BLANK DOGS The Fields (Woodsist) cd ep 11.98
Everyone at aQ is super open minded when it comes to music, we all love all kinds of sounds, but each of us definitely has our favorite, our specialties, whether it be black metal, or indie rock or drone or post rock or power pop or whatever. So when a record shows up that has *everybody* freaking out, that's usually a sign that said record is something special, and in those cases we definitely try to mark the occasion by making that record our Record Of The Week.
Such is the case with The Fields by Blank Dogs, or should we say Blank Dog singular as this is a one man operation, some cat named Mike Sniper who for the last few years has been practically gushing limited cd-r's and tapes and short run releases, most so limited that for most of us, The Fields is our first real exposure to Sniper's gorgeous woozy lo-fi new wave, and new wave is really what this is, whereas a lot of the other Blank Dogs releases were super noisy and abrasive, The Fields is hooky and catchy and jangly, total perfect gloom pop, albeit drenched in plenty of tape hiss and amp buzz. Equal parts The Cure and Joy Division, huge fuzzed out downer basslines, simple drum rhythms or programmed beats, all wreathed in thick swirls of murky effects, fuzzy clouds of bloop and bleep, synthesizers spewing squiggly melodies, or unfurling thick undulating ribbons of warm buzz, and then the vocals, deep and drowsy, weary and worn, a mournful croon, super emotional and darkly evocative, all of those parts stitched together into haphazard perfect pop gems.
It's a super short record, seven songs in twenty minutes, but it's darn near perfect, the opening bass line and drum part are total Cure worship, all gothy and gloomy, with an irresistible hook buried in the mix, the deep main croon balanced by a weird processed almost falsetto, fucked up effects careening all over the place in the background, smoothly segueing into "Now Signals" the indie mixtape hit of the year if there ever was one, a sort of Interpol meets Magnetic Fields by way of Sebadoh, a simple guitar jangle over woozy synths, and a sweet sad boy vocal, until it shifts gear into a killer super rocking, heavy guitar bridge, that slips into a warm, almost heavy chorus, before returning to that lo-fi jangle and shimmer of the verse.
"Passing The Light" has a wicked blown out buzzy bass line, that would shame Interpol, the Joy Division melody strung between a constellation of glistening effects, the vocals dripping with delay and reverb and distortion, and again, all wrapped around a wicked hook. The last few tracks get almost frenetic, and mix in some classic pop era Eno into the moody new wave gloom, finishing things off with the weirdly ebullient "Spinning", that manages to glow and pulse with energy while retaining plenty of the rest of the record's glorious downer doompop vibe.
Of course this is on Woodsist, which has been on a roll lately releasing one amazing gem after another: Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Pocahaunted, Meneguar, and now Blank Dogs!! Even though we're only a few weeks into 2009, there's no doubt this disc will find its way onto lots of folks year end lists!
MPEG Stream: "Now Signals"
MPEG Stream: "Before The Hours"
MPEG Stream: "The Other Way"

BLANK DOGS The Fields (Woodsist) lp 14.98
Everyone at aQ is super open minded when it comes to music, we all love all kinds of sounds, but each of us definitely has our favorite, our specialties, whether it be black metal, or indie rock or drone or post rock or power pop or whatever. So when a record shows up that has *everybody* freaking out, that's usually a sign that said record is something special, and in those cases we definitely try to mark the occasion by making that record our Record Of The Week.
Such is the case with The Fields by Blank Dogs, or should we say Blank Dog singular as this is a one man operation, some cat named Mike Sniper who for the last few years has been practically gushing limited cd-r's and tapes and short run releases, most so limited that for most of us, The Fields is our first real exposure to Sniper's gorgeous woozy lo-fi new wave, and new wave is really what this is, whereas a lot of the other Blank Dogs releases were super noisy and abrasive, The Fields is hooky and catchy and jangly, total perfect gloom pop, albeit drenched in plenty of tape hiss and amp buzz. Equal parts The Cure and Joy Division, huge fuzzed out downer basslines, simple drum rhythms or programmed beats, all wreathed in thick swirls of murky effects, fuzzy clouds of bloop and bleep, synthesizers spewing squiggly melodies, or unfurling thick undulating ribbons of warm buzz, and then the vocals, deep and drowsy, weary and worn, a mournful croon, super emotional and darkly evocative, all of those parts stitched together into haphazard perfect pop gems.
It's a super short record, seven songs in twenty minutes, but it's darn near perfect, the opening bass line and drum part are total Cure worship, all gothy and gloomy, with an irresistible hook buried in the mix, the deep main croon balanced by a weird processed almost falsetto, fucked up effects careening all over the place in the background, smoothly segueing into "Now Signals" the indie mixtape hit of the year if there ever was one, a sort of Interpol meets Magnetic Fields by way of Sebadoh, a simple guitar jangle over woozy synths, and a sweet sad boy vocal, until it shifts gear into a killer super rocking, heavy guitar bridge, that slips into a warm, almost heavy chorus, before returning to that lo-fi jangle and shimmer of the verse.
"Passing The Light" has a wicked blown out buzzy bass line, that would shame Interpol, the Joy Division melody strung between a constellation of glistening effects, the vocals dripping with delay and reverb and distortion, and again, all wrapped around a wicked hook. The last few tracks get almost frenetic, and mix in some classic pop era Eno into the moody new wave gloom, finishing things off with the weirdly ebullient "Spinning", that manages to glow and pulse with energy while retaining plenty of the rest of the record's glorious downer doompop vibe.
Of course this is on Woodsist, which has been on a roll lately releasing one amazing gem after another: Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Pocahaunted, Meneguar, and now Blank Dogs!! Even though we're only a few weeks into 2009, there's no doubt this disc will find its way onto lots of folks year end lists!
MPEG Stream: "Now Signals"
MPEG Stream: "Before The Hours"
MPEG Stream: "The Other Way"

SWERVEDRIVER Raise (Second Motion / Hi-Speed Soul) cd 16.98
There definitely seems to be a pattern developing with recent Records Of The Week. The Loop reissues a few lists back, The Telescopes last time, and now Swervedriver. We hadn't really noticed at first, we were just so damn excited that so many of our favorite records were getting reissued. And while it might seem a bit strange to be looking back instead of forward, most of the music we love now wouldn't even exist if it weren't for these bands, or if they did they'd sound WAY different. And the thing is, the aQuarius list is in no way comprehensive and complete, as we only started doing it about 12 or 13 years ago, which means everything pre-1995 or '96 is not represented, which is a huge bummer since the late eighties and early nineties are the very times that defined most of us musically. Thus we've done our best to review reissues of lost classics, or even not lost classics, from those eras, eighties metal, shoegaze, grunge, nineties college rock, the list of records we discovered during that time, that STILL resonate and kick ass could fill up a hundred aQ lists. So instead of dwelling on the fact that these are not actually new, let's just consider then records we loved, and still love, and records we're convinced folks out there who are too young to remember, or may have just missed out the first time around, will probably also love, records that had they been released later, would have no doubt been showered with adoration on the aQ list. Which brings us to a unanimous aQ fave, UK heavy shoegazers Swervedriver.
Calling Swervedriver shoegaze is a bit misleading, they were tangentially part of that scene, and their sound definitely had a bit of drift and shimmer to it, but unlike the rest of the shoegazers, Swervedriver were HEAVY. Super rocking, their wall of guitars was not ethereal and ephemeral, it was crunchy and distorted and thick, and besides all that, they wrote some of the catchiest songs ever. EVER. The sort of songs that explode into frenzied psychedelic shoegaze freakouts, but just as quickly slip into a dark chugging grooves with hooks that stick in your head like crazy, and parts the still to this day illicit shivers, even after a hundred listens. Rare is the band who can define a sound, and a scene and then totally transcend it.
For those new to Swervedriver, they definitely share much in common with their shoegaze scene compatriots My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Catherine Wheel, Chapterhouse, and the like, but as mentioned above, that shoegazey haze was just one element in their arsenal, and not at all the main one, that would be the dueling guitars, heavy and crunchy, melodic and lush, soaring one second grinding and chugging the next, often tangled into gorgeous harmonies, or layered to create thick walls of sound, those formed the basis of their sonic blueprint, over which they crafted incredible hook filled songs, some washed out and swoonsome, others hard and jagged and HEAVY. The vocals melodic but still plenty rough and raw, perfectly complimenting the heavy guitars and pounding drums, an impossibly perfect balance between heavy and pretty, hooky and hard, which is precisely what makes Swervedriver, one of our favorite bands ever.
And Raise one of our favorite -records- ever. Released in 1991, for anyone our age, or thereabouts, it was pretty difficult to not see Swervedriver everywhere, MTV, 120 Minutes, college radio, when Raise came out it was like nothing we had ever heard before, incredibly catchy and hooky but so rocking. And the songs, shit, most bands would give anything to have written "Son Of Mustang Ford" or "Rave Down", or heck, anything on Raise. But yeah, let's take "Son Of Mustang Ford". Plenty of folks will recognize it within seconds, that pounding rhythm, the thick layered guitars, and that main guitar hook, immediately exploding into an almost Treepeople (pre-Built To Spill) guitar tangle beneath killer vocals, before returning to that opening groove. Furious, and dark, and minor key, but so epic and kick ass, total head banging air guitar shoegaze nirvana. Then there's "Rave Down", their other big hit, that displays Swervedriver's other sonic side, guitars that a languorous and sunbaked, but still distorted and heavy, the song woozy and lilting without losing any of its power, and a change that still gives us goosebumps almost two decades later.
The thing with Swervedriver was that even though they had actual hits, the record was packed with could have been should have also been hits. Pretty much every song is hooky and heavy and catchy, not a weak track in the bunch. "Sandblasted", "Sci Flyer", both heavy blissed out rockers, "Feel So Real" sounds almost like a tougher heavier Lemonheads, with it's sweet little main melody and total pop main hook.
Totally and absolutely essential.
For the reissue of Raise, they tacked on 4 extra tracks, B-sides, outtakes, and damn if they don't sound just as kick ass as the album tracks proper. New packaging, deluxe 6 panel digipak with a thick booklet packed with photos and new liner notes from the band.
MPEG Stream: "Son Of Mustang Ford"
MPEG Stream: "Sci Flyer"
MPEG Stream: "Rave Down"
MPEG Stream: "Sandblasted"

SWERVEDRIVER Mezcal Head (Second Motion / Hi-Speed Soul) cd 16.98
There definitely seems to be a pattern developing with recent Records Of The Week. The Loop reissues a few lists back, The Telescopes last time, and now Swervedriver. We hadn't really noticed at first, we were just so damn excited that so many of our favorite records were getting reissued. And while it might seem a bit strange to be looking back instead of forward, most of the music we love now wouldn't even exist if it weren't for these bands, or if they did they'd sound WAY different. And the thing is, the aQuarius list is in no way comprehensive and complete, as we only started doing it about 12 or 13 years ago, which means everything pre-1995 or '96 is not represented, which is a huge bummer since the late eighties and early nineties are the very times that defined most of us musically. Thus we've done our best to review reissues of lost classics, or even not lost classics, from those eras, eighties metal, shoegaze, grunge, nineties college rock, the list of records we discovered during that time, that STILL resonate and kick ass could fill up a hundred aQ lists. So instead of dwelling on the fact that these are not actually new, let's just consider then records we loved, and still love, and records we're convinced folks out there who are too young to remember, or may have just missed out the first time around, will probably also love, records that had they been released later, would have no doubt been showered with adoration on the aQ list. Which brings us to a unanimous aQ fave, UK heavy shoegazers Swervedriver.
Calling Swervedriver shoegaze is a bit misleading, they were tangentially part of that scene, and their sound definitely had a bit of drift and shimmer to it, but unlike the rest of the shoegazers, Swervedriver were HEAVY. Super rocking, their wall of guitars was not ethereal and ephemeral, it was crunchy and distorted and thick, and besides all that, they wrote some of the catchiest songs ever. EVER. The sort of songs that explode into frenzied psychedelic shoegaze freakouts, but just as quickly slip into a dark chugging grooves with hooks that stick in your head like crazy, and parts the still to this day illicit shivers, even after a hundred listens. Rare is the band who can define a sound, and a scene and then totally transcend it.
For those new to Swervedriver, they definitely share much in common with their shoegaze scene compatriots My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Catherine Wheel, Chapterhouse, and the like, but as mentioned above, that shoegazey haze was just one element in their arsenal, and not at all the main one, that would be the dueling guitars, heavy and crunchy, melodic and lush, soaring one second grinding and chugging the next, often tangled into gorgeous harmonies, or layered to create thick walls of sound, those formed the basis of their sonic blueprint, over which they crafted incredible hook filled songs, some washed out and swoonsome, others hard and jagged and HEAVY. The vocals melodic but still plenty rough and raw, perfectly complimenting the heavy guitars and pounding drums, an impossibly perfect balance between heavy and pretty, hooky and hard, which is precisely what makes Swervedriver, one of our favorite bands ever.
Mezcal Head was Swervedriver record number two, released in 1993, and featured a slightly altered lineup, that if anything made the band sound even heavier. Almost like Raise part two, with the hooks dialed back again, and the heavy guitars cranked, but again, like on Raise, it's hard to pick any losers, every track here is catchy and heavy, and sounds like Swervedriver and nobody else. And as if to balance the heaviness, there are a handful of tracks more dark and drifting and almost mellow, interspersed between the bursts of shoegazey heaviness.
"Duel" is definitely the one here, the band's biggest hit, and it's easy to see why, with an incredibly heavy main riff, and swirling effects all over the place, the vocals a lazy drawled afterthought, and the hook, totally destroys, and still gives us chills, the second half is much poppier, with the song growing gradually more mellow and washed out, a sort of low key space rock outro.
Then there's "Last Train To Satansville", with another killer main riff / hook, and some truly haunting vocals, lots of effects too, in fact this record found the band's obsession with pedals becoming even more evident, with various elements wreathed in delay and reverb and flange and phaser, and impossible combinations of all four, creating swirling clouds of psychedelic shoegaze space rock, a sound even more expansive than on Raise. The rest of the songs, while maybe not as immediately catchy, are still fantastic, the sort of songs that become later favorites, one at a time. Whatever song was least listened to, gets rediscovered and blossoms before your very ears, making you wonder why the heck you weren't obsessed with THAT one in the first place. That's the magic of this record, and of this band. Both Mezcal Head and Raise are essential, two parts of a larger ever evolving whole, so buy one at your peril, because no doubt you'll eventually find yourself needing the other.
Like Raise, totally essential, WAY recommended, and absolutely required listening.
For the reissue of Raise, they tacked on 4 extra tracks, B-sides, outtakes, which includes is one of the best Swervedriver songs ever, "Planes Over The Skyline", a Japanese bonus track on the original release, a B-side we think, but holy shit, if the band was kicking out B-sides of this caliber, it's no wonder their records proper were so mind blowing.
New packaging, a deluxe 6 panel digipak with a thick booklet packed with photos and new liner notes from the band.
MPEG Stream: "Planes Over The Skyline"
MPEG Stream: "Duel"
MPEG Stream: "Last Train To Satansville"
MPEG Stream: "For Seeking Heat"

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ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE AND THE COSMIC INFERNO / WHITE HILLS Sonic Attack (Psychedelic Warlords) (Trensmat) 7" 5.98
Wow. We sold out of these in a heartbeat. We did everything we could to get more, and lo and behond, we did actually discover two places that had them, but when they showed up, every single copy had a little gouge in the cover. So we tried to get replacements, but apprently, a huge chunk of the pressing had that little dent in the sleeve, so... since this is WAY out of print from the label, as well as pretty much every distro we order from, we figured that we might as well list these since, barring that little imperfection, these are pretty much perfect, the vinyl is mint, it's just that dang little gouge. So here you go, we have about 40 of these, and these are most definitely the LAST COPIES EVER. Be aware that the covers do have that slight imperfection / little gouge on the back, but this record RULES, both tracks from both bands are amazing, so if you can handle that little thing on the back of the sleeve, suck it up and dig into these two slabs of psychedelic space rock bliss!
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
Volume 2, "Psychedelic Warlords", features Acid Mothers Temple, who are an obvious choice to pay homage to a band who was doing the AMT thing 30 years ago, and in true AMT fashion, Kawabata and company go for it, covering "Brainstorm" although it's difficult to tell, as it's buried under sheets of wild freaked out psych guitar and blown out space rock effects EVERYWHERE. It really doesn't sound all that different from any number of other AMT jams, but that's basically because every AMT jam is a tribute to Hawkwind, isn't it?
AMT are matched up with NYC's White Hills, who ditch much of their usual spaceiness for something a bit harder, tackling "Be Yourself" with crunchy chugging guitars, pounding drums, wild tangles of distortion drenched leads over the top, the band not so much covering the original, as transforming it into an endless psychedelic hard rock loop, the band churning and grinding out a steady stream of psychedelia over that endless main riff, before drifting off into a cloud of glittering soft psych shimmer.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED!

AKIYAMA, TETUZI / TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA / TAKU SUGIMOTO / MARK WASTELL Foldings (Confront) cd 15.98
Very Special Nothing Music. Well, that's what Ed Pinsent at The Sound Projector calls the stuff found here. Recorded live at the Offsite space in Tokyo when London's uber-minimalist Mark Wastell was touring Japan in early 2002, this quartet revolves around the principles of very spare gestures for improvising. So quiet are these sounds that if someone were to wander into the performance off the street unawares, they might think that they found an audience staring at four men sitting quietly on a stage. But in fact, Wastell was working with three heavyweights of the Japanese improv community: Tetuzi Akiyama, who splits his time between the 'onkyo' aesthetics for generated silences and his avant-boogie rock explosions; Taku Sugimoto with his own take on minimalist compositions for numerous instruments and electronics; and Toshimaru Nakamura, whose no-input mixing board can emanate blistering feedback loops and systems of rarefied drone. Put these four artists on stage and their respectful hush only intensifies with subtle smears, acoustic scrabblings, a tiny arc of sinewaves, and pointillist plucks becoming a punctuation marks across vast silences. This is one of those records that is not served very well by the street noise bleeding through from outside. Headphones are recommended, if not required, and in doing so, you will most definitely be rewarded.
MPEG Stream: "Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Part 2"

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Merriweather Post Pavillion (Domino) cd 15.98
There are already plenty of reviews out there proclaiming this album to be the pop equivalent of the second coming (at least for this year, anyhow). So we'll spare our readers the extensive details of our adoration and/or disdain and just say it's heaps better than last year's not so hot Strawberry Jam, displaying a nice fusion of both Avey Tare's and Panda Bears distinct sensibilities. Not so much a big difference in sound, just better production, more accessible songwriting, and heavier on the more blissful pop side than their spazzy oft-kilter folk side. We're a bit perplexed at the absurd amount of hype this has gotten and wish we got to hear it on its own merits free from the insane hyperbole doled out by critics, and that probably clouded our expectations a bit. It's certainly a good record but doesn't break much new ground in any real way, but then not everyone was hoping for progression, although for those who perhaps have never heard an Animal Collective record before, this will be pretty eye (or ear) opening. Not sure yet if it will top our favorites, Sung Tongs and Feels, but it could, over time, come pretty darn close. And we're even hearing some Vampire Weekend in the new retooled Collective sound in the very Highlife style vocal parts!
Fans of Panda Bear's Person Pitch will definitely dig this!
MPEG Stream: "My Girls"
MPEG Stream: "Bluish"
MPEG Stream: "No More Runnin"

ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS The Crying Light (Secretly Canadian) cd 14.98
While we had the fantastic Another World ep to tide us over last year while we waited patiently, the time has finally come and we now get a brand new full length from Antony and it DOES NOT disappoint, not one bit!
I Am A Bird Now is a really touch act to follow, but The Crying Light glows in its own unique beauty. Filled with lush arrangements and gorgeous orchestration, and of course Antony's one of a kind magical voice that is absolutely heavenly. Exploring similarly emotional and stunning stratospheres as folks like Rene Joly, Nina Simone, Bryan Ferry, Arthur Russell and Boy George, while employing a remarkable group of musicians (Nico Mushily, Greg Cohen, Doug Wieselman, etc.), but ultimately it's Antony's incredible songwriting and delivery that elevate his work to that highest level of musical achievement.
While not a dramatic departure from the haunting and emotionally charged sounds of I Am A Bird Now, this record still finds its own voice. Focusing on nature, and our relationship to nature in the smallest and most grandiose ways, Antony ponders our lives, births and deaths, as these songs make you stop in your tracks and soak up the wind and air and spirits that surround us. This is the kind of record that keeps revealing itself on repeated listens. Of course, highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "The Crying Light"
MPEG Stream: "Kiss My Name"
MPEG Stream: "Aeon"

AUSTERE / LYRINX split (Eerie Art) cd 14.98
We've been wanting to review anything from either of these bands for ages, one from Australia, the other from the UK, both trafficking in ultra depressive, hauntingly beautiful suicidal doom-ed black metal, but each with a distinctly different approach.
Austere are the Aussies, and have a black metal pedigree like you wouldn't believe (Funeral Mourning, Pestilential Shadows, Kinstrife & Blood, Nazxul to name a few). In their Austere incarnation, the duo of Sorrow and Desolate craft a dark swirling abyss of midtempo blackness, a mournful stretch of clean guitars and loping drums create a haunting moodiness, which morphs into something much more blackened and blown out, but no less ethereal and, well, austere. But it's the vocals that transcend here, an insane high pitched shriek, drifting in a cloud of reverb and delay, inhuman to say the least, occasionally growing into something much more growling and aggressive, but just as quickly becoming a disembodied wraith like shriek. All the while the music beneath drifts and lilts, reminding us of a way more washed out Katatonia, minor key and brooding, but strangely epic and expansive, and most definitely miserable and melancholy and darkly depressive.
The UK's Lyrinx are a good match, their sound equally grim and sorrowful, but the drums are much more of a presence, the guitars too are less ethereal and more buzzy and raw, the arrangements are very post rocky, loping and meandering, very reminiscent of Slint, and by extension Ved Buens Ende. The vocals here too are harsh and anguished, but like the rest of the sound, more abrasive, more caustic and raw, weirdly complimenting the hypnotic churning drift beneath. And unlike the monochromatic crawl of Austere, Lyrinx definitely mix it up, slipping into frenzied black metal blast, the drums exploding in tangles of wild octopoidal fury, before slipping into haunting half time breakdowns, all lingering minor key chords and abstract rhythms, a resulting sound both woozy and weary and sorrowful, as well as intense and chaotic.
Essential for the suicidal black metal hordes out there: Make A Change Kill Yourself, Hypothermia, Lutomysl, Silencer, I Shalt Become, Happy Days, Nortt, Holmgang, might as well add Lyrinx and Austere to the list...
MPEG Stream: AUSTERE "Towards The Great Unknown"
MPEG Stream: LYRINX "No Failure In Suicide"

BAD ACID Tab VII dvd-r / cd-r / mini-magazine 19.98
Finally, Tab 7 of BAD ACID, the "warped outsider music bible", is here, covering pretty much everything we love, from postrock to shoegaze to doom to sludge to grind to ambient to electronic to punk to garage. A massive dose of sensory overload, sounds, images, text, music, videos, interviews, articles, from a ton of bands we know and love, as well as a ton more of which we've never heard.
The previous issue of Bad Acid was a huge hit around here, we could barely keep it in stock, even though it was crazy expensive because of the WEAK dollar and the overseas shipping. But the dollar is not so weak anymore, so this issue is WAY cheaper, but thankfully no less kick ass.
First up, there's a DVD-r, featuring interviews with the Melvins and Celtic Frost, videos from Phantomsmasher, Jacula (!!!!!!) among others, as well as live footage of Morkobot, Ramesses and Isis! Then there's a SEVENTEEN HOUR, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN band mp3 audio cd-r, featuring tracks from Witchcraft, Otesanek, Coffins, Tenhornedbeast, Numinous Eye, Seven That Spells, Rahdunes, Stumm, Primordial Undermind, Saviours, Aldebaran, Lietterschpich, Journey To Ixtlan, Jamnation, Grave In The Sky, Ovo, Von Thronstahl, Tractor, Zodiacs, Wicked Minds, Gentlemans Pistols, South Saturn Delta, Eptileptinomicon (one of our favorite band names ever) and loads of others.
Finally there's 90 pages of full screen PDF sleeve notes, full color and super psychedelic, featuring lengthy interviews with Sons Of Otis, Ovo, Randy Holden / Blue Cheer, Rahdunes, Fuckbuttons, Helios Creed from Chrome, and Lazarus Blackstar among others! Good grief.
And just to get an idea of how sprawling and expansive and nearly overwhelming Bad Acid is, here's an abbreviated list of the hundred plus bands, new to us, some of which are bound to become new favorites: Resting Rooster, Total System Failure, High Watt Electrocutions, Spitting Off Tall Buildings, Tigrova Mast, The Black Pine, Ventura, Bang Lassi, Tetrix, Phononics, Baby Woodrose, St. Erik, Army Of Flying Robots, Vomm, A Horse Called War, Dyse, Invasion, The Deep Blue, Couldron, El Thule, Sailor Winters, Malachia, Sermoniser, Propane, Nosmaus, Dead.Circuit, Tetriori, Astra, Aftercare, Zone Six, Holy Calibre, Church Of Hed, Rise To Thunder, Cellardoor, Bikini Eyebolt, Motley Motion, Vibravoid, Space Shuttle Pilots, Oresund Space Collective, Forever Changing Concept, Stunt Cock, and again, more more more.
Packaged in a psychedelic dvd sized, 8 panel booklet, with some cool tripped out illustrations, and liner notes.
Total essential reading / viewing / listening for all heavy droney spaced out post kraut free noise jazz avant electronic outsider sound obsessives!

BASTIEN, PIERRE Les Premieres Machines: 1968-1988 (Gazul Records) cd 16.98
So cool. We've been wanting to list this for a while, finally got a bunch of copies so we can. It's a disc collecting early pieces by one of our favorite idiosyncratic music makers and sonic visionaries, Pierre Bastien. For those who have yet to discover the joys of Bastien, imagine strange haunting lullabies, played BY ROBOTS. Real Robots! Well sort of. Bastien would take apart old turntables, use bits of random electronics, stuff laying around the garage, sometimes adding multiple tone arms to record players, sometimes using bits of metal and electronics to create little machines that would pluck strings, or make little rhythms, and he would play along usually on trumpet. It sounds strange, but the music he created was magical, mysterious, childlike, but strangely mechanical (obviously) and haunting. Like a super DIY bedroom Philip Jeck but with a band of homemade robots! Sold? We figured you'd have to be. We've been pretty obsessed with Bastien and his music ever since we first heard his Musiques Paralloidres album almost 10 years ago.
This compilation collects a bunch of early tracks, a handful never before released, all from well before his first proper album, mostly culled from the eighties although one track is from WAY back in 1968, an untitled track for prepared guitar and Metronome!
Soon, rather than utilizing a mundane metronome, he was indeed building his own mechanical music-making helpers, the "Meccano". Each one custom-designed to accompany Bastien on plucked strings, skipping record, scraped metal, automated percussion, whatever Bastien imagined as accompaniment for a specific song. The results are divine, tick-tocking, clicking and clacking, wavering and warbling, dark plucked melodies, dizzying fragmented loops, squiggle and scrapes, alternatingly mesmeric and gentle, chaotic and clattery, a sound like a ramshackle music box, gives way to a sweet child-like melody, the sound of a toybox coming to life once the children are asleep, a mini toy orchestra performed in the still of night, with only the moon and the stars looking on. Many of the tracks feature much more actual playing than later Bastien discs, but the robots are still out in full force, playing along, his own little mechanical band.
All of Bastien's records are fabulous, super creative, innovative, baffling, fun and funny, playful and sometimes silly, but just as often dark and beautifully brooding. Mecanoid, Pop, the recently reviewed Visions Of Doing, all of them deserve to be in the collection of any adventurous music lover, and Les Premieres Machines 1968-1988 most certainly does too!
The booklet features a few photos, liner notes in French only (unfortunately), and an extensive discography!
MPEG Stream: "Orphean Veranda"
MPEG Stream: "Talou VII"
MPEG Stream: "Alpinic Railway"
MPEG Stream: "Caravan"

BORG I:A (Phaserprone) cd-r 12.98
Borg is a suitably anonymous project based out of New York, fusing occasionally blackened ambience with analog driven electronica. The first excursions that Borg released on Phaserprone crept through the Chain Reaction murk of heroin house as filtered through Wolf Eyes. On that debut, it was easy to take the Star Trek Next Generation reference to the Borg, a cybernetic absorption of everything into a dark pulsing mass; but for their / his / hers / its second release on Phaserprone, Borg take up a sound similar to our recent dark-electro crush Cold Cave. Here on I:A, Borg shifts things away from a drug addled techno and toward a skeletal electronic funk. There is something of a retrogarde reinterpretation of the Sheffield sound of Cabaret Voltaire and Hula crunched through Aaron Dilloway's suitcases of crusty gear while casting a longing gaze to the Ed Banger crowd of electro breaks and squiggliness. Sublimated melodies tumble in analogue glory across midtempo breakbeats that put a strangle hold on accompanying tribal rhythms and bass riffs. Haunted vibes from funhouse organ grinds underpin a couple of the tracks that otherwise might percolate alongside those Museum of Future Sound Skwee compilations.
Released on the Baltimore based label Phaserprone, known for the heavily embossed letterpressed artwork complimenting the hand-crafted brutality through noise and rhythm. Borg's I:A sticks out from the rest of the Phaserprone catalogue, as this album is certainly not brutal or purposefully ugly, even if it is monochrome in grey. Phaserprone sneers that "you will hate this." We think to the contrary. There's probably plenty of people who will love these beats 'n' synths, and maybe get sucked into the netherworld that is Phaserprone. Recommended? Oh, yes; and it's limited to a whopping 200 copies.
MPEG Stream: "1."
MPEG Stream: "2."
MPEG Stream: "6."

BRIDEZ Rolling Stoned b/w Heart (World Famous In SF) 7" 5.98
Bridez front woman, and the cover star of this here 7" single, is none other then Liza Thorn, who was responsible for unleashing a thrilling and damaging whirlwind of fierce energy here in the Bay Area with her previous band So So Many White White Tigers. While Bridez is a much more song based endeavor, there is still that reckless energy and dirty quality to their songs that makes this such a fun, fiery and righteously sleazy debut. We hear healthy doses of Pussy Galore, early Hole and the early recordings of The Runaways. Bringing a much needed element of danger and drunken passion to fucked up rock n' roll. So good!

CAUSE CO-MOTION! It's Time! (Slumberland Records) cd 9.98
It's so cool that Slumberland Records has been resurrected and is now based right across the bay in Oakland. We love so many of the seminal indie rock records they released over the years from bands like Boyracer, Aislers Set, Beatnik Film Stars, The Softies, Swirlies, etc. Now with bands like Crystal Stilts on their roster they're showing they still have a golden touch for catchy lo-fi greatness filled with irresistible pop hooks.
Cause Co-Motion! (exclamation point required!) fit with the label's new direction so perfectly. Borrowing heavily from the scrappier side of Beat Happening or the more lo-fi DIY sound of early Pastels. Short songs that sound like they're coming right out of a dusty garage, filled to the brim with catchy hooks, and played with reckless abandon. Fans of recent outings by folks like Vivian Girls, the aforementioned Crystal Stilts and the great Shop Assistants reissue we've been digging so much will find lots to love about Cause Co-Motion!
MPEG Stream: "Only Fades Away"
MPEG Stream: "Say What You Feel"

CLUSTER Grosses Wasser (Water) cd 15.98
The later Cluster records, Grosses Wasser and Curiosum, recorded after the Cluster and Eno collaboration in 1977, often undeservedly get short shrift. Marked by a move back to Berlin to work with former Tangerine Dreamer, Peter Baumann, 1979's Grosses Wasser shows Cluster moving forward expansively in their "nature-man-machine" aesthetic while at the same time harkening back to the unformed melodies of their debut. This album is quite the grower, five short pieces with a nineteen minute closing track that is always a dramatically different listening experience each time we play it. Slippery and evasive, shifting subtlety from oceanic piano passages to lurching bell rhythms, trumpet call and responses, woozy funk, hints of klezmer, machine dub, even whale song, all soaking in an elementally warm haze that only Cluster could conjure. Soooo Nice!!!!!!!
Hopefully Water will consider reissuing Curiosum as well. AQ customer Wobbly, who is an avid Cluster fan, noticed that in the liner notes for this, that Water included the Cluster photo from the Curiosum album, sparking fears that a Curiosum reissue is not in the works. We can only hope this isn't so.
MPEG Stream: "Avanti"
MPEG Stream: "Prothese"
MPEG Stream: "Grosses Wasser"

COMMON GRAVE Il Male Di Vivere (Eerie Art) cd 14.98
It's tough to resist a black metal record that is, according to the label: "an ambitious and profound concept album about the "spleen", the suffering of everyday life". Hmmm. Do they really mean the spleen? Does the spleen represent the suffering of everyday life? Weird. Guess they must be archaically referencing the melancholy humor, not the internal organ. But what do you expect? These Italian miserablists have crafted a single massive 64 minute epic, divided into eight movements, each flowing smoothly into the next, a sprawling doomic depressive emotional black metal, that spends as much time soaring majestically, or drifting melodically as it does blasting grimly.
The perfect mix of classic old school doom, a la My Dying Bride or Paradise Lost, and the more modern depressive folk infused black metal like Drudkh as well as plenty of darkened suicidal buzz (think Shining, Forgotten Tomb). Bleak and austere, the guitars seem to weep and moan, the melodies mournful and emotional, the vocals an anguished wail, a deep bellowing howl more than a black shriek, the drums relentless, even the midtempo parts underpinned by frenetic double kicks, all very moody and evocative, sweeping long stretches of epic blackened doom, separated by lilting clean guitar folk interludes as well and bursts of furious blackness, even some gnarled bits of mathy Deathspell style weirdness, but through it all runs a weary black sonic stream, a melodic thread that turns these songs into one epic songsuite, a gorgeous sprawling expanse of doom-ed melodic blackness.
MPEG Stream: "Il Male Di Vivere"
MPEG Stream: "Memories"

DEN SAAKALDTE Ol, Morke Og Depresjon (Eerie Art) cd 14.98
A list of the members of this new group should be enough to have most black metallers diving for the add-to-cart button: Kvarforth of Shining and Diabolicum, Skyellg from Naer Mataron and Paradigma, Seldemann from 1349 and Pantheon I, S. Winter from Gehenna and Aeternus and finally Jormundgand from Dodheimsgard. Odds are you probably have records by most, if not all of those bands in your collection, and while the sounds of those various groups are pretty varied, it will probably not prepare you for the sound of Den Saakaldte (which some might recognize as a Ved Buens Ende song title!).
Self described as "depressive black metal music with a modern avantgardist touch", the record begins with a long stretch of haunting choral voices, processed FX, soaring strings, swirling synths, deep rumbling drones, cabaret piano, shortwave interference, bits of hiss and glitch. It's an intro, sure, but only inasmuch as it's at the beginning of a black metal record, there are plenty of avant free-rock groups who would kill to come up with a track this cool and weird. But it is a black metal record, and it is after all an intro, so when the first song kicks in all heavy downtuned guitar, we're ready, but what we're not ready for is the trumpet, yep TRUMPET, the guitar trumpet drum mix is pretty cool, but soon gives way to something much more black, a churning blackened chugfest, heavy as fuck, with super deep howled processed vocals, killer drumming, amazing guitar playing, and super catchy main riff, the song twisting and turning and returning to the intro with an Eastern sounding guitar melody replacing the trumpet, before exploding back into that unmistakable Norwegian buzz, before slipping into some woozy doom, before lurching to a stop, leaving just a muted crackly clean guitar, and moaning almost choral vocals, before one final flurry of black buzz and a creepy drifty outro.
The rest of the record follows suit, channeling the spirit of the Norwegian legends: Gorgoroth, Ulver, Arcturus, Burzum, but with a definite dramatic vibe, and plenty of avant flourishes, whether they be weird acoustic guitar / accordion interludes, or strangled maniacal almost operatic vocals, or whole songs of dubbed out rhythms and processed piano, skittery electronic beats and disembodied horn sections.
The record finishes off with the nearly 12 minute lone "Jag Ar Den Fallna", featuring a guitar part that is total Thorns, but again, laced with minor key trumpet flourishes, as well as spidery guitar melodies, a groovy doomy depressive dirge, that explodes into a blast of black fury before crumbling into a sort of stumbling depressive Joy Division-y lurch, the track slipping effortlessly back and forth, from moaning minor key lumber, to blasting shrieking blackness, and back again, eventually the two disparate elements becoming one, the song turning into some blackened My Dying Bride, all epic classic doom, before that Thorns-like riff returns to finish things off, leading directly into the sub-minute long coda, a super creepy collage of little girl voices and atonal synths, wrapped in a gauzy otherworldly swirl of dense delay and reverb.
It might sound cliched to say, but they really don't make records that sound so much like this anymore, that nineties Norwegian sound, heavy and dark and catchy and majestic and mysterious and brutal and black, these are the sounds that lured us over to the dark side, and it's easy to see why, and strangely enough it still sounds as good today as it did 15 years ago. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Drikke Ens Skal"
MPEG Stream: "Vandringen"

DODSFERD Denying With Arrogance Your Pathetic Existence (Years Of Pure Hatred And Disgust) (Inferna Profundis) cd 13.98
Dodsferd are another black metal band that we all dig, but that has somehow managed to remain unlisted and unreviewed, until now.
This one man band from Greece, personifies misanthropy and hate, misery and total disdain for humanity. Just have a look at the liner notes: "Dodsfred does not belong to any kind of scene! No begging for anything! Support nothing, no-one should need anything from no-one! Dodsferd is Wrath and Wrath is Dosferd, no compromise, no respect for anything at all! Dodsferd is an ideal, a philosophy that only wrath stands for! Ignorance is the ultimate gift to your stupidity! I feel nothing for you leeches, you are a big nothing and you know it! I am getting stronger and stronger everyday! I am becoming sicker and sicker everyday with your pathetic existence and stupidity! Your incompetence makes me puke! Make a favor to yourselves and suicide! Bastard sons following ridiculous shepherds!"
And the music is appropriately hateful and harsh. The record begins with some sort of evil incantation, some dark ritual, minor key guitars drifting through black clouds of blackened shimmer, and a harsh rasp, reciting some sort of unholy prayer, and then the metal kicks in and we're into some seriously raw old school thrashing blackness, so stripped down it's almost crusty and punky more than metal, fans of Akitsa and Ash Pool and Malveillance and Bone Awl will definitely dig. But then Dodsferd launches into something much more bleak and black, a lurching midtempo Burzumic dirge, all minor key and miserable, before lurching into a full on blackened blast, chaotic and frenzied and fierce as fuck, that spills over into the next song, another thrashing chunk of black hate, all blast beats and buzzing riffage.
Denying With Arrogance is actually an older demo, recorded in 2004, and available briefly in 2007 as a split with Ganzmord, now finally available on its own, in all it's hateful black glory, with the 4 tracks from the original demo, plus a killer live track, ultra raw and necro and brutal, and a live Burzum cover, appropriately heavy and blown out and super distorted.
And as if the liner notes didn't convince you that Dodsferd indeed despised you, there's a note in the special thanks: "A big fuck-off to all those who tried to gain power and respect from my ideal! Retarded people! For another time, a big "go fuck yourselves and die" to all those who tried to take advantage of the name of my band and gain things that they didn't deserve! Losers and parasites! Go hide in your shit holes again!"
MPEG Stream: "Dodsferd"
MPEG Stream: "Pale Forests Sing For The Dead"

ELEGI Varde (Miasmah) cd 15.98
There must be something about the wondrous landscapes of Norway that seems to breed some of the most epic, gorgeously somber music around. Frigid cold and towering crags rising from the Arctic water, it's no wonder Tommy Jansen, the composer behind Elegi, is a living example of this Norwegian vision that never fails to blow us away.
Varde, the title of Elegi's second album in a trilogy from the excellent Miasmah label, translates to cairn, a pile of stones usually left to mark a pathway. Which is totally appropriate considering Varde was written as an instrumental narrative retelling the adventures and hardships of the first polar explorations. With electronics, piano, quiet percussion, various field recordings and lush violin, Jansen lures the listener into a world not unlike the experience of those brave explorers: icy bleakness, uncertainty and impending doom. Shimmering drones grow and subside, slow trudging footsteps in the distance, cascading swirls of snow are lifted and thrown about by the wind. Jensen is a master at crafting an incredibly vivid atmosphere, evoking frozen memories of the desolate north, gorgeous and inspirational. Combining modern composition, ambient drones, and his love for Victorian storytelling, Jensen offers up his most accomplished and touching masterpiece, a seriously beautiful and haunting experience. Kinda like if Andrew Chalk, Goldmund and Stars of the Lid met up in the Arctic to write an epic score for the apocalypse. Super dark dreamy goodness here, we couldn't be more impressed. Already we've played this a bunch in the store, and really can't get enough of it. Varde is just one of those records where you hear something new every time you listen to it, subtle textures and details that surface from the constantly shifting background. Highly recommended for fans of washed out midnight ambience, similar to the dreamier stuff the Type label has been releasing lately, beautiful melodies laced with a sinister darkness that lurks just below the surface. Oh and, uh, just in case you couldn't tell already, we REALLY dig this album!!! Highly recommended, especially for fans of any of the other recent killer releases on the Misamah label!!
MPEG Stream: "Skrugard"
MPEG Stream: "Rak"

EXPO '70 Audio Archive 003 (Kill Shaman) cd-r 5.98
Volume 3 in the ongoing Audio Archive series from our favorite droney, krautrock inspired combo, Expo '70, whose recent Black Ohms record we made Record Of The Week. And heck we really could have (and maybe should have) made all of Expo '70's Records Of The Week. They all seem to be part of some epic swirling black sonic universe, each cd-r a satellite of sound circling a mysterious sonic black hole, every release another stage, another leap forward into the abyss, an ever expanding sea of deep black drones, of rumbling whirring drift, guitars and synths woven into vast expanses of starry sky shimmer, and underwater moonlight drift.
Volume 3 takes up right where number two left off, taking the glacial crush of SUNNO)), and the blissed out ambience of Popol Vuh, and fusing them into a thick undulating mass, an organic world of sound, painted in shades of grey and black, mesmerizing, hypnotic, lulling us into a black trance, carrying us off on a sluggish stream of downtuned blur and smeared soft focus melodies, these are lullabyes for dark stormy nights, this is meditation music for channeling the dark side.
At once heavy, and mysterious, thick, and buzzing, warm, and dark and expansive, almost metallic, blackened and blissful, ominous and intense, this is some seriously uneasy listening, dark music for dead souls, each track a step further into a dying black sun, into a bottomless black pit, a living sound that entrances, enthralls, ensorcels... we are unable to resist, we give in, we let go, we slowly sink into the inky blackness, letting the drones and rumbles and whirs, fill our ears, our lungs, wrapping us in a gauzy hazy swirl of low end, releasing our spirit from its earthly bonds, letting us pass over into a glorious and haunting otherworld of sound.
Another dark, heavy, blackened missive from these krautdrone innerspace explorers. And like the others, recommended.
Simple packaging, silver and black ink on cardstock, with printed insert. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Great Glass Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Vampire Flower"
MPEG Stream: "Blissful Morning"

GEDO s/t (Erebus) cd 21.00
Another one of the Japrocksampler's Top 50 makes it to cd, this reissue via the same label who brought us Melting Glass Box a little while back. Unlike the more gentle folk-psych of MGB, power trio Gedo were counter-cultural hard rockers, beloved of bikers. As aficionados of both '70s heaviness and Japanese psych, we've been curious to hear 'em for a long time, never finding a complete album reissued until now. This, their 1973 debut, is a live record that finds 'em kicking out the jams in front of an appreciative festival audience, with all their clapping, cheering and laughter kept intact, none of it edited out. In fact, tracks 4 and 11 are ALL applause. How'd they get the crowd so excited? Well, Gedo mainly deal in an energetic brand of hectic hard rock action, with a few surprising mellow, melodic, melancholic detours (such as track 12, "Tender Betrayal"). They're sort of a Japanese mixture, maybe, of Steppenwolf and the Pink Fairies, some Eddie Cochran too, Gedo keeping it simple stupid, with a clear '50s rock n' roll lineage (which you can hear most overtly on the excellently-titled track "Rock 'n' Roll Stupid"). With big distorted riffs, raucous vocals, and even the sound of revving motorcycle engines (comprising the album's final track, as Gedo perhaps leaving the stage to go and recreate the cover of the first Flower Travellin Band album), this is proto-metal and/or proto-punk (we could imagine kids pogoing to a lot of this). Definitely "proto", as in raw.
Not understanding the Japanese language, let alone being a participant in the counterculture scene within which Gedo flourished, means you're not gonna "get" some of this. On the other hand, "getting" Gedo on such frantic tracks as "Scent" is not an issue!
This limited edition digipack reish comes with helpful liner notes in English, revealing that Gedo once upon a time not only jammed with members of Mountain and the New York Dolls, but also even played a concert with the cast of (the stage production of?) the Rocky Horror Picture Show!
MPEG Stream: "Scent"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Run Away"

GRASSLUNG / PULSE EMITTER s/t (Phaserprone) cd-r 12.98
This is a split cd-r of pure analogue synth sweeping and Kosmische dirges from Grasslung and Pulse Emitter. Portland's Daryl Groetsch has been pumping out the micro-edition releases with anybody willing to release his gnarled take on '70s electronic expansiveness; whereas Grasslung, the solo project of Jonas Asher who also hails from the incredible UW Owl and operates the Phaserprone label, has been much more particular in releasing his sounds. On first investigation into this work, it seemed to be a collaborative project with uniformly blackened surfaces of smoldering saw-tooth noise generation and undulating surfaces that spoke of dead-eyed electronics and sci-fi bleakness. As plausible as this seems, the first track of rippling electronics, half-consumed melodies, and amorphously twisting drones is that of Pulse Emitter; and the second two pieces of chilling, horror tonefloat mired in sickening gloom, hail from Grasslung with equal aplomb. Think Expo '70, Omit, Emeralds, and even Kevin Drumm's Imperial Distortion, and you won't be far from the mark on this great piece of modular synth sprawl. Packaged in very impressive letterpress / die-cut packaging, and limited to something like 200 copies.
MPEG Stream: PULSE EMITTER "1."
MPEG Stream: GRASSLUNG "2."
MPEG Stream: GRASSLUNG "3."

GROUP BOMBINO Guitars From Agadez Vol. 2 (Sublime Frequencies) lp 25.00
Yet another awesome vinyl-only document from the mighty Sublime Frequencies, this one a continuation of sorts, again exploring the world of Tuareg guitar music from Agadez in Niger, first explored on the amazing Group Inerane release a while back. And strangely enough, both band share members, so folks who loved the Group Inerane will likely love this too.
The music scene in Agadez is unique in many ways, but perhaps the strangest element is the fact that none of the bands can afford to own their own instruments, there is one PA and one set of amps that get passed from show to show, and guitars are borrowed and lent out, as are band members, with musicians joining different groups as they are available. Remarkably, while the sounds are indeed similar, they are also quite unique.
Group Bombino is headed up by 28 year old Oumara Almoctar, aka Bombino, who was inspired by more well known Tuareg musicians like Tinariwen and Ali Farka Toure to create his own music and to continue to spread the sounds and spirit of Tuareg and Agadez.
So here we have the first proper worldwide release by Bombino and his group, and it's gorgeous. Two distinct sides, the A side features Bombino's "dry" guitar sound, sort of acoustic, the guitars, spidery and slinky, the percussion simple and spare, hand claps, hand drums, the vocals lilting and emotional, all very repetitive and hypnotic, the vocals chantlike over the propulsive rhythms and the almost looped sounding guitar parts.
The flip side features Group Bombino plugging in and letting loose, the root sound is quite similar, but the guitars buzz and wail, chugging out those hypnotic riffs, but also spiralling out into wild leads, tangled melodies, the drums a bit hard, the vocals sitting further back in the mix, ebullient and joyous, but not without tension and emotion and some subtle sorrow and anger, this is after all the sounds or rebellion and revolution, an outlet for the frustration at the unrest and upheaval in Niger and Agadez. So fantastic.
As with pretty much everything Sublime Frequencies, ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED, and for sure, anyone who dug the Group Inerane (a past Record Of The Week), will go crazy for Group Bombino as well!

HILMARSSON, HILMAR ORN & SIGUR ROS Angels Of The Universe (Fat Cat) cd 12.98
We're really happy that this is back in print, originally released back in 2001 this was the score to the Icelandic film Englar Alheimisins (Angels Of The Universe). Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson is an amazing composer whose brooding, moody and elegant post-classical sounds evokes such a dark and heavenly cinematic quality. He has collaborated over the years with the likes of Current 93, The Hafler Trio and Psychic TV. It makes so much sense that he enlisted Sigur Ros to join him for this score. Don't be expecting a Sigur Ros record though, as this really is the brainchild of Hilmarsson, but you can still hear the band's sound very clearly on a few of the tracks, hints of Sigur Ros' distinctive dark and dreamy sounds. Elegant and lush, with a haunting quality that's made this a favorite of ours for those late rainy nights and somber afternoons.
MPEG Stream: "Journey to the Underworld"
MPEG Stream: "Bium Bium Bambalo"
MPEG Stream: "Degradation"

HONIG, EZEKIEL Surfaces Of A Broken Machine Band (Anticipater) cd 16.98
Ezekiel Honig has a delicate musical touch, and has crafted some well textured and nuanced electronica albums over the years, so we were surprised to find that somehow we had never actually listed any of his records. His latest, Surfaces Of A Broken Machine Band, is a great place to start for newcomers and a welcome addition to his backcatalog for those who've kept up with his warm and crackling soundscapes. Seamlessly melding bits of field recordings with minimalist beats and dreamy tones for a sound not unlike the most tender moments of Fennesz, Boards Of Canada, Mountains, Machinefabriek or Jasper TX. In fact Honig would make a great contributor to Kompakt's Pop Ambient series, as these are sounds made to drift, dream and get lost to. So nice!
MPEG Stream: "Seaside Pastures Part 2"
MPEG Stream: "Past Tense Kitchen Movement"
MPEG Stream: "Broken Marching Band"

INTRUSION The Seduction Of Silence (Echospace) cd 16.98
Intrusion is the solo project of Steve Hitchell, who alongside Rod Modell forms the impressive heroin-house meets dub-factory duo Echospace. Just as Modell's solo recordings don't veer too far from the Echospace mantra, the Intrusion sound doesn't see any reason to break the mold either. If it ain't broke, why fix it? This is the beloved muted blur of the Detroit / Berlin axis of techno that spurned the whole Basic Channel / Chain Reaction sound and which then slowed itself down into the murky dub of Burial Mix. Hitchell and Modell have both been so captivated by this particular sound, that they've collected many of the modular synths, signal processors, and classic drum machines that Moritz Von Oswald and Juan Atkins used back in the day to perfect the mimesis of that abstracted techno that steadily cruises through the dronefields. The bulk of the album finds a hypnotizing rhythm sublimated behind atmospheric synth chords rippling in sync with the cascading wash of echo and heaping snow drifts of tape hiss; but Hitchell does make a few noteworthy detours. "Intrusion Dub" is a decidedly uptempo digidub number, with Augustus Pablo-esque trills across the melodica and an insistent hi-hat uncannily similar to the metronomic rhythms provided by Public Image Limited on Metal Box, but of course pixel-pointed into a Chain Reactive / Burial Mix cloud of digital hiss. Elsewhere, he recruits the Burial Mix toaster par excellence Paul St. Hillaire to offer his ghostly croon to the mix. Mighty fine, mighty fine.
MPEG Stream: "Intrusion Dub"
MPEG Stream: "Little Angel w/ Paul St. Hillaire"

JOURNEY TO IXTLAN s/t (Aurora Borealis) cd 17.98
The label describes Journey To Ixtlan as "new age doom & occult desert rock", and heck, who are we to argue? The sound here is dark and swirling and mysterious, the guitars are dusty and sun baked, the production is lysergic, the drums pound abstractly through a haze of pot smoke and sandstorms, the bass is a beast like growl, the melodies are woozy and weary and laid back. Imagine the music Kyuss must listen to when they want to chill out. Or maybe picture Earth, but if instead of being based in the Northwest, wreathed in clouds and surrounded by verdant mountains, imagine they called the desert home, endless expanses of sand, an unforgiving sun hanging in a vast slate grey sky - and then maybe they'd be churning out druggy ritualistic doom like this instead of the gospel flecked slowcore they've grown into.
Journey To Ixtlan introduce mantra like chants, the sound of rain, of crackling fire, distant crashes, strange percussion, warm whirring keyboards, channeling the slow motion blackness of Skepticism, but filtered through something much more lo-fi and much less heavy, the heaviness here rendered in a tarpit thickness, huge heaving walls of crumbling sound, that give way to soft, shimmery, slow motion folk, the guitar still psychedelic, drifting like smoke through a hazy expanse of barely there buzz, a simple spaced out drum beat, and some seriously ominous gurgling vokills over the top.
This is most definitely some glorious drug addled desert hippy folk drone doom heaviness, the songs blending cookie monster gurgles and warm sun dappled synths, wrapping fluttery flutes, and ominous glacial riffing, around hushed whispered voices and cool soulful crooning, tripped out effects swirling around gorgeous blown out high end ur-drones, peppered with the croak of some underworld priest, or mysterious beast, shimmery chiming guitars spread out over abstract drums and more of those creepy vox, shakers and hand drums, gongs and rattles give way to a seriously downtuned stoner dirge, laced with insane prog keyboards, at once genius and totally bizarre, until the record closes with some sort of low end chant drone ritual, minimal, haunting, and otherworldly.
Definitely drone-y, and doomy, and dirge-y but maybe a bit to tripped out and fucked up and psychedelic for the troo doomlords out there, as for the rest of us, Journey To Ixtlan offer a mind bending, soul searching psychotropic soundworld that we're more than happy to get lost in...
MPEG Stream: "Pueblo"
MPEG Stream: "Spiritual Delousing"
MPEG Stream: "The Mesa"

JUANECO Y SU COMBO Masters of Chicha Vol. 1 (Barbes Records) cd 15.98
We're so glad Bardes Records unearthed these Peruvian gems, the work of Juaneco Y Su Combo, who were one of the main proponents of the 'Chicha' sound that blossomed throughout South America in the 1970s, a thrilling sound that merged Peruvian traditional music with Brazilian carimbo, Colombian cumbia, Western surf guitar stylings and infectious psychedelic organs.
There's no doubt these sounds had an influence on the newer generation of Peruvian musicians, possibly as well as on the now sounds that we love from the Colombian collective Las Malas Amistades and international scavengers like Senor Coconut. The story behind this group is so fascinating, filled with lots of psychedelic drugs, a father handing over the band he created over to his son, and tragically, a plane crash in 1977 that took the life of five of the members of the band. Luckily these joyous sounds are finally getting their well deserved chance to reach a much wider international audience. Fans of garage rock, surf, Latin rhythms and international pop will find so much to love in these classic Chicha tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Caballito Nocturno"
MPEG Stream: "Ya Se A Muerto Mi Abuelo"
MPEG Stream: "El Hijo De La Runamula"

KTL IV (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
Perfect for the dead of winter, it's another quietly creepy, digital dronedoom opus from this two-man stupor group, featuring Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), this time with production assistance from Jim O'Rourke. If you've heard KTL's I, II, or III (which was vinyl-only) you have an idea of what to expect - and are probably already plotting to purchase this. This is their first studio album constructed entirely for their own dark purposes, as opposed to having been commissioned as a soundtrack for live theatrical performance or film, though it certainly still has mysterious, soundtrack-y qualities. The sort that usually causes us, in reviews of KTL (and other dronesters too) to paint word-pictures of what the music evokes in our mind's eye. Subterranean caverns, bottomless pits, fallen angelic choirs, airplanes buzzing over dark forests... but we won't bother this time, you should just listen to this and your own imagination should have no difficulty providing all sorts of esoteric imagery. It may be soothing, it may be scary. Probably scary, it's up to you though. We find a lot of this to be as sinister and grim as Dick Cheney was in his Dr. Strangelove wheelchair at Obama's inauguration!
These six tracks are full of seismic rumble, high end hiss, eerie abstract glitch, sweeping drones, ringing electronics... some more epic and/or active than others. Distorted industrial rhythms shudder through several cuts, notably the disc's longest piece, the 21+ minute "Paratrooper", which features doomic beats by the drummer from Japan's Boris (who also brings his gong for an appearance on the disc's final track). While that's KTL IV at its heaviest, most of this is more like the sound of SUNNO))) sighing and whispering... or, conversely, Pita busting out a guitar to play along to a half-melted Swans record he found in the ashes of a burned-down church.
MPEG Stream: "Paratrooper"
MPEG Stream: "Wicked Way"

LA OTRACINA Blood Moon Riders (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
Latest from these East Coast psych rockers, a group who share members with another aQ fave, Titan, both bands offering up spaced out prog psych heaviness. On this latest La Otracia disc though, the L.O. trio get even proggier and heavier, the first side is mostly a single sprawling jam, rife with wildly intense drum freakouts, soulful soaring distorted guitars, thick buzzing bass, all wound tight into some super propulsive metallic prog.
The band churn out some surprisingly heavy riffage and heart-of-the-sun psychedelia, slipping from full on blown out prog to long stretches of swirling space rock and thick wall-of-sound drones, the proggier parts laced with squiggly synths, fractured riffs, fluttering flutes, all locked into some seriously complex arrangements, a multi part epic that could have gone on for another several lp sides (and as far as we're concerned should have!) but instead gives way to a tripped out moody reverb soaked coda.
The flipside is not so incendiary, but still plenty heavy and psychedelic, from druggy glistening shimmer, into loping almost Polvo-y postrock, humid guitar buzz over distant abstract percussion, hushed muted thrum lurching into frenetic krautrockiness, ending with an awesome final track, a head spinning collage of super psychedelic backwards guitars over simple subtle drumming, another awesome track that could easily have spread out over another album side.
Total kick ass space psych prog nirvana, and as always, essential listening for fans of Earthless, Guapo, Dead Meadow, Acid Mothers Temple, Titan, Mammatus, Bardo Pond, Hawkwind, Monster Magnet and the drugged out, spaced out like.

LIGHT A Million Dead Beneath The Ice (self released) cd-r 8.98
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it's now gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool that keep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered by its murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light, with song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be a smear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpit tempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by the warm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at once epic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-r dronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort of metallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Hand folded, hand assembled, stark white sleeves, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, crazy limited to maybe 50 copies or so.
MPEG Stream: "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down"
MPEG Stream: "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In"

LITTLE JOY s/t (Rough Trade) cd 12.98
We kind of slept on this record when it came out a few months ago but when we finally gave it a chance we totally fell in love. Most supergroups tend to be kind of all hype and no substance, but the opposite is the case for this trio consisting of Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes), Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos) and Binki Shapiro. Seems like being in Little Joy really let the players truly have fun and create sweet and breezy songs that make you want to get lost wandering with your friends or that special someone as you lay in the park or daydream on a hammock letting the weight of the world just drift away.
Injecting lots of tropical sounds influenced by Hawaiian, Brazilian & Latin American soft-psychedelic pop with such great results. Makes a lot of sense that this was produced by Noah Georgeson who's had a strong hand in the works of folks like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Devendra adds his voice to a few of the songs and you can tell that Little Joy have a strong feeling of kinship with him, as this record really taps into the more laid back sound of Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon and Cripple Crow. Breezy, easy and so delightfully catchy and assured.
MPEG Stream: "The Next Time Around"
MPEG Stream: "No One's Better Sake"
MPEG Stream: "Evaporar"

MAGNETICS We Are The Mountains We Are The Fields (Sweatlung) cd 9.98
Another backroom discovery, we got these more than a year ago, and somehow they never made it out on the floor. This trio of Australia underground vets have teamed up for some gorgeous sprawling free rock / free jazz weirdness. Warm and languid, abstract and pretty dreamy, taking guitars, vocals and drums, some feedback and processing, and even a bit of saxophone, into a weird blend of Necks like jazzy minimalism, and slow burning post rock ambience, like the Dirty Three covering the Dead C! All deep reverby guitars, sizzling cymbals, creaking bits of percussion, soft swirls of effects, very moody and fuzzy and ethereal. Some female vocals surface here and there, a soft torch songy croon over the smoldering post jazz skitter underneath, building to something a bit more abstract, a little more noisy, the cymbals still unleashing clouds of metallic shimmer, deep distant rumbles and whirs, some spidery guitars, and some woozy washed out ambience.
As the end draws near, the drone grows a bit more caustic, multiple layers of cymbals and soft feedback, and muted barely there low end, drift and swirl into a gorgeously hazy near static drone, rife with overtones and subtly shifting barely there melodies, and again, that skeletal guitar reaches up from the murk, grounding the free drift in something slightly more postrock, before closing off with a sub 2 minute outro, all angular Marc Ribot like guitar and breathless female vocals, haunting and quite pretty.
Think Necks, Bohren, Dirty Three, For Carnation, but a bit more avant and abstract, quite lovely...
MPEG Stream: "Charcoal"
MPEG Stream: "Pale"

MAMIFFER Hirror Enniffer (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
What might you expect from a band made up of one part Everlovely Lightningheart and one part These Arms Are Snakes? What if we told you some of the guys in Isis, Helms Alee and a few of the other These Arms Are Snakes fellas helped out? You still probably wouldn't imagine the sound of Mamiffer, which does share some elements with those bands, but is definitely its own unique entity.
Martial snares, grinding drones, melancholy piano, a strange sort of murky chamber ensemble, like a fucked up malevolent Rachels, that slips smoothly into some jazzy almost post rock. Moody and moving and dramatic and pretty dang cool. And that's just the first track. The rest of the tracks are all over the place, but held together by the everpresent piano, from glitchy buzzing dronemusic that swells to an incendiary Jesu / Nadja-like roar, piano laced folky slowcore, all moaning cellos, and cinematic piano, again underpinned by fuzzy buzzing drones, Godspeed style slow burn epics, Necks like slow jazz shimmer wrapped around a glowing black rumble, wrapped in a hazy shimmer, Fahey-esque Appalachian guitar strum that gradually slips into something much more distorted and heavy, laced with ethereal female vocals, and a distant whirring hiss, all woven into one epic and moving cinematic songsuite.
While this might not hit the spot for most Isis / These Arms Are Snakes / Helms Alee fans, it will almost for sure please fans of all things moody dramatic post rock, Rachels, Godspeed, Explosions, Mono, Magyar Posse and the like...
MPEG Stream: "This Land"
MPEG Stream: "Death Shawl"

MORD Necrosodomic Abyss (Osmose) cd 17.98
Necrolucas and the band he plays drums in, Mord, are back!! Dude not only boasts one of our favorite black metal monikers but his band smokes as well. If you've heard Mord's debut disc Christendom Perished, released on Southern Lord a few years ago, you know what to expect from these none-more-necro Norwegian speed demons. Fast, faster, and fasterer! Furious too. With occasional headbanging breakdowns to catch a breath. Necrosodomic Abyss is a thrill ride propelled by Necrolucas's blasting blizzard of drumbeats, but Mord founder guitarist/vocalist Nordra is crucial too, unleashing an abundance of remarkably rockin' riffs (remarkable for something this grim and raw, that is) as well as a suitably guttural growl. (The band here is rounded out by session bassist named Necrosodom, by the way.) To reference a couple other Aquarius faves, imagine if you will a cross between 1349 and Khold. This disc's eight tracks are simply titled "Opus I" through "Opus VIII" and are of course different from the identically titled Opuses (Opi) found on their previous album. Doesn't that get confusing for Mord when they make a set list? Maybe they don't play live anyway, many black metal bands don't... which would be a shame in this case, if a sweaty crowd never ever moshed to Mord! Listening at home, maybe you'll get some moshing in too.
MPEG Stream: "Opus I"
MPEG Stream: "Opus II"

MORKOBOT Morto (Supernatural Cat) cd 17.98
This futuristic-psychedelic Italian band from the Malleus/Ufomammut outer space orbit has come back to visit Earth again, blasting and baffling our senses with the intense radiation of the three long tracks that comprise this 40 minute disc/trip. As with their previous Monstro, the trio of Lin, Lan and Len again indulge in heavy, throbbing, occasionally spaced-out instrumentals with a rhythmic, industrial edge - something like Godflesh gone postrock amok. Or imagine the soundtrack to an alien autopsy that mixed up the internal organs of Lightning Bolt, Shellac, and Ufomammut. Sick.
MoRkObOt's guitars (both basses!) are distorted and drilling, laced with noise and FX, that gives way to moody electronic expanses, brushed with restrained, jazzy drumming. Indeed, we said "occasionally spaced-out" but maybe it's the other way around, the bulk the album actually consisting of near-ambient void-drone interrupted by the frantic panic of urgent, abrupt riffage and rigid clangorous rhythms. While this idiosyncratic band doesn't sound like most of the "doom" music we sell, believe us it's plenty ominous and intense, the doom it portends (a catastrophic asteroid impact? our sun going nova? the eventual heat-death of the universe?) not in doubt.
MPEG Stream: "Morto part I"
MPEG Stream: "Morto part II"
MPEG Stream: "Morto part III"

MUDHONEY / MUGSTAR Sonic Attack (Motorheads) (Trensmat) 7" 5.98
We blew through these in a matter of days when we first reviewed them a few lists back, we finally managed to get a bunch of these back in, about 20 copies, not sure how long they'll last, so if you want one, grab it quick, it's already sold out at the label, so this is definitely your last chance...
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
The first of the three, subtitled "Motorheads", features two aQ favorites (as do they all), Mudhoney and Mugstar. Mudhoney tackle "Urban Guerilla" and totally make it their own, so much so, that minus a little chunk of extended droney space rocking in the middle, those not well versed in Hawkwind would certainly be forgiven for thinking it was a Mudhoney original. Mugstar on the other hand are a DEAD ringer for Hawkwind, their sound murky and muddy, squalls of psych guitar, clouds of swirling spaced out FX, droned out jams, all tangled up and slowly unwinding into a long sprawling space rock jamscape. Hawkwind would be proud.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, with naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED!

NEWMAN, A. C. Get Guilty (Matador) cd 14.98
While he certainly sounds a bit more world weary with a warble of uncertainty in his voice in the opening track (and looks a bit more scruffily bearded in the inside photo), have no fear this is the A.C. Newman we all know and love! We have to admit that the new solo album from the New Pornographers' lord of the manor caught us a bit by surprise. We simply didn't expect it just yet! Hmmm, maybe the batteries in our trusty NP radar are on the fritz!
Anyhoo, we welcome Get Guilty gleefully with open arms and ears! As with his previous solo outing 2004's The Slow Wonder, the energy is definitely less exuberant and the mood far mellower than that of his main band, but the pop songs are as stellar as ever. He can at once nail both the heartswellingly grand and the sensitive smart guy introspective with the sweep of his songwriting quill. Not surprisingly after only a couple of listens, many of Newman's crafty pop hooks have embedded themselves solidly in our craniums. The sweet wistful mandolin lace air of "The Heartbreak Rides" is a definite standout, as is "Like A Hit Man, Like A Dancer" which with its similar instrumentation, female backing vocals and peppery tone could easily be seen as an epilogue or afterthought (not an outtake, mind you!) to the NPs' Challengers album... actually many of the other songs can too! Soooo, needless to say, "Very recommended if you like...."? You know it! Really, the only less that splendid thing about this release just might be the cd's art design and digipak packaging which sort made us think "local band demo". 'Tis a minor distraction though. Pssst, his backing band this time features Mates Of State's Kori and Jason which honeys up the musical confection quotient even more!
MPEG Stream: "There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve..."
MPEG Stream: "The Heartbreak Rides"
MPEG Stream: "Like A Hit Man, Like A Dancer"

NISENNENMONDAI Tori / Neji (Smalltown Supersound) cd 16.98
Yay! It's pretty cool that Norway's Smalltown Supersound has put this out, a disc collecting two previously released (in Japan only) eps by this Japanese all-girl avant-rock unit. We'd found out about this band a while back, and had wanted to stock their stuff, but sometimes importing cds from Japan is a daunting task. So our procrastination paid off, as now we have this handy disc, easily available. (It's also pretty cool that the Heartworm Press label has also just issued this on vinyl!) So what's the deal with this band? A mostly instrumental guitar/bass/drums trio who are psychedelically skronky, generating massive walls of distortion underpinned by propulsive no-waveisms. They're not a Japanese "noise" band like Merzbow or Hijokaidan, but certainly get plenty noisy. We could compare 'em at times to the likes of Afrirampo, Lightning Bolt, Melt Banana, Deerhoof, (early) Blonde Redhead... actually Nisennenmodai makes the reviewer's task a bit easier by naming several of the tracks of the Neji ep (2004) which begins this disc after some of their musical heroes, which to a degree they emulate: "Pop Group", "This Heat", "Sonic Youth". The "This Heat" track definitely has the nervous tension and percussive percolations we love about that band, whereas "Pop Group" is ultra-angular and extra-noisy...
The Tori ep (2005) that occupies the second half of this collection continues those themes - in fact, they do one of Neji's songs again, the densely rhythmic "Ikkkyokume", probably a signature track for the band as it so well represents their trance-inducing intensity, love of volume and minimalist song structure. Tori's first track "Kyuukohan" is tightly wound, repetitive number full of crashing cymbals, chiming guitar, and bass throb... building, building, building relentlessly to a massive climax. The next song, "Kyaaaaaa", incorporates yelping vocal shrieks and even more noisy feedback guitar. And so it goes, getting ever noisier, more throbbingly repetitive, a distorted, enthralling onslaught of explosive splatter/scatter rock indeed! We'd love to see 'em live someday, apparently there's crazy costumes and stuff, but that seems hardly necessary given the sheer energy of their music.
The limited double LP version is a handsome gatefold, on white vinyl. It's already sold out at the label, apparently we got their very last copies... act fast!
MPEG Stream: "This Heat"
MPEG Stream: "Ikkkyokume"

NISENNENMONDAI Tori / Neji (Heartworm Press) 2lp 17.98
Yay! It's pretty cool that Norway's Smalltown Supersound has put this out, a disc collecting two previously released (in Japan only) eps by this Japanese all-girl avant-rock unit. We'd found out about this band a while back, and had wanted to stock their stuff, but sometimes importing cds from Japan is a daunting task. So our procrastination paid off, as now we have this handy disc, easily available. (It's also pretty cool that the Heartworm Press label has also just issued this on vinyl!) So what's the deal with this band? A mostly instrumental guitar/bass/drums trio who are psychedelically skronky, generating massive walls of distortion underpinned by propulsive no-waveisms. They're not a Japanese "noise" band like Merzbow or Hijokaidan, but certainly get plenty noisy. We could compare 'em at times to the likes of Afrirampo, Lightning Bolt, Melt Banana, Deerhoof, (early) Blonde Redhead... actually Nisennenmodai makes the reviewer's task a bit easier by naming several of the tracks of the Neji ep (2004) which begins this disc after some of their musical heroes, which to a degree they emulate: "Pop Group", "This Heat", "Sonic Youth". The "This Heat" track definitely has the nervous tension and percussive percolations we love about that band, whereas "Pop Group" is ultra-angular and extra-noisy...
The Tori ep (2005) that occupies the second half of this collection continues those themes - in fact, they do one of Neji's songs again, the densely rhythmic "Ikkkyokume", probably a signature track for the band as it so well represents their trance-inducing intensity, love of volume and minimalist song structure. Tori's first track "Kyuukohan" is tightly wound, repetitive number full of crashing cymbals, chiming guitar, and bass throb... building, building, building relentlessly to a massive climax. The next song, "Kyaaaaaa", incorporates yelping vocal shrieks and even more noisy feedback guitar. And so it goes, getting ever noisier, more throbbingly repetitive, a distorted, enthralling onslaught of explosive splatter/scatter rock indeed! We'd love to see 'em live someday, apparently there's crazy costumes and stuff, but that seems hardly necessary given the sheer energy of their music.
The limited double LP version is a handsome gatefold, on white vinyl. It's already sold out at the label, apparently we got their very last copies... act fast!
MPEG Stream: "This Heat"
MPEG Stream: "Ikkkyokume"

NOEL, LEYNA From The Mouth Of The Jar (s/r) cd-r 14.98
We've seen some pretty elaborate and unique packaging come through the store over the years, but this delicate and exquisitely hand made affair by local songstress Leyna Noel is really in a league of its own. She hand made each sleeve which comes in antique linen that she sewed individually and stitched shut, inside the lyrics and liner notes are printed on ledger paper from 1945. So much love and work went into making these lovely looking cd's that we almost didn't want to have to cut one open to listen to it. But luckily this is one of those great cases where the labor and visual aesthetic perfectly captures the warm and intimate songs contained inside.
From The Mouth of The Jar opens with the richest sounding Hammond organ and then Leyna takes the mic and matches that wave of warmth with her strong and gorgeous voice. With rich instrumentation throughout provided by Leyna and a cast of her comrades including members of Viking Moses, this is music that really is a step above most of the recent singer songwriter/folk sounds, never forgetting that it takes spirit and passion to make a song soar, and Leyna's songs ooze with so much genuine soul. Her delivery and arrangements conjure images of kindred spirits like Joanna Newsom, Edith Frost, Mira Billote (White Magic) and Cat Power. A record that really is like someone sharing with you an honest and thoughtful part of themselves, a feeling for you to cherish as you walk by their side, your spirit warmed by the true comfort they exude. The amount of time and work it took to construct these is baffling and needless to say there is a very small run of them so grab one while you can!
MPEG Stream: "Yellow Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Speedboat Wake"
MPEG Stream: "Make Bright"

PASSIONISTAS, THE / HARD PLACE split (World Famous In SF) 7" 7.98
The Passionistas have been gaining some well deserved attention here in SF with their super catchy and colorful pop hooks, dipping their musical toes into both power pop and glam, providing the missing link between Big Star and Sparks. Speaking of Sparks, Hard Place open their side of this split with a very Sparks influenced and triumphant sounding pop nugget. There's a very early '80s larger-than-life, arena-ready aesthetic to their sound, yet it's delivered with such earnest spirit. We suspect there is some Van Halen, Andrew W.K. and maybe even a Jefferson Starship record in their collections. We lean a little towards The Passionistas on this split, but pop enthusiasts will find lots to like on both sides of this little piece of wax.

POM POM s/t (aka 32) (Pom Pom / Kompakt) cd 21.00
Black digipak. Black disc (both sides!). No art, no text, anywhere. Just a sticker on the shrinkwrap with the name Pom Pom, a bar code, and the Kompakt logo. Apparently this is distributed by our favorite techno label Kompakt, but is actually on the mysterious Pom Pom's own imprint, who have previously released at least thirty two 12" vinyl only Pom Pom records!
Where are Pom Pom from? Berlin of course. Making throbbing minimal so-called "psychedelic" techno since 2001. As their press release puts it: "Pom Pom reflects the monotone and hypnotic essence of techno." True dat. And here's their first compact disk, whose stark, minimal packaging more or less accurately describes its musical content. 14 tracks selected from those 32 eps, full of percussive pulses, hum and hiss, repetitive bass thump, Morse code-y clicks and beeps, little melodic robot riffs. Pom Pom often have a bit of poppiness to 'em, like the uptempo track #6. Other cuts are more about (Echo)spacey ambient drift from out in Dopplereffekt's orbit. Pom Pom are definitely our sort of "dance music", aligned with other faves from the Kompakt realm.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 6"
MPEG Stream: "track 7"

PRETTY & NICE Pink & Blue (self-released) cd 11.98
One of our pop records of 2008 was Get Young from Northwestern power poppers Pretty & Nice, who created a kinetic hybrid of classic pop like XTC, Sparks and Elvis Costello and the newer pop strains of the New Pornographers, Maximo Park and the Cardiacs, the resulting sound was at once insanely catchy, super off kilter and twisted as well as weirdly lush and pretty. Any pop kids out there who somehow missed out on P&N's Get Young, should go buy that one RIGHT NOW.
We were digging that record so much, that we practically flipped when we got an email from the band, who it seemed had two other releases, another full length as well as a remix ep. So we grabbed a bunch of each, and for this list we'll tackle the other full length, Pink & Blue.
All of the above mentioned references still apply, but if anything, the sound on Pink & Blue is way more raw and rocking, less programming, less keyboards, and more super rocking garage pop. The bass buzzes and rumbles, the guitars are sharp and jagged, sometimes distorted and crunchy, the vocals slipping from soaring croon to delicate falsetto, it's almost like a punk rock version of Get Young, more lo-fi and in the red, with an almost Nirvana like vibe at times, but still plenty of new wave buzz.
They also sound more Northwestern, like they could be sharing sweaty basement shows with groups like the Thermals or the Catheters, but unlike those bands, they infuse their pop with plenty of bounce and jitter, all caffeinated and wildly frenetic, the sort of band that would definitely turn a grungy backyard beer soaked house show, into a freaked out punk rock new wave dance party.
Fuck yeah.
MPEG Stream: "Fortress"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Bumblebee"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Hey Come On"
MPEG Stream: "Stop / Start"

PRETTY & NICE Pink & Blue (self-released) lp 11.98
One of our pop records of 2008 was Get Young from Northwestern power poppers Pretty & Nice, who created a kinetic hybrid of classic pop like XTC, Sparks and Elvis Costello and the newer pop strains of the New Pornographers, Maximo Park and the Cardiacs, the resulting sound was at once insanely catchy, super off kilter and twisted as well as weirdly lush and pretty. Any pop kids out there who somehow missed out on P&N's Get Young, should go buy that one RIGHT NOW.
We were digging that record so much, that we practically flipped when we got an email from the band, who it seemed had two other releases, another full length as well as a remix ep. So we grabbed a bunch of each, and for this list we'll tackle the other full length, Pink & Blue.
All of the above mentioned references still apply, but if anything, the sound on Pink & Blue is way more raw and rocking, less programming, less keyboards, and more super rocking garage pop. The bass buzzes and rumbles, the guitars are sharp and jagged, sometimes distorted and crunchy, the vocals slipping from soaring croon to delicate falsetto, it's almost like a punk rock version of Get Young, more lo-fi and in the red, with an almost Nirvana like vibe at times, but still plenty of new wave buzz.
They also sound more Northwestern, like they could be sharing sweaty basement shows with groups like the Thermals or the Catheters, but unlike those bands, they infuse their pop with plenty of bounce and jitter, all caffeinated and wildly frenetic, the sort of band that would definitely turn a grungy backyard beer soaked house show, into a freaked out punk rock new wave dance party.
Fuck yeah.
MPEG Stream: "Fortress"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Bumblebee"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Hey Come On"
MPEG Stream: "Stop / Start"

PREVALENT RESISTANCE Eternal Return (Nykta) cd 13.98
As we mentioned in the Horna review a while back, we're pretty obsessed with Finnish black metal. There's something super distinctive about the sound, about the feel, you can almost tell within seconds that a record is Finnish. Horna, Baptism, Vordr, Satanic Warmaster, Uncreation's Dawn, Incriminated, Gestapo 666, Pest, Warloghe, Sargeist, Behexen, and then there's the other side of Finnish BM, the sort of fractured fucked up damaged side: Circle Of Ouroborus, Dead Reptile Shrine. Needless to say, that list of bands alone should be enough to convince you of the power and majesty of Finnish black metal.
Another name that belongs on that list is Prevalent Resistance, another revered Finnish horde with a Finnish pedigree that reads almost like the list above: Baptism, Circle Of Ouroborus, Vordr, Alghazanth, Unveiled, Trollheim's Grott, Black Death Ritual. And don't let the presence of Atvar from Circle Of Ouroborus mislead you, this is not some avant acoustic stumbling black dirge fucked up weirdness, this is much more in line with Horna, Baptism and Behexen, blasting melodic blackness, slipping between frenzied thrashing, and more midtempo almost-grooves, with the occasional flurry of freaked out black chaos, but for the most part his is dark solid, super heavy well produced blackness, taking elements of Burzum, Darkthrone, the usual suspects but running it through that distinctive Finnish sonic filter. Even the noisiest and most frenzied parts are infused with plenty of melody, making them soar majestically, before slipping back into something more martial and maniacal, or something more buzzing and midtempo.
This is again an instance where it's not the sound alone, but also the songs, which are surprisingly catchy, like lots of Finnish black metal, and anyone who has been digging recent Horna, should probably check this out as well. We were definitely digging this even after only a few quick listens, but weirdly enough we've found ourselves returning to this over and over again. Another seriously kick ass slab of Finnish blackness.
MPEG Stream: "From Beyond The Chains"
MPEG Stream: "Altars Of Our Black Cult"

RUSSELL, ARTHUR World Of Echo (Audika) cd 16.98
Having recently listed the highly popular Love Is Overtaking Me, we thought we'd bring in the other side of the Arthur Russell sound, World of Echo, a magical record he released towards the end of his life. We surprised ourselves realizing we never listed it previously, so it's time to do it some justice.
While Love Is Overtaking Me introduced a previously unheard side to Arthur Russell fans, it also brought in a new audience perhaps less in tune with Russell's more high-minded musical pursuits. World of Echo is a perfect in-between place for fans and new-comers. Released in 1987, World of Echo concentrates on Russell's use of the cello, percussion and voice filtered through a bank of effects. There is a minimalist oceanic dub vibe that weaves through these highly personal songs that are affecting, not so much by what he is singing but how. Soft and low, his voice quavers over spare echoing instrumentation that bends towards the beautifully abstract. Like floating in calm oceans towards the void of the sun, melting into its warmth, this is a record that influenced a generation of music makers (Grizzly Bear, Coconut, Final Fantasy, Juana Molina, Animal Collective / Panda Bear, Hanne Hukkelberg, etc) and continues to beguile us. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Place I Know-Kid Like You"
MPEG Stream: "Hiding Your Present From You"
MPEG Stream: "Treehouse"

RYAN, COLLIE The Hour Is Now (Sebastian Speaks / Yoga) lp 13.98
One of our favorite tracks from The Numero Group's excellent Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon compilation was "Cricket" by Collie Ryan. A hippie devotee of Theosophy, Ryan recorded three lovely private press records in the early seventies that featured her stunning artwork and songs that subtly touched on mystical and Native American themes. Her high-pitch bird-like vocals, sheathed in reverb, and complex guitar arrangements fall heavier on the Linda Perhacs side of the Joni Mitchell coin than say, someone like Judee Sill, who also dealt with mystical themes but was more tied to a commercially viable singer-songwriter scene. The Hour is Now is a vinyl-only "best of" of sorts that combines tracks from all three records (yet mysteriously no "Cricket"...) and will save the less diehard fans from shelling out a couple of hundred dollars for the originals. The analog mastering was even supervised by none other than by J. D. Emmanuel! Beautiful stuff!!!
MPEG Stream: "Cricket"

SAINTE-MARIE, BUFFY Illuminations (Vanguard) cd 13.98
We didn't realize this was still available until someone happened to order one the other day. And being so easy to get, we had to get more to share with everyone.
Easily one of our favorite folk rock records from the day, probably our favorite Buffy Sainte-Marie album ever, Illuminations is truly strange and beautiful. A heady brew of gothic folk elements, Native American invocations and bewitching electronic effects and magical drones. Her vocals sometimes soft and saintly, othertimes heavy, rocking and intense. Originally released in 1969 on the awesome Vanguard label, no other Buffy Sainte-Marie record is quite like this one, with songs that are poetically beautiful dealing with themes of love and injustice through esoteric supernatural imagery of vampires, angels, mystical rites and creation myths, and with music that is equally beguiling. From the first spiraling electric vocal warbles that open "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot", the Cluster like drones on "The Angel", the witchy folk-funk of "He's A Keeper of The Fire" to the final track, "Poppies" that presages Grouper by nearly forty years. Fantastic!
MPEG Stream: "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot"
MPEG Stream: "Adam"
MPEG Stream: "He's A Keeper of The Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Poppies"

SHEFFIELD, COLIN ANDREW Signatures (Invisible Birds) cd 12.98
NOW AVAILABLE IN THE REGULAR EDITION!!!
The veil of mediated sound hangs heavy upon the work of Colin Andrew Sheffield, a Texan born sound artist currently living in Seattle. His work is almost entirely based upon recontextualizing sounds from already released works, although unlike such plunderphonic artists like Christian Marclay, John Oswald, and Wobbly who allow for the samples to utter their origins, Sheffield obliterates almost all of the references into a field of static vibrations, densely compacted layerings, and hyper-stretched drones. Through his digital crucible, Sheffield extracts something almost completely different out of the sources that he puts into it.
In running the ever impressive Elevator Bath label, Sheffield has found an outlet for a handful of his recordings, mostly as small run editions with the one exception being his outstanding First Thus cd. Signatures was commissioned by the San Francisco based label Invisible Birds, as the debut in what hopes to be a great catalogue of sound art composition that's somehow related to bird sounds and their environment. Keeping true to his working methods, Sheffield's contribution to Invisible Birds reclaims sounds from other records amidst what Sheffield claims to be field recordings of water and birds. The results have been so heavily obfuscated through the process that it's hard to hear any twitter of birdsong. The thunderous low-end repetition on the last track is purported to be the flapping of a bird's wing, but it's hard to discern. All of this said, Sheffield's results are gorgeous. At first, the album has almost an ominous feel, as a shimmering, arctic hush is shot forth from the speakers with layer upon layer of sympathetic vibrations interweaving into a hypnotic, if cybernetic sound. It sounds sort of like the classic Chain Reaction artists like Porter Ricks or Hallucinator with all of the techno extracted, and only a cold, cold drone of digitality left behind. By the end of the album, Sheffield brightens things into a stunning crescendo of church organ-like chords suspended in time and space with glints of vinyl crackle hanging like sunflecked dust floating in air. Here, Sheffield gives the impression of William Basinski reclaiming a Ligetti choral piece. Very highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Beneath The Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Surrender"
MPEG Stream: "Breath Of Day"

SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO Fabriclive 4.1 (Fabric) cd 17.98
While we love and appreciate the music of Simian Mobile Disco, created of course on all analog equipment with sights set on a flashing dancefloor, it's really the incredible DJ skills of Simian Mobile Disco that impresses us the most. A few of us have seen them play their sets before and it really was some of the best dancefloor/DJ action we've ever experienced. So we were super excited about their entry in the Fabriclive series.
This should really be used as a template/textbook for all aspiring dancefloor DJ's. SMD are masterful at mixing both the obvious and the obscure, the expected and the very UNexpected. From disco to four-on-the-floor techno, rife with great peaks and valleys with great twists and turns throughout, this is a mix made for playing loud or as the soundtrack to the kind of party that involves bodies moving with reckless abandon. Who else could somehow sneak in Raymond Scott, Moondog, and Moebius/Plank/Neumeier into a mix featuring Hercules & The Love Affair, Plastikman and Tomita and make it all flow so effortlessly? There is a danger sometimes with DJ's playing show-off with their record collections, but Simian Mobile Disco really utilize their great taste in music for maximum dance floor effect. They would be the perfect group to DJ a Daft Punk after party! Aspiring DJ's get out your notebooks cause school is in session!
MPEG Stream: "Sisters Of Transistors - The Don"
MPEG Stream: "Hercules And Love Affair - Blind (Serge Santiago Version)"
MPEG Stream: "Moondog - Suite Equestria"
MPEG Stream: "Plastikman - Spastik"

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE RTZ (Drag City) cd 16.98
Here at aQ we get the pleasure of watching bands grow and change over the years. Sure, some bands head off the deep end never to be heard from again, but others mature and grow into something even beyond what we could've ever imagined. Ben Chasny is the perfect example of the latter. After releasing well over a dozen albums, we've watched Chasny evolve into one of the most prominent music makers of our time. Don't get us wrong, there are plenty of other super talented and super awesome downer psych folk yogis, BUT none even come close to matching the mind bending artistry that Chasny has perfected.
We cant even tell you how many people have come into the shop only to proclaim, "What?! A new Six Organs record!?! I'll take it!" And this isn't even exactly a new record, although this material is new to most of us, as Drag City has reissued a bunch of older, more obscure and hard to find Six Organs tracks.
While "Punish the Chasm with Wings" is the only completely unheard track on RTZ, the rest of these songs are taken from various cd splits, limited pressed cdrs, compilations and a 12" split with Charlambidies, highly anticipated early work straight from the dusty vaults of Mr. Chasny. Named after a button on his beloved four-track recorder, RTZ is an acronym for Return to Zero, a highly appropriate title for an album that revisits the early beginnings of his prolific career.
In some ways, RTZ is more of the same gorgeous woodsy, somber guitar work from Chasny, but what makes RTZ one of our favorite Six Organs records is the sheer epicness of every track. Beautifully composed with close attention to detail, the majority of the songs span well over the ten minute mark, most almost reaching 20 minutes! Every track carries the weight of an entire album, each taking the listener on a different path through the overgrown reaches of some forested wonderland. Hypnotic guitar pluckings hovering over vocal mantras that shapeshift into quiet soundscapes, rhythmic tambourine and flute passages sway with the hanging branches as plumes of smoke rise magnificently into the air. Chasny's guitar playing is completely spot on, sincere and dimly lit, we can just picture him with eyes closed, hunched over in the corner of some candlelit run-down cabin, channeling the words and songs of spirits lost in the woods. Complete with a cool lookin' black metal-esque Six Organs logo on the cover, RTZ is a must have, especially for fans of anything Six Organs (or anything remotely similar for that matter)!!
MPEG Stream: "Warm Earth, Which I've Been Told"
MPEG Stream: "Punish The Chasms With Wings"

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE RTZ (Drag City) 3lp 22.00
Here at aQ we get the pleasure of watching bands grow and change over the years. Sure, some bands head off the deep end never to be heard from again, but others mature and grow into something even beyond what we could've ever imagined. Ben Chasny is the perfect example of the latter. After releasing well over a dozen albums, we've watched Chasny evolve into one of the most prominent music makers of our time. Don't get us wrong, there are plenty of other super talented and super awesome downer psych folk yogis, BUT none even come close to matching the mind bending artistry that Chasny has perfected.
We cant even tell you how many people have come into the shop only to proclaim, "What?! A new Six Organs record!?! I'll take it!" And this isn't even exactly a new record, although this material is new to most of us, as Drag City has reissued a bunch of older, more obscure and hard to find Six Organs tracks.
While "Punish the Chasm with Wings" is the only completely unheard track on RTZ, the rest of these songs are taken from various cd splits, limited pressed cdrs, compilations and a 12" split with Charlambidies, highly anticipated early work straight from the dusty vaults of Mr. Chasny. Named after a button on his beloved four-track recorder, RTZ is an acronym for Return to Zero, a highly appropriate title for an album that revisits the early beginnings of his prolific career.
In some ways, RTZ is more of the same gorgeous woodsy, somber guitar work from Chasny, but what makes RTZ one of our favorite Six Organs records is the sheer epicness of every track. Beautifully composed with close attention to detail, the majority of the songs span well over the ten minute mark, most almost reaching 20 minutes! Every track carries the weight of an entire album, each taking the listener on a different path through the overgrown reaches of some forested wonderland. Hypnotic guitar pluckings hovering over vocal mantras that shapeshift into quiet soundscapes, rhythmic tambourine and flute passages sway with the hanging branches as plumes of smoke rise magnificently into the air. Chasny's guitar playing is completely spot on, sincere and dimly lit, we can just picture him with eyes closed, hunched over in the corner of some candlelit run-down cabin, channeling the words and songs of spirits lost in the woods. Complete with a cool lookin' black metal-esque Six Organs logo on the cover, RTZ is a must have, especially for fans of anything Six Organs (or anything remotely similar for that matter)!!
MPEG Stream: "Warm Earth, Which I've Been Told"
MPEG Stream: "Punish The Chasms With Wings"

SKULLFLOWER Last Shot At Heaven (Noiseville) cd 29.00
Everyone has their own particular favorite Skullflower era, the pummeling Swans-like crush of the early records, the blown out free drone guitar skree of Obsidian Shaking Codex, the tripped out druggy riffy space rock of Exquisite Fucking Boredom and Orange Canyon Mind, or the full on face melting guitarnoise assault of more recent releases, as far as we're concerned it ALL rules, whether heavy or noisy, pounding and pummeling or drifting and shimmering, Matthew Bower and whatever other noisemakers he manages to assemble, are responsible for some of the most amazing OUTrock records of the last twenty years, if not ever.
One of the best is no doubt Last Shot At Heaven, released in 1993, which features the band as a trio, and looks ahead to the dirgey riffage of Exquisite Fucking Boredom, but mixes in plenty of druggy shimmer (lots of Sunroof! foreshadowing), post industrial pound and psychedelic guitar freakout. This is WAY out of print, but the label discovered a box of 40 or so stashed away, so we took all they had left (25 copies), needless to say, these are the last copies EVER, the label has no plans to repress, and we took every remaining copy, so if you want one, be quick!
Last Shot explodes right off the bat with "Caligula" a dirgey riff heavy groove, all massive plodding pound, and squalls of wah guitar, howled vocals buried in the mix, streaks of feedback, tangled guitar melodies, very metallic and definitely heavy, but still plenty space-y and krauty. The follow up "Get The Horn" is all looped shimmer and pulsing thrum, peppered with growling distorted guitars, and spaced out drum pound, the growling guitars intensifying over the near static "Baba O'Reilly" like synth part. "Dufus" is an ultra distorted lo-fi garagedoom dirge, Dead C style free rock recorded at the bottom of a well, still thick with swirling guitars and simple plodding drums. "Bad Alchemy" is total proto metal, a killer main riff, wrapped in squiggly guitar freak out, the whole thing a woozy metallic groove, locked into an endless loop, the vocals a thick effected drawl off in the distance, "Elf Piercer" is a bit of Hawkwindy style space rock, again, locked into a relentless loop, effects everywhere, the guitars wild and tangled, "Rotten Sun II" is a super blown out doomic dirge, with howled vox and super jagged caustic riffage, and rhythms buried beneath the crumbling distortion, "Mystic Eye" is all tribal drumming, buzzing guitar, throbbing bass, soaring melodies, the most straight up rock of any of the tracks, but once it achieves maximum volume, it again gets looped into a seemingly endless jam, and finally "Blown Dukes", a hazy guitar drift, all warm whir and warble, thick buzz, disembodied riff, eventually joined by spare drumming, before devolving into a free rock freakout.
One of the more accessible Skullflower records for sure, but fear not, still plenty heavy and noisy and psychedelic, and unfortunately, almost for sure, your last chance to get your hands on one.
MPEG Stream: "Caligula"
MPEG Stream: "Elf Piercer"
MPEG Stream: "Mystic Eye"

SLOUGH FEG, THE LORD WEIRD The Slay Stack Grows: Early Demos And Live Recordings (Shadow Kingdom) 2cd 15.98
Stop right there. FANS ONLY past this point. We're serious. Fortunately, we know that these heavy metal eccentrics have enthusiastic fans (as this release proves). Slough Feg have become one of those love 'em or hate 'em cult bands, where if you like 'em at all, you probably like 'em A LOT. Those of you for whom that's true, you just might be very interested in this double cd archival collection of, as the subtitle says, "Early Demos and Live Recordings". Meant to look a bit like a bootleg (since the band certainly doesn't want anyone to mistake this for a NEW Slough Feg album), it compiles obscure old recordings that many of Slough Feg's most dedicated followers haven't even heard. This stuff's from way, way down deep in the vaults. Be warned, though, the sound quality can be, in a word, rough. Shitty, even. Like we said, for fans only. If you're not already a 'Feg fan, but curious about these weird, Iron Maiden-y San Franciscan metal masters, may we suggest checking out their most recent opus Hardworlder (reviewed elsewhere on our site, along with all their other albums) and going from there?
Ok, with that caveat emptor out of the way, we tell you true fans more about what you're gonna find here. Two discs' worth of Slough Feg history, going all the way back to the band's debut DIY demo cassette recording from the summer of 1990. That's what disc one starts with, the nine tracks of "The White Tape" (so called because the cassette they used for the master was white). The, er, "production" quality is seriously fucked up, lower-than-lo-fi with crazy level changes, weird bleed-throughs echoing from other tracks, abrupt edits, buzzing guitars and tape hiss... but give it a few minutes and you might get used to it! What do you expect from a tape made almost 20 years ago by some kids in a basement who barely knew how to work their borrowed 4-track?? However, people who have heard it had been bugging 'em to release it on cd and so here it is, in all its gnarly glory. The first thing a Slough Feg fan will notice is that it's not Mike Scalzi singing! The band lineup back then was quite a bit different from what most Slough Feg fans are familiar with. Band leader/chief songwriter Mike Scalzi wasn't the vocalist, in fact, he didn't even always play guitar. The band's original frontman was Omar Herd, who did his charismatic best to be "the black Paul Di'Anno". Chris Haa (older brother to eventual, erstwhile Slough Feg drummer Greg) was the lead guitarist. And Dave Passmore played drums. Mike, Dave and Omar had all been in bands together before, in the local Central Pennsylvania punk/hardcore scene.
On this earliest stuff with Omar on the mic you can definitely hear their punk/hc roots. As raw and crappy as the sound is, the sheer frantic youthful energy and absurd abandon of these tracks is exciting and infectious. And despite the vintage and the variant lineup, it's definitely the Slough Feg fans know & love. You'll even recognize some of the songs, as the band recorded most - but not all - of 'em later on in their career. "Warp Spasm", "Highway Corsair", "Marauder", "Slough Feg", "Highlander"... But you've never heard "Sheets Of Red", "Journey Through The Halls Of Insanity", "Thoughts Of Sympathy", or "The Rock Song", although bits of some of them were cannibalized here and there for other songs. Maybe someday they'll do "The Rock Song" again, though it's hard to imagine Mike singing Omar's love gone bad lyrics about anchorman Dan Rather...
Next up on disc one is what might be our favorite stretch of this whole set, a live soundboard recording from a 1990 show at a firehall in Altoona, PA. Mike plays bass, which is mainly heard as a clicking clacking of pick on strings, but very little actual "bass". Omar's vocals come through loud and proud though. And his between-song shit-talking, crowd-baiting banter is amusing. They do five songs off of The White Tape, plus a cover of Judas Priest's "Breakin' The Law". Again, the snotty, adrenalized, off-the-rails metallic madness of the whole thing is exhilarating and fun.
Disc one finishes up with two demo tracks ("Highway Corsair" and "Highlander", the latter with completely different alternate lyrics) recorded in 1994, now with Mike on vocals, a couple years after Slough Feg (minus Omar and Dave) relocated to San Francisco.
Disc two jumps forward to present live material recorded circa 1999-2002, after Slough Feg had some albums out. Bassists vary, but John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune) shares guitar duties with Scalzi on all of this - stuff from a couple shows in San Francisco, and a gig in Germany (on tour with Solstice in 2000). Tracks from their self-titled first album, Twilight Of The Idols, Down Among The Deadmen, and Traveller all are aired, along with another never-studio-recorded number, a cover version of "Heavy Metal Hunter" by Japan's Metalucifer, which for a while was their standard encore. Though the distorted sound quality isn't what you'd hope for from an official live album, it's ok for a bootleg, which is basically what this is, a somewhat reluctantly authorized boot. We're only disappointed that they didn't include some other old demos, and/or live recordings we're sure must exist - where's their stoner rock jam "Radical Man" or their unlikely cover of Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon"?!
These discs are packaged with some of the artwork that inspired Slough Feg, from the Slaine comic book. Also there's old flyers from shows "back in the day" with lots of random local bands who definitely aren't still around, that's for sure. The booklet also includes photos, and lyrics to the songs. But no liner notes, unfortunately. As a substitute, you do get, as the final track on disc two, a candid, slightly silly interview with mainman Mike Scalzi done for a German radio show in 2000. Wherein he claims that Slough Feg would be much more popular had he called the band "The Shit Boys" or "Nuclear Fate Europe", cites Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Tiny Tim as his main influences, and openly discusses his gay love affair with Sacred Steel singer Gerrit Mutz.
We're pretty confident that all diehard, true 'Feg fans (you might be one, if you're still reading this!) will find the material on The Slay Stack Grows to be of interest... historical, maybe hysterical, and without a doubt headbangin'. Besides, metallers tend to fetishize artifacts such as this, harking back to ye olde tape trading days, and while probably no one has ever traded a copy of The White Tape, that portion of this (and more) definitely evokes the ancient spirit of the eighties and earlier. Heck, maybe the scrappy (lack of) production will attract some underground black metal fans to the 'Feg. And now that The White Tape by 'the true' Slough Feg is immortalized on compact disc, fans can now wonder what the band would be like now if Omar had remained the singer...
Oh, and speaking of diehard fetishistic stuff, get this: apparently Shadow Kingdom are gonna also release this on quadruple vinyl!! We'll believe it when we see it, however, 'cause that's crazy.
MPEG Stream: "Sheets Of Red"
MPEG Stream: "Slough Feg"
MPEG Stream: "Marauder (live 1990)"
MPEG Stream: "Highlander (live 1999)"

SPIRITUAL SINGERS Ntsamina (Mississippi) lp 11.98
MISSISSIPPI Alert! MISSISSIPPI Alert! MISSISSIPPI Alert!
Wow! This is unlike any gospel or African music we've heard. The Spiritual Singers were (are?) an evangelical pop group hailing from Brazzaville, that fused Afropop, R&B, garage rock, high off-kilter vocals and epic harmonies into a strange amalgam of groovy far-flung devotionals. Fronted by Berthe Loudi, whose amazing vocal quality borders on the endearingly outsiderish: raw, passionate and high keening at times, almost out of tune but in a way that goes perfectly with the music, tempered by the lovingly angelic quality of the back-up harmonies. The combo features two guitars, bass, organ and some really amazing drumming that kicks up the grooves on the faster numbers and highlights the epic devotional quality on the slower ones. Released in 1980, this is another highly worthwhile entry in the Mississippi catalog. Remember, these are limited!

SUMMER, DONNA Bad Girls (Casablanca) cd 11.98
With the big revival that disco has enjoyed the last couple years we thought no time better than now then to dip into the vaults for some true vintage disco classics. The meeting of worlds between German producer Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer really was the blueprint for much of the cosmic disco that would follow and be revived and reinvented in recent years by labels like Italians Do It Better (Glass Candy, Chromatics, Farah, etc.) as well as folks like Escort, Lindstrom, Prins Thomas and mega pop-stars like Madonna and Beyonce. But hard as they try, none of them can match the true ecstasy of cosmic dancefloor delight that Moroder and Donna Summer created together in their golden years of collaboration circa 1975-1979.
Bad Girls came at the tail end of their collaboration, as the '80s and on would find a much less coked-out Donna Summer creating way less memorable material after this golden era. While our all time favorite and pretty much totally perfect Donna Summer records are probably Love To Love You Baby, and Four Seasons Of Love, Bad Girls contains some of our favorite Donna Summer tracks!
While not every one of the fifteen tracks on Bad Girls is a classic, the majority are so smoking and fun! Recorded in 1979, Moroder and Summer were aware that the heyday of disco was waning a bit so there are healthy hints of new wave, pop and even a few ballads in the mix, but the strength of Bad Girls is all about its bright uptempo thrillers that will always stand the test of time.
MPEG Stream: "Bad Girls"
MPEG Stream: "Lucky"
MPEG Stream: "Dim All The Lights"

SYNB / HSDOM s/t (Phaserprone) cd-r 12.98
Here's one of those mysteriously dark, mysteriously packaged, and mysteriously produced records that we love here at aQ. It's hard to say really who is doing what on this album, which may be considered a collaboration, may be a split, may be a set of remixes, or somewhere in between. SYNB is the work of Matt Brinkmann who had a couple of releases on Load a while back as Mr. Brinkmann, of fuzzed clunk and bass, but more recently has acquired notoriety as a member of the Paper Rad comic 'n' video collective. HSDOM is the work of Jochen Hartmann, half of the mighty (if under-appreciated) UW Owl, whose deadtech rhythms and blackened noise conjure the best that SPK or Factrix had managed in their most feral and brutal period. Phaserprone states that this release features SYNB reworking HSDOM materials and HSDOM reworking SYNB's recording Black/Gold Chip, although there is very little to indicate which tracks are done by or to whom. No matter how you look at it, this album seems to follow more of the UW Owl monstrousness, and it fucking rules!
After a grim introduction of close-looped feedback pushed through subharmonic distortion pedals for a thicket of skinscraping noise, convulsive rhythms tread through a perpetually exploding minefield of analog synths and circuit bent chaos. Ash, soot, toxic rain, nuclear fallout, brimstone, and any other suitably apocalyptic residue seems to hang on every blast of electricity, whether that be the abject white noise turned black or the jacked-up beats overdriven with distortion and hotwired fuzz. Within these entirely instrumental tracks, SYNB and HSDOM offer an alternative course for where Wolf Eyes could have dramatically improved their strategies of making hellish robotic electronica.
Nicely packaged in a letterpressed cover in an edition of 200 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 4"
MPEG Stream: "Track 5"

SZARLEM Night Of Blood (Nykta) cd 13.98
We've all been a bit obsessed with Varghkoghargasmal since we first got our hands on the Call Of The Raven cassette, a stumbling confusional chunk of what the band calls 'wooden metal', one of us was so obsessed, that he released a full length Varghkoghargasmal record on his label (Andee, we're talking to you!), which took that wooden metal sound even further, creating a gorgeously evocative foresty black metal assembled from wavery warbly keyboards, off kilter drumming, and strummed clean guitars. But we never stopped to wonder what that wooden metal would sound like in a more traditional black metal setting, blacker and more distorted, more frostbitten more grim, well, now we don't have to wonder, as Varghkoghargasmal mainman (and only man really) Avenger, has unleashed this dark opus, the latest from his -other- one man band Szarlem, ominously titled Night Of Blood, and you know what? It sounds exactly how we would have expected, exactly how we had hoped. The same sort of Viking tinged stumbling bizarre loping black metal, that in its wooden form played out like some sort of fractured krautrock, but here, imbued with fire and frost and black buzz, it becomes an awesomely fucked up collection of midtempo black metal weirdness.
The guitars are thick and crusty and distorted, churning and chugging, the vocals a WAY up in the mix maniacal growl, and the drums, just like in Varghkoghargasmal, wander and stumble, adding a whole other element to Szarlem's sound, giving the proceedings a sort of black metal Shaggs vibe. But rather than sound fucked up and demented (well, it still does actually), it flows perfectly with the rest of the sounds, with the music, the whole thing a woozy warbly, off kilter, blackened stumbling lope, sometimes locking into an almost punkish groove, other times unfurling slow burning Burzumic sprawls, some of the tracks laced with haunting keyboards, fluttering little Casio melodies draped over the lurching blackness below, the best moments are when those keyboards lock in with the guitars and conjure up haunting harmonies, creating creepy almost Goblin like black metal buzz, but those moments are fleeting, as the tracks usually slip back into some thrashing blackness or meandering buzzing drift.
Lo-fi, raw and demented, dark and emotional and weirdly epic, this is some truly inspired, truly unique outsider black metal. And is thus WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Storm Of Darkness And Evil"
MPEG Stream: "Black Winter Rituals"

TARENTEL Live Edits Italy / Switzerland (Digitalis) cd 12.98
It's been over a year since we've heard from Tarentel. Not since their Ghetto Beats release in 2007. Since then the various members have been doing their own things, recording solo records, playing in other bands, running labels, and while this is not an actual new record it will go a long way to tiding us over until the next proper Tarentel release.
Live Edits, as the title suggests, are various recordings from their 2005 European tour, short excerpts and edits from looooong live performances. The first thing you notice, in one of the Switzerland shows, which was hinted at on Ghetto Beats, is how much more rhythmic they can get live, the drums seem to be THE driving force. Offering up dense flurries of tribal rhythms, pounding out mysterious rituals, while the rest of the band contribute sounds and textures in the background, high pitched sine waves, sheets of feedback, processed guitar scrabble, whirring drones, very abstract and tripped out. But at another show in a different Swiss city, the drums are ditched completely, or if they are present, they are processed into another layer of buzzing drone, to pile atop the already intense wall of sound being conjured up, lots of rumble and hiss, a deep mysterious pulse buried beneath, which eventually builds to something much more blissy and melodic, guitars ringing out, chiming, woven into an ethereal shimmer.
Back at the first Swiss show, the group create a mysterious soundscape of creaking machinery, haunting loops, and heavily effected guitars, left to drift through a super abstract dubby drift.
In Italy, Tarentel offer up yet more minimalism, guitars scrape and groan, creating a rough smear of textured hum, over a distant soft focus shimmer, before letting the guitars growl and buzz, building to a thick throbbing swirl.
The above were just the longer tracks, those are actually separated by brief snippets of various performances, from awesomely chaotic glitched out synthscapery, to deep FX drenched dark ambience, to creepy expanses of low end sprawl and whirring blackened rumbles, all of the tracks, are deftly placed to create the flow of a proper record, the various performances, and the varied sounds, smeared and blurred into one stretched out abstract freeform whole.
Packaged in a cool 2 color silkscreened cardstock sleeve, and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Geneva, Switzerland"
MPEG Stream: "Bern, Switzerland"
MPEG Stream: "Perugia, Italy"

USPUTUSPUD Live In The Shit (The Nafs) cassette 4.50
Don't even try pronouncing this band's name. Just sit back, relax and let the murky tones send you into a cosmic nightmare, where fried-out Afro-beats meet mind melting droney destruction. Sound too awesome to be true? We thought so too. Solo project of Matthew Rogers, member of the heavy hitting Wildildlife (and former aQ employee!!), Live In The Shit is the latest live recording from Upsputspud, and it's a warm engulfing wave of fucked up bliss. Side A begins with a slow building wall of harsh, New Agey drones, kinda reminding us of taking a Cocteau Twins intro and sending it through all kinds of analog fuzziness and delay. A subtle rhythm creeps up from from the hazy horizon, a hypnotic pulse turning and melting into pools of cosmic dust. Usputuspud emits a sound solely its own, lo-fi astral loops soaked in layers of dirt and fuzz, like a more damaged and lo-fi Zomes (if you can even imagine). Side B starts things running, layers of epic harmonica growing louder and louder until some low end crumble begins to eat away at the tape itself. Drugged out psychedelic filth, soaked in radiation and neon face paint, left out in the desert to dry. Imagine a more mysterious and epic sounding Monopoly Star Child Searchers, then thrown in a dash of rhythmic weirdness, and you have Live In The Shit. Limited to 80 tapes in a cryptic xeroxed insert, these will go fast, so don't be left in the dust on this one!

V/A Biting On Ravecore (Fukdup / Reactionary) lp 11.98
From the same label that brought us that amazing Shitmat grunge cover split (the one that came packaged in actual flannel shirts!) comes this new vinyl only comp of totally fucked up and genius junglized drill and bass ravecore, featuring the best Shitmat track in ages!
A sort of cover of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova" but all sped up and doused in drum damage with manic synth stabs and chopped up jungle beats and that Oasis track is all cut up so the line about "getting high" is repeated over and over, all tangled up with Shitmat's completely insane spastic beat freakout. So good. And the rest ain't so shabby either. Mochipet offers up a murky and manic jam, plenty of glitch, pounding beat, all sorts of garbled sounds, chopped up samples, eventually transforming into a crazed jungle blowout. The Foxdye take a Pointer Sisters track, speed it up, twist it all around, add some seriously frenzied drill and bass, and turn it into the dance party JAM OF THE YEAR for sure!
The flipside is pretty great too, Blaerg revs up some FM radio chestnut dousing it in THICK jungle bass and wild spastic drum skitter. The H8RS go all old school rave but add plenty of jungle, the whole thing getting all stuttery and skittery. Graz offers up some classic nineties style jungle rave, and finally Selector Catalogue takes some old school B-Boy jam, revs it up, flips the speed to 78, adds a heap of distortion, and tangles the whole thing into a gnarled squall of hiccupping stop start, ultra dense skipping and stuttering droned out fractured drum damaged ravecore. Fuck yeah.
Gorgeous packaging too. Eye popping full color cartoon cover, each one hand customized, and each one hand numbered (LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!), pressed on thick green and yellow swirled vinyl.

V/A European 60's & 70's Singers & Pop Groups Made In France (Magic Records) cd 15.98
Last year we highlighted a fab comp of groovy vintage musique "Made In France", now here's another volume of similar sounds put out by the same label, Magic, who've also brought us many other excellent, if budget-lookin', French ye ye/pop/psych reissues from Pussy Cat to Rene Joly. This 70+ minute disc's got 22 tracks, with an assortment of gems to be found among 'em if your tastes run to this sort of commercial yet cool stuff from French hipsters of the psychedelic era. Much of this is in the mode of orchestrated soft pop and dramatic balladry, with even the occasional music hall novelty, but it can rock out, too - for instance, the heavy groovin' stoner psych of "Come Along" by Les Variations (which previously appeared as one of the most badass bonus tracks on Magic's now out of print Nador/Take It Or Leave It double cd we listed a while back).
Less rockin' but equally rad are the backwards beats and hollowly piping flute of Time Machine's "Bird In The Wind", a weirdly haunting instrumental, mellow and melancholic... Elsewhere, Titanic funk it up on "Macumba", and Zoo mix fuzz and horns on their catchy "Hard Times Good Times". Another hit with us (and probably any Zombies fans in the house) is Classical M's "Such A Lovely Voice", which we already knew from their Bad Guys anthology. Another one that's sort of familiar is by paradoxically named Anarchic System, because they do an odd version of Gershon Kingsley's sixties Moog hit "Pop Corn"!
This collection's sundry other tracks range from the wonderfully moody n' gloomy, to upbeat bubblegum, providing plenty of both polished progginess and pop chart cheesiness, often at the same time. And all of it, charmingly, very much of its times. The full lineup of groups and singers, omitting those already mentioned: Total Issue, Wallace Collection, Jupiter Sunset, Alan Jack Civilization, Century, Trianglophone, Georges & Michel Costa, Holly Guns, Jo Sony Avern System, Pop Tops, Joel Dayde, Peter Haller, Laurent, Charles Brutus McClay, The American Breed, and Marvin, Welch & Farrar.
MPEG Stream: TIME MACHINE "Bird In The Wind"
MPEG Stream: CENTURY "Why (Did You Take So Long)"
MPEG Stream: TITANIC "Macumba"

V/A I Woke Up One Morning In May (Mississippi) lp 11.98
MISSISSIPPI Alert! MISSISSIPPI Alert! MISSISSIPPI Alert!
Thankfully there is someone putting out these killer comps of little heard blues and gospel on vinyl, the way they were made to be heard. Such loving attention paid to selection, flow and packaging, so thoughtfully put together. Songs so lost, coated in light crackle that only adds to their warm, melancholic and far-off mystery. We can't get enough of these records, and this one is no exception! Another amazing compilation of rare, obscure southern blues dealing with sex, death and loss. Featuring Cryin Sam Collins, Henry Spaulding, Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy, Buster Johnson, Little Hat Jones, Robert Wilkins, Willie Baker, Blind Blake, Louie Lasky, Charlie McCoy, and Joe Callicott. Our favorite cuts are by the female singers including the incomparable Memphis Minnie, two tracks by Lottie Kimbrough (The Kansas City Butterball), and a sad lament by Elvie Thomas. Plenty of tracks brim with sexy suggestiveness and fast living, such as "Can't I Do It For You?" " How You Want Your Rolling Done?", "Wayward Girl Blues" and "Keep It Clean", while others deal with loneliness and dying: "Lonesome Road", "Undertaker Blues", "Motherless Child Blues" "Rope Stretchin' Blues" and "Fare Thee Well Blues". Only in the blues do living and dying interweave with such incredibly sublime intensity! Go Mississippi!

V/A Wackies Sampler Vol. 3 (Wackies) cd 17.98
Another awesome sampler highlighting some of the best tracks that Rhythm & Sound / Basic Channel have unearthed in their continuing series of vinyl reissues of the premier '80s label for reggae sounds, Wackies, produced in the legendary Black Arc studio with Lloyd Barnes behind the board. While Soul Jazz has done a great job of sharing the wealth of the amazing sounds that came from Studio One in the '60s and '70s, there hasn't been as much reissue action documenting all the great warm and rich reggae that came out of the '80s. However, this compilation improves matters, including gems by some well known artists like Horace Andy (whose voice could melt an iceberg), Johnny Clark, and Sugar Minott, as well as more obscure yet totally great artists like Itopia, Jah Carlos, Max Romeo and Bullwackies All Stars (whose dub sounds we've fallen in love with - we hope to review their great recently reissued full length very soon!).
Such a nice mixture of dub delights, lovers rock, and soulful reggae. All these tracks were only released on 12"s which are pretty hard to find and this marks the first time that any of them are on cd. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: PRINCE DOUGLAS "March Down Babylon Dub"
MPEG Stream: HORACE ANDY "Live In The City"
MPEG Stream: LITTLE JOHN "Tear Down The Dance Hall"

VISITORS s/t (Musea) cd 16.98
Not sure when/where/how we first found out about Visitors and their 1974 self-titled album, but for the prog lovers here at Aquarius, it was love at first sight - literally, check out that cover art! A hyperencephalic space alien standing in a glowing doorway, the open door labeled "Sesame". The back cover is pretty freaky too: the disembodied heads of members of Visitors floating in front of an atomic mushroom cloud that's exploding out of a giant egg! And, yes, the music lived up to these silly-strange images. The album's heavy opener, "Dies Irae", with backwards effects, faux-Gregorian chant, wild synth flourishes, and wailing psych guitar, among other outre ingredients, is a grand(iose) introduction to the Visitors' over-the-top prog pleasures, coming off like a hybrid of Magma and an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. The tracks that follow maintain the same majestic/eccentric momentum. Imagine our favorite, craziest '70s Italian prog (Osanna, Area, Museo Rosenbach, etc.) meeting up with groovy orchestrations of a Serge Gainsbourg or Jean-Claude Vannier album. Visitors being in fact French, hence the latter comparisons.
Both Andee and Allan acquired copies of this cd for themselves as soon as they could, and always wanted to get it for Aquarius too, but only recently did we manage to contact the label in France and were able to order a bunch of this reissue to highlight. At the same time, we also finally figured out that a lot of AQ customers might be interested in this for another, specific, reason - Visitors was an exploitation-prog project of musical mastermind Jean-Pierre Massiera, whose surreal pop productions were the subject of two recent, quite popular collections we've been selling: Psychoses: Freakoid (1963-1978) and Psychoses: Discoid (1974-1981). Visitors actually appeared on both volumes, with "Flatwoods Story" (from this album) on Freakoid and "V-i-s-i-t-o-r-s" on Discoid.
Now's your chance to hear, from start to finish, an entire cult sci-fi concept album as envisioned by Massiera, unabashed prog bombast that's often haunting yet groovy at the same time. Although, at the time of its release, Visitors was a one-off album intended a cash-in on the progressive rock fad of the early '70s, its sci-fi concept probably not meant to be taken seriously either, nowadays it seems as valid, and certainly as enjoyable, as any other of the fabulous prog excesses of its era.
The cd booklet with this reissue includes photos, and liner notes in English giving a detailed history of Massiera's career, and includes full credits for all the twenty musicians and singers who participated, left anonymous on the original release. Among them, you'll find a future member of Magma, virtuoso violinist Didier Lockwood. And we were interested to learn that the "deep vocals" that occasionally pop up on the album were by Massiera himself.
MPEG Stream: "Dies Irae"
MPEG Stream: "Terre-Larbour"
MPEG Stream: "Visitors"

WIZAR'D, THE Infernal Wizardry (Rusty Axe) cd 8.98
Can we write a Wizar'd review without mentioning the weird unexplained apostrophe in their name? No we can't!
With that behind us, here's what we think about the latest lethargic lamentation let loose by these lords of lo-fi doom metal, down n' out and drowned in sorrow Down Under. Their new album, Infernal Wizardry (hey, shouldn't that be Infernal Wizar'dry??) features eight new, agonized outpourings of distorted dirge. Eight Sabby slabs of fuzz filled sludge, with spacey psychedelic lead guitar, trudging beats, and misery-evoking vox that vary from an Ozzyish warble to a deep slowed-down mumble to a more punkish shout. Fans of Saint Vitus, Reverend Bizarre, Electric Wizard and of course Black Sabbath are of course the sort of folks likely to become ensorcelled by the oozing audio of this Wizar'd. At least, those that can appreciate true, traditional doom at its most raw and primitive.
As serious and sincere as their music sounds (tracks like "Witchwither" and "Depressive Holiday" are truly moving, morose monuments), the Wizar'd obviously have a (drunken?) sense of humor too, judging by their slightly silly pseudonyms: Ol' Rusty Vintage Wizard Master is the vocalist and lead guitarist, Blackie the Crimson Heretic Of A Thousand Eyes plays bass, Iron Tyrant is on the drums, and Sir Nunn Piss handles the other guitar parts. Heck you've gotta have *some* fun, when you otherwise seem as negative and dejected as these suffering dudes do!
They pick up the pace a bit on the aggressive "Crushing Gothic Slime" (which, as we now realize, is NOT how they label their music, but rather an expression of animosity toward Goths) but mostly this is glacial and gloomy... culminating in the nearly 13 minute epic "The Megalomaniac". What we really like about these guys (besides the apostrophe) is how their poverty-stricken sound works towards the dual goals of doominess and drugginess. What Wizar'd lack in production, they make up for in feeling. It's old school doom done with the same fucked up aesthetic of our favorite bizarre, far underground black metal. Utterly, wretchedly recommend'd.
MPEG Stream: "Witchwither"
MPEG Stream: "Plague Ship Of Doom"

YORKE, THOM The Eraser RMXS (XL Recordings) cd 14.98
We're all big time Radiohead fans, and thus were pretty into RH frontman Thom Yorke's Eraser record, what could very well have been a proper Radiohead record, but instead turned out a more electronic stripped down gem, lush and dark and dreamy, his voice drifting ethereally over all manner of drift and buzz and skitter.
It seemed inevitable that some of the tracks would get remixed, and whattayaknow, soon there was indeed a serious of remix 12"s, and lo and behold, the remixes were almost better than the originals, the lineup of remixers featuring a who's who of aQ faves: Burial, The Bug, FourTet, The Field and more.
It's worth it for the Burial remix alone - murky and dark, the rhythms skittery and mechanical, plenty of distant whir and drone, thick squalls of buzzing dubstep bass. It has us wondering what that second Burial record would have sounded like had Yorke been picked to contribute all the vocals. Pretty amazing we'd guess. And yeah, while we can barely get ourselves to stop playing the Burial remix over and over, the rest of the disc is pretty excellent as well. Surgeon adds a thick glitchy house-y groove, and makes Yorke's mysterious humming the main melodic component. The Bug doesn't go all ragga like we expected, instead taking the 'hit' from that record, adding plenty of record crackle, and a super spare beat, rife with all sorts of old school filigree and lots of heavy crunchy bass. FourTet add all sorts of tribal rhythms, adding soft swoops of backwards melody, and a lush glimmering gauze over the whole song, letting the vocals soar WAY up top over the mix, the instrumental mix reminding us a bit of vintage Tortoise. The Field totally reinvent "Cymbal Rush" chopping it up into a gorgeous Oval like stuttery soft house, dizzying washed out and melodic, total Kompakt bliss, the original barely recognizable unless you know to listen for it, so good. Christian Vogel adds a heavy motorik beat, and a thick backdrop of processed chiming guitars, dipping the vocals in effects, the result very looped and lush and hypnotic. Modeselektor pull their track totally apart and reassemble it into a strange jagged stutterscape, glitchy and skittery, with warm fuzzy bass, super processed vocals, and some seriously twisted arrangements, quickly becoming another favorite mix. The Various remix finds the original chopped and looped, so it almost sounds like the signal is dropping out over and over, creating a woozy moody pulse, the melody fragmented and abstract. And finally, Christian Vogel has another go on the same track he remixed earlier, crafting a whole array of new beats, using just the barest bits of the original song for texture and melody, a killer choppy groove, with little flurries of glitchy skitter, bit for the most part, pretty minimal and hypnotic.
Definitely essential for the Burial mix, and The Field mix, but dig into all of these reimagined versions, and enjoy one of the very few remix records that is the perfect compliment to the original, as well being a fantastic record in its own right, one that just might be better than the original.
MPEG Stream: "And It Rained All Night (Burial Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Cymbal Rush (The Field Late Night Essen Und Trinken Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Skip Divided (Modeselektor Remix)"

ZEITKRATZER & CARSTEN NICOLAI Electronics (1) (Zeitkratzer) cd 17.98
Of all of the many Zeitkratzer collaborations that have appeared to date, this one seemed the most unlikely. Sure, the amplified horns and screeching strings that came out of Zeitkratzer's orchestral interpretation of Metal Machine Music worked well in the sheer audacity of the project; but Zeitkratzer's polyphonous tonalities had mustered an engaging re-interpretation of John Duncan's work with a balance between grace and force. So, when taking on a collaboration with Carsten Nicolai, who is best known for his swaggering rhythms for pure tone and minuscule glitches as Alva Noto, we had to ask how this would work. Well, essentially, Nicolai has adapted his sound for Zeitkratzer, not the other way around, which might have been a real challenge for Zeitkratzer to attempt to adopt the thud and rumble of something like the Transall series. Instead, Nicolai and Zeitkratzer pursue long-form compositions, mostly for electronics, but occasionally with the assistance of a particular instrumental coloring from say a clarinet, a cello, or a piano. Each of the three pieces here were performed live, commissioned for this sound art festival or that in Europe. The first of which swarms around static-laden drones and crackling hiss which spirals around a Niblockian drone from a sustained clarinet, eventually a rhythmic undercarriage from a softly tapped piano ebbs against the slow-building arc of sound. The second piece seems to be staged from prepared piano, amplified televisions, and tone generators, offering another skeletal rhythm to the clinical frequencies. The third piece returns to the ideas of the first with the reprise of that piano, but here a semblance of a melody encroaches the slow-motion raga drone from low-thumbing electronics and rasping sustained strings. It's not all that far from another of Nicolai's storied collaborations, with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Both Zeitkratzer and Nicolai are guilty of playing it safe on these three pieces, but the results are striking and lovely nonetheless.
MPEG Stream: "Synchron Bitwave"
MPEG Stream: "5 Min"
MPEG Stream: "C1"

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ANGEL Hedonism (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
Pan Sonic's Ilpo V. and partner in crime Dirk from Schneider TM return with another Angel-ic recording, their follow up to last year's excellent and epic Kalmukia, which we likened to both KTL and Earth circa Hex. This time around they're not quite so much in that digitaldoomdrone mood... There's still plenty of digital glitch and distortion, and the 20-minute "Mirrorworld" is a loud n' lovely, humming white noise dronewerk, as is the shorter and sparser "Unsymmetric Distance", for instance, but many of the 10 tracks on Hedonism indulge in electronic noise and clatter that's a lot more active and buzzing.
The broken rhythms, grinding textures, and piercing pulses of tracks like "Holding Loose" and "Dropping The Ego" contrast with the more contemplative nature-sounds field recordings heard in the mix towards the end of the album, for a much more varied listen than Kalmukia.
MPEG Stream: "Adrenaline Strike"
MPEG Stream: "Mirrorworld"
MPEG Stream: "Dropping The Ego "

BEN, JORGE Forca Bruta (4 Men with Beards) lp 16.98
Now on Vinyl!!!
One of the more understated figures in Tropicalia gets one of his best but equally understated albums reissued. Forca Bruta, from 1970, didn't yield any of the hits he was known for such as "Chove Chuva", "Mas Que Nada" or "Umbabarauma", but it's still one of his best collections of songs. Backed by Trio Mocoto, who accompanied Ben through many of his biggest hits, Forca Bruta is a more mellow groover of samba soul that despite its simpler acoustic arrangements packs a powerful punch with some seriously amazing musicianship. Ben wasn't as radical a political figure as his compatriots Gilberto Gil or Caetano Veloso, but was instrumental in importing West African rhythm influences into his music which was influential in both Veloso's and Gil's musical development. Awesome reissue, highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Oba, La Vem Ela"
MPEG Stream: "Aparece Aparecida"
MPEG Stream: "O Telefone Tocou Novamente"

BON IVER Blood Bank (Jagjaguwar) cd ep 10.98
The eagerly awaited follow-up ep (four brand new songs) to last year's highly acclaimed debut, from a band who has gone from self-released wunderkind to critics' darlings in little over a year. We finally got around to reviewing their debut last list, not because we didn't like it, but we didn't really love it quite as much as the rest of the world seemed to. It's not at all bad, we just weren't sure why all the singular heaps of praise for a sound that has been pretty present throughout the past year. Heck, Sub Pop's current roster is ALL about this sound. Rootsy and sensitive songwriting with high quality musicianship and production value. Yeah, that's cool and all, but wouldn't the real challenge be to NOT make a sad record during the thick of winter in Wisconsin? OK, all snarkiness aside, if you loved the debut, you'll want this, especially for the last song where he throws his falsetto choir into computer auto-tune to interesting effect.
MPEG Stream: "Blood Bank"
MPEG Stream: "Woods"

CANDLEMASS Lucifer Rising (Nuclear Blast) cd ep 10.98
Of all the sub-genres of metal there are, one of our favorites, one of our specialties you might say, is doom metal. And even doom metal breaks down even further into many, many sub-sub-genres. While we sell a lot of the sludgier stuff, the more cleanly-sung, epic brand of doom is something we absolutely love as well. Bombastic, almost operatic, this variety is based in large part on the Dio-years Sabbath template, and was perfected in the late '80s/early '90s by the likes of Sweden's Candlemass and Texas's Solitude Aeturnus. So, who better than a rejuvenated Candlemass, with the vocalist from Solitude Aeturnus at the mic, to bring us exquisite new examples of this timeless style of doom metal today?
Following on from their excellent King Of The Grey Islands album last year, the current Robert Lowe-fronted version of Candlemass has released a full-length "ep" consisting of 2 new songs ("Lucifer Rising" and "White God"), one old Candlemass classic re-recorded ("Demon's Gate"), and a nine-song live recording from Athens, Greece in 2007, on which you'll quite often hear a horde of excited Greek doom freaks singing along.
So, fans get their money's worth here. Lowe is really one of the few people who could have taken over from iconic Candlemass vocalist Messiah Marcolin, and handles their old songs superbly. The new stuff is great too, fully in the glorious, gloomy Candlemass tradition of grandiose, depressive dirges and heavy metal headbanging. And like we said in our review of King Of The Grey Islands, there's definitely a dark, psychedelic aspect to the guitar soloing...
MPEG Stream: "Lucifer Rising"
MPEG Stream: "Mirror, Mirror (Live In Athens, 2007)"

CATALYST, THE Marianas Trench + 9 (The Perpetual Motion Machine) cd 8.98
Back in stock!
We had the one sided 12" version of this here disc a while back, but now it's been reissued with those 4 songs, as well as a whopping 9 more from an earlier lp and a split with fellow noisemakers Mass Movement Of The Moth. So all you record impaired folks can finally dig in to this monstrously noisy slab of post punk rrroooaaar.
This is some seriously crushing, heavy, post hardcore stoner grunge screamo heaviness coming at you straight from Richmond Virginia. Grinding, pummeling, super distorted and angular post punk, but with some serious groove, and vocals that go from howled to screeched to crooned (well almost), killer riffs, filthy and heavy, pounding drums, mathy and chaotic, think Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, Mudhoney, Halo Of Flies, the Melvins, lots of AmRep, some Sub Pop, and here and there, Nirvana at their noisiest and heaviest. 
Definitely old school, and can't help but remind us of the good old grunge days, but it's hyped up, and filtered through a more modern take on post screamo hardcore, some seriously heavy, hooky ass kicking stuff. 
Way recommended.
MPEG Stream: "This Bike Is A Gravity Bong"
MPEG Stream: "Kyle Vs. Robocop"
MPEG Stream: "Proceed With Caution"

COMMON Universal Mind Control (Geffen) cd 15.98
Not to bum out those of you in colder parts of the world, but we've been experiencing an amazing Summer-In-Winter this January. Sunny days that have had us flocking to the park and riding around with the top down (ok none of us have convertibles, but in our imaginations we're totally riding around with the top down!). So we've been yearning for some new summer-ish jams to blast as we catch the rays and soak it all up while it lasts. Common's latest was made for sunny days that feel like they're going to last forever. Uptempo hip-hop made to be played loud during BBQs and outdoor get-togethers. With guest appearances from Pharrell Williams and Kanye West, Common shows that he can let loose and have fun with the biggest names in hip-hop. While it seems like he's taken a break from some of his more mindful lyrics and expansive and risk taking sounds, he's still sounding pretty good and perfect for whenever that feeling of summertime hits you.
MPEG Stream: "Universal Mind Control"
MPEG Stream: "Announcement (Feat. Pharrell Williams)"
MPEG Stream: "Inhale"

COSTA, GAL s/t (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
Now reissued on vinyl, Gal Costa's self-titled debut fits nicely into the canon of essential Tropicalia records. Beautiful production by Rogerio Duprat, and of course songwriting and vocal assistance from both Caetano Veloso, and Giberto Gil. While this only hints at the unhinged fuzz psych of her follow-up, Gal, there are some amazing moments that all fans of this crucial era of Brazilian music will love, especially her versions of "Nao Identificado", "Baby", and "Lost In The Paradise."

DEFAULT JAMERSON I Think I'm Starting To Let Go (Diagnosis... Don't!) 3" cd-r 12.98
We found a handful of titles, maybe only 5 or 6 of each, from Aussie label DiagnosisŠ Don't! We've had these for ages, and odds are these are long gone as they were pretty limited to begin with, but for a few of you, here's your chance to grab one (or all) of these super limited 3" cd-r's.
Default Jamerson is a one man noise making machine from Australia, who crafts a lush and billowy low end, all deep whirling tones, thick speaker shredding dronemusic, even with the bass dialed all the way back, this single 20 minute track was sending seismic waves into the room, causing everything to vibrate gloriously. Lots of shifting textures, haunting melodies buried in the mix, the sound murky and muddy and underwater, woozy and warbly and totally hypnotic. Definitely bummed we slept on this. And bummed that only a handful of you will get to hear it. But what can you do? Heavy low end drone freaks should try to snag one while they can...
Packaged in thick cardstock mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. And again, we only have a VERY FEW of these....
MPEG Stream: "I Think I'm Starting To Let Go (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "I Think I'm Starting To Let Go (excerpt 2)"

ENO / MOEBIUS / ROEDELIUS After the Heat (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
Now on Vinyl!!
The combination of Brian Eno and Cluster proved to be a golden match. The sounds they delicately created together have been echoed again and again in the three decades since their collaborations. A feeling of both effortlessness and a total awareness of the space and sounds they were building radiates throughout the recording. You can hear the tinkering hands of Moebius and Roedelius giving elements of warped spaced out bliss. Eno approaching the songs in a magic space somewhere between Before & After Science and Another Green World. When his vocals appear they just begin to melt and dissolve into your ears. For sure the best backwards vocal delivery we've ever heard can be found on the track "Tzima N'arki". There is such a sublime feeling of melting on this record. These three knew how to meld warmth with an motherly feeling that takes you into golden horizons, mesmerizing twilight and an afterglow that you just want to surrender yourself to. Originally released in '78, once again 4 Men With Beards has done the fine service of bringing it back to a world that's more ready for these sounds then ever.
MPEG Stream: "Tzima N'arki"
MPEG Stream: "Foreign Affairs"

EYEHATEGOD In The Name Of Suffering (Emetic Records) 2lp 21.00
NOW ON VINYL!!
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review their second album, Take As Needed For Pain, and Dopesick, their third, and part three of final EHG's godlike sludge trilogy. They would continue to make records, great records in fact, but the first three remain untouchable to this day.
Here's Allan's favorite EHG album (Andee's favorite is Take As Needed For Pain, but this is a close second!), their dark and dirgey debut In The Name Of Suffering, first released in 1990 on the French Intellectual Convulsion label, later re-issued domestically by Century Media, with the original's gross medical cover pictures prudently tucked inside now reissued again, with new liner notes and bonus tracks. When this came out, EHG immediately joined the Melvins, Skullflower, and Hellhammer in the pantheon of the heaviest, most fucked up bands ever. Misanthropic metallic misery, complete with samples of Charles Manson's wisdom. Later EHG albums are good too, but this one was may quite possible be their finest moment. If you are one of Aquarius' "doom" customers and you don't have this disc, we urge you, in the name of suffering, get it!
Extra stuff: Four bonus tracks taken from an unreleased 1990 demo, revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "Depress"
MPEG Stream: "Children Of God"
MPEG Stream: "Hit A Girl"

GHAST / RAPE-X Split (Obskure Sombre) cd 11.98
Still got a few more copies of this grim filthy bit of black buzz and blacknoise...
We first heard from Ghast on their split with Yoga, we were pretty obsessed with both bands and have been on the hunt for more from both ever since.
So Ghast have returned, on yet another split, offering up two more loooong tracks of their unique not-quite-doom, a dirgey crawl, that spends as much time shimmering and buzzing as it does pounding and lumbering. The opener here is 21 minutes of grinding corrosive soft buzz, think Tunnels, Wolf Eyes, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, that sort of thing, deep whirring low end, drifting beneath clouds of metallic buzz, plenty of fuzz and hiss, beneath it all, there does seem to be some sort of thick tarpit like riffing, but it's WAY down, more like a distant drone than anything overtly metal, but it does lend the track a serious sense of dread and foreboding, as if any second the track might splinter into pieces and explode into crushing doom, but it never does, instead ratcheting up the tension, like the soundtrack to some super abstract foreign horror film. An actual rhythm dose seem to develop, but it's cobbled together using hissy white noise, ominous whirring synths, buried and blurred vocals, and a super drawn out low end melody, creeping and creeping before the low end drops out leaving just a sea of high end electrical buzz, and weirdly enough the sound of sheep (!). The second track clocks in at nearly 12 minutes, and again, is more ambient than anything, bits of crackle, melted tape loops, field recordings, processed electronics, all blurred into a strange undulating drone, peppered with fragments of melody, some buried riffing, which finally crawls up from the murk, and the band, for the first time in nearly half an hour, launch into some lurching lumbering doom. But the sound is not massive or crushing, instead, it remains murky and muted, more bass heavy than anything, if there is guitar it's tuned WAY down and is locked in with the rumbling bass, the rhythm mechanical and machinelike, with a definite industrial vibe, the track slipping into brief stretches of ambient drone-like shimmer, before the band lurches back into action, pounding away, stripped down, but still heavy and doomy and mysteriously grim.
Rape-X existed until now, as an MP3 file someone sent us a looong time ago, a half hour slab of blown out metalnoise, industrial drone weirdness. We'd notice it on the computer every once in a while and fire it up, and always think, "wow, this is pretty great, I wonder when they'll have a record". Well here it is. And Rape-X is a pretty good match for Ghast, seeing as they traffic in a similarly abstract doomy ambience, falling closer to Wolf Eyes or Blue Sabbath Black Cheer than any classic sort of doom. The vocals are huge part of the sound, and are harsh and super processed, demonic and maniacal sounding, giving the track a bit of a Whitehouse feel, ranting and proselytizing over a constantly shifting backdrop of blackened noise and droning harsh ambience. A glorious metallic cacophony, wreathed in hiss and skree, a bit like a way more static Sunroof!, the sound roiling and churning below the surface like some rough black sea, while that hellish voice continues to testify, the unholy scripture from some lost black gospel.
Caveat Emptor, though: these have a pressing defect, it's minor, but it's definitely noticeable. The band was contacted about it, but apparently there's some bad blood with the label, so there will never be a new, corrected version, so we figured we would list it anyway, since otherwise it's pretty amazing, and the defect is so slight. Basically, the problem is, there's a digitial click at the beginning of each track. Annoying, distracting, yes, but it doesn't affect the songs themselves, so if you can handle that (you can also edit out the clicks yourself on your computer when you import it into your iTunes or whatever), then by all means pick this up, some seriously abject and harrowing doom-ed blacknoize.
MPEG Stream: GHAST "Tetanos"
MPEG Stream: RAPE-X "Civil Servant: I The Cop"

GLASPER, IAN The Day The Country Died: A History Of Anarcho Punk 1980 - 1984 (Cherry Red) book 19.95
We only just started reading this but holy crap is it awesome. An in depth exploration of the UK anarcho punk scene. Which means, for those of you unclear on the concept, groups like Crass, Poison Girls, Flux Of Pink Indians, Rudimentary Peni, Icons Of Filth, Dirt, Subhumans, Conflict, Citizen Fish, Amebix, Chumbawamba (before they sold out!!), Zounds, The Mob, Kukl, Lack Of Knowledge, Disrupters, Flowers In The Dustbin, Antisect, Epileptics, Faction and more more more.
It's a little difficult for us to read this personally, as aQ pal Lance Hahn from J-Church was working on his own Anarcho-crust book when he passed away, but besides that, there's really no reason to not buy this, read up on all these amazing bands, and then buy all their records.
Covering the scene during the years 1980-1984, The Day The Country Died is packed with tons of photos, exclusive interviews, scene histories, discographies, we were 30 pages in when we got to Flux Of Pink Indians, maybe one of our favorite bands from that scene, and we had our Flux records out, reading and listening. And it's not just about the bands, and the records, it's the movement, the politics, pretty inspiring for sure.
Like we said, we only just started it, but we're digging this book BIG TIME, and apparently it's a companion to Glasper's other book, Burning Britain, so we'll probably have to track that one down too!

GRIMM, LARKIN Parplar (Young God) lp 14.98
Now available on vinyl!
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 catalog.
MPEG Stream: "They Were Wrong"
MPEG Stream: "Ride That Cyclone"

IBITSU Foolproof Betters Fools Bettering Foolproof... (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
As Mego had been shifting towards the power-electronic and blackened noise end of the spectrum, this one is something of a surprise for us. The Olde English blackletter script which adorns the cover belies the agitated silence found within. Ibitsu is the work of Shunichiro Okada, whose debut for Editions Mego follows in the hushed footsteps of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing or perhaps even Nurse With Wound's similarly minded composition A Missing Sense. Okada situates his composition in two distinct levels, a higher frequency ceiling and a lower than low subharmonic base with nothing (and do we mean nothing!) in between. Above there are insect-like vibrations that circle and buzz about the stereo field with occasional brushes with softened white noise; and below are agitated rumblings that sound like somebody trying to push a giant piece of furniture in the apartment upstairs. Even as the album gradually moves from inaudibility to microsound glitchiness, Ibitsu maintains a even-handed control which always favors the 'objectness' of silence. A bit of a warning: this is a mere 25 minutes long.
MPEG Stream: "Foolproof Betters Fools Bettering Foolproof..."

IMPROMPTULONS Swamp Hobo (Diagnosis... Don't!) 3" cd-r 12.98
We found a handful of titles, maybe only 5 or 6 of each, from Aussie label DiagnosisŠ Don't! We've had these for ages, and odds are these are long gone as they were pretty limited to begin with, but for a few of you, here's your chance to grab one (or all) of these super limited 3" cd-r's.
The Impromptulons are an improvising (get it?) free noise collective from Brisbane, who use a confusional mix of instruments to create their sound, from found objects to actual percussion, lots of feedback, very rhythmic and ritualistic, one single extended jam, equal parts Avarus and the Dead C, very tribal, with plenty of click and glitch, rumble and thump, all wrapped in a swirling haze of tape hiss and distant bowed strings, not really noisy so much as much as hypnotic. Strings are plucked, drones shimmer, percussion clanks and clunks, and somehow the result is a gorgeous piece of rhythmic dronemusic.
Packaged in thick cardstock mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. And again, we only have a VERY FEW of these....
MPEG Stream: "Swamp Hobo (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Swamp Hobo (excerpt 2)"

LARSEN La Fever Lit (Important) cd 14.98
Gone are the days when Larsen would hire Michael Gira to produce one of their claustrophobic albums under suspiciously odd circumstances. After 13 years in existence, the Italian post-rock collective has emerged as a champion of cinematic pop on La Fever Lit, sharing a sound that has more in common now a days with Sigur Ros than with the Swans. Sure, the band's sound on La Fever Lit persists in their hypnotizing arrangements for cyclical rhythms buttressing slow-burning crescendos of guitars and electronics, but the moodiness and abject urgency which marked their earlier recordings have been supplanted with an opulence, majesty, and a celebratory nature with occasional detours back into the bittersweet. On a handful of the tracks, Larsen's usually instrumental pieces have been augmented with vocals by Annie Anxiety, the one time member of Crass and contributor to Current 93, who presents herself as a detached diva singing torch songs of urban decay, which is well suited for Larsen's sweeping overtures.
MPEG Stream: "Tu Ark"
MPEG Stream: "Lefrak City Limits"

LAY, JOSH Asphyxiation Worship (Black Horizons) 7" 8.98
BACK IN STOCK!
Everybody except a tiny handful of folks missed out on that Josh Lay cd-r on the last list, sold out in a flash, but for those of you who missed out, here's a brand new 7" from Mr. Lay, drummer for aQ faves Cadaver In Drag. But of course the sound here is a bit different than the cd-r. The first side begins with a noisy drone, but soft noise, an undulating layer of deep gurgly rumble and highend whir that gradually grows thicker and more ominous, until it explodes into a blast of chaotic blackness, a weird abstract black ambience with howled demonic vokills, a bit like a black metal track with the guitars and drums removed, haunting and evil and black, but more a sort of blackdrone. The flipside is all drone however, never exploding into any sort of evil blackness, instead opting to lurk in shades of grey, slithering and shimmering and whirring.
Super fancy trifold gold ink on thick black cardstock sleeve, and LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!

LEMONADE s/t (True Panther Sounds) cd 14.98
With the blink of an eye Lemonade have left San Francisco and relocated to New York, but before they moved away they injected the SF scene with a great shot of left-field dance floor vision, playing at and DJ'ing some of the most sweaty and fun filled parties around town. Musically they pump out hyper-color splashes imbedded in a sound that brings to mind Public Image Ltd, Gang Gang Dance, The Rapture, !!!, Gang of Four, and Tussle. We're sad we don't have the privilege of getting to see them play as often as we used to, but now we finally have their record to blast as loud as we like.
MPEG Stream: "Big Weekend"
MPEG Stream: "Sunchips"
MPEG Stream: "Bliss Out"

M83 Saturdays = Youth (Mute) 2lp 22.00
Now available on vinyl!
Over the course of several records, M83 have virtually invented their own genre, we're not even sure what to call it, but it's some sort of gossamer, fuzzed out blissy dream pop, so much so that, the name M83 itself became an oft referenced descriptor when referring to bands of all stripes that borrowed bits of fuzz or buzz or bliss from M83's sonic palette.
The last record, Before The Dawn Heals Us, found the band shedding some of their more arty influences, much of the krautrock, some of the electronica, lots of the buzzy shoegaze, opting instead for some straight up eighties pop, replete with cheesy electronic drums, big choruses, super effected guitars, a gloriously retro chunk of sweetly dated pop, BUT, they balanced that with some seriously over the top fuzzed out bombast.
However, that record definitely hinted at what was to come, and now years later, the bombast is long gone, and if anything, the band has delved even further into our teenage years, and reinvented themselves as a band plucked right from MTV circa 1985, and we love it! This is total emo. Before there was emo. The soundtrack to hanging out in parking lots, crushes, love notes, first kisses, John Hughes movies, falling in love, break ups, mix tapes and all that stuff.
The sound of Saturday = Youth is that, the sound of Saturdays, no school, hanging out with friends, the sound of being young, your whole life ahead of you, but with every second feeling like it could be your last. So much angst, so much passion, so much hope, and so much fear. All perfectly represented by this collection of gloriously glistening sunshine-y pop and fuzzy synthy electro pop.
The record begins with melancholy piano and swoonsome synths, fluttery female vocals somewhere between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser, an intro that quickly gives way to some straight up eighties style MTV pop, a la Tears For Fears, all wooshing and emotional and dramatic, but so awesome. Not sure if this would be quite as appealing to someone who hadn't grown up on this kind of stuff, but for those of us who did, it's pretty irresistible. The next song is all electronic drums, and super processed soaring female vocals, squiggly synths, electric piano, and more super dramatic soaring choruses.
Our favorite so far is probably "Graveyard Girl", with its Cranberries-esque intro, all big jangling guitars, and crooned vocals, the melody super sweet and melancholy, drifting over swooning synths and a relentless rhythm, this is perfect pop, harmonies and hooks, all filtered through that particular time. It helps that there's a video that pretty much perfectly captures the spirit of the song. With a cute gothy girl who visits the pet cemetery and leaves dog toys and kibble on gravestones, pining after the cute boy. Filmed all fuzzy and old, so it looks just like out memories feel. There's even a spoken word part in the middle, delivered by a young girl, talking about loneliness and love, it's pretty perfectly heart wrenching. And then the artwork, all fuzzed out photos of various teens, the jock, the goth girl, the cute guy, the hot girl, the nerd, the punk, all hanging out in some sun dappled park on a Saturday, killing time, being young.
The whole record is like that, so totally moving and jubilant and emotional and slightly cheesy but in a really good way. Whether they're channeling the electronic skitter of New Order, or the fluttery dramatic pop of Kate Bush, or the jangle rock bombast of the Hooters, it's the very best kind of retro. It all makes us feel either really really old, or secretly sort of young again. Or like we're in some awesome eighties teen movie. Regardless, we love it, and can't seem to stop listening to it...
The vinyl also comes with a cd of the record.
MPEG Stream: "You, Appearing"
MPEG Stream: "Kim & Jessie"
MPEG Stream: "Skin Of The Night"
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard Girl"

MAGIC LEAVES Moody Mountain (self-released) cd-r 9.98
Magic Leaves has all the elements of things we love to listen to on Sundays. Sunny pop, soft psych-tinged harmonies, and catchy songs that get stuck in our heads for days. Reminiscent of Emitt Rhodes, Paul McCartney and Olivia Tremor Control, Magic Leaves are a more simplified lo-fi heir-apparent to the Beatlesy pop we often go nuts for, but no less charming. A very sweet debut!
MPEG Stream: "Summer Falls"
MPEG Stream: "Lemon Yellow Days"
MPEG Stream: "I Can Fly"

MAXIMUM JOY Station MXJY (Victor) cd 42.00
During a brief three years in the early '80s, Y Records enjoyed a roster of amazingly funky, post-punk groups that included The Pop Group, The Slits, Shriekback, Pigbag, and bafflingly enough Diamanda Galas (not taking on the typical guise of the label, mind you). Maximum Joy was another outstanding entry from Y Records, having been formed by Tony Wrafter after the dissolution of the agit-pop punk ensemble Glaxo Babies. Wrafter recruited vocalist Janine Rainforth, another Glaxo Baby in Charlie Llewellin, and the Pop Group's John Waddington. After a couple of singles, the band released Station MXJY under the production thumb of Adrian Sherwood. His dub inflected engineering worked perfectly to render Maximum Joy's jaunty punk-funk tunes as a sunny doppleganger of The Pop Group. Amidst Sherwood's tape echo and delay workouts, the band adventurously march through a taut rhythm section that tightropes between a militant funk and a doleful rocksteady swagger, while chicken scratch guitars map out the simple song structures and saxophone solos splatter across the stereo. It's a very good thing that this record has been reissued (complete with four excellent bonus tracks), as Maximum Joy were clearly a talented bunch who might have been forgotten otherwise. It's just unfortunate that Station MXJY is only available as an expensive Japanese import. Ouch!
MPEG Stream: "Dancing On My Boomerang"
MPEG Stream: "Do It Today"
MPEG Stream: "Stretch"

MOF FAR FAR RAH Little More (Sabbatical) cd-r 8.98
We only have 5 or 6 of these which is probably enough, cuz boy is this a weird one. We've had these for a really long time, so can't remember the story about who this guy is or what else he's done, but this record, well, it starts out with SEVENTY FIVE super short vocal experiments, as in 6 seconds to 29 seconds, running the gamut from animal like growls, wild hysterical shrieks, disembodied humming, percussive experiments, heavily effected beat box, sort of throat singing, growly death metal grunts, operatic howling, and pretty much all manner of fucked up vocalizations. Think an audio test record featuring nothing but Eye from the Boredoms doing vocal exercises. Fucked up, weird, a novelty, totally cracked and demented. Definitely worth it to disrupt your next party or to torture your downstairs neighbors, but hold on, there's a nearly hour long final track, also seemingly constructed from vocals (?) and it's gorgeous, an extended soundscape of layered hum, of shimmering drones, distant click and skitter, deep bell like tones, murky floorcore, looped stuttering rumbles, moaning and groaning warbles, all drifting beneath a thick fuzzy haze. Almost sounds like it could be the first 75 fragments combined into one thick swirling morass.
Definitely cool And quite weird. We only have a tiny handful, so act fast if you want one of these...
MPEG Stream: "Little More"

MOONMILK s/t (Diagnosis... Don't!) 3" cd-r 12.98
We found a handful of titles, maybe only 5 or 6 of each, from Aussie label DiagnosisŠ Don't! We've had these for ages, and odds are these are long gone as they were pretty limited to begin with, but for a few of you, here's your chance to grab one (or all) of these super limited 3" cd-r's.
Moonmilk are another Australian combo, who specialize in lo-fi experimental ambience, utilizing keyboards, loops, effects, guitars, microphones, tapes, melodica and other noise making devices, this duo whip up some seriously dense blur, a warm whirring landscape of wheezing melodies, throbbing low end, swirling hiss, gorgeous languorous layered drones, random percussion, lo-fi but lush, minimal but expansive, definitely some dreamdrone goodness for the freedrone cd-r set. Two tracks, 12 minutes. Definitely like to hear more from these two....
Packaged in thick cardstock mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. And again, we only have a VERY FEW of these....
MPEG Stream: "The Cat Plays Chess"
MPEG Stream: "Safe Birds"

SILIAN RAIL And I You, To Pieces (Thread) cd 12.98
It's rare that you hear music that is cinematic and mathy at the same time, but local duo Silian Rail manage to create and fill space simultaneously. Often recording songs specifically for film, Silian Rail avoid the usual post-rock quiet-loud-quiet dynamics and instead focus on pools of tight-knit melodic intensity and unsettled serpentine intricacy.
Of course, the influence of Tortoise and Slint can definitely be heard, but Silian Rail doesn't solely rely on these influences and manages to create a softly tumultous epic all their own.
MPEG Stream: "Awake"
MPEG Stream: "Quaking Grass"
MPEG Stream: "Venice"

SORC'HENN Faro (Crucial Bliss) cd-r 8.98
Discovered a little stash of these tucked away in the closet. One more chance to grab one while you can....
Sorc'Henn's last disc, Harmonium Pieces & Dead Reveries, which was released on Faunsabbatha, the more 'metal' sub label of Ruralfaune, wasn't actually a metal record, more a dark dronescape, whirring expanses of Lustmordian Wolf Eyes style post industrial buzzing black shimmer.
This latest Sorc'henn disc, released on Crucial Bliss (another sub-label, this time of Crucial Blast) is even more removed from anything metal. And in many ways anything dark. At least the 21 minute opener, which plays out like an Argento soundtrack composed by Oval, all shimmering layers, and skipping cds, looped ambience, that glimmer and glistens, a bit of Philip Jeck, a little Tim Hecker, all fuzzy and crackly melodies locked into haunting loops, while over the top, a child's voice whispers, and in the background bits of bird song. Truly creepy, but simultaneously quite lovely, totally mesmerizing, would have been happy if this track was stretched out to fill the whole disc. Odds are you'll find yourself listening to it over and over, luxuriating in its haunting mystery, eyes closed, picturing some old crumbling estate, surrounded by dark forests, a child peeking from the heavy curtains in an upstairs window.
After that, the sound gets even more fuzzed out and crackly, a warm washed out hiss, speckled with bits of crackle and pop, a slowly unfurling minimal melody way off in the distance, the sound of thundering low end drifting by like black clouds, warm whirring organs, bits of electronic glitch, deep throbbing reverberating buzz, all leading up to the 27 minute long final track, a totally demented black musickal ritual, deep rumbles, growled Darth Vader like invokations, bits of industrial clatter, squalls of hiss, whirling streaks of effects, detuned guitars, woozy melodies, thick waves of crumbling buzz, slivers of feedback, creaking and groaning machinelike ambience, distorted chimes, disembodied vocals howling and moaning, a truly harrowing black and bleak soundscape, finishing off with a brief snippet of an old timey French piano ballad, adding even more mystery to the song's already eerie and mystical vibe.
Like all the Crucial Bliss releases, packaged in a cool 3 panel full color fold over sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Dodsdansen, Life Of An Island Lad"
MPEG Stream: "Enez Varv Faaro"

WALLACH, JEREMY Modern Noise, Fluid Genres: Popular Music In Indonesia, 1997-2001 (The University Of Wisconsin Press) book 24.95
Man, we have the best customers, they play in kick ass bands, they put out killer zines, they run clubs, and cool bars, and are awesome writers, we're constantly impressed and amazed. One such customer is Jeremy Wallach, who (as it says on the back of his book) is a musician, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist and an assistant professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and who has just published a book on popular music in Indonesia, which seemed like a total aQ appropriate book if there ever was one.
We only just started it, but figured we oughta get it reviewed and listed so some of you folks could get your hands on it sooner rather than later (we're also reading the Anarcho-crust book reviewed elsewhere on this list!). Modern Noise Fluid Genres is a study, as mentioned above, of Indonesian popular music from the years 1997-2001, viewed through the exploration of recording studios, record stores, neighborhoods, universities, clubs and venues, with a focus on how access to global music has been a boon to creative music making, rather than a hindrance. It's definitely academic, plenty of cultural theory, but also plenty of anecdotes and interviews, visits to video shoots and classrooms, malls and campuses, and discussions with students and musicians, all with an eye on the globalization of music, and how specifically Indonesia fits into that trend.
Includes tons of photos, drawings, lyrics, appendices, a glossary, and also a cd, which includes a handful of tracks demonstrating the various types and styles of modern Indonesian music.
We're definitely digging it so far, and it seems like essential reading for folks who have been digging the Sublime Frequencies series, which is likely MOST of you!

WATA / AI ASO She's So Heavy (DIW Phalanx) 7"+book 32.00
We noticed we still had a handful of these Boris rarities, and saw some popping up on eBay so we figured we would relist them in case anyone was still in the market for a pricey, exquistely designed 7" with lots of glamorous photos of Wata from Boris!!!
Here's our review from when we listed these a while back:
We took pre-orders on this ultra limited Boris rarity, but we managed to get a handful of extra copies, so for those folks who forgot to preorder, or folks who are only hearing about this now, here's your chance (however brief) to nab one of theseŠ
As with all Boris related stuff, this 7" photo book combo looks gorgeous. A 7"x7" softcover book, the cover a thick textured cream colored paper, the title embossed on the front cover, wrapped in a full color vellum obi, the text printed in metallic silver, with color photos of Wata from Boris and the members of the band sharing the split, Ai Aso. The book itself is nothing but glamour shots of the various women, full body shots, close ups of their faces, very fashion magazine looking, the pictures slightly distressed, the women posed in front of washed out colored backdrops. Strange, but heck, the pictures are quite nice, and the women are of course quite lovely, so who can complain.
But here is a 7", and presumably, that's the main reason to pick this up (right?), it features Wata and Ai Aso each doing a cover, Ai Aso cover King Crimson's "Islands" and Wata covers Masashi Kitamura's "Angel" which we had never heard (or heard of) before.
Ai Aso take "Islands" and let it unfurl softly and sweetly, a blissy dreamy drift, with hushed vocals over shimmering guitars, the drums are the focal point, way up in the mix and driving the song, almost martial at times, while at others shuffling along side the glimmering guitars. Very skeletal, but strangely lush at the same time and really quite pretty.
Don't let the fact that the flipside is credited to Wata fool you, as the lineup is essentially all of Boris, AND Michio Kurihara. So it's basically the Rainbow lineup, with the addition of some other guy playing Mellotron! The track is gentle and tranquil, a soft focus psych folk, the guitars are simply strummed, the vocals and sweet and ethereal, the percussion is essentially just a tambourine, that is until the very end, when the band launch into a slow burning psychedelic freakout, not sure if it's Wata or Kurihara, but the guitar soars majestically, howling and screeching, wailing wildly over the dreamy strum underneath. Definitely sounds like it could have come from the same sessions that produced Rainbow, which is most definitely not a bad thing.
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES.

WEIRD WEEDS Hold Me (Zumo) lp 15.98
Now on Vinyl!
We listed the latest record by Texas folk pop ensemble the Weird Weeds a few lists back, and everybody dug it like crazy, so we got in touch with the band and got a handful of their first record, Hold Me. Which is just as good!
A dizzying blend of random ethereal popness and shimmery dreamlike folkiness with a healthy heaping of arty angularity. Slightly confusional and a little schizophrenic, but the Weird Weeds' off kilter playfulness is exactly what makes this combo so totally appealing. Fun and freaked out, but always soft and dreamy, even at their most convoluted.
One side of the band's sound is all fluttery flutes and swoonsome strings, little bits of strum and twang wrapped into perfect little nuggets of sunshine-y West Coast pop. A little country, a little hippy, all super sun dappled with plaintive vocals and simple minor key strumming.
The other side of their sound is a much more obtuse assemblage of stumbling drums, twinkling guitar harmonics, lots of tangled squiggly almost metallic guitar solos over wildly strummed acoustic guitars, a constant angular Deerhoof art-rockiness that perfectly plays to the interaction between super high sad boy vocals and dreamy angelic female vocals. While these guys are definitely far out, and these songs are not at all straight forward, the weirdness never overshadows their pop sense, which makes Hold Me a total delight for pop kidz and artrock nerds alike.
MPEG Stream: "Paratrooper Seed"
MPEG Stream: "Fifty Dollars"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Three4listnin (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3cd-r 23.00
The label is no more, all the CPsiP eleases are sadly now out of print, but we discovered a handful of these stashed in the back room, long out of print, never to be repressed, last copies EVER!
Some of you must remember the Simon Wickham-Smith disc Twofordancin', a sort of out of left field blast of house-y trip hop electronica. Which threw us for a loop at first, but ended up getting crazy play in the store.
So when we heard about this new collection, a triple disc spanning 8 years, because of the title we were maybe expecting more of the same. And we got it. The opening track here, from way back in 1999, is a nearly half hour jam, all simple percussion, and house music whistle, looped and hypnotic, again it takes a second, but once you get into it, you're hooked. In the background is a thick distorted whir, there are occasional bits of strange effects and processed vocals, but for the most part it's a killer stripped down groove.
But surprisingly, that's it for the groove, the rest of disc one jumps to the 2000s, and we're back on more familiar ground. "Sealight", from 2000, is a barely moving shimmering whisper of a song, high end streaks smoothed into oceanic swells, everything glimmering and glistening, muted and minimal. Quite lovely. "The Horizontality Of Saskatchewan" (2202) is a strange gnarled guiatarscape, the riffs distorted and crumbling, sounding a bit like damaged bagpipes, or some lost Daniel Higgs jam, melodies lurching and threatening to fall apart, lots of whir and buzz, on closer listening maybe that's not a guitar but a pump organ, minimal percussion, very haunting and hypnotic. Track 4 is brand new, recorded this year, and is another super minimal dronescape, lots of glitch and click and whir, but all muted into a subtly pulsing melody, eventually building into a distorted blown out swirl of processed vocals, Eastern melodies, and thick grinding buzz.
The second disc begins with the warped warble of "Cool Memories" from 2004. a seasick backwards dreamworld of subtle buzz, mumbled voices, and a gorgeously woozy main melody. "Angels And Birds And The Coming Of Night" is the centerpiece of the second disc, recorded in 2004 as well, and clocking in at 45 minutes, an epic expanse of soft focus fuzz and billowing metallic drones, dense and lustrous, dark and dreamlike. The disc closes with 2005's "Cool Memories II", a sonic addendum to part one, the mumbled backwards swoon, now peppered with bits of glitch and smears of static.
The final disc in the set is a live set recorded earlier this year in Paris, a 48 minute stretch of high end minimalism, a flickering fluttering upper register electronic trill, oscillating endlessly, is spread out over almost the entire length of the entire performance, with subtle sonar like overtones and subtle low end throbs, until the flutter begins to fluctuate, and suddenly the track is a twisting and tangled squall of warped synth, blurred effects and processed vocals.
As always, packaged in that instantly recognizable Celebrate Psi Phenomenon wallpaper packaging. Inserts and liner notes for each disc, and as always, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
MPEG Stream: "Sealight"
MPEG Stream: "The Horizontality Of Saskatchewan"

WIRE, THE #300 February 2009 magazine 9.98
Every month, we look forward to a new issue of The Wire to enlighten and enthuse us about favorite and soon-to-be-favorite musical artists. This time, the UK (and world's) premiere print magazine of adventurous sounds that aren't too metal features Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills on the cover. Also: No Neck Blues Band. A primer on William S. Burroughs. James Plotkin doing the "Invisible Jukebox'. A scene report on Tehran. Christian Carter of Charalambides writes about Jandek's album covers. Tons of reviews, all the usual necessities. And plenty more. Yay!

ZEITKRATZER & KEIJI HAINO Electronics (3) (Zeitkratzer) cd 17.98
The gorgeous image of a stagecoach barreling down a mountain roadside, as if being watched by a crow perched in a fir tree, has great appeal to an imagination that begins listening the moment it beholds a record's cover. Unfortunately, the music inside this cover does not really correspond to what is evoked by that image.
Not quite so mysterious, or adventurous, this live recording, complete with polite audience applause and the pristine but cold high end of a digital room recording, is probably less satisfying than actually having been at the performance(s) that brought together Japanese improv psych shaman Keiji Haino and the German experimental chamber music outfit Zeitkratzer. The physicality of Keiji's input - his vocalizations and percussive noises - rescues Electronics (3) from the banality of the "noise" its liner notes make such a fuss about. Sometimes it's a bad idea to read the liner notes! Whether it's just very naive or, more annoyingly, a stab at self-important academic validation, the essay that accompanies this disc offers little to make Zeitkratzer's project any more exciting or "important". Some name-dropping - Levi-Strauss, Nietzsche, Bach, musique concrete, Carlyle, Dionysus, Susan McClary (?), Debussy, etc. - sprinkled amidst lines of academic jargon and just a bit of actual information about the "construction" of this music, and rehearsals behind this record (aren't there artists and bands spontaneously creating such 'noise' music all the time? Artists like Haino?) makes one wonder why they just didn't opt for a photo of the the ensemble's gig bags for the cover? Couldn't the liner notes have simply said that these musicians were stoked to jam with Haino, and really let their hair down??
Having said all that, liner notes aside, for any Haino fan, this may be worth the purchase just for the dramatic track 3 alone, the approximately 25-minute "Sinfonia", given the peaks of ecstatic beauty reached by Haino's noise-making therein... tracks 1 and 2, "Aria I" and "Aria II", are rather more typical of haunting, eerie-sounding 20th century classical, albeit with added extremity due to the Haino factor.
This is the third in a series of Zeitkratzer collaborations entitled Electronics, the other two featuring Carsten Nicolai and Terre Thaemlitz respectively, and thus this is the most "out there" of 'em all, being more about improvisation than composition, Haino himself (on guitar, Theremin, voice, drums...) the equal of the entire ensemble that's accompanying him (on tuba, trombone, clarinet, cello, drums, etc.).
And now that we're listening to the disc, rather than reading that cd booklet, we've gotta say we're also really digging the "bonus" track 4, a "Drum Duo" (presumably of Haino and one lucky Zeitkratzer member). Their freeform percussion blitz gets down to business without any of the highbrow posturing of the previous, larger scale pieces.
MPEG Stream: "Aria II"
MPEG Stream: "Sinfonia"

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----* Compilations :
----*

V/A Debris Field (ICR / Bolton Museum) cd+book 21.00
Found a few of these copies lurking on the shelves in the closet, figured some mailorder folks might have missed out on it first time around...
Under the curatorial vision of Phil Mouldycliff, 13 artists embarked on a sound-art exhibition at the Bolton Museum, Art Gallery and Aquarium, whereby (to the best of our understanding) the artists were given access to the Museum's collections of natural artifacts to use within the installations and as sound making devices. In turn these installations (which also involved paintings, drawings, prints, sound, and sculptures fabricated by the exhibiting artists) became something of what Mouldycliff qualified as an "accumulation of fragments." The participating artists included Colin Potter, Loren Chasse, Keith Rowe, Max Eastley, Russell Mills, Julian Lees, Peter Oakley, Tom Phillips, Colin Fallows, Hugh Davies, Glenda Lees, Paul Mason, and Phil Mouldycliff.
As none of us had the good fortune of experiencing the exhibition, we can only comment on the catalogue (which artfully presents the numerous ideas behind all of the contributing artists) and the accompanying CD which features a mix of material produced for the catalogue by Colin Potter of various sounds produced by Rowe, Chasse, Mouldycliff and himself. As the disc begins, it's apparent who is the creator of those first sounds: AQ-fav sound artist Loren Chasse as he presents a delicate crackling of natural tactility above a rarified drone of accumulated environmental ambience (i.e. surf and wind), very much sounding like those heard on his The Air In The Sand release. The ominous shadows and oceanic rumbles which Potter has employed so successfully in Nurse With Wound, Monos, and Ora act as the glue holding the entire composition together, with Keith Rowe's small yet growling machines and vibrating strings only occasionally emerging from the din. Mouldycliff's contributions are a little harder to pinpoint, as we're honestly not all that familiar with his work (sorry Phil!). The disc itself is a wonderful listen, and certainly continues along what Mouldycliff intends, as "pathways through the assembled clutter as if exploring a debris field on the bottom of the sea."
MPEG Stream: "Debris Field Pt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Debris Field Pt 2"

V/A Grind Bastards 2 - For The Grind Freaks (Grave / Grindfreaks) cd 14.98
Back in stock!!! Worth it for the first 51 seconds alone, a mind blowing blast of furious pop flecked grind, but there's a shit ton of blasting grinding heaviness after that first minute...
What more do you need to know!?! It's a compilation called GRIND BASTARDS. Subtitled "For The Grind Freaks". Released on the label run by legendary Japanese grinders Unholy Grave. And check out the band list. Tons of killer groups, and a whole bunch new to us, almost all heavy and brutal and kick ass: Mortalized, Insect Warfare, Butcher ABC, Unholy Grave (of course), Exgreed, Disgust, Top Breeder, Motiveless, Gods Of Grind, Little Bastard, Red, 48, Gate, Spiral and more.
Plenty of downtuned chug, furious blasts, growled cookie monster grunts, wild hysterical shrieks, insane chaotic riffing, most songs clocking in at under two minutes, many of those under one, short sharp jagged blasts of grinding fury, with some songs super well produced and heavy as fuck, others blown out almost Japanoise sounding boombox blur, a handful of crusty D-beat pounding, super varied, but super cohesive, heavy as hell, should totally hit the spot for punk rockers and metalheads alike, as long as you like it ultra heavy, ultra sick and blazing fast. The biggest surprise for us, is probably the 51 second long Mortalized track, "Nailing Descartes To The Wall", which just might be the catchiest minute of grind we've ever heard. Similar to how Jon Chang's new bands incorporate eighties metal and crazy power metal hooks into impossible complex grind, Mortalized sound a little like Iron Maiden on 78, or maybe some super catchy 3 minute pop single spun as fast as it will go, the guitars raging and soaring, the hooks undeniable, even some leads, but that main melody has been stuck in our head nonstop. The only solution seems to be listening to that track over and over again. Which we're still doing. And it does seem to be working. We just. Can't. Ever. Stop.
Packaged in cool fold out punk rock sleeve style with each band getting their own little square for artwork and liner notes.
MPEG Stream: MORTALIZED "Nailing Descartes To The Wall"
MPEG Stream: BUTCHER ABC "Crime Against Humanity"
MPEG Stream: INSECT WARFARE "Death Gate"
MPEG Stream: UNHOLY GRAVE "Marionette"

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

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

16 "Bridges To Burn" (Relapse) cd 14.98
AETHENOR "Faking Gold & Murder" (VHF Records) cd 13.98
AURA NOIR "Hades Rise" (Peaceville) cd 15.98
BARRACUDA, RANDY & MESAK "Black Vaseline" (Harmonia) 12" 16.98
BORG "I" (Phaserprone) cd-r 12.98
CALEXICO "Live From Austin, TX" (Austin City Limits) dvd 16.98
CALIFORNIA, RANDY "Kapt. Kopter and The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds" (Asana) cd 17.98
CAPRICORNS "River, Bear Your Bones" (Candlelight) cd 14.98
CARCASS "Symphonies Of Sickness (Special Edition cd/dvd)" (Earache) cd / dvd 15.98
CATTLE DECAPITATION "The Harvest Floor" (Metal Blade) cd 13.98
CELINE DION 2013 "Mort Aux Vaches" (self released) cd 9.98
CHROME "Alien Soundtracks" (Noiseville) cd 16.98
CHROME "Half Machine Lip Moves" (Noiseville) cd 16.98
CHROME "Third From The Sun" (Noiseville) cd 16.98
COLOSSAL YES "Charlemagne's Big Thaw" (Ba Da Bing) cd/lp 13.98/13.98
CYBOTRON "Implosion" (Aztec Music) cd 24.00
DEAD PENI "2-4+1" (Blossoming Noise) cd
DJ / RUPTURE "Uproot" (The Agriculture Records) cd 16.98
EAT SKULL / GANGLIANS "split" (Dulc-I-Tone) 7" 5.98
ELDER "s/t" (Meteor City) cd 15.98
ENFORCER "Baby Panda" (Unspeakable) cd 9.98
FULL BLAST "Black Hole" (Atavistic) cd 14.98
FUNKADELIC "Toys" (Westbound) cd 14.98
GOBLIN COCK "Come With Me If You Want To" (Robcore Records) cd/lp 14.98/14.98
HAINO, KEIJI "Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto (The 21st Century Hard-Y-Guide-Y Man)" (PSF) cd 22.00
HAND OF DOOM, THE "Poisonoise" (Shadow Kingdom) 2cd 15.98
HENKE, ROBERT "Atom / Document" (I/CM) cd 17.98
HULL, SCOTT "Audiofilm I" (Crucial Blast) 3" cd 8.98
HULL, SCOTT "Requiem" (Relapse) cd 15.98
HURLEY, DAVE "Outer Nebula, Inner Nebula" (Porter) cd 14.98
IELASI, GIUSEPPE "Aix" (12K) cd 14.98
INTRUSION "The Seduction Of Silence" (Echospace) 12" 12.98
KORAY, ERKIN "2" (Dogan) lp 32.00
MERZBOW "Protean World" (Noiseville) lp 16.98
MGR Y DESTRUCTO SWARMBOTS! "Amigos De La Guitarra" (Neurot) cd 14.98
MI AMI "Echonoecho" (Quarterstick Records) 12" 5.98
MV & EE WITH THE GOLDEN ROAD "Drone Trailer" (Di Christina) cd/lp 13.98/14.98
NULL, KK "Oxygen Flash" (Neurot) cd 14.98
O'MALLEY, STEPHEN "Keep An Eye Out" (Table Of The Elements) lp 15.98
OBSCURE "On Formeldehyde" (Karisma) cd 14.98
OUTLAW ORDER "Dragging Down The Enforcer" (Season Of Mist) cd 16.98
PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, THE "s/t" (Slumberland/ Fortuna Pop) cd/lp 13.98/10.98
PATERAS, ANTHONY & ROBIN FOX "End Of Haze" (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
PAYNE, ADAM "Organ" (Holy Mountain) cd/lp 13.98/14.98
PENTEMPLE "s/t" (Southern Lord) cd/lp 15.98/16.98
PHILIPPE, ANNIE "Portrait 1964/1967" (Magic Records) cd 12.98
POLVO "Cor-crane Secret" (Merge) lp 13.98
PRETTY & NICE "Blue & Blue" (self released) cd ep 5.98
PSYCHIC ILLS "Mirror Eye" (The Social Registery) cd 14.98
RATAS DEL VATICANO "Mocosos Pateticos" (Siltbreeze) lp 14.98
RITCHIE, JEAN "Ballads From Her Appalachian Family Tradition" (Smithsonian Folkways) cd 16.98
ROYAL TRUX "Twin Infinitives" (Drag City) 2lp 21.00
SANHEDRIN "s/t" (Breathing Bass) cd 19.98
SATYRICON "The Age of Nero" (Koch) cd 16.98
SEIICHI, YAMAMOTO & ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE "Giant Psychedelia" (AMT) cd 25.00
SERENA-MANEESH "S-M Backwards" (Smalltown Supersound) 2cd 28.00
SILENT LAND TIME MACHINE "& Hope Still" (Time Lag / Indian Queen) cd 14.98
SPYLACOPA "s/t" (Rising Pulse) cd 15.98
STORM THE CASTLE! "The History Of Doomed Expeditions Vol. 1" (Lightbulb Detective Agency) cd 13.98
STUDIO 1 "s/t" (Studio 1 / Kompakt) cd 16.98
TELESCOPES "Untitled Second" (Bomp!) cd 15.98
THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES "Tail Swallower And Dove" (Suicide Squeez) cd 14.98
THIN LIZZY "Black Rose" (Vertigo) lp 21.00
THOR "Keep The Dogs Away" (Scratch Recordings) cd 14.98
TIMES NEW VIKING "Stay Awake EP" (Matador) 7" 3.98
TIPSY "Buzzz" (Ipecac) cd 16.98
V/A "Roaring Blue: The Return Of The Instro-Hipsters Vol. 3" (Psychic Circle) cd 17.98
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "Time Vaults" (Abstract Sounds) cd 13.98
VILLALOBOS, RICARDO "Vasco" (Perlon) cd 17.98
VIRUS "The Black Flux" (Season Of Mist) cd 15.98
WELCOME WAGON "Welcome To The Welcome Wagon" (Asthmatic kitty) cd 14.98
WINO "Punctuated Equilibrium" (Southern Lord) cd 15.98
WOOFAH "Issue #3" magazine 10.98
ZEITKRATZER "Volksmusik" (Zeitkratzer) cd 17.98

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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    $4.75 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 $4.75 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 at the $6.50 rate. 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 ("First Class International"). 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" category and see the price for "First Class International". 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" category and see the price for "Priority Mail International". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound. 1 lp is usually a little over 1.5 pounds.)


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" category and see the price for "Priority Mail International", which is the way insured packages are sent. 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound. 1 lp is usually a little over 1.5 pounds.)

For example: for a one-pound package worth $18 going to England, shipping without insurance is about $11.00. But with insurance, the shipping / insurance total is over $26.00!

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 :
-------------------------------- We accept the following credit cards: Visa, MC, Discover, and Amex. We will not charge your credit card until your order is ready to ship.
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 also accept payment by Paypal. If you opt for this payment method, we will send you a paypal total and payment instructions as soon as we've confirmed your order with you. Please do not send payment until you have received human contact from our mailorder department. We cannot take personal checks for mailorder, sorry!


QUESTION?
-------------------------------- Email the mailorder department: mailorder@aquariusrecords.org
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SOME SELECTED UPCOMING RELEASES

----} on the way to us now
Solitaire "Predatress" cd on Ektro
Falcon "Die Wontcha" cd on Liquid Flames

----} January 27th
Franz Ferdinand "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand" cd on Epic
Diagonal "s/t" cd on Candlelight
LSD-march "Under Milk Wood" cd on Important
Taake "s/t" cd on Century Media
Serpent Throne "Battle Of Old Crow" cd on Vessel
Bruce Springsteen "Working On A Dream" cd on Sony
Mark Olson & Gary Louris "Ready For The Flood" cd on New West
Novalis "Konzerte" cd reissue on Revisited
John Frusciante "Empyrean" cd

----} 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 17th
Vetiver new cd on Sub Pop
v/a "Dark Was The Night (Red Hot Compilation)" 2cd/3lp on 4AD
Beirut / Realpeople "March Of The Zapotec" 2cd on Pompeii
Boston Spaceships "Planets Are Blasted" cd/lp on GBV, Inc.

----} also in February
Oaken Throne 'zine issue #6
Wildildlife "Peas Feast" 12" vinyl version on Crucial Blast
Amber Asylum tba cd on Profound Lore
Psyopus "Odd Senses" cd on Metal Blade
Saros "Acid Plains" cd on Profound Lore
Zombi tba cd on Relapse
Irepress "Sol Eye Sea" cd on Translation Loss

----} March 10th
Circle "Saturnus Reality" dvd on No Quarter

----} also in March
Amesoeurs tba cd on Profound Lore
Deftones "Eros" cd on Warner Bros.

----} also in April
Loss "Despond" cd on Profound Lore

----} also in May
Bloodhorse "Horizoner" cd on Translation Loss
Minsk tba cd on Relapse

----} also upcoming sooner or later or sooner or later
Emeralds "Solar Bridge" lp version on Hanson
Atom TM "Liedgut" cd on Raster-Noton
Alva Noto "Xerrox Vol.2" cd on Raster-Noton
Mokira "Persona" cd on Type
v/a "Pop Ambient 2009" cd/lp+cd on Kompakt
Zombi "Sapphire" 12" on Throne Of Blood
Powerhouse "s/t" cd reissue on Erebus
Tall Firs "Too Old To Die Young" lp version on Ecstatic Peace
Cranes "s/t" cd on Dadaphonic
Doktor Kettu "Soft Delerium" cd on Super Metsa
Absu new cd on Candlelight
Circle "Triumph" lp
Grumbling Fur (Guapo + Jussi from Circle) cd
Der TPK (Teenage Panzerkorps) "Games For Slaves" lp on Siltbreeze
Elder Utah Smith "I Got Two Wings" cd+book on Casequarter
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
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"
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
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
Pan American "White Bird Release" cd/lp on Kranky
Last Step "1961" cd/3lp on Planet Mu
v/a "Noise Room" cd on Soniq
Distance "Repercussions" on Planet Mu
Country Teasers / Ezee Tiger split lp on Holy Mountain

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Recent press...4 Stars, Time Out NY // "Haunting." Stephen Holden, NY Times // "The next best thing to witnessing a powwow between Phil Spector and Werner Herzog." Village Voice

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
Portrait of music's best kept secret
Landmark Theatre's SF/Berkeley engagement begins January 23
LA just announced for Nuart February 27


After thrilling film and music fans at the Berlin, London, SXSW and Tribeca Fests as well as a successful UK theatrical release, Stephen Kijak's Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, the exquisitely realized portrait of a great musical enigma, perhaps the best kept secret in modern music, continues its US release with a run in San Francisco & Berkeley - don't miss it!

Directed by Stephen Kijak   
Associate Producer Gale Harold
Executive Producer David Bowie  

www.scottwalkerfilm.com

TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBMJ79ly3B4

from Friday, January 23 at
LANDMARK'S LUMIERE (California @ Polk) and SHATTUCK (Shattuck @ Kittredge in Berkeley)
www.landmarktheatres.com for showtimes & tickets
Director Stephen Kijak in person Friday night at Lumiere and Saturday night at Shattuck, prime-time screenings, for Q&A's

Featuring Scott fans: David Bowie (Executive Producer), Radiohead, Sting, Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn, Alison Goldfrapp, Johnny Marr (The Smiths, Modest Mouse), Marc Almond, Ute Lemper,  Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins), Gavin Friday, Dot Allison and many moreŠ

"This definitive portrait of rock's most fascinating and elusive outsider has pretty much everything you could possibly want from a music doc."
***** (Highest Rating) Time Out, London

"Like the best music documentaries, SW30 blends grace and mystery.  It should delight longtime Walker fans and introduce him to new ones."
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

Scott Walker achieved a fame rivaling the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the mid-60's and had the looks and the voice to be one of the biggest singing stars of all time, on par some believed, with Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra.  But instead of turning to Las Vegas for fame and fortune, Scott turned for inspiration to the films of Ingmar Bergman, the existentialist novels of Sartre and the tortured chansons of Jacques Brel and became a different creature altogether. A musician at once out of step with current trends and light years ahead of them, he morphed into one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in rock history.
 
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man is the first-ever documentary film about Scott Walker's career and music, tracing his evolution from jobbing bass player on LA's Sunset Strip to his meteoric rise to fame during London's Swinging 60's as lead singer of The Walker Brothers (remember, The Sun 'Aint Gonna Shine Anymore?) and as a brooding, crooning solo artist, through to his current status, at 64, as one of the most astonishing and important sound-makers of the last 30 years. This film charts the artistic journey (and the transcendent voice) of one of the most uncompromising and respected figures in music today and presents a rare look inside the most bizarre recording session (the recent "The Drift" album) ever captured on film. SW30 is a visually & structurally inventive film that subverts the typical rock-doc narrative to deliver not just the journey of a songwriter but a meditation on the creative process itself.

Comments from Celebrated Fans

"Scott really should be recognized as not only one of our great composers, but great poets as wellŠand I have to say it's humiliating to hear thisŠyou just think 'Christ we haven't got any further!' I just keep hearing all these bands that sound like bloody Roxy Music and Talking Heads. We haven't got any further than this. It's a disgrace really!"  
--Brian Eno

"A staggering movie! Scott Walker is one of my all time favorite musicians and the movie is big and generous and totally absorbing. An introduction to the beautiful and radical work of a genius." --Laurie Anderson

"30 Century Man is a fascinating and entertaining exploration of one of the most extraordinary careers in pop culture. I have rarely seen a biographical documentary that is able to make the viewer experience the perspective of a devoted fan, a concerned friend, and a complete stranger at the same time. Like Scott Walker himself, this film is an absolutely unique." --Atom Egoyan


Time Out London's 50 Greatest Music Films Ever ­ ranking: #13
#4 on UNCUT Magazine's 20 Best Music DVDs of 2007
DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR: 2007 ­ The Irish Times
BAFTA nomination 2008 (for Producer Mia Bays, Carl Foreman Award)


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I Wanted Every Day To Last Forever
short films by Irwin Swirnoff (2003-present)

film installation at Right Window @ ATA
992 Valencia / 21st
Jan. 11th - 31st
opening reception Sunday Jan. 11th 5-8

ATA screening Sunday Jan. 25th 8pm
opening musical guest: Mira Cook
www.myspace.com/miracook

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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanIrwinScottNickSallyJonandAndrew