, and played her a few things. She walked out with this record, and by all accounts the new possibilities are now a-flowin'...! 
OK, so maybe touting Missa Luba as a catalyst for middle-aged, hippie enlightenment isn't the best way to sell it to aQ list devotees, but a quick straw poll of aQ staffers has this record popping up in the collections of at least 3 of us, all of whose tastes run to some pretty different extremes (on that note, all of us who happen to be lucky owners of the original US lp release from 1965 are excited to see a complete cd reissue that includes the performances of traditional Congolese songs that were left off the only other digital release). Again, it's hard to explain precisely what it is that makes this record so captivating, but there's something about it that is so emotionally pure, honest, humble and beautiful that it's hard to deny. Perhaps it's the fact that we spend so much time listening to dark, hopeless, bleak music - songs about death and drugs and depression and misanthropy and whatever else - that when we hear something as unrepentantly joyous as this record, it throws us for a loop. It's a simple formula - songs of praise sung in a Congolese style by a boys' choir - and it sounds almost exactly like you would expect based on the description (those of you who were thoroughly blown away by the last song on the first side of Mississippi Records' Lipa Kodi Ya City Council LP take note!); however, if you're anything like us, you won't be expecting the effect that these songs will have on you. This is one of those records that grabs you and forces you to listen in a way that makes everything around you stop for a few minutes. Catholic or not, we're positive that's a good thing. Beautiful, essential, perfect.
MPEG Stream: "Banaha (Soldiers' Song)"
MPEG Stream: "Gloria"
MPEG Stream: "Sanctus"

LUSTMORD [Other] (Daymare) 2cd 31.00
We just got in the Japanese version of Lustmord's [Other], housed in the usual over the top Daymare packaging. And like all the Japanese versions, there is extra music, this time that means a whole bonus disc! But, no rare or unreleased tracks, instead it's the entire previous Lustmord record Juggernaut. Thus, this is probably pretty much exclusively for folks who have yet to pick up the last two Lustmord discs, or maybe those with a fetish for super fancy Japanese style packaging.
[Other]:
Lustmord began in the early '80s, when Brian Williams was a member of the seminal Industrial ensemble SPK. The first Lustmord records followed suit from SPK's brutish dark noise with rhythmic underpinnings; however, the Lustmord aesthetic was fully realized in 1990 with Heresy. This has long been one of the best examples of dark ambient composition with plenty of occultish references and absolutely terrifying soundscaping. The two albums that came afterward - The Monstrous Soul and The Place Where The Black Stars Hang - formed something of an ersatz trilogy of essential Lustmord recordings. The initial ideas behind these albums were a bridge between psychoacoustic research and the metaphors of horror, definitely in keeping with the Industrial roots which spawned Coil and Psychic TV. But in recent years, Lustmord has been a huge influence upon the ambient sides of metal - black, doom, or otherwise. So, Hydra Head has now commissioned their second album from Lustmord in [Other]. This is a much better record than the previous album on Hydra Head, although the things that work for [Other] have been the staple in Lustmord's productions past -- murmuring rumbles of blackened energy, downpitched Tibetan horns blasted through catacomb reverb, and slashed noises cast in shadow. Like on Juggernaut, Lustmord augments his nightmarish sound design with guests and their guitars. Lustmord revisits one of the problematic tracks from Juggernaut which found King Buzzo from the Melvins chugging out a downtuned riff, and which sat somewhat flatly against an ocean of dark drones. Where this track fails, the collaborations with Aaron Turner are pretty damn awesome, with some slow-motion desolate notes reflecting a similar vibe found on the recent Earth albums (i.e. Hex and The Bees Made Honey). A little uneven, but when this is good, [Other] is really good.
Juggernaut:
Back in 2004, Lustmord and The Melvins released what turned out to be a truly magnificent collaboration in the form of the album Pigs Of The Roman Empire. For Juggernaut, Brian Lustmord entered the studio with the Melvins' King Buzzo once again. The result is less of a collaborative project and more of a Lustmord album with Buzzo contributing vocals and guitars to Lustmord's dark, dark ambient sound design. The album opens with some signature Lustmord moves: cavernous bass drones, tectonic plods for a rhythmic underbelly, and loops of weeping violin. All of this points to the same creep show ambience that worked so well on Lustmord's seminal albums Heresy and The Monstrous Soul; yet, when King Buzzo's guitar comes into focus, the two signatures couldn't sound any more mismatched. It's really quite baffling: a hardly distorted chug of the guitar that sounds more like a teenager who's just figured out that you can downtune an E chord rather than a legend of dirge and doom. And Lustmord just lets it sit there; no manipulation, no augmenting sounds, nothing else. And so it goes. Towards the end of the record, Lustmord brings in some screeching Ligeti strings that do improve upon the previous 30+ minutes of tedium. Given that Stephen O'Malley and Pita raised the bar pretty high for avant-garde doom metal hybrids with their recent KTL collaboration, Juggernaut needed to be a hell of a lot better than this.
MPEG Stream: "Testament"
MPEG Stream: "Godeater"
MPEG Stream: "Er Ub Us"

OBERST, CONOR s/t (Merge) cd 14.98
Okay folks, here's a release that hardly needs an introduction or a description because the masses are gonna be grabbin' this up regardless of what we say... many already have! Conor Oberst has pretty much become a household musical name and face, and we'll surely be seeing more of him in the coming months following the release of what is perhaps his most accessible album to date. No question, he's a talented Americana songwriter, but the thing that made his music so immediately distinct, so emotionally charged and so darn endearing was his youthful quivering-verge-of-breakdown-shivering-rain-drenched-puppy-ness. That's far less apparent these days which makes his music more appealing for some, and less for others. In fact, it was more than a little bit unsettling for us when we realized that on a few numbers Mr. Oberst (yes, he's definitely a man now) sorta sounds like a second rate Tom Petty (whom many of us love!), but also a deadringer for John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band as well as the Fabulous Thunderbirds (uhhh, whom less of us love!). Album highlight? Definitely the quite Elliott Smith-esque "Lenders In The Temple".
MPEG Stream: "Cape Canaveral"
MPEG Stream: "Lenders In The Temple"

OBERST, CONOR s/t (Merge) lp 16.98
Okay folks, here's a release that hardly needs an introduction or a description because the masses are gonna be grabbin' this up regardless of what we say... many already have! Conor Oberst has pretty much become a household musical name and face, and we'll surely be seeing more of him in the coming months following the release of what is perhaps his most accessible album to date. No question, he's a talented Americana songwriter, but the thing that made his music so immediately distinct, so emotionally charged and so darn endearing was his youthful quivering-verge-of-breakdown-shivering-rain-drenched-puppy-ness. That's far less apparent these days which makes his music more appealing for some, and less for others. In fact, it was more than a little bit unsettling for us when we realized that on a few numbers Mr. Oberst (yes, he's definitely a man now) sorta sounds like a second rate Tom Petty (whom many of us love!), but also a deadringer for John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band as well as the Fabulous Thunderbirds (uhhh, whom less of us love!). Album highlight? Definitely the quite Elliott Smith-esque "Lenders In The Temple".
MPEG Stream: "Cape Canaveral"
MPEG Stream: "Lenders In The Temple"

POLLARD, ROBERT Robert Pollard Is Off To Business (GBV) cd 14.98
Another week, another Robert Pollard release! Had enough yet? If so, we (and probably he too) would understand. Many of his solo outings can be a bit haphazard, but allow is to reassure you that this album is actually remarkably solidly packed with Pollard pop gems and quite light on the overt weirdness. Maybe he should have titled it "Robert Pollard Gets Down To Business"? Diehard fans should certainly give this one a spin!
If you happen to somehow be new to this musical gent, this probably isn't the place to start. Figuring out the best introduction can be a daunting task. At last count we had about 59 Pollard and Guided By Voices entries in our database, and that's not even including his alter egos and side projects. There's so many that a few times we ran out of words with which to review them! Nonetheless we can advise you to head first and immediately to Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand.
MPEG Stream: "The Original Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Western Centipede"

POLLARD, ROBERT Robert Pollard Is Off To Business (GBV) lp 15.98
Another week, another Robert Pollard release! Had enough yet? If so, we (and probably he too) would understand. Many of his solo outings can be a bit haphazard, but allow is to reassure you that this album is actually remarkably solidly packed with Pollard pop gems and quite light on the overt weirdness. Maybe he should have titled it "Robert Pollard Gets Down To Business"? Diehard fans should certainly give this one a spin!
If you happen to somehow be new to this musical gent, this probably isn't the place to start. Figuring out the best introduction can be a daunting task. At last count we had about 59 Pollard and Guided By Voices entries in our database, and that's not even including his alter egos and side projects. There's so many that a few times we ran out of words with which to review them! Nonetheless we can advise you to head first and immediately to Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand.
MPEG Stream: "The Original Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Western Centipede"

RANALDO, LEE Countless Centuries Fled Into The Distance... (Table Of The Elements) lp 17.98
Another in Table Of The Elements' new series of one sided etched 12"s. A series focusing on the electric guitar. Last time we had Oren Ambarchi, this time we have Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, who starts out his 12" sounding quite a bit like Sonic Youth in fact. Noisy crashing chords, chaotic and off kilter, over a super high pitched sonar like beep, weirdly hypnotic until it explodes into a full on psychedelic skreekout.
The second track begins with an amazing tripped out, warbly warped guitar groove, which gives way to a weird high end drone doused in fucked up effects, so woozy it almost makes you dizzy just listening, and reminds us a bit of a fucked up set of bagpipes.
The final track begins with an echo-y almost-industrial space-y surfy riff, that shifts suddenly in pitch, creating mysterious melodies, super haunting and hypnotic, but this track too soon gives way to a massive amp blowing, speaker melting chunk of freaked out Japanese style noise-psych. Whew.
Pressed on opaque swirled turquoise vinyl. One sided, the other side with a super bad ass etching by Savage Pencil, housed in a thick vinyl sleeve, and of course, as always LIMITED!

ROBEDOOR Shapeshifter Slave (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 17.98
First Robedoor release we've listed in a while, but by no means have these guys been slacking. Nope, we just looked away for a few months and 3 or 4 lps slipped  under the radar, so we're gonna try to get all caught up, beginning with this, the newest (we think), from this drone-y duo.
We've always dug these guys, whether they were doing something muted and whispery, or kicking out the thick drone-y jams, this one is a little of both, probably leaning toward the former.
The first side begins with an almost tranquil landscape of processed rhythmic buzz, that soon becomes a cacophonous roar, warm, thick synthy drones lay atop pulsing subterranean rumbles, deep subtle percussion peppers loooooong drawn out tones, a burst of textured noise erupts, spewing thick buzzing crumbling guitars, barely audible chant like vocals are buried underneath, super noisy, but weirdly hypnotic and dreamlike.
The flip side is split into two extended tracks, the first is a super abstract doomy groove, wailing plaintive guitars and moaning wordless vocals, suspended in a massive expanse of black ambience and mysterious shimmer, which gives way to a loooong slow drone, with a strange Velvets-y melody buried way down under the surface, more creepy almost choral vocals, a super amorphous abstract drift, haunting and otherworldly.

RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ, OMAR Calibration (Is Pushing Luck And Key Too Far) (n20 Records) cd 13.98
Mars Volta fans! We're sure you're well acquainted with the name Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, aren't you? Well, your fave band's guitarist goes solo once again (this is his fifth solo release)... and gets all electronic and acid jazz-y in the process. Emphasis as usual is on the (fusion and free) jazz side of things, mind you! We've heard some call these tracks experimental soundscapes, but once you get past the first minute and twenty seconds we think better terms to use are improvs or jams. They are far more active and melodic than the former term implies. Furthermore, there is a definite open-weave feel to the proceedings, and all of Rodriguez-Lopez's musical influences (other artists such as Santana and Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as geographic regions Latin America) are palpable at every turn. If you dig those stretches when he totally goes off during a live MV set, then you'll probably get deep into these recordings. Lots of mad flourishes of percussion, guitar and synth noodling, some cool segments that you wish would develop into full-blown songs but instead abruptly stop and jump to something else, it's sort of like an audio sketchbook of his time spent in Amsterdam although you'll also feel like he jetsetted to other exotic locales during the recordings. It wasn't a solo mission by any means. You'll hear plenty of contributions from his MV comrades as well as six-string buddy John Frusciante and Money Mark too.
MPEG Stream: "El Monte Tai"
MPEG Stream: "Glosa Picaresca Wou Men"

SHOLI Hejrat (Holocene) 7" 6.98
As featured on the cd that came with the latest music issue of The Believer, local SF group Sholi tackle a song by the seventies "Queen of Persian Pop", Googoosh, a beloved Iranian singer who brought much glamorous style and beauty to Middle Eastern pop music, before being forced underground by the Iranian revolution. According to Payram Bavafa, the bands singer/guitarist, "'Hejrat' is often regarded as one of Iran's most beautiful and romantic pop songs". Sholi extends the cover tributes to the B-side where they bravely take on Joanna Newsom's "The Sprout and The Bean" with surprisingly good results. Recorded by Greg Ashley it comes with a coupon to download mp3 versions of the two tracks. Nice!

SKITLIV Amfetamin (Cold Spring) cd 15.98
Back in stock! Get it while you can, cuz you never know, this might be the last we hear from these guys, as stories from their performance at the Roadburn festival in Holland were pretty over the top - an insane, barely musical rampage invovling fistfights, drunkenness, audience abuse, instrument destruction, extreme drug intake, bloodshed, shooting up, some actual music here and there, all culminating in one member of the band being shoved into a cab, a bunch of cash handed over with the instructions "take this guy as far away as possible and dump him." Woah. Sorry we missed it.
Anyway, the record itself is slightly more musical than all that, but still plenty grim and brutal and fucked up doomy and misanthropic and chaotic. Read on...
This one was definitely made for aQ. Self described black noise / doom metal from Maniac, formerly of Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem, joined by Kvarforth of Swedish black metallers Shining, and Attila from SUNNO))) (and also Mayhem oddly enough) and featuring music by Current 93. A pretty odd mix for sure, especially the two former Mayhem vocalists, and what's even more odd, is that this release features only two studio tracks, the other 6 recorded live, one of which is an intro recorded by David Tibet and Andrew Liles as Current 93. But a strange band deserves a strange release, so here we go.
The opening title track is some super abstract noise drenched doom, falling somewhere between Khanate, Gnaw Their Tongues and something much more spacious and abstract. A simple little guitar melody drifts through a landscape of howled and shrieked vocals, thick bursts of caustic crumbling distortion, little flurries of metallic chug, haunting minor key melodies, a truly twisted doomscape for sure, but it's Maniac's vocals (as well as Attila's here) that make it so fucked up and freaked out. So impossibly harsh and intense, a monstrous growl/shriek totally in the red, swallowing up all the sounds around it, managing to sound as creepy and crawly as it does intense and insane. There's tons of shit going on in the background too, strange voices speaking, other instruments drifting in and out, random samples and field recordings, some buried percussion, all only adding to the weirdness.
The second studio track is a whole different story, a hugely heavy slab of plodding doom metal, guitars thick and loud and distorted, layer upon layer of grind and crumble and buzz, the vocals super intense, slipping from hellish shriek to demonic growl and back again. Lots of effects, the arrangement full of starts and stops, plenty of grinding guitar lurking beneath the main riff, a loping freaky fucked up ultradoom jam for fans of Moss, Monarch, Nihill, Bunkur, Whitehorse, etc.
The rest of the disc is a live show recorded at the Camden Underworld in the UK in 2007, and begins with a creepy Current 93 intro, with David Tibet, howling his strange invective, over a wash of hiss and white noise and guitar rumble, until the band launch into a live version of the second studio track mentioned above which launches the band into an expansive trudge through some serious tweaked and twisted doom. Live it sounds a lot less freaked out and a lot more TRUE, huge riffing, caveman drums, amazing throat shredding vocals, the sound is definitely raw and live sounding, but it perfectly suits Skitliv's hellish black doom. The record closes with a live version of "Amfetamin", the track that opened the disc, and it's appropriately intense, the addition of drums doing nothing to take away from its minimal menace, the focus less on vocals (minus a flurry of howls and shrieks midway through) and more on the droning guitars and grinding crumbling creepy black ambience.
MPEG Stream: "Amfetamin"
MPEG Stream: "Slow Pain Coming"

SLOTH A Whole Other World Of Fun aka 13 Songs 13 Samples (At War With False Noise) cd 10.98
BACK IN STOCK!! Some of you probably already know Sloth, a mysterious band of Midwestern sludgelords who in the past shared splits with folks like Corrupted, Grief, Upsidedown Cross, Floor, Noothgrush and Grief, and sonically, these guys were a pretty perfect fit amidst such illustrious company, but even back in the day, the sound of Sloth was a bit cracked, a bit demented, hints of some serious psychosis lurking beneath their lurching, downtuned exterior.
Surprisingly, this is their first full length EVER, but maybe not so surprisingly, given a whole cd to stretch out on, the weirdness factor is through the roof. This is most definitely not a proper sludge record, although there are some seriously sludge-y moments. There's also lots of weirdo rock, a bit of classic sounding grunge, some Amrep style postpunk noise, some cracked pop, and some seriously what-the-fuck sonic action all over the place. It sounds a bit like a musical clusterfuck, and it sort of is, but in a good way, and all those disparate sounds sort of fitting together, like some musical Frankenstein's monster. Not to mention, as the title suggests, the record is split into 13 songs and 13 samples, with each sample, some as short as 4 seconds getting their own track.
So yeah, even with such an amazing sludge pedigree, we're not sure we would necessarily recommend this to those looking for something like Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur and the like. A Whole Other World Of Fun is more for folks who like their music, heavy, difficult, troublesome, confusional and very very very fucked up. Just have a listen to the sound samples and maybe it will start to make sense. Probably not though...
The record opens with some grungy redneck punk rock, somewhere between Scissorfight and Fucked Up, but with some killer riffing, some weird death metal grunts, and some awesome post rock-y breakdowns. The rest of the tracks are really all over the place, from creeping Slintish mathrock (complete with spoken word vocals) and a twisted howled banshee like chorus, to a super blown out space rock groove, with an ultra distorted riff, some bizarre vocals, and some haunting keyboards making it weirdly propulsive and a bit krauty, to a sea shanty forest folk sing along, to killer lo-fi buzzing indie rock, plodding primitive black metal and every stop in between. The only truly sludge-y track is "Pike Flower Shop", a lurching, stumbling ultradirge, but even then, it's peppered with weird electric organs, raspy vocals, and fucked up production. There's also a bit of a Ween vibe throughout the whole disc, that is if Ween were some sort of weirdo power violence band.
The record ends with a murky bass and drums plod, run through with buried in the mix group vocals, occasionally interrupted by a feral death metal howl, twice as loud as the rest of the music. Fucked up for sure, bizarre, but pretty damn cool. Which basically describes the whole record.
Way recommended, but only for folks with a twisted sense of humor and a taste for heavy, all-over-the-map weirdness.
NB. by the way, this band features none other than Derek Erdman, of "Kathy McGinty" fame!!
MPEG Stream: "The Wooleybear Looked At You?"
MPEG Stream: "A Night At The Park"
MPEG Stream: "UFO Zombies"
MPEG Stream: "Lagoons"

THE BUG London Zoo (Ninja Tune) 3lp 45.00
NOW ON THICK TRIPLE VINYL!!!
Hard to believe it's been 5 years since the last Bug full length. We were so obsessed with Pressure, it was exactly what we had been dreaming of, a disc of dancehall, but supercharged, the beats bigger, the toasting more tongue twisting and agile, the flows sick sick sick, the loops and music darker and more fucked up. Makes sense when you have a look at Kevin "The Bug" Martin's resume, having recorded as God, Ice, Techno Animal and Curse Of The Golden Vampire, so imagine classic dancehall filtered through all that cracked and noisy business. Fucking mind blowing. And it's not like Martin has been doing nothing since Pressure. There's been a steady flow of ep's and 12"s, singles and one-offs, but we were long overdue for another batch of damaged fractured fucked up and funky dancehall, and finally, here it is!
And it's so so good. Not quite as hard as Pressure, much more musical, but somehow all the better for it. The beats are still bangin', and the vocalists Martin has gathered are pretty top shelf: Tippa Irie, Ricky Ranking, Flowdan, Killa P, Warrior Queen, Spaceape and Roger Robinson. All of 'em on fire, and the tracks, total dancefloor destroyers, groovy, funky, a wild dancehall mashup, that stuttery beat in all its various permutations, simple looped Double Dutch repetition, skittery almost jungle, murky stripped down dubstep, pounding buzzing gabbery crunch, rubbery woozy shuffle, groovy late night minimal throb and several other variations. 
It's hard to pick favorites, all the tracks are pretty amazing, although we're pretty partial to the songs featuring Ricky Ranking, the super hooky "Murder We", with it's growled buzzing verses, but then an insanely catchy chorus, with gorgeous vocals and lazer gun style FX, then there's the closer "Judgement" a sort of slow jam, but so washed out and fuzzy, menacing and sinister, complete with soulful breakdowns, which shift effortlessly into the growly buzz drenched verses (stick around too, after a few minutes of silence, there's a really beautiful outro). The Warrior Queen tracks are awesome too, especially "Poison Dart" with its school yard flow and rib cage rattling synth buzz, unfurling a weirdly catchy melody beneath pounding simple rhythms and WQ's wicked flow. "Fuckaz" with Spaceape is a pulsing throbbing groove, the vocals a sing songy flow, not nearly as murky and mean sounding as his collabs with Kode 9, and the opener "Angry" with Tippa Irie, is a super bouncy ragga jam, the beat so simple but so infectious, and the vocals again raspy and raw, perfectly balancing the wild bounce beneath. Hard to know what else to say. We're such suckers for dancehall, especially when it gets revved up a bit. Here's hoping we don't have to wait another 5 years.
MPEG Stream: "Angry ft. Tippa Irie"
MPEG Stream: "Murder We ft. Ricky Ranking"
MPEG Stream: "Fuckaz ft. Spaceape"

WAINWRIGHT, RUFUS s/t (Plain) lp 23.00
For many of us the debut by Rufus Wainwright still stands as the shining light in his entire catalog. With arrangements and production by Van Dyke Parks this was the record that totally captured the lavish and grandiose drama and decadence of Rufus at his greatest. It's easy to forget that when this came out in 1999, it really had no scene or peer group to be placed with. This was a few years before full blown orchestrated pop made a renaissance in the indie music landscape. This was a trailblazing record in so many ways. It was still not the norm for a good looking heartthrob major label artist to be totally out of the closet. It also wasn't the norm for a pop record to come out that was filled with intense and colorful piano, stunning orchestration and such confident, romantic and tragic male vocals. Songs of yearning, unrequited love, and monumental memories delivered with such sweeping and riveting flair. So nice to have this one on vinyl now!
MPEG Stream: "Foolish Love"
MPEG Stream: "Beauty Mark"
MPEG Stream: "Imaginary Love"

WHITE, SIMONE I Am The Man (Honest Jons) cd 17.98
Dreamy! Initially this struck us as being oh so very very adorable, but for those around here with a low tolerance for sugar its cumulative effect soon became too much. Their teeth started to hurt, and they fruitlessly tried to shield themselves in the metal section. Alright, that's an exaggeration! Simone White's voice is a little bit Regina Spektor and a little bit Sybille Baier and a little bit Rose Melberg. The production is seriously lux, with some of the nicest inclusion of brass instruments in a pop song we've heard in a long time. Everything is ultra soft and smooth. Hmmm, it's sort of Finchy too. Our only sticky point is that Ms White opts for a few lyrical trends that have become somewhat tired and overused, like uhh... anything about feathers! However, if you embrace your inner cute and twee darling self no matter what your age, this is so for you! Absolutely crushworthy!
MPEG Stream: "Roses Are Not Red"
MPEG Stream: "Sweetest Love Song"

WOLF PARADE At Mount Zoomer (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
Wolf Parade fans will probably have already devoured this one, and don't need us tellin' them what's what! But whoa, it caught us by surprise! Those Wolf Parade folks seem to have taken a downer prior to recording their latest album! With the exception a few fleeting glistening warm pop moments, their exuberance is nothing short of deflated on At Mount Zoomer. Bummer 'cause when they're barrelling along at full throttle pop buoyancy, it's pretty darn irresistible. Sadly it never happens on this album. What's left are songs that sound more akin to the dour melodrama of New York's Interpol than the spritely orchestral drama-pop of their Canadian brethren Arcade Fire. Yes, still very dramatic and well executed, but the shift in mood may take some getting used to. Now, we all know that musical originality is a rare thing these days, and most current bands including Wolf Parade don't have a wealth of it. At Mount Zoomer finds them inevitably ending up once again as being most remarkable as a RIYL ("recommended if you like") band. So, that said, a solid album that sits right at the crossroads between Arcade Fire and Interpol!
MPEG Stream: "Call It A Ritual"
MPEG Stream: "California Dreamer"

WOLF PARADE At Mount Zoomer (Sub Pop) lp 14.98
Wolf Parade fans will probably have already devoured this one, and don't need us tellin' them what's what! But whoa, it caught us by surprise! Those Wolf Parade folks seem to have taken a downer prior to recording their latest album! With the exception a few fleeting glistening warm pop moments, their exuberance is nothing short of deflated on At Mount Zoomer. Bummer 'cause when they're barrelling along at full throttle pop buoyancy, it's pretty darn irresistible. Sadly it never happens on this album. What's left are songs that sound more akin to the dour melodrama of New York's Interpol than the spritely orchestral drama-pop of their Canadian brethren Arcade Fire. Yes, still very dramatic and well executed, but the shift in mood may take some getting used to. Now, we all know that musical originality is a rare thing these days, and most current bands including Wolf Parade don't have a wealth of it. At Mount Zoomer finds them inevitably ending up once again as being most remarkable as a RIYL ("recommended if you like") band. So, that said, a solid album that sits right at the crossroads between Arcade Fire and Interpol!
MPEG Stream: "Call It A Ritual"
MPEG Stream: "California Dreamer"

----*
----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed :
----*

If you want to order one of these, search for the item, then just click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart!

13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS  "Easter Everywhere"  (Snapper)  cd  14.98
13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS  "The Psychedelic Sounds of..."  (Snapper)  cd  14.98
ANNEXUS QUAM  "Osmose"  (Captain Trip)  cd  33.00
ATAVIST / NADJA  "II - Points At Infinity"  (Profound Lore)  cd  13.98
AURAL FIT  "II"  (PSF)  cd  22.00
BLURT  "The Factory Recordings"  (LTM)  cd  24.00
BON IVER  "For Emma, Forever Ago"  (Jagjaguwar)  cd  14.98
CALABI-YAU  "Compactified"  (Faria)  cd  18.98
CAMPBELL, ISOBEL & MARK LANEGAN  "Sunday At Devil Dirt"  (V2)  cd  25.00
CELESTIAL BLOODSHED  "Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed" (Moribund)  cd  14.98
COFFINS  "Buried Death"  (20 Buck Spin)  cd  14.98
COUGH  "Sigillum Luciferi"  (Forcefield Records)  cd  10.98
CRYSTAL STILTS  "s/t"  (Woodsist)  cd  11.98
CUT COPY  "In Ghost Colour"  (Modular / Island)  lp  14.98
DAFT PUNK  "Electroma"  (Vice)  dvd  24.00
DARKER MY LOVE  "2"  (Dangerbird Records)  cd  13.98
DARNIELLE, JOHN  "33 1/3 Series: Master Of Reality"  (Continuum)  book  10.98
DRY RIB  "Whose Last Trickle"  (Hyped To Death)  cd  12.98
EATER  "The Album + Singles Plus"  (Anagram)  2cd  17.98
EREB ALTOR  "By Honour"  (I Hate Records)  cd  16.98
ESOTERIC  "The Maniacal Vale"  (Season Of Mist)  2cd  15.98
FAUST  "IV"  (EMI)  2cd  16.98
FREE POP ELECTRONIC CONCEPT, THE  "A New Exciting Experience" (Vampisoul)  cd/lp  23.00/25.00
FUCKED UP  "Year of the Pig"  (Matador)  cd ep  6.98
FUNKADELIC  "Free Your Mind ..."  (Westbound)  lp  23.00
GALLON DRUNK  "Fire Music"  (Sweet Nothing)  cd  16.98
GAMMELSAETER, RUNHILL  "Amplicon"  (Utech)  cd  16.98
GARSON, MORT  "The Wozard Of Iz: An Electronic Odyssey"  (El / Cherry Red)  cd  17.98
GRAE, JEAN  "Jeanius"  (Blacksmith)  cd  14.98
GURU GURU  "Hinten"  (Captain Trip)  cd  27.00
GURU GURU  "UFO"  (Captain Trip)  cd  29.00
HAWKWIND  "Space Ritual Sundown V. 2"  (Abstract Sounds)  2cd  14.98
HEALTH  "Triceratops/Lost Time"  (Lovepump)  3lp  14.98
HEAVENSORE  "Asmodai"  (Utech)  cd  16.98
HILLAGE, STEVE  "Rainbow Dome Musick"  (Caroline)  cd  15.98
HIROSHIGE, JOJO & MASONNA  "The Last Destruction Noise: At Namba Bears, Osaka, 2007.12.29"  (Alchemy)  dvd-r  14.98
HOLLENTHON  "Opus Magnum"  (Napalm Records)  cd  15.98
IDA  "My Fair, My Dark EP"  (Polyvinyl Record Co.)  cd ep/12"  10.98/11.98
JEPSON, WARNER  "Totentanz and Other Electronic Works, 1958 - 1973" (Melon Expander)  cd  19.98
JESU / BATTLE OF MICE  "split"  (Robotic Empire)  cd/12"  14.98/17.98
KEEP OF KALESSIN  "Kolossus"  (Nuclear Blast)  cd+dvd 13.98
KELPE  "Ex-Aquarium"  (DC Recordings)  cd  22.00
KLUSTER  "1970 - 1971"  (Water)  3cd  27.00
KRISIUN  "Southern Storm"  (Century Media)  cd  13.98
KULTIVATOR  "Barndomens Stigar"  (Mellotronen)  2cd  28.00
LADYTRON  "Velocifero"  (Netwerk)  cd  16.98
LUCKY DRAGONS  "Dream Island Laughing Language"  (Marriage)  cd  17.98
MASTERS, MARC  "No Wave"  (Black Dog Publishing)  book  29.95
MATES OF STATE  "Re-arrange Us"  (Barsuk)  cd/lp  14.98/
MELTING GLASS BOX  "s/t"  (Erebus)  cd  21.00
MIGHTY DIAMONDS, THE  "Right Time"  (Virgin)  cd  14.98
MODERN SHIT  "Modern Shit: The Stories Told By Record Covers"  (Alga Marghen)  book+cd  70.00
MON COUSIN BELGE  "Quelle Horreur"  (World Famous in San Francisco)  cd  14.98
MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT  "Quietly"  (Translation Loss Records)  cd  14.98
NAS  "s/t"  (Def Jam / Columbia)  cd  15.98
NISENNENMONDAI  "Tori / Neji"  (Smalltown Supersound)  cd  16.98
OH SEES, THEE  "Thee Hound Of Foggy Notion"  (Tomlab / Castle Face) cd + dvd  19.98
ONEIDA  "Preteen Weaponry"  (Jagjaguwar)  cd/lp  14.98/17.98
OPETH  "Watershed (Collector's Edition)"  (Roadrunner)  2cd  23.00
ORCHESTRA BAOBAB  "Made In Dakar"  (Nonesuch)  cd  17.98
OSCILLATION, THE  "Out Of Phase"  (DC Recordings)  cd/2lp  22.00/23.00
PADDED CELL  "Word Of Mouth"  (DC Recordings)  12"  11.98
PALEFACE  "Rinse: 05"  (Rinse)  cd  21.00
PEACE, THE  "Black Power"  (Groovie)  lp  30.00
PENTEMPLE  "s/t (Japanese version)"  (Daymare)  2cd  31.00
PERFORMING FERRETS  "No One Told Us"  (Hyped To Death)  cd  12.98
POMASSL  "Spare Parts"  (Raster-Norton)  cd  17.98
PRICE, MELVYN  "Rhythm And Blues"  (Waxpoetics)  cd  16.98
PRURIENT  "Arrowhead"  (Editons Mego)  cd  17.98
Q65  "Nothing But Trouble"  (Rev-Ola)  cd  17.98
QUANTEC  "Unusual Signals"  (Echochord)  cd  16.98
QUICK, BILL  "Maravillosa Gente"  (Time-Lag)  lp  31.00
QUINTESSENCE  "Self"  (Esoteric)  cd  21.00
RAY, KANDING  "Automne Fold"  (Raster-Norton)  cd  17.98
REGGIE AND THE FULL EFFECT  "Last Stop: Crappy Town"  (Vagrant)  cd  13.98
ROEDELIUS, HANS-JOACHIM & TIM STORY  "Inlandish"  (Gronland)  cd  14.98
RUBY SUNS, THE  "Sea Lion"  (Sub Pop)  cd  13.98
RUDE KID  "Are U Ready?"  (No Hats No Hoods)  12"  13.98
SECONDO  "A Matter Of Scale"  (Soul Jazz)  cd  21.00
SHADES OF BROWN  "S.O.B."  (Dusty Groove)  cd  13.98
SLOAN  "Parallel Play"  (Yep Roc)  cd  14.98
SONIC YOUTH / MATS GUSTAFSSON / OG MERZBOW  "Andre Sider AF Sonic Youth (SYR8)"  (SYR)  cd  10.98
SPARKS  "Introducing Sparks"  (Lil Beethoven)  cd  14.98
SPITE EXTREME WING  "Vltra"  (Avantgarde)  cd  14.98
STONE HARBOUR  "Emerges"  (Lion Productions)  cd  16.98
SUB ROSA  "Strega"  (I Hate Records)  cd  16.98
SUNFOREST  "Sound Of Sunforest"  (Acme Gramophone / Lion Productions) cd  16.98
TEENAGE FILMSTARS  "Star"  (Art Pop!)  cd  17.98
TEMBO, CHRISSY ZEBBY & NGOZI FAMILY  "My Ancestors"  (Hummingbird)  cd  24.00
TIME, THE  "Pandemonium"  (Paisley Park / Reprise)  cd  13.98
TOTH, JAMES JACKSON  "Waiting In Vain"  (Ryko)  cd  14.98
TRINACRIA  "Travel Now Journey Infinitely"  (Season Of Mist)  cd  15.98
TROUM  "Symballein"  (Small Voices)  cd  16.98
UNEARTHLY TRANCE  "Electrocution"  (Relapse)  cd  15.98
V/A  "Andy Votel's Brazilika"  (Far Out)  cd  17.98
V/A  "Death Before Distemper v.2"  (DC Recordings)  cd/lp  23.00/23.00
V/A  "Dr. Boogie Presents Shim Sham Shimmy"  (Sub Rosa)  cd  16.98
V/A  "Give Me Love: Songs Of The Brokenhearted - Baghdad, 1925-1929" (Honest Jons)  cd/2lp  17.98/22.00
V/A  "Japanese New Music Festival 2008"  (Magaibutsu)  cd  13.98
V/A  "Melenudos!"  (Gorilla)  cd/lp  24.00/26.00
V/A  "Miniatures One + Two"  (Cherry Red)  2cd  21.00
V/A  "Nice Ass 001"  (Nice Ass)  cd-r  8.98
V/A  "Notwave"  (Rong / DFA)  12"  8.98
V/A  "Round Black Ghosts"  (Scape)  cd  17.98
VEGETABLE ORCHESTRA  "Remixed"  (Karmarouge)  cd  17.98
VOLCANO THE BEAR  "The Mountains Among Us"  (Beta-lactam Ring)  cd  22.00
WHITE LIGHT CIRCUS  "Rocket Ride"  (DC Recordings)  12"  11.98
WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON  "Love & Lamentation"  (Pogus Productions)  cd  14.98
WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON & RICHARD YOUNGS  "Veil (For Greg)" (Jagjaguwar)  cd  14.98
XHOL  "Motherfuckers GMBH & CO KG"  (Wah Wah)  lp  29.00
YA HO WHA 13  "Feather Of Wisdom"  (Phoenix)  lp  23.00
YELLOW SWANS  "Deterioration"  (Modern Radio Record Label)  cd  11.98

_______________________________________________________________________

ABOUT MAILORDER


Please place your order via our website.

[1] We will contact you to verify your order and let you know when it will be shipped. Please note that occasionally it may take a day or two for us to reply. We are not a faceless bunch of computers replying to your order -- we are human beings!

[2] If we are out of some of your items and we think we will get them within the same week, we can wait to ship. Or... If it's going to be more than a few days to complete your order, we will ship what we have and then will contact you as the remainders arrive.

[ note ] Due to the everchanging nature of the independent record business, we are not responsible for listed price changes (due to supplier price changes) and often cannot update our site fast enough to reflect these changes, but we will always try to let you know of any differences.


DOMESTIC SHIPPING :
--------------------------------
1-2 items $4.50 USPS Priority Mail
3+ items $6.50 UPS Ground

Further Explanation (Please Read!):
Within the USA, an order of 3 or more items will be shipped via UPS ground for a flat fee of $6.50. These packages are automatically insured and trackable.

However, if your package contains just 1 or 2 items, we will ship your order via USPS Priority Mail, and charge you $4.50 for shipping. These packages are NOT insured or trackable, sorry. So if you desire those safeguards, please request UPS delivery at the $6.50 rate. You must mention this in the comments field of our online order form.

Also, please note that UPS will not ship to PO Boxes. If you only have a PO Box, we can ship packages of 3+ items via US Postal Service and charge you by weight according to their rates. Special shipping needs (e.g. UPS Next Day) are also do-able, just ask.

Another important note: box sets DON'T (usually) count as one item. Sorry. A box set will generally bump you up into the "three or more items" category. Y'know, they're big. Boxes.


INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING :
-------------------------------- For foreign customers we ship via US AIRMAIL ("Letterpost"). Your price is based on the actual cost of shipping plus $1. You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package, No Correspondence" category and see the price for "Letterpost". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)


We highly recommend insurance for your international package, but it is very expensive! You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package, No Correspondence" category and see the price for "Parcel Post". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)


INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE :
-------------------------------- You are hereby forewarned that Aquarius is not responsible if your international package gets lost in the mail. Insurance is your only recourse if your records never show up. Since the terrible events of 9/11, mail service has been slow and undependable... and while we haven't experienced any *confirmed* permanently lost mail, insurance might provide some additional piece of mind in this time of upheaval. We strongly recommend it. But yes, it is very expensive. It's your choice. Again: Aquarius is not responsible for lost mail, so if you aren't willing to take a (slight but real) risk, please buy the insurance.

International insurance is very expensive! In fact often the insurance costs more than the value of your package, in which case it obviously does not make sense to insure it. You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package, No Correspondence" category and see the price for "Parcel Post", which is the way insured packages are sent. 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)

For example: for a one-pound package worth $18 going to England, shipping without insurance is about $8. But with insurance, the shipping / insurance total is over $16!

It is your reponsibility to check the international rate calculator in order to determine whether or not you want international insurance. If you tell us you want international insurance, we will add it to your order no matter how much it costs!


PAYMENT :
-------------------------------- Payment is via credit card: Visa, MC, Discover, and Amex. Money orders are accepted only from customers within the USA. If you must pay by money order, you have to confirm the order with us through email or phone BEFORE you send any payment. We cannot take personal checks for mailorder, sorry!


QUESTION?
-------------------------------- Email the mailorder department: mailorder@aquariusrecords.org

______________________________________________________________________

SOME SELECTED UPCOMING RELEASES

----} August 12th or even sooner... real soon anyway
Asva "What You Don't Know Is Frontier" cd on Southern
Orphan "Aborted By Birth" lp on From The Nursery
Bigelf "Cheat The Gallows" cd
Azrael "Obdurate & Unto Death" cd on Moribund
Pentemple "s/t" 2lp on Southern Lord
Wolves In The Throne Room "Two Hunters" 2lp on Southern Lord
Proscriptor "726" cd on Tarot
Dianogah "Qhnnnl" cd on Southern
Zach Hill "Astrological Straits" cd on Ipecac

----} August 19th
Wolfgang Voigt (Gas) "Gas Book w/cd" on Raster-Noton
Suarasama "Fajar Di Atas Awan" cd on Drag City
Stereolab "Chemical Chords" cd/2lp on 4AD
Hey Colossus "Happy Birthday" cd on Riot Season
Risto "Live!" cd on Fonal
Shit And Shine "Kuss Mich, Meine Liebe" 2lp on Load
DJ Scotch Egg "Drumized" lp on Load
Lindstrom "Where You Go I Go Too" cd on Smalltown Supersound

----} August 21st
Suarsama "Jajar Di Atas Awan" cd on Drag City

----} August 26th
Missy Elliott "Block Party" cd
KK Null "Oxygen Flash" cd on Neurot
Alias "Resurgam" cd/lp on Anticon
v/a "Notwave" cd on DFA
Trees "Light's Bane" lp version on 20 Buck Spin

----} September 2nd
Khold "Hundre Ar Gammal" cd on Candlelight
Falconer "Among Beggars And Thieves" cd on Metal Blade

----} September 9th
Mogwai "Batcat" 12" on Matador

----} September 20th
Yoshi Wada "Off The Wall" cd reissue on EM Records

----} September 23rd
Mogwai "The Hawk Is Howling" cd/lp on Matador
Brightblack "Motion To Rejoin" cd/lp on Matador
Girl Talk "Feed the Animals" cd on Illegal Art
The Alps "III" cd on Type

----} also upcoming sooner or later
Merzbow "Eucalypse" cd on Soleilmoon
Ugly Things issue #27 magazine
Rosetta "Wake/Lift" vinyl version
Makoto Kawabata & Michishita Shinsuke "Basement Echo" cd on Important
Cold Sun "Dark Shadows" lp+10" reissue on World in Sound
Coh "Strings" 2cd on Raster-Noton
Ratto Ja Lehtisalo / Reverend Bizarre "split" 12" on Ektro
Ray & Pete "The Complete Recordings" 7cd-r set
Necrofrost "Blackeon Lightharvest" cd
Mariana Topley-Bird w/ Dangermouse
Loren Chasse & Michael Mnortham "Otolth"
The Wrens new album
Andrew W.K. new album
Wolfmother new album
White Heaven "Levitation" cd edition on Farside
Anton Batagov "Passionate Desire To Be An Angel" cd on Long Arms Records
The Heads tba 2cd 'best of' on Leafhound
Gore reissues on Southern Lord
Black Boned Angel / Nadja collaboration cd/lp on 20 Buck Spin
Black Boned Angel "The Endless Coming Into Life" cd on 20 Buck Spin
Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg cd reissue on Light In The Attic
Serge Gainsbourg "Histoire de Melody Nelson" cd reissue on Light In The Attic
Serge Gainsbourg "L'homme ŕ tęte de chou" cd reissue on Light In The Attic
Scott Walker "'Til The Band Comes In" cd reissue on Water
Omit "Interceptor"
Japancakes "If I Could See Dallas"
Walker Brothers "Take It Easy With The Walker Brothers" cd reissue on Water
Feelies "Crazy Rhythms" cd reissue on Water
Kath Bloom "Terror" cd on Chapter
Iro "Tamafuri" cd on PSF
Love "Out Here" cd reissue on Collector's Choice
Love "False Start" cd reissue on Collector's Choice
Ice Cube "Raw Footage" cd
The Peace "Black Power" cd reissue on Groovie
Fiery Furnaces "Remember" 2cd/3lp on Thrill Jockey
Francisco Lopez "Technocalyps" cd on Alien8
Maurizio Bianchi cd reissues repressed on Ees't
Diza Star "Contact High Diza Star" cd on Fractal
DDAA "Action and Japanese Demonstration" cd reissue on Fractal
Otomo Yoshihide "Core Anode" cd on Meenna
Wolfgang Voigt "Freiland - Klaviermusik" 12" on Profan
When "Are You Silent" cd on Jester
Stomu Yamash'ta cd reissues on Esoteric Recordings (including "Floating Music" & "Man From The East")
Hiroshi Nar with Nishinihon "s/t" cd on Lexicon Devil
La Dusseldorf cd reissues on Water ("s/t", "Viva", and "Individuellos") _______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________

USED:

BJORK - Live Box (One Little Indian) 4cds, 1dvd, booklet, box $30.00

DURRANT / MARK WASTELL / RHODRI DAVIES / ANGHARD DAVIES - London Strings 4 3cdrs, hand stiched cover $6.98

HAMBURG, ANNE - Box Set of Three 7s (Tomlab) $6.98

KING CRIMSON - The Projekcts (Discipline Global Mobile) 4cd-box $23.00

NIRVANA - With The Lights Out (Geffen) 3cds, 1dvd, booklet, box $28.00

NYOUKIS, DYLAN Repeat After Me Mud Mud Mud Art Book $5.98


NEW:

5/5/200 - Reflektonen Musique cd w/buttons $12.98

ARCADE FIRE - Neon Bible - Deluxe Edition (Merge) cd & flip-book $17.98

BERTONCINI, MARIO - Arpe Eolie & Other (Die Schachtel) Book & cd $50.00

BLOCKS OF CONSCIOUSNESS & THE UNBROKEN - s/t (Sound 323) Book & dvd featuring John Cage, Tetuzi Akiyama, Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe, etc.) $90.00

BRAXTON, ANTHONY - Quartet GTm 2006 (Important) 4cdbox $30.00

COLLECTORS GUIDE TO HEAVY METAL: Vol.2: The 80s - Book w/CD $28.95

COLLECTORS GUIDE TO HEAVY METAL: Vol.3: The 90s - Book w/CD $28.95

COMETBUS, AARON - Despite Everything; A Cometbus Omnibus Book $16.95

COVER STORY ALBUM COVER ART (Wax Poetics) Book $19.95

COYLE & SHARPE - These 2 Men Are Imposters (Sharpeworld) 3cds & 1dvd $32.00

DAVIS, MILES - Complete On The Corner Sessions (Columbia) 6cd box $135.00

DeWILDE, AUTUME - Elliott Smith Book w/CD $29.95

DRUMMOND, PAUL - The Saga Of Roky Erickson & The 13th Floor Elevators Book $22.95

DUNCAN, JOHN & PAOLO PARISI - Conservatory San Sebastiano (Mascheto Editore) book & cd $48.00

DUUDLEVILLE TALES, THE - Art Book (Wiggleton) $27.00

FAUST - ...In Autumn (Dirter) 3cd & 1dvd box $60.00

FUZZTONES, THE - LSD 25 (Get Back) cd/dvd box $27.00

GLOMP 9 - Finnish Underground Art Book $35.00

GNARLS BARKLEY - St Elsewhere - Deluxe Edition (Atlantic) cd/dvd/96page booklet $27.00

GURDJIEFF, G.I. / DeHARTMANN - Oriental Suite (Basta) Book & 4cds $113.00

HELLHAMMER - The Demon Entrails (Century Media) 2cd/book $27.00

HENGST, CLIFF & SCOTT HEWICKER - Good Times: Bad Trips (gallery 16 Editions) Book $25.00

HENKE, ROBERT - Layering Buddha (Imbalance) 5x7s box $63.00 - OOP!!!

HIGGS, DANIEL A.I.U - Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey) book & cd $15.98

HITCHCOCK, ROBYN - I Wanna Go Backwards (Yep Roc) 5-cd Box $50.00

JABLADAV - Primland (s/r) 2cd-r sealed wooden black box $27 - OOP!!!

KALENDAREV, YURI - Sound Sculptures (Die Schachtel) cd/book $27 - OOP!!!

KASNER, STEPHEN - Works: 1993-2006 Art Book $38.00

LUNBORY, PATRICK - The Acid Archives Book $29.00

MAGMA - Theuzz Hamta Trilogie (Seventh) 3cd box $49.00

McSWEENEYS 20 - Bood $22.00

McSWEENEYS 24 - Book $24.00

MEEK, JOE - The EP Collection (Castle Music) 12cd box $61.00

MELVINS / BRIAN WALSBY - Making Love Demos/Manchild 3 cd & book $14.98

METALLICA DRUMMER - vhs $11.98

METAPHROG / HEY / MUM - Louis: Dreams Never Die (Fat Cat) cd & book $14.98

NELSON, DAN - All Known Metal Bands Book $22.00

NEW YORK NOISE - Photo Book (Soul Jazz) $39.95

NJIQAHDDA - Aartu Mortaa (Njiijn Arts) 2cdrs, incense, candle $24.00

NURSE WITH WOUND - Images/Zero Mix (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd+book $37.00

PABLO, AUGUSTUS - The Mystic World Of... (Shanachie) 4cds & 1dvd $54.00

PENTAGLE - The Time Has Come: 1967-1973 (Castle) 4cd box $57.00

PROCER VENEFICUS - A Summer Haze Array For August nights (God Is Myth) 2cd $14.98

RAPOON - Alien Glyph Mythology (Soleilmoon) 2x10 handmade cover/box $53.00

RECORD REVERSER, THE - attach it to your turntable and make every record sound weird and amazing! $15.00

SALLY, ZAK - Recidivist (La Mano) Art book $15.00

SCHAFF, WILLIAM - Portrait Of A Young Man Trying To Draw (La Mano) 10 scratchboard images $30

SINCLAIR, JOHN - Guitar Army - Book + CD $22.95

STEVENS, SUFJAN - Songs For Christmas (Asthmatic Kitty) 5cd box $22.00

SUBSTANTIALS #01 (CCA) book & cd features: Francisco Lopez, Scott Arford, Zbigniew Karkowski, etc.) $25.00

SUNDINE, RONNIE - History Of Electronic Music (Hapna) Book $39.00

TAMAGAWA - Larbre Aux Fees (Basses Frequences) 3x3cdrs $14.98

TAMBURU, MIKE - Language Of The Birds & Other Fantasies (New American Folk Hero) 7cdrs, 1dvd & book $22.95

THE DAY THE COUNTRY DIED: A HISTORY OF ANARCHO PUNK Book $19.95

TODAY IS THE DAY - Sadness Will Prevail & Live Till You Die (Relapse) 2cd $12.98

TRUE NORWEIGAN BLACK METAL - Photos By Peter Beste (Vice) Large Book $60.00

TWINK - The Toy Box (Mulatta) 3x3cdrs & picture book $23.00

UNICORN MOUNTAIN Book & CD (with: Frog Eyes, Elf Power, Oneida, etc) $14.98

V/A (MAN IS THE BASTARD) - No Skull Left Unturned (200mg) 3cd, 4booklets, stickers, patch, etc. $41.00

V/A - Altin Mikrofon (Dogan Music) 3cd-box Turkish sounds from the 60s! $39.00

V/A - Bound With Skin (Skulls Of Heaven) 5cd $45.00

V/A - Debris Field (ICR/Bolton Musem) cd & book $21.00

V/A - Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets (Rhino) 4cd & book $73.00

V/A - No Music Festival 1999 (Entartete Kunst) 5cd-box with Ken Vandermark, Jim ORourke, Alan Licht, etc. $55 - OOP!!!

V/A - North By Northwest (Korova) 3cd features: Pink Industry, Joy Division, Durutti Column, Buzzcocks, Crispy Ambulence, etc. $38.00

V/A - Pillows & Prayers (Cherry Red) 3cds & 1dvd featuring: Marine Girls, Robert Wyatt, Felt, Eyless In Gaza, etc.) $42.00

V/A - Rock Is Hell (Rock Is Hell) Eight 7s, 2-buttons $64.00

V/A - The Hacienda Classics (EMI) 3cd featuring: New Order, Inner City, Todd Terry, Candi Staton, Happy Mondays, Black Box, Primal Scream, etc. $36.00

V/A - The Old New Thing: A Free Jazz Anthology (Abraxas) 2cd & book $33.00

V/A - The Rubble Collection: Volumes 11-20 (Fallout) 10cd-box $96.00

V/A - The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Yazoo) 2cd $27.00

V/A - You Cant Always Listen To Haus Musik, But... (Hausmusik) 2lp & Book $36.00

WARE, CHRIS - Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth Book $27.50

WATA / AI ASO - Shes So Heavy (DIW Phalanax) 7 & book $32.00


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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanIrwinScottSallyAntaeusCameronFrankandJon