BOGNER, URSULA Recordings 1969-1988 (Faitiche) cd 19.98
So when you were a kid, what do you think your Mom got up to while you were at school, or out playing with your pals? Doing laundry? Cleaning the house? Doing the dishes? A little gardening? Or maybe playing bridge? Canasta? Going to the grocery store? How about collecting and building analog synthesizers? Building a soundproof recording studio in the extra room? Recording strange space-y minimal electronic music on reel to reel tapes? Or building an 'orgon accumulator' in the backyard? Such were the activities of a mild mannered housewife named Ursula Bogner, who in addition to being a pharmacist, as well as a loving wife and mother, just so happened to also be obsessed with electronic music and analog synthesizers, but unlike others with similar interests (were there other 30 something housewives so obsessed?), Bogner didn't just read about electronic music, she attended seminars, followed the activities of various groups and musicians (even apparently sharing her children's enthusiasm for new wave pop!) eventually deciding to create music herself.
She never released any recordings, didn't even really make public her hobby, instead, she simply spent her free time, creating, composing, recording, experimenting, for over 20 years, amassing an incredible body of work. All of that wouldn't merit anything but a cursory glance and maybe a chuckle, if the music weren't amazing, but it is, fantastical and inspired, primitive and raw, playful and childlike, but also, haunting and mysterious, otherworldly, and so incredibly varied, from spare academic sounding minimalism, to Perrey & Kingsley style playfulness, to super stark click and skitter that would be right at home on Raster-Noton, to swirling fantastical spaced out soundscapes that could have been sixties sci-fi soundtracks. The sounds are so evocative, so mysterious, it almost seems impossible that they were recorded by a Mom in a spare room in a house in the suburbs.
The collection opens with "Begleitung Fur Tuba", which indeed features tuba-like tones, locked into a playful grove with a bleepy bloopy rhythm, which is eventually joined by streaks of static, and a warbly main melody. From there, highlights include "Proto" which is kaleidoscopic and groovy with a super minimal click-track rhythm. "2 Ton" is almost like space age lounge music, with it's reverbed guitar like shimmer, and slithery tempo. "Speichen" is another playful number, the burbles and bloops, and definitely predicts groups like James Bong, Luke Vibert, Boards Of Canada and the like. "Punkte" is another minimal groover, with a hissy static rhythm, a bloopy bassline, and all manner of descending and ascending electronic tones, as well as pizzicato bleeps that almost sound like an alien thumb piano. The longest track is "Soloresonanzen" and is maybe the dreamiest, taking the minimal click of Raster-Noton, and draping it over slowly shifting layers of electronic whir and buzz, peppered with bits of click and glitch, textural hiss, woozy melodic fragments, very dreamlike and meditative. And finally the record finishes with a brief burst of tangly scribbly electronic whir and skree, all mad scientist machines gone haywire, but deftly arranged into a pretty alien lullaby, weird and wonderful.
Bogner's music was discovered via some pretty incredible happenstance, Jan Jelinek, who runs the Faitiche label, met Bogner's son on a plane and the two got to talking, Jelinek was an electronic musician, so was Bogner's deceased Mother Weirdly enough, and well, the rest is history. Or is it? There has been much talk that this is all a massive hoax, or more correctly, the ultimate concept album. Carefully crafted down to the tiniest details, photos, back story, Bogner's artwork, everything. In some ways it doesn't really matter, in fact, it's almost more impressive if the whole thing was in fact fabricated, but you know what, fuck it, it's so much more fun to just go along with it...
The cd is gorgeously packaged in a thick book-like digipak, with extensive liner notes from Jan Jelinek, notes on each song, lots of photos, as well as various reproductions of Bogner's various outer space linocuts.
MPEG Stream: "Begelitung Fur Tuba"
MPEG Stream: "Inversion"
MPEG Stream: "Metazoon"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphare 1"
MPEG Stream: "Punkte"

BOGNER, URSULA Recordings 1969-1988 (Faitiche) lp 19.98
So when you were a kid, what do you think your Mom got up to while you were at school, or out playing with your pals? Doing laundry? Cleaning the house? Doing the dishes? A little gardening? Or maybe playing bridge? Canasta? Going to the grocery store? How about collecting and building analog synthesizers? Building a soundproof recording studio in the extra room? Recording strange space-y minimal electronic music on reel to reel tapes? Or building an 'orgon accumulator' in the backyard? Such were the activities of a mild mannered housewife named Ursula Bogner, who in addition to being a pharmacist, as well as a loving wife and mother, just so happened to also be obsessed with electronic music and analog synthesizers, but unlike others with similar interests (were there other 30 something housewives so obsessed?), Bogner didn't just read about electronic music, she attended seminars, followed the activities of various groups and musicians (even apparently sharing her children's enthusiasm for new wave pop!) eventually deciding to create music herself.
She never released any recordings, didn't even really make public her hobby, instead, she simply spent her free time, creating, composing, recording, experimenting, for over 20 years, amassing an incredible body of work. All of that wouldn't merit anything but a cursory glance and maybe a chuckle, if the music weren't amazing, but it is, fantastical and inspired, primitive and raw, playful and childlike, but also, haunting and mysterious, otherworldly, and so incredibly varied, from spare academic sounding minimalism, to Perrey & Kingsley style playfulness, to super stark click and skitter that would be right at home on Raster-Noton, to swirling fantastical spaced out soundscapes that could have been sixties sci-fi soundtracks. The sounds are so evocative, so mysterious, it almost seems impossible that they were recorded by a Mom in a spare room in a house in the suburbs.
The collection opens with "Begleitung Fur Tuba", which indeed features tuba-like tones, locked into a playful grove with a bleepy bloopy rhythm, which is eventually joined by streaks of static, and a warbly main melody. From there, highlights include "Proto" which is kaleidoscopic and groovy with a super minimal click-track rhythm. "2 Ton" is almost like space age lounge music, with it's reverbed guitar like shimmer, and slithery tempo. "Speichen" is another playful number, the burbles and bloops, and definitely predicts groups like James Bong, Luke Vibert, Boards Of Canada and the like. "Punkte" is another minimal groover, with a hissy static rhythm, a bloopy bassline, and all manner of descending and ascending electronic tones, as well as pizzicato bleeps that almost sound like an alien thumb piano. The longest track is "Soloresonanzen" and is maybe the dreamiest, taking the minimal click of Raster-Noton, and draping it over slowly shifting layers of electronic whir and buzz, peppered with bits of click and glitch, textural hiss, woozy melodic fragments, very dreamlike and meditative. And finally the record finishes with a brief burst of tangly scribbly electronic whir and skree, all mad scientist machines gone haywire, but deftly arranged into a pretty alien lullaby, weird and wonderful.
Bogner's music was discovered via some pretty incredible happenstance, Jan Jelinek, who runs the Faitiche label, met Bogner's son on a plane and the two got to talking, Jelinek was an electronic musician, so was Bogner's deceased Mother Weirdly enough, and well, the rest is history. Or is it? There has been much talk that this is all a massive hoax, or more correctly, the ultimate concept album. Carefully crafted down to the tiniest details, photos, back story, Bogner's artwork, everything. In some ways it doesn't really matter, in fact, it's almost more impressive if the whole thing was in fact fabricated, but you know what, fuck it, it's so much more fun to just go along with it...
The cd is gorgeously packaged in a thick book-like digipak, with extensive liner notes from Jan Jelinek, notes on each song, lots of photos, as well as various reproductions of Bogner's various outer space linocuts.
MPEG Stream: "Begelitung Fur Tuba"
MPEG Stream: "Inversion"
MPEG Stream: "Metazoon"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphare 1"
MPEG Stream: "Punkte"

TOBACCO Fucked Up Friends (Anticon) cd 14.98
Tobacco would definitely be a strange name for a group. But it's an even stranger name for a -person-, except when you realize, that person is in fact the twisted mastermind behind the cracked electro pop of aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow. In our review of the most recent BMSR record, we compared their sound to Air covering Daft Punk, but with a bunch of junky old equipment, busted up amps and rickety swap meet synths. What's not to love?!?!
For Mr. Tobacco's first solo foray, he actually sticks pretty close to the Black Moth template he created, but does manage to give that sound a little twist. The instantly recognizable fuzzed out gritty synths, the stuttery crunchy crumbling beats, the chopped up vocodered vocals, the blissy eighties sheen, all in full effect, but up the hip hop vibe a bit, mix in some ethereal female vocals, some borderline cheesy (but still kick ass) cop show theme song groove, handclaps, fluttering flutes, soaring cinematic faux strings, even some rapping at one point (courtesy of Aesop Rock, who took BMSR on tour earlier this year), and we're slipping into Fucked Up Friends territory. A few of the tracks are instant classics, sounding sometimes like a more sunshine-y hip-hop flecked Goblin, other times like a more lo-fi synth heavy Boards Of Canada, and once in a while like an LSD dosed Daft Punk doing the soundtrack for a nature special on Yo MTV Raps all about jellyfish or mountain goats or those weird fish that glow in the dark. WTF?! But par for the course with Tobacco and his Black Moth Super Rainbow. And while there does seem to be a bit more hip hop happening here, it's essentially another gloriously fractured and fucked up BMSR record, which is just fine with us!
MPEG Stream: "Street Trash"
MPEG Stream: "Truck Sweat"
MPEG Stream: "Hairy Candy"
MPEG Stream: "Hawker Boat"

TOBACCO Fucked Up Friends (Anticon) lp 14.98
Tobacco would definitely be a strange name for a group. But it's an even stranger name for a -person-, except when you realize, that person is in fact the twisted mastermind behind the cracked electro pop of aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow. In our review of the most recent BMSR record, we compared their sound to Air covering Daft Punk, but with a bunch of junky old equipment, busted up amps and rickety swap meet synths. What's not to love?!?!
For Mr. Tobacco's first solo foray, he actually sticks pretty close to the Black Moth template he created, but does manage to give that sound a little twist. The instantly recognizable fuzzed out gritty synths, the stuttery crunchy crumbling beats, the chopped up vocodered vocals, the blissy eighties sheen, all in full effect, but up the hip hop vibe a bit, mix in some ethereal female vocals, some borderline cheesy (but still kick ass) cop show theme song groove, handclaps, fluttering flutes, soaring cinematic faux strings, even some rapping at one point (courtesy of Aesop Rock, who took BMSR on tour earlier this year), and we're slipping into Fucked Up Friends territory. A few of the tracks are instant classics, sounding sometimes like a more sunshine-y hip-hop flecked Goblin, other times like a more lo-fi synth heavy Boards Of Canada, and once in a while like an LSD dosed Daft Punk doing the soundtrack for a nature special on Yo MTV Raps all about jellyfish or mountain goats or those weird fish that glow in the dark. WTF?! But par for the course with Tobacco and his Black Moth Super Rainbow. And while there does seem to be a bit more hip hop happening here, it's essentially another gloriously fractured and fucked up BMSR record, which is just fine with us!
MPEG Stream: "Street Trash"
MPEG Stream: "Truck Sweat"
MPEG Stream: "Hairy Candy"
MPEG Stream: "Hawker Boat"

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MEMORIES ATTACK, THE s/t (tUMULt / Noyes) cd 13.98
tUMULt seems to have been unfairly pegged as a purely black metal label lately. Easy mistake to make really. For sure BM is a big part of the tUMULt universe. Weakling, Leviathan, Crebain, Draugar, Diamatregon... But at the risk of committing heresy in the eyes of the black hordes, there's more to musical life than black metal alone. And by that we mean specifically, POP MUSIC. Before there was black metal, heck before there was even metal for us, our musical world was defined by pop music. And that pop side never went away, a list of all time favorite bands would still be packed with groups like Sloan, Redd Kross, the Posies, the Swirlies and a little group from Canada called Eric's Trip.
Anyway, the black metal hordes are just gonna have to move to the back of the bus and let the pop kids sit up front, as we're in for a little flurry of genius pure pop, branded with the tUMULt logo, the debut full length (actually THREE full lengths crammed onto one cd!) from SF's very own Ovens, coming soon, and this, record number two from The Memories Attack, which just so happens to feature Chris Thompson of the mighty Eric's Trip as well as long time aQ customer and indie rock luminary in his own right Ron Bates.
The Memories Attack are a duo, augmented by an occasional drummer, who sound like they were transported to 2008 directly from the early nineties, bringing with them all the jangle pop, lo-fi bedroom folk, crunchy distorted guitar, gorgeous vocal harmonies, busted effects pedals, old synths, incredible hooks, and catchy songs they could stuff into an old beat up suitcase. Bates plays in a band called Orange Glass, Thompson performs solo as Moon Socket, but it would be silly to not look back to Eric's Trip, one of THE Halifax pop bands who ruled the nineties indie rock world along with Sloan, Jale, Hardship Post, Superfriends, Thrush Hermit, and a bunch more, as the sound of Eric's Trip as well as other bands of the era (especially Sebadoh) totally inform the music of The Memories Attack.
And the thing is, they just don't make bands like TMA that much anymore, a couple guys, with a four track, a guitar, a beat up old drum set, and a head full of hooks. With Pro-Tools and laptops, home recording is a totally different process, and now pretty much everybody has some sort of drone record, or an abstract black ambient band, or a solo project of buzzing synthscapes, and don't get us wrong we love that stuff, but there's something to be said for songs, for POP songs, the kind that get stuck in your head, find their ways onto mix tapes, are forever stuck in the car stereo, the soundtrack to every roadtrip, whether it's across country or just to the 7-11. Take "Peaks & Valleys". It is THE jam of the summer, if it was in fact summer, and if it was actually 1995. Fuck it. This is the 2008 winter jam of the year, so there. All fuzzed out guitars, chiming melodies, blown out drums, gorgeous drawled vocals, and a chorus that KILLS. We literally have listend to this song about 100 times since we first got our hands on these recordings.
Or take "The Raft", beginning with a laid back lope, all spidery minor key guitars, falsetto vocals, distant shimmery drones, underwater bass, until the chorus kicks in, a massive churning chunk of heavy as fuck crunch, a killer riff, all wreathed in crumbling distortion and wrapped around an angular almost looped sounding countermelody, and tempered with gorgeous high high vocals, the sort of jam that you never ever ever want to end. "Collapso" is a minute long blast of scrabbly high end guitars, dueling vocals, splattery drums, all treble, a swirling glorious high end blowout. "Beautiful Sound" begins with a chugging metallic groove, pounding drums, very hypnotic and heavy, before slipping into a soft glimmering droney drift, vocals hovering above cymbal shimmer, and little flurries of clean guitar, before the heaviness kicks back in again. Record closer, "Exploding House II" is all folky and fluttery, a gorgeous steel string guitar workout, twangy pick and strum supporting dreamy world weary vocals, long streaks of fuzzy chordal whir drifting in like thick clouds in a bright blue sky, so so lovely.
Every track here is some glorious strain of perfect pop, whether it's a chunk of old school college rock jangle, a burst of synth infused almost metal crunch, wild wooly lo-fi garage-y stomp, or hushed intimate bedroom pop, it's all so catchy and rocking and irresistible. And it's all held together by some sort of mysterious pop music magic that few have mastered and even fewer understand, but which never fails to totally and utterly entrance us every time.
Needless to say WAY recommended. Most definitely another contender for pop record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Peaks & Valleys"
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Sound"
MPEG Stream: "The Raft"
MPEG Stream: "Go!!"
MPEG Stream: "Collapso"

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ANCESTORS s/t (Youth Attack) lp 15.98
One of our favorite records of 2007, originally released only on cassette and long out of print, is finally available again on vinyl. Limited to only 333 copies...
Holy shit! All we can say is look out Bone Awl. You'd never know it from the strange cover art, an abstract photo of pens and books and a family photo, or the name, or the indie like scrawled liner notes, but this is some of the fiercest, heaviest, most damaged off kilter and ultra raw black metal we've heard in forever. Well, since Bone Awl actually, or maybe Ildjarn. But music this raw and punky and fucked up, is only barely black metal anyway, they sound a bit like a supercharged Brainbombs, or maybe the Violent Students playing black metal. This is in-the-red, overblown, crusty blackened garage stomp. Filthy and pounding. The drums are so hot, they make the tape distort. The vocals are an inhuman snarl, the guitars are just a dizzyingly dense tangle of white noise and black buzz. The tempos are relentless and occasionally, the guitars and drums lock into a weird four on the floor techno style pound, albeit dripping with amp buzz and blown out guitar, before launching back into a full on black crust speaker smash assault. Fans of all things raw and distorted beyond recognition will go apeshit. And all you Bone Awl obsessives might have just found a new band to love...

ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB #8-16 (self-released) MP3 cd-r 10.98
The second in the Astral Social Club mp3 reissue program. One disc, 9 cd-r's and close to 8 hours worth of blissed out shimmer, soft dreamy noisescapes and mutant alien discodrone, all jammed onto one little disc. So for those of you who missed out on any of the numbers 8 through 16 (heck we did too, we only reviewed 3 of those!), then this is a good way to get it ALL!
First, an Astral Social club primer would probably be useful:
For those who don't already know, Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift, and more recently a sort of fractured otherworldy dancemusic.
Okay then, odds are, most of you are probably gonna want this, but in case you need a quick description of some of the sonic joys to be found within, here goes:
Strange and murky, looped percussion, with bits of electronic glitch, sounding almost a little like some sort of twentieth century classical filtered through some primitive krautrock, glorious sparkling epic shimmering drones, Technicolor cascades of rich reverberant sounds and all manner of glimmering glittering ear candy, super minimal dark ambience, with drifting whale call melodies and deep rumbling swells, Sunroof!-y bit of high end raga sparkle, complete with the sounds of crickets and running water, sun dappled, dreamy looped guitar sheen, all wrapped up into one big glorious space drone whole, dense synthscapes, lots of hiss and whir, with buried rhythmic pulses, weird underwater bloops and burbles... all sounding very much like some white label Pop Ambient 12", thick corrosive washes of overblown distortion and buzzing droning ragas, thick slabs of feedback, grinding chunks of guitarbuzz, processed vocals, all wound up into a snarled dronepsych blowouts, tranquil smears of soft sound, high end streaks and tangled slivers of feedback all wound up into gorgeously shimmering upper register skreescapes, circular looped hypnotic longform dronemusic, blissy and droney and spaced out and druggy, transcendental slabs of glistening high, super minimal percussive flutter, swirling abstract FX-scapes, pounding almost house sounding bangers all uniquely cracked, effects-soaked, drug-infused and blissed out and more more more more.
Essential listening for fans of all things drone-y and blissed out, fans of Vibracathedral, Skullflower, Yellow Swans, the Skaters and folks looking for some truly twisted outsider dance trax to go with their ambient dronemusic.
packaged in a thick PVC plastic sleeve, in a plain white jacket with a paste on front cover image.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

ASVA Futurists Against The Ocean (Southern) lp 23.00
As a follow-up to getting the NEW Asva we recently listed (on both formats), they've just now made their debut available on vinyl too... Here's what we said when this first came out on cd back in 2005:
It's funny how suddenly every one has a doom drone dirge project happening. The popularity of SUNNO)) and Earth and Corrupted and Boris not only has record collectors scrambling for their wallets, but seems to have other musicians scrambling as well, buying bigger amps, more distortion boxes, trying to tune lower and play slower, all of this evidenced by the sudden glut of bands whose influences don't extend much beyond Earth and SUNNO))). We're not complaining mind you 'cuz you know we can't get enough of that sludgy downtuned dirge! And, you can't give Asva too much grief as bass player Stuart Dahlquist (brother of Silkworm's Michael Dahlquist) was there in the early days, having played in doom dirge metal outfit Burning Witch, and Asva actually feels like a logical extension of his old band. Dahlquist is joined in Asva by guitarist John Schuller and ex-Mr. Bungle guitarist / current Web Of Mimicry head honcho Trey Spruance, as well as an organist (!) and a female vocalist (!). It's these last two elements, as well as a flair for incorporating melody into a sound usually light on the melodic end of things, that makes Asva a much more interesting prospect. Of the four extended tracks here, it's the first and the last that hue closest to the SUNNO))) / Earth template. Huge slabs of ultra distorted guitars, working their way through slow motion riffs, a ponderous plodding metallic crush. On the final track, vocalist Jessika Kenney belts out a one woman chorale, adding a strangely angelic vibe to the proceedings, minor key, but soaring over the slow motion Sabbath beneath, beautiful and haunting in a way few bands like this have managed. The two tracks in between are much more abstract and spare, not in the least but heavy, but still creepy and droney. Track two is all minimal whir and shimmer, slowly shifting and subtly moving through a minimal almost melody. Track three again features Kenney's vocalizations, this time though, it's ALL about the vocals, the musical bed is a hushed doomy organ driven drone, endlessly sustaining with occasional super reverbed bass and sizzling barely-there percussion, while Kenney wails and trills, swooping through strange alien melodies, her multi tracked vocals harmonizing with themselves, creating a very bizarre, but thrillingly creepy soundworld. Fans of the genre (sludgedoomdirgedeathdrone) probably already know about this record and know they need it, but folks who have yet to get into this stuff, might find Asva just melodic enough and weird enough to merit further investigation.
MPEG Stream: "Kill The Dog, Tie Them Up, Take The Money"
MPEG Stream: "By The Well Of Living And Seeing"

AZRAEL RISING s/t (Primitive Reaction) cd ep 10.98
More grim buzzing black metal from Finland! For some of us, that's all we need to know, but then, go ahead and check inside and discover that the lyrics were "written and stolen from various sources", by someone called Ancient Fisherman, who just so happens to be Albert Witchfinder of the mighty Reverend Bizarre!! Fuck yeah!
So in addition to digging through the RB archives and releasing almost as many records posthumously as when they were actually a band, Mr. Witchfinder indulges his glacial ultra doom side as The Puritan, and offers up musical black masses in both Armanenschaft, and now Azrael Rising.
Relentless and furious, buzzing and black, the Ancient Fisherman's partner Vitutor lays down some serious grimness, channeling the Nordic elite, but also countrymen like Horna, Ajattara, Beherit, Sargeist, the Finnish elite, and Azrael sounds right at home. Long epic stretches of sweeping keyboards, give way to loping sprawls of midtempo Burzumic buzz, before slipping into lightning fast blasts of blown out blackness. One track stands out, as it harkens back to Reverend Bizarre, a seriously doomy trudge, the vocals slipping from harsh and screechy to bellowy and demonic, while the riffs churn and the tempos lurch, before the last song crashes in, a blown out hiss drenched burst of midtempo drumming, washed out blurred buzzing guitars, and vocals that are wild and gloriously unhinged.
So there you go... Black metal. Finnish. Albert Witchfinder. Buzz. Blast. Grim. What else do you need?
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"

BAKER, AIDAN I Wish Too, To Be Absorbed (Important) 2cd 15.98
At first we were a little put off by the idea of a double disc Aidan Baker 'greatest hits' collection. As avid readers of the list no doubt have realized, we average close to a new Baker record every two weeks. One a list! So collecting random tracks to create yet -another- release seems a bit like overkill. But as we dug deeper, we discovered that these two discs were culled from super rare and long out of print releases, spanning the years 2000 to 2007. So rare in fact that even the avid Baker / Nadja obsessives around here didn't recognize 90 percent of the releases these tracks came from. Which ultimately means that I Wish Too is essentially a whole new record, which is perfectly fine with us. The tracks are quite varied, seeing as they span almost a decade, and include vastly different instrumentation, and varying lineups, but it's all pretty great, from the delicate drift of "Element #1", not all that far removed from the Aidan Baker dreamdronedrift we know and love, to the lilting post rock chamber music of "K", with real drums, cello and violin, a dramatic Godspeed / Rachel's sort of meander, that is quite lovely, to the rumbling subterranean low end sprawl of "Merge", a deep shimmery drift that is draped with ethereal falsetto vocals, to the tribal ambience of "Calibrate" which sound a bit like a murkier Muslimgauze or a super stripped down, much dronier African Head Charge. And there's more, lots more. A glimpse at every sonic side of Baker: huge slow moving industrial whirs and glimmering abstract shimmer, stuttering looped soundscapes that sound like alien filed recordings mixed with minimal Raster-Noton jams, warm, washed out slow jam trip hop, with skittery beats over deep low end swells, and stretched out jazzy dirgescapes, shuffling drums, and muted trumpet, soft focus piano, all locked into ever expanding loops like a more abstract Necks. And that's just disc one. Just one disc! The second disc collects a whole 'nother hour+ of drones and drifts and loping meander and whirring shimmer, a pretty serious retrospective for sure.
Needless to say, Baker fanatics, even the most obsessive, will probably not have all this stuff, and newbies will definitely have lots to dig in to and discover. So once again, if your already overloaded Baker / Nadja shelf can handle the additional strain, RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Element #1"
MPEG Stream: "Reversion"
MPEG Stream: "Summer Chill"

BAKER, AIDAN / LEAH BUCKAREFF / NADJA Trinitarian (Important) lp 23.00
Much like the Trinity cd we listed a while back, Trinitarian, finds the Canadian doomdronebliss duo Nadja offering up a whole lp of new material, including a solo piece by each member as well as a brand new massive sidelong dreamdirge.
Baker's contribution is a gorgeous expanse of breathless shimmer, all billowy and dreamlike, soft swirls of muted chimes and bell-like tones, woven into almost choral sounding passages, warm and hushed and reverent, but with a slightly ominous tinge that only grows more pronounced as the track progresses.
Buckareff balances Baker's more tranquil contribution, with a piece much more sinister, a deep, dark and creepy soundscape of crumbling distorted buzz and shimmering metallic whir, lots and lots of space creating a bottomless black ambience rife with minor key melodic fragments and undulating layers of textured drone. Intense and intensely haunting.
The Nadja track takes up all of side 2, and begins with blissed out harmonized guitars, super spare drums, a digitally treated, slightly glitchy soft minimalism that drifts delicately until the inevitable crush, but this time the crush is not only massive, it's weirdly warped and warm and soft, processed and distorted making it sound a bit alien and otherworldly, almost more warm and washed out than heavy, a bit like a doom metal Galaxie 500, sun dappled and multihued, dreamy and ethereal, while somehow managing to remain incredibly heavy. The song grows slightly less blissy and more intense and ominous by the end of the side, but even then, the sound is still mysteriously transcendent.
LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES!!! These are probably the only copies we'll ever get!

BARN OWL / TOM CARTER split (Blackest Rainbow) lp 16.98
Latest release from Bay Area doomfolkdrone duo Barn Owl (featuring our very own Jon Porras) who team up on this limited lp only release with long time fave Tom Carter of Charalambides who for now, seems to have shed his psych folks sound for something far more, well more on that in a second...
Up first, Barn Owl with three new tracks of bleak blackened dark ambience, invoking wide open spaces, moonlight glimmering on frosted fallow fields, of slow moving brackish water, and of ruined buildings and lonely dirt roads. It makes sense that these guys opened for Earth when they were here, as their sound carries the same spiritual weight. But where Earth employ twang and elements of Gospel, Barn Owl go somewhere much deeper, and more dangerous, a swirling slow motion world of blacks and greys, of blurred landscapes slipping by through smudged windows, shafts of sunlight, moving glacially across the bare wooden floor, causing the dust motes to drift in little flickering flurries. Once the band build momentum, they create long flowing streams of warm whirring buzz, held together by simple percussive pulses, buried rhythmic throbs, all the while the guitars arc above like solar flares.
Dark swells rise and fall, wreathed in halos of soft focus FX and smeared streaks of subtle distortion, slipping from hushed shimmery whisper, to groaning wheezing metallic buzz, drifting forever slowly around a warm glowing core, and continuously emitting an aura of mournful dark mystery.
Carter approaches his side from a whole different angle, his single 16 minute track takes a slow meandering chunk of dark downtuned blues and transforms it into a coruscating wall of blown out psych buzz, rumbling chug and crunch, wailing noiseguitar freakout, heavy and buzzy and chaotic, but still warm and layered and melodic, like a rural Keiji Haino raised on avant folk and old time blues. A gorgeous ever expanding chunk of blown out heaviness and warm, slowly crumbling deconstructed blues, culminating in a beautiful almost symphonic arrangement of high end skree and warbly buzz, before slipping into a long stretch of languorous unravelling guitar shimmer. So nice.
LIMITED TO 380 COPIES. Plain black jackets with a paste on front cover, printed insert, thick black inner sleeves. We got a bunch direct from the bands, and we might be able to get more from the label when we run out, but you never know. Better to grab one while you can...

BARONESS First & Second (Hyperrealist) cd 17.98
Finally! The first two kick ass eps from these Georgia heavies combined into one killer full length (we always thought they sounded like they belonged together on the same record). So for all you metalheads who missed out the first time around (these eps have been out of print for a while), you got yourself another chance, don't blow it.
Man, Baroness just totally destroys. Three massive tracks of Electric Wizard meets the Fucking Champs metal stoner sludge crush. Some of the catchiest riffs we've heard in a while, from strange melodic finger tapping, to soaring Iron Maiden-esque melodies, to groovy southern stoner rock to pummeling detuned sludge to thrashing punk rock with howling throat shredding vocals -- typically all in the same song! The first track on First has an awesome stomping stop start riff with an insidiously catchy little melody, which ends up sounding like Carcass meets the Jesus Lizard. The second track is all Sabbathy sludge / doom with occasional bursts of rapid fire blasting punk rock. But it's all about the third track. A super epic, proggy complex metallic post rock workout, tons of parts, all of them worthy of their own song, super dynamic and totally catchy with Champs-ish breakdowns and weird bursts of abstract ambience. So fucking great!
Baroness' Second, while still heavy and stonery and crushing, seems to be tempering their heaviness with some serious post / math rock, which is just fine with us, think maybe Isis / Pelican majestic sludge metal meets Rodan / June Of 44 style moody post rock. However Baroness' sound still leans way toward the metal side of that equation. Plus, their songs continue to be really weird, rife with strange meters, complex arrangements, lots of slippery guitar harmonies, weird psychedelic wah guitar, spacey electronic burbling, some stretched out slow motion sludge, some intricate riffing and some of the most insane drumming we've ever heard.
The reissue features the original eps' killer artwork, kinda like Pushead doing '60s Fillmore poster art, courtesy of Baroness guitarist, John Baizley, and comes in a digipak with cool embossed metallic lettering housed in a slip cover.
MPEG Stream: "Tower Falls"
MPEG Stream: "Rise"
MPEG Stream: "Red Sky "
MPEG Stream: "Son Of Sun"

BIXOBAL Number 5 October 2008 (Ri Be Xibalba) magazine 2.00
Lotsa 'zines, in the old days, tended to peter out after just a couple issues or three. But Bixobal, which debuted about a year ago, is going strong, and on schedule, up to issue #5 now. If you missed the first few issues, you just need to know that Bixobal, published/edited by Eric Lanzillotta of Anomalous Records fame, is a 'zine dedicated to all sorts of interesting, obscure culture (experimental music, psychedelic stuff, weird film, ethnographic research, etc.). And it's well worth your $2, this issue consisting of 56 digest-sized pages packed with good readin'. On the cover, a happy Djinn Aquarian of Ya Ho Wa 13, heralding an article by David Nuss of the No Neck Blues Band about his trip to Hawaii to visit with the Source Family. Also in this issue: Rob Millis further adventures in the world of shellac 78 rpm record collecting, an interview with Belgian noisemakers Onde, a remembrance of late Noggin violinist Michael Griffen, an interview with Canadian '80s art-punks Tunnel Canary, a feature about the output of new "jazz" label Assophon Records, and several pages of record reviews... Again, $2 well spent!

BLACK SUN Paralyser (At War With False Noise) lp 13.98
What the heck's up with Glasgow these days? Until recently, Glasgow was all sunshiney jangle pop and brooding epic post rock. Or so it seemed. Maybe we haven't been paying attention. Maybe it's been a while since we took a good hard look at the seedy underbelly of Glasgow's music scene, but something sinister is definitely going on over there, cuz all sorts of filthy, brutal, heavy, sick sounds are oozing across the sea and into our cowering frightened ears. Next list we'll probably be listing a record by another Glaswegian crew called De Salvo, who are scary as shit, and here we've got the latest from Black Sun.
Black Sun is a bit of a name over there, but they're a new name to us, although it only took a few minutes of this filth for us to realize folks over here, especially the ones into massive dronedirgedeathcrush and slow motion ultra doooooom will likely be freaking out big time.
Three tracks, all 'versions' of the same song, the first, 19+ minutes taking up the whole of side one, is all lurching downtuned lumber, squealing harmonics, all locked into step with the pounding drums, the vocals tortured and anguished and WAY up in the mix, the sound somewhere between Khanate, Eyehategod, and Neurosis. About halfway through the sound simmers down a bit, a low slung softly churning bass rumble, clean minor key guitar lines all spidery and skeletal, warm whirring keyboards, that eventually slip into a groove that sounds uncannily like a slowed down Three Mile Pilot. Clean crooned vocals, laid over the woozy rhythm, before exploding back into stuttering metallic stop start lurch, gradually growing more and more noisy and unhinged.
The flip side takes the same track and jacks up the industrial vibe, way more low end crunch, a bit murkier and muddier, the vocals buried in the mix, little streaks of feedback peeking out from behind thick caustic slabs of rhythmic pound. Very reminiscent of Godflesh or Pitchshifter, relentless and machinelike, but wreathed in swirls of strange keyboards, and mysterious effects and all manner of fucked up guitar filigree. In some ways superior to the A side, at least to these ears. And finally, the second half of the B-side offers up the 'dub' version, which takes the more industrial version of "Paralyser" even further, the rhythm stripped down, the guitars processed and clipped, the vocals twisted and doused in effects, the arrangement all spaced out, the drums pounding one second, careening from speaker to speaker the next, the whole track actually is panned pretty hard, making headphones essential for experiencing the full dizzy drift. Definitely left us wanting more...
Essential listening for the usual suspects. If your favorite sounds are most often described with the adjectives doomy, crumbling, blackened, pummeling, crushing, heavy, crusty, metallic, slow motion, glacial, filthy, then my friends, you should prepare to kneel in supplication, and stare directly into the Black Sun...
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, housed in a very Godflesh looking sleeve, with a heavy cardstock insert, liner notes on one side and strange bloody symbols on the other.
MPEG Stream: "Paralyser (Prison Of The Cross)"
MPEG Stream: "Paralyser (Dub Mix)"

BLITHE SONS, THE The Great Orthochromatic Wheel (Family Vineyard) lp 14.98
Lo, the Great Orthochromatic Wheel (?) dost turn! And with it, comes a happenstance that shall bring happiness to Jewelled Antler fanciers the world over: yes, a new album from the very special Blithe Sons duo, our friends Loren Chasse (Of, Ov, Thuja, Child Readers, etc. etc. ETC.) and Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards, Thuja, The Ivytree, Jex Thoth, etc., etc., ETC.). They'd been on a bit of an unofficial hiatus for far too long, taking a little 'time out' as it were, and we were both surprised and pleased to hear tell of not only this album's impending release but also to attend the 'reunion' show they did a couple months back, opening for Van Der Graaf's Peter Hammill at The Great American Music Hall here in SF. At that show they previewed some of what you'll hear here, and it's the usual Blithe Sons naturalistic improv-folk magick conjured from stones and branches well as actual instruments like acoustic guitar, harmonium and recorder. Field recordings suggest the hum of twilight grasses, a pleasant place to find Glenn's gentle Richard Youngish vocals whispering elegiacally o'er the drones and chimes of the Blithe Sons' abstract, organic, mutedly melodic soundworld.
And, they've woven some cover material into their own compositions/improvisations here, doing Jewelled Antlerized interpretations of ye olde progge songs by, we believe Genesis, and perhaps others... prog fans, listen close. Makes sense they'd play with P. Hammill!
There's no cd version of this LP, but it does come with a coupon to allow you to download mp3s of these tracks to your computer.

BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL A Feral Spirit (Bindrune Recordings) cd 12.98
Not to be confused, as we sometimes (almost) do, with brutal black metallers Book Of The Black Earth, who also have a new album out, soon to be reviewed here as well. This band is the one whom we last heard sharing a dirgey split 12" with Celestiial. Here's there new full-length and, as we expected, it's some serious doom metal/post rock/black metal/ambient hybrid wyrdness from the same guy responsible for the shamanic, organic drones of Ruhr Hunter.
Ok, the first track, "Spell Of The Elk", mostly (gruffly) spoken and atmospheric, is cool enough but mainly serves as a 9-minute intro to track 2, "Crippling Of Age", when things really get intense, the guitar kicks into gear, the hammer drops, the fuzz explodes, the totemic blood of this black owl flows thick and dark. This is musick full of creepy guttural croakings, seasick shoegazing droned-out riffery, and some seriously doooooomic plod, along with sudden yet graceful dynamic shifts from apocalyptic destructiveness to introspective dreaminess, yeah!!!
Many of these nine fairly lengthy tracks seem like ceremonial mini-epics, with gentle keyboard melodies wandering in from some obscure '70s Italian horror flick soundtrack, haunted by heavy doses of fuzzed out riff-sludge, providing a terror-struck background to the disturbing internal monologue (prayer?) played out by the anguished, echoed vokills. So much of this is surprisingly beautiful, so much of it fantastically fuzzed. The mystic moodiness is enhanced by foresty flutes and bone rattles from Native American / New Age ritual amidst all the industrial-strength dirge. This is part Neurosis, part Godspeed, part Burzum. Maybe part Bohren, and even part Thuja too! Well, possibly an aboriginal Thuja, when it really quiets down and spaces out and enters the Dreamtime. One of those "metal" records we recommend to a wider audience of adventurous listeners for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Crippling Of Age"
MPEG Stream: "He Who Walked Away From The Fire And Laughed As He Bled"
MPEG Stream: "Void"

BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL A Feral Spirit (Aurora Borealis) lp 17.98
Not to be confused, as we sometimes (almost) do, with brutal black metallers Book Of The Black Earth, who also have a new album out, soon to be reviewed here as well. This band is the one whom we last heard sharing a dirgey split 12" with Celestiial. Here's there new full-length and, as we expected, it's some serious doom metal/post rock/black metal/ambient hybrid wyrdness from the same guy responsible for the shamanic, organic drones of Ruhr Hunter.
Ok, the first track, "Spell Of The Elk", mostly (gruffly) spoken and atmospheric, is cool enough but mainly serves as a 9-minute intro to track 2, "Crippling Of Age", when things really get intense, the guitar kicks into gear, the hammer drops, the fuzz explodes, the totemic blood of this black owl flows thick and dark. This is musick full of creepy guttural croakings, seasick shoegazing droned-out riffery, and some seriously doooooomic plod, along with sudden yet graceful dynamic shifts from apocalyptic destructiveness to introspective dreaminess, yeah!!!
Many of these nine fairly lengthy tracks seem like ceremonial mini-epics, with gentle keyboard melodies wandering in from some obscure '70s Italian horror flick soundtrack, haunted by heavy doses of fuzzed out riff-sludge, providing a terror-struck background to the disturbing internal monologue (prayer?) played out by the anguished, echoed vokills. So much of this is surprisingly beautiful, so much of it fantastically fuzzed. The mystic moodiness is enhanced by foresty flutes and bone rattles from Native American / New Age ritual amidst all the industrial-strength dirge. This is part Neurosis, part Godspeed, part Burzum. Maybe part Bohren, and even part Thuja too! Well, possibly an aboriginal Thuja, when it really quiets down and spaces out and enters the Dreamtime. One of those "metal" records we recommend to a wider audience of adventurous listeners for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Crippling Of Age"
MPEG Stream: "He Who Walked Away From The Fire And Laughed As He Bled"
MPEG Stream: "Void"

BLUE ASH No More, No Less (Collector's Choice Music) cd 13.98
Early '70s American power pop we'd never heard of before, but are glad got reissued! We love the Raspberries and Big Star, but the less successful Blue Ash, from Youngstown, Ohio, had slipped under our radar. As always, praise the Lord for cd reissues of obscure treats. Mercury signings Blue Ash originally unleashed this album back in 1973, and it was to be their only major label release... despite its obvious charms, critical plaudits, and the band's hard work touring it (opening for the likes of Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and Nazareth, among others) it didn't sell, and they were dropped about a year after it came out. Their A&R guy (who also had signed the New York Dolls) was fired too, for good measure. The band broke up in '79 after making a second and final album for a smaller label.
Don't know nothin' about that one, but this here, No More, No Less, is definitely worth a spin if you like ye olde power pop. At odds with the nascent heavy metal and progressive rock excesses of the age (not to mention soft rock wimp outs and disco sell outs), Blue Ash's music, with three-minute pop songs and three-part harmonies, harked back to the British Invasion years of the '60s, bands like the Who, the Hollies, the Kinks, the Monkees, and of course the Beatles (this album includes their fine, fervent cover of "Anytime At All", delivered with gusto). Speaking of covers, they also do a song called "Dusty Old Fairgrounds", that they learned from a Bob Dylan bootleg. But all the rest of the tracks here are originals, in the same tuneful and head-bobbin' tradition as their '60s forebears, updated with extra, edgy energy. Much of this is uptempo and energetic, full of cranked up jangly guitars, thumping drums, handclaps, and nostalgically yearning vox. There's some laidback, mellow moments, as well, making their West Coast country-psych a la The Byrds influences also evident. All in all, a class act, definitely deserving of reissue. There's no bonus tracks, but we do get liner notes from bassist Frank Secich, who may have preferred rock n' roll stardom but seems content with at least cult status for his old band. Oh, and we'd certainly recommend this to those of you who dug local power popsters The Makes Nice (R.I.P.), this is right up that alley.
Plus you gotta love an album with a song called "Smash My Guitar" which does indeed feature the sound of an actual guitar-smashing, as well as much wild guitar soloing -and- sweet, sweet singing.
MPEG Stream: "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)"
MPEG Stream: "Plain To See"

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER The Endless Blockade (Gnarled Forest / What We Do Is Secret) lp 12.98
Another missive from some grim otherworld, the latest in a hellish black flow from the brackish depths, a never ending glacial eruption of blackened sonic filth and blown out white noise brutality from this despicable duo, this latest, a three song 12", is currently, due to the insanely limited nature of their releases, the only thing these guys have available, but not for long we predict, as this too was limited to a mere 525 copies, we got about a tenth of those, but as with past releases, we can't promise they'll be around for long.
More of the BSBC caustic black ambience, a cacophony of junkyard clatter, the clang of pipes, all sorts of crunch and grind, under a thick wash of high end buzz, and shifting clouds of blurred hiss, monstrous vocals buried in the murk, some riffage too (we think), but those riffs mostly exist as simply another layer of blacknoise, a never ending wash of grinding static heaviness. The second track ups the heaviness, the vocals more bellowing, more surges of black tar low end, still cloaked in sheets of white noise, but churning violently beneath the surface, a rumbling, rib cage rattling drone, that seems to be splintering and crumbling to pieces before our ears.
The flip side is much more tranquil (it's all relative though), a minimal driftscape of distant whir, twisted fragmented melodies buried way down in the mix, the grinding of alien machinery, peppered with squalls of speaker shredding buzz, the track quickly escalates, the noise getting noisier, the buzz getting buzzier, the vocals more howled and anguished, the whole thing pushing toward a Merzbowian white noise blowout. Imagine sitting in a concrete bunker with a thousand transistor radios tuned between stations, with the volume all the way up, an ear shredding symphony of static, while in another concrete bunker Wolf Eyes and Khanate play at full volume, barely audible through the suffocating cloud of hiss all around you.
Brutal, punishing, abject, harrowing, hateful, heavy, and pretty fucking awesome. As if we even needed to tell you.
LIMITED TO 525 COPIES. Amazing woodcut paste on front cover, with a printed insert and postcard inside.

BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE Dolores (Ipecac) cd 16.98
Imagine a blackened, funereal dooooooom band like Skepticism or Nortt morphed into the jazz idiom (after having kissed a frog, or some fairytale scenario like that), playing their slow, sad music in a smoky Berlin jazz club. The sound is jazz (electric piano, organ, vibes, sax, double bass, trap kit...) but the feeling is doom. That's our usual shorthand for describing the unique music made by longtime AQ fave, Germany's Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. Here at last is their eagerly anticipated 5th album, Dolores (not named after the San Francisco street near us, presumably). If you're fans like we are, you know what to expect, it's just as ponderously "heavy" as a "jazz" band can be. No, not loud, not harsh, not noisy. The opposite of all that. Rather, whisper-quiet, glacially slow, and spacious, with sparse snare hits keeping time like a wound-down clock ticking off the eternity between 2 minutes to midnight and the witching hour itself. Doomsday so slowly arrives on a velvety bed of somnolent deep bass notes, and the cool slinky tones of vintage Fender Rhodes. Cymbals shiver in a dark haze of ambient drones near to silence. Several of the songs are infused with the warmth of tenor or baritone sax breathes gorgeous expiring breaths. It's all so sad and woeful and achingly beautiful, Bohren nodding off, their fragile melodies trickling like tears, and by the end you may find you have shed a few too.
This newest Bohren differs mainly from their previous Ipecac outing Geisterfaust by being composed of somewhat shorter, sweeter tracks, ten in all, in about an hour. But it is, again, an-ever-more-perfected example of why Bohren is one of our all time favorite bands, especially at twilight and late at night...
MPEG Stream: "Staub"
MPEG Stream: "Orgelblut"
MPEG Stream: "Still am Tresen"

CALIFORNIA RAISINS / CAVE Split (Permanent) 10" 15.98
The return of Chicago's instrumental hypno-psych-kraut rock groovers Cave. Hot on the heels of the recent single/cd-r combo on Trensmat (now out of print, so don't ask) come two more stretched out jamz that manage to push all our buttons: repetitive, psychedelic, heavy, hypnotic... remember the track "Butthash" from the 7"? That we described thusly:
"A bouncy groover, with swirly synths, caffeinated rhythms, and buried vocals, a bit angular, a little new wave, equal parts krautrock, and spaced out shimmer, but all tangled up and kaleidoscopic."
Well, that was a 'mellowed out' remix of the first Cave track right here. So now take that description, add heavier guitars, all sorts of synths, howled distorted vocals, pounding drums, and wind it all up into a relentless killer groove that would do Circle or Pharaoh Overlord proud, kicking out the jams like Wooden Shjips on 45. The second track is more of the same, krauty and psychedelic, drums locked into a super tight rhythm, the guitars locked right in too, keyboards offering up all kinds of tripped out counterpoint, and more fuzzy effects drenched vocals soaring over the top, not so much singing as sort of howling along, the whole thing getting more and more fuzzy and distorted as the song progresses.
Cave share this 10" split with California Raisins, who may just have one of the WORST band names ever, but that doesn't stop them from kicking up a serious racket themselves. Hailing from Columbia, Missouri (where Cave called home before Chicago), California Raisins rock similar territory as Cave, the core of their sound a tightly wound guitar / synth hypnogroove, the difference being that CR are way more of a noisy, punky ROCK band, with much looser and wilder drums, and a vocalist whose wail is WAY up in the mix, his vocals heavily distorted and reverbed, turning what could have been a sort of psychedelic krautrock into more of a tripped out hypno garage stomp, plenty of Stooges-y swagger, Brainbombs-y pummel, but occasionally wrapped around super hypnotic krautrock style grooves or spread out over buzzy synth drenched crunch. Lo-fi and distorted and heavy and noisy and garage-y and a pretty good match for Cave's more looped sounding kraut psych grooves.
Packaged in hand screened silver and black sleeves (screened by the dudes in Cave) with a photocopied insert, and a cd (not a cd-r) featuring all the songs from the 10"!
MPEG Stream: CAVE "Butthash"
MPEG Stream: CALIFORNIA RAISINS "Down At The Flop House"

CONVEY, JOSHUA Vacant Integument (Utech) cd 14.98
We love the harmonica, especially when it's used in super creative ways, processed perhaps, or spread out over some Morricone-ish post rock, it is definitely evocative, and has an incredibly unique and distinctive sound, which definitely comes to the fore when the harmonica is rescued from the blues rock ghetto it usually finds itself trapped in.
A couple past harmonica favorites: a tape by Usputuspud, a gorgeous dronescape of processed harmonica, and the sweeping deserty post rock of Souvenir's Young America, wherein the harmonica was used to add a layer of mournful mystery, and now we have this cd from NY soundmaker Joshua Convey, who utilizes harmonica, guitar and electronics, to create deep listening drones, and mesmerizing soundscapes of repetitive texture.
The opener is a brief shimmer of high end, the harmonica smeared into soft billowy streaks, the electronics burbling percussively beneath, like a much more tranquil and washed out Sunroof! The second track finds Convey dipping his toes into Fennesz territory, a strange murky rhythm, supports a skittery stuttery high end guitar, that is looped and layered, the notes glimmering and overlapping, creating strange landscapes of pixilated upper register metallic shimmer, harmonics drift dreamily, punctuated by smears of grinding glitchy buzz. The third is a brief clattery soundscape that sounds like a contact mic dropped into a malfunctioning music box, all truncated twang, and strange metallic plunks, fractured melodies, and strange mechanical textures. Which brings us finally to the final track, a nearly 15 minute expanse of overdriven guitars, the notes transformed into buzzing shards, the tones chime like but wreathed in pulsing electronics and grinding distortion, until the distortion dissipates, leaving a slowly unfurling tangle of steel strings and soft focus harmonics, transforming into a low end rumble and drift, until the final couple minutes when the guitars become blown out once again, creating a gorgeous squall of overlapping and almost psychedelic buzz, before slowly sinking into the murk. Quite challenging, pretty far out, but definitely haunting and strangely lovely. Fans of fucked up dronemusick, harmonicas, and gnarled guitars will definitely dig.
Gorgeous diecut packaging with super striking photos by Max Aguilera-Hellweg.
MPEG Stream: "Vacant Insturmentals 1"
MPEG Stream: "Vacant Insturmentals 2"

CRYSTAL STILTS Alight of Night (Slumberland Records) cd 13.98
If our instore cd player had a counter we're pretty sure we would have maxed it out by now with endless repeated plays of the debut full length by Crystal Stilts. As much as their debut ep blew us away (check the review elsewhere on the site for much gushing), this record is taking our love for them to even greater heights, so much so that we're becoming pretty darn obsessed! And how could we not, an entire record filled with smokey and catchy dark pop gems. With crooning vocals and rich hooks imbedded into every song, they've managed to create a record that we're always in the mood to hear and don't think we'll ever get sick of. You can tell that these guys probably love '60s pop and girl groups as much as they do post-punk and psychedelic garage sounds, as the songs on Alight Of Night sound like Phil Spector laying his Wall of Sound on a band whose own sound falls somewhere between The Smiths and Joy Division, or if Spacemen 3 did a record full of Crystals covers. In fact this is reminding us a lot of the Jeremy Jay Airwalker ep that we fell in love with right around this time last year.
It's so cool to see AQ customers of all stripes getting swept up in the 'Stilts' sound, unable to resist as we're blasting it in the store, and it's inevitable that they eventually make their way to the 'now playing' holder to find out who is responsible for these sound getting under their skin in such pleasurable ways. Got a good feeling this will be on many of our year end favorite lists...so damn good!
MPEG Stream: "The Dazzled"
MPEG Stream: "Prismatic Room"
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard Orbit"

CRYSTAL STILTS Alight of Night (Slumberland Records) lp 13.98
If our instore cd player had a counter we're pretty sure we would have maxed it out by now with endless repeated plays of the debut full length by Crystal Stilts. As much as their debut ep blew us away (check the review elsewhere on the site for much gushing), this record is taking our love for them to even greater heights, so much so that we're becoming pretty darn obsessed! And how could we not, an entire record filled with smokey and catchy dark pop gems. With crooning vocals and rich hooks imbedded into every song, they've managed to create a record that we're always in the mood to hear and don't think we'll ever get sick of. You can tell that these guys probably love '60s pop and girl groups as much as they do post-punk and psychedelic garage sounds, as the songs on Alight Of Night sound like Phil Spector laying his Wall of Sound on a band whose own sound falls somewhere between The Smiths and Joy Division, or if Spacemen 3 did a record full of Crystals covers. In fact this is reminding us a lot of the Jeremy Jay Airwalker ep that we fell in love with right around this time last year.
It's so cool to see AQ customers of all stripes getting swept up in the 'Stilts' sound, unable to resist as we're blasting it in the store, and it's inevitable that they eventually make their way to the 'now playing' holder to find out who is responsible for these sound getting under their skin in such pleasurable ways. Got a good feeling this will be on many of our year end favorite lists...so damn good!
MPEG Stream: "The Dazzled"
MPEG Stream: "Prismatic Room"
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard Orbit"

CSECTION s/t (Malleable) cd-r 10.98
There are plenty of ways to make noise with a guitar. Lord knows the aQ list is proof of that. Whether it's running a guitar through a computer the spews out soft pixelated hum, or leaning a guitar against an amp and letting huge waves of black buzz pour out, or strapping one to a table and attacking it with all manner of toys and implements resulting in plenty of scrape and scrabble, or just running a guitar through a million effects pedals until what comes out the other side is nothing but streaks and blurs and rumbles and roars and barely retains any guitarness at all.
Then there's whatever the hell Alex Nagle does to his guitar that transforms it into Csection. Nagle's name might be familiar to you as the man behind the genius Flittermice Of Eld, a 'group' who took a handful of notes from a Darkthrone song and turned them into a heaving mass of dark drones and fractured buzz. Csection finds Nagle again doing unspeakable and confusional things to his guitar, and again the results are pretty fantastic.
A single 25 minute track, beginning with some weirdly digitized distortion drenched guitar shredding, that sounds a bit like it's been run through a Commodore 64, sheets of high spread out over all manner of strange crumbling low end, detuned riffage, that high end spiraling into squiggly clusters of rapid fire notes one second, sprawling out into a shimmering stretch of soft noise the next. Over the course of the track, the guitar becomes less and less recognizable, at one point shifting into a gloriously burnished field of high end streaks, all assembled into some strange alien melody, while within, various overtones clash and collide, blend and beat feverishly against one another. Imagine Phil Niblock composing for high end shred guitar, or a droned out more static version of one of Mick Barr's maniacal projects (Orthrelm, Octis, Orcrilim).
There are moments here and there, when the high end drops out, and the sound briefly becoming more of a gnarled angular drift, with Marc Ribot like guitars floating in spaced out fields of reverb, atonal, and haltingly melodic, but those interludes are usually quite fleeting, quickly subsumed by still more squalls of Nagle's frazzled and fucked up digital buzz.
This is a super limited cd-r, we've had them a while, so there's a good chance that when we sell out we won't be able to get more. Packaged in cool hand screened red and silver digipacks...
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

CURRENT 93 Dogs Blood Rising (Durtro / Jnana) lp 21.00
"In a foreign town, in a foreign land, reaping time has come." Thus spake David Tibet on the 2nd album from his heretically-minded project Current 93. Those words became commonplace within the Current 93 pantheon of poetic allusions toward Tibet's horrifying visions of the end of the world. While his tireless research and spiritual development has found Tibet nowadays with a self-constructed theology that includes elements of Christian doctrine, Coptic Gnosticism, Crowley's magick, Buddhist transcendentalism, and far more esoteric subjects, the apocalyptic visions for Tibet in 1985 were centered firmly between dual, conflicting personalities: Christ and Crowley. These two play out in the Current 93 drama built not upon the taut acoustic folk as found on Tibet's more well known constructions, but through a darkly hallucinatory collage of monastic chanting looped against thudding percussive blows that are less structural and more of a protracted stomp of corporeal punishment. Tibet has always relied upon musical accompaniments for his visionary work, and Dogs Blood Rising is no different as Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound deftly shapes the slashing feedback and growling utterances into a hellish orchestration for Tibet's bellowing not only for the Antichrist but also for the weeping Christ who suffers till the end of time in his own theological reasoning. As commonplace as Tibet's voice is on all of the Current 93 albums, he has recruited a number of guest vocalists, including Steve Ignorant of Crass and Diana Rogerson, serving to de-center the album further. The five disquieting collages of Dogs Blood Rising are totally the stuff of nightmares, long standing as one of the pinnacles of industrial culture. Now back in print on vinyl with reproductions of the original fliers from the first edition of the album, but probably not for long!
MPEG Stream: "Falling Back In Fields Of Rape"

CURRENT 93 Nature Unveiled (Durtro / Jnana) lp+7" 21.00
Nature Unveiled was Current 93's debut, with the subtitle "Antichrist Revealed." As much as C93 has evolved since 1984 when David Tibet began this project, Current 93 emerged fully formed with much of the conceptual groundwork laid out for an entire lifetime of Tibet's research into occult mysticism and heretical Christianity. This album was conceived from beginning to end as a nightmare, with all of the exaggerated sounds collaged in harsh relief against a doomscape of the blackest of sounds. Tibet employed a handful of musicians with ties to Industrial Culture -- Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound (who has gone on to aid and abed Tibet on most of the C93 records), John Murphy (once of SPK and Lustmord's ensemble), and even Annie Anxiety of Crass. But even the most abstracted sounds of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV often related or at least exposed some sort of relationship to technology, whilst Current 93 was all about creating a bleak soundtrack collaged from monastic chants, monstrous growls, and bellowing clusters of low end rumble, all coated with brimstone, sulfur, and ash. Throughout the album, David Tibet moans and spits repetitive chants that "Maldoror is dead," with no chance for hope and no escape. Perhaps even more so today with so many blackened ambient projects and feral noise technicians about, Nature Unveiled is an ever impressive document and a chilling visionary masterpiece.
United Jnana has reissued Nature Unveiled in one of its earliest forms, complete with the original liner notes, a small poster, and the bonus split 7" between Current 93 and Nurse With Wound. This probably won't be around for very long, so don't dally on this one!
MPEG Stream: "Ach Golgoth: The Mystical Body Of Christ In Chorazaim"

DEAD C, THE DR503 / The Sun Stabbed EP (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Dr 503, was their first proper full length (3rd actual, depending on who's keeping track), and opens up with what many consider the penultimate Dead C track "Max Harris", and if a single song could indeed be a microcosm for the Dead C sound, it's probably "Max Harris". Woozy rhythms, stumbling off kilter rhythms, the middle part sounds like a lo-fi This Heat crossed with Geronimo, all abstract distorted crunch, and muted squalls of tribal drumming, streaks of clipped effects, murky processed vocals, slivers of feedback, even a mere seconds-long acoustic guitar outro. The record veers and careens all over the place, spoken word over splattery percussion and clipped minimal strum, thick doomy dirges of heavily reverbed guitar, gloomy Joy Division basslines, and hushed muttered vocals, skipping phonographs draped over stripped down slowcore, Sebadoh style lo-fi bedroom folk, primitive tape experiments, pounding almost garage-y jams that transform into spare Jandekian sprawls, but all held together by some nearly impossible to define Dead C aesthetic.
The record finishes off with a devastating one-two punch, the 9 minute Dead C classic sort-of-ballad "Polio", which begins all folky and strummy, gradually the guitars warp and warble, the drums stumble in, and the song just sort of drifts and skitters, the guitars weirdly effected, the vocals heartfelt and buried way down in the mix, the drums almost Can-like in their motorik simplicity, there are some moments of chaos, but for the most part "Polio" is dark and dreamy and murky and softly buzzy, a little jangly, and sort of pretty. And then it's on to the 13+ minute "Max Harris 2" which does seem to contain some sonic elements of the original, but the sound here is repetitive and clangorous, the guitars buzz and whir, the riffs angular and jagged, the sound washed out and lo-fi, the vocals another buried mumble, until the song shifts gear part way through, and it's just a single guitar, plucking out that same main riff, accompanied by super spare percussion, and wreathed in tape hiss, after a sudden burst of crash and crunch, the track jams on and on and on, becoming slowly unhinged, the sounds slowly detuning, everything getting more and more warped and warbly before stuttering to a halt.
This reissue tacks on the Sun Stabbed ep (originally released as a 7"), from right around the same time, which is pretty impossible to find at all, on vinyl or otherwise. Offering up more of the same, a handful of gorgeous and confusional tracks offering up still more of the Dead C's unique clash of classic New Zealand songsmithery and noise drenched, abstract, sonic deconstruction.
Absolutely and utterly essential listening. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Polio"
MPEG Stream: "I Love This"
MPEG Stream: "Angel"

DEAD C, THE Eusa Kills / Helen Said This (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Eusa Kills originally came out in 1989, and makes it the Dead C's fourth proper full length (maybe 6th, hard to tell with the band's convoluted discography) and finds the band in full on song mode, with a somewhat improved production, which definitely suits them. Years later, the band would release a single called The Dead C. Vs. Sebadoh, the title a joke obviously, but even 5 years early, when Eusa Kills came out, the band did in fact sound quite a bit like Sebadoh at moments, dark and brooding, sort of rocking, melodic but a bit off kilter, especially on record opener "Scarey Nest", which is a dead ringer for some lost Sebadoh B-side, with a killer main hook, simple solid drumming, wistful sort of sad boy vocals, the guitars alternatingly jangly and corrosive. After a 43 second Butthole Surfers style abstract drum / guitar crunch jam with distorted vocals and a lumbering tempo, the band slip right back into more dark jangle, a minor key guitar unfurling, a shuffling military snare, more weary crooned vocals, it is easy to see why lots of folks refer to Eusa Kills as the Dead C's 'songs' record. Most of the tracks are 2 or 3 minutes, poppy and jangly, the whole record clocking in at a lean 36 minutes, the exceptions being the 6 minute "Phantom Power" which begins as an extended abstract jam, all simple solid drumming and jagged guitar, but then the vocals drift in all ghostlike and the sound is transformed into something much poppier, and the 7 minute "Maggot", which is probably the heaviest of the bunch, with its grinding guitars, it's lurching drum part, and the super distorted Buttholes style processed vox, but even then, there's a definite pop sensibility at work, although a bit obscured. The rest of the shorter tracks tend toward the pop-ish, whether it be pounding noise drenched indie rock, moaning slow motion Jandek style sprawl or the gorgeously languid hushed folky jangle that finishes off the disc.
Also included is the Helen Said This 12" originally released around the same time. Not quite as songy as Eusa Kills, but enough that the two fit together perfectly, an extension of Eusa's twisted jangle, muddled pop smithery, warm wooziness, and occasional cracked heaviness.
Totally recommended, and essential for all fans of fucked up music. And heck, even fans of not-so-fucked up music. This just might be the Dead C record you can handle. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Scarey Nest"
MPEG Stream: "Alien To Be"
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Power"

ENVY / JESU s/t (Conspiracy) lp 15.98
Finally available on vinyl!!
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"

FIVE OR SIX Acting On Impulse (Cherry Red) cd 17.98
Five Or Six were a shortlived UK post-punk band from the early '80s with a revolving door of members, the most well known of which included Ashley Wells who later went to form Spring Hill Jack and David Knight who continues to work with Karl Blake in Shockheaded Peters. While Five Or Six never got into the avant-jazz electronica of Spring Hill Jack or the monstrous art-pop of Shockheaded Peters, the band was intent on pushing beyond the three chord punk attack. Given a dour demeanor and a penchant for moody atmospherics, their small catalogue of albums and singles rightly earned favorable comparisons to Joy Division and 154-era Wire. Tracks such as "Another Reason" and "The Trial" are grounded upon low-slung basslines grooved against percussive dirges, bleak electronic drones, and spindly guitar leads. This compilation is certainly the best place to start with the Five Or Six catalogue, as their albums could be hit and miss. David Knight admitted that the group somewhat cancelled out many of the strengths of the many members, leaving only a handful of great tracks. Fortunately, all of that great material is found here. So if the early 4AD / Factory Records post-punk dirge is your thing, this will certainly float your boat.
MPEG Stream: "Another Reason"
MPEG Stream: "Lost Cause"
MPEG Stream: "Sleepwalk"

FLYNT, HENRY & C.C. HENNIX Dharma / Warriors (Locust) cd 14.98
The well of Henry Flynt music never seems to dry up. Here, billed as Dharma Warriors, Flynt collaborates with C.C. Hennix on drums on two long guitar pieces recorded to boombox in Woodstock in 1983. Like a stripped down minimalist boogie version of Rhys Chatham or Glenn Branca, Flynt brings a lo-fi backwoods zen vibe to his raw and earthy modal jamming of repetitive riffs and fuzzy chords, while Hennix ties it together with his clattering scattershot drumming. Celestial indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Warriors of The Dharma"
MPEG Stream: "Mount Fuji On My Mind"

GIRL TALK Feed The Animals (Illegal Art) cd 15.98
Whether you are into the idea of mash-ups or not, it's really hard not to like Greg Gillis aka Girl Talk. He brings the energy and he definitely brings the party. Sure mash-ups are nothing new, but Gillis's ADD approach to the method is what keeps us listening as one sample or combination of samples never stays long enough to wear out its welcome; recycling familiar sounds into unfamiliar forms that are still irresistibly danceable. Sometimes there are up to 20 different samples weaving throughout just one track. But unlike Belgian duo, 2 Many DJs, who take a more hip-insider approach to the mash-up on masterful mixes that are way too expensive over here, Gillis takes a more rough-and-ready bargain basement approach picking key parts from familiarly terrible songs into constantly shifting pieces that are surprisingly kaleidoscopic. The man knows how to entertain!
MPEG Stream: "Still Here"
MPEG Stream: "Give Me A Beat"
MPEG Stream: "In Step"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES The Genocideal Deliverance (At War With False Noise) 7" 5.98
The return of our favorite one man blackened noise drenched cinematic doomscape wrecking crew, with a super limited single, only 300 copies, of which we got about 40. Already sold out and out of print, so act fast if you want one of these filthy little black slabs.
And filthy they are, and heavy, and noisy, and most definitely the most metal thing we've heard from GTT to date. Two tracks, both sound cut from the same blood soaked cloth, relentless blast beats and drum machine splatter buried beneath thick oozing layers of churning downtuned black buzz, underpinned by tripped out keyboards, and some super harsh processed vokills. Occasionally moaning slabs of woozy drone surface, or the vocals become even more garbled, but the pace remains frenetic. Both sides feature a breakdown of sorts, the A side finds the sound slipping into some weird sort of soundtracky Goblin territory, all queasy synths and creepy minor key melodies, epic and cinematic, but still filthy and grimy and lo-fi, while the B-side introduces some haunting spoken word, over a dense swirl of drones and hums and buzzing, before exploding again into a guitar drenched blacknoise outro.
Awesome as always, and again, already OUT OF PRINT. These are the last copies, we, you or anyone else will ever see.

HAGOOD, LINDA Pink Love Red Love (Awesome Vistas) lp 15.98
Alright!! For this latest batch of awesome (sorry couldn't help ourselves) Awesome Vista releases, one we've been looking forward to maybe a teensy bit more than the others is this solo debut from Linda Hagood. Probably best known for her unique vocal contributions to the nineties bands Smackdab and The Double U, Hagood revels in a childlike spookiness that channels the creepier parts of Comus, the angular shuffle and carnival weirdness of bands like Thinking Fellers, Monitor and Caroliner, and the cuddlecore pop of Cub, Puffy Ami Yumi and The Shaggs. Sometimes it reminds us of a female Daniel Johnson, but the music is much stranger and cartoony like Carl Stalling lost in an animated forest full of pet zombies moonlit ravens, giant bunnys, baby hyenas, and dancing marsupials. Freakish Moog whooshes and skittering violins punctuate spindley Eastern European guitar riffs and off-kilter rhythms as she sings these eleven strange but charming dreamlike songs. Her cartoony voice may be a dealbreaker for some, but no other voice would quite fit songs like this, songs that we've seen performed live for years and are finally glad to see laid to wax. Featuring gorgeous hand printed cover artwork by Christine Shields. Super cute and super weird, and like all the Awesome Vista releases, Super Limited!!!!!!!!!!

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE Fields / Church Of Broken Glass (20 Buck Spin) 2lp 22.00
Now on vinyl!! A hefty gatefold double lp thing, which also includes a coupon to download all the music for free if you want mp3s as well. Here's more-or-less what we said about the 2cd version recently released via the Profound Lore label:
First, there was The Bastard. The ultimate over the top power metal/black metal rock opera, as far as we're concerned. Ok, so Andee here at AQ put it out on his tUMULt label... but that simply proves that he/we really like it (not that that's WHY we like it). Still Hammers' best, wethink. But their follow up The August Engine was pretty killer too. And the same with their third album Locust Years, which we hailed as the first ever fantasy metal album that was also a contemporary political allegory (about Bush and the Iraq War). With that record, Hammers settled with regal grace into a new phase, with the significant addition of '70s styled Hammond organ, taking their prog leanings to ever proggier heights, the raspy black metal aspects of their sound discarded long ago. And this new release from the acclaimed San Francisco metallers is definitely a continuation of that, despite some major lineup changes in the Hammers camp since Locust Years came out in 2006.
Of course, mainman guitarist John Cobbett (Ludicra, ex-Slough Feg) is still the with the band. Also drummer Chewy Marzolo, and keyboardist Sigrid Sheie. But now there's a new set of singers. Hammers, as you may know, have always flaunted operatic/theatrical, male and female vocals, intertwining in their compositions. There's been a few different female singers (who also played bass) over the years, but the clean male vocals until now had been handled solely by Mike Scalzi of Slough Feg, who has a distinctive voice to say the least. Taking over the female role is Jesse Quattro, a trained singer who definitely holds her own in the tradition of Hammers' female vocalists. You won't notice much difference there, though she may well be the best they've had. She doesn't play bass, however, so they've got Ron Nichols in to handle that task. More difficult, perhaps, for Hammers, was replacing Scalzi, who left to concentrate entirely on Slough Feg. Patrick Goodwin (of Dirty Power and Pansy Division) stepped up into Scalzi's shoes and while his voice is definitely different, not having the weird presence or booming depth Scalzi's, he's a capable melodic singer, yearning and emotive, and maybe his less idiosyncratic style fits better with Hammers' current direction. Long time fans will definitely notice a difference, though, and some will roll with it, some won't. Certainly the Hammers of The Bastard aren't the Hammers here.
So, now Hammers Of Misfortune obviously have a lot to prove on this new album - or, actually, albums. That's right, as if to really rise to the occasion and make a statement, they've released a double album, or what they'd have us believe is two separate albums, Fields and Church Of Broken Glass, packaged together. Each one gets its own cover art, you flip the gatefold over to see each one, in the style of an old Ace Double paperback (the cover shown here is that of Fields).
Each disc has its own theme, a rural/urban dichotomy between Fields and Church Of Broken Glass. The best example of the latter being the moody 10 minute epic "Butchertown", painting this very city's streets in sinister fairytale shades. (Urban decay, blight and fright being territory previously explored by Cobbett's black metal outfit Ludicra, as well.) If we know Cobbett, there's probably a clever narrative or allegory at play here, encompassing both discs, leading from song to song and one disc to the next, but Hammers lyrics are poetically vague enough that we haven't puzzled it all out yet exactly. You could look at their recent interview on the Pitchfork website for more insight if you wish. We again get a political vibe from some of this, and do have the idea that Fields starts off about the plight of peasant farmers in Afghanistan, beginning with the three-part, 16-minute suite of "Agriculture", "Fields", and "Motorcade". See what you make of these lines, from the latter: "Escorting friendlies, a walk in the park/Unlock the cages as soon as it's dark/Motorcade motorcade easy to mark/Send in the snipers to swim with the sharks/Breadline is burning, the headcount's a joke/Soon they'll be feasting on mirrors and smoke/Motorcade motorcade horses to show/Fish in a barrel and ducks in a row". Hmm. And Hammers manages to turn that into singalong catchiness!
Fortunately, even with the ambitious scale of this latest project, and all the new members in the band, fans will find that Hammers hasn't changed too much, still full of blazing guitar solos and stop on a dime dynamics, memorable riffs and melodies and exquisite harmonies, musical theater moments and multilayered vocals - all the over the top-ness we love about 'em. Perhaps though the progginess has gotten even proggier, more flowery... We're reminded of Kansas, actually! Well, Kansas mixed with Megadeth, maybe. With a healthy helping of that rollicking, Deep Purplish Hammond organ first introduced on previous opus the Locust Years, as we said. And if you're into 'em for the female vocals, you won't be disappointed at all.
So, what should be Hammers' sales slogan for this album - New and Improved? Well, no, we can't quite go there, what with our feelings about the The Bastard. Well, how about Two For The Price Of One! Sure. And how about Thinking Man's (and Woman's) Metal? Definitely. But we get the idea that slogans and soundbites and all those mass media manipulative aspects of modern commercial culture are exactly what Hammers Of Misfortune stands against, so we'll just leave it with, well worth checking out.
MPEG Stream: "Agriculture"
MPEG Stream: "Rats Assembly"
MPEG Stream: "Butchertown"
MPEG Stream: "Train"

HARRY PUSSY You'll Never Play This Town Again (Load) cd 15.98
We love Harry Pussy, and we take every opportunity to tell the world. Unfortunately we don't get that many chances as the noise rock trio known as Harry Pussy has been broken up for years now, only the occasional live bootleg or video surfacing now and again. And as much as we love Harry Pussy, and their amazing studio albums, live is where they really shined, and by shined we mean fell totally apart, erupted into utter chaos, started fights with audience members, punished all within earshot, caused every indie rock noiserocker in the world to fall in love with drummer / vocalist Adris and generally annoyed and brutalized every club owner, promoter or opening band they ever crossed paths with.
But holy shit, did HP pack a wallop. The recent live cd-r we listed, for what it lacked in fidelity, it made up for in spunk, and sheer speaker shredding brutality. So here we have yet another live document. Well, pretty much live. Half the record was recorded in a rehearsal space, the rest live at various locations. And needless to say it all rules. Heavy and noisy and off kilter and unhinged and spastic and wild and chaotic and freaked out and funny and fun and fucked up and GENIUS. HP were like the scarier, more lo-fidelity, less technical, noise obsessed Melt-Banana. Short sharp bursts of frenzied fury, all shrieking and thrashing and pounding, it's a little surprised the grindcore crowd didn't go nuts for HP as they share much sonically, but the sound of HP is so much weirder and unhinged. Some songs fly by in a matter of seconds, others pound away hypnotically for a few minutes. The guitars are gnarled and tangled and atonal, the drums a what-the-fuck splatter, and Adris' vocals a wild banshee wail that switches from hysterical shriek to guttural growl in the blink of an eye.
This collection is awesome, the sound is excellent, the songs destroy, they even do some covers, a Nip Drivers tune, a Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, and they even tackle Kraftwerk's "Showroom Dummies", and it sounds pretty bad ass. Also included is a single 18 minute live recording, we originally thought it was a live show, but it sounds like ONE LONG TRACK, lots of chiming high end guitars and clouds of cymbal sizzle, moaning vocals, a bit like a stumbling off kilter Sunroof! The disc finishes off with 10 more live tracks, the sound super hot and in the red, the band totally on fire, sounding like quite possibly the raddest live band ever, which for that 14 minutes they almost definitely were. and we get a good dose of Adris' goofy cute stage banter to boot!
MPEG Stream: "Drop The Bomb"
MPEG Stream: "Sex Problem"
MPEG Stream: "New Song (Nip Drivers)"
MPEG Stream: "Velvet Pussy"
MPEG Stream: "Showroom Dummies (Kraftwerk)"

HILLAGE, STEVE Rainbow Dome Musick (Caroline) cd 15.98
Like Robert Fripp and Manuel Gottsching, the UK's Steve Hillage is a stellar guitarist who came out of the prog era (Arzachel, Khan, Gong) to mine his own unique cosmic territory that could be the blueprint for latter day ambient techno. His amazing guitar work on Gong's Radio Invisible trilogy, especially the epically spacious "You", was just the first stepping stone toward this 1979 avant-new age masterpiece, Rainbow Dome Musick, originally recorded for an on-site installation at an actual Rainbow Dome in London.
While it must have been -really- an experience inside the Dome, it's even now a fantastic listen at home on headphones. Two 20-minute, side-long tracks built from the sequenced filtering of guitars, piano, synths and bells, that organically glide from phased rhythmic passages to expansive cloud-like washes of sound. It's definitely much more ambient than Hillage's other albums up to that point, but as blissed out and new agey as it is, with the sounds of gurgling water (starting side one) and shimmering drones, you won't forget he's a killer electric guitarist either. Obviously, a heavy influence on The Orb, who later collaborated with Hillage, after they met in an club where to Hillage's surprise, Alex Patterson of the Orb was spinning Rainbow Dome Musick in the chill-out lounge, so the story goes! Another essential entry of cosmic proto-new age sounds for fans of Fripp and Eno, Cluster, Ariel Kalma, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Eberhard Schoener and Ashra. We recently got into this album, ordered it for the store on cd, and heartily recommend it - though it seems to sell itself anyway when people see the cover, something about that hypnotic vibrating rainbow dome image...
MPEG Stream: "Four Ever Rainbow"
MPEG Stream: "Garden of Paradise"

HUSH ARBORS s/t (Ecstatic Peace) cd 11.98
In the past Keith Wood has released all kinds of material under the Hush Arbors moniker, so we had no idea what to expect from this new record on Ecstatic Peace. Turns out it's a seriously awesome album of psych folk psychosis! It really grew on us, the perfect album to play in the store. With a simple charm that totally hinges on catchy, rootsy guitar licks and soft, falsetto vocals that are ever-so effective in completely captivating. Slipping between quietly sung finger picked ballads and rowdy full-band jammers, these are the kind of songs that stay in your head longer than you'd like, but you don't mind because they're awesome. Wood and his partner, Leon Dufficy, have conjured a magical release that falls somewhere between a forested acoustic ritual and a boozed up, barn burning hoedown. Wood's somber songwriting is clever and touching, combining the tenderness of Neil Young with the atmospheric obscurity of Six Organs (Ben Chasny even makes an appearance on the second track!). Very cool! Complete with a beautifully collaged cover featuring a picture of the man himself. Needless to say, don't miss out, this is highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Follow Closely"
MPEG Stream: "Rue Hollow"

JAMES DIN A4 Fistel Rose (Pingipung) cd 21.00
The name James Din A4 is a new one to us, but most likely not for longtime fans of minimal techno and leftfield electronic music. This disc collects a whole mess of previously released tracks, all culled from super limited self released vinyl lps, on cd for the very first time, and is really pretty difficult to describe. Opener "The Seaside" is quite possible our electronic jam of the year, and pretty much displays the best of what James Din A4 has to offer, crammed into a single track. From the opening fuzzed out loop, which could have been yanked wholesale from a Field B-side, to the skittery super minimal click track, to the spaced out electro groove that follows, various strange chopped samples and vocal bits, over the course of the first few minutes, the track gets less and less minimal and more and more playful, all sorts of beep and buzz, the melodies all sunshiney and bubbly, but still all wrapped around that warm whirring intro, finishing off with a snippet of the sea shanty that gives the track its name.
This is definitely lo-fi minimal techno, but there's some electro going on, some definite nod to the 8-bit side of electronica, that opening track is so warm and whirry, especially the main loop, that we can't help but think of The Field, but the rest of the record not so much, more sort of playful and goofy, definitely plenty of dancefloor silliness here and there, the sort of sounds that could easily spawn their own ill-advised dance, but for the dancefloor averse (like some of us) this is total headphone ear candy, that slips from wild and wooly and weird to muted moody and minimal, some tracks sound like fractured exotica, others like skittery Oval mashups, still others are just gorgeously minimal and dark, while still others are groovy and playful. Maybe our favorite track is "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me", a way too brief song constructed from chopped and looped fragments of sixties jangle pop, reminding us a bit of Terry Riley's "You're No Good", and similarly would have sounded amazing expanded to fill up a whole disc.
This year has been crammed with amazing electronic music, and with less than two months to go, Fistel Rose has surfaced just in time to join our list of 2008 favorites...
Packaged in a 6 panel black and white digipak, with a huge booklet filled with all sorts of crazy artwork, from back and white line drawings to eye popping full color collages, all done by Mr. James Din A4 himself!
MPEG Stream: "The Seaside"
MPEG Stream: "Der Frosch Mit Der Maske"
MPEG Stream: "Rudolf Scharping"
MPEG Stream: "Er Hatte Ihr Keinen Trip Gegeben, Ihr Aber Bedeutet Dass Er Sie Heiraten Will"

LILIENTAL Liliental (Brain) cd 21.00
"Six days in 1976". That's what this disc represents. The entire lifespan, and output, of an extremely short-lived but also extremely awesome krautrock 'supergroup' of sorts. Organized by Dieter Moebius (one half of Cluster, one third of Harmonia), the Liliental project also featured the talents of Helmut Hattler and Johannes Pappert of psychedelic jazz-rock outfit Kraan, famed producer Conny Plank, soundtrack composer Otto Bekker and his protege, budding electronic experimentalist Asmus Tietchens (who contributes liner notes to this reissue). They never played live, and indeed spent only six days recording these six tracks. About 35 minutes of exquisite, oft glorious, softly moody and melodic instrumentals here on this one-off treasure... well, mostly instrumental, with some wordless "aahhs" here and there, and also some singing on the particularly quirky, catchy final track (which sounds more like a Brian Eno/Steely Dan collab than a Moebius thing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing). Since the tracks are sequenced on this disc in the same order in which they were recorded, it would seem that by day six they were ready to get a bit silly. On days 1-5, though, there was more restraint to their playfulness, their music sometimes joyous but as often wistful or otherwise serious-sounding.
It's hard to describe, easier to imagine if you're already acquainted with Moebius's music solo and in Cluster and Harmonia. While this group had their own special chemistry, the overall vibe is one that will definitely seem familiar to fans of Cluster et.al., wonderfully so. Track three, "Wattwurm", could be from one of the Cluster & Eno albums, easily. And that's high praise! On that track and elsewhere you'll find Liliental to be rhythmic, poppy, breezy, beautiful, all these things... with shimmering washes of mellow synths (lots of Arp and Moog), percolating electronic embellishments, almost-ambient saxophone, and even some blissful bird twitter on one track. So nice. This reissue actually came out last year, and we've been wanting to list it for a while, but had some trouble getting enough copies. Now we have a few in stock, so get it, it's definitely one to add to the top of the pile of essential krautrock reissues we've raved about recently, like those Michael Rothers, La Dusseldorfs, Eroc, etc.
In addition to Tietchens' notes, in both English and German, this digipack's cd booklet also includes color photos of Liliental in the studio (they existed nowhere else!), among them the group shot from which the cover painting was done - interestingly, amongst other small details altered, the cover artist decided to put long pants on Conny Plank (the smiling fellow on the far left) instead of letting him continue to wear the short shorts he had on in the original photograph.
MPEG Stream: "Stresemannstrasse"
MPEG Stream: "Wattwurm"

LIQUID LIQUID s/t (GR2) cd 12.98
Finally back in print! This collection brings together nearly everything New York's influential no wave funk group Liquid Liquid managed to put out. If you haven't heard them before, then this is your chance. Still, if you really think you haven't heard them, let us remind you. Grandmaster Flash's tremendously successful single "White Lines (Don't Do It)" featured the Sugar Hill house band re-playing the main bassline from these guy's single "Cavern," and we're pretty sure just about everyone has heard that song! Anyway, given that the band and label never consented to Flash's sampling, legal battles followed and the band's label, 99 Records, went under. Back to the record at hand. Liquid Liquid stands among the best of the early '80s no wave scene. Of course, with the differences between people like Lydia Lunch -- with her goth-punk affront, and the Latin influenced whatever-wave vibes of Konk, you could easily argue that it wasn't a scene in any strict sense. These guys reinforce that sentiment. In fact, the only band from that era and place that comes close at all is probably Konk - or maybe Pigbag, those post-punk bands where higher emphasis is put on propulsive rhythmic devices than pretty much everything else. There are similarities, but these guys still stand out on their own. Where Konk had an overstated Latin influence, Liquid Liquid tempered that sensibility with a healthy dose of disco percussion, dub, and art school croon. If you wanted to step outside of New York, something along the lines of a more rhythmic take on England's This Heat or 23 Skidoo might be the general direction. Or like if someone grabbed Gang of Four's equipment and left them with just bass, drums, and some other shit to beat on. C'mon! If for nothing else you need this to get a copy of not just the aforementioned "Cavern," but also "Optimo" and "Bellhead." Classics! Catchy, fun, driving, and with an influence that can be heard from hip-hop to essentially every angular art-punk band ever, Liquid Liquid is essential listening. Recommended for any minimalist dance party, or careful personal use. Yay!
MPEG Stream: "Optimo"
MPEG Stream: "Scraper"
MPEG Stream: "Rubbermiro"

LUCE, ED Wuvable Oaf #1 (Goat Blud Comics) comic 3.95
The return of Wuvable Oaf!!! If you remember a few months back when we listed the first issue of the Oaf (#0 for those keeping track), we gushed over the goofy funny story, the incredibly detailed art, the many many kitties, and did we mention the hair? ALL that hair!!
The first issue, if you don't remember, contained plenty of goofy dancing, man love, saucy almost sex, penis shaped birthday cakes, high fashion, reality TV, feline birthing, and an art punk band called Ejaculoid. The life and times of a big bearlike creature called Wuvable Oaf, and his friends, and his cats, and his dolls stuffed with his own body hair. Now seems like a good time to revisit the hair. The art is so intricate and detailed, all the characters so hirsute that it really must take as much time to draw the hair as it does the rest of the comic. But it's worth it, so over the top, and so completely and awesomely ridiculous.
So this issue gives us a glimpse into the creation of Oaf's stuffed little creatures as well as his ability to regenerate body hair just by 'forcing it', various 'worst' dates throughout the years, 1986, 1992, the origin of the Oaf, from his birth (his actual birth, euuw) to his misfit early years and eventual adoption, a visit to the gym, another feline misadventure, as well as a run in with punk rock band Ejaculoid, culminating in a visit to AQUARium records!! Hmmm. And that guy behind the counter, looks suspiciously like, OK, heck, it is! It's our own ANDEE, in all his Oaf drawn glory, surly and standoffish (not at all like the real Andee btw), giving Ejaculoid the cold shoulder, spouting his timeless catchphrase "I hate your band". Beside the thrill of being drawn into the Oaf universe, the record store is another example of artist Ed Luce's incredible eye for detail, the various records behind the counter, the posters on the wall, the band t-shirts, it's pretty amazing.
We're dying to see what happens as Oaf pursues his Ejaculoid lead singer crush, and of course we can never get enough kitties, drawn or otherwise, there are big plans in the works for Oaf, including more kick ass merch (check it out: http://www.wuvableoaf.com/) as well as an actual single from the imaginary(?) Ejaculoid.
Punk rock, kitties, lots and lots of hair, and of course big muscly dudes, what's not to love???

M83 Digital Shades (Vol.1) (Mute / Goom) cd 14.98
We probably reference M83 in reviews more often than No Neck Blues Band or SUNNO))) (okay, maybe not SUNN), which makes sense since they, almost more than any other group we can think of, totally typify that gorgeously washed out synth heavy warm shimmery bliss that infuses so much of the music we love. Their sound is seeped in gauzy smears of new age-y blur and hushed layered soft focus ambience, and even on their last record, the super eighties shimmer pop of Saturdays=Youth, that shimmer was always right below the surface, adding a distinctly otherworldly vibe to the songs.
Digital Shades (Vol. 1) in not a proper album per se, more of a project, undertaken by Anthony Gonzalez, aka M83, between recording sessions, exploring a more stripped down, ambient and new age sound. Originally released as a digital download (hence the title), Digital Shades is finally available as an actual release, the first in a series.
Playing more like fragments, or rough sketches, the songs on Digital Shades are simple and space-y, often only one or two notes, a simple melody, a breathy buried vocal, stretched out into long mesmerizing streaks of sun dappled drift. You can almost imagine these as backing tracks for soon to be M83 tracks. Remember when Pet Sounds mania was happening, and that record was released in all sorts of different permutations? Well, one version contained a whole bunch of gorgeous harmony vocal backing tracks, that once removed from their songs, sounded so strange and angelic and haunting, and such is the case here. Loosed from any sort of structure, these pieces are allowed to float and hover and swirl and slowly unfurl into sprawling expanses of billowy dreamy dronemusic. Sweeping and cinematic, yet somehow still minimal and intimate. Bird song surfaces here and there, as well as some brief snippets of more traditional M83 vocalizing, but those moments are brief, leaving just long streaks of soft sound, to unfold slowly, to blossom into delicate shapes, and to glisten in the light of a thousand suns. Admittedly, Gonzalez is paying homage to Brian Eno, and that's not difficult to hear at all, even in more traditional sounding M83 recordings, and lots of these pieces also sound quite a bit like some lost Twin Peaks Angelo Badalamenti mood music. Absolutely gorgeous. Maybe too minimal and blissed out for some, but for those of you (us!) with a soft spot for delicate drone-y new ageish ambience, and soft shimmery drones, a la Eno, Harold Budd, Popol Vuh, IASOS, Ariel Kalma, and the like, this is absolute heaven.
MPEG Stream: "Waves, Waves, Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Coloring The Void"
MPEG Stream: "Sister [Part 1]"

MATMOS The West (Autofact / Vague Terrain) cd 13.98
At long last, possibly our favorite Matmos record ever is back in print! The West is by far the most sprawling and highway ready record in their illustrious back catalog. With all the well deserved attention they've received over the years for their innovative methods and countless collaborations one thing that's often overlooked is how well their records tend to predict and predate what's about to come floating up from the musical underground. Recorded and released a few years before the big new weird America/freak folk movement took off and before everyone was using laptops to create folktronica, Matmos made this amazing album that perfectly melds their leftfield electronic roots with spacious and trance inducing guitar to create the kind of record you would imagine might have been made if Henry Flynt and Jim O'Rourke were to collaborate or if Christian Fennesz got to twist knobs while John Fahey was playing in one of his most exploratory moments. With a long list of guests including J. Lesser and David Pajo (Slint, Papa M) on board for the record, Drew & Martin once again demonstrate how great they are at letting others into their world and being open to where the sounds will take them while still maintaining a distinct vision.
The West is for sure one of our favorite roadtrip records of all time. "Sun on 5 at 152" really does sound exactly how it feels when the sun is blasting through your dirty windshield and you can't really see what's ahead but you keep your foot on the pedal and just follow the road to wherever it may lead you. While no two Matmos records are alike The West probably finds its most kindred spirit in The Civil War, another Matmos record that proves there is much more to these great music makers then simply synths and samples. No matter what they create, soul seeps richly through their fractured sounds and in our opinion The West may be their most soulful, satisfying and resonating release EVER. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Sun on 5 at 152"
MPEG Stream: "Last Delicious Cigarette"
MPEG Stream: "Action at a Distance"

MOUNTAINS Mountains Mountains (Catsup Plate Records) lp 14.98
This 4 track ep is unfortunately out of print, just a few weeks after getting released into the world. While this will undoubtedly cause consternation for many, the few who will be fortunate enough to grab this record will have a treasure in their hands. Mountains are the NYC duo of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, both of whom have a couple of solo recordings with Holtkamp's Field Studies album on Type being the most recent. The A side tracks most clearly reflect where Holtkamp took his solo work, with shimmering acoustic guitars spiralling in tricked out electronics that buzz, sing, chime, and fizzle into a minimalist patter of hallowed drone set against their elliptical finger picking. Very nice. But the B side pieces are where Mountains really shine. These two tracks had originally appeared on some micro-edition 3" cd-r thing that probably even disappeared even faster than this 12" will. Here, their guitars slowburn with the constant roar of post-shoegazing luminescence, set languid with a melachonic air. Belong would be a close reference, but there's a lot more sun-flecked shimmer than you get from Belong's narcotic wash. It's beautiful stuff, no matter how you look at it. Limited to 500, but these are the last copies we'll ever get...

NEELY, TOM Your Disease Spread Quick (Robotic Boot) comic book 6.00
For those of you who missed out on the ultra limited Melvins A Senile Animal box set (which is probably most everybody), we managed to get a handful of these super limited comics, by aQ customer Tom Neely, which came in the box along with a belt buckle and a bunch of other stuff. The comic is amazing, inspired by the album, which means it's bizarre and twisted and fucked up and garish and beautiful. For those of you who have yet to see Neely's art (you very well might have and just not known it as he does a lot of commercial stuff too), you're in for a treat, classic and old fashioned, but just a bit tweaked and damaged.
This Melvins comic is the tale of a horse, who loses his head, some sort of spectre, plenty of gore and blood and vomiting, a bandaged worm man with a very powerful tongue, being chased by little legged dots, a bar full of vampires and historical figures, a wolf in grandma's clothing, a long journey across a black sea in a rickety rowboat, a strange mountaintop female cyborg, a giant eagle, a city wrapped in living tendrils, more removable heads and a horde of horses. Sure it sounds insane, it's a comic based on a Melvins record!!! The back cover has a funny Melvins parody ad, and the inside back cover has bios of both Neely and the Melvins.
If you love the Melvins, you'll probably want one of these, and odds are we won't be able to get more once we sell out.

NO NECK BLUES BAND Clomeim (Locust) cd 14.98
The label goes on and on about how this latest No Neck Blues Band record is a watershed moment, a defining release in their oeuvre, a new sound, a clarity of vision never heard before on past releases, but we have to say we simply don't agree. At this point NNCK are in a privileged position, one they most assuredly earned, a position of power for sure. They just do what they do, theirs a sound that borrows from many sources, but that is distilled into something utterly unique, so yeah, they do what they do, but they do it better than ANYONE else. Period. Maybe that's what the label was actually trying to say before they got bogged down in artspeak. Regardless, this is another fantastic NNCK missive, one that sprawls across lots of genres and sounds, but manages to stay together by force of will and the innate talent of the players who have been honing their craft in this setting, with these players for nearly 15 years. And it shows.
The record begins like the rock band equivalent of an orchestra tuning up, guitars twang and detune, percussion clanks and thumps, everything drifts aimlessly, but as the track progresses, the various pieces seem to slowly flow together, a female voices surfaces, and croons over the settling chaos beneath, eventually leaving the chaos to sort itself out, a bit like a more serene forest folk combo, accordions wheeze (or is that a harmonica), guitars shimmer and squiggle, the drummer offers up washes of cymbals and eventually a slow simple stripped down groove, and without even realizing it, the whole mood and sound has shifted, and we're in some twangy meandering moody krautrock slowjam, that builds gradually to a seriously psychedelic crescendo, before the next track explodes with a flurry of skronky horns and maniacal vocalizing (a la Yoko), and woozy slide guitar, that track eventually builds to a strange sort of jazz metal blowout, pounding drums, growled demonic vocals, the slide still slithering all over and those Yoko like vocals still going crazy, definitely the toughest track on the disc. But maybe the most interesting.
The rest of the disc slips seamlessly from slow burning outrock sprawl, to propulsive space rock groove, to super minimal scrape and thunk, to wah wah guitar drenched soft pop balladry, to glimmering abstract free jazz freakout, to super tripped out psych rock weirdness, to gorgeous swirling soft focus dronemusic, but the thing is, within those various sounds, NNCK, twist everything all up, adding all kinds of sonic detritus, haunting noises, mysterious rumbles, ghostly voices, droning buzz, swirling ambience, adding extra layers, uncomfortable harmonies, taking perfectly pretty melodies and pulling them apart, in lesser hands, the whole structure would crumble, but NNCK possess only greater hands, perfect to hold it all together, and shape and stretch and form those sounds into something distinctly and utterly No Neck.
MPEG Stream: "Silurist"
MPEG Stream: "The Coach House"
MPEG Stream: "Ministry Of Voices"

OH SEES, THEE Peanut Butter Oven EP (Awesome Vistas) 12" 15.98
We'll not get too in depth in this review because this puppy is super limited, and they'll most likely be gone before you know it, but this ep from the ever prolific Thee Oh Sees is another solid release on Chris Johanson's Awesome Vistas label (see also the Linda Hagood LP reviewed elsewhere on this list.). While we love their full lengths, Thee Oh Sees really kick out the jams on their shorter format releases. Four songs, all really killer (and they sound really awesome at both speeds!, as we accidentally found out), full of that sixties big beat cavernous murky wall of feedback pop that we love. "Kingsmeat" is all melancholy Farfisa over upbeat rhythms and ringing feedback tones before turning up the Bo Diddley pace for "The Freak Was Clean". "Quadrospazzed" speaks for itself as the real hard-hitting burner here before the almost shoe-gazy "Kids In Cars" winds us down quite nicely. Remember, these are super limited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OXBOW (FEAT. JUSTIN BROADERICK & STEPHEN O'MALLEY) Presents: Love's Holiday Orchestra: Super Sonic 07 (Capsule) lp 14.98
We sold through our stash of these in nothing flat when we first listed this a little while back. Luckily, one of our distributors got a handful in, so we grabbed all we could, so everyone who missed out on this the first time around, now's your chance (probably your last chance)...
Two different sides of longtime aQ faves Oxbow, recorded live at the Supersonic festival in 2007.
The A side features a handful of Oxbow tracks, all stripped down and acoustic - just acoustic guitar, and the wild feral mewling of frontman Eugene Robinson. And you would think that playing stripped down and acoustic would make it sound more mellow, less frenzied and intense, but it doesn't. In plenty of places, it's like the guitar isn't even there, it's definitely Eugene's show. A wild caterwaul that even somehow gets the crowd shouting along. Intense and emotional, darkly intimate, but still strangely sinister and explosive. Essential for sure for all Oxbow fanatics.
But it's the flipside that will probably make this disappear in no time. A side long jam, that begins much like the A side tracks, simple urgently strummed acoustic guitar, and those primal vocals, until the guests make their presence known, Stephen O'Malley from SUNNO))), and Justin Broadrick from Jesu / Godflesh, the bass player from God, and even a string quartet. When those folks join the fray, it sounds almost like you might imagine, the acoustic guitar and vocals, buried under moaning strings and sheets of soaring blissed out high end, streaks of glistening feedback, crumbling rumbling swells of downtuned amp melting grind, thick sheets of buzz and shimmer, all draped over the haunting acoustic Oxbow musical drama unfolding beneath. Pretty amazing. Here's hoping these guys stopped by a studio to capture more of this stuff. But until that happens, this will most likely be your only chance to hear Oxbow's twisted, frenzied, so called "Love's Holiday Orchestra".
Beautifully packaged in super thick black matte sleeves, with silver metallic printing, with an insert featuring photos of the evening's festivities, as well as Oxbow guitarist Niko Wenner's recollection of the evening's festivities... which according to Eugene, leaves out the critical part where they left him for dead, knocked out and unconscious on the stage!

PELICAN / THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES PLCN / TAAS (Hydra Head) cd 11.98
It's been a little while since we've heard from the boys in Pelican, due in no small part to a seemingly endless world tour. They show up in the shop so much, we sometimes think they must have relocated to SF. And this is not exactly a 'new' record, in fact, it's a different version of a song that has already surfaced once a while back on a now out of print 10", "Pink Mammoth", Pelican's 'hit', or about as close as a heavy metallic instrumental post rock band will ever come to a hit, but it's a killer song, and here it gets redone a little with help from Pelican pals These Arms Are Snakes.
It's hard to tell just how different it is without doing a side by side comparison, but on first listen it does sound a bit more washed out and droney, the sound a tad thicker, and more guitar-y, which is obviously because of the various extra players. But it hardly matters, if you haven't heard this song before, you must, and if you have, you probably already dig it and definitely won't mind hearing a slightly different version. Soaring, epic, heavy without actually being metal, the guitars crunchy but clean, the drums busy but restrained, and then there's the hook, that pops up a few minutes in, and seals the deal. There seem to be plenty of extra guitars, getting all tangled up into warm swirls of layered harmonies, and every time that hook resurfaces it's fucking magic!
The flip side finds These Arms Are Snakes redoing one of their songs with the various members of Pelican along for the ride. Loping and mathy, chiming guitar harmonics over a crumbling distorted main riff, the vocals going from weary indie drawl to snarling growly wail, all over a churning motorik rhythm. The vocal harmonies and stripped down rhythmic lope, lock into these dark grooves that totally remind us of late great San Diego trio Three Mile Pilot. Cool stuff for sure.
The vinyl packaging, as with all Hydra Head stuff, is over the top. A blue on blue printed 10" gatefold, incredibly thick, with a third layer of reflective clear ink over the top, and the text in white on top of that. Pressed on thick black vinyl. And probably limited too. The cd packaging ain't so shabby either, blue and pink and clear inks on a brown cardstock, screen printed fold over origami style sleeve, also most likely very limited...
MPEG Stream: PELICAN "Pink Mammoth"
MPEG Stream: THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES "Gold Diggers"

PELICAN / THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES PLCN / TAAS (Hydra Head) 10" 14.98
It's been a little while since we've heard from the boys in Pelican, due in no small part to a seemingly endless world tour. They show up in the shop so much, we sometimes think they must have relocated to SF. And this is not exactly a 'new' record, in fact, it's a different version of a song that has already surfaced once a while back on a now out of print 10", "Pink Mammoth", Pelican's 'hit', or about as close as a heavy metallic instrumental post rock band will ever come to a hit, but it's a killer song, and here it gets redone a little with help from Pelican pals These Arms Are Snakes.
It's hard to tell just how different it is without doing a side by side comparison, but on first listen it does sound a bit more washed out and droney, the sound a tad thicker, and more guitar-y, which is obviously because of the various extra players. But it hardly matters, if you haven't heard this song before, you must, and if you have, you probably already dig it and definitely won't mind hearing a slightly different version. Soaring, epic, heavy without actually being metal, the guitars crunchy but clean, the drums busy but restrained, and then there's the hook, that pops up a few minutes in, and seals the deal. There seem to be plenty of extra guitars, getting all tangled up into warm swirls of layered harmonies, and every time that hook resurfaces it's fucking magic!
The flip side finds These Arms Are Snakes redoing one of their songs with the various members of Pelican along for the ride. Loping and mathy, chiming guitar harmonics over a crumbling distorted main riff, the vocals going from weary indie drawl to snarling growly wail, all over a churning motorik rhythm. The vocal harmonies and stripped down rhythmic lope, lock into these dark grooves that totally remind us of late great San Diego trio Three Mile Pilot. Cool stuff for sure.
The vinyl packaging, as with all Hydra Head stuff, is over the top. A blue on blue printed 10" gatefold, incredibly thick, with a third layer of reflective clear ink over the top, and the text in white on top of that. Pressed on thick black vinyl. And probably limited too. The cd packaging ain't so shabby either, blue and pink and clear inks on a brown cardstock, screen printed fold over origami style sleeve, also most likely very limited...
MPEG Stream: PELICAN "Pink Mammoth"
MPEG Stream: THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES "Gold Diggers"

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ Withers In The Waking (Touch) 7" 8.98
The latest entry in Touch's ongoing series of limited 7"s from People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz is by far the biggest surprise of bunch so far, in that you'll find no deep drones or abstract minimalism or delicate soundscapery, instead, as it states plainly right there on the sleeve, we get "Two new rolls of woozy dream circus lovingly cooked by two bakers of antiquity. Recorded in the ice and snow, in clay ovens, by broken down carousels."
Which is pretty much what it sounds like. Lilting sunshine-y melodies, circusy calliopes, gentle summery strum, and lushy boy girl vocal harmonies, all spun into some sweet pop confection. Sort of like Belle And Sebastian run through The Decemberists, and indeed all woozy and warbly, playful and pretty, old timey pop. But that's just the A side. The B side begins with a rhythm straight out of Perrey And Kingsley's songbook, but it's not long before the vocals come in, and again offer up a sing songy fractured doo wop duet, while the strange honk and skronk continues on beneath, along with some warm record crackle and some warped off kilter keyboards.
Definitely a weird one, and will likely rub some of the more striaghtlaced minimalist Touch music fanatics the wrong way, but it's a pretty darn giddy chunk of high art gone low brow, which is mos definitely a good thing.

PESTE NOIRE Mors Orbis Terrarum (Debemur Morti Productions) 2lp 25.00
The super limited, and long out of print double cassette boxed set demo collection from French masters of twisted and fucked up blackness, Peste Noire, originally released in 2007, is finally available again, albeit for a limited time, as a super deluxe double gatefold lp!!! And deluxe it is. The jacket is super fancy and thick, the lps pressed on super heavy vinyl, housed in black sleeves, and just in case you need to be told again, LIMITED LIKE CRAZY!!! Here's what we had to say about this when we reviewed the cassettes last year:
Okay black metal freeks and fanatics. We've all been going apeshit for everything and anything from the super tangled and inbred French micro-scene that spawned Alcest, Amesoeurs, Mortifera, Valfunde and of course... the mighty Peste Noire.
We've reviewed pretty much everything we could get our hands on from these guys, their debut full length K.P.N. / La Sanie Des Siecles - Panegyrique De La Degenerescence, their second full length FolkFuck Folie and the Lorraine rehearsal lp, all of which were crammed with amazing, stumbling chaotic, filthy fucked up blackness, and these two lps are no different. If anything, they're more raw, and more gritty and blown out. Lo-fi and ultrablack. The first track is so fast it almost sounds like it was recorded at the wrong speed. But much like the records proper, the sound lurches from furious black blasts to stumbling midtempo buzz, to plodding almost-doom, but even on these early ultra lo-fi recordings, the mood and vibe is already in place, haunting and creepy, demented and freaked out, borderline psychedelic at times. Noisy as fuck, crumbling and super distorted, everything painted a washed out black, grime-y but at times weirdly melodic and blissy.
Mors Orbis Terrarum collects pretty much all of Peste Noire's recordings outside of their 2 proper full lengths and the rehearsal lp (including their problematically titled 2001 Aryan Supremecy demo, which seems out of character since according to Encyclopedia Metallum, their lyrical focus is on "Aesthetics of Evil, Medieval Demons and Decadent Poetry") including a couple unreleased bonus tracks. But probably, unless you're a crazy obsessed collector / trader, you haven't heard any of this stuff anyway.
Needless to say, WAY recommended, and again, probably super limited, so act fast.

PIG HEART TRANSPLANT Hope You Enjoy Heaven (Sweatlung) cd 10.98
What might you expect from a band called Pig Heart Transplant? With a record called Hope You Enjoy Heaven? And song titles like "Prison / Fortress", "Crawling Through Hell", "Abject. Debased. Diseased" and "I Video Tape Your Diet"? What if the band featured members of Spazz, Silentist, Iron Lung, Despise You, Artimus Pyle, Gob, Brainoil and more? What if we told you they shared some splits with dirgedoomnoise duo Blue Sabbath Black Cheer? Yeah, you'd probably come up with something like THIS.
A punishing slab of slow motion power violence, crushing downtuned guitars, pounding drums, harsh hellish vokills, everything dripping with filth and murk, total Man Is The Bastard worship for sure. Low end all over the place. Some tracks the guitars are burning hot, the production way in the red, others are super creeped out murkscapes of industrial pound and processed vox, while still others are sludge-doom trawls through all manner of crusty low slung dirgemetal, and a couple are long buzzing drones, with howled vocals over the top, sounding a bit like a low end deathmetal Whitehouse. Maybe our favorite track though, is "Feeding From Your Trough", reminding us a bit of Geronimo, a fucked up mechanical sprawl of pounding crunch and hissing static, dripping with distortion and noise, locked into a stumbling lurching rhythm, with some chunks of grinding heaviness that sound like they could blow out your speakers, slipping from clipped robotic trudge, to hateful blacknoise dirge and back again. Some seriously harrowing shit for sure. Which as you probably know by now, means WAY recommended. At least for those in the mood for some murky and menacing musical punishment.
MPEG Stream: "Prison / Fortress"
MPEG Stream: "Conquering The Flesh"
MPEG Stream: "I Video Tape Your Diet"

PUSSYGUTT She Hid Behind Her Veil... (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
A brand new single-track of sprawling blackness from this mysterious Idaho duo, offering up their own version of the template laid down by Earth way back around their album 2. Which as you probably already know means, metal riffs slowed down to tarpit tempo, the various notes struggling to move forward through a field of crumbling distortion and near static buzz, the riffs allowed to ring out and fade away almost completely, before the next one comes lumbering up behind it.
The strange thing is that live, Pussygutt are a full on band, much more traditionally heavy, with a drummer and everything, even on their last record the epic double lp Sea Of Sand, the band was a lurching doomic behemoth, bordering on the industrial at times, but here, their sound is stripped way way down, and it suits them. They're able to evoke all sorts of moods with their carefully constructed downtuned ambience. This is some seriously sinister shit for sure, sweeping and darkly cinematic, the soundtrack to the eventual collapse of the universe, the sound of dying stars, or of some long slumbering beat awakening after millennia, or maybe Goblin at 16rpm, some haunted house music way too scary for any haunted house you'd ever want to visit.
It's not all heaviness though. Long stretches of sound dip into hushed shimmer here and there, while elsewhere the low end slips away leaving a creepy string section do drift spectrally, like some secret Satanic classical music, but even these moments are always tense with the knowledge that right around the corner, could be lurking another churning black wave of slow motion doomdrone crush. Really fantastic, and more than most of this stuff, infused with a deep otherworldly beauty.
Definitely require listening for folks whose cd racks/record crates/iPods' are packed with Earth, SUNNO))), Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, To Blacken The Pages, Hum Of The Druid, Expo '70, Nadja, Vulture Club, Hjarnidaudi, Monument Of Urns, Fear Falls Burning, Half Makeshift, Tunnels, Seconds In Formaldehyde, KTL, Light Of Shipwreck...
MPEG Stream: "She Hid Behind Her Veil... "

RAHDUNES s/t (Sweatlung) cd 10.98
So far our only real exposure to Rahdunes, has been their recent split with krauty drone combo Expo '70 (and a few cd-r's and tapes here and there), but on that split, they definitely demonstrated their ability to conjure up some seriously cosmic sounds.
So here we have the first proper full length cd from kosmiche astral travelers Rahdunes and it's pretty fantastic. And fantastical.
A longform soundscape of garbled guitars, and smeared melody, a forever unwinding sonic tapestry, woven from disembodied ghostly voices, spidery guitar melodies, haunting whirring woodwinds, all dipped in LSD and doused in a suitcase full of fractured effects. Delay collides with reverb, guitars crumble to pieces only to have those pieces drift lazily heavenward, when riffs do surface, they seem to simply hover, looping in on themselves, creating slow shifting sonic latticeworks, through which all manner of synths and sounds intertwine. Most of the tracks darkly meditative, the sounds pulsing and throbbing softly, creating barely perceptible rhythms, the you feel in your bones and seeping into your skin more than you hear it.
Electronics drift through ethereal clouds of distant bagpipe melodies, of buzzing low end rumbles, thick slabs of shimmery black murky splinter into fragments that collide in mid air with impossibly distorted voices, it's like some krautrock band flew to the moon and plugged their guitars into funhouse mirrors, everything woozy and gloriously unhinged, tripped out and drug drenched, what percussion there is, is mostly chimes and bells, and more often than not, those sounds are buried along with everything else beneath undulating layers of whirring spaced out effects, and blurred abstract melodies. Totally and gloriously fucked up, the perfect soundtrack for tripping out, and drifting off.
Total inner space / outer space introspection overload.
Which means we LOVE it. Beautiful oversized gold and green on creme printed packaging, equal parts cave drawings and old quilt. So cool.
MPEG Stream: "Head Of Clouds"
MPEG Stream: "Meeting You Is Like Sucking God's Dick"

REINHARDT, JONAS s/t (Kranky) cd 14.98
It's been a great year for krautrock inspired kosmiche pastiche. As records by Arp, Cloudland Canyon, Growing and White Rainbow have found a new generation using old analog synths to orbit the earth with lots of great results. It was so fitting and ideal that Jonas Reinhardt got to make their live debut playing the after party for the Cluster show in Big Sur at the beginning of summer which some of us were lucky to see, and we were immediately impressed with what is slowly becoming one of the most exciting outfits to emerge from San Francisco in a long while.
Reinhardt is the alter ego of Jesse Reiner who played in Crime In Choir and Ascended Master, as well as serving as one of the guitarists in Citay, whom he recently parted ways with so he could focus all his attention on this project. He's really managed to find his inner Klaus Schulze with this record creating an album that shimmers and pulsates with strength and grace. Like the best of '70s era Tangerine Dream with the ominous moments of Goblin and healthy nods to Cluster and Harmonia this is sure to please fans of spaced out propelling cosmic adventures in sound. It seems as this was recorded before the live version of the band was formed as recent live shows finds Jonas Reinhardt catching much more of a groove as they create 'kraut style' dance parties with totally thrilling results. We can't wait to hear them capture that side of their sound on tape, but until then this is a really great beginning of what we have a feeling will be a long running and rewarding project!
MPEG Stream: "Lord Sleep Monmouth"
MPEG Stream: "Every Terminal Evening"
MPEG Stream: "Tandem Suns"

SCHIFRIN, LALO Enter The Dragon OST (Collectors Choice) cd 13.98
Lalo Schrifin's second most famous soundtrack after Mission Impossible (he also scored Dirty Harry, Cincinnati Kid and Cool Hand Luke among others) is this monster score for Enter The Dragon. The hit film is a perennial cult favorite that not only launched the Kung Fu Martial Arts Film craze in America but made its star Bruce Lee a legend due to his untimely death six months before the movie was released. But for avid readers of Wax Poetics, this score resonates amongst hip hop aficionados and sample heads alike for its thrilling combinations of jazz tension, funk breaks, wah guitars and far eastern musical motifs, not to mention Bruce Lee's battle cries peppered throughout. Hip hop and martial arts have often kept close quarters from Dolemite to the Wu Tang Klan, and this score just may be ground zero for the marriage of both those worlds.
HaiyaHHHHHHHH!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Theme From Enter The Dragon"
MPEG Stream: "The Human Fly"
MPEG Stream: "Broken Mirrors"

SECRET ABUSE Violent Narcissus (Not Not Fun) lp 16.98
After releasing over a dozen tapes and 7"s, Violent Narcissus is the latest release from Jeffery Witscher, the man behind Secret Abuse, and it's a sizzling heap of buzzing electronics and blown out radiance. Heavy, damaged Iowa city drone scapes. We didn't think it was even possible, but Secret Abuse manages to conjure the perfect dose of harsh bliss. Densely layered walls of fuzz and sizzle that boil over hushed melodies, the lp is equal parts gorgeous and abrasive. Unlike past releases we've heard that don't veer too far from the harsh noise territory, Violent Narcissus adds a bit more to the formula. With some decipherable guitar passages and lush drones buried in blown-out goodness, the album is pleasantly abrasive. Talk about aural cleansing! Highly abusive. Highly recommended.

SEGALL, TY s/t (Castle Face) cd 13.98
Holy shit this record totally floors us! We're not the most easily moved and impressed when it comes to most garage rock that we hear these days so a record really has to be packed with explosive energy and endless hooks to win us over, but oh my lord Ty Segall makes us want to be locked in a small and sweaty garage while he belts out his one man band jams and makes us jump and sweat and lose ourselves like only true rock n' roll has the power to do. We knew that Ty was something special ever since we heard his homemade and way out of print cassette Horn The Unicorn and saw him play in countless charming and kick ass bands (Traditional Fools, Epsilons, Party Fowl, etc.) all before even being 21 years old.
There is a difference between being retro and making music that is timeless and Ty Segall's full length debut falls perfectly in the latter category. This could have been recorded in '81, '91 or today and it would still hold up and blow us away. All the songs are around two minutes, no wasted space allowed, total urgency filled with punk spirit and pop songwriting chops that set him head and shoulders above so much of the current garage flock. We bet labels like Swami or In The Red wish they had put out this record and it makes such perfect sense that it's being released on Jon Dwyer's label as there is a similar spirit to the energetic and frantic sounds he created in The Coachwhips and the crafty songwriting and right on lo-fi production he employs with The Ohsees. Drenched in reverb and full of such a vibrant punch we hear hints of everything from Hasil Adkins to The Rip Offs and Thee Headcoatees but most of all we hear the emergence of one of the most exciting new voices in modern day, sweat soaked, soul filled rock n roll!
MPEG Stream: "Go Home"
MPEG Stream: "Oh Mary"
MPEG Stream: "So Alone"

SHIZUKA Live/Traditional (PSF) cd 16.98
Live in '95. Hmm, I think maybe that was right about when some of us here at AQ saw this Japanese psych band, they came to SF and played an amazing show at the Kilowatt, back when they had shows there. Tokyo's Shizuka, with their haunting female vocals drifting ahead of an inevitable onslaught of noisy, billowing, distorto-delic electric guitar murk, were one of the '90s precursors to such current bands as LSD-march, Suishou No Fune, and Up-Tight. At the time, we compared 'em to Angel 'In Heavy Syrup and Slapp Happy Humphrey, the latter especially 'cause of Shizuka's extreme mix of delicacy and destructiveness, of melancholic melody and sheer, feedback-laden guitar/amp/earhole abuse. Not abuse, though, not really... it's loud, sculpted sound that's actually quite beautiful. As with so many Japanese bands from the PSF/Tokyo Flashback scene, it's like a cotton candy dream of the most out there Neil Young & Crazy Horse amplifier meltdowns (a la Arc). This raw (but not to Rallizes-like levels of low fidelity) 52 minute live set is Shizuka in their element, and even if you've never heard 'em before wouldn't be a bad place to start, at all. The first song alone should make you a believer if you're at all open to this sort of thing (i.e. maybe already a fan of some of the other bands mentioned above). And it is 26 and a half minutes long! That's the biggest blow-out on the disc, the other three tracks trafficking more in the tranquil side of Shizuka, with long slow-moving stretches of sweet vocals backed by echo and hum and hiss as the shoegazing guitar bides its time before finally erupting into full flight.
And of course, those already into Shizuka know they're one of the best, unique within the pantheon, and should be pleased have another rare document of their sad dark mystery.
MPEG Stream: "Shizuka live track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Shizuka live track 2"

SOUVENIRS YOUNG AMERICA / CITY OF SHIPS Split 12" (The Perpetual Motion Machine) 12" 12.98
We went a little nuts for the debut release from Anduin a while back, the project of Souvenir's Young America keyboardist Jonathan Lee, taking SYA's Western tinged post rock doom, and stretching it out into something much more subtle and ambient. But SYA is back to remind us just why we were so into Lee and his crew in the first place, with two brand new tracks of sweeping epic, spacious and cinematic post rock, rivaling and perhaps surpassing any of their more well known contemporaries.
The guitars chime and ring out, the drums propulsive and subtly mathy, lots of deserty ambience, moody melodic swoon, crunchy almost metal guitars here and there, haunting blissed out stretches of soft strummy drift, slippery slide guitar and pulsing electronics. There are some haunting processed vocals, distant and heavily effected, tribal rhythms, lots of space, little bits of glitch here and there, slightly doomy, with a distinct twang, gorgeous and dark, but always mysterious and hauntingly dreamy. Can't wait for the next full length.
The flipside features a new (to us at least) group called City Of Ships, who prove to be a pretty good match for SYA, starting their side with some washed out ambience, glimmering guitar harmonies, shimmery cymbal washes, all before the band kick in and get all mathy with tangled squiggly guitar leads and hard hitting complicated drumming. And unlike SYA, City Of Ships are NOT instrumental, the vocals a raspy croon that get more and more wild eventually veering into almost emo territory, the sound a mix of June Of 44 and a mellower Neurosis. Long stretches of mellowy meandering peppered with jagged bursts of crunch and pound, the tracks building to seriously epic climaxes with grinding metallic guitars, angular and sharp, with howled vocals and wild chaotic drums. Good stuff.
Packaged in a super swank fold over 2 color hand screened gold colored sleeve, each one hand numbered, with a photocopied insert, and LIMITED TO ONLY 300 COPIES!!!

SPEKTR Mescalyne (Debemur Morti Prodcutions) 10" 15.98
Outsider black metal industrialists Spektr offer up their most recent record on vinyl for the first time, housed in a super thick sleeve, pressed on heavy heavy vinyl and of course INCREDIBLY LIMITED!!
Here's our review of the cd from last year:
In the AQ pantheon of fucked up freaked out damaged weirdo black metal, we're constantly having to re-assess which band or which record is truly the MOST fucked up, the most damaged. And it can change in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, deeper listening reveals some until now hidden reserve of completely what-the-fuck-ness in a record we already considered a classic, other times, a band who maybe was never all that weird, will unleash a new record that is utterly confounding, and the bands that tend to be our favorites, seem to keep pushing the limits of the genre, continually subverting the classic sound of black metal until it's all but recognizable. In many cases, we're surprised that some of those bands continue to be loved by metalheads. Necrofrost, Furze, Striborg, Blut Aus Nord, Dead Reptile Shrine, and of course Spektr, who with each new release, jumps right to the front of the pack. Mescalyne is no different.
Were this not a 4 song ep, we'd probably already be trumpeting this as black metal record of the year, and heck, we might as well proclaim it black metal EP of the year. Even considering that black metal is only one small part of their overall, twisted and blackened sound.
As always, very little information anywhere, just some cryptic photos, and the band introduced like this: "Thus, Speller are:". One member Hth, is credited with Infra B. Disturbance, lead and rhythm anomalies, programming, sampling and vox, while kl.K is credited with percussive manifest, sampling, programming, words of spell and vox. So with all that programming and sampling, you can safely assume, that the weirdness here has much to do with electronics and processing, but it's not as simple as all that. Spektr's vision is a gnarled chaotic tangle of impossible rhythms, backwards guitars, black ambience, and FURIOUS black buzz. It sounds a bit like someone computer was hooked up to the guys in Deathspell Omega, and was sucking various black bits from their bodies and electronically weaving them into some sort of blackened beast, hellbent on destroying the world.
A mad scientist, working with black metal, in some hidden fortress, creating some Frankensteinian buzzing behemoth, a lurching, skittering blown out riffed monstrosity.
The opener, "Hollow Contact", begins with dark ambient swirls, some industrial moan and creak, a bit of metallic drumming, giving way to an incredible fierce and in the red blast of black metal fury, the drums machine gun fast, the riffs so blurred and buzzy, they're almost a continuous drone, some weird dynamics, with the guitars flipped backwards, and then chunks of tangled arpeggiated woozy blackness sent drifting into the void.
The second track is just as strange, beginning with an almost typical black metal drum beat, but beneath a layer of what sounds like record crackle, static, and hiss, and all sorts of whirring buzzing ambience off in the distance, separated by thick blasts of nearly impenetrable black buzz, until the song splinters into a stuttering hiccupping stop start breakdown, all tangled warped guitar parts, backwards drums, tons of space, and that weird blast of gnarled twisted riffage punctuating the slow crawl. The third track is all ambient, a dark confusional sprawl of black whirs, and disembodied sounds, mysterious voices, which leads perfectly into the final track, the mellowest of the bunch, still with that same sort of unhinged Deathspell sound, but more spread out, more sort of Ved Buens Ende-y, a sort of post rock groove overlaid with those woozy guitars, and some haunting industrial ambience, finally erupting into some hyperspeed buzzing blackthrash, even then, constantly pulled apart into the opening guitar vs. drums dizziness, finishing off with a haunting minute of high end drone, and hushed, panicked whispering.
Words barely do this stuff justice. Listen to the sound samples. The sound of Mescalyne manages to be futuristic, and spaced out but still grim and black. Buzzy and brutal, but atmospheric and cinematic. This is the kind of fucked up forward thinking music, filmmakers should be using to score their films. Eyes closed, Mescalyne is a terrifying nightmare ride, through some hellish futuristic underworld, and needless to say another addition to the aQ fucked up black metal pantheon. And most probably, black metal ep of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Hollow Contact "
MPEG Stream: "Mescalyne"

SPEKTR The Near Death Experience (Debemur Morti Productions) lp 19.98
Finally on vinyl, 2006's The Near Death Experience from French industrial black metal weirdos Spektr. Outrageously deluxe packaging, super thick gatefold sleeve, printed inner sleeve, a huge 12"x12" booklet of art and photos, pressed on incredibly heavy white vinyl and of course VERY VERY LIMITED!!!!
Here's our review of TNDE when it first came out:
There's a certain strain of black metal, that concerns itself more with black than metal, more with texture than heaviness, more with mood than any sort of musical rules. Those are precisely the sorts of black metal bands that send us spinning. Bands that transcend their genre, or are seemingly oblivious to the fact that they might belong to any genre at all. Such is the case with mysterious black metal outfit Spektr. We discovered their debut a couple years back and proudly proclaimed it THE WEIRDEST BLACK METAL RECORD EVER. Since then it's been practically raining bizarre black metal, Furze, Rehtaf Ruo, Dead Reptile Shrine, Hidden, Urfaust, Circle Of Ouroborus, all most definitely black, but each with their own take on what black metal means. And sounds like.
This new Spektr record, however, takes up right where the last one left off, and effortlessly out-weirds them all. But their mission is not to be weird. This is not calculated, purposeful, ironic, or in any way untrue to their vision. And it's not that sort of damaged inept weirdness. The music is too dense, and complex and varied and lush and just too impossibly and truly weird to be anything but the musical expression of someone's twisted vision. It's like how truly insane people are the ones who don't realize they're insane. And Spektr are most definitely insane.
The cool thing about Spektr, is that they seem to be some sort of experimental ambient project, with occasional bursts of black metal, as opposed to the other way around. More than half the record seems to be made up of drones, and static and white noise and intercepted transmissions, short wave radio, found sounds, soft subtle rumbles and strange rhythmic interference. When the metal does kick in, it tends towards a seasick lurching midtempo buzz, a lumbering blackened beast, that sort of stumbles and careens wildly out of control, occasionally slipping into a galloping blast, but quickly settling back into a slow sort of lope. Their metal is just off kilter enough to balance their experimental tendencies, and Spektr don't shy away from busting out with a black blast for only a few second before getting back to the drone at hand. And oh the drones! The gloriously twisted ambience. So dense and multilayered. Creaking and crackling, swelling and slithering, often punctuated by industrial pounding, strange rhythms, glitchy hiccups and stutters, but just as often a smoldering warble, a low end dirge of glacial hum and creepy crawly gurgle and whir, voices drift up from the murk, as do strange song fragments and bits of malfunctioning electronics, it's like walking through some black skied wasteland, the ground strewn with all manner of debris, the air thick with smoke and ash, The view fuzzy and indistinct, distant tolling bells, cymbal sizzle that sounds like sprinklers in a moonlit field, all these bits of sound, these ambient fragments, woven together into a truly ominous world of dark sound, the background to a truly bleak and buzzy black metal framework. The more we listen to this, the less -weird- it seems, scary maybe, haunting, harrowing, dark, dreary, creepy, ominous, ghostly, unnerving, and mysterious most certainly, oh okay, and quite a little bit weird too.
A definite contender for our favorite new black metal record!
MPEG Stream: "The Violent Stink Of Twitching Terror"
MPEG Stream: "His Mind Ravaged, His Memory Shattered"
MPEG Stream: "Whatever The Case May Be"

SWEAT LODGE Demo Cassette (The Perpetual Motion Machine) cassette 3.50
They don't make music like this any more. At least not much. But it seems that in some little corner of Virginia (let's call it Richmond), there's a healthy scene of emo/screamo/punk rock/post punk whatever the fuck you want to call it happening, and all we know is it's noisy and heavy and chaotic and angular and mathy and we love it. There are probably tons of little scenes like this all over, and if you're in one, then by all means send us some music. But for now we'll keep digging deeper into this particular scene. We listed the debut cd from Richmond's The Catalyst recently, and holy shit did that record kick our asses, and now we have Sweat Lodge, who take a lot of the same influences, old Amrep, Drive Like Jehu, San Diego Gravity style screamo, all sorts of post punk, and pack it into 6 songs in ten minutes, angular, frenzied, frenetic, heavy, lots of parts, throat shredding vocals, freaked out drumming, guitars that chug and crunch and squeal, and even some actual hooks snuck in there.
By now you know if this is your cup of tea or not, it's most definitely ours.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!! The packaging is super complex, intricate line drawings, water colored, printed on beige cardstock and hand cut into an elaborate fold out sleeve, really really cool!

VELEBNY, KAREL SHQ (ESP-Disk) cd 14.98
The first thing you notice about this ESP reissue is the amazing cover photo, featuring the artist, with a sort of Hitler moustache, sunglasses and sideburns, in a hospital bed after hitting a tree in his car. The poor soul in the bed is Karel Velebny, one of the most prominent composers in Czech, who when invited to record for ESP was asked by label head Bernard Stollmann to "Take it as far out as you can". So far so good.
And while the record itself isn't really THAT far out, it is a pretty fantastic chunk of flute flecked free jazz, light on the skronk, heavy on bop and mood and texture. The opener, "The Uhu Sleeps Only During The Day" starts out all hushed and atmospheric, mostly vibes and fluttery flute, rubbery bass, lots of space, the instruments drifting in space, a wild flute freakout ushers in the band, and away we go, the drums shuffle and skitter, the flute ships wildly over the top, the bass and piano all tangled up, the vibes anchoring the whole track. The second track "Joachim Is Our Friend" is another cool groove, lots of vibes, Velebny handles both vibes and sax (as well as occasional clarinet), a whole lot more sax this time around, some cool stretches of just drums and vibes, with a sort of far out exotica feel, and a super tripped out bass solo.
"Beetles On The Head" begins with some cool saxophone harmonies, before slipping once again into some serious post Bird bop, the sound is wildly melodic, dense and complex, with a serious groove. In "Waldi On The Castle Steps", Velebny and his crew channel the spirit of Ornette Coleman, banging out a super dynamic, and ultra rhythmic workout, culminating in a bad ass drum solo. And finally, the record closer, "Andulko Safarova" finishes off with a somber elegiac drift, all long tones and notes, lots of moaning low end, strange harmonics, until the instruments drop out, leaving a cacophony of creaks and croaks, which gives way to what sounds like detuned guitar, until the flute begins a flight of fancy over deep low droning tones, creating woozy harmonies beneath a brief haunting spoken outro. Very strange for sure, and pretty far out after all.
MPEG Stream: "The Uhu Sleeps Only During The Day"
MPEG Stream: "Joachim Is Our Friend"
MPEG Stream: "Andulko Safarova"

WICKED KING WICKER Flydust (Noiseville) lp 14.98
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite new band.
Flydust is WKW's latest offering, two tracks, both taking up a whole side, each a harrowing black expanse of crumbling, buzzing, churning heaviness. A sprawling, bottomless sea of throbbing, pulsing downtuned lowend buzz, roiling distorted drones, all murky and muddy and smeared into constantly shifting layers and textures, abrasive and chaotic, but washed out into a single heaving organic black expanse. Over the top, a weirdly motorik drumbeat, locked into a neverending rhythm, looped and hypnotic, and over that, super creepy vocals, equal parts death metal gurgle, and tortured anguished howl. The sound is mostly monochromatic, but the sounds shift and the textures transform, moments of melody surface here and there amidst the long stretches of near static blur and buzz, the vocals almost like another instrument, another black layer, all tangled up into an abject, blackened and brutal otherworldly kraut-doom. Harrowing, mesmerizing, buzzing, grinding and blown out, fucked up and abrasive, but simultaneously hypnotic and in its own brutal and punishing way, strangely beautiful.
VINYL ONLY. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one has a hand drawn inner sleeve, customized (i.e. scribbled on) by the band, every one unique.

WICKED KING WICKER s/t (Noiseville) cd 12.98
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite new band.
This WKW's self titled debut, and is in some ways even heavier and more blown out than Flydust (reviewed elsewhere on this list). The root sound is similar, a heaving morass of crumbling superdistorted guitars, but where as Flydust is murky and muddy and washed out, the sound here is prickly and cacophonous, abrasive and sort of sharp. The sound is also more propulsive, more distinct riffs, dripping with in-the-red distortion and twisted FX. The opening track is one single ascending riff, looped over and over and over and over, pounding its way through a dense cloud of impossibly thick buzz, the drums a buried plod, the vocals, barely audible through the churning mass of unfurling riffs and a constantly expanding wall of sound. The strange thing is, there is a definite groove lurking underneath, loping and lurching, but groovy nonetheless. Think Godflesh or Pitchshifter mixed with Ramleh and Wolf Eyes, but super charged and revved up, and dipped in a psychedelic concoction of tripped out prismatic psychrock filigree and blown out amp destroying drone drenched doom.
But the second track is a whole different beast altogether, a stretched out slowed down distorted riff, unfurled in slow motion, very reminiscent of Earth 2, but peppered with simple spare drumming, only barely, until about halfway through when the sound is swallowed up but a wall of distorted sound much more like the opening track, and suddenly the sound is transformed into a blown out acid-doused blast of crumbling blacknoise.
The last two tracks offer up more of the same, varying degrees of forward momentum, of spaced out ur-drone, of in-the-red effects, pounding abstract percussion, all draped over near static whitenoise buzz, weird krauty grooves, woozy metallic crawls, pulsing metallic ambience, and heavy heavy hypnotic dirgedoomdronemusick.
The lp is limited to 490 copies, pressed on purple vinyl, the cd is limited to 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Faith Through Fear"
MPEG Stream: "Through A Soul, Darkly"

WICKED KING WICKER s/t (Noiseville) lp 14.98
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Sunn 0))), Skullflower, Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite new band.
This WKW's self titled debut, and is in some ways even heavier and more blown out than Flydust (reviewed elsewhere on this list). The root sound is similar, a heaving morass of crumbling superdistorted guitars, but where as Flydust is murky and muddy and washed out, the sound here is prickly and cacophonous, abrasive and sort of sharp. The sound is also more propulsive, more distinct riffs, dripping with in-the-red distortion and twisted FX. The opening track is one single ascending riff, looped over and over and over and over, pounding its way through a dense cloud of impossibly thick buzz, the drums a buried plod, the vocals, barely audible through the churning mass of unfurling riffs and a constantly expanding wall of sound. The strange thing is, there is a definite groove lurking underneath, loping and lurching, but groovy nonetheless. Think Godflesh or Pitchshifter mixed with Ramleh and Wolf Eyes, but super charged and revved up, and dipped in a psychedelic concoction of tripped out prismatic psychrock filigree and blown out amp destroying drone drenched doom.
But the second track is a whole different beast altogether, a stretched out slowed down distorted riff, unfurled in slow motion, very reminiscent of Earth 2, but peppered with simple spare drumming, only barely, until about halfway through when the sound is swallowed up but a wall of distorted sound much more like the opening track, and suddenly the sound is transformed into a blown out acid-doused blast of crumbling blacknoise.
The last two tracks offer up more of the same, varying degrees of forward momentum, of spaced out ur-drone, of in-the-red effects, pounding abstract percussion, all draped over near static whitnoise buzz, weird krauty grooves, woozy metallic crawls, pulsing metallic ambience, and heavy heavy hypnotic dirgedoomdronemusick.
The lp is limited to 490 copies, pressed on purple vinyl, the cd is limited to 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Faith Through Fear"
MPEG Stream: "Through A Soul, Darkly"

WINDSURF Coastlines (Internasjonal) cd 17.98
Couldn't be a more perfect name for this bay area duo who craft such breezy cosmic delights. Samuel Grawe who also plays in Hatchback and Daniel Judd whose record as Sorcerer last year was one of our favorite electronic releases of '07 have created the perfect sounds for a beachside disco party at sunset. Released on a new label run by Prins Thomas, they inject such a refreshing and easy approach to creating cosmic flowing sounds that really do bring images of waves, sand and shimmering coastlines to mind.
There are a couple tracks with vocals that kind of make us think of the Sea & Cake collaborating with Lindstrom, but they are at their best when they let their warm orbiting sounds find that perfect wave to ride into infinity. While most of the current crop of neo-disco cosmic peddlers tend to project a more cold and late-night vibe we think much more about how rad it would be to get to hear Windsurf play in the afternoon as we sprawl out on the warm sand and let their mellow grooves carry us off in daydreams with such delight.
MPEG Stream: "Pocket Check"
MPEG Stream: "Future Warriors"
MPEG Stream: "Light As Daylight"

WINTERFYLLETH Ghost of Heritage (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
Part of a new(ish) metal movement in the UK, Winterfylleth, along with Fen and Wodensthrone (who share a member or two) are spearheading a wave of Neo-Pagan black metallism, that entails, lyrically, plenty of nature and Anglo-Saxon history, while sonically channeling a sound similar to heathen BM combos Drudkh, but sprinkled liberally with the Viking vibes of Enslaved. In fact, besides the fact that Winterfylleth are from the UK, they do often sound criminally like a Viking horde from Norway, plenty of chanting vocals, deep crooning, sea sick tempos swaying to and fro, long stretches of washed out acoustic folk, but WF also manage to supercharge that sound plenty of the time, slipping easily into furious black blasts as easily as they slip right back into some Nordic style chant.
The sound is dense, the guitars crunchy and thick, the atmosphere alternatingly grim and foresty, black and brutal, the drums loud in the mix, the vocals a harsh raspy howl (when they're not a crooning or chanting that is), the tempos hover mostly around the mid, but do lurch into frenzied bursts of maniacal buzz, as well as sometimes slowing all the way down to a doomic lope. When the band lock into a stretch of classic black metal buzz, they definitely remind us of prime era Darkthrone, but even then, often unexpectedly the band will introduce clean singing, or some strange melody, or spew out some super tangled chunk of blackened psych, and that's when Winterfylleth really shine, when their various influences mix and blur, creating some new, less easily defined strain of black metal, yet one that still hews close enough to its various roots to appeal to the various black factions. Repeated listens definitely reveal more and more, the songs open up and become deeper, more layered, more complexy, melodies surface, what was once blasting and black, becomes strange shades of buzzing grey, the acoustic tracks sound gorgeous, timeless, like old school British folk, with the guitars wreathed in sun dappled reverb, and unfurling lilting minor key melodies, often immediately giving way to huge churning blackened almost-grooves, or exploding into full bore, blown out black metal grimnity.
Fans of Enslaved, Negura Bunget, Drudkh, and the like will definitely dig...
MPEG Stream: "Mam Tor (The Shivering Mountain)"
MPEG Stream: "The March To Maldon"
MPEG Stream: "Brithnoth: The Battle Of Maldon (991 AD)"

YAHOWHA 13 Sonic Portation (Prophase Music) cd 19.98
Time to don your white robes, brush out your white beards, and slip on your headbands. Yahowa has returned! Well, no, not Father Yod, who perished in a hang gliding accident 33 years ago, but the psychedelic rock band of mortals who survive him: the legendary Yahowa 13! Now the core tribal trio of Djinn Aquarian (guitar), Octavius Aquarian (drums), and Sunflower Aquarian (bass). And they definitely have kept the faith, white robes and headbands and all, biding their time up on Mount Shasta or at Rainbow Gatherings or maybe out in astral space, until the stars were right and the time had come for the music of the Yahowa 13 to again surge forth spreading the word of Yod. Who would have thunk it possible? That they'd be back, and so damn good too?
We wouldn't have believed it, either, but we saw 'em with our own eyes, when they hung out at Aquarius one afternoon not too long ago for a book signing, and then played a fantastic show (well, except for when Sky Saxon joined them on stage, but that's another story...) at the Cafe du Nord that same night. Wow. (There's a live LP document of that show, actually, entitled Feather Of Wisdom, that we haven't ever listed but do still have a few copies of in stock, act quick if you want one!).
Yep, Sonic Portation, their first studio album in over 30 years, is good. Better even than several of the original Yahowa discs in the totemic God And Hair box set! Seriously. The track record of bands from the distant past "getting the band back together" and doing something worthwhile is often dismal, with some pleasant exceptions (like Trad Gras Och Stenar, of whom this reminds us!). So that this is so good is a sweet blessing. A blessing consisting of hypnotically throbbing, head nodding, guitar-heavy psych rock in service to the power of Yod, his presence still felt. It begins with the longest of the six jams on the disc, "E Ah Oh Shin", pushing 12 minutes. The other songs are shorter, though we'd be happy if they'd gone on longer... the completely enthralling, choppily rhythmic chant of "Yod Hey Vau Hey", which we recall as a highlight of their live show, is here only a mere, uh, 4:20. Of course the whole album flows together in a spiritual and improvisatory trance-state anyway. The sorta Circle-ish rhythm section gets into a groove around which Djinn's guitar does various far out things. From shimmering blissfulness (he plays with a feather, sometimes) to heavy washes of distortion, Djinn's sound hints at everything from surf music to oldies garage rock n' roll to the Sun City Girls. The group's music is mostly instrumental, with some weird vocals chanting or growling in the background once in a while. But the instrumental interplay is key. The Higher Key.
We started off this review with the assumption that this would be for folks already hip to the whole Ya Ho Wa thing (as so many AQ customers are). But even if you -weren't- already a knowledgeable fan of this group's cult (in more than one way) output from the '70s, when they existed as the musical arm of The Source, an LA religious commune led by the charismatic, bearded guru known as Father Yod, we'd recommend this. Heck if this wasn't Yahowa 13, but some kids named Crystal Master Antjler or something, we'd still be all over it. As would Arthur magazine, and all the hippy hipsters of today. Make it a limited edition cd-r release, with handmade covers, and tell us it's some spaced out new band from of freaks from Finland or Japan, and we'd be convinced. Seriously (again). We always have said the original Ya Ho Wa stuff was the closest West Coast American psych came to the best krautrock, and again this is krautrock like Acid Mothers Temple is krautrock. Three decades later, their love and dedication shines through. Whatever you think of religious cultish hippyish stuff, it's kinda heartening that these guys are still so into it! And we're into it too. What a fantastic reunion. Most mystically recommended!!!
PS for those who want to learn more about Ya Ho Wa, we still have copies of the aforementioned book, The Source.... look up our review elsewhere on this site.
MPEG Stream: "Yod Hey Vau Hey"
MPEG Stream: "Raga Nova"

YO MAJESTY Futuristically Speaking... Never Be Afraid (Domino) cd 14.98
Two Live Crew meets Le Trim with the politics of Bikini Kill - Hell Yeah! These three bold and brave women from Florida have created that hip-hop record we always wished existed. Tearing down the often misogynistic and homophobic content of the modern hip-hop scene without a sense of fear or apology and all the while creating tracks that are so damn fierce and on fire. Crunk meets riot grrrl in such fun and pleasing ways! With their super dirty mouths, pumping infectious beats and a spirit that can't be denied it was confusing to find out that some of them identify as being Christians, but that all seems to be irrelevant as their music is so bumping and it's own beast. Their live shows are already legendary, known for playing without their shirts on as they shake their large and in charge bodies with no shame in their game. They've already gained big name fans likes The Gossip and CSS and what makes them so great is that they are equal parts full on fun and full on fire. They don't come off as preachy or uptight, quite the contrary, their songs aim to empower and shake a whole lot of booty in the process and they succeed with flying colors!
MPEG Stream: "Club Action"
MPEG Stream: "Never Be Afraid"
MPEG Stream: "Blame It On The Change"

YOUNGER LOVERS, THE Newest Romantic Lp + The California Soul E.P. (Retard Disco / Raw Sugar) cd 9.98
Full on d.i.y. scrappy and delicious garage punk jams brewed up by the Bay Area's own Brontez, best known for being in Gravy Train and beloved by many for his amazing DJ nights (such great taste in music!) and his overall contagious inviting and exciting spirit and high energy. Ever since moving to the bay from Alabama several years ago he's injected such a great bolt of sexually charged queer spirit into what can often be such a straight and white dominated punk rock scene. In true punk fashion he taught himself how to play guitar and with Gravy Train on a bit of a hiatus had songs pouring out of him that begged for a home so The Younger Lovers was born.
His covers of The Rip-Off's and The Replacements show how he loves his rock n roll to be loud, fast, scrappy and full of relentless energy. We love how honest and direct his lyrics are, whether coming clean about his wandering heart in "Ballad For All My Bandmates And Lovers" or singing about how he can't resist a hottie in "Low Top Chucks & Skinny Jeans." You can tell that Brontez loves punk, garage and riot girl a as much as he does girl groups and sassy bubblegum pop. These are songs that are as rocking as they are endearing, making us want to jump and dance as much as they make us wanna lick an ice cream cone and have a pillow fight with a room filled with our punk rock crushes. So damn fun!
MPEG Stream: "Hey Jody"
MPEG Stream: "Kiss Me On The Bus"
MPEG Stream: "Quoting Poets"

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ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARDISO U.F.O. Glorify Astrological Martyrdom (Important) cd 14.98
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Whew, glad that still works. It's been XXX since the last AMT cd, Journey Into The Cosmic Inferno, after all. We were getting worried. (Though, we did have a dvd from them on the last list...). But never fear, AMT is here, again. Actually, AMT is probably out on tour somewhere in the world, and this new cd is more product for their groaning merch table. Ensconced inside a package boasting swank Seldon Hunt cover artwork, you get three new, long, studio recorded tracks, with (as usual) fairly absurd titles. Try these on for size: "Phantom Utopia Or Suicidal Star Warriors", "Cosmic Soul Death Disco", and "Stargate Of The Hell"!!
When the 22 minute track one starts off, you'll be like, woah, heavy. It's a ploddingly paced, lumbering grey grinding dirge, claustrophobically encumbered with swirling, spaced out FX. Definitely in the AMT tradition, and not far from the SUNNO)))-like heaviness of their Recurring Dream & Apocalypse Of Darkness album earlier this year. The second track, however, while equally awash in FX, and just as amped in the guitar dep't, is more of a rocker, throbbing (and babbling, there's vox on this one) a bit like Circle, on their way down the rabbit hole. Kawabata's acid rock guitar dances (or does battle) for the duration with the synthy zips and zaps swooping about, it's another long (29 minute), loud trip indeed.
After all this glorious sprawling psychedelic mayhem, what do we get for a coda? A concentrated dose of the same! The third and final track is a mere 5 minutes but crams in even more frantic FX and acidic guitar squiggle, before the final 30 seconds or so reminds us what bliss a simple vibrating hiss can be, as it fades out and leaves the listener waiting for their next transmission. This one, though, is good for many more spins as well, in fact it's practically spinning by itself even when not in the cd player due to all the cosmic chaos contained within it.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Utopia Or Suicidal Star Warriors"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Soul Death Disco"

ADAMS, RYAN AND THE CARDINALS Cardinology (Lost Highway) cd 14.98
Why mess with a good thing, right? Well, Ryan Adams' not known to be one to follow that advice, but it seems like he has with his latest full length. He's kept on track with his great backing band The Cardinals. Sounding totally at ease, they really seem to ground him with their exceptionally sound foundation. Although throughout his contrivance-riddled past we've been forced to be somewhat suspicious of the sincerity when he dons his 'sensitive guy' persona. Here, the haunting melancholia and sweet sentiments of some of the quieter songs such as "Cobwebs" and "Evergreen" ring true. Also, unlike his former tendencies to churn out album after album with nary a breath in between, he and the band took their time with Cardinology (*gasp* almost a year!). The album itself take its time too, unwinding at a laidback reflective pace. A hushed fine follow-up to the Americana goodness that was his Follow The Light cdep.
MPEG Stream: "Cobwebs"
MPEG Stream: "Evergreen"

ADAMS, RYAN AND THE CARDINALS Cardinology (Lost Highway) lp 17.98
Why mess with a good thing, right? Well, Ryan Adams' not known to be one to follow that advice, but it seems like he has with his latest full length. He's kept on track with his great backing band The Cardinals. Sounding totally at ease, they really seem to ground him with their exceptionally sound foundation. Although throughout his contrivance-riddled past we've been forced to be somewhat suspicious of the sincerity when he dons his 'sensitive guy' persona. Here, the haunting melancholia and sweet sentiments of some of the quieter songs such as "Cobwebs" and "Evergreen" ring true. Also, unlike his former tendencies to churn out album after album with nary a breath in between, he and the band took their time with Cardinology (*gasp* almost a year!). The album itself take its time too, unwinding at a laidback reflective pace. A hushed fine follow-up to the Americana goodness that was his Follow The Light cdep.
MPEG Stream: "Cobwebs"
MPEG Stream: "Evergreen"

BASS COMMUNION II/III (Beta-lactam) 2cd 19.98
This double disc set from Steve Wilson's Bass Communion project reissues the second and third albums, both unavailable for some time now. II was originally released on Hidden Art back in 1998, and III had been an on-demand cd-r which Wilson offered through his website back in 2001.
On II, an elegiac violin spirals into a chorale loop with itself and sympathetic melodies, as a soft crackle of what could be icy rain or maybe even downtuned surface noise on a piece of vinyl. In many ways, this fits neatly next to the orchestrations that Godspeed! You Black Emperor were creating at the time, with a slow building crescendo hitting a dark majesty before the bittersweet comedown into subterranean drones and dappled ambience. There's a lot more going on here in terms of melodic interludes and discreet flourishes of sampled horns, strings, and post-IDM electronic rhythms, especially when compared to the bleak arctic environments of such Bass Communion masterpieces as Ghosts On Magnetic Tape or Loss. But it's still gorgeous and arresting ambience.
III is a collection of ephemera, most of which had predated II, including some pieces of television that Wilson had been commissioned to compose. Given the disparate sources, III doesn't flow as nicely as the other disc; but the opening track "Amphead" is clearly one of Wilson's best pieces. It's just filtered white noise transformed into a desolate piece of sweeping dronemusik on par with anything that Thomas Koner or Keith Berry has released. Some of the other tracks hit on the Biosphere tip with synthetic strings pocked with simple electronic underpinnings; but there's also some head-rattling digi-dub harkening back to the illbient aesthetic of Scorn or DJ Spooky many moons ago.
MPEG Stream: "16 Second Swarm"
MPEG Stream: "Dwarf Artillery"
MPEG Stream: "Amphead"

BOSTON SPACESHIPS Brown Submarine (Guided By Voices) cd 14.98
Hmmm, that album title makes me think of... poop. Don't know about you, but it's not exactly what I want to have in my head while listening to music... unless it's G.G. Allin of course, but even then! Anyhoo, Boston Spaceships is yet another one of Robert Pollard's alter egos. Well, actually it's an altogether new band, a supergroup even! The band lineup includes Chris Slusarenko (also of GBV and Takeovers) and John Moen (also of Decemberists and Mr. Malkmus' Jicks). On the road, they're joined by Tommy Keene and Jason Narducy (who also plays with Bob Mould). Don't worry, it's the farthest thing from poopy. This is Pollard and co. at their loosest limbed indie rockin' fun. Reelingly garagey raucous with lots of wonkily bent electric guitar chords, lyrical silliness ("Soggy Beavers"?!), vocal yowling, primal drumming. Sounds like they had great time recording it. You might have just as much fun listening too, especially if you're a Pollard fanatic. Highlights: "Andy Playboy" and "Rat Trap"!
MPEG Stream: "Zero Fix"
MPEG Stream: "Andy Playboy"
MPEG Stream: "Rat Trap"

CHESNUTT, VIC, ELF POWER & AMORPHOUS STRUMS Dark Developments (Orange Twin) cd 15.98
Whoa, this is quite a strange gathering of peculiar musical entities, don't you think? Mr. Chesnutt's collaboration with the A Silver Mt. Zion folks last year made total sense in its beautiful bleakness. Psst, it was called North Star Deserter and we heartily recommend it! However, when we heard the names Vic Chesnutt and Elf Power and the mysterious Amorphous Strum in the same breath we were left scratching our heads. Nevertheless, we gave it a spin and found that this twisted roots rock album is for the most part really the Vic Chesnutt show. It's perfectly understandable though, no slight on Elf Power, but he's such a potent and distinct musical force all by his lonesome. Signs of that trademark Chesnutt vitriol-soaked distemper comes quickly. you need look no further than Dark Developments' second song "Little Fucker". Really, the only glimpse of even a bit of Elf Power's indie psych poppiness comes late in the proceedings in the seventh song, the slightly more quirkily layered pop tune "Bilocating Dog"! Definitely for devoted Chesnutt fans, but perhaps not the place to start if you're just getting your feet wet, nor if you're looking for a new Elf Power album!
MPEG Stream: "Little Fucker"
MPEG Stream: "Bilocating Dog"

DAME SATAN Beaches & Bridges (Ghost Mansion) cd 9.98
Dame Satan's pace is a slow lysergic creep. You might've caught a glimpse of it on their split 7" record (with Two Sheds) we carried late last year. This Bay Area band is back with their second full length. Unlike many other artists of the seemingly similar southern psych-tinged folk ilk, Dame Satan's sound, though definitely dark and dirgey, is remarkably clean and free of swampy sludge. Beaches & Bridges starts out with the album's most heady gloom number "Downstream" and gets progressively more clear-eyed and straightforward. It's almost like the band was sobering up with each subsequent song... or gently wresting itself from the clutches of a fever dream.
MPEG Stream: "Downstream"
MPEG Stream: "Oregon Trail"

DEERHUNTER Microcastle / Weird Era Continued (4AD) lp+cd 13.98
Now on vinyl!!
Due to a little thing called the interwebs (we've never heard of it), the tracks for Deerhunter's long-awaited follow-up to last years much loved Cryptograms were prematurely leaked. So to give those of us who still like their music packaged in physical formats more bang for their buck, they recorded an EXTRA full length, called Weird Era Continued, and included it (in cd form) with the vinyl as an added bonus. Very nice of them! This time around they fused their pop sensibilities and their more experimental hazy dronescape leanings together into songs that recall the best of classic 4AD shimmer with sixties wall of sound pop. There isn't too much difference between the two records, but the song-writing is strong enough and the production nuanced enough to keep our attention through both. While we might have liked some more spacier instrumental moments like the ones found on Cryptograms, it seems Bradford Cox has begun to channel his more experimental side into his other project, Atlas Sound, where it is actually better suited. Still this is pretty damn solid!
MPEG Stream: "Agoraphobia"
MPEG Stream: "Neither of Us, Uncertainly"
MPEG Stream: "Dot Gain"
MPEG Stream: "Calvary Scars II / Aux Out"

DEF LEPPARD On Through The Night (Mercury) cd 11.98
"No, Def Leppard don't suck. Their first few albums are pretty great." So we said in a postscript to our review of Savage's Loose 'N Lethal last time. Well let's put our money where our mouth is, and do what we do here, which is write about music we like, dammit. So, here's Def Leppard's 1980 debut, On Through The Night. Despite the most ridiculous "space truckin'" cover art, and Def Leppard's eventual commercial hair metal success-to-excess trajectory, this is a kick ass album. A bona fide NWOBHM classic. Not over produced and over cheesed like some of their later million sellers. Though definitely pro and polished, heavier than you'd expect, and full on rockin', right out of the gate with the anthemic call to arms "Rock Brigade". Next up is the prescient "Hello America", Def Leppard dreaming big, some keyboard synths creeping in... but they're just an embellishment on that one song alone, as there's plenty of guitar riffage to go around on this disc! Lotsa snakey licks, some slide on the big beat of "It Don't Matter". Yeah, on and on through the night you'll hear Def Lep's six stringers Steve Clark (R.I.P.) and Pete Willis duking it out over Rick Savage's bass lines and the solid (two-armed, at the time) drumming of Rick Allen. While wailing over it all are the distinctive, nasally pipes of Joe Elliott (hmm, he's credited here with "throat" just like HR in the Bad Brains).
As the NWOBHM did, Def Leppard take the '70s sounds of British arena rockers like Led Zep and UFO and inject some new vitality and purpose. Youthful energy and all that. And they had learned their lessons well. (It took a few albums into the '80s before they fully fumbled the torch they'd been passed.) There's some mellower, melancholic moments (parts of "Sorrow Is A Woman", of course, ferinstance) but nothing like a ballad, this is mostly a headbanging good time with flashes of royal majesty.
A few further comments on this record: the Leps continue to prophesize their own impending fame with the cheering crowd mixed in on the urgent "Rocks Off". And "Answer To The Master" is just a classic heavy metal song title ain't it? As is (another prophecy?) "Wasted"...
MPEG Stream: "It Could Be You"
MPEG Stream: "Answer To The Master"

DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES In Ear Park (4AD) 2lp 16.98
Now on Vinyl! Grizzly Bear fans will immediately recognize the vocal stylings and elegant moodiness of Daniel Rossen who is one half of Department Of Eagles and who has been a major presence in Grizzly Bear for the last several years, joining the band in 2004 and helping make Yellow House their best record yet. Along with his Department Of Eagles bandmate Fred Nicolaus, the duo have released several records that somehow slipped between the cracks but luckily with the widespread popularity of Grizzly Bear and their recent signing to 4AD this will be their most widely heard releases yet. And it's a good thing too, because this is such a moving record. With arrangements that sound like a more somber adaptation of Van Dyke Parks signature style or what it might sound like if Sufjan Stevens covered the more bittersweet side of Vetiver or Wings. And with most of his Grizzly Bear bandmates on board, there's no denying that In Ear Park sounds a lot like a great Grizzly Bear record, if not a bit more focused and even more emotionally impacting. Most of these songs were written after Rossen's father passed away, and there is such an honest reflection and mournful tone to these songs. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "No One Does It"
MPEG Stream: "In Ear Park"

EL CUY s/t (World In Sound) cd 23.00
Here's El Cuy, the other cool Peruvian "stoner rock" band we promised to review a few weeks back when we listed the Cosmos Kaos Destruccion disc by their countymen and labelmates La Ira De Dios. Like them, power trio El Cuy kick out some seriously FUZZED rock action! They've a bit less Hawkwindy though, more garage rawk, straight up punkish without all the extra psychedelic FX but lots of gritty guitar. Imagine a less poppy, much heavier version of the Hives. Or the Lyres. It's high energy garagey rock, too frenzied really to be your usual stoner rock. Heavy, freaky, catchy - heck downright melodic when they want, as on the surfy "El Vertigo". But usually it's all about badass riff wrangling as these ten songs speed by in a little over 35 minutes total. Muy excellente!
The booklet with this cd includes the lyrics in Spanish plus English translations.
MPEG Stream: "Animal"
MPEG Stream: "Iraqui"

EL GUINCHO Alegranza (XL) lp 13.98
We were given a heads up about El Guincho months ago by a customer who was in the store while we were playing Panda Bear. He asked us if we knew El Guincho, when we said no, he told how we had to hear it and it would blow us away and how he was like the Spanish version of Panda Bear. So now several months later El Guincho is finally seeing his record released in North America on XL, and we have to say once again, that sometimes our customers are often way more hip and in the know then we are, because this is proving to be a total store favorite! There is a huge Panda Bear influence at play but with a much more full on party sensation. This isn't headphone music, this is a record meant to come blasting out of speakers. We hear such a wide range of influences, especially the surging sonic sensations heard in Congotronics, all riled up for full pleasure.
If Panda Bear ever got to be captain of a party cruise we're pretty sure this is what it would sound like to be on that ship. Sign us up!
MPEG Stream: "Antillas"
MPEG Stream: "Kalise"
MPEG Stream: "Prez Lagarto"

FORMATT Minor Curations - 17:55 (Pseudo Arcana) 3" cd-r 8.98
A second release from the mysterious Formatt, aka Belgian sound sculptor Peter Smeekins, we relisted a back-room find elsewhere on this list, a cd-r originally reviewed 2 years ago, that we dug big time, and in discovering extra copies of that release, we also found a little stash of these 3"cd-rs, released on Antony Milton's Pseudo Arcana label, a single 17 minute track featuring another brief glimpse into Smeekins' dreamy mad scientist sound world.
Much like the other disc, the root of Smeekins' sound is soft hushed shimmers and ethereal drones, a sky full of glimmering sonic stars, all smoothed out into gorgeously languid long-form slow motion drifts, which on their won would be plenty pretty, and would definitely hit the spot for deep ambient late night drift off music, but the sounds here are not so tranquil, over the top of these glacial low end murmurs, Smeekins drapes all sorts of other sounds, that manage to add all sorts of depth and color and activity, somehow without taking away from the track's soporific stasis. Showers of crystalline sparkle, swirling soft focus clouds of grit and static, bis of hiss and pop, more layers of thrum and rumble...
At low volume, Minor Curations exists simply as a gorgeous slice of minimal electronic ambience, but strap on some headphones and it's like that ride at Disneyland where you go through the microscope into a world of atoms and molecules, Formatt takes us on a similar ride, moving slowly through layer after layer after layer emerging finally in a strange microscopic world of inner sound.
SUPER LIMITED, ALREADY OUT OF PRINT, these are the last copies ever...
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

FORMATT Re:Take_Repeat (Audiobot) cd-r 13.98
Found a stash of these, and they are WAY out of print, thus these are the last copies we'll see...
Latest release from Belgian sound manipulator Peter Smeekins aka Formatt. A dense mix of soft droney shimmer and all manner of glitch and crunch. Imagine hearing Low or some other slow motion band through a concrete wall so thick that just the bare essence makes it through, a sort of ghostly outline, a dreamy, barely audible hum, then stretch it into a gauzy soft sound blanket and spread it out over the whole record. This soft, shimmery bed is the foundation for all of Re:Take_Repeat. Over the top of this Formatt fiddles and fidgets, like some tinkering mad scientist, glitches and crackle, bursts of shortwave interference, white noise, industrial machinery, haunting EVP-like transmissions, pops and creaks, amp buzz and distant feedback, it's like some giant mysterious soundmaker upended his rusty old tool box full of sounds and dumped all of those strange sharp metallic shapes, all over the thick velvety background, like stars sparkling chaotically in the black night sky.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "Keramiek"
MPEG Stream: "Kristal"

GAZHEART (RITA ACKERMAN / DAVE NUSS) s/t (Locust) lp 23.00
We're relisting this, for two reasons, A. we have a handful left, and B. we didn't actually sell very many of these, which seemed kind of surprising cuz it's SO good. So for folks who may have passed this by when we first listed it, check it out, definitely an awesome record...
A gorgeous and mysterious one sided lp from GazHeart, a duo made up of artist Rita Ackerman, and No Neck Blues Band's Dave Nuss. The two played together in Angelblood as well, but these recordings were made after the breakup of that band, on the duo's annual trip to visit Ackerman's family in Budapest. During late nights in the backyard, with Nuss beating on coffee cans and broken bottles, Ackerman sang lyrics she had created using automatic, unmeditated writing. The results are beautiful, innocent, playful, haunting and very mysterious.
This consists of a series of short tracks, each with a slightly different tribal rhythmic component beneath Ackerman's vocals, which range from ghostly chantlike recitations, to sweet cooing, to wild wailing. The record drifts from tripped out FX drenched clang and clank beneath childlike gurgling, to campfire handdrums and sweetly almost whispered vocals, to hypnotic almost looped sounding tribal drums tangled up with breathy ethereal hum, to Casio style drum machine pitted against manic vocalizing and buzzy synth melodies, to the final track, the percussion super abstract, with chimes and bells, the vocals sung by a little girl, very cute and innocent, but also quite haunting.
Fans of Deerhoof, OOIOO, Tenniscoats and obviously No Neck and Angelblood will definitely dig.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Housed in a thick sleeve, with Ackerman drawings on both sides, each the opposite/negative of the other, printed on nice thick paper, the lp is one sides, the flipside has an original Ackerman etching. Cool.

GOLIGHTLY, HOLLY AND THE BROKEOFFS Dirt Don't Hurt (Transdreamer) cd 14.98
Miss Golightly continues on along the dusty country road she set off on her last album, 2007's You Can't Buy A Gun When You're Crying. No signs of the garage anywhere, but fear not she nails the country roots just as well and with as much grit and guts as she does the garage rawk. Her unmistakable he-done-me-wrong voice is perfect for the genre. A perfect balance of girlish sass and world weary womanly know-how, she can really belt out the blues, and The Brokeoffs are right there with her! Also for fans of The Sadies when they've got Ms Neko in tow (or vice versa)!
MPEG Stream: "Bottom Below"
MPEG Stream: "Slow Road"

GRIMM, LARKIN Parplar (Young God) cd 14.98
So it seems like you can't be a singer/songwriter these days without having a bio involving, either Eastern gurus, nomadic quests or shamanic encounters. Larkin Grimm is definitely no exception, with her lengthy bio reading more like a fairy tale then a back-story. Between growing up in rural Appalachia and hitchhiking through Alaska, the elegant songwriter's magical lifestyle has inspired her vibrant career and her latest and most promising release, Parplar. Ms. Grimm has succeeded in conjuring a sound that is solely her own, haunting finger-picked, acoustic sorcery that cuts to the bone. But don't think this album is so easy to wrap your head around, it's dense with all kinds of instrumentation and fantastical production. With some songs that are stripped down, sparse and folk oriented, and others that are rather twisted in a child-like, whimsical way. Kind of like a fucked up Disneyland nightmare, or a malfunctioning carnival ride. Really bizarre and twisted, but unique and intriguing, Parplar is finely crafted and is the perfect addition to the Young God records catalogue.
MPEG Stream: "They Were Wrong"
MPEG Stream: "Ride That Cyclone"

GURU GURU Hinten (Wah Wah) lp 29.00
This Krautock essential, available on vinyl again for a limited time...
What it is exactly that constitutes "Krautrock" is definitely up for debate. It seems often largely construed to be the insistent, motorik pulses of Neu! and Can. But to limit the genre to just that would be a mistake. Bands like Guru Guru and Ash Ra Tempel were also present, bringing some of the heaviest psychedlia ever recorded. Hinten is the former band's second album, and a classic. Free range guitars grazing on open, organic jams. It is more evidently structured than their debut, UFO, while still retaining an improvisational feel that is as playful as it is crushingly acidic. This is one of both Allan and Cameron's favorites within the genre. Halfway between killer rock riffs and complete psychedelic blow-out. Essential, though an expensive Japanese import in its current incarnation.
MPEG Stream: "Electric Junk"
MPEG Stream: "The Meaning of Meaning"

HAMILTON, SAM + CHRIS O'CONNOR Tidal Dee's And Harboured Dum's (PseudoArcana) cd-r 14.98
Found a few more of these, the last copies we'll ever have...
We've had these for a while now, but are only getting around to listing it now. And unfortunately it's been so long we can't remember any of the details about who these guys are. Web searches have revealed very little as well, but as usual, it hardly matters once we get down to the sounds, which are awesome. A stumbling noiserock, light on the noise, a sort of loping, meandering postrock, the drums simple and spare, while all over the place electronics swoop and buzz, guitars clang and chime, a sort of slowcore crossed with some abstract electronic noise... Imagine a more post rock less machinelike Geronimo, or a prettier, WAY less chaotic Dead C, woozy and weary, and washed out, slow motion math rock dipped in glitch and skree and left to wander aimlessly. Really weird and atonal but pretty and subtly tripped out. There's definitely some Godspeed moments, and some distinctly Dead C sounds (or at least NZ noise rock sounds), but the way that they're arranged, it almost sounds like a normal everyday post rock band gradually and gloriously going haywire. Hard to explain, but this dusty little back room find is suddenly a new fave!
SUPER LIMITED!!!
MPEG Stream: "Punky Rice Spirit"
MPEG Stream: "Swampy Animal People"

HBK TRIO Wallpaper (self released) dvd-r 12.98
It's a bold move to offer a debut recording as a DVD; but that's what the East Bay improv / drone / noise HBK Trio has issued forth. Well it's DVD-R; but still! This trio features such stalwarts of the Bay Area sound community as Jim Kaiser (Petit Mal, NF Orchest, French Radio) on his trusted bowed bicycle wheel and other slabs of metal, Angela Hsu (NF Orchest) on violin and electronics, and Adrian Bayless on horns and electronics. As an ensemble, the three capture the spirit of AMM or even some of the Fonal adventurousness (minus the freak folk attributes) with all of the intertwining gestures and expressive bouts of sustained tones and softened noise generated acoustically and tempered with effects. The film comes in two distinct variations; but both of which document the biodiversity of the many creatures living in the East Bay: wasps, beetles, ravens, blackbirds, ants, and bees seen amongst the hurricane fencing, train tracks, and telephone wires. Shot digitally in video, the film enjoys some very nice static shots of insects scurrying about, then with rapid cuts of ravens marauding in the sky. You might ask yourself, is this limited? Hell, yes!

HEDBERG, MITCH Do You Believe In Gosh? (Comedy Central) cd 14.98
Mitch Hedberg is the kind of comic you either get or you don't. He's not immediately "ha-ha" funny on the surface, but like a junkie version of Jerry Seinfeld, he's truly one of the few comics we could listen to over and over again and still laugh at the inane brilliance of his stoner observations. It's not so much what he says but how he says it; focusing on the small mundane details of colloquialisms and popular culture and mining them for epiphanies of absurd logic. It's hard to say had he lived longer (he died in 2005) if he would have had a bigger following, as attempts to groom him into a sit-com starring comedian didn't quite pan out. His strength was stand-up, and even then his best shows were the ones where they teetered on the brink of all-out failure (see his HBO special!). Thankfully, this killer set was recently salvaged from material that wasn't on the first two Hedberg discs. Arguably, the best recording from this sadly missed comic genius.
MPEG Stream: "Hotels and Beds"
MPEG Stream: "Texas and Seafood"

HUZUN s/t (Pseudo Arcana) cd-r 11.98
The name Huzun might not ring a bell, but for folks tuned into the experimental music scene in New Zealand or who are avid collectors of micro edition cd-r releases, you might know the names behind Huzun: Andrew Scott and Tim Coster. Andrew Scott is one half of the duo Nest, along with Nigel Wright, whose Flotter record has been a HUGE hit around here, and who shared a collaborative release last year with Mr. Coster.
So for Huzun, Scott teams up with Coster once again, this time minus Wright, for a disc of super minimal metallic melodic dronemusic. A 35 minute slow crawl through murky expanses of subterranean low end, dense clouds of slowed down whale call-like melodies buried beneath grinding swells of soft whirring blur, like exploring some lost underground city by torchlight, what sounds like bats fluttering overhead, strange sounds off in the distance like the buzz of insects, all over a deep dark rumbling like some sort of machine buried beneath the city. Haunting and harrowing, minimal and mysterious, at the same time subtly melodic and darkly mesmerizing.
More essential listening for all you dronelords and ladies...
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

IDEALIST, THE I Am The Fire (AA / Nosordo) cd 14.98
The cover of I Am The Fire depicts a lone figure crouched amidst a strange assemblage of equipment, several amps, a synthesizer, an old fashioned tape recorder, some sort of oscillator and a large square lamp illuminating the scene, while surrounding the figure and all the equipment is a light dusting of what appears to be leaves, quite evocative, and we'd like to think it's an actual photo of the creation of this disc, as the sounds here are definitely dimly lit, suffused with a mysterious glow, dark and intimate, haunting and abstract. A slow burning drone music, less minimal and more melodic, the opener sounds like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, stripped of drums, melted down and poured out into a slowly spreading pool of blackened sonic shimmer, the sound muted and softly distorted, smoldering with a strange urgency, more thick and warm than heavy, reminding us quite a bit of a less heavy Fear Falls Burning. The other tracks here definitely slip into more minimal territory, but even then, the sound is dense and organic sounding, tones and notes stretched way out and laid atop one another, alongside other sympathetic tones, unleashing clouds of rhythmic overtones and all manner of subtle colorations, drifting slow and low, glimmering dreamily, a prismatic soundfield of blacks and greys, beautifully blurred into soft focus suite of deep listening dronemusic.
MPEG Stream: "The Knifes Are My Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "To Make Exact Copies Of Every Mistake Ever Made"

JOHANNSSON, JOHANN Fordlandia (4AD) cd 13.98
Dunno what happened here, but Johann Johannsson totally blows it on Fordlandia. His previous records had tip-toed around the ideas of big Hollywood filmscores, exaggerating the emotional rigor to describe the banal, or composing quietly sad scores to counterpoint a hyperviolent play. But here, the Icelander goes for a full-on melodramatic orchestration, something that would make for the big crescendo on a Jerry Bruckheimer film. Amidst the massive string symphony, some Guitar Hero wannabe rockstar dons the role of The Edge with some tricked out delay appreggiation on his politely 'artful' riffs. Is this supposed to be ironic? Ugh.
MPEG Stream: "Fordlandia"

KING-CAT COMICS Number 69 magazine 3.00
A new issue of John Porcellino's comic always brightens our day! What's not to love? Wistful musings and gently witty ponderings and simple thin-line drawings of people, places and things. Hurrah for King-Cat!

LAGAN TAPES, THE s/t (Heart & Crossbone) cd-r 10.98
Back in stock, pretty sure these are the last copis we'll be able to get!
More amazing sonic weirdness from Israel, from the always amazing Heart & Crossbone label, who in the past have given us releases from Barbara, Lietterschpich, Cadaver Eyes, Grave In The Sky and Mildew. Lagan Tapes is the work of a duo who between the two of them are members of most of the above mentioned bands as well as Panda Porn whose disc is reviewed elsewhere on this list. One half of the duo bangs on on stuff, the other half captures it on tape, and the result is really fantastic. Not as noisy and clattery as you might expect, instead, it's rhythmic and hypnotic, a sort of junkyard Gamelan, recorded in Belfast Ireland, while walking across the Lagan River... metallic clank and rapid fire skitter, thumping on fences and garbage cans and anything else within reach, bare hands on metal, a constantly shifting set of rhythms, all captured on a broken cassette recorder, wrapping the rhythms in all sorts of lo-fi hiss and distorted buzz. Some tracks are hissy and high end, a relentless blast of clank and clatter, others are much more subdued, mellow and meandering, some tracks sound like straight up field recordings, chiming bells, the crash of metal fences, others sound like full on blown out lo-fi krautrock jams. Behind the percussive patter, you can hear all sorts of ambient sounds, voices, birds, running water, it's almost like some strange blend of avant percussion and nature recording.
The label compares the sound to MCMS, Crash Worship, Pain Teens, early 80's Sonic Youth, 23 Skidoo, Gamelan Son of Lion, but for us, the most obvious and accurate references are probably Gamelan Son Of Lion and Crash Worship, as this is all about the rhythms, the pound and pulse, the shuffle and skitter, the clang and the clatter. Hyper rhythmic and abstract, intense and mesmerizing, an incredible chunk of experimental percussion, that should of course appeal to the rhythm obsessed, but also manages to sound surprisingly musical.
Packaged in an oversized envelope with the imprint of a cassette tape pressed into the paper, inside, three oversized printed cards with photos and liner notes...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

LAMBCHOP OH (ohio) (Merge) cd 14.98
Another beautifully deeeeeep, somber lament of an album from one of Nashville's finest... Lambchop! Actually on a number of songs on OH (ohio), main man Kurt Wagner's smooth low voice reminded us quite a bit of a cross between Stuart Staples of Tindersticks and Jim Croce. In fact, if you found yourself pleasantly enveloped by the former's most recent album Hungry Saw, you might find yourself likewise captivated by OH (ohio). Steeped in melancholia and a haunting nostalgia, this is a fantastic progression from Lambchop's last full length, 2006's Damaged!
MPEG Stream: "Slipped, Dissolved And Loosed"
MPEG Stream: "A Hold Of You"

LEE, SHAWN AND CLUTCHY HOPKINS Clutch of The Tiger (Ubiquity) lp 22.00
Also now in stock on vinyl! Another cryptically groovy release from the mysterious Clutchy Hopkins. This time a long distance tape exchange collaboration between Hopkins and multi-instrumentalist and troubadour Shawn Lee. We're not sure what Lee's input is here, because this sounds just like the other Clutchy releases, with funky cinematic organ and drum breaks augmented by jazz guitars and flutes. Reminds us of Money Marks early releases as well as his work with the Beastie Boys, who funny enough are among the latest folks rumored to be the actual Clutchy Hopkins. Hmmmmmm.......
MPEG Stream: "Dollar Short"
MPEG Stream: "Across The Pond"
MPEG Stream: "Indian Burn"

LOW Santa's Coming Over (Sub Pop) 7" 4.98
No stranger to crafting holiday tunes, Low's Christmas epfrom several years ago is still a big time favorite around here come wintertime. This new 7" finds Low singing about Santa Coming Over on the 'a' side while the flipside finds them getting as close to reggae as they probably ever will with "The Coming Of Jah." Beautifully and subtly packaged with white on white embossed lettering, and it comes with a coupon for free digital downloads of the tracks. A no-brainer as a stocking stuffer.

LUCKY DRAGONS Dream Island Laughing Language (Marriage) lp 16.98
Now available on vinyl!
You are more likely to find Lucky Dragons performing in a small gallery or someone's living room or on an enchanted island then you are a conventional rock club or bar. Convention doesn't seem to be something Luke Fischbeck or Sarah Rara care much for and their music and vivid imagination is all the better for it. While this is a record that brings together so many ideas and influences it's strength is in how seamless and succinctly they do so. Opening with a dreamy snippet that recalls a daydream Boards Of Canada moment, the record then finds it's way into captivating and repetitive percussion that sounds like a Konono No.1 record interpreted by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. They have a very special ability to travel through both intense and wandering states with equal power and grace. It's amazing that they've made a record that can sound like the most relentless snake charmer recording one moment, a hip-hop inspired pulsating beat next, an ambient interlude that could be part of a Grouper record somewhere else but also a germinal techno jam you never want to end. While bringing in a wide range of styles and influences is not something so new, making a totally cohesive, pleasurable and transcendent album with all those influences is much more rare and with Dream Island Laughing Language, Lucky Dragons have done just that! Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Morning Ritual"
MPEG Stream: "Mirror Friends"
MPEG Stream: "Starter Culture"
MPEG Stream: "Desert Rose"

MAGNETIC FIELDS Get Lost (Merge) lp 17.98
First reviewed almost 10 years ago and a constant aQ favorite and big seller ever since, Magnetic Fields' Get Lost finally gets a super sweet vinyl release. Our way too brief review from way back in the very early days of the list, long before we wrote epic tomes as reviews, went a little like this:
"Everyone has a favorite record that acts as a faithful crutch throughout their life and this is ours. Every song has a different heartbreaking theme. Each devastating in their own way. You will never tire of this, Stephin Merritt's masterpiece."
And indeed, this is a gorgeous, sad, beautiful, wryly humorous, and utterly heartbreaking and heart rending slab of morose sweetly sour pop. That is of course utterly and emphatically recommended.

MEGADETH Rust In Peace (Capitol) lp 22.00
Easily one of our top-metal-albums-of-all-time (especially in the Big Four/Bay Area thrash division), now (again) released on vinyl! Here's what former AQ mailorder staffer (and current medical student!) Elliott had to say about it when we listed a cd reissue of it a while back:
During the summer of 1990, while enjoying a three month holiday in Oslo, Norway, I came across a magazine that would be of untold influence to my thirteen-year old ears - the 1990 Metal Hammer "Thrash Spectacular". This would serve to be my introduction to an obsession with extreme bands that would consume an unhealthy amount of my time and interest throughout middle and high school -- bands such as Exodus, Sepultura, Pungent Stench, Testament, Sacred Reich, and on and on. But the centerpiece of the issue was four articles on what Metal Hammer referred to as the "Big Four" of thrash, namely: Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth.
And now we have a re-mastered re-issue of Megadeth's Rust in Peace, originally released coincidentally enough, within weeks of my return from the land of fjords. Why is this significant? Well, because with the very notable exception of Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, Rust in the Peace was arguably the last great album of the great '80s thrash bands. Sure most, if not all, of these bands continued to release albums up to the present, but really -- which of them would you seriously consider to be on par with their '80s predecessors? Exodus, Testament, Slayer, AnthraxŠit's like 1990 was an impenetrable divide that dictated, "No decent thrash may pass". And let's not even discuss the Black album. Anyway, the release of Rust in Peace heralded the end of an era, and did so with august aplomb, the group topping even their own previously great achievements. It was as if all bands of the ilk recognized that nothing more could be done within the confines of what was considered thrash. Thrash had, as they say, "jumped the shark".
But most importantly, Rust in Peace is simply a magnificent album, harkening back to a time when metal records were still collections of great songs. Every song on here is unique and there's not a bit of filler to be found. Take a look at the tracks: you get the MTV-friendly alien conspiracy hit single "Hangar 18"; the sheer aggression of "Take No Prisoners," one of their heaviest songs ever; the eerie occultism of "Five Magics"; the upbeat, almost poppy quality of "Poison Was The Cure"; the coke-sweating solipsism of "Lucretia"; the forlorn desolation of "Tornado Of Souls"; the austere drum and bass death march creepiness of "Dawn Patrol," (where you get to hear Dave's hilarious affected British accent) all book-ended by two of the finest thrash epics ever recorded -- the relentless juggernaut of an opener, "Holy WarsŠThe Punishment Due," and the apocalyptic groove of the closing title track. Rust in Peace also showcases the finest musicianship of their career, featuring the relentless guitar dueling between Mustaine and newly recruited Shrapnel recording artist Marty Friedman. Very rarely has such guitar-shop wankery been harnessed into such tastefully well-crafted songs -- the intro to "Holy Wars" alone is a must-hear. As for the vocals -- some have been at worst annoyed and at best amused by Dave's whining snarl but when you hear him scream "Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants" I think you'll agree his delivery is perfectly fitting.
Like Black Sabbath's Volume 4 or Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales or Iron Maiden's Killers, Rust in Peace is a milestone of metallic perfection and one which you are doing your metal collection a grave disservice to be without. If you have any genuine interest in metal, any whatsoever -- a single Century Media sampler in your collection, even -- you MUST own this record. Do yourself a favor, hear one of the absolute pinnacles of thrash. It was the last of its era, setting a standard that the genre as a whole would be unable to match again. And don't just take my word for it...Allan's backing me up on this one too: Rust In Peace is a metal essential.
MPEG Stream: "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due"
MPEG Stream: "Tornado Of Souls"

MEGAPUSS Surfing (Vapor) cd 15.98
Whenever we listen to this, we're somehow reminded of a line from The Simpsons where Marge Simpson's sister Selma in reference to a cheap slutty dress says: "This started out as a Halloween costume but soon worked its way into my regular rotation". Seems what began as a jokey one-off side-project between Devendra Banhart and Greg Rogove from Priestbird (formerly Tarantula A.D.) has taken up more time and attention than is probably warranted. From the weird "bro" energy of the cover to the childish references to penises, anal sex, and group masturbation peppered throughout, this is probably a project that perhaps should have stayed a joke. It sounds like their having a lot of fun and all, and it's not that there aren't good songs on here (Devendra's distinct pop sensibilities remain intact), but it seems like as a separate project, it doesn't know what it wants to be. It doesn't take enough risks musically for all of its crazy "fuck-all" posturing, and some of its attempts at humorous irreverence fall embarassingly flat (especially the song "A Gun On His Hip And A Rose On His Chest", where they cop the music from The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy", but replace the lyrics with "Fuck the Police, in the asshole. Fuck the Pope, in the asshole." ad nauseum). If you wanted a full album of all the sillier songs from Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, this might be for you. For the rest of us, we'll wait for Devendra's next record.
MPEG Stream: "Crop Circle Jerk '94"
MPEG Stream: "Theme From Hollywood"
MPEG Stream: "Another Mother"

MOGWAI The Hawk Is Howling (Matador) 2lp 17.98
Now here, in stock again at last, on vinyl too... It must be pretty frustating being in Mogwai, no matter what you do, no matter how far you push and stretch your sound, people just want to hear Young Team. Not that we can blame them, see the Young Team review elsewhere on the aQ site, and observe us gushing appropriately over the record that probably is single handedly responsible for about half of the indie rock made today. But you know, that probably happens to every band. Can you imagine if you had gone to see My Bloody Valentine on their recent reunion tour and they didn't play -anything- off of Loveless, just new songs. We went to see Dio once a while bck, and all we wanted to hear was old stuff (of course) but instead he played his newly released concept record all the way through.
We do understand, no matter how awesome a song is, no one wants to beplaying it forever. Think about the Stones playing "Satisfaction". How long have they been playing that song? 40 years? Sheesh!
Anyway, in most fans' eyes, Mogwai can do no wrong, and even if they continue to NOT make Young Team mach 2, they do continue to make awesome records. Their grasp of dynamics, and their ability to make an extended instrumental not only interesting but rocking and catchy as well, far surpasses most of the bands who want to be them, and very little has changed on The Hawk Is Howling. While the record starts off with the stately and serene (and awesomely titled "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead"), the follow up "Batcat" finds the band unleashing some serious riffage, and some cool and strange guitar filigree. It's a one part song (maybe two) but boy is it a good part, and it gets looped and twisted, the band building and building, much like the more metal Godspeed they always seemed to be. Epic and crunchy and heavy and so good we probably wouldn't mind if the song was twice (or three times, or four times...) as along.
The next few tracks find the band mellowing back out a bit, letting their songs sprawl and spread out organically, a dreamy, laid back post rock, with no particular place to go, and with Mogwai it's all about the journey, not the destination anyway.
"The Sun Smells Too Loud" is a definite twist on the Mogwai formula, lots of synths and keyboards, and a slow build, slow burn, that gets bigger and louder, without necessarily getting heavier. The main hook, the guitar figure repeated again and again will stick in your head like crazy, the perfect substitute for vocals, if you were even missing them. "I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School" is classic Mogwai, again harkening back toy Young Team, all loping strum and shuffling rhythms, glistening melodies, lots of texture and ambience, until about the last minute when the band erupts into a super intense psychedelic freakout, still grounded by the melancholy melody that runs through the whole song. There's plenty more drifting and meandering dreamily before closer "The Precipice", which begins soft and breathless, before morphing into something a bit more ominous, the guitars a tad more crunchy, and finally a killer two minute outro, that features gorgeous spidery guitar lines, pounding drums, and gorgeous tangled minor key melodies.
You want Young Team? Probably best to just get over it. Go listen to Young Team. Heck we might just go listen to Young Team again. But really, at this point we're way more interested in seeing where the sounds of Mogwai take us.
MPEG Stream: "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead"
MPEG Stream: "Batcat"
MPEG Stream: "I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School"

NADJA Truth Becomes Death (Conspiracy) lp 37.00
BACK IN STOCK!!!
Latest in Conspiracy's series of super deluxe vinyl Nadja reissues, this latest one the lp of a former Record Of The Week, our very first Nadja and still one of our top faves. The music is fantastic of course (keep reading), but like the other Nadja vinyl reissues, the packaging is spectacular. Housed in an embossed, diecut jacket, with printed thick full color inner sleeves, visible through the diecut, photos by Seldon Hunt, the vinyl thick as well, weights a ton and sounds amazing. Limited to only 750 copies, and there's an amazing forestscape etching on the fourth side too!! Super limited of course, so not sure if we can get more when we run out), and super expensive, but so worth it.
Here's what we said about the record when it was ROTW back on list 226:
Crashing waves of balls of yarn. That's one attempt to explain this band's sound... Along with bringing in the usual Earth, SUNNO))), and Boris comparisons. The Toronto based duo of Aidan Baker (guitars, vocals, flute, piano, drum machines) and Leah Buckareff (bass and vocals) are an "atmospheric doom" band whose slow moving, heavy and heavily distorted music definitely shares something with the likes of early Earth, but although they've done a split 3" with UK doom nasties Moss (among several previous underground releases) you can't really define them as being a "metal" band at all. Their gauzy, droney, doom-spelled-backwards music has a warm, melodic underpinning, somewhere within the billowing clouds of distortion that form the three long tracks found here. I guess it's something like the churchy, "funereal" doom of Finland's Skepticism, really, but even more calm, echoed and ambient. Melancholic but very pleasant, with both growled vocals and gentle singing hovering just beneath the surface, this music somehow suggests rays of pure white light shining down from on high to illuminate their low-end murk... and during the final third of the last track "Breakpoint" the heaviness drops away altogether for a quietly sung coda that could be from the most mellow and poetic of indie-pop albums. Nadja's music is definitely more abstract and altered than, say, Ocean (another sludge-dirge outfit reviewed elsewhere this list), and is so much more beautiful than the monochrome darkness dwelt in by many other doom bands. If you can imagine an ultra-distorted hybrid of Growing, Codeine and, uh, Ras Algethi you'd maybe come close to the sound of Nadja... Recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Bug / Golem"
MPEG Stream: "Breakpoint"

NO NECK BLUES BAND Aftypiclipse (Sound At One) lp 17.98
BACK IN STOCK!!!
One of our favorite free rock outfits returns, with a sort of homage to another one of our favorites. This live set from 2006's All Tomorrow's Parties festival finds the No Neck Blues Band offering a sonic hail to brethren in noise, Jazzfinger, or maybe not, who knows what goes on in those guys' heads, maybe they just they just thought writing "For Jazzfinger" on the cover looked cool. And if we try, maybe this NNCK set -does- sound a bit like Jazzfinger, but it also sort of sounds like NNCK. Either way, we're not complaining, since we weren't there, so we're feeling lucky just getting to hear this stuff.
Originally released as a super limited, and now out of print cd-r, the set has been all gussied up, resequenced and re-mastered and is a monster.
The A side seems to be one loooooong track, creaking and groaning and abstract, grinding slabs of low end growl, speaking-in-tongues vocals, random clatter and clank percussion, a foresty folky tribal primal free for all, but eventually the drums kick in, and the band lock into a murky stoned groove, a simple Can-like beat, and a rumbling bass throb, while the abstract skree above continues to swirl and stumble. Guitars moan and wail, detuned angular melodies unfurl drunkenly, vocals whisper and hiss, like it's some sort of disembodied hellish krautrock, which eventually coalesces into a gorgeous high end dronescape, sounding like a more lo-fi hippie Sunroof!, all that creaking and groaning and wailing woven into brilliant bolts of fiery psychedelia.
The flipside begins on more familiar NNCK territory, dense flurries of hypnotic percussion, chanted vocals, shakers and bells, tribal percussion, pizzicato strings, super intense and propulsive. That jam simmers down into a Grateful Dead meets Can groove, super abstract laid back blues, with the band finally living up to their name.
Eventually NNCK explode into a druggy expanse of FX drenched psychedelia space rock, that splinters into some aggro free jazz, and finally finishes off in a blaze of effulgent ur-drone glory.

OF MONTREAL Skeletal Lamping (Polyvinyl Record Co.) cd 15.98
Of Montreal sure have come a long way in the decade since their birth. While they began life as the next generation torch carriers for the Elephant 6 scene, their sound has evolved into their own very distinct, eclectic and ambitious colorful pop music that's not afraid to shake asses and lay on lots of dramatic sass in the process. Skeletal Lamping finds them continuing their Sparks like take on grandiose and multipart pop suites with all songs bleeding into each other as Kevin Barnes sings boldly about his sexual desires and curiosities. Barnes for sure sounds like someone who needs to be at the center of attention at all times and his lyrics can often sound like they should be coming from someone half his age but as long as he keeps creating such entertaining and creative pop then we can live with that. And the packaging on both the cd and vinyl is as colorful, elaborate and compelling as the sounds contained inside.
MPEG Stream: "For Our Elegant Caste"
RealAudio clip: "Nonpareil Of Favor"
MPEG Stream: "Plastis Wafers"

OF MONTREAL Skeletal Lamping (Polyvinyl Record Co.) 2lp 27.00
Of Montreal sure have come a long way in the decade since their birth. While they began life as the next generation torch carriers for the Elephant 6 scene, their sound has evolved into their own very distinct, eclectic and ambitious colorful pop music that's not afraid to shake asses and lay on lots of dramatic sass in the process. Skeletal Lamping finds them continuing their Sparks like take on grandiose and multipart pop suites with all songs bleeding into each other as Kevin Barnes sings boldly about his sexual desires and curiosities. Barnes for sure sounds like someone who needs to be at the center of attention at all times and his lyrics can often sound like they should be coming from someone half his age but as long as he keeps creating such entertaining and creative pop then we can live with that. And the packaging on both the cd and vinyl is as colorful, elaborate and compelling as the sounds contained inside.
MPEG Stream: "For Our Elegant Caste"
RealAudio clip: "Nonpareil Of Favor"
MPEG Stream: "Plastis Wafers"

PHILLIPS, WASHINGTON The Key To The Kingdom (Yazoo) cd 16.98
A short while back we reviewed an lp from legendary bluesman Washington Phillips, called What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?, released on the amazing vinyl reissue label Mississippi. As much as we love vinyl, we know a lot of folks out there don't have record players, so thankfully, all of the tracks on that Mississippi lp, are also contained on this here cd, and then some! The lp featured 12 tracks, this cd collects all 16 recordings from Phillips, his entire recorded output, and as a bonus, you also get 4 tracks of early religious music from Mamie And A.C Forehand (Forehand had a track on another recent Mississippi comp called Fight On, Your Time Ain't Long). Here's what we had to say about Phillips when we reviewed the lp:
Very little is know about Phillips, other than he was from Texas and only ever recorded sixteen songs. That's it. Sixteen songs, all of them totally gorgeous and mysterious. Phillips vocals are intense and world weary, but it's the accompaniment that really stands out.
The cover shows an illustration of Phillips playing what looks like a toy piano, but the sound is stranger than a toy piano, much higher and more resonant, chiming and tinkling, like little bells, like Christmas carols, a sort of joyous effulgent sparkling shimmer. The liner notes suggest that it may or may not be a Dolceola, an extinct late nineteenth / early twentieth century instrument that looks like a hybrid of a toy piano and a zither. But as there is only one confirmed recording of the Dolceola, on a Leadbelly track from the forties, it's hard to prove just what Phillips' instrument could be. According to a 1961 interview with Frank Walker, who recorded Washington Phillips, the instrument Phillips used was homemade and was something "nobody on earth could use except him". Online sources speculate that it could be a fretless zither or a phonoharp. Whatever it is, it sounds somewhere between a hammered dulcimer, a spinet (baby harpsichord) and an ice cream truck (minus the sound system), all beneath a warm fuzzy patina of dusty crackle. The notes tumble and twinkle while Phillips weaves them seamlessly into a warm glowing backdrop for his testifying, creating a gorgeous and haunting angelic gospel blues, that is truly unique.
MPEG Stream: "Lift Him Up That's All"
MPEG Stream: "Paul And Silas In Jail"
MPEG Stream: "Mother's Last Word To Her Son"
MPEG Stream: "The Church Needs Good Deacons"

PIERSON, DAX AND ROBERT HORTON Pablo Feldman Sun Riley (AA / Nosordo) cd 14.98
Two local Bay Area luminaries team up to may tribute to their dub / drone / minimal idols, Augustus Pablo, Terry Riley, Morton Feldman, and Sun Ra, a pretty tall order, but these two are well up to the task. Dax Pierson, you might know from playing in Subtle and 13&God, Robert Horton, for his many drone-y and drifty cd-r releases (a bunch we've reviewed here) and tons of mind blowing collaborations with all sorts of fellow sonic travellers. A chance meeting and a discovered shared love of the above mentioned musical visionaries led these two to collaborate on this disc right here. A score written by Horton, Pierson on the melodica (shades of Pablo) some cello, some vocals, all blurred and stretched out into some minimal abstract dronedub, heavier on the drone, that manages to be haunting and mysterious, spacious and spare, warm and emotional.
The dub element is subtle, here and there the cello switches from long bowed notes to rubbery pizzicato melodies, Piersons wheezing chordal clusters spiral off into sweet major key figures, but they always slip back into a swirling shimmering miasma of warm washed out whir and buzz. The first half of the record sounds more like a Sunroof! record than a dub record, all keening high end and warm metallic reverberations. The record slips into some weird dubbed out field recordings part way through, sort of like Jewelled Antler remixed by King Tubby, before once again slipping into another sun dappled dreamy ur-drone.
Not knowing the roots of this collaboration, or perhaps if the record had a different title, one might not necessarily hear as much of the various elements and influences, but they are most definitely there, deftly employed within a sound that on the surface might at first sound like a more 'traditional' abstract ambient drone cd, but even then, there seems to be something just a little different going on, something strange, and mysterious, a sound or a vibe that transforms this into a sonic experience much more distinctive and unique, a 'something' you don't need to recognize or understand or even really hear consciously to enjoy. Beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Winterlong"
MPEG Stream: "When A Stone Speaks"

REVEREND BIZARRE Dark World / Deceiver (Primitive Reaction) 7" 9.98
We always talk about how something is super limited and sold out and out of print so we won't go into too much detail, but then we invariably do, but not this time. We have less than 10 copies, originally limited to 500, sold out and out of print. Once these are gone it's off to eBay with you.
Two covers, one recorded in 2001, one recorded last year, Saint Vitus' "Dark World" and Judas Priest's "Deceiver", both given a Reverend Bizarre makeover. With vocalist Albert doing his best "Vocal Impersonation" according to the liner notes. His Rob Halford is wildly over the top and pretty amazing. And he already sounded a lot like St. Vitus's Scott Reagers to begin with, as that band such a huge influence on Rev. B.! As always, heavy and doomy, the songs obviously classics, too bad we got so few of these.

SARAH'S CHARITY Code Of Red Twin (Arbor) cd-r 9.98
We always assumed that Denmark's Sarah's Charity must include Matthew Bower of Skullflower, or Marcia Bassett of Hototogisu, or at least someone from Heavy Winged or Double Leopards or one of those sorts of bands. They have the same sort of slow burning heaviness going on, the washed out walls of psychedelic swirl, grinding guitars, keening streaks of high end. Another one of 'those sounds' we can't ever seem to get enough of.
Ends up SC are indeed from Denmark, and do not count any American or British noise rock ringers among their members, which is just as well, as these guys can totally hold their own, and then some, whipping up a seriously dense and deliriously blown out soundscape of buzz and blur and shimmer and rrrroooaaaaar. The other cd-r we had from SC was equally guitar heavy, but here, the sound seems significantly murkier and more muted, softer even (softer being relative of course), giving it a more dreamy drone-y sound which is no bad thing at all. But fear not, this is still fierce and prickly and caustic and HEAVY, just sort of pretty too.
We only have a handful of these, it was LIMITED TO 150 COPIES (each with a hand numbered insert), and they've been waiting for a while to get reviewed and listed, so pretty sure these are long gone and out of print at the source, but while they last, we got em here...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

SHINDIG Issue #7 (Nov-Dec 2008) magazine 9.98
This snazzy British psych/garage/folk/R&B/beat mag delivers another colorful issue. This time with Roky Erickson on the cover, back in the day with his 13 Floor Elevators, as part of a 15 page section devoted to the Texas psychedelic sixties scene (with articles on Bubble Puppy, Cold Sun, The Moving Sidewalks, and others)... plus, this issue also boasts features on the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Strawbs, exploito hippie era paperbacks, Jackie DeShannon, producer Mickie Most, and more. Including tons of reviews. 82 A4 sized pages.

SHITTY LISTENER, THE Fruitless Accomplishment (Greengate Press) cd-r 9.98
Found a box of these tucked away in the closet, a few more copies of this shitty pop gem if you missed out first time around...
The return of The Shitty Listener! Maybe one of our all time favorite band names EVER. And it's about time. We all completely dug the Girls All Say EP we listed a while back, but it just wasn't enough. It was only 9 minutes long after all. Well, Fruitless Accomplishment clocks in at a whopping 26 minutes, and thus manages to take all the elements we liked on the EP, and spreads them out, expands and explores, which just means there's so much more to like.
Actually originally released as a book, that just so happens to also contain a cd, for our purposes, we'll just go ahead and consider Fruitless Accomplishment a cd, that just so happens to come with a book (or rather with some text instead of the more extensive but now out of print book version)! For those new to the Shitty Listener, it's not really a band, instead it is one man, Jason Honea, from from the Jewelled Antler outfits The Child Readers and the Franciscan Hobbies, as well as the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates and Teenage Panzercorps. The Shitty Listener is his Honea's mostly solo, lo-fi, bedroom folk project. And is deeply connected to his poetry/lyrics and artwork. As is evidence by this deluxe text/cd combo.
The sound is incredibly intimate and low fidelity. Mostly recorded on micro cassettes or handheld tape recorders, Honea incorporates tape hiss and whatever ambient sound happens to occur in the background, whether it's a plane flying by, a dog barking, the sound of crickets, it all just becomes part of the sound. And just like old Sebadoh tapes, the ch-chunk sound of the record or stop buttons being pushed, as well as weird warbles in the tape, become as much a part of the song as the song itself. Lilting melancholy piano, gentle acoustic guitar strum, and not much else support Honea's warbly falsetto, plaintive and emotive, always way down in the mix, a sort of drifty fuzzy dreamy melody within each song. But that's more than enough. Each song ends up sounding surprisingly lush. Our favorites though have to be the ones that sound like they were recorded from a distance, or through the wall or window. Those tracks almost sound like Honea was singing and strumming indoors, while the mic was outside, capturing most of the music, but more than anything all of the ambient action happening around it. Other highlights include the a capella "Bad Wonder", "I Call You Up" which sounds a bit like Morrissey fronting Sentridoh, the minute long "Across My Dreams", a sort of processed dreamy guitarscape, and the 7 minute medley "Sweet To My Mind w/ Someone Flame-Like & Up Too Much", the first half of which sounds a bit like a Basinski composition, but made manually, by playing a figure on the piano, pushing stop on the tape player, pressing record and playing the figure again, over and over and over. So weird and wonderful.
Fruitless Accomplishment is a strangely compelling collision between abstract experimentation and lo-fi pop loveliness, and the results are truly divine!
The packaging is pretty dang divine as well. Packaged in a newsprint covered sleeve with collaged color art affixed to the front and back, inside is the cd-r, an insert with the liner notes, four full color and two black and white inserts featuring various drawings and collages by Honea, and Real Flowers, a small book of poetry, gorgeously printed on nice paper and with a full color paste on cover!
MPEG Stream: "Get A Grip"
MPEG Stream: "Pretty Soon Now"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet To My Mind / Someone Flame-like & Up Too Much"

TECUMSEH Avalanche and Inundation (Important) lp 17.98
Now on Vinyl!
Pummeling, cavernous and, needless to say, HEAVY. Portland's Tecumseh offer up another cathartic dose of slow motion, glacial rust. Dream-doom realizations of soul sucking necromancy. Sprawling, low-end riffs shrouded in warm distortion, drifting feedback and subtle electronics. And like we've said before, with this type of ambient sludge, its all about THE RIFF, and Tecumseh has definitely got it down. So while some of this plays like an homage to Earth 2, Avalanche and Inundation manages to take things a step forward. The gorgeous chord progressions move with a tectonic hugeness that is more marvelous and immersive than most drone-sludge outfits. Towering and fully engulfing, Tecumseh's brand of heavy hypnosis will weigh you down into infinity and leave you there to rot. Usually a three piece consisting of two basses and one guitar, Tecumseh appears as a five piece here with two other dudes on electronics and cymbals (at least that's what we heard, since the liner notes don't mention instrumentation). This cold ripping disc of hollow desolation is highly recommended for your next descent into hell.
MPEG Stream: "Skies Of Joy And Sorrow"
MPEG Stream: "Traveling Alongside Death"

THOU Peasant (Level Plane) lp 16.98
Now on Vinyl!
Another band of slow heavies from New Orleans, following in the deep muddy footprints of the original NOLA sludgelords Eyehategod, and while Thou do in fact share much sonically with their legendary forefathers, they inject way more melody into the proceedings, some stretches are downright pretty, still caked in filth and crust, but weirdly melodic and pretty.
In fact in some ways, Thou seem to be drawing on true UK doom for inspiration as much as their fellow NOLA noisemakers, Paradise Lost, old Cathedral, My Dying Bride, sure the vocals are harsh and throat shredding, the drums a lugubrious pound, the rhythm a lurching almost groove, but the melodies and the arrangements almost soar at times, the sound epic and massive, the melodies expanding what might otherwise be more of the same old sludge, in fact there are long stretches of undulating heaviness where the riff becomes a sprawl of near static buzz, and harmonies glisten and drift over the top, but it's never long before the band slip back into their grinding downtuned lumber and pummel.
Fans of the usual dooooooomy crawl will not be disappointed, if you love Moss, Monarch, Corrupted, Trees, Bunkur, you'll pretty much definitely dig this, but Thou mix it enough to maybe convince some of the more skeptical freaks out there, that there's more to sludge than just pummel and pound. Definitely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The Work Ethic Myth"
MPEG Stream: "An Age Imprisoned"

VETIVER More of The Past (Gnomonsong) cd ep 6.98
A teaser EP of 5 more obscure covers to hold us over before their Sub Pop debut arrives sometime next year. The same seventies country folk-rock vibe prevails here as it did on the full length covers records, Thing of The Past. The one exception being the opening track "See You Tonight", by The Wizzards, which reminds us of Guided By Voices channeling seventies power popsters The Only Ones. Songs by Gordon Bok, Nils Lofgren's Grin, Titus Turner and Vernon Claude and Jerry Organ round up the collection. Sweet!
MPEG Stream: "See You Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Hills of Isle Au Haut"




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NARGAROTH Dead-Ication (No Colours) 2dvd 28.00
Last copies! Only a few left...
This one is definitely for the true fans only. The grim, the troo, the obsessive. A double dvd collection designed to give the listener / viewer a glimpse into the soul and spirit of Kanwulf, the man who IS Nargaroth. Through the music of Nargaroth obviously, but also, plenty of more personal stuff, some introspective writing, and lots of Vietnam, but more on that in a second.
The first disc, is the live stuff, all shot pretty lo-fi, handheld camcorders, either from the crowd or the side of the stage, the sound super blown out and buzzy, the vocals so high in the mix they nearly swallow up the rest of the music. But the band are tight, the crowds wild, head banging, thrashing, horns held high, recorded live in Belgium, Austria, Portugal and Italy. Having listened to Nargaroth for so long, not only is it weird to see them/him performing live, but also weird to see them playing in what appears to be a school gymnasium, or a small rock club. The music of Nargaroth is so epic and sweeping and majestic, we always envisioned flaming chariots, and dark snowy forests, storm clouds and black skies, so it takes a minute to adjust to the idea that they are in fact an actual band. And even the shit sound quality doesn't detract from the fierce performances.
The second disc is where it gets weird and personal, but in doing so, makes this so much more interesting than your run of the mill music dvd. The first section is called "Dead Shoots", one subsection is marked "Private" and is a slide show of band photos, live shots, images of hills, and seas and trees and skies, plenty of candid "dudes at rock clubs" shots, LOADS of photos of Kanwulf, hanging out with other metalheads, lurking in the forest, or sitting on a station wagon in front of his parent's house, intercut with images of Kanwulf when he was in the army, or sporting Vietnam style camo, all set to some neo-classical soundtrack. But then, Kanwulf is obsessed with the Vietnam War, the last record was called Semper Fi after all, and the next section of the dvd, called "'Nam" is nothing but images from the Vietnam War set to the music of Jefferson Airplane and classical music. Weird! But pretty interesting.
The next section is called "Live Shoots" and is all clips from the various live shows on he first disc, a slideshow set to Nargaroth songs, not sure what these are for, since the other disc has all the same images LIVE, but still some cool shots.
Next up is a section called "Digital Thoughts", personal writings and thoughts from Kanwulf, on making the dvd, and on his development as a person and an artist, very cool and personal, and not at all hung up on the usual grimmer than though stuff.
The there's LOTS more Vietnam. First a section called "Swamp Thing", A sort of homemade Vietnam documentary featuring some amazing shots of the war, images of helicopters and soldiers, jungles smothered in smoke, this time set to the Doors' "The End", Hendrix and other sixties rock, with voiceover from Kanwulf (we presume) telling the story of Vietnam, and its affect on him.
In the same section, another menu leads us to another section, this one called "Vietnam", where Kanwulf writes extensively on Vietnam, his feelings on the war, and how the war influenced his thinking, feeling and music making, as well as his plans to visit Vietnam to try and understand and experience what went on.
There's also a documentary called "No Mexican Tequila Massacre", which is a short film about an aborted Mexican tour, lots of rehearsing, hanging out and drinking, smoking, some jamming, but lots of nothing going on, the guys in the practice space, changing strings, waiting for the show(s) to be confirmed, which they never are. Plus you get to see Kanwulf in BirkenstocksŠ
The final section is called "A Way" and is a surprisingly personal missive about Kanwulf's development as a person from when he started Nargaroth, moving away from hate and emptiness to become more of a real person with real feeling and emotions, scene politics be damned, not at all what you might expect from a black metal legend, but pretty refreshing and heartfelt.
The first disc will definitely appeal to true black metalheads, some awesome rare live footage, appropriately lo-fi and grim, thrashing and black, but the second disc turns this into something way weirder, and way more intimate, as Kanwulf constantly states on the dvd, this is not the sort of thing that endears him to 'the scene', sharing and feeling and honesty are not typically selling points for black metal, but then, this is far from a typical black metal dvd.
Packaged in a full color cover, with a complete discography (including shirts even!) on the flip side visible through the clear dvd case, full color booklet, with notes, and photos, and strangely the second disc seems to be a dvd-r, while the first disc is a proper factory produced dvd. All region. But, it's PAL (not NTSC) so you may only be able to view it on a computer.

V/A (KISS THE ANUS OF THE BLACK CAT / IGNATZ / SILVESTER ANFANG / BEAR BONES, LAY LOW) Dronevolk - A Film By Jef Mertens (self released) dvd-r 11.98
Final copies, only have a few of these left...
Dronevolk is a new documentary focused on the burgeoning underground dronefolk scene in Belgium, made up of a handful of bands, aQ customers will no doubt be well familiar with: Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, Bear Bones Lay Low, Silvester Anfang and Ignatz. By now, most faithful readers of the aQ list own at least one record by some or all of those groups, but this disc takes advantage of the format, not only offering up more of the music we love so much, but glimpses into the creative process, allowing the viewer to see how and where the music was recorded, to see the groups perform live, on big stages, in little clubs, in bedrooms and practice spaces, and allows the groups themselves to discuss their music and influences.
Kiss The Anus start things off, recording track by track, tambourine, guitar, vocals, harmonium, watching the song slowly take form. From a bedroom and a computer, the disembodied parts coalesce becoming something more magical and mysterious, eventually taking form as a song, being performed by a full band on stage. Plenty of interview footage, live performance, home movies, backstage, on tour, and like us, you probably wondered where the heck he came up with that name, well now's your chance to find out.
Up next is Bear Bones Lay Low, a super young guy, moved from Venezuela to Belgium, he now also plays in Silvester Anfang, but for Bear Bones it's serious floorcore, hunched over a bank of effects and keyboard, swaying back and forth, hair in face, black pants and a green Izod (!), the sound a thick coruscating drone, haunting vocals drifting in and out, cool to see those sounds coming from such an unassuming figure, the transformative power of music. Other footage of him kneeling with a guitar, unfurling wavery fractured folk, shots of practice space sessions, recording and rehearsing, some super intense live performance, or at as intense as one mop topped dude kneeling on the floor can be, but the music is dark and drone-y and intense!
Then along comes Silvester Anfang revealed to be much more of a proper rock band, and a bunch of goofy dudes judging from their interview, especially considering their provocative cover art and mysteriously heavy sounds. Much of the interview concerns metal, specifically how there is NO metal in Silvester Anfang, and how just because they LIKE metal, does not mean that they play metal. Also discussion of the artwork, and how it gives people the wrong impression, and how FUN is a big part of what they do, no matter how dark and intense the music is. Lots of pre-show ritual, setting up, tuning up, eventually giving way to full on dronejam, with nearly the whole band hunched over on the floor, strange, but sort of ritualistic and cool looking. Also some improv street corner jams, with kids and homeless folks, all super percussive and chaotic and exuberant
Last up is Ignatz, another pretty unassuming dude, his segment opening with a gorgeous live performance, on a stage in the woods, afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees, the vocals a ghostly mumble, the guitar ragged and abstract. Exactly how you might imagine it would be. Some very low key interview footage, and a glimpse of the home, the studio, where this mysterious music takes shape, which then helps you realize that these places are not so different than where we live, and play, and that much of the mystery comes from the person, and their connection to whatever spirit compels them to make these sounds.
Beautifully packaged in a slimline dvd case, full color covers, the opening and closing credits feature some amazing black and white animation, and for those of you who still aren't sure you need one of these, it also includes bonus unreleased MP3's from all four groups!
All region. NTSC.

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ABSU "Tara" (Agonia) picture disc 26.00
ABSU "The Third Storm Of Cythraul" (Agonia) picture disc 26.00
ACID MOTHERS GONG "Live At Uncon 06" (Voiceprint) dvd 21.00
AKIMBO "Jersey Shores" (Neurot) cd 14.98
ALICE COOPER "School's Out" (Rhino) cd 5.98
AN ALBATROSS "The An Albatross Family Albuum" (Eyeball Records) cd 14.98
ANIMATED EGG, THE "Guitar Freakout" (Sundazed) cd/lp 19.98/38.00
ATAVIST "Alchemic Resurrection" (Rise Above) 10" 17.98
ATLANTIS "s/t" (Universal) cd 17.98
ATTESTUPYA "Tjalen / Den Stora" lp 23.00
AUDIO KOLLAPS "Panzer" (Epistrophy) cd 16.968
AZRAEL "Obdurate / Unto Death" (Moribund) cd 14.98
BAHIMIRON "Southern Nihilizm" (Moribund) cd 14.98
BASTIEN, PIERRE "Visions Of Doing" (Western Vinyl) cd 14.98
BAUHAUS "The Sky Gone Out" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN "The BBC Sessions" (Matador) 2cd/lp 15.98/15.98
BENGE "Twenty Systems" (Expanding) cd+book 27.00
BLEY, PAUL "Barrage" (ESP) cd 14.98
BLOC PARTY "Intimacy" (Atlantic) cd 14.98
BLOOD CEREMONY "s/t" (Rise Above) lp 29.00
BLOODBATH "The Fathomless Mastery" (Peaceville) cd 16.98
BOOK OF BLACK EARTH "Horoskopus" (Prosthetic) cd 14.98
BRONX, THE "3" (White Drugs / Original Silence) cd 14.98
BULLWACKIES ALL STARS "Black World" (Wackie's) cd/lp 17.98/17.98
BUNNY BRAINS, THE "What Makes You Think You Can Save Yourself (From Yourself)?" (self-released) cd-r 13.98
CAMPBELL, ISOBEL & MARK LANEGAN "Sunday At Devil Dirt" (V2) cd 25.00
CANDLEMASS "Lucifer Rising" (Nuclear Blast) cd ep 10.98
CAPRICORNS "River, Bear Your Bones" (Candlelight) cd 14.98
CAPTAIN BEYOND "Dawn Explosion" (Friday Music) cd 15.98
CHROME HOOF "Pronoid" (Southern) 12" 10.98
CLP "Super Continental" (Shitkatapult) cd 17.98
COH "Strings" (Raster-Noton) 2cd 23.00
COLD NORTHERN VENGEANCE "Domination and Servitude" (Bindrune Recordings) cd 11.98
CRADLE OF FILTH "Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder" (Road Runner Records) 2cd/lp 23.00/23.00
CRAIG, CARL & MORITZ VON OSWALD "Recomposed By" (Universal) cd 36.00
CROWNING GLORY / THE GATES OF SLUMBER "Dead Man's Paradise / Riddle Master" (Rise Above) 7" 10.98
CSS "Move (Remixes)" (Sub Pop) 12" 4.98
CULT OF LUNA "Eternal Kingdom" (Earache) cd 13.98
DARKTHRONE "Dark Thrones & Black Flags" (Peaceville) cd 16.98
DE LA SOUL "De La Soul Is Dead" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
DEVIL'S BLOOD "Come, Reap" (Van Records) cd 10.98
DIPLO "Blow Your Head" (Mad Decent) 12" 10.98
DIPLO "I Like Turtles" (Mad Greasy) cd 9.98
DJ / RUPTURE "Uproot" (The Agriculture Records) cd 16.98
DRY RIB "Whose Last Trickle" (Hyped To Death) cd 12.98
DUSK & BLACKDOWN "Margins Music" (Keysound Recordings) cd 15.98
EARLY MAN "Beware The Circling Fin" (The End) cd ep 8.98
EARLY MAN / RAMMER "Speed And Spikes Vol. III" (Relapse) 7" 5.98
ET CETERA "s/t" (Long Hair) cd 27.00
FALL OF THE BASTARDS "Dusk Of An Ancient Age" (Kreation Records) lp 14.98
FAXED HEAD "From Coalinga To Osaka: Live In Japan 1985" (Web Of Mimicry) dvd 14.98
FLAMING LIPS, THE "Christmas On Mars" (Warner Bros.) cd+dvd 25.00
FREE BLOOD "The Singles" (Rong / DFA) cd 14.98
FRIGHTENED RABBIT "Liver! Lung! Fr!" (Fat Cat) cd ep 10.98
GILLESPIE, DANA "Box Of Surprises" (Rev-Ola) cd 17.98
GIRTH "Sleeper, Awaken!" (Web of Mimicry) cd ep 10.98
HAINO, KEIJI "Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto (The 21st Century Hard-Y-Guide-Y Man)" (PSF) cd 22.00
HALVORSON, MARY & WEASEL WALTER "Opulence" (ugEXPLODE) cd 14.98
HAMMEMIT "Spires over the Burial Womb" (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
HELIOS "Caesura" (Type) cd/lp 15.98/19.98
HONIG, EZEKIEL "Surfaces Of A Broken Machine Band" (Anticipater) cd 16.98
HOODED MENACE "Fulfill The Curse" (Razorback) cd 13.98
HORRORS, THE / SUICIDE / NIC VOID "Shadazz / Radiation / Rocket U.S.A." (Blast First Petite) 10" 15.98
HUNX AND HIS PUNX "You Don't Like Rock N Roll / Gimme Gimme Back Your Love" (Rob's House Records) 7" 5.98
KAISER CHIEFS "Off With Their Heads" (Universal / Motown) cd 12.98
KAMPFAR "Heimgang" (Napalm) cd 16.98
KAWABATA, MAKOTO & MICHISHITA SHINSUKE "Sex, Voyage, and Echo Chamber" (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 17.98
KID 606 "Die Soundboy Die" (Tigerbeat 6) cd 10.98
KULTIVATOR "Barndomens Stigar" (Mellotronen) 2cd 28.00
LUCKY DRAGONS "Dark Falcon" (Marriage) lp 15.98
MAX, AGATHE "This Silver String" (Xeric) cd 16.98
MERCURY REV "Snowflake Midnight" (YepRoc) cd/lp 15.98/21.00
MERZBOW "Eucalypse" (Soleilmoon) cd 28.00
METALLICA "...And Justice For All" (Warner Bros) 2lp 25.00
NISENNENMONDAI "Tori / Neji" (Smalltown Supersound) cd 16.98
NOTWIST, THE "Boneless" (Domino) 7" 5.98
O.W.L. "Of Wondrous Legends" (Locust) cd 14.98
OCS (OH SEES) "Get Stoved (4)" (KSR) lp 12.98
OPETH "Watershed (Collector's Edition)" (Roadrunner) 2cd 23.00
OXBOW "Lover Ungrateful" (Midmarch Records) 7" 7.98
PEGATAUR "Eternal Flight" (For Once Records) cd 13.98
PENTEMPLE "s/t" (Southern Lord) cd/lp 15.98/16.98
PERFORMING FERRETS "No One Told Us" (Hyped To Death) cd 12.98
PINHAS, RICHARD / MERZBOW "Keio Line" (Cuniform) cd/lp 16.98/42.00
PLASTICIAN "Rinse: 06" (Rinse) cd 21.00
PRICE, VINCENT "Master Of The Macabre" (El / Cherry Red) cd 16.98
QUEEN "II" (Hollywood) lp 21.00
QUINTRON "Too Thirsty 4 Love" (Goner Records) cd/lp 12.98/13.98
RACEBANNON "IV: Acid Or Blood" (Southern) cd 14.98
REATARD, JAY "Matador Singles '08" (Matador) cd/lp 13.98/14.98
REHBERG, PETER "Work For GV 2004-2008" (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
RICHTER, MAX "24 Postcards" (Fat Cat) cd 14.98
RILES, ZAK "s/t" (Important) cd 14.98
RITUAL "Widow" (Shadow Kingdom) cd 12.98
RUNEMAGICK "Dark Dead Earth" (Century Media) 2cd 16.98
RUSSELL, ARTHUR "Love Is Overtaking Me" (Audika) cd 16.98
SAGITTARIUS "The Blue Marble" (Sundazed) lp 21.00
SERENA-MANEESH "S-M Backwards" (Smalltown Supersound) 2cd 28.00
SERPENTCULT "Weight Of Light" (Rise Above) lp 27.00
SEVEN THAT SPELLS "Cosmoerotic Dialogue With Lucifer" (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 17.98
SIGUR ROS "Med Sud I Eyrum Vit Spilum Endlanst" (XL) cd+dvd+book 96.00
SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO "Fabriclive 4.1" (Fabric) cd 17.98
SLOMO "The Bog" (Important) cd 14.98
SMITHS, THE "Sound Of The Smiths" (Rhino) 2cd 27.00
SONDHEIM, ALAN "Ritual-All-7-70" (ESP) cd 14.98
SPACEMEN 3 "DJ Tones" (Space Age Recordings) cd 16.98
SPARKS "Whomp That Sucker" (Oasis) cd 22.00
SQUAREPUSHER "Just A Souvenir" (Warp) cd/lp 14.98/22.00
STEREOLAB "Peng" (Too Pure) lp 14.98
STEREOLAB "The Groop Play Space Age Bachelor Pad Music" (Too Pure) lp 14.98
SUN RA "Newport Jazz Festival / The Electric Circus" (Transparency) 2cd 16.98
SUN RA "On Jupiter" (Art Yard) cd 17.98
SUN RA "Sleeping Beauty" (Art Yard) cd 17.98
SZCZESNY, DAWID "Luxated Symmetry" (Porter) cd 14.98
TELESCOPES, THE "Singles Compilation 1989-1991" (Mind Expansion) cd 15.98
TEN KENS "s/t" (Fat Cat) cd 14.98
TERAKAFT "Akh Issudar" (World Village) cd 21.00
THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES "Tail Swallower And Dove" (Suicide Squeez) cd 14.98
THOR "Keep The Dogs Away" (Scratch Recordings) cd 14.98
THOU "The Retaliation of the Immutable Force of Nature" (Gilead Media) lp 12.98
TIMES NEW VIKING "Stay Awake EP" (Matador) 7" 3.98
TIPSY "Buzzz" (Ipecac) cd 15.98
USAISAMONSTER "Space Programs" (Load) cd 15.98
V/A "Electronic Toys 2" (Q.D.K. / Normal) cd/lp 15.98/17.98
V/A "Electronic Toys" (Q.D.K. / Normal) cd 15.98
V/A "Female Blues Singers: Oh, Run Into Me, But Don't Hurt Me" (Sub Rosa) cd/lp 15.98/15.98
V/A "Japanese Traditional Music: Gagaku - Buddhist Chant" (World Arbiter) cd 17.98
V/A "Like Black Holes in the Sky: The Tribute to Syd Barrett" (Dwell) cd 14.98
V/A "Messthetics Greatest Hiss (#110)" (Hyped to Death) cd 14.98
V/A "My Own Wolf: A New Approach To Ulver" (Cold Dimensions) 2cd 22.00
V/A "Oz Days Live" (Oz) 2cd 29.00
V/A "Shbahoth: Iraqi-Jewish Song From The 1920's" (Renair) cd 22.00
V/A "Sounds of She" (Pet Records) cd 14.98
V/A "Titan: It's All Pop!" (Numero Group) 2cd 26.00
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "Time Vaults" (Abstract Sounds) cd 13.98
VEGETABLE ORCHESTRA "Remixed" (Karmarouge) cd 17.98
VILLALOBOS, RICHARD "Vasco EP Part 1 (+ remixes)" (Perlon) 2 x 12" 28.00
VIRUS SYNDICATE "Present: Contagious Vol. 1" (Tyke) cd 17.98
VIVIAN GIRLS "I Can't Stay" (In the Red) 7" 4.98
VOIVOD "The Outer Limits" (Metal Mind Productions) cd 17.98
WASIF, IMAAD WITH TWO PART BEAST "Strange Hexes" (BMI) cd 12.98
WAX POETICS ANTHOLOGY VOLUME 2 book 39.95
WAY OF THE CROSS "Mind Of The Dolphin" (Phoenix) lp 16.98
WEEKS, THE "Comeback Cadillac" (Esperanza Plantation) cd 13.98
WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON "Love & Lamentation" (Pogus Productions) cd 14.98
WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON & RICHARD YOUNGS "Veil (For Greg)" (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98
WITCHFINDER GENERAL "Resurrected" (Buried By Time And Dust) cd 14.98
XENAKIS, IANNIS "Electronic Works 2" (Mode) cd 16.98
Y & T "Black Tiger" (Krescendo) cd 15.98
Y & T "Earthshaker" (Krescendo) cd 15.98
Y & T "Mean Streak" (Krescendo) cd 15.98
YAHOWHA 13 "Feather Of Wisdom" (Phoenix) lp 23.00
YES "Close To The Edge" (Friday Music) lp 30.00


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ABOUT MAILORDER


Please place your order via our website.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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


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


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

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SOME SELECTED UPCOMING RELEASES

----} real soon we're hoping / on the way to us now
Steel Mammoth "The Kingdom Of The Golden Hammer" cd on Super Metsa/Ektro
Earthless "Live At Roadburn" 2cd/2lp on Tee Pee
Blood Ceremony "s/t" cd on Candlelight
Mudhoney/Mugstar "Sonic Attack Trilogy v.1" split 7" of Hawkwind covers on Tresmat
Acid Mothers Temple/White Hills "Sonic Attack Trilogy v.2" split 7" of Hawkwind covers on Tresmat
Kinski/Bardo Pond "Sonic Attack Trilogy v.3" split 7" of Hawkwind covers on Tresmat
Jarboe "Mahakali" cd on The End

----} November 18th
v/a "The Jewelled Antler Library" 4cd box set on Porter Records (we're hoping)
Flipper "Sex Bomb Baby", "Public Flipper", and "Album Generic Flipper" cd reissues on Water

----} November 25th
Porn/Merzbow collaborative cd

----} also in November
Morkobot "Morto" cd on Supernatural Cat
Andrew Burnes "Telescope" 12" in the Table Of The Elements Guitar Series
David Daniel "I-IV-V-I" 12" in the Table Of The Elements Guitar Series

----} December 10th
Dead C "Secret Earth" lp on Ba Da Bing
B. Fleischmann "Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!" cd/lp on Morr Music
Der TPK (Teenage Panzerkorps) "Games For Slaves" lp on Siltbreeze
Adam Payne "Organ" cd/lp on Holy Mountain
Last Step "1961" cd/3lp on Planet Mu
Loop "Heaven's End" 2cd on Reactor
Loop "Fade Out" 2cd on Reactor
Murcof "Versailles Sessions" cd/2lp on Leaf
v/a "Noise Room" cd on Soniq
Robert Pollard "Crawling Distance" cd/lp on GBV, Inc.
KK Null "Oxygen Flash" cd on Neurot
Distance "Repercussions" on Planet Mu
Country Teasers / Ezee split lp on Holy Mountain
Vetiver "Hey Doll Baby" 7" on Gnomonsong

----} also in December
Circle "Tyrant" vinyl version on Latitudes

----} January 13th, 2009
Journey To Ixtlan cd (maybe lp too) on Aurora Borealis

----} January 21st
La Otracina "Blood Moon Riders" cd/lp on Holy Mountain
MGR Y Destructo "Amigos De La Guitarra" cd/lp on Neurot
MV & EE with the Golden "Drone Trailer" cd/lp on DiChristina
Colossal Yes "Charlemagne's Big Thaw" cd on Ba Da Bing

----} February 4th
Aethenor "Faking Gold And Murder" cd on VHF
Astral Social Club "Octuplex" cd on VHF

----} February 15th
Bunkur "Nullify" cd on Displeased

----} February 18th
Beirut / Realpeople "March Of The Zapotec" 2cd on Pompeii
Boston Spaceships "Planets Are Blasted" cd/lp on GBV, Inc.

----} also upcoming sooner or later or sooner or later
Fennesz "Black Sea" cd on Touch
Conifer "Crown Fire" 2lp version on Important
Grumbling Fur (Guapo + Jussi from Circle) cd
Burial "DJ Kicks" cd/lp on Studio K7
Der TPK (Teenage Panzerkorps) "Games For Slaves" lp on Siltbreeze
Adam Payne "Organ" cd/lp on Holy Mountain
Jacob Kirkegaard "Labyrinthitis" cd on Touch
Zeitkratzer & Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto) "Electronics" cd on Zeitkratzer
Zeitkratzer & Terre Thaemlitz "Electronics" cd on Zeitkratzer
Zeitkratzer & Keiji Haino "Electronics" cd on Zeitkratzer
Jandek "London Tuesday" cd on Corwood
Elder Utah Smith "I Got Two Wings" cd+book on Casequarter
Blank Dogs "The Fields" cd/lp on Woodsist
Wavves "s/t" cd/lp on Woodsist
Oxbow "Fuckfest" cd reissue on Hydrahead
Combat Astronomy "Earth Divided by Zero" cd
Ovens "s/t" cd on tUMULt
Diamatregon "Crossroad" cd on tUMULt
Amocoma "Go To Hell" cd on tUMULt
Rosetta "Wake/Lift" vinyl version
Necrofrost "Blackeon Lightharvest" cd
Mariana Topley-Bird w/ Dangermouse
Anton Batagov "Passionate Desire To Be An Angel" cd on Long Arms Records
The Heads tba 2cd 'best of' on Leafhound
Black Boned Angel / Nadja collaboration cd/lp on 20 Buck Spin
Japancakes "If I Could See Dallas"
Kath Bloom "Terror" cd on Chapter
Iro "Tamafuri" cd on PSF
Diza Star "Contact High Diza Star" cd on Fractal
DDAA "Action and Japanese Demonstration" cd reissue on Fractal
Wolfgang Voigt "Freiland - Klaviermusik" 12" on Profan
When "Are You Silent" cd on Jester
Sean Smith "Eternal" cd on Ultra Hard Gel
Risto "Live!" cd on Fonal
Sperm "Shh!" lp reissue on Destijl
Jandek "Glasgow Sunday 2005" cd on Corwood
Jazzfinger "The Sun's Golden Blood" cd on Beta-Lactam Ring
Troum "Eald-Ge-Streon" cd/2lp/2cd on Beta-Lactam Ring
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore "Mitleid Lady" cd/lp on Latitudes
Slough Feg "Ape Uprising" cd on Cruz Del Sur
Slough Feg "The Slay Stack Grows - Early Demos and Live Recordings" 2cd on Shadow Kingdom Records
Ricardo Villalobos "Vasco" cd

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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanIrwinScottSallyAntaeusandJon