WOVEN HAND The Threshingfloor (Sounds Familyre) cd 14.98
When we hosted our first South By Southwest showcase last year, with our pals at WFMU, and were preparing out dream lists of bands to play, Woven Hand was right near the top of our list, after all, we'd made 4 of the 5 Woven Hand records our Record Of The Week (5 of 6 counting this one), and had somehow never seen them live. So when they confirmed, we were ecstatic, how could it not be totally amazing? But the biggest surprise wasn't that it WAS in fact, amazing, or that it was powerful and moving and intense, it was that they were so LOUD and so HEAVY, the room packed, the sound ALIVE, a crackling energy coursing through every note, the volume deafening, but somehow it was perfect, just a huge swirling mass of intense apocalyptic swampy doom folk, the drums thunderous, the guitar jagged and howling and heavy, and the vocals, on record it's some sort of testifying, but live, we were almost ready to convert, and become born again. It was that intense, that inspirational, that emotional.
And the thing is, Woven Hand records do a pretty amazing job of capturing that emotion and energy on record, no small feat considering how many of the most amazing bands live, fall flat recorded, but that has never been a problem with David Eugene Edwards and his Woven Hand, or even Sixteen Horsepower, the band that came before (and was also a Record Of The Week honoree). The records are holy documents of sound, Edwards' fundamentalist Christianity, that would normally rankle, in the context of Woven Hand becomes so much more, the power of belief, the power of the spirit, of faith, rendered in sound. It helps that the sounds is a harrowing, brooding, apocalyptic swampy folk, rife with tales of damnation and salvation, hellfire and misery and suffering, the music simultaneously a cautionary tale, and a song of praise, the two often wound up tight, making the message, and the music, that much more mysterious.
On The Threshingfloor, Woven Hand sounds as dark, and haunting, and heavy as ever, the various Eastern and world music elements that were definitely present on past records, here are much more of an essential component, adding an exotic vibe to the already intense doomfolk. The record begins with a haunting almost acoustic ballad, lots of buzzing steel strings, a moody minor key melody, minimal percussion, and Edwards' powerful vocals, all underpinned by thick droning swells. It's on the next track, the title track, that we revisit the power of that live show we witnessed in Texas, a frantic chunk of jangle and strum, lots of extra percussion, anguished super powerful vocals, an acoustic guitar wielded like a battle axe, Eastern melodies woven throughout, a seriously powerful bit of musical conversion. "A Holy Measure" is more stripped down and folky, but no less powerful, followed by the doom folk dirge of "Raise Her Hands", creepy and menacing and yet still utterly lovely.
One new element, that we never noticed before was what seems to be nods to groups like Joy Division, low slung gloomy basslines, deep tortured vocals, on one hand it seems like maybe it was always present, but here, that vibe is huge, try to imagine some sort of Christian apocalyptic doom folk cold wave, and you'll be getting closer to tracks like "His Rest", or "Behind Your Breath", gothy and grim, but still flecked with twang and shimmer and strum.
Elsewhere, "Singing Grass" is a gorgeous and utterly heartbreaking ballad/dirge, all acoustic guitars and moaning cellos, and the vocals, so dark and mournful, easily the most moving track on the record. "Wheatstraw" is only a minute long, but it's darkly evocative, a haunting dronescape, gauzy and hazy and ghostlike. "Orchard Gate" is a gothic folk epic, fire and brimstone made sound, but again, for all its darkness and misery, it's just so breathtakingly beautiful.
The strangest moment is the record closer, "Denver City", a weirdly rocking skiffle folk rocker, with distorted vocals, and surprisingly major key chord progression, which sounds more like Railroad Jerk than Woven Hand, it perhaps doesn't fit the dour mood of the rest of the record, but maybe that's why it's at the end, the light at the end of the tunnel perhaps. But if light is the last thing you want from Woven Hand, then bail out before "Denver City", and you'll emerge from The Threshingfloor still wholly under its dark spell....
MPEG Stream: "The Threshingfloor"
MPEG Stream: "Behind Your Breath"
MPEG Stream: "Truth"
MPEG Stream: "Sinking Hands"
MPEG Stream: "Singing Grass"

PARSON SOUND s/t (Subliminal Sounds) 3lp box 54.00
Some records just embody aQuarius. If someone asked what the store was about, or better yet, why record stores even exist, it would be to share those certain special records with people who have not heard them, and whose lives, musical and otherwise, could very well be altered by simply hearing that music. Those records are the ones that blow our minds all over again, every time we hear them, the sort of records we recommend to EVERYONE, no matter what sort of music they listen to, if they love music, if -you- love music, there are certain records that are just essential, that transcend genre, that are sonically sacrosanct, music that moves and inspires and baffles, be it dreamy or droney or heavy or all of the above, heck none of the above. The Conet Project, Flower Travellin' Band's Satori, Taj Mahal Travellers' August 1974, Comus' First Utterance, any and all This Heat, we could go on (and we often do!), but on that list you would definitely have to include THIS, rare recordings from Parson Sound, obscure Swedish psychedelic underground rockers, an earlier, and dare we say, even more amazing incarnation of another Swedish hippy rock outfit that we love (Trad, Gras och Stenar). This was already available as a double cd, but it's now finally on vinyl for the first time, a super fancy 3lp boxset, and the perfect excuse, if we even needed one, to revisit one of our favorite records ever, and very likely about to be yours as well.
A completely astounding collection of dark shimmering drones and super heavy tranced out minimal psych-rock recorded in 1967 and '68. At times freaky and chaotic, but most often hypnotically locked into stoned grooves, this is some of the best heavy psych we've ever heard. Their shifting instrumentation (the list includes guitar, bass, drums, organ, double-bass, electric-cello, flute, cowbell, saxophone, hand drums, acoustic guitar, tape recorder, and...seance? huh?) is employed in both intricate and extended studio recordings and totally primal and euphoric live performances over the course of these three lps. Parson Sound crafted music that, while reminiscent of the Taj Mahal Travellers, Terry Riley, Flower Travelling Band and the like, is almost wholly their own. If you were told that this was a new recording you'd think that it must be some Japanese Acid Mothers Temple style psych-rock supergroup, or Bardo Pond or Heavy Winged or some other modern drug rockers, on some hitherto unknown variety of really really good drugs...wow! Yet again we are amazed at the musical treasures hidden in the not-so-ancient past, and grateful to the fans and labels that dig 'em up for reissues like this one. An incredible package to match the incredible music inside, and make you wish you'd been born old and Swedish enough to have been at one of the free-rock happenings documented here!
MPEG Stream: "Tio Minuter"
MPEG Stream: "From Tunis To India In Fullmoon (On Testosterone)"
MPEG Stream: "India (Slight Return)"
MPEG Stream: "A Glimpse Inside The Glyptotec-66"

DARK DAY Window (Dark Entries) lp 19.98
So cool! And cold wavey. A wonderfully produced piece of vinyl to replace those crappy downloads which have been bouncing around the internet for the past five or six years. Dark Day was the project spearheaded by R.L. Crutchfield, who first worked with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori in the earliest incarnation of the seminal No Wave band DNA in the mid '70s. By 1979, Crutchfield was striking out on his own as Dark Day; and at first, this band was an intentional reversal of roles within the trad-rock band with two women playing guitars and drums and a man behind the keyboards. The ladies for that incarnation were Nancy Arlen of Mars and Nina Canal of Ut; and they managed a few gigs and one hell of a great single - "Hands In The Dark" - which appeared many years later on a Soul Jazz No Wave compilation and has been covered spectacularly by the Chromatics. Canal and Arlen weren't terribly interested in continuing in the project, leaving Crutchfield to find likeminded folks with whom to work. The second (and last) Dark Day record was recorded in 1982, with Crutchfield going into the studio with a bunch of cheap electronics and toy synthesizers with Bill Sack to flesh out the accompaniments on similar instruments. Their interlocking arpeggiations are punctuated with blooping electronics that are equal parts Trio and Kraftwerk with an underlying dread to the spiralling songs that detoured from Kraftwerk's utopian vision of man-machine hybrids and down a paranoid vision of man being at the mercy of his machines, no matter how innocent their intent. Dark Day's songs are insistent and catchy despite their utterly simple structures. "Metal Benders" and "Danger / Dance" are probably the closest thing to being 'hits' on the album as weird / anti-romantic variations of Young Marble Giants with whip crack rhythms and spectral pre-X-Files electronic whistling melodies. Coming out of the NYC No Wave scene helped craft Dark Day into a something other than neo-Romantic post-punk outfit with electronics. This was a wholly unique band, who never got the attention that many of their contemporaries. Kudos to Dark Entries once again on a splendid reissue!
MPEG Stream: "Window"
MPEG Stream: "The Metal Benders"
MPEG Stream: "Danger/Dancer "
MPEG Stream: "Don't Bother"

KONONO NO.1 Assume Crash Position (Crammed Discs) cd 15.98
From the very first notes of Assume Crash Position, we're immediately transported right back to Kinshasa in the Congo, a bustling town square, people going about their business, cars zooming past, children playing and shouting, people sitting at tables on the sidewalk drinking, eating, catching up, birds perched in the trees, chirping, just a regular bustling African city, except maybe for a certain group of musicians, creating their own soundtrack to daily life, conjuring up a gorgeous, rhythmic, hypnotic and strangely psychedelic racket, equal parts classic African folk music, High Life, and junkyard percussion. The musicians are wielding a strange array of hand built instruments, there's lots of rusted metal, car batteries, old cracked loudspeakers, various drums, and most notably, some fantastic looking, and even more fantastic sounding amplified thumb pianos. By now, regular readers of the aQ list most likely know we're talking about the truly amazing Konono No.1, quite possibly one of our favorite African ensembles ever, past or present. When we first hear them a few years ago, we were blown away, the super distorted thumb pianos spitting out clouds of rapid fire chiming notes, tangled melodies, all locked into super hypnotic drum driven grooves, call and response vocals, simultaneously festive and danceable, dark and mysterious, raw and feral, primitive and DIY, lush and melodic and like nothing we had ever heard before.
When we first threw on Assume Crash Position, our first thought, was that very little had changed, and to a certain degree that's true, all of the above mentioned elements are still present, the wild thumb pianos, still the focal point, their sound curious but so warm and sweetly melodic, the call and response vocals, the tribal percussion, the groovy rhythms, but from the first track it IS in fact evident that some things have changed. That opening track, "Wumbanzanga", is far more melodic, far more pretty and almost more like some of the other traditional African music we've heard in the past, with great female vocals, the vibe super festive, but those thumb piano melodies definitely add a distinctly Konono vibe. Then the next track, "Thin Legs" explodes in a frenzy of whistles and tribal drumming and vocals, that's it, but it too manages to be super melodic and totally effusively celebratory.
It's not until "Mama Na Bana" which opens with that Konono style stop start THRUMP THRUMP THRUMP, where the whole group locks in, before launching into classic Konono, it's really hard to describe, but those fuzzy buzzing metallic melodies wrapped around the repetitive rhythms and the super emotional vocals, the whole rest of the record is classic, albeit a bit more polished and melodic, Konono junkyard Congotronics...
Some of the highlights this time around include "Makembe", with its buzzing melodies, crooned vocals, and the sounds of kids playing and birds chirping, before there's a BIG crash, apparently the sound of a concrete wall collapsing, a wall the vocalist was moments earlier leaning against, and then the band launches into one of the best jams on the disc. Or the gorgeous closing lullaby of "Nakobala Lisusu Te", with muted thumb pianos, super tangled melodies, and a sweet soulful croon, so dreamy and blissful, the perfect way to unwind after a wild, sweaty, funky, groovy, Congotronic workout.
The packaging is cool too, with tons of photos of the local scrap yard / junkyard, where the band gather up most of the material they use to build their instruments, not to mention a shot of that collapsed wall that crumbled mid-song. As with past Konono's, utterly and absolutely wholeheartedly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Wumbanzanga"
MPEG Stream: "Thin Legs"
MPEG Stream: "Mama Na Bana"
MPEG Stream: "Makembe"

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ACTRESS Hazyville (Werk Discs) cd 17.98
We only just discovered one man UK electronica outfit Actress a few weeks ago, when we reviewed their (his) record Splazsh, and we flipped, proclaiming it electronic record of the year, describing it as "a dizzyingly varied and truly curious collection of post techno minimal skitterscapes, abstract rhythmic mystery, and playful electronic weirdness, looping and repetitive and hypnotic, truncated vocals worked into strange circular figures, and then laced over muted thumps and shuffling laid back pulses, fields of glitch and squelch rain down on glimmering fields of chiming melody and twisted Pop Ambience."
So of course we immediately tracked down the first Actress records, and goddamn if it's not just as good. Another tripped out assemblage of fucked up sounds and fractured beats, so weird and wonderful, in some ways we wonder how this stuff ever appealed to regular dance music / e-music folks at all, hell, maybe it didn't, or maybe we're not giving folks enough credit. Be damn difficult to dance to this stuff, but if you're in the market for some head nodding, psychedelic, warped electronic ear candy, then this is for YOU.
Right from the start, you can tell this is not a normal electronica record, with muted muddied loops swirling and whirling beneath mechanical skitter, and strange chopped up voices, constantly shifting, but never really going anywhere, but why would you want it to? It's a heady tranced out weirdo loopscape. Which leads directly into the appropriately titled "Hazylude" which is indeed a hazy blissed out dronedrift interlude, that segues into "Doggin'", a warbly, skitter-laced bit of woozy electronic ambience, sounding like the tape is warped, and the drum machine is malfunctioning, but it's all wrapped in a gauzy big of shimmer and whir, making it hypnotic and dreamlike as well as twisted and tweaked.
There's no real way to describe Actress except by going song by song, there is a thread that connects all the various sounds, but we're not sure exactly what it is, and even if we did know, not sure we could describe it. Probably better to just go with it, get lost, let the sounds push and pull, drag you wherever they may, whether it's some loping locked groove exotica, or some beep-click Rater-Noton style minimalism, or warm washed out hazy heroin house, or squelchy avant electro, or even blurred prismatic outsider IDM, it's all gorgeously twisted, and like Splazsh, we can't seem to get enough.
Now we have to figure out what year this came out originally so we can retroactively proclaim this the electronic record of whatever-that-year-was. Can't wait for next year now...
MPEG Stream: "Again The Addiction"
MPEG Stream: "Doggin'"
MPEG Stream: "Ivy May Gilpin"
MPEG Stream: "I Can't Forgive You"

ARCN TEMPL Emanations Of A New World (Utech) cd 14.98
Singapore's The Observatory totally blew us away with last year's Dark Folke record, their fantastic debut, a difficult to describe sonic concoction of soft psychedelia, lush, dark mysterious free folk, all woven from synths and vocal harmonies and angular guitars and theremins, spare and minimal, slipping from slowcore dirge to psychrock freakout to dreampop bliss and back again, often in the same song...
So we were excited to discover that two of the folks from The Observatory had another band, whose record was coming out on Utech, and we only later discovered that it was a sort of concept record about one of our favorite places we've never been, Tiger Balm Garden, a decrepit former amusement park in Asia, that is filled with strange statues, and mysterious figures, and much of it is not entirely kid friendly, exhibits displaying various characters from Chinese folkore, including concepts such as death and hell, rendered in gory and creepy detail. A friend of ours visited when she was in Asia, and it seemed like the most surreal place on earth, due in part to its crumbling decay, but beyond that, what a strange and wondrous place!
So here, Arcn Templ, aka Leslie and Vivian from The Observatory, have composed a suite of songs, musical memories of visiting this strange land of demons and warriors and animals and mythical creatures, as children, reflecting how those memories affected them, fond memories, hazy and indistinct, laced with a certain amount of menace, lurking right below the surface. And these songs are in fact like that, mysterious hazy memories rendered in sound, gorgeous minimal folkscapes, acoustic guitars laced over whirring organs, spidery guitars unfurling minor key melodies, harmonica, minimal percussion, ringing chimes, bell like tones, a sort of doom pop, slowcore, dreamfolk, each track a faded snapshot, of not just this strange place, but Leslie and Vivian's fleeting place in it. Barring the occasional burst of cacophonous crunch, for the most part, Emanations Of A New World is a tranquil trip back in time, the sounds tempered by the years, giving everything a gauzy vibe, the sounds softly surreal, and so so lovely. Folks who dug The Observatory record should definitely check this out, as well as anyone into dark moody folk flecked doom-ed minimal pop music... And mark our words, someday we'll make it to Tiger Balm Garden to experience it for ourselves, but until then, we're happy viewing it through the mysterious musical memories of Arcn Templ...
MPEG Stream: "Innocence & Ignorance"
MPEG Stream: "Three Realms"
MPEG Stream: "Wandering In An Empty Forest"

ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI Before Today (4AD) cd 14.98
What a long strange trip it's been for Ariel Pink. Going from total outsider weirdo pop secret to the man pretty much single handedly responsible for inspiring a legion of like minded left-field pop peddlers like Kurt Vile, John Maus, Gary War, Blank Dogs, Wavves, Ducktails, Brian Glaze, Night Control, Neon Indian, and on and on.
Now finally, after all these years, AP's finally enjoying the respect and attention he deserves, and he's been rewarded with his first big time and widely distributed release, on 4AD, of all labels!! Anyone who has seen him and The Haunted Graffiti play lately know that while there is still a total weird and warbly vibe to their sound, they are a much more song based outfit, and way more straightforward than their way more fractured and fucked up earlier sound. Not to fear though, Before Today is not some glossy makeover of the Ariel Pink we all know and love, but it is for sure the most coherent, produced and focused album he's created. From glam-like '70s rockers, to yacht rock on acid, to super colorful fuzzy pop bliss, this is a record that explores so many different sonic territories.
It's also, by far, the 'breeziest' record he's made, the sounds often has us feeling like we're swirling in pink tinged clouds while a '70s soft-rock radio soundtrack bleeds into something a bit more subversive, and all the while, candy coated cereal comes raining down from the skies. AP's been at it for about a decade now, way beyond the lifespan of most 'bands', carving out his completely singular idiosyncratic voice, and it really makes sense, that more and more people are embracing his twisted sound, and showering him with the love and praise he's been getting from folks like us for years...
(By the way, there is vinyl of this too, we ran out and when we tried to restock, the label was temporarily out... might have something to do with the fact that one of the lps we did get, turned out to have a Christina Aguilera record inside it, not the AP one! Almost seems like something AP would do on purpose... we'll keep you posted.)
MPEG Stream: "L'estat"
MPEG Stream: "Round And Round"
MPEG Stream: "Revolution's A Lie"
MPEG Stream: "Reminiscences"

BASSETT, M. & J. GRAF Peradam (Utech) cd 14.98
Another new one from the always intriguing Utech label. This disc is a collaboration betwixt Marcia Bassett (of Hotogisu and Zaimph fame) and Jenny Graf of Metalux, two somewhat noisy gals who together construct a strangely compelling soundworld here, part frightened folk, part disturbing drone... The harrowing journey begins with "Zero As Sky", seventeen minutes that start with a dawning drone, eventually revealing gently layered and looped vocals... a girl's voice, singing something that sounds ancient and folky, but buried amidst a static-y keening buzz, and sudden reverberating sound effects. With severe bursts of distortion in conjunction with what sounds like Wicker Man chant and warble, this whole whispery wind tunnel of a track would be a shivery late night listen. Could be the electric moaning of malevolent spirits. Even the part in the middle that makes us think of a haunted video arcade enhances the weird mood! Just a bit spooky, yeah. And at its heaviest, competition for Urthona and Harvestman.
If that lengthy piece was akin to Bassett and Graf taking us for scary walk in the dark woods (with arcade detour), then the next is more like they're singing to us 'round the campfire. "Black Waters Glow" is a short(er) interlude, only six and half minutes, wherein the drones die down and the vocals rise up, quietly still, with gentle guitar slowly stalking along. The track is this disc's most melodic, sounding like a witchier Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, maybe. Or old timey Brit folk filtered through floorcore FX. Or even some strange Devendra Banhart/Richard Youngs hybrid.
That's followed by the disc's third and final track, the 15 minutes of "Phantasmagorical Mapping", another miasma of distorted drones and disembodied drifting vocals, with the addition, upon occasion, of some mechanical rhythms, gone a bit haywire... Again, messily mesmeric. Bassett and Graf have done unique good work here, and despite doubts about whether or not our sanity can stand it, we hope they continue to collaborate!
LIMITED TO 500 copies! Nice, slim, oversized Utech-style sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Zero As Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Black Waters Glow"

BEACH FOSSILS s/t (Captured Tracks) cd 13.98
Sometimes the stars just align so perfectly. The first time we got to hear Beach Fossils it was a breezy and sunny afternoon. The front door was wide open, the wind gently blowing through the trees outside, and the songs we were hearing couldn't have provided a more perfect soundtrack. Beach Fossils is a one man band, and there definitely seem to be legions of those these days. But damn, if folks can keep creating songs as good as these alone in their bedrooms, then we say who needs a full band! Beach Fossils stands out from so much of the recent lo-fi indie garage pop, being not so much about feedback and distortion and low fidelity. Instead, it's the amazing songs on the record that grab your attention. Lazy day, dazed & glazed pop gems that remind us of a wonderful sound situated perfectly betwixt Kurt Vile and Pavement.
There is something so authentic and fresh sounding in Beach Fossils' music. It compels us to let go and immediately give in to the soft breezes that seem to accompany the soaring washed out melodies on display here. Major contender for pop record of the year perhaps, and without a doubt another PERFECT summer album!
MPEG Stream: "Sometimes"
MPEG Stream: "Youth"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Day"

BEACH FOSSILS s/t (Captured Tracks) lp 16.98
Sometimes the stars just align so perfectly. The first time we got to hear Beach Fossils it was a breezy and sunny afternoon. The front door was wide open, the wind gently blowing through the trees outside, and the songs we were hearing couldn't have provided a more perfect soundtrack. Beach Fossils is a one man band, and there definitely seem to be legions of those these days. But damn, if folks can keep creating songs as good as these alone in their bedrooms, then we say who needs a full band! Beach Fossils stands out from so much of the recent lo-fi indie garage pop, being not so much about feedback and distortion and low fidelity. Instead, it's the amazing songs on the record that grab your attention. Lazy day, dazed & glazed pop gems that remind us of a wonderful sound situated perfectly betwixt Kurt Vile and Pavement.
There is something so authentic and fresh sounding in Beach Fossils' music. It compels us to let go and immediately give in to the soft breezes that seem to accompany the soaring washed out melodies on display here. Major contender for pop record of the year perhaps, and without a doubt another PERFECT summer album!
MPEG Stream: "Sometimes"
MPEG Stream: "Youth"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Day"

CHUGGA Memphistophelis (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
Latest slab of sonic wonder and weirdness from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from a duo called Chugga, a name that probably doesn't ring a bell, but most folks will probably know their partner in retro-sonic crime, musician/sound artist Terre Thaemlitz, the three have cobbled together this fuzzy, buzzy, old school assemblage of seventies disco groove, synthfunk, drug dub exotica, and while it most definitely sounds dated (it was recorded in the nineties after all), it's MEANT to, but real dated, as in seventies, not nineties, and it sounds pretty good alongside other contemporary retro groovers like Zomby, Martyn, etc.
Thick rumbling subsonic bass, woozy porno wah guitar, liquid basslines, simple stripped down drums, spaced out sci fi synths, cheesy electronic percussion, all woven into super rad instrumental grooves, some new wave-y and propulsive, others laid back and sexy and sultry, still others ethereal and skeletal, clouds of tangled melodies drift over warm low end rumbles, Latin percussion wrapped around lazy unfurling melodies, orchestral disco stabs, strings, organs, the songs slipping from lush and over the top, big production, to spaced out and sinister, spare midnight grooves. Killer old school dancefloor destruction for sure.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!!

CITAY / CLOUDLAND CANYON Tugboat / Temperature's Rising (Intercoastal Artists) 7" 5.98
For the debut release of Kip Ulhorn's (of Cloudland Canyon) new label, Intercoastal Artists, two of our faves, Citay and Cloudland Canyon, both pay tribute to one of their seminal but less obvious influences, Galaxie 500, with two amazing interpretations.
Citay's take on "Tugboat" (also featured on their last full length, Dream Get Together) begins with what is perhaps a straight forward take until the end, where Citay's baroque dual guitar lines recast the warm glowing evocative sheen of the original into a whole new majestic light.
Cloudland Canyon's lovingly lysergic version of "Temperature's Rising" begins with what sounds like a Mellotron line from another song before the familiarity of the song abruptly jumps in and takes off. Being one of Galaxie 500's faster songs, the cover serves Cloudland Canyon well as a single, that is both exploratory and concise, allowing just enough room to allow some hypno-psych flourishes, but keeping the satisfaction of a good pop song well intact.
Very limited!!! We're not sure we'll be able to get more after we run out, so act fast. Each 7" includes a uniquely designed sleeve - no two are exactly alike. Look out for future 7" releases on this label from Pocahaunted/ Eden Express, Sun Circle, and The Alps!

COLD CAVE Life Magazine Remixes (Matador) 12" 9.98
"Life Magazine" stood as one of the big hits from Cold Cave's incredible darkened synth-pop album Love Comes Close from 2009. With its squelchy synth lines and monomaniacal drum machines, this was also the song that curiously enough, appeared on a Radio Shack commercial shortly after the release of the record. Here, Cold Cave gets remixed by Arthur Baker, Optimo, Pantha Du Prince, and Prurient. The Arthur Baker connection is quite a nice coup for the band, as Baker was the producer who amped up many a New Order track throughout the '80s certainly influencing Cold Cave's retrogarde sound. Baker's remix stays true to the original, maintaining that amazing synth melody and the vocals from Jennifer Clavin. Optimo strips everything except for the vocals on this prickly techno workout. It's hard to pick much out from the Pantha Du Prince remix with his signature bells sliding over the post-Kompakt shuffling drum programs. Prurient has been moonlighting in Cold Cave's live ensemble and collaborated with Cold Cave on the awesomely bleak Stars Explode LP. This is not the sheer hellish noise facade of Prurient, but rather the one who must still be obsessed with Cold Cave's gnarled electronics on Painted Nails and Cremations. A dour two-note melody and mid-tempo galloping drum machine settle above a seabed of distorted gristle and Ms. Clavin's vocals. Gotta say that the Prurient and Arthur Baker mixes, as opposing as they can be, are the reasons to pick this up! Comes with a download card.

COLLINS, WILLIAM FOWLER Enter The Host (Root Strata) cassette 9.98
One of four new Root Strata cassettes we got in this week, William Fowler Collins debut release for the label is easily the darkest of 'em all. Trading in his electric guitar for a wholly different instrument, the shruti box (a hand-pumped acoustic drone instrument), Collins nevertheless manages to create a chillingly holistic composition that surges and delves into otherworldly realms while keeping the filtered feedback and power drones of his previous works intact. We have been huge fans of his work since his first release Western Violence and Brief Sensuality, and fans of his most recent dark desert doom epic Perdition Hill Radio released on Type last year will definitely need to get this. "Part I" has more of a cosmic upward momentum as the sped-up pulsations of the instrument seem to shimmer and float toward the sun. It's not necessarily heavenly as the composition seems to lose all air as it simmers and takes on more heat. On "Part II" however, things take a more earthbound turn. The drones grow thicker and more wooly, ringing with denser tones and urgent almost molten tonal pulses and sawtoothlike sparks of white noise. We can't help but think of Icarus, before and after his fall. A truly doomed epic. Limited to 100 copies. It'll be gone before you know it, so don't hesitate!
MPEG Stream: "Part I"

CROWNED IN EARTH Visions Of The Haunted (Shadow Kingdom) cd 14.98
Doomhounds, arise from ye slumbers! The Shadow Kingdom label knows what you want, and have dug up yet another dismal dirge-like debut for your delight. Right on the spine it proudly says "English Doom" and indeed Crowned In Earth hail from that green and pleasant land, home of course to thee originators of doom metal, Black Sabbath. And so naturally Crowned In Earth echo Sabbath in spots, that's no surprise, most practitioners of the form do to some degree, from wherever they may come. But apart from Sabbath, the English Doom band this act most resembles is (early) Cathedral, especially on the disc's longest (by a smidge) track, "Miles I Walk", which clocks in at 8:59. Songs need to be that long when played with such solemn majesty (and at such molasses-like speeds). Crowned In Earth keep to a slow and plodding pace, mostly, though upon occasion they break, if not into a NWOBHM-ish gallop, at least into a spirited trot. Their sludgy but swinging riffs are adorned with singsongy vocal chant, delivered cleanly and nigh melodically, in a deep and phlegmy voice, which is one reason in particular for the Cathedral comparison. Again, we'll specify early Cathedral, circa the Soul Sacrifice ep, to get really precise. Along with the doleful guitars, the occasional touch of organ adds an extra measure of sombre regality, and brings up comparisons also to another English ensemble of doom, The Wounded Kings. While this breaks no new ground, the earth they're crowned in being far from freshly dug, this should appeal to fans of trad doom, especially Cathedral, and Reverend Bizarre, who we didn't mention already but are definitely hearing here.
By the way, it turns out that CoE are almost entirely a one-man band (but not the sort that, you know, performs that way, busking on subway platforms or whatever). Englishman Kevin Lawry, whom you'll see wandering in front of a castle with his girlfriend (?) in the cd photos, wrote all the music and lyrics, and performs the vocal, guitar, bass, and organ parts. He did however recruit a Yank to play the drums (well, both Black Sabbath and Cathedral did that too): Darin McCloskey, from Pale Divine, Falcon, and Sinister Realm. But otherwise it's all Lawry's show, and while maybe we think he could have used some help with the graphic design, he should be commended for being sooooo dooooomy all by himself. Hmm, heck, maybe that helps!
MPEG Stream: "Downward Spiral"
MPEG Stream: "Miles I Walk"

DAVIS, JOHN & MAXWELL CROY Halides (Root Strata) dvd-r 12.98
A beautiful document from last year's On Land festival, the Root Strata curated gathering of artists and sound artists and musicians. This particular set featured gorgeous home solarized super-8 film shot by John Davis throughout Northern California, while Davis and Maxwell Croy, one half of the duo that runs Root Strata, created their own complimentary soundtrack, a soft hazy dronescape of bowed strings, layered vibrations and hushed, barely-there melodies.
The images are really quite evocative, all washed out and softly distorted, like home movies, they have that sort of faded memory feeling, images of a lost time, and the solarizing process only further enhances that element, the slow shifting landscapes peppered with solar flares, deep red glows, the colors super saturated, flowers become miniature suns, fields of grass look like stained glass, or fields of green stars, all manner of foliage becomes more about texture and color, just softly swaying stretches of hazy burnt out shades of soft white, deep yellow, warm browns...
And the music perfect suits the images, tranquil and impressionistic, long tones underpin soft shards of melody, like a muted raga, the buzz blurred and smoothed out into gauzy streaks of sound, a koto gives the music a distinctly Eastern vibe, the tones like swells on a sonic sea, meditative and mesmerizing.
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES! Housed in a cool oversized hand silkscreened jacket, with a printed insert and a strange accordion like inner dvd-sleeve.

DELAURENTI, CHRISTOPHER Favorite Intermissions (GD Stereo) cd 14.98
This all-time AQ favorite is finally back in stock!
As many of our favorite records have demonstrated, music is where you find it, anywhere, and more often than not, the most amazing sounds are waiting to be found where one might not always look. In the past we've had straight up field recordings of drag races, a life support machine, barking sled dogs, rutting deer, cowbells in the alps... We've also had the microscopic captured vibrations of Tsunoda, the voices from beyond of the Ghost Orchid, the singing telephone wires of Alan Lamb, and we could go on and on. 
Some adventurous listeners/recordists have set their sights on the sounds BETWEEN the sounds. The continuous applause of A Compressed History of Everything Ever Recorded, Vol. 2: Ubiquitous Eternal Live, and of course multiple 'moments of silence' strung together by Jonty Semper, and now we have Christopher DeLaurenti's Favorite Intermissions, which is just what the title indicates. At various classical performances, during the intermissions, when most folks went to the lobby to smoke, or grab a snack, visit the rest room, DeLaurenti stayed put, or wandered through the partially empty auditorium, capturing all the wonderful sounds that exist when the musicians are not playing and the crowds are not hushed and listening attentively. 
There is of course the general hubbub, foot steps, the low murmur of conversation, papers being folded, the ruffling of garments, laughter, coughing, snippets of conversation, all blended together into a surprisingly pleasant hum, a minimal multilayered drone, which on its own would be quite an excellent listen. But the other element, that is maybe the most fascinating, is capturing the musicians - who are normally quite disciplined, playing the score perfectly, following the conductor, striving for utter perfection - with their hair down as it were, relaxed and sort of just messing about. Lots of improvising, which they are not afforded the opportunity to do EVER, and some subtly impromptu jams, percussion and horns, weaving elaborate little sonic tableaus, fragments of the pieces they just performed, or are about to perform, removed from their context and allowed to breathe. It's loose and spirited, ramshackle, but also amazing to listen to. 
The combination of the room noise and the random bits of orchestral music are totally fascinating and sound absolutely perfect together. It's hard not to hear these excerpts as composed avant garde pieces: Symphony Number 4 for laid back oboe player, screwing around percussionist, crinkled candy wrapper, shuffling footsteps, random conversation and occasional laughter....
Sometimes the sound is quite minimal and quiet, just a few players playing scales, a handful of scattered voices, other times it's intense and cacophonous, with nearly the whole orchestra jamming wildly on some theme or another, exuding more of a wild free Sun Ra vibe than what you might normally expect from typically reserved classical performers. 
A surprisingly complex super intimate portrait of every day sounds, interactions between people transformed into performance, the noise of modern life mixed with the the mostly ignored sonic events surrounding some of the most beautiful music on earth, revealing that once again, music truly is where you find it, even if you find it while all dressed up, sitting in a plush velvet seat, with the lights up, listening to musicians tune up and the folks behind you talking about their plans for dinner.
MPEG Stream: "Holst, Hitherto"
MPEG Stream: "Before Petrushka"
MPEG Stream: "Awaiting AGON"

DREXCIYA Neptune's Lair (Tressor) cd 14.98
As you well know, we're really into that special Scandinavian subgenre of electronica known as skweee. In part, 'cause we were already into a lot of the sounds that inspired skweee, such as '80s electro, video game music, and funky old school hiphop. So, we were excited to see this disc recently repressed/reissued, Detroit electro act Drexciya's first full-length compact disc, originally released by German label Tresor in 1999. Also excited, 'cause we completely missed out on listing it back then, somehow! The rather idiosyncratic Drexciya can definitely be considered as precursors to the skweee phenomenon (skweee-cursors?). And indeed also as important, if eccentric, artists in the Detroit techno pantheon.
There's 21 tracks on this basically instrumental disc, most of 'em bearing some bizarre title that relates somehow to Drexciya's strange, sub-aquatic sci-fi concepts (the comic bookish artwork features squid shaped spaceships, and spacemen (spacefish?) that look a lot like Lovecraft's Deep Ones, or the Creature From The Black Lagoon, but in spacesuits. Sonically, these tracks range from the droning chant and mysterious voices heard in the introductory incantation "Temple Of Dos De Agua" to moody 4/4 techno atmospheres to synthesized future funk ("Funk Release Valve") to textural rhythmscapes to body-jerking fusion grooves ("Jazzy Fluids")... there's melodic keyboard soloing over jittery beats... squelching bass and lush synths... And dig the Kraftwerkian echoes on "Polymono Plexusgel" (and elsewhere). Pre-skweee or whatever, it's all awesome. This Drexciya disc is a bit of a classic, as far as catchy cosmic electro with fishy sci-fi fantasy elements, Detroit style, goes. And the connection with fellow Detroit space-travellers Dopplereffekt should be obvious. Check it!
MPEG Stream: "Surface Terrestrial Colonization"
MPEG Stream: "Dripping Into A Time"
MPEG Stream: "Devil Ray Cove"
MPEG Stream: "Oxyplasmic Gyration Beam"

ENFORCER Diamonds (Heavy Artillery) cd 14.98
These young spandex-clad Swedish shredders are back with their second strike of speedy, melodic, refreshingly retro '80s styled metal! Yeah, that's right, they make it seem fresh again somehow, they've got a lot of the right spirit, like their pals Helvetes Port, with whom they share the same fashion sense. However, Enforcer aren't so eccentric, seeming a bit more "pro" though. And the other thing they've got, that really counts, are cool songs! Not only do they go for the gusto with galloping guitars, high pitched shrieks, heroic choruses, etc. but yeah these are catchy, actual songs with a "pop" element like bands wrote back during the glory days of the early '80s, the era that so inspires these guys. Obviously NWOBHMers Iron Maiden is one influence, we're also hearing some Grim Reaper, and, crossing over to the USA, maybe Riot and Alcatrazz (the latter especially on the Japanese-themed "Katana", and remember, that band had a rather famous Swedish guitarist after all).
And, though they're definitely intent on staying "in genre", doing songs with titles like "Roll The Dice", "Midnight Vice", and "Live For The Night", with lyrics about sleazy fast livin', violent death, and so forth, it's not all formula, Enforcer provides some interesting surprises, like the way the title track starts off as an instrumental ripper before seguing by the the end into a drifting wordless la la la blissful outro, not what we were expecting.
Among today's crop of eighties metal revivalists, Enforcer, along with fellow AQ faves Cauldron from Canada (with whom they've toured), lead the pack amongst those who totally shred authentically -without- neglecting the pop, a rare breed!
MPEG Stream: "Katana"
MPEG Stream: "Diamonds"
MPEG Stream: "Live For The Night"

ENGLISH, LAWRENCE Incongruous Harmonies (Touch) 7" 7.98
One of two new Touch singles this week, this mysterious batch of 'incongruous harmonies' comes from Australian composer / sound artist / musician Lawrence English, and these two tracks were both composed and recorded for an installation called Regarding The Joy Of Others, and are both mysterious and amorphous, textural and abstract. The first is a series of gritty washes, deep swells pocked with streaks of crumble and crackle, buried melodies glowing from within a softly heaving surface of burnished thrum and muted static, bleary and blurred and subtly smeared, a gorgeous soundscape of indistinct harmony, quite Jeck-ian in fact, something very lovely, disguised by a gauze of soft noise, the two elements not competing so much as bleeding into one another and becoming a hauntingly beautiful melody infused, slowly unfurling buzz.
The flipside peels back some of the grit and grime, leaving something more serene and a bit more ambient, a darkened landscape of distant churning rumbles, shot through with shards of looped high end, almost like a mellowed out Wolf Eyes, but it's not really all that mellow, it's still ominous, and tense, and a bit haunting, a sprawling dronemusic that subtly throbs and pulses with some implied rhythm, while layer upon layer shift and overlap and intertwine, the track actually growing less and less dark, the low end fading away, leaving just the mysterious keening high end warble to drift like some alien distress call. So cool.
And like with all Touch releases, super striking design and layout by Touch Records boss Jon Wozencroft.

FERRARI, LUC Ephemere I & II (Alga Marghen) cd 21.00
Pay no attention to the liner notes, as the text is ultimately meaningless when attempting to describe this incredible recording by Luc Ferrari. The French musique concrete composer is mostly known for his psychosexual contextualizations that 'telescope' tape manipulated environmental recordings dotted with fleeting whispers of female voices. Symphonic works, pieces with indeterminant scores, radiophonic broadcasts, and theater have all worked within the expansive ouvre of Ferrari; but very little of the work that we had encountered prepared us for what's found on Ephereme. Here are two lengthy pieces recorded in the mid-'70s that look forward to the grim expressionism of the '80s post-industrialists coupled with the drugged-n-droned psychedelia that has been flourishing today!
The first piece is grounded upon a set of low-end synth tones that oscillate and slowly spiral into dissonant harmonic patterns. A stream of disembodied voices emerges from within this grey wash, for a very ghostly shortwave radio feel, with some resemblance to Delia Derbyshire's Dreams or Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing. Along with these voices, a slow churning plod from a downtuned piano furthers the tension of the piece, which gradually dissolves by the end when Ferrari replaces the voices with some lovely Takoma-inspired acoustic guitar playing; and here, the work is really sympathetic to those collages from irr. app. (ext.). Brilliant stuff! The second piece (which clocks in at a whopping 52 minutes) is a much brighter affair, again with synth tones and percolations reflecting the kosmische aesthetic of the day (e.g. Cluster, Tangerine Dream, etc.). Given the extended duration of the piece, all of the revolving sounds are not in any hurry to further their progressions. It's quite enveloping and meditative, somewhat like the droned parts of Natural Snow Buildings or some of the sprawling Emeralds tracks. Again, the acoustic guitar becomes the central focus by the end of this piece. As you could imagine, this sounds nothing like Ferrari's seminal Presque Rien, but it is an amazing document that more than holds its own against anything in his impressive back catalogue. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Ephemere 1"
MPEG Stream: "Ephemere 2"

FISTULA Goat (Crucial Blast) cd 10.98
The first we heard from Fistula was on a split with Bay Area sonic brutalizers Burmese, and as we mentioned then, it takes some pretty serious sonic balls to hold your own on a record with a band like Burmese, and these guys pulled it off big time. Unleashing a torrent of grinding downtuned doom drenched SLUDGE. So here's the latest from these Ohioan bruisers, a 5 song ep based on the story of Ohio serial killer Anthony Sowell (they found 11 decomposing bodies under his house!) a la Church Of Misery, complete with samples of news reports, but UNlike CoM, these guys are not about groove, just punishment and pummel, a thick, filthy, blackened crawl, Sabbath at 16rpm, howled demonic vox over caustic riffage and Neanderthal drumming, occasional bursts of frenzied crunch and thud, but always returning to that glacial grinding lumber.
Think Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Thou, Cough, Moloch, that sort of thing, but also more classic sludge doom outfits like Winter, Autopsy, Frost, but all filtered through Fistula's twisted and cracked sonic lens, the result a furiously brutal collection of blown out, in-the-red, slow motion, ugly chugging grim dirgery, that definitely belong in the doom-sludge pantheon alongside the above mentioned sludgelords. Fucking awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Ohio Death Toll Rising"
MPEG Stream: "One Chair And An Electrical Cord"

GHAST May The Curse Bind (Flenser) 2lp 24.00
The debut cd from these Welsh black metallers was a HUGE hit with the grim black metalheads around here, and now it's finally available on vinyl, deluxe colored vinyl in a full color gatefold to boot! And as a bonus, it includes the Ghast tracks from their way limited cd-r split with Helvette!! Here's what we said about the record proper when we first raved about the cd version back on list #307:
We were all prepared to write this review thinking that this Ghast, from Wales, was in fact, the same as the Ghast whose last two split albums we had reviewed recently. The sound was quite different, but hey, bands do that all the time. Thankfully, we dug a little deeper and discovered that indeed there are two different Ghasts, one French Canadian, one Welsh!
This Ghast is the one from Wales, and since they are in fact not the Ghast we already knew and loved, they are totally new to us, but there's plenty of room in our shrivelled black hearts for two different Ghasts, which is a good thing as we're starting to think we love these guys too. Where the -other- Ghast traffic in a crumbling lo-fi slow motion blackened doom, the Welsh Ghast, on So May The Curse Bind, their first proper full length, up the black quotient quite a bit. Right out of the gate, opening track "Crawl, Blighted And Afraid" explodes in a flurry of punkish blast beats, harsh vokills and buzzing frenzied riffage, raw and primal and a bit lo-fi, this is definitely frosty and grim sounding, but before too long the band can no longer resist the black hole pull of doom, and the tempo slows to a lurch, the blast beat transforms into a pound, the riff churns and chugs, occasionally, spinning out into little squalls of furious buzz, the melodies minor key and epic, a relentless black doom dirge, that shifts back to blasting buzz to finish off in a blaze of blackened fury.
The rest of the tracks follow a similar path, veering back and forth between stumbling chaotic frenzy and lumbering doomic crush, buried within the murk and the mire though are haunting hook filled melodies and surprising guitar harmonies, which add a bit of texture and color to the blurred blackness. A few of the tracks slip into a D-beat pound, others stretch out into woozy seasick almost-waltzes, while "Pale Robe" slows everything waaaaay down for a weary depressive crawl through clouds of Burzumic buzz and spidery minor key guitar melodies, a sort of black doom ballad, melancholy, miserable, and weirdly beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Crawl, Blighted And Afraid"
MPEG Stream: "Give Your Wrists"

HEAVY WINGED Fields Within Fields (Three Lobed) lp+cd 22.00
Dronepsych trio Heavy Winged are definitely HEAVY, and have been getting moreso with every release, consistently unleashing thick blackened sprawls of psychedelic dronerock, churning guitars, and pounding tribal drumming, all wound into extended heart of a black sun freakouts / blowouts that manages to be textural and hypnotic while still being weirdly free and abstract, slipping from riffy crunch to total balls out free form heaviness.
These two new tracks find these guys pushing it about as far as it can go, ditching conventional song structure almost entirely (not that they were ever THAT songy to begin with), the A-side is all "Among The Maeori" and sounds like a supercharged, less pop Dead C, the drums a continuous anti-rhythm, almost more textural than rhythmic, while the guitars do very unguitar like things, weaving thick undulating layers of woozy drone, laced with soaring distant high end tones, the whole track seeming to pulse and throb, eventually those high end tones, leads perhaps, are transformed into dense atonal tangles, while the drums explode in a frenzy of freaked out tribal pound, up until that point everything was tight and muted and muffled but at this point the track explodes and the band stumbled into some lumbering avant doom, super in-the-red, like some space rock jam slowed way down and wreathed in buzz and skree and crunch, some seriously supreme heaviness.
The B-side, "The Hum Of The Universe", begins with a huge downtuned crash, only to fade out, leaving a strange haunting buzz (either bowed bass or viola), until the band begins a super spare, spacious doomic trudge, the drums MASSIVE, the buzzing drones getting louder and more intense, the background hum and thrum billowing like black sonic smoke, the lurching abstract slowcore doom, not heavy so much as thick and dense, the guitars layered into black hole streaks of pulsing sound, the drums a demonic throb, the various background tendrils, druggy and psychedelic, impossibly heavy and atmospheric at the same time, it's only 17 minutes, but these are the sort of sounds that surround and suffocate, you get lost and emerge on the other side, feeling exhausted and exhilarated, trancelike tripped out psych space doom drone bliss for sure!
The first batch of lps include a bonus disc, an actual cd (not a cd-r) called Infinite In Every Direction, which features another nearly 40 minutes of heavy psych jams, recorded live in the studio, the first an extended slab of psychedelic kosmische krautdrone featuring Dave W. from White Hills, the second a full bore heavy rock jam, that is way less doom and atmosphere, and way more crushing, a relentless heavy Hawkwind blackpsych drugrock freakout, that RULES...
LIMITED TO 994 COPIES, includes a download coupon, and while they last, the lps are paired with the above mentioned bonus disc (Infinite In Every Direction), which itself is limited to 434 copies, so grab one of these quick!

HOT FOG Wyvern And Children First (self-released) 12" 9.98
The ranks of the Bay Area's true metallions continues to expand, kick ass band by kick ass band. Old timers like Brocas Helm and Stone Vengeance are finally seeing a whole new generation take up the '80s metal torch, like Saviours and Space Vacation. Locals HOT FOG now join the cause, making their debut with this limited edition, vinyl-only five-song 12" release - of which we've got the SUPER LIMITED (100 copies) red colored vinyl, while they last (there's 400 more on black vinyl). It's 180 gram, 45 rpm, with cover art by psychedelic San Francisco poster artist Alan Forbes. Nice. One side of the insert bears the lyrics, the other is decorated with a dungeon map appropriated from an old D&D module! (And there's a picture of an owlbear from D&D as well, gotta love that!)
We also can't help but love the punning title. As with any true metal band in this day and age, it may be that their tongues aren't entirely removed from their cheeks. Without being utterly ironic, you can still have a sense of humor about this brand of D&D metal (you maybe have to). Doesn't stop it from ruling though. And they're definitely SERIOUS about loving medieval metal and kicking ass. Having fun, drinking beer, all that, but not taking the piss to the extent of a band like Boyjazz (who, we gotta say, were pretty killer, silly though they were).
What it comes down to it though, all you need to know about Hot Fog is, do they rock? And more to the point, do they slay? We'd say yea, and verily. Like a fist in the air, the vocals scream and soar. The galloping guitars storm to attack. It's 1983 all over again, and in your face! The riffs are all instant headbangers, dished out with practically punk energy. It's hard for us to decide which song is the most catchy, maybe the Cat Scratch Feverish "Blood Wedding", which reminds us of another local act, Night After Night (RIP).
Their biggest influence is probably (or, should we say, obviously) Iron Maiden, a fact confirmed by their singer/guitarist, who also told us that early Metallica has been sneaking into their songwriting as well... but he's adamant that they shouldn't ever get too thrashy. As he says, you've got have choruses "for the ladies". He also gave us some insight into the band's creative, artistic process: they got drunk and made a long list of cool if nonsensical names for songs (like "Dwarf King Of The Sovereign", "To The Helm", "Blood Wedding", "Death Killers", and "Gloved Vengeance", which happen to be the tracks here). Then, later, whenever someone would come up with good riff, they'd get to pick which song title to use. And the singer then had to write lyrics to fit! Something of a challenge, but he managed to do it, and with flair. Hey if it works for them... maybe that's what 3 Inches Of Blood do too?
If you want to check 'em out in person (we haven't yet had the pleasure, but are looking forward to it), they're playing tomorrow night (that's Saturday, June 19th, 2010 as we write this) opening the "Parkerzalooza VI" at the Bottom Of The Hill, with Earthless, Carlton Melton, and Dirty Power. All those bands are cool, but Hot Fog will definitely be the most METAL of 'em!
MPEG Stream: "Dwarf King Of The Sovereign"
MPEG Stream: "To The Helm"

INNERCITY Cop Killer (Rotifer) cassette 6.50
One of two new releases this week from Belgian synthscaper Hans Dens. Innercity's In Fetal Aura, released on Oneohtrix Point Never's Upstairs label, was a dizzying assemblage of garbled and processed voices, fractured super distorted beats, and of course hazy washed out synth drones, and on the misleadingly titled Cop Killer, Dens offers up more of the same, but the sounds here, while an obvious continuation of In Fetal Aura, manage to be even more dense and layered and tripped out and chaotic.
Beginning with a tangle of sped up voices, the sounds soon veers into crumbling crunch, distorted and blown out, before slipping back into something a bit more hypnotic and woozy, sounding almost like a synthier Avarus, looped melodies, random clattery rhythms, layer after layer of pulses and shimmers and drones, the vibe definitely future retro, the sound super abstract, a little sci-fi, very mesmerizing, and then it slips even further off the rails, swirling squalls of franticly buzzing electronics, swirls of sped up sound and a return of those voices that opened the record (and again intoning comically sped up profanities).
The flipside starts out much more mellow, a sort of nursery rhyme style space age music box, unfurling corroded melodies over thick rumbles and metallic groans, slowly shifting, the melodies seeming to drag, as if the track was gradually melding before your very ears, only to eventually morph into a gorgeously murky muddy pulsescape, warped and warbly and hauntingly beautiful, almost like some sort of Chain Reaction heroin house filtered through a more modern lo-fi psych-drone-synth-wave aesthetic. Cool.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Full color covers, each with a tiny numbered insert...

INNERCITY Visions From Dream State (Ruralfaune / Synth Series) cd-r 9.98
Of all the currently operating cd-r microlabels, we're tempted to pick RuralFaune as our favorite, no offense to any of the other labels we love, but Bruno P. and his weirdo label have unleashed some serious and awesome sonic strangeness over the last few years, all sorts of free folk and drone music, outsider soundscapes and minimal abstract weirdness, but then he went ahead and launched Faunasabbatha a RuralFaune offshoot specializing in extreme heaviness, the fringes of ultra doom and damaged black metal, blackdrones and grimnoise, and if that wasn't enough, there's now a new series, the Synth Series, or as the label puts it "the new new synth age", which makes sense, all of these blossoming and burgeoning krautdrone synthscapers need a home, and why not Ruralfaune, with a whole stable of synth unknowns, but among these unknowns, lurk some serious aQ faves, like Innercity, aka Belgian synthscaper Hans Dens, whose sound is like a twisted, more fractured take on groups like Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never, case in point, the twisted dizzying synth driven freakout that is the Cop Killer tape reviewed elsewhere on this list, but for his contribution to Ruralfaune's Synth Series, Dens has dialed back his penchant for freakiness, and delivered some seriously hypnotic and mesmerizing synth minimalism, not at all like the above mentioned groups, instead, a strangely gnarled synthesized dronemusic, lush layered loops, stretched out into gorgeous hazy warped landscapes of sound, some like weird processed burbling brooks wreathed in softly static whir, others like tangles of complex melody looped into stuttering rhythms, almost like Avarus samples collaged into alien dronefolk, while still others sound like the buzz of swarming bees, others like some sort of woozy ambient chamber music, and others like twisted IDM filtered through super lo-fi heroin house. Somehow Dens has managed to craft a sound that bucks all the conventions of the current kraut-drone-synth craze, while creating a unique sound that somehow still manages to fit into the very same movement, albeit awkwardly, which continues to situate Innercity as outsiders in an already outside sonic subculture. So great.
LIMITED TO JUST 70 COPIES!!! We got 20 of those and that's it!!!
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "4"
MPEG Stream: "10"

ITAL TEK Midnight Colour (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
We're beginning to think if it wasn't for Planet Mu, we wouldn't be hearing any dubstep at all... Can't really figure out why more labels aren't getting more of that stuff over here, hundreds, maybe thousands of killer 12"s, DJ mix tapes, proper albums, and only a trickle actually makes it over here, bit the folks at Planet Mu obviously have great taste (or at least taste a lot like ours) cuz the stuff they do put out is the cream of the crop: Starkey, Vex'd, Distance, Milanese, Legion Of Two, Boxcutter, Pinch, Virus Syndicate, MRK1 and now Ital Tek. Not sure how we missed the last Ital Tek record, cuz this one is a doozy, not super dark or sinister, instead this definitely falls somewhere closer to stuff like Clubroot, Ikonika, Zomby, Burial, Shackleton, warm and fuzzy, the beats low slung and laid back, the usual dubstep bass warble toned way down, still thick and fuzzy, just less warbly, disembodied female vocals adding a subtle soul element, some of the tracks are super lo-fi and 8-bit sounding, others are more new wavey and sound a bit John Carpenter-ish, while others are dark and skittery, and still others are haunting and nearly ambient, but Ital Tek's unique vibe is the thread that runs through all the tracks, a little washed out, a little eighties, dreamy and dubby, shimmery and skittery, the lighter side of dubstep, with just enough darkness to keep things interesting...
MPEG Stream: "Neon Arc"
MPEG Stream: "Trails"
MPEG Stream: "Moon Bow"

JECK, PHILIP & MARCUS DAVIDSON Spliced (Touch) 7" 7.98
Most readers of the aQ list won't need much more in the way of a review here than simply this: NEW PHILIP JECK. That's the way we are certainly. Easily our favorite turntablist / sound sculptor / soundscaper, every Jeck record a new fuzzy, warbly exploration of some forgotten otherworld, the magic of his music in part due to the fact that his sounds are not so obviously created with records and turntables, like Strotter, or the Caretaker, his sounds exist as ghostly songs, broadcast from another time, or place, their construction, while fascinating and wondrous, are not critical to the enjoyment of the sound, and what a sound, warm, and lush, sepia toned, softly blurred, out of focus, woozy and warbly and daydreamy. But by now, you like us, are indeed appropriately obsessed with the music of Philip Jeck, and thus are as excited as we are about THIS. Two new songs both record live at The Museum Of Garden History in London, Jeck is teamed up with keyboardist Marcus Davidson, who we first heard on those Spire releases from a little while back , live recordings of various performances in acoustically unique spaces, often churches and cathedrals, hence Spire. The two are a perfect match, their sounds blending seamlessly into a shimmery organic whole, it's impossible to tell where the keyboards begin and the turntables end, or if that's Jeck playing bass, or just some warped old piece of vinyl, or if those washed out swirls of notes are being pulled from grooves or actually played by Davidson, but again, it hardly matters, the sound is ephemeral and spectral, slow swells of softly effected chordal swirl, fuzzy indistinct textures, a barely there rhythmic pulse, serene and so so lovely.
The flipside starts out with what we can only assume is Jeck's bass, spaced out and spidery and slooooow, a warm languid creep, the low end pulsations ringing out into the ether like ripples on a pond, until near the end when the bass(?) gathers a bit of fuzz, unleashing some softly warped crunch, and some effected synthy squelch, like a disembodied dubstep warble, slowed way down and stretched way out and allowed to undulate lethargically before settling back down into that warm washed out warble.
As always, fantastic, and again, beautiful design and layout courtesy of Touch Records head honcho Jon Wozencroft.

JUPPALA KAAPIO Rainbow Mask (Omnimemento) lp 27.00
A swarmingly beautiful, miasmic piece of psychedelic drone folk! Juppala Kaaplo is the husband & wife duo of Carole and Hitoshi Kojo, the latter of whom had released a number of spectacular drone-smear constructions under the moniker Spiracle. Minimalism is certainly a key component to the Juppala Kaaplo sound, but it's the kaleidoscopic trills that you'll get from Terry Riley rather than the steely suspension from Organum or Phill Niblock. Certainly, Spiracle's last affair - the daydreaming ambient record Ananta - was a much friendlier form of minimalism, but we were still not entirely expecting the shimmering, prism-shot psychedelia of this album. A hypnotizing mass immediately emerges from the lp with lengthy repetitions of Carole's vocal that is equal parts Liz Harris and Tara Burke, haunting the forest-dwelling drones from various bowed instruments that Hitoshi stacks into sinewy passages. Throughout, long breathy gasps of aerated noises push to the foreground alongside a revolving set of church organ trills and arpeggiations that faithfully play homage to Terry Riley's classic Rainbow In Curved Air. The second side is a slightly more somber affair with violin and piano gliding out of an aggregate drone from those two instruments. Like the A-side, it's a wonderful bliss-out number albeit sodden from a rainy night out in the Finnish wilderness. Limited to 450 copies and highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow Mask"
MPEG Stream: "Masked Rainbow"

KOES PLUS Dheg Dheg Plas & Volume Two (Sublime Frequencies) cd 16.98
Another release in the continuing series of archival releases of Indonesian popular music brought to us by the always awesome Sublime Frequencies, this one comes from Koes Plus, the "Beatles of Indonesia", perhaps the most beloved pop group ever in Indonesia, who began life as Koes Bersaudara, and whose music was collected on another recent Sublime Frequencies compilation, but for all the promise shown by the controversial Koes Bersaudara, who were jailed for covering the Beatles, it's when they streamlined their sound, and became Koes Plus that they EXPLODED, recording more than 40 albums throughout the seventies, even going so far as to record albums in specific styles catering to fans of different genres. And it all paid off. According to the liner notes, TODAY, there are Koes Plus fanclubs in nearly every city, there are more than 60 Koes Plus cover bands on the island of Java ALONE, there are multiple radio shows dedicated to the group's music, all that and they have remained relatively unheard and unknown outside of Indonesia.
This collection compiles their first two insanely rare albums, Dheg Dheg Plas and Volume Two, both fantastic examples of the group's mastery of Western pop music, the Beatles comparisons are definitely apt, but they did more than ape their heroes, these songs are fantastic, catchy and melodic, jangly and dreamy, vocal harmonies, intricate guitar playing, it's not just the Beatles they're indebted to either, the Byrds, the Bee Gees, and judging from "Pent Juri Hati (Heart Stealer)", even the Monks, it's a DEAD ringer, fuzzed out guitar, wild drumming, and howled vocals that sound JUST like the Monks, definitely the odd track out, but it hints at where these guys could have ended up had things been a bit different.
But for fans of classic garage rock, and sixties / seventies psychedelic pop, Indonesian music of all stripes, this stuff is really fantastic, it's still difficult to believe virtually no one outside of Indonesia has heard this stuff until now. Some folks have suggested that had these guys been based in the UK or the US during the sixties or seventies, they would have been one of the most popular bands in the world, and listening to them now it's not hard to believe.
Housed in a fancy 6 panel digipak, with a huge booklet, packed with liner notes and loads of rare photos.
MPEG Stream: "Kelelawar (The Bats)"
MPEG Stream: "Derita (Suffer)"
MPEG Stream: "Awan Hitam (The Black Cloud)"
MPEG Stream: "Tiba Tiba Aku Menangis (Suddenly I Cried)"
MPEG Stream: "Bergembira (Have Fun)"

KONER, THOMAS Teimo (Type) lp 19.98
Here's the second of three vinyl reissues of the early, seminal work from Thomas Koner, who alongside Andrew Chalk may stand as the greatest drone artist from the past few decades. Teimo is an album that was originally released as a cd on Barooni in 1992. Like its predecessor Nunatak Gongamur, Koner had sourced much of Teimo from recordings of gongs, using contact microphones and hydrophones to capture an unusual assortment of resonance, timbre, and decaying frequencies from his gongs. In these recordings, Koner was investigating what he qualified as an 'aesthetic of decline' shaped by the processes of decay, thermal cooling, and any gradual event that will achieve stasis. Water seeking its own level. Glaciers amassing in frozen landscapes. The metal fatigue of submarines, cracking under the pressure of an entire ocean. The long sustained metallic resonances of the gong is an apt tool for his conceptual framework, with Koner further manipulating his sources into elegant passages of subharmonic rumblings that utter subtle melodic phrases whilst shaking the bottom of the seafloor. Amidst the low-end drones and allusions to barren landscapes, Koner takes great care to keep the sounds immersive without imbuing them with terror. Yes, this is 'dark' ambient music, but his aesthetic of decline is far more clinical than say the theatrical drama that Lustmord can muster through his deadly recordings. Koner's quest is for the sublime, filled with awe and beauty simultaneously; and he has effortlessly achieved that quest throughout his career, certainly including this masterful record. Limited to 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Andenes"
MPEG Stream: "Teimo"
MPEG Stream: "Nieve Penitentes 1"

LE REVELATEUR Motion Flares (Root Strata) cassette 9.98
A new batch of tapes from the always awesome Root Strata label, this one from Canadian space-drone-synth sculptor Roger Teller-Craig, aka Le Revelateur, whose sound is a gorgeous wash of kosmische haze, all gently lapping new age synths, softly propulsive space kraut rhythms, lush and layered and so hypnotic. The vibe sun dappled and shimmery, total dream drift sonic bliss. Fans of Expo 70, Pulse Emitter, and other retro krautsynth combos will flip.
The tape begins with a sprawling motorik opener, clouds of arpeggiated melodies, soft focus flurries of reverbed synth swirl, all over a looped hypnodrone kraut groove, a bit like Neu! but WAY more blissed out and ethereal, which drifts right into the much more dramatic second track, again anchored by a sci-fi synth pulse, but laced with streaks of subtly ominous melody, and thick squalls of buzz and washed out skree, very haunting and cinematic.
The second side begins with something much more hushed and ephemeral, softly smoldering loooooong tones, laced with chiming harmonics, and strangely processed melodic fragments and the occasional bit of rhythmic skitter, a gorgeous druggy drift, which all slowly builds, a sound like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, everything begins to sparkle and glisten and reflect, all bathed in a fuzzed out prismatic bleary eared softly psychedelic glow. The record closes with another stretch of cinematic synthy mystery, almost orchestral, lush and majestic, like the soundtrack to some slow drift through another galaxy, everything wreathed in alien starlight, a blurred expanse of cosmic sonic energy. Incredible.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, housed in super nice, thick offset printed covers.
MPEG Stream: "Arco Naturale"

LED ER EST Dust On Common (Wierd) cd 11.98
NOW ON CD! Glad they did, this album's so great, cold wavers who missed it before, pay attention!
Belgium 1982 or Brooklyn 2009? Dust On Common is one of those albums that could herald from either time and space with its dark-eyed synth-pop aesthetic complete with a wardrobe of black jackets and skinny ties. Yes, Led Er Est are New Yorkers of today, reclaiming the forgotten future with considerable aplomb and fitting in very nicely next to Cold Cave and fellow Wierd recording artists Xeno & Oaklander. The Led Er Est trio are quite deft at the synth melody, building terse and catchy, if minor key, tunes out of repetition & difference, and grafting those melodies onto uptempo mechanoid rhythm tracks. Guitars, bass, and vocals also make themselves known throughout the album, but the synths are the dominant machines at hand, marching along with icy detachment, primitive sparkplug buzzing, and occasional bursts of cinematic grandeur. Fad Gadget, Xymox, early Skinny Puppy (i.e. Bites), Dark Day, Chris & Cosey, and Cabaret Voltaire are all within the sonic vocabulary of Led Er Est (and maybe even some Goblin, too). Another excellent release from Wierd.
MPEG Stream: "Port Isabel"
MPEG Stream: "Laredo"
MPEG Stream: "Scissors"

MACHINEFABRIEK Daas (Cold Spring) cd 14.98
For a while there, barely a list would pass without something new from Machinefabriek, but it's been a little while now since we've gotten something new to review, and while this is not strictly a new release, it does feature ONE brand new track, and collects a handful of older, out of print tracks, which were previously available on either cd-r or vinyl, and gathered here, all the tracks, new AND old, play out like an album, all woven together into a haunting sepia tone dronescape, fans of folks like William Basinksi and Philip Jeck and Leyland Kirby who have yet to discover the magical sonic mystery of Machinefabriek would do well to start here.
The new track is based on original recordings of Richard Skelton, aka A Broken Consort, deep rumbling mournful cellos, woven into haunting dronological landscapes, melancholic and gauzy, dusty and washed out, Machinefabriek takes the cellos and adds a patina of soft focus blur, pulling notes into long stretches of mesmerizing shimmer, creating a truly haunting, and truly lovely soundworld of loss and reflection.
"Flotter" was originally released as a 3" cd-r and is a single track, 22 minute mini-epic, a sweeping cinematic trawl through murky dreamy drones and blown out soft focus buzz. A slow building, constantly shifting, tidal like drift. Huge black swells wash over glimmering glistening shimmers, distant keening drones and a pulsing low end rumble. It's like some sort of Pop Ambient, slowed way down, the fuzzed out dreaminess becoming granular, each note, each layer, every element of the music becoming tiny visible microscopic musical molecules, madly vibrating in little clouds, wreathing the proceedings in an ever mutating swirl of ambient blur, like wisps of smoke, or little clouds of insects...
While beneath the surface lurks something dark, a melodic malevolence that permeates the whole disc, ominous, minor key, mournful, a washed out sorrow, a strange haunting creepiness, lending the track an air of sadness, of loss, but at the same time, the sound manages to be strangely warm and inviting, a little alluring, the soundtrack to some dark personal tragedy long forgotten, a sound that lulls you, pulls you under, and leads you off to some strange land, long after your eyes have closed and your spirit has been loosed. The whole track culminating in an ultra minimal coda of near silence, but close listening reveals all manner of barely audible filigree, lowercase buzz, muted crackle and gauzy melodic shadows...
"Koploop" too, was originally a 3" cd-r, and once again utilizes a strange arsenal of sound making devices: memo recorders, mixing deck, effects pedals, guitar, banjo, organ, laptop as well as violin and cello (provided by guest musicians), Machinefabriek weaves a breathtaking world of tranquil ambience, all summery shimmer, warm wispy warble, soft languorous drones that flow and pulse like the tides. Near the end it opens up and becomes some impossibly expansive sprawl, almost choral sounding, like some homespun piece by Arvo Part, the strings emerging to flutter and flit, like butterflies after a rain storm. So lovely.
"Onkruid" was originally released as a split lp on A Room Forever, as an expensive and deluxe boxset, featuring actual art photos on the cover, and pairing up two artists, given a side each, one for music, the other field recordings. Machinefabriek's musical contribution is definitely one of the dreamiest most beautiful pieces we've heard from him, a distant glistening shimmer, over a warm whir of slow surfacing melodies, muted buzz, and breathless soft focus drift. A looped landscape of pastoral shimmer. Part way through the track builds in intensity to a sort of soft cacophony, but quickly drifts back into bleary eyed dreaminess. The track goes on for what feels like forever, ending with a stretch of serene low end murmur, laced with muted sonar pulses and a deep ominous blurred melody that sprawls right beneath the surface.
And finally, "Grom", which we never even managed to get for the store, was another super limited 3" cd-r, and combined lapsteel, loop pedals and effects into a haunting almost Morricone-esque driftscape, all atmospheric twang, hushed barely there thrum, a slow building smolder, that builds to something like Nadja style doom, briefly, before shifting back into more dark tranquility.
An incredible collection, and for most folks, it might even be the first time hearing most, if not all of these tracks, and even if you did manage to get some of the cd-r's, this proper cd collection, with the new track, and the gorgeous packaging, is like a still well worth it and totally recommended.
Essential dreamdronedriftmusic for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Daas"
MPEG Stream: "Flotter (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Flotter (extract 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Koploop (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Koploop (excerpt 2)"

MCGUIRE, MARK Tidings / Amethyst Waves (Weird Forest) cd 13.98
Previously listed on vinyl, now finally available on cd, another fantastic release from Mark McGuire, a member of psych synth drone aQ faves Emeralds, this a cd reissue of two loooong out of print cassettes, consisting of four long tracks, of processed and looped guitarmusic, a gloriously kosmiche hypnotic and repetitive space rock kraut drone, beginning with an odd, somewhat out of place sample, but as soon as the guitars kick in we're immediately transported to some strange other world of crystals and prisms, the sonic sunlight unfurling glorious sheets of color, stuttery looped tangles of spidery guitar gives way to thick swells of crumbling corrosive fuzz, warm and lush and billowy, a wall of metalgaze blur that soon shifts back into a dizzying swirl of looped and layered melodies, that shifts and undulates and morphs from muted blissful smears to straight up folky strum.
The second track is another gorgeous loopscape, chiming guitar harmonics, and short sharp bursts of static, simple subtle melodies underneath, almost poppy sounding, until it collapses into a soft swirling tangle of layered synths and dizzying serpentine melodies, only to again to return to something much more traditionally strummy, a simple moody guitar figure layered over electronic chitter that sounds a bit like crickets in the fading afternoon light.
Track three beings with flurry of chiming high end guitars, like fireflies, they swirl and flit, the almost-melodies constantly in motion, the sound growing ever more lush and complex and dense, so hypnotic, loop after loop laid atop the loops that came before, a lovely slow build, that eventually joins the twinkling looped melodies with subtle guitar strum, and washed out string-like swells, the whole thing growing more and more hazy and distorted and metallic, dissipating in a lovely tangle of decaying loops.
Finally, the record ends with some heavily delayed and looped minimal guitars, muffled and muted, chiming and percussive, very Reich / Riley sounding, again blossoming into lush latticeworks of overlapping melodies and overtones, it's not until near the end that the guitars begin to become effected, the guitars seemingly transforming into synths, a buzzy, fuzzy, but still fantastically mesmerizing finale.
MPEG Stream: "A Matter Of Time"
MPEG Stream: "The Passing Of The Road Chief"

MENCHE, DANIEL Raw Fall (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
Man, is The Tapeworm tough to figure out. But maybe we don't want to figure them out. A label, a CASSETTE ONLY label, that traffics in an insanely wide range of sounds, how they're all connected we're not sure, field recordings, seventies style disco funk, obscure trip hop by super models, gorgeous soundscaping, avant outsider sound art, spoken word, turntablism, strange women reading Baudrillard, heavy drones, solo piano, interviews with artists, faux sixties psychedelic jazz, lost new wave... All we know is there aesthetic kind of reminds us of... well, OURS! Which is maybe why we're so in love with this label, and pretty much everything they release. This week elsewhere on the list you'll find some nineties recorded but seventies style dubbed out weirdo disco funk, and then there's this right here, a collection of field recordings from Daniel Menche, two side long tracks, each a recording of a waterfall in the Oregon mountains, and both weirdly lovely. Knowing that these are in fact recordings of waterfalls, makes it easy to identify the sounds the second they start, but after a few minutes, the sounds become less and less obvious, and if you were played this recording with no knowledge of the source, you'd likely just assume it was a collaged soundscape of white noise and muted hiss, blurred fuzz and swirls of static, a weirdly hypnotic abstract, totally random and ever shifting soundscape of muted white noise, almost like a Merzbow record, dialed WAY down, all the edges smoothed, into something strangely serene, a sound that while totally natural, when removed contextually from nature, sounds manmade, even though it's a sound we've all heard, camping, hiking, and which once again demonstrates that much of what we discover and create, already exists in nature, which is both incredible and incredibly humbling. A fantastic sonic document. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!

MILLIS, ROBERT 120 (Etude) cd 13.98
BACK IN STOCK!!! One of our favorite bits of audio collage / field recording / amazing experimentation was Mr. Millis' 120 cd-r which came out late in 2008. It's now available once again, but this time as a proper compact disc!
Robert Millis is a man of many talents: a Climax Golden Twin, a collector of 78s resulting in the impeccable Victrola Favorites book & compilation, purveyor of searing avant-scum-noise-rock in AFCGT, a world traveller in search of esoterica for Sublime Frequencies, a field recordist of frogs, birds, blue jeans salesmen, etc, etc, etc. Despite his many activities, Millis' recorded output has almost entirely been by way of collaboration, making this self-released gem of a solo album all the more special. This is closer related to the collage work that Millis has contributed to the Climax Golden Twins, bridging all of those aforementioned interests in a polyglot of psychedelic drone smear pocked with snippets of conversation, poetic extracts from his collection of '78s, and a judicious amount of vinyl crackling. An album such as this would easily be confused for the hermetic revelations that Philip Jeck extracts from his rough shod vinyl and turntables; but Millis seems to counterpoint the crackle and the clean with more drama than Jeck, almost positing the crackle like a punchline in a joke that breaks through one of Millis' blissed out shimmers constructed from loops and drones from guitar, bells, and glass harmonica, where haunted melodies from times long gone whisper through the mix. But at another instance, Millis leaps geographically from a field recording of loosely played Thai temple music into a shortwave burst of noise seamlessly mixed through a cloud of insects and back into one of his sleepy drones. The logic of the album may seem absurd from afar; but the internal logic is peculiarly sensible, as if Millis were tapping into some stream of consciousness that subcutaneously connects all of these intermingling sounds. Very highly recommended no matter how you slice it.
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"
MPEG Stream: "Track 3"

NACHTMYSTIUM Addicts: Black Meddle Pt.2 (Century Media) cd 14.98
Within the last few years we have witnessed Chicago's Nachtmystium evolve from a grim exercise in nihilistic, kvlt as fuck black metal to a group that seems to be completely ignoring the accepted rules of the genre and pretty much surpassing all the competition. It would be flat out stupid to deny the blackness on display here, and yet it is so much more than just a black metal album. We've always loved Blake Judd and his cohorts (featuring here, in addition to long time guitarist Jeff Wilson and synth lord Sanford Parker, Will Lindsay of Wolves In The Throne Room and the incomparable Wrest of Leviathan on drums) but with the release of Addicts: Black Meddle Pt.2, it is now abundantly clear that they are one of the best metal bands in operation. The songs venture all over the place, never failing to surprise with their unique structures and brutal instrumentation, and the greatest success here is the fact that these are, get ready: some of the catchiest, blackest, and most psychedelic POP SONGS we have heard in forever. This album is just as amazing as the recent Twilight record, and not surprisingly, three of the players had a hand in that as well. And while Twilight caused some jaws to drop with things like emo breakdowns and beautiful choral vocals, the sick minds in Nachtmystium have found even more ways to astonish. Oh, and it's a bit of a concept album about, you guessed it, the fun and timeless subject of drug addiction.
Beginning with intro "Cry For Help", in which creepy, guttural voices spell out a negative statement (we won't ruin it for you) that sets the tone for the album over echoed drumbeats, the band then kicks into "High On Hate", a thick whirlwind of classic black metal riffs flying around some darkened vortex. It's melodic and catchy, but also terrifying and uncompromising, and Judd's vocals are as killer and harsh as always. It's surprising how many interesting ideas Nachtmystium is capable of injecting (ha!) into their songs, which take you on a crazy black metal journey in generally 5 minutes or less. Nothing here is formulaic, especially the next number, "Nightfall". Your first reaction will be along the lines of, "Holy fuck! Is that a tambourine?" It is, and by the end of the song Nachtmystium has also thrown in an awesome woah-woah gang vocals (wonder if they're Naked Raygun fans, being from Chicago and all) and a giant classic rock guitar solo. You may wonder where they can take things next, but then they hit you with the biggest mindfuck on the album, "No Funeral", which will be described as "new wave black metal" until a better term comes to light. The song is carried by Parker's spacey synth melody and a heavy industrial dance beat that is so damn poppy we kinda can't believe it. There's some mind altering progginess on display, like on "Blood Trance Fusion," but thankfully things never get too academic or concerned with shit like time signatures. Instead, synths squiggle like parasites worming through your veins and blast beats jolt you out of your trance as the band holds things down like it's what they were born to do. "Ruined Life Continuum" resurrects the, um, new wave black metal we heard earlier, another too catchy to ignore number, before ending on a suitably bleak note with "Every Last Drop", where acoustic guitars and throat singing are consumed by a lumbering dirge and some soaring clean vocals courtesy of Yakuza's Bruce Lamont. When the sounds of an oscillating synth note bring Addicts to a close, you will probably be just as blown away as we were.
So yeah, once again, these guys have furthered the cause and raised the bar higher for anyone who thinks they are up for the task of making black metal in 2010 and beyond. If there's a Part 3 in the works, we're down for it, if not, we can't wait to see what Nachtmystium cooks up next.
MPEG Stream: "High On Hate"
MPEG Stream: "Nightfall"
MPEG Stream: "No Funeral"

NADJA Ruins Of Morning (Substantia Innominata / Drone Records) 10" 15.98
The latest release on the Substantia Innominata label, an offshoot of Drone Records label run by Stefan Knappe of Maeror Tri and Troum, comes from uber prolific aQ faves, doomdrift duo Nadja, whose contribution is a sprawling 40 minute single track, split into two movements and two sides, the first half, beginning with barely there skeletal guitars, hushed vox, a creepy ethereal drift, a sort of doomic slowcore, abstract and dark, the programmed drums come in, but the track continues to creep, and crawl, more melody drifting in, the sound very reminiscent of Codeine, but even slower and lethargic, quite gorgeous and haunting. It's not until the flipside that the doom drops, and instead of being crushing or heavy, it's gauzey and washed out, very My Bloody Valentine, but WAY murkier, the drums remain skeletal, the vocals still hushed, just everything is now wrapped in a heaving halo of effulgent buzz, shot through with soaring melancholic melodies, epic and majestic, doom for sure, but soft shoegazey dreamdoom, and the doom begins to fade about 7 or 8 minutes in, before winding back down to the same slowcore crawl that started things off, growing ever more hushed and soft focus, until the last few minutes, a blurred layered outro of muted backwards guitars, and looped layered melodies, all washed out and whispery, but even near the end laced with haunting, slightly ominous low end melodies, before finally fading out completely. As always, gorgeous and minimal, haunting and heavy.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on thick metallic gold vinyl, and housed in a super swank full color jacket with some seriously stunning artwork.

NADJA / TROUM Dominium Visurgis (Transgredient) cd 16.98
It's tough to argue with this pairing, Canadian doomdrone driftduo Nadja, and German dronescapers Troum! While each group definitely has their own distinctive sonic trajectory, there is definitely a lot of overlap, and you'll hear the two groups explore and expand these commonalities live in the studio, with three extended tracks of smoldering slow motion dronemusic that as one might imagine touches on barely there hushed ambience, lumbering glacial downtuned crush, and dreamy drifting shimmer.
The first track is a slow building subterranean creep, creaking, and groaning, the sounds muted and muddied, laced with bits of brilliant melody, and underpinned by constantly shifting layers of low end, but soon those buried melodies become the focal point, drifting to the fore, creating a haunting ghostlike expanse, ominous and cinematic, building to a somewhat harrowing climax before fading back to a dolorous drift.
The second track comes out swinging, big distorted drums, weirdly processed and dubbed out, stuttery and lumbering, the sounds around the rhythm growing ever more intense until they're matching the doomic plod with their heaving swells of blurred riffage, intense and epic, the muted heaviness augmented by mysterious minor key melodies swelling and swooping, the while track in constant flux, as if the drum machine was misfiring, and the band were following right along. Finally, the record finishes with a 25+ minute dronescape, that floats spectrally from warm blackened whirs, to tripped out psychedelic swirl, to hushed almost choral sounding shimmer, to majestic Godspeed like epic...
Packaged in a super beautiful gorgeously designed 8 panel matte finish digipak.
MPEG Stream: "Part 1 (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Part 2 (excerpt)"

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Returnal (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
FINALLY ALSO AVAILABLE ON CD!! Here's what we said about the vinyl version a couple weeks back:
With the opening squall of electrical noise on his latest Oneohtrix Point Never album, Daniel Lopatin must have been paying homage to Mego's history of digital cacophony, with the likes of Kevin Drumm, Florian Hecker, and Zbigniew Karkowski all abusing binary code through their releases on the label. Of course, Lopatin's signature sound is a throwback to the bygone era of education films about the wonders of chemistry and the drama of the space program with their cheesy, blooping soundtracks, so an homage to Mego is not entirely out of character from a conceptual point of view. Beyond this assaulting track, the elastic surfaces and geometric patterns which have become the hallmark of Oneohtrix Point Never work their magic on Returnal. On the title track with its staccato synthesis, Lopatin tricks his voice out through a couple of pitchshifters, rendering it very much in line with what Karin Dreijer Andersson has done in The Knife and Fever Ray. This isn't the first time he's sung on a track, as he did entertain some robotic vocals on one of those KGB Man cassettes from 2009. He follows this with a series of tracks overlapping cathode-ray drones, algorithmic shapeshifting, and pools of synthetic android tears all of which revolve into curving compositions that split the difference between pastoral new age drool puddling and progressive electronics with a nod to atonal cybernetics. Like Emeralds, who have also signed to Editions Mego, Oneohtrix Point Never has been on quite a roll, and Returnal lives up to all the hype.
MPEG Stream: "Describing Bodies"
MPEG Stream: "Returnal"
MPEG Stream: "Where Does Time Go"

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Young Beidnahga (Ruralfaune) cd-r 9.98
Not only do we finally have the awesome Oneohtrix Point Never Returnal record now available on cd, we also just got in OPN's Young Beidnahga, released as part of Ruralfaune's Synth series (along with the Innercity reviewed elsewhere on this week's list too!), but it sold out so quick we never got a single copy. Thankfully, the label decided to do one more small batch, so the band would have copies to sell on their recent European tour, and we'd have copies to sell in the shop!
Three tracks, 26 minutes, long form blissed out spacedrones, but somehow a bit more twisted and gnarled than other OPN releases, beginning with some sprawling wavery tones that sound almost Native American, the synths soon go wild, emitting wild tangles of melody, laced with what sounds like fluttering flutes, a wild trancelike swirling soft psychedelic squall that goes on and on and on, until eventually morphing into what sounds like several minutes of lazer battle! The second track continues in much the same vein with spidery melodies branching out and intertwining, trills and arpeggiated runs, all laid over hazy whirs and a fuzzed out, blurred background soundscape, those flute like flutters return, everything sun dappled and reflective, this track two morphs part way through and becomes a woozy sprawl of spare lo-fi analog synth squiggle. The last track is definitely a surprise, a strange stripped down coda, all acoustic guitars, strange effected vocals, some sort of druggy psychedelic dronefolk, lo-fi and a bit twisted, but also weirdly lovely.
Strange for sure, even by already strange OPN standards, far out and space-y and psychedelic, this should appeal to all you kraut-drone space-synth fanatics...
Be warned, we got a little less than 40 copies, and we won't be able to get more, so this is it, and it's a doozy, so if you're already a fan, you're FOR SURE gonna want one, and if you've always wanted to check out OPN, this is as good a place to start as any....
MPEG Stream: "Continuous Smooth Jazz Trepanation"
MPEG Stream: "Young Beidnahga"

OVAL Oh (Thrill Jockey) 12" 13.98
It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since the last Oval record, even longer since Oval's Diskont record, which was and always will be an all time aQ favorite, with its gorgeously languid underwater ambience, burbling dreamily, washed out and so totally mesmerizing, all created from skipping cds, and Oval mastermind Markuss Popp's meticulously handcrafted soft AND hardware. But Oh is a whole other musical beast entirely. Right out of the gate, it sounds more like a band like Tortoise than Oval, big loud, REAL drums, spread out over what sounds like guitar harmonics, as well as a very Oval sounding lush landscape of shimmer and whir in the background, but the point is, it sounds like a band, some kind of electronic avant post rock band. And it's not just the sound, it's the process that has changed, gone are the days of expensive computers and one of a kind plug-ins and software, all of Oh, and the forthcoming double cd, was created on a stock cheapo PC computer, using regular old software anyone could buy, with Popp playing all the instruments, and creating, in his own words, 'real' music for the first time, after years of dissecting and pulling apart sounds, and the results are pretty incredible.
Folks looking for more of that classic Oval sound might definitely be disappointed, but will more likely be pleasantly surprised. Imagine Tortoise, or maybe Battles, fed into a computer, and then reprogrammed, the drums still propulsive, but more scattered and skittery and abstract, almost like post rock free jazz, while guitars aren't strummed so much as allowed to ring out, chime, and all around, various bits of electronics and strange processing transform this new 'rock' Oval into something as unique and original as the Oval we've always loved.
The A-side is made up of longer, more song-like tracks, while the B-side is a bunch of super short snippets, but short and long alike, these songs are all about melody, and rhythm, and harmony, where as old Oval was more about mood and texture, for as abstract as these new tracks are, they are definitely more 'musical', the A-side playing out like some super far out post rock band, the B-side more like some avant solo guitarist, whose guitar is super processed and transformed into something beautifully alien, and subtly electronic, without losing the sense of the organic, the sound of a proper instrument. The shorter tracks, while melodic, are also very percussive and buzzy, almost like a computerized Michael Hedges / Derek Bailey hybrid, effortlessly slipping from tangled scrape and crunch to softly hazy fuzz to heavily processed almost-folk.
It's all definitely a big change for sure, but those old Oval records are pretty much perfect, and impossible to improve upon we think, and these new sounds, these new SONGS, are just as exciting, albeit in their own, obtuse and idiosyncratic, 2010, post 'rock', post glitch, post-Oval fashion.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, cool fancy jackets with a paste on front image (featuring a still from that birds and guitars installation at the Tate Museum in London), and comes with a download coupon as well...

PITRE, DUANE Origin (Root Strata) lp 14.98
Ultra limited new lp from guitarist and composer Duane Pitre, a collection of recordings featuring Pitre's bowed harmonic-guitar ensemble, six guitarists, bowing the strings of unconventionally strung guitars, all in 'just intonation', the sounds these players and instruments produce, free of any effects or post- or pre- production fiddling, all the strange overtones, and rhythmic variations, strange melodies and mysterious textures, are utterly divine, extended raga like drones, lush and layered, all the results of the natural interplay between the various notes and tones, and the acoustic properties of the space. All of which are considerable, considering the beauty and otherworldliness of these sounds, quite reminiscent of folks like Phill Niblock, Angus MacLise, Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, but with its own particular magic, the very Eastern sounding raga vibe is undeniable on some of the tracks, but others are far more abstract, unfurling alternating tones, letting the notes ring out, just the tail ends woven into each other, creating a gorgeous expanse of warm, but spare melody, until the notes grow gradually closer together and finally settle into one another. Some of the tracks sound choral, almost liturgical, while others sounds like an orchestra tuning up stretched into swirling near static drones, the final nearly 12 minute track being perhaps the most beautiful of the bunch, a symphony of metallic buzz, rising and falling swells, buried melodies, the sound slow shifting, but ever changing, dense, and dark, but somehow lush and lovely and glimmering, sun dappled and so serene...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Movement I: Sun AM"
MPEG Stream: "Movement V: Sun PM"

PRIMEVAL MASS As Solemn Maelstrom... (Stuza Productions) cd 13.98
We had never heard of Greek black metallers Primeval Mass before, they were recommended to us by Roman Saenko, the man behind numerous bad ass Ukrainian black metal hordes: Hate Forest, Drudkh, Dark Ages, Lucifugum, Blood Of Kingu, needless to say, his recommendation was definitely enough for us, and we're glad we checked these guys out. Total classic old school black buzz, frenzied and frantic, insectoid riffs and blasting beats, raw and reverb soaked, heavy as hell but still lo-fi and a little fucked up, when the band is blasting full bore, it totally reminds us of early Immortal or Satyricon, that sort of chaotic black buzz infused with buried melody, a swirling maelstrom of raw Norwegian style blackness, that impossibly manages to be catchy even though it's essentially a furious black cloud of sound. But Primeval Mass add their own vibe to the proceedings, incorporating lurching stretches of Burzumic dirgery, bits of creepy spoken word, woozy droned out guitarscapes, little bursts of lo-fi practice space crunch, super primitive effected guitars, all phaser and flanger, but it all contributes to the glorious black mood and ambience, and the songs, for all their little bits of weirdness, spend most of their time buzzing and blasting and thrashing exploding in grim black gouts of true, kvlt sonic fury. Fucking AWESOME.
MPEG Stream: "Blackened Sky Upon The Mournfull Throne Of Suicide"
MPEG Stream: "Burial Anthem For The Undead"
MPEG Stream: "Oracle Of Truths Unveiled"

PROCEDURE CLUB Doomed Forever (Slumberland) cd 13.98
Don't get us wrong, we like this record a lot, another classic example of what we love most from Slumberland records releases, beautifully distorted, fuzzy, reverbed girl-group jangle pop! But if it was ONLY Slumberland putting this music out right now (what we have perhaps-not-so-lovingly dubbed: THE NOW SOUND OF 2010) and not many, many other labels like In the Red, Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones, Castle Face, Fat Possum, and even Sub Pop and 4AD, then we might find it just a bit more special. But while we're just about to reach breaking point on this particular sound, our ears couldn't help but perk up on the opening bars of "Feel Sorry For Me" and figure out what was playing. Sort of an expanded take on Black Tambourine's shoe-gazing distorted gloss and the Dum Dum Girls' earnest disaffection, Procedure Club's debut is as catchy and infectious as both of them, if not quite as perfect.
MPEG Stream: "Feel Sorry For Me"
MPEG Stream: "Artificial Light"
MPEG Stream: "Seventh Circle of Hell"

PROCEDURE CLUB Doomed Forever (Slumberland) lp 10.98
Don't get us wrong, we like this record a lot, another classic example of what we love most from Slumberland records releases, beautifully distorted, fuzzy, reverbed girl-group jangle pop! But if it was ONLY Slumberland putting this music out right now (what we have perhaps-not-so-lovingly dubbed: THE NOW SOUND OF 2010) and not many, many other labels like In the Red, Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones, Castle Face, Fat Possum, and even Sub Pop and 4AD, then we might find it just a bit more special. But while we're just about to reach breaking point on this particular sound, our ears couldn't help but perk up on the opening bars of "Feel Sorry For Me" and figure out what was playing. Sort of an expanded take on Black Tambourine's shoe-gazing distorted gloss and the Dum Dum Girls' earnest disaffection, Procedure Club's debut is as catchy and infectious as both of them, if not quite as perfect.
MPEG Stream: "Feel Sorry For Me"
MPEG Stream: "Artificial Light"
MPEG Stream: "Seventh Circle of Hell"

PURE ECSTASY Voices (Acephale) 7" 8.98
Just as the last two Pure Ecstasy 7"s (Easy and Future Nostalgia) went sadly out of print, we are fortunately blessed with this brand new single on the new-to-us Acephale label. "Voices" is the perfect lo-fi chillwave jam of the summer. Equally laidback and exuberant, a catchy love song that has a sort of eighties /sixties walking-with-my-girl-on-the-beach vibe to it, but covered in a fine layer of distorted wah'd guitar. The B-side, "Alexandria", is not so much of a song but an extended slow-jam, with loping bass, and strummed guitar accents with falsetto background vocals before the proper song meanders in, in typical dream pop fashion. We like how with so many bands trying to fit in fast pop and tight hooks to their garage-y sound, these guys just take their time and let the dreaminess and noise coalesce gradually like hazy smoke rings drifting across a shaft of light in a darkened room. Limited!

RAINBOWS ARE FREE Believers In Medicine (Guestroom Records) cd 9.98
Rainbows Are Free? Did they really name their METAL band that? Really? Well, they are on the psychedelic/stonery side of things, so that sort of thing kinda makes sense, just like the local band called Glitter Wizard, but still. You gotta really kick ass to pull off having a name like that. And, they do! Bottom heavy, fuzzed out, swinging riffage explodes out of the gate on opener "Slow Train". They don't really let ever let up, with wild, even more fuzz-filled soloing and a vocal style that surprises by morphing from a stoner drawl into what sounds more like a frothing rabid Rob Halford from Judas Priest! Really, on the second track the singer busts out a gruff, staccato style that's more metal than thou, over the top like Halford singing "The Ripper" with a frog in his throat, not at all what we were expecting but pretty damn awesome. That's actually when we knew we really liked this band, that they were willing to roam outside the standard stoner rawk template, the singer especially, screaming and/or crooning as the mood strikes, while the band RIPS right along. As a result, there's moments here that remind us of everything in the stoner/psych/doom/grunge realm from Kyuss to Reverend Bizarre to Skin Yard (or Gruntruck) to Goatsnake to Danava ... From their name on down, it's hard to peg these guys, but we like 'em and their chunky grooves and freaky ways. They get particularly far-out and bad-trippy on "Sinking Ship", and the singer's yowl on "Are You Dead?" even conjures up the shade of Saint Vitus' Scott Reagers.
Recommended to anyone into all the killer stoner stuff we've been giving the thumbs up to lately from the MeteorCity and Small Stone labels, for instance the Solace we listed last week. And, everyone who dug Freedom Hawk oughta dig the heck outta this too!!
MPEG Stream: "Freedumb"
MPEG Stream: "Last Supper"
MPEG Stream: "The Battle Of Procreation"

RATATAT LP4 (XL) cd 13.98
Ever since they first hit the scene almost six years ago, Ratatat have consistently brought such a fun and refreshing sound to the table. Using guitars and electronics to make crunchy and catchy instrumental jams with nods to their love of hip-hop production and electronic dance music, yet all delivered in a very stripped down DIY fashion. Their forth album finds these Brooklyn boys sounding as great as ever, which makes sense, as much of this material was culled from the same sessions that produced their last record. It's cool how these guys have somehow created such a unique and instantly recognizable sound, as the moment you hear one of these songs you know without a doubt that it's Ratatat. The way they bring a left-of-center vibe to totally catchy almost top 40/hip-hop sounding beats, transforming them into the perfect jams to just blast crazy loud in the summertime. LP4 again shows off Ratatat's special ability to conjure totally catchy beats and melodies that flow with so much color and warmth. We love it.
MPEG Stream: "Bilar"
MPEG Stream: "Drugs"
MPEG Stream: "Grape Juice City"

RATATAT LP4 (XL) lp 14.98
Ever since they first hit the scene almost six years ago, Ratatat have consistently brought such a fun and refreshing sound to the table. Using guitars and electronics to make crunchy and catchy instrumental jams with nods to their love of hip-hop production and electronic dance music, yet all delivered in a very stripped down DIY fashion. Their forth album finds these Brooklyn boys sounding as great as ever, which makes sense, as much of this material was culled from the same sessions that produced their last record. It's cool how these guys have somehow created such a unique and instantly recognizable sound, as the moment you hear one of these songs you know without a doubt that it's Ratatat. The way they bring a left-of-center vibe to totally catchy almost top 40/hip-hop sounding beats, transforming them into the perfect jams to just blast crazy loud in the summertime. LP4 again shows off Ratatat's special ability to conjure totally catchy beats and melodies that flow with so much color and warmth. We love it.
MPEG Stream: "Bilar"
MPEG Stream: "Drugs"
MPEG Stream: "Grape Juice City"

RM74 Reflex (Utech) cd 14.98
The black and white photo on the cover, of a taxidermed but still quite alarming bat, wings spread, fangs bared, malevolent and mummified, looking like some decaying Victorian museum exhibit, perfectly heralds the organic, psychedelic, and somewhat disturbing dronology to be heard on the disc within. Sometimes creepy, but fascinating and atmospheric. And, in a way, beautiful, like the delicate membrane of the bat's wings.
Look, we don't rave about EVERYTHING on Utech. Just most things on Utech. In fact, we haven't even yet reviewed several the label's previous batch of releases (among them Architeuthis Rex, The Skull Defekts/The Sons Of God, and Ural Umbo), but had to rave about this one (and a couple other cool new titles as well, you'll find highlighted elsewhere on this list: Bassett/Graf and Arcn Templ). RM74 is the solo project of Swiss soundmeister Reto Mader, who also plays in Ural Umbo, Sum of R, and Pendulum Nisum (of which we've only heard the former). And while that Ural Umbo disc Utech recently released was interesting, this solo effort from Mader REALLY caught our ears. Not that it's easy to describe. Abstract and ominous soundscapery, "music" bathed in glowing shimmer and shuddering suspenseful drone. It's all instrumental electro-acoustic experimentation, Mader playing guitars, strings, percussion, piano, electronics, kalimba, organ, synthesizer, and effects... the disc divided up into 11 individual tracks that are different enough to really stand out as "pieces", each one its own mysterious transmission from Mader's outsider imagination, and the spirits that move him. For instance, the opener, appropriately titled "Early Morning Fog", begins with swelling, buzzing drone and hum, mesmerically undulating, eventually adorned with what sounds like the gentle plinking of a fragmented music-box melody... already we're entranced.
Most of the tracks operate upon a basis of electronics, effects, radio static, buzzes, and morse code clicks, the instrumentation not so easily recognizable, though for instance you can definitely hear steel strings of a guitar twanging reverberantly on track three, "Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea", amidst creaking sounds suggestive of a wooden ship at sea, perhaps...
As well as being a great release for Utech, Reflex we think would sound equally at home on the Miasmah label, although it would fall on the "grinding-est" side of their catalog. Other "Recommended If You Like" comparison candidates for this might be the Guillaume Gargaud discs we've reviewed recently, or Gregory Mullen, or the murky microscopic textures of certain Jewelled Antler recordings... Recommended at any rate, regardless of whether we can find adequate analogies for it!
The packaging, unlike most Utech releases, this isn't in a slim sleeve, but in a thicker, all-cardboard digipack style package, with a pocket (a little tight, we must say) inside for the cd, another for a folded insert which depicts that bat in fuller detail. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, also!
MPEG Stream: "Early Morning Fog"
MPEG Stream: "Temporal Resolution"
MPEG Stream: "Garden Of The Lower Lights"

ROSETTA A Determinism Of Mortality (Translation Loss) cd 14.98
Of the hundreds or thousands (or millions?) of metallic post rock bands in the world, there are a select few, who never fail to blow us away, whose records we will buy without a second thought, whose music has proven to be more than just heavy and intricate, whose sound is one we can never seem to get enough of, that perfect blend of crushing and intricate, moody and heavy. One of those bands is most definitely Philly's Rosetta. It's hard to know what to say about these guys that we haven't already, this is the fifth record of theirs we've reviewed, and we gushed like crazy about the first 4, and we're primed to gush about this one too, but then we realized we'd just be repeating ourselves, cuz like we said, what more can we say. These guys are masters of the metallic post rock / post metal / post metallic rock sound, equally adept at howling downtuned Neurosis style crush, as they are at mathy, jangly lopes, and the fact that those two elements are constantly bleeding into one another, well maybe that's what makes these guys so special. Even when they're in full on pound and pummel mode, the melodies and complex arrangements remain, it's not like they're switching from smart and intricate to loud and dumb, it's more like they're simple adjusting certain elements, often the band will slip into an intricate rhythmic workout, no guitars, but those howled vocals will continue on, a strange combination for sure, but it sounds brilliant, and it's that constant push and pull between those two definitely metallic post rock elements that are really the measure of this sort of band, and few do it better than these guys.
There's also the fact that these songs are not just exercises in loud/soft, quite/heavy, they're proper songs, tension and release, slow building, explosive emotional cathartic climaxes, long brooding moody 'verses', the guitars don't just jangle or roar, they shimmer and chime and ring out, the drums are incredible throughout, tight, powerful, restrained when they need to be, but explosive when they don't. The vocals while more often a rough bellow, can just as easily slip into some serious singing, high and melodic. Needless to say, this is a sound we love, and Rosetta are one of our favorite creators and practitioners of said sound. If you need more, check out the other reviews on the website, but better yet, just trust us, check out the sound samples below, and grab one of these. You won't regret it. Especially if your cd shelves already bow under the weight of records by Isis, Pelican, Tides, Angel Eyes, Neurosis, Conifer, Irepress, Souvenir's Young America, Transmission 0, Mouth Of The Architect, Balboa, The Other Side Of The Sky, Baroness, Snowblood, Anapparatus and the like...
MPEG Stream: "Ayil"
MPEG Stream: "Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin"
MPEG Stream: "A Determinism of Morality"

RUINS OF BEVERAST Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite (Van) cd 15.98
It's been nearly 3 years since we've heard from German black metal horde Ruins Of Beverast, who are responsible for two of our favorite black metal records ever, Unlock The Shrine and Rain Upon The Impure, a group that was born out of the demise of another one of our all time BM faves, Nagelfar, whose Virus West record helped define black metal for us, and to this day is still one of those records that all others are compared to, and most, in the face of a record like Virus West, are left wanting.
So with a build up like that, it's fairly obvious that a new Ruins of Beverast is kind of a big deal. Especially after three years.
Thankfully, the brilliantly titled Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite, was more than worth the wait, another twisted amalgamation of lurching black doom, blasting frenzied black metal, and all sorts of other weirdness that is not so easily described. The tracks are long and packed with parts, the opening track pretty much sets the stage, beginning with some super dramatic midtempo doom beneath almost chanted clean vocals, before a cool fuzzy, processed guitar comes in, a weird pop element that sounds totally wrong, but at the same time right at home, before the track lurches to a halt, and the band lumber forth, a trudging black doom behemoth, laced with Filosofem like keyboards, sick guttural vox, weirdly meditative, and trancelike, shifting gears constantly like some sort of post black metal math rock outfit, finally finishing off how it started, more lurching woozy doom pop, more of those super melodic clean vocals, and another burst of that warped fuzz guitar melody. And that's just one track.
The other tracks are separated by short interludes that range from blackened fragments of rumble and crunch, to haunting choral shimmer, to abstract free form drift, but those are seemingly woven into the whole, as if all of Foulest Semen was one continuous musical movement, "God's Ensanguined Bestiaries" is furious blackened thrash, those impossibly inhuman vocals riding atop frenzied riffage and lightning speed blasts, before the sound shifts dramatically, and that weird melodic fuzz guitar returns (sounding more like something you'd hear on a White Stripes record of all things), but the fact that it's tangled up in a chaotic jumble of crumbling filthy blackness, and haunting gothic doom, lots of moments here remind us of Norwegians Code as well, that same sort of blackened Interpol, or Metal Joy Division vibe infused into their grim black fury. "Mount Sinai Moloch" is even weirder, brittle doom guitars, pounding muffled industrial percussion, garbled alien vocals, spidery clean guitars, all very spacious and stretched out, but eventually, things do get more grim and blackly propulsive. The rest of the record is rife with stuff you'd never expect to find on a black metal record, be it bits of gorgeous gloomy dour pop, huge heaving slabs of almost orchestral sounding heaviness, soaring strings (or what sounds like strings), spaced out clouds of reverbed vocals, fractured electronics, moody buzz drenched slowcore, but all of those elements are seamlessly incorporated into the bands twisted black heaviness, a dizzying hybrid for sure, one that is hard to imagine would be appealing to your standard black metal / black doom fan, but for the rest of us, Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite is gloriously idiosyncratic, furious and fucked up, freaky and avant garde, blackened and doomic, but at the same time an incredible, and incredibly catchy (black / doom) metal record, and even though this technically came out last year, we still might have to offer this up as a contender for metal record of THIS year, black, doom, or otherwise...
MPEG Stream: "I Raised This Stone As A Ghastly Memorial"
MPEG Stream: "God's Ensanguined Bestiaries"
MPEG Stream: "Mount Sinai Moloch"

SABBATH ASSEMBLY Restored To One (Ajna) lp 17.98
Got something here for fans of Jex Thoth, the No Neck Blues Band, AND weird religious cults... there's probably some overlap there, we imagine! The Ajna Offensive, best known for black metal releases by the likes of Deathspell Omega and Funeral Mist, and also that fancy Bobby Beausoleil box set not long ago, now bring us the Sabbath Assembly, singing "glorious songs of praise to Lucifer, Satan, Christ, and Jehovah". Huh? These are indeed REAL hymns, and all from one church. Some would say, cult. The explanation: ever heard of the Process Church Of The Final Judgment? This is their music, "reProcessed" by a contemporary psychedelic (super)group of underground musicians, including Jex Thoth of, um, Jex Thoth on vocals, David "Xtian" Nuss (NNCK, Angelblood, Under Satan's Sun), and Randall Dunn (Master Musicians Of Bukkake)! So you can expect this will be ominous and esoteric.
The subject of a recent Feral House book, the Process Church was a '70s phenomenon, of course, a kind of apocalyptic Jesus-freak cult with radical political dimensions. We're told they wore black cloaks (always cool) and had German shepherds (really?). We first heard of 'em years ago thanks to George Clinton's band Funkadelic, who for a while in the early '70s were, if not followers, at least supporters of the Process Church, who presumably had a chapter in Detroit. Several Funkadelic lps feature Process Church teachings (propaganda?) on the sleeves. The music of the Sabbath Assembly doesn't sound much like Funkadelic, though. Not quite that funky! Nor are they metal as you might assume from the label... it's actually often pretty, mellow stuff, presumably sounding close to what the Process Church folks themselves sounded like when singing the Lord's (or Lucifer's?) praises back in the day, these hymns very hippie sounding, churchy and folky, but also garagey, with twangy guitar and groovy organ, building into throbbing rhythmic psych workouts. It even gets a bit jazzy in spots ("The Power That Is Love"). Still, while this isn't heavy in the guitar dep't the way Jex Thoth's regular band is, it is definitely "heavy" in terms of subject matter. Jex is the perfect vocalist for this, her dramatic, devotional delivery at once both innocent and intense, sincere and sinister. Her exaltations and exhortations rise from a delicate whisper to commanding, demanding heights, sometimes unaccompanied, at others, with backing vocals reinforcing the message.
Be warned, this ain't Sunday school. When Jex asks "will you serve the will of God?", it seems like you had darn well better answer (yes!). Dunno if the Process Church is still around (haven't read the book yet) but if they are, there's a good chance this record might recruit some converts... And at least, it's certainly making us curious to read that book. Creepy, yes, and quite catchy too, we can understand why these folks were drawn to reinterpreting these songs. Though of course curious about what the original source material was (lyrics? vintage recordings?). Perhaps it says somewhere inside the lp packaging, we haven't checked for liner notes as yet. This was produced in association with Feral House, so it would seem the Sabbath Assembly had access to whatever inside archival info there was on the Process Church's musical activities.
As "religious" recordings go, this is what we dig! For fans of Jex of course, and Yahowah 13, Family Jams, Sounds Of Ascension, and other "cult" audio... recommended! For now, vinyl-only, 180 gram, gold-colored. There will also be a compact disc version, out later this month sometime.
MPEG Stream: "Glory To The Gods In The Highest"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn Of Consecration"
MPEG Stream: "Judge Of Mankind"

SAFT, JAMIE Black Shabbis (Tzadik) cd 16.98
It's tough enough keeping up with just John Zorn's output (which, we haven't been, even) let alone keeping up with every last thing he puts out on his label Tzadik. We'd like to, but we can't. Fortunately, though, we did (eventually) take notice of this release, which actually came out at the beginning of last year (see what we mean?. We gave it a listen maybe 'cause of the high concept: JEWISH METAL. Well why not? There's been Satanic metal, and Christian metal, and Saft's project surely isn't the first instance of Jewish metal, there's bands from Israel of course, and heck KISS was probably the first Jewish metal band, though of course they didn't make it the whole concept like it is here! Eclectic and intense, Black Shabbis is a dark, devastating disc of shreddtastic songs, or sometimes sheer doomy drone-dirgery, with overt Judeocentric themes. Furthermore, this is metal done by downtown NYC avant garde types, which makes it all the more interesting and improv-y in parts.
Longtime Zorn associate Saft, whose past recordings for Tzadik include a piano trio tribute to Bob Dylan, is not only a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist (here playing guitar, bass, organ, Mellotron, Optigan, and synth), but was also apparently something of a metalhead growing up, or so we must assume (as this is billed as a "back to his roots" recording). He, and the lineup he's pulled together to play this stuff (which includes Trevor Dunn from Mr. Bungle/Fantomas/Secret Chiefs 3), certainly display hella metallic chops, this is HEAVY. The 13+ minute "Kielce" sounds like Khanate, plus machine guns! Other tracks are thrashier, or more melodic, or stoner/bluesy, or neo-classical... this disc part Krallice, part Hammers Of Misfortune, part SUNNO))) or Aun, with Slayer and of course Sabbath lurking in the shadows. Quite a mix, but it works, and is nothing if not unique amongst today's avant-metal acts. Being on Tzadik probably limited its metal cred/exposure, but this isn't just for Tzadik/Zorn fans, or those interested in "Jewish" music. While it makes sense Zorn would put this out, it's almost too bad it wasn't on Profound Lore or Southern Lord, instead! And then we could have had multiple limited edition colored vinyl die hard editions by now...
MPEG Stream: "Blood"
MPEG Stream: "Der Judenstein (The Jewry Stone)"

SEGALL, TY Melted (Goner) lp 14.98
This recent Record Of The Week, NOW ON VINYL!!!
While Ty Segall may be as prolific as they come when it comes to 7"s, splits, and collaborations, a new one seemingly coming out monthly, weekly even, faster then we can keep up with, there's still something so special, thought out, and so damn satisfying about Segall's full-length albums proper.
Especially this new one. No longer can you just reduce a summarization of his music as 'way blown out lo-fi garage radness.' Although that's definitely some of it, but Segall has begun to widen his scope in such thrilling ways. Melted finds his sound more punchy, a dizzying mix of psychedelic, pop, surf, gritty rhythm & blues, punk rock, in fact the album opener is a perfect example, it begins all fey and jangly, but then the guitar kicks in, surprisingly heavy and crunchy, swaggery and sorta bad ass, big loud drums, and then suddenly, a super tripped out squiggly synth solo! The second track too, begins all acoustic guitar, until in comes a groovy walking bassline, and it's total sixties jangle pop that finishes off in a flurry of fluttery flutes....
From the very beginning of the record, the whole thing takes such awesome twists and turns, getting all tweaked and super far out right when you might expect straight ahead jangle, and getting all poppy and heartfelt, right when it sounds like it was gonna explode into chaotic whatthefuckness. Alongside influences like The Gories, Thee Headcoats, and The Sonics, you can even hear some Led Zeppelin, albeit stripped of its excess and indulgence and boiled down to its primitive and riveting core, kind of what it felt like when we heard The White Stripes for the first time. Not reinventing the wheel for sure, but instead pressing the pedal to the metal and spinning all four wheels in a frenzy of unfettered creativity, OWNING these sounds, making totally original music out of borrowed bits, and blowing away so many of the bands around him in the process. Along with that intensity, Segall has a crazy knack for incredible hooks, deep rooted melodies, crafting perfect pop all wrapped up in fiery, fierce rocking crunch.
"Girlfriend" may just be song of the year! It's impossible not to listen to it over and over from the beginning with Ty growling and then it bursting into one of the most catchy, sweat inducing, body shaking songs ever, the sort of jam you would want to put on every mix tape you make. As always, Segall writes and plays just about every note of music himself on the album, but there are some nice moments where his friends lend a helping hand, like John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees laying down some FLUTE on "Caesar", and Mike Donovan from Sic Alps adding vox, as well as some guitar on a couple tracks, including the absurd blown out brilliance of the simple yet so totally addictive "Mike D's Coke". And on tracks like "Imaginary Person" it's like this awesome blend of early Adam & The Ants crossed with The Misfits for an all out sonic showdown.
Segall has a found a way to bring together primitive and powerful stripped down Bo Diddley-like energy and a very honest and sincere emotional undercurrent in his songs that convinces us that once this latest lo-fi garage revival dies down, Segall will still be making engaging, moving and truthful sounds. He is for real!
MPEG Stream: "Finger"
MPEG Stream: "Ceasar"
MPEG Stream: "Girlfriend"
MPEG Stream: "Mike D's Coke"

SKITLIV Bloodletting (Cold Spring) 10" picture disc 16.98
Ultra limited picture disc 10" from this damaged and demented avant black doom outfit featuring former Mayhem frontman Maniac, Niklas Kvarforth from black metal outfit Shining, and Current 93's David Tibet among others. One side features an introductory collage created by David Tibet / Current 93, that the band used for an intro at their shows, and it's classic Current 93, a sort of demented slowly decaying gypsy folk, with Tibet's increasingly anxious and frantic vocalizing, his vocals multitracked so the track builds to a frenzied climax, with multiple Tibets howling and shrieking "Who will deliver me from myself?!". The other two tracks are alternate versions of tracks on Skandinavisk Misantropi, one a demo, and one an alternate mix, but they kind of sound better here, the guitars more raw, the sound more fierce and feral, the vocals SICK, the band unfurling lurching lumbering doomy blackness, but laced with unlikely melodies, "Slow Pain Coming" manages to be fucked up and hateful, the vocals especially harsh, but the music is surprisingly melodic, and there's an awesome breakdown partway through where the band lurches and starts and stops, while the vocals just gargle and rasp and howl. The demo of "A Valley Below" is way more low fidelity, but again, it sounds so much more fucked up and frightening, the vocals especially again, even more inhuman, makes you wonder what they did on the record proper, cuz here, they just ooze and drip, super intense and freaky, perfectly suiting the low slung slither underneath. Makes us want to go back and listen to the full length again, Or just keep listening to these two tracks over and over.
Super nice artwork on the picture disc, an appropriately gruesome painting on one side, and an original David Tibet painting on the other. LIMITED TO 777 COPIES!!!

SLEIGH BELLS Treats (Mom + Pop) cd 13.98
It was pretty impossible to not want to hate this band. The hype was unprecedented, they didn't even have a record out, and blogs and magazines and newspapers were hailing them as not just the next big thing, but the only new band that mattered. M.I.A snapped them up and signed them to her Mom + Pop label, and every tastemaker that mattered were singing the praises of this 'electro-metal' duo, so of course anyone with a punk rock or subversive anti-mainstream bone in their body, recoiled, and already knew, somehow, that the record would be a piece of shit. But guess what, it's totally not. It's actually pretty great. Listening to Sleigh Bells now, it's easy to see why people were freaking out, with nothing but live shows to go on, this stuff is total hipster dance party manna, big beats, stuttering and loping, big crunchy super distorted riffs, swirling synths, and woozy sing songy almost double-dutch style vocals. The similarities to M.I.A are undeniable, the same sort of beats and vocal cadences, makes a lot of sense they would find each other, and no doubt anyone who digs M.I.A. will probably like this too. Fun and funky, hooky and a little bit heavy, rambunctious, sweaty, groovy, definitely a perfect party record, we can almost imagine the sorts of herky jerky YouTube dancing this stuff will inspire, but you know what, fuck it, fuck the haters, this stuff is awesome, it's maybe not as important and genre shattering as some folks might want to believe, but it killer, and whether we wanted to or not, we find ourselves listening to this a LOT.
Still seems so strange though that one half of the Sleigh Bells duo is the guitarist from metalcore combo Poison The Well...
MPEG Stream: "Tell 'Em"
MPEG Stream: "Kids"
MPEG Stream: "Riot Rhythm"
MPEG Stream: "Inifinity Guitars"

STEREO TOTAL Baby Ouh! (Kill Rock Stars) cd 16.98
Ohh La La! You can always count on Stereo Total for absolute pure fun served up with sass and sparkle. With their love of suave and sassy French pop this German duo have long delivered perfect cocktail party jams over the years and with Baby Ouh! they show they still have their mojo working. It's hard not to just let go and have a carefree great time when you hear their electronic beats and snappy vocal delivery. Whether paying homage to Divine and Andy Warhol or covering Kraftwerk and Brigitte Fontaine, this is a record that shows you can translate great taste into infectious pop music. In lots of ways Stereo Total are like the musical equivalent of our favorite boutique thrift stores, immaculately picking the best parts of the past with snazz and style and bringing excitement and new life to those aged artifacts. So fun!
MPEG Stream: "Andy Warhol"
MPEG Stream: "Divine's Handbag"
MPEG Stream: "Elles te bottent, mes bottes ?"

SWIRE, BEN From Here To There (Preservation) cd 16.98
Utterly gorgeous and meticulously crafted sounds infused with warmth and a glimmering, strangely tender vibe. Almost like a more melodic Jasper TX or Machinefabriek, Ben Swire intertwines traditional instruments with field recordings and electronics to create a totally seamless sound that has been the soundtrack to constant drifting, dazed daydreaming.
While Swire resides right here in San Francisco, it actually makes a lot of sense that this was released by the great Australian label Preservation, who have proven to have such immaculate taste in soft focus underground sounds (Eddie Marcon, Caethua, Aaron Martin, etc.). But we also think he would be a perfect fit for the roster of Root Strata, as his music really taps into a similarly perfect hazy, delicate, droney yet melodic sensibility. We hear hints of so many artists that we love like Philip Jeck, Es, The Fun Years, Part Timer, Mountains, as well as a more organic interpretation of early recordings by folks like Mum, Opiate and Markus Archer. While we are reminded of all those great artists, there is something so striking about Swire's soft touch, understated and assured with some pleasant surprises of a slightly darker nature, subtly tense and ominous, which unfold in the later half of the record. But for sure this the perfect soundtrack for staring out the window on long road trips as the scenery washes by and your mind floats away in a million different directions. So beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "Propel"
MPEG Stream: "Summer"
MPEG Stream: "Far Removed"
MPEG Stream: "Forever"

SZABO, GABOR Jazz Raga (Light In The Attic) cd 14.98
We're so happy that Light in The Attic reissued this, a stellar, newly remastered entry from 1967 in the amazing back catalog of one of our all-time favorite jazz guitarists from the sixties and seventies, Gabor Szabo. As a matter of fact, he was the first true guitar hero for Scott here at AQ, the reason Scott started playing guitar - thus Szabo is indirectly responsible for The Alps!
Releasing an amazing string of albums on Impulse, Skye, Blue Thumb and CTI, Szabo's masterful blending of eastern raga, gypsy and flamenco influences from his native Hungary with western jazz, mod, pop and rock influences created some of the most psych-inflected jazz grooves of the sixties. We suppose if you were only to get one of his records, Jazz Raga is arguably the best albeit strangest of the bunch. Featuring eight originals and three covers (including a version of the Rolling Stones "Paint It Black"), Szabo recorded the whole album with a group, including the funkiest of session drummers, Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, then overdubbed sitar on all but two of the tracks. Of course by this time, the sitar was becoming THE instrument of choice in western popular music to channel a mystical spellbinding sound, but the manner in which Szabo employs it in the overall compositions of the tracks here is at times, lyrical, dizzying and truly wacked out. For one thing, the sitar is never quite in tune with the actual songs, making some of the melodies seem a bit warped in a way which is difficult to pinpoint. It's not an off-putting effect, quite the opposite. The slightly off interweaving of tonal shades and melody lines actually enhances the otherwordly mystical vibe on what might otherwise be perceived as a psychsploitative gimmick. Of course Szabo's meticulously intricate but seemingly simple guitar phrasings don't need much help from the sitar (he wasn't called The Spellbinder for nothing!). The sitar just provides an elemental coloring allowing a deeper immersion into whatever Szabo is seeking out, whether it be a quiet call to focus ("Walking on Nails"), a monster mod groover ("Sophisticated Wheels"), or the introduction of one of his signature tunes ("Mizrab"), a driving mantra-like tune of tablas and hypnotic droning open-tuned guitars that never tires. It's a song he would return to a few more times in his relatively short career (he died in 1982). Hopefully, more of his great records will be reissued as lovingly as this. Includes a 40 page booklet with lots of notes and pictures. Highest Recommendation!
MPEG Stream: "Walking On Nails"
MPEG Stream: "Mizrab"
MPEG Stream: "Sophisticated Wheels"
MPEG Stream: "Caravan"

T H E M A Y S KNOWFI (Gigante Sound) cd-r 7.98
Upon receiving the debut release from T H E M A Y S (yes, the group specifies that there be a space between each letter)!, we were struck by the aroma of tempera paint emanating from the hand-made fold-out packaging. It immediately stirred memories of fingerpainting in elementary school, and in turn, the untethered nature of childhood creativity. Interestingly, T H E M A Y S is a project based out of a school of another sort, but with a seemingly similar sense of free-flowing exploratory openness. Nestled in the Sunset Neighborhood Beacon Center, the San Francisco Urban Music Program is "dedicated to teaching progressive and adventurous music-making of all kinds" to youths and adults. Yes, that description sounds right up our alley, doesn't it? And while it's actually not geographically so (i.e, "up our alley", heh heh!), it is still pretty close and in town (the SNBC is a wonderful community hub located a few blocks from Ocean Beach in the Outer Sunset district here in SF). Anyhoo, KNOWFI was composed in this supportive environment by eight students and instructors. The latter includes the fine Jon Bernson with whom we're all well familiar from his other musical pursuits (namely Ray's Vast Basement which morphed into Exray's a couple of years ago, and his duo with Tim Cohen called Window Twins). He is in fact the captain of this UMP ship, having founded it in back in '97.
Although the cd-r is indexed into twelve tracks, and each one is titled individually, it plays as one continuous 40-minute soundscape of lulling swells of dreamy haze. So, we'd recommend that you sit right down, settle in for a spell, and allow the heavily processed and densely layered drones, fleeting melodies, found sounds and other noise generators melt together into every crack and crevice of your ear drums. Awash with ever-evolving warbly, woobly wonderfulness!
MPEG Stream: "W T O T W T O O"
MPEG Stream: "S X X X I S I S I"

TENHORNEDBEAST Hunts & Wars (Cold Spring) cd 14.98
The return of UK based one man ritualistic doomdrone shamen Tenhornedbeast, and another collection of abject darkness, grim sonic mystery, folk flecked dronemusic and epic black ambience, and as in the past, things have definitely shifted during the extended period of silence between this new record and the last. The very first 10HB record we had heard, was recommended to us as "epic, sprawling primitive doom/drone" which at the time was all we needed to hear, and indeed, that's precisely what it was, but with each record, 10HB's sound mutated and morphed, into something new, not always super dramatic, more an ever evolving sonic darkness, definitely dronemusic, but not so much primitive, a more composed sort of doomy black ambience, a post industrial drift that definitely leaned more toward drone than doom, but also more toward industrial then metal, which makes sense that he's found a home on Cold Spring alongside Toroidh, Laibach, Nordvargr, Prurient, Von Thronstahl, Wicked King Wicker and the like.
And in fact, the first track here, the evocatively titled "Reaching For The Stars We Blind The Sky", finds the sound of Tenhornedbeast definitely moving even further in a sort of industrial direction. It begins like we would have expected, dark and mysterious, spaced out and shimmery, with keening high end drifts, underpinned by deep rumbles, muted downtuned guitar buzz, feedback, all the sounds gauzy and grey, until about halfway through the guitars begin to grind the riffs crumbling and distorted and the drums kick in, not a straight rhythm, and not really free either, a bit martial here and there, but they seem to wander and drift, stumbling through a bleak field of stretched out tones and layered streaks of howling feedback, slipping from minimal and spare to chaotic and aggressive and back again, a little bit doomy, but more like some blackened neo-folk. A 12 minute jam that really could have stretched out to fill up the whole record. But instead, the rest of the disc drifts into deep, tranquil dronemusic, laced with birdsong and melancholic melodies drenched in reverb, downtuned bass thrum driven creeps, held aloft by skeletal percussion, and again swathed in blurred effects and layered drones, heavy sure, but more mesmerizing and trancelike, string laden neo-folk, with haunting slowed down samples and disembodied voices, clouds of cymbal shimmer, and grinding mechanical guitarscapes, with hypnotic machinelike rhythms, swirling minimal lullaby like interludes, and finally the 20 minute title track, slow glacial riffage pulled and stretched until the riffs becomes long layers of undulating low end, billowing distorted bass like some sort of sonic avalanche, everything washed out and almost shoegazey, instead of getting heavier and heavier, it gets more and more shimmery and fuzzy, booming gongs, swirling effects, all wound around a simple, downtuned bassline, a slowed down doomic anti-groove, that creeps and crawls and finally drifts into the ether.
Gorgeous packaging, an exquisitely designed 6 panel digipack, all browns and golds and greys and metallic inks...
MPEG Stream: "Reaching For The Stars We Blind The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Hilnaric"
MPEG Stream: "Father Of The Frosts"

THOMPSON, BEN Time Traveler (self released) cd ep 6.98
By far the best electronic sounds we've heard come out of San Francisco in a long time, and damn while this is only an e.p it may just be another major contender for electronic record of the year. Ben Thompson creates super saturated prismatic Technicolor colorful beats that swirl and flow and shimmer so infectiously. Like a standout track on a Kompakt Total compilation, this is electronic music that is as much about the dancefloor as it is a fully satisfying sonic experience. Like Gui Boratto or those early Aphex Twin and Plaid records we loved so much, the sounds on Time Traveler incorporate everything we loved about the heyday of IDM into a more current sonic template. There is something so flawless about Thompson's execution that really makes this record stand out, as it has the potential to appeal to both fans of dancemusic and those of us who would rather just put our headphones on and nod along to the music. We can't wait to hear more from Thompson, but for now we are blasting this ep over and over and it sounds so damn good each and every time!
MPEG Stream: "Time Traveler"
MPEG Stream: "Hands Down"
MPEG Stream: "Knighted"

THOU / LEECH We Pass Like Night, From Land To Land (Gilead Media) lp 16.98
Holy shit are we glad this thing finally got a much deserved reissue. Originally available as a super limited cassette, the two copies that managed to worm their way into the store were immediately snapped up by Andee and former aQuarian Cameron. Their gain was certainly the rest of the world's misfortune, because some of us couldn't stop listening to Cameron's copy before he jetted off to New York. For the longest time we could only conjure memories of these songs in our heads. Thou's contribution here, the four part epic "Abandoned", is some of the most majestic, beautiful, and psychedelic doom metal to emerge in quite some time. It also manages to be ugly as fuck. But damn, these songs just SOAR, everything is wrapped up in a blanket of ultra dense distortion with glacial drumming and some seriously unbelievable throat shredding goodness, the kind that makes mothers everywhere wonder what would make good boys want to do such things to their vocal chords. Storming out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Thou follow proudly in the tradition of their sludgey, thick as tar forefathers like Eyehategod, Crowbar, and the rest of the usual suspects, but there's definitely something about these guys that stands on its own, not to mention a pretty heavy black metal influence. While thankfully avoiding falling into an "indie" metal trap, Thou nonetheless successfully incorporates a blissed out melodicism that only a fool would deny.
Leech's contribution, an untitled 20+ minute monster of a track, is mighty impressive as well. The band hails from Salem, Oregon, and while we don't know anything about them other than this, it's pretty clear we have some research to do, because you all know how we love our Cascadian black metal. The song winds all over the place with super melodic guitar leads and some great basslines (which you can actually HEAR, unlike many black metal bands). The tortured vocals will definitely hit the spot for anyone digging Weakling, WITTR, you know, that kind of thing. The song is so melancholy, but it just sounds totally unstoppable and out for blood, we really hope to hear more from these guys soon.
The classy white record comes housed in a nice looking full color gatefold with a screenprinted poster, a crusty patch, and whaddya know, a free download card. And while it's great having this album available once again, it's still limited to a mere 750 copies with no plans for a cd release, so act fast!

UFOMAMMUT Eve (Supernatural Cat) cd 15.98
Pretty sure we don't have to do much in the way of introducing this mammoth, UFO-nic Italian trio by now. They've only chalked up, what, at least two past AQ Records Of The Week honors? We've loved all of their records (and collaborations) and this latest opus was eagerly awaited, especially after seeing 'em play live for the first time here in SF this past winter, which was, wow, HEAVY. Of course. And Eve does not disappoint.
We've described this outfit as "druggy doom-from-space" and this slipcased new disc is yet another excellent (but different) example of their cosmic and compelling sounds. Rather than descending from outer space to jam out on Earth, this time it definitely seems like you're riding with UFOmammut INTO the deeps of space, being swept along on the cosmic rays, into some sort of swirling spinning black hole vortex, kinda like the psychedelic beginning to those old Dr. Who TV episodes. After a dramatic intro (huge monolithic thudding... swooshing space-FX sounds... Hawkwind blowing... feedback and distortion) it's a slow build, the first couple tracks starting off relatively quietly and calmly, up to a point, generating unsettling ambient atmospheres, with spacey keyboards, faintly chanted vocals, and restrained percussive rhythms building up... and up... to the massive heavy guitar riffage you know is about to be unleashed, and soon IS. Wham! Blast off! Track two hints at the band's '70s Italian prog ancestry, with drifting female (?) vocals, and piano, before the tribal drum pound kicks in full bore, and it's dooooom in SPAAAAAAACE time, kids! Like music for martial marching Martians, or armies of astronauts in jackbooted spacesuits. It's hypnotic and heavy, indeed. The next track dispenses with the buildup, jumping right into the fray...
The five (long) tracks on Eve tend to seamlessly segue from one to the next, it's almost like one piece, stretching to infinity... it's actually 45 minutes total but if it could go on and on we'd let it, happy to get lost in UFOmammut's deeps of space (and the deeps of their bass!). A beautiful thing to our ears (remember in a past review, when we told the story of how we accidentally played a UFOmammut dvd disc, thinking it was the cd, and were mesmerized by the dvd menu music, not realizing it was on an endless loop?).
Yeah, it's a trip listening to this band, and quite possibly the "trip" they're evoking isn't into outer space as we've been suggesting, but rather inner space. Of course it is, inside your mind, their music at work on your imagination. This aspect is highlighted when in when in the final track, the beat goes into a double-tlme, and a buried bedlam of chattering voices infiltrate the sound-field. It's like Electric Wizard, or Sleep, trapped in the asylum. That feeling is accentuated by the use of insistent repetitive piano chords and piercing electronic tones out of some psychological suspense thriller.
We mentioned that we saw 'em live, and that they are a trio, yet it's sorta hard to believe when you listen to this... sounds more like hundreds of people were involved, massed in ritual observance... or maybe no people at all, no human beings, just the spaceship's onboard computer gone haywire HAL style...
MPEG Stream: "Eve Part I"
MPEG Stream: "Eve Part II"

V/A I'm Going Where The Water Drinks Like Wine (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
As of late anyone with even a passing interest in the blues has had plenty of reasons to rejoice. Almost every list we are blessed with something vinyl on Monk or Mississippi, but even with the wealth of material available, there are still plenty of lesser known artists who will go unheard, due to their obscurity, lack of recordings, or inability to fit comfortably within the predominantly white myths that have, for better and/or worse, shaped the history of blues music and its legacy. That's why it's so great having this awesome new comp focusing on some of the less influential but still powerful bluesmen. With a whopping 24 tracks, this collection spans from 1923 (with, reportedly, the first recorded use of a guitar slide, or more appropriately, knife, as wielded by Sylvester Weaver) to 1929, one of the most noteworthy of years for recorded blues music. Some of these musicians you may recognize, like Ishman Bracey (whose Suitcase Full Of Blues we reviewed not too long back), but many of them are just names we've read about, and others still are completely new to us. No matter, it's all prime stuff carefully selected to help show us what we have been missing. Carrying on in the tradition of legendary labels like Yazoo and Arhoolie, Sub Rosa has done us a great favor with this one, and we're hoping even more labels will take a cue and excavate essential recordings from the past. Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: BO WEAVIL JACKSON "Why Do You Moan"
MPEG Stream: BUDDY BOY HAWKINS "Workin' On The Railroad"
MPEG Stream: ISHMAN BRACEY "The Fore Day Blues"
MPEG Stream: KID BAILEY "Mississippi Bottom Blues"

V/A (ROBERT MILLIS) My Friend Rain (Sublime Frequencies) cd + dvd 21.00
Yet another fantastic collection of fascinating sights and sounds from Sublime Frequencies, this time from Southeast Asia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, etc... filmed by Robert Millis, he of Climax Golden Twins, as well as a frequent Sublime Frequencies contributor / collaborator / curator and an avid collector of world music and lost 78s. And like past SF dvds, My Friend Rain is another fantastical journey through the streets of Southeast Asia, a travelogue of street musicians, town squares, temples, forests, people's homes, markets, food stalls, performances are interspersed with more seemingly mundane occurrences, which somehow still seem magical, a priest sweeping out a rainswept temple floor, food being assembled while a band plays wildly in the background, a glorious vocal and drum cacophony, crashing cymbals, and there's also some serious weirdness, a strange selection of statues, some all bloody with their guts pulled out, meat being chopped on a cart, boats being driven through barely enough water to keep them afloat... Like a series of abstract short films woven together into a fantastically impressionistic musical portrait of places and people. One of the coolest moments a guy who plays this incredible circular drum set, all these tiny drums hanging in a row, totally encircling the performer, and he plays them super fast, with his hands, and the sounds are so divine, somewhere between gamelan and steel drums. Would love to get a whole record of just that.
There's so much to see, definitely worth rewatching.
The dvd is also accompanied by a cd, a soundtrack, featuring all the music featured in the film, popular, traditional, culled from live performances, lp archives and old cassettes, including that amazing circular drum piece (the instrument is called a Hsiang Waing), as well as the blind musician who opens and closes the film, playing a strange guitar with a metal bowl affixed to the neck for percussion, there's also a gorgeous song performed with a small leaf held between the musicians fingers and played like a reed, and of course some Asian pop songs, fuzzy, poppy, funky, groovy, such good stuff. Like all Sublime Frequencies release, so very recommended.
MPEG Stream: ZAW WIN SHEIN (MYANMAR) "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"
MPEG Stream: UNKNOWN BLIND STREET MUSICIAN (THAILAND) "Unknown"
MPEG Stream: LASHIO THEIN AUNG (MYANMAR) "Ugly Face With A Kind Heart"
MPEG Stream: MEAS HOKSENG (CAMBODIA) "Jomnes Jis Kor Aung (Khmer Remix Version)"
MPEG Stream: UNKNOWN ELEPHANT MAHOOT (CAMBODIA) "Improvisation With A Small Leaf"

VOIGT, WOLFGANG Freiland Klaviermusick (Kompakt / Profan) cd 19.98
Probably best known, at least around here, as the man behind pioneering pop ambient project Gas, as well as the head honcho of Kompakt Records, Wolfgang Voigt has been making gorgeous experimental minimal techno of all stripes for years, from muted minimal thump, to ethereal electronic psychedelia, it all bears Voigt's unique sonic stamp, and we've dug pretty much all of it. So were were both intrigued and excited to discover Voigt had recorded a piano record, his take on 20th century classical, taking modern composition and filtering it through his distinctive aesthetic, we definitely didn't know what to expect, but it probably wasn't this.
Imagine Conlon Nancarrow's player pianos redefined as modern minimal techno, and you'd be getting close, or maybe a robotic electrified Lubomyr Melnyk melded with simple 4/4 techno, and then stripped down to its very essence, simple looped piano figures are locked into endless motorik grooves, while a simple propulsive pulse drives the track, totally intense and mesmerizing, the piano parts slightly atonal, adding a weird sense of tension, lots of low end, ringing out and reverberating, the melodies strange and haunting, often descending chromatically over and over, very dizzying and disorienting, and just as often transforming into strange little melodic tangles.
The last few tracks seem to ditch the beat entirely, instead exploring the piano and the space around it, strange haunting melodies, very very free and abstract, somewhere between modern classical and free jazz, a hypnotic abstract winding down after the rest of the record's more tense and tight rhythmic machinations...
MPEG Stream: "Alleingang"
MPEG Stream: "Zimmer"
MPEG Stream: "Feld"
MPEG Stream: "Geduld"

VON HAUSSWOLFF, CARL MICHAEL Perhaps I Arrive: Music For Ataturk Airport, Istanbul (Aufabwegen) 2cd 19.98
A curious commission for sure, and one that was destined to fail from the outset. CM Von Hausswolff is the Swedish sound / installation artist responsible for all sorts of unusual projects including his collaborations with John Duncan, The Hafler Trio, and of course Leif Elggren as the twin figureheads of the Kingdom of Elgaland / Vargaland. His clinical sounds using shortwave radio, WW2 era oscillators, sonar, amplified electrical fences, etc. manifest the electro-magnetic detritus from these various technologies. We're pretty sure that when Hausswolff received the commission to broadcast his various tones and drones within the Istanbul Airport as part of the 5th International Istanbul Biennial, he must have been playing with Brian Eno's strategies of his Music For Airports with the machines doing the talking for him through cyclical ambient passages. Of course, Hausswolff's sources are grey, corroded, and not exactly easy listening; so only half of the submitted work was accepted for transmission. The first disc is a 60 minute plus excursion into deep-electric isolationism, with swells of grim resonance and low-frequencies occasionally usurped by squiggling synthesis. As sound design, it's purposefully rough-hewn and very dark in its intention; and in the context of an airport, this would certainly instill dread and foreboding into somebody getting onto a plane. But for late night bunker-inspired / dark-ambient listening, this is pretty fucking great. The second disc features those tracks that had been accepted for airport listening; and these are much more peculiar for Hausswolff as he's eschewing his normal mode of operation for downtempo electro rhythms and slow-motion samba loops topped with accordion. Rather summery wallpaper music that's probably what the curators were looking for, but not nearly as impressive as the first disc.
MPEG Stream: "Perhaps I Arrive : Not Accepted"
MPEG Stream: "Accepted : Gate 1"
MPEG Stream: "Accepted : Gate 3"

WATAIN Lawless Darkness (Season Of Mist) cd 16.98
Here's the thing with Swedish black metaller Watain. Such a big deal is made out of their EVILness, their Satanism, their philosophy, their filthy, smelly live shows, rife with rotting animal heads and lots and lots of blood, all that stuff, there's really no way the music could live up to the hype, especially considering these guys, for as heavy and blasting and black they are, they are writing super melodic black metal, that is way too listenable and catchy really to be doused in blood and adorned with pentagrams and upsidedown crosses. If you had only seen pictures of the band, and heard about them, read interviews, you would undoubtedly expect something WAY noisier and WAY more brutal, insanely filthy and lo-fi and, well, frankly, more evil. There's been a huge backlash with this record, which seems weird to us, cuz it's not that far removed from Sworn To The Dark or Casus Luciferi, if anything it's the logical progression from those records, the sound is incredible, killer production, the guitars chaotic and crushing, everything sounds massive, the songs are a bit more complex and proggy, more parts, lots of weird tangly bits and strange time signatures, but the things is, these songs have a definite pop core, that no amount of buzz and blast can disguise. Which no doubt bugs the fuck out of the orthodox true grim kult hordes, but hell, for us, we're loving it, it's almost like these guys are taking up where Dissection's Storm Of The Light's Bane left off, total old school metal melodies mixed in with classic Scandinavian blackness, the songs epic and majestic and heavy, but hooky as fuck, crazy melodic, and WAY catchier than black metal was probably ever meant to be. What more do you need to know? If you can ignore the grim posturing and just dig into the music, this is definitely some seriously awesome shit, plus, as if to further distance themselves from the troo and grim traditionalists, they do a killer cover of "Chains Of Death" by Italian horror metallers Death SS!!!
While they last, we have the super deluxe digipaks, that are fucking amazing, all designed to look like an old woodcut, but with a diecut front panel with the third panel visible through the hole...
MPEG Stream: "Death's Cold Dark"
MPEG Stream: "Malfeitor"
MPEG Stream: "Reaping Death"
MPEG Stream: "Chains Of Death (Death SS)"

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON Generator (Root Strata) cassette 9.98
One of four new Root Strata tapes this week, this one from long time aQ fave Keith Fullerton Whitman, who we've dug ever since his days as Hrvatski, turning jungle and drum 'n' bass inside out and upside down. Since then Whitman has released a ton of amazing music, on his own and in various collaborations, so we were pretty excited about this, especially when we heard that it was Whitman's stab at creating what he calls 'automatic' electronic music. The liner notes go into great detail about the sounds' genesis and creation, but unless you're a total tech geek or make electronic music yourself, you probably won't follow most of it, we sure didn't, but it hardly matters, as the music is totally fantastic, whether you understand the ideas behind the sounds or not. Lush looped tapestries of sounds, the notes beeping and chirping and blooping, gorgeous hypnotic melodies, ever shifting, overlapping, blending and then splitting off, the sounds bouncing from speaker to speaker, dizzying and dreamy simultaneously, hovering somewhere between outer space kosmische krautrock, academic electronic music and new age.
The opening track is a gorgeous swirling whirl of sound, like some sort of Lubomyr Melnyk / Expo 70 mashup, but played by robots on handbuilt synths, flurries of notes spidery strings of melody, all winding and unwinding, unfurling and, furling (?). The second track is a short stretch of abstract spaced out glitch and abstract dronemusic, before the next track returns to that sort of looped melodyscape, sounding a bit like a way more raw, lo-fi, analog Alva Noto, this time much more buzzy and crunchy, but with the same swirling shimmery vibe as the record opener.
The next few tracks work their way through creepy super hard panned beep and bloop bliss-scapes, all fuzzy and warmly distorted, the sounds literally leaping from speaker to speaker, adding a definitely surreal drugged out quality to the music, to thick sheets of buzzing distorted crunch and layered Merzbowian noise, to deep, new age-y bleep flecked swells of deep meditative tones, finally culminating in the 23+ minute closer, another dizzying array of swooping tones, and tangled melodies, a lush and psychedelic electronic headtrip, that manages to be dense and dizzying as well as impossibly hypnotic and lovely, slipping from soft focus and beautifully blurred to frenzied and frantic.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, housed in super nice, thick offset printed covers, with liner notes by Whitman himself...
MPEG Stream: "Generator 1"
MPEG Stream: "Generator 3"
MPEG Stream: "Generator 7B"

YEN POX Blood Music (Malignant) 2cd 14.98
Yen Pox is hardly a prolific project, but their dark ambient constructions over the past two decades stand as benchmarks for the genre alongside the likes of Lustmord, Inade, and Nordvargr. Blood Music was in fact the first album by Yen Pox (a duo comprised of Michael Hensley and Steven Hall) released in 1995 only to go out of print shortly there after. That record in particular had been heavily championed by Eric Lanzilotta of Anomalous Records and Stefan Knappe (then of Maeror Tri and now of Troum), with Knappe releasing a Yen Pox single for the seminal Drone Records series (later anthologized on tUMULt's epochal 2cd set of tracks from the Drone back catalogue). A Yen Pox / Troum collaboration came to fruition in 2002, thoroughly blackening Troum's already dark guitar drones with Yen Pox's death obsessed theatrics.
Blood Music is an apt name for the horror sound design presented by Yen Pox. Much like the catacomb and crypt recordings from Lustmord's quintessential dark ambient record Heresy, Yen Pox grounds all of their compositions upon an ominous murk of shadow, reverb, and obfuscated sound all of which gives the sense of being trapped deep underground without any viable means of escape. Slashes of metal-on-metal give an infernal allusion to ghostly trains grinding against the rail and filling the air with thick, cancerous smoke. Dark-minded synthesizers are buried under heaps of reverberation, blurring their cosmic fizz into a sodden percolation of electricity. Sinister voices moan, cackle, and howl in the nether regions of the Yen Pox soundtrack, occasionally marked by very slow moving melodies that are not too far from some of the dark majesty that Troum can utter in their grimmest state.
The second disc to Blood Music contains a remastering of their very first cassette plus a track from an early single and a compilation track originally released by Relapse ambient / experimental sublabel Release. That cassette was a pretty murky affair, and the remastered job really brings out the power of the Yen Pox sound, marked by oceanic swells of thrumming noise and atonal punctuations. A very worthy complement to an already exceptional record.
MPEG Stream: "Infinite Domain"
MPEG Stream: "Twilight Eternal"
MPEG Stream: "Illuminati"
MPEG Stream: "Dervish"

YO LA TENGO Here To Fall Remixes (Matador) cd ep 7.98
The leadoff track from Yo La Tengo's latest album, Popular Songs, gets the remix treatment from three of the band's favorite hip-hop beat makers. De La Soul, RJD2, and Pete Rock all take their turn remixing "Here To Fall". While we usually aren't the biggest fans of rock bands going the remix route, especially the HIP HOP remix route, luckily Yo La Tengo have always managed to pull of whatever they wanted to do, no matter how unlikely, or seemingly ill advised, and this is yet another example, with all the remixers totally and reverentially respecting YLT's aesthetic while making something new and fresh out of an already great song. De La Soul and RJD2 give more of a break beat groove to the song not adding any of their own vocals which we appreciate, while the Pete Rock remix is for sure the most up front hip-hop one of the bunch. We also know how much these artists mean to Yo La Tengo, as James McNew gushed with excitement about how excited he was to meet Pete Rock, De La Soul and RJD2 the last time he was in town and came to hang out on Irwin's radio show on KUSF. There are few bands you can just blindly trust everything they put out into the world, and YLT are one of them.
MPEG Stream: "Here To Fall (De La Soul Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Here To Fall (RJD2 Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Here To Fall (Pete Rock Remix)"

YO LA TENGO Here To Fall Remixes (Matador) 12" 11.98
The leadoff track from Yo La Tengo's latest album, Popular Songs, gets the remix treatment from three of the band's favorite hip-hop beat makers. De La Soul, RJD2, and Pete Rock all take their turn remixing "Here To Fall". While we usually aren't the biggest fans of rock bands going the remix route, especially the HIP HOP remix route, luckily Yo La Tengo have always managed to pull of whatever they wanted to do, no matter how unlikely, or seemingly ill advised, and this is yet another example, with all the remixers totally and reverentially respecting YLT's aesthetic while making something new and fresh out of an already great song. De La Soul and RJD2 give more of a break beat groove to the song not adding any of their own vocals which we appreciate, while the Pete Rock remix is for sure the most up front hip-hop one of the bunch. We also know how much these artists mean to Yo La Tengo, as James McNew gushed with excitement about how excited he was to meet Pete Rock, De La Soul and RJD2 the last time he was in town and came to hang out on Irwin's radio show on KUSF. There are few bands you can just blindly trust everything they put out into the world, and YLT are one of them.
MPEG Stream: "Here To Fall (De La Soul Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Here To Fall (RJD2 Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Here To Fall (Pete Rock Remix)"

YONKERS, MICHAEL Goodby Sunball (Secret Seven) lp 12.98
Hot on the heels of Lovely Gold, Michael Yonkers unearths yet another collection of songs from his vast arsenal. Recorded in 1974 and released originally in what we would imagine would be a tiny amount, Goodby Sunball showcases Yonkers' folkier side, and the songs here display a more skeletal acoustic approach that would be electrified a few years later on Lovely Gold. However, calling this "folk" doesn't entirely hit the mark - this is Michael Yonkers we're talking about, a man whose approach represents a unique vision in the history of home recorded music. And to those paying attention, you might find Goodby Sunball presenting some of Yonkers' weirdest lyrics, even though the music itself is probably his most traditional sounding. The songs almost give off a spiritual vibe, and the lyrics alternate between sad laments and aching passion, with some impenetrable wackiness thrown in for good measure. Looking at the cover, with the man himself posed between two trees and the back, with a bearded, cult leader-looking Yonkers, one might wonder if this album represents time lost in some mental wilderness. Many of the songs are ultra melancholy, and the use of multi-tracked vocals gives things a hazy, ethereal quality, while lines like "Hand me another beer and you'll see happiness" make you wonder... But no complaints here, just Michael Yonkers doing his thing in the 1970s. It's great having these tracks available, probably the first time many people have heard this stuff... of course, with a pressing of only 500, you might want to act fast. And for now, we're the first to have these, weeks before they land everywhere else, so dig in!

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BAIER, SIBYLLE Colour Green (American Dust) lp 15.98
ONCE AGAIN AVAILABLE ON LP!
Some of us here whose proclivities gravitate towards rare psych and folk have been bemoaning the recent flurry of "buried treasures" and "lost classics". It seems a day does not go by without a new release or re-issue of a forgotten or recently discovered artist rescued from obscurity passing before our attentive eyes and drooling mouths. Sometimes the "lost classic" status is not always deserved (not everything made in the sixties and seventies that didn't receive any attention is noteworthy, somethings are better off staying buried or lost), but it's sure keeping the reissue labels and revisionist musicologists busy as they map out an ever-growing expanse of the spheres of influence on music today. It's hard to keep up and also pay equal attention to all the great music that is being made right now. This makes us very happy on the one hand that amazing music continues to be discovered but it also drives us crazy us to see our paychecks quickly dwindling every week. Why just in the past month, we've seen re-issues from Bridget St. John, Kay Hoffman, John Jacob Niles, Kaleidoscope and Fairfield Parlour (all pretty amazing!) among others. And now on our plate are these previously unreleased home recordings of German underground folk singer, Sibylle Baier. We must admit when we first heard this, we suspected fraud. These recordings sound almost too contemporary to have been made in the early seventies. But after doing a little research, we found out this is no fraud. These intimate recordings fully deserve their "buried treasure" status, for whatever that's worth at this point. Baier, only previously known for a song on an early Wim Wenders film soundtrack, recorded these songs in her home from 1970-73 after a "spirit-renewing" trip through the Swiss Alps. She has the warm Sunday jam and tea voice reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan, but with the more spare guitar compositions and melancholy vocal delivery of someone like Chan Marshall. In fact, we sort of wish the new Cat Power or Beth Orton records were this good! Like Bunyan, Baier shunned what could have been a successful career in order to raise a family and it's because of her son, Robby, that these recordings are being heard at all. But unlike Bunyan, these songs don't derive from a back to nature hippie-folk aesthetic, but rather they come from a more delicate fragility where life's beauty and despair are interwoven with the tiny details of daily life. Beautiful! Totally recommended for seventies folk enthusiasts as well as fans of contemporary singer/songwriters.
MPEG Stream: "Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "I Lost Something in the Hills "

BONG Bethmoora (Infinite Exchange) 2cd-r 16.98
BACK IN STOCK! LAST COPIES! We've got a half-dozen (they made a few more for us) but that's it... What we said before:
A new double disc of crushing slow motion space doom from UK doomlords BONG, and be warned, this thing is limited to maybe 100 copies, we tried to order half of those and ended up with more like a dozen. So normally we would highlight this, make a huge deal about it, and sell a ton, cuz this is exactly the format required to fully enjoy the epic glacial cosmic drift of Bong, 2 discs, 3 songs, an epic multi part blackened expanse of slowly unfurling low end doomdronesludge, spaced out and druggy, single riffs spread out to forever, meditative, mesmerizing, a sound somewhere between Electric Wizard, Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg and Bohren. Two originals on disc one, and the whole of disc two is filled up with an epic, ultra minimal cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", a surprisingly restrained, deep, dark, smoldering space rock slow jam, total late night chill out come down dream doom for sure.
So we won't make a big deal out of it, but grab one of these while you can, they're already out of print...
MPEG Stream: "Stone Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Bethmoora"
MPEG Stream: "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"

COGAN, ORA The Boggy Mire (Isolated Now Waves) cassette 4.50
If the earthy dusk beauty of Ms Cogan's most recent full length The Quarry charmed your ears, you won't want to miss this special treat... and don't dilly dally, this limited edition cassette is sure to be gone in a flash. Only 50 copies were made, and we got a scant five from the lady herself! So, once they're gone, it's most likely that'll be it.
Although a boggy mire sounds like a rather unpleasant place to be, we think it might not be so bad with Ora by our side. She exudes a quiet strength and warm presence both in person and on record. Here, she covers the songs of legendary country, folk and blues artists Elizabeth Cotten, Dock Boggs, Bonnie Raitt, Irma Thomas, Don Gibson and Skip Spence, as well as more recent numbers by Sonic Youth and Rio En Medio, and tucks in a couple of old traditionals too. Lovely stuff!

COHRAN, PHIL AND THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE Armageddon (Katalyst) cd 12.98
It's always a good day when we hear another new archival Phil Cohran and The Artistic Heritage Ensemble release. Not sure how much material is still out there to be released, but please keep it coming! Issued for the first time, this killer live recording from 1968 is one of his most intense, cosmic and out ensemble pieces to date, getting into some serious Sun Ra interstellar spiritual energy territory, as they delve into deep themes of the legacy of slavery, the atom bomb and the end of creation. Woah. The opener, "Motherless Child", sung by members of The Spencer Jackson Family, is slow and sorrowful, with just voice and a low rumbling of horns and drums that cascade around the singers instead of supporting them melodically, which leads into "The Creation of The Beast", an elephantine procession that revels in a sort of triumphant malevolence of marching brass and swirling leering horns. "The Window" is the most sedate of the five pieces, featuring a sparse but ominous frankophone riff that gradually interweaves with lilting horn motifs, while the longest and final track, "Armageddon" delves full throttle into the powers of the ensemble with battling and frenzied horns in a culminating fury of sound and vision that is as majestic as it is searing. Magnificent!
MPEG Stream: "The Warning"
MPEG Stream: "The Window"
MPEG Stream: "Armageddon"

DECIBEL #69 July 2010 magazine 4.95
One of the scary dudes from Watain poses for this month's cover, complete with dripping blood, foaming dry ice goblet, skulls, candles, facepaint, and one weird contact lens. A good cover subject for sure! Inside, also: Cannibal Corpse, Nachtmystium, Melvins, Enslaved, Enforcer, Karma To Burn, Rosetta, Across Tundras, Yakuza, and plenty more. Including, Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses album entering into the Decibel Hall Of Fame. Pete Steele, R.I.P.

EVENS, THE Get Evens (Dischord) lp 14.98
NOW ON VINYL!!
Ian Mackaye threw us all for an unexpected but delightful loop a couple years ago with the debut offering from his new project with longtime Dischord cohort Amy Farina (ex-Warmers). Fugazi and Minor Threat fans weren't met with loud guitars and screaming vocals but instead really insightful and melodic pop songs that proved turning down didn't mean losing spirit. In fact it once again demonstrates the sensitivity and awareness that was always one of Fugazi's best attributes too. Get Evens is the second album from The Evens and while the debut seemed to focus more on personal topics this time out politics rise right to the surface. But really if we're going to hear protest songs at a time like this we'll gladly listen to Mackaye's. Living In DC for as long as they have it would be impossible not to be reminded on a daily basis of your neighbors in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Ian and Amy would like many of those neighbors to go far, far away and it's certainly not hard to understand why. While we find ourselves a little more drawn to their debut, this is still a strong offering. With the future of Fugazi quite unclear we're happy that Ian's found a new outlet for his passion. And by all means go see the Evens live the next time they play an all-ages show in your town for six bucks. Their show a couple years back here in SF at the Swedish American Hall was such an uplifting and inspiring night that it still holds a special place in our hearts.
MPEG Stream: "Cache Is Empty"
MPEG Stream: "Everybody Knows"

GATES OF SLUMBER, THE Villain, Villain (Metal Supremacy) 2cd 14.98
Circle Of True Doom standard bearers The Gates Of Slumber just rumbled through town a couple weeks ago, on tour with Slough Feg. They stopped into the store, and we snagged a couple copies of their hard to find Villain, Villain double cd collection from 2007. Really, just a couple. So we're not gonna spend much time on this review! For those who might be interested, Villain, Villain (which of course takes its title and cover concept from Judas Priest's Hero, Hero) brings together a 16 early demo tracks, alternate versions, reedits, live songs, covers (no less than 3 of 'em songs by their heroes Saint Vitus!), etc. etc.
Obviously, this is for mega TGOS fans only, and you might already have -some- of this stuff in one form or other. But probably not all of it, especially if you missed out on some of their earlier, now out of print releases. You know how to use Encyclopedia Metallum, you can figure out what this has got that you do not, eh?
The cd booklet, in typical TGOS tradition, features notes on each and every track (except their Samhain and Manilla Road covers, for some reason) by guitarist/bandleader Karl Simon. Who, by the way, is a very cool guy, with a definite sense of humor for one so doomy.
MPEG Stream: "The Awakening"
MPEG Stream: "To Walk The Night (Samhain cover)"

HAYASAKA, FUMIO & MASARU SATO Akira Kurosawa's Movie Soundtracks (Doxy) 4lp box 80.00
Most folks who would be interested in something like this probably don't even need to read the review. C'mon, it's a 4lp collection of Akira Kurosawa soundtracks, that's Akira Kurosawa soundtracks ON VINYL, in a cool multiple gatefold sleeve, it includes the soundtracks to such classics as Roshomon, Seven Samurai, The Throne Of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Ikiru and Record Of A Living Being. To be fair, it's been a while since we've seen these films, but if we remember correctly, and we're pretty sure we do, the music was, and IS, incredible. AMAZING. Allan even had a friend of ours pick up a pricey Kurosawa soundtrack cd box for him years ago when she was visiting Japan, at the time the only way to get that music, but this is the first time we've ever seen these ON VINYL! We've only been ordering one of these at a time, cuz of the steep price, but every time we get one in, some one nabs it right away. So if you want one, by all means, order it, if we run out we should hopefully be able to get more pretty quickly. There's not a single person who works here who isn't insanely tempted to take this home. So probably better if someone out there buys it before someone here does!!!

LILES, ANDREW An Un World (Erototox Decodings) 2lp 40.00
Originally released on cd back in 2001, An Un World was Andrew Liles' first album proper after a string of cdr releases. It has recently received the deluxe limited edition vinyl treatment - clear vinyl, only 300 pressed! The double record also features two tracks which did not appear on the previous cd incarnation. Liles, perhaps best known as a member of Nurse With Wound for the past many years, has been a prolific solo artist and multi-instrumentalist for well over two decades. His music falls under the expansive umbrella of experimental soundscaping, incorporating a myriad of processed found sounds and electronics. He ventures through the peaks and valleys of Surrealism, Dada, dark ambient and post-industrial, with a morbid black humor snaking its way throughout. These densely detailed early compositions conjure grim unravellings and profound despair. Seriously, the album envelops the listener in atmospheres that are bleaker than bleak. Not for the faint of heart! But so good...

MACLISE, ANGUS Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa) 2cd 19.98
Finally back in print!
This most recent collection of work by Angus MacLise is culled from a collection of over 50 tapes discovered over 20 years ago and rescued from probable destruction. MacLise was instrumental in the formation of LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music as well as the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and continued to explore drone music, Eastern music and electronic tape music until his death in 1979. This two disc set features early electronic experiments, some epic ambient/drone pieces including performances from John Cale and Tony Conrad, and 2 recordings of Maclise reading his poetry, of which there are apparently very few recordings. While we are not much for spoken word around these parts, the two pieces here are actually quite nice. MacLise's poetry is strange and pretty wonderful and is delivered over a background of drone and hum and buzz. The rest of this collection includes the above mentioned short pieces for electronics, a bunch of short instrumental explorations and three 30 minute pieces of ambient clatter and ur-drone. Gorgeous and spacious, free and transcendental. Think No Neck Blues Band meets the Dead C meets Stockhausen. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "Trance #2"
MPEG Stream: "Organ & Drum"

MANGUM, JEFF Live At Jittery Joe's (American Dust) lp 15.98
Now on vinyl - AGAIN!
Finally, the long awaited solo acoustic live set by Neutral Milk Hotel's beloved Jeff Mangum, about whom I simply cannot be objective - the two NMH records *still* make me cry everytime I listen to them, they're that lovely and touching and brilliant. This 1997 concert was performed in an Xmas-light-filled room with an occasional baby enthusiastically chiming in alongside Mangum's super earnest vocal delivery. If you've ever seen Neutral Milk Hotel in concert, you already know that Jeff will deviate often from the recorded versions of his music, sometimes stretching out a multi-note wail for much longer, sometimes speeding up or changing a rhythm. That's what makes this live disc worth it - for the variations he introduces, super sweet but just different enough to keep it fresh for those of us who have listened to the two NMH records hundreds of times already.
This show is super lo-fi (the venue is a coffeehouse), but the performance is quite focused and heartfelt. Contains songs that will be familiar to NMH fans, plus a few others, a cover of Phil Spector's "I Love How You Love Me".
MPEG Stream: "Up and Over We Go"
MPEG Stream: "I Love How You Love Me"

NADA SURF If I Had A Hi-Fi (Mardev) lp 25.00
Originally conceived as a special Record Store Day release, Nada Surf's awesome palindromic covers album was later given a proper, wide release, and has now finally been pressed onto vinyl!
We have to admit, with all the super limited vinyl, weird 7"s, rare reissues, and all the other cool stuff that was being specially released to celebrate Record Store Day, we were (not so) secretly most excited about a new record from long time faves and two time aQ Record Of The Week honorees Nada Surf. A new record from these guys is always a thrill, and a full length is long overdue, but this is not the new Nada Surf, instead, it's a total Record Store Day release, with the band covering a bunch of their favorite songs, some we dig, some surprises, and some we'd never heard of.
Probably the most amazing thing about this collection, is if you weren't familiar with the songs being covered, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume they were Nada Surf originals, these guys take the originals and OWN then, totally make them their own. Even songs you've heard a million times, like Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence", get enough of a Nada Surf makeover to sound like an original, but fans will still dig hearing their old song reimagined.
Their Bill Fox cover ("Electrocution"), is total sunshiney harmony Byrds worship, and again, sounds like it could be from an old Nada Surf record. They do a Go-Betweens song, that again is a perfect match, it makes sense that they would pick these songs, it's almost the perfect sonic representation of the influences that created Nada Surf. One of the big surprises is the Arthur Russell (!) cover, a gorgeous hushed bit of lap steel laced minimal twang pop, WAY too short at just over a minute.
The rest of the record finds the band tackling The Dwight Twilley Band, Kate Bush, Spoon, The Moody Blues (!), recent aQ faves Soft Pack, Coralie Clement (another obscure choice), and then they finish with two total random covers by bands we had never heard of, Mecromina, their version a lush string laden slab of jangle pop, and the Silly Pillows, never heard the original, but the cover is a carnivalesque bit of piano driven pomp, to finish things off.
Totally fantastic, we've listened to this record about 100 times, and while it's definitely tiding us over, it also has us dying for a proper new Nada Surf record!!
MPEG Stream: "Electrocution (Bill Fox)"
MPEG Stream: "Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode)"
MPEG Stream: "Love Goes On (The Go-Betweens)"
MPEG Stream: "Janine (Arthur Russell)"

PERHACS, LINDA Paralleograms (Sunbeam) cd 19.98
Available again, this all-time AQ fave, now in the "Sunbeam Masters" series, limited to 1000 copies in mini-LP sleeve. Here's what we said the last time Sunbeam put this out:
The psychedelic folk fans here at Aquarius (all of us!) are overjoyed that this brilliant obscurity is back in print, again - this time on the UK's Sunbeam label, with a couple more bonus tracks than even the previous expanded edition on Wild Places had!
Originally released in 1970, Linda Perhacs' Parallelograms is a now-not-so-lost gem of lovely, delicate folk-psych songs in line with Joni Mitchell or Heart's folkier moments, gone waaay underground and mystic. For a long long time, although collectors held the record in great esteem, no-one knew anything about Ms. Perhacs at all. When the Wild Places label first reissued the album on cd some years ago they had to do it from a mint vinyl copy of the record. Later, they miraculously managed to track down Linda and got their hands on reel to reels dubbed from the original masters, along with a passel of bonus tracks - half a dozen of 'em, demos and alternate takes, which they included on their second cd edition. Along with that good stuff, some mysteries were answered. It turns out that, for instance, the popularly held belief that Perhacs was from Hawaii was incorrect. But she lived in the Pacific Northwest and California, so that's not too far off, really... They also confirmed that this was indeed her only recording. But if you're only going to make one record, having it be as good as Parallelograms is a neat trick. Her gossamer vocals encounter tripped-out electronic effects and gentle folk-rock backing, transporting the listener to a place not usually or easily reached in this day and age. There's a track or two that gets strangely coffeehouse beatnik on us, and sound a bit dated, but most of this is truely ethereal hippie folk-psych beauty unparallelled. Really nice, and recommended.
This new Sunbeam version ups the ante on the out of print Wild Places one. They've added two more bonus tracks: a 2005 interview on the BBC, and the previously unreleased "I Would Rather Love". It also includes liner notes from Perhacs herself. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Parallelograms"
MPEG Stream: "Hey, Who Really Cares?"
MPEG Stream: "Moons And Cattails"

PULSE EMITTER Over Clouds (Root Strata) cassette 9.98
The good news is that there's a new Pulse Emitter, another collection of dreamy analog drift, softly serene meditative new age synthscapes, laced with muted rhythms and softly swirling abstract melodies. The kind of stuff we, and you, can't get enough of. The bad news, is that we COULDN'T get enough of it, literally. This is out of print already, and we only have 4 or 5 copies, after selling half of the batch we got, which was already less than half the number we ordered. So apologies, we tried our best, we figured we might as well list the copies we had so that way, at least a tiny handful of folks will get a copy.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES (why?!?!), nice, thick offset printed covers, and again, already OUT OF PRINT.
MPEG Stream: "Purple"

REITER, ASH Paper Diamonds (self-released) cd 9.99
Wonderful warm and cozy indie pop from this San Francisco songstress. Ash Reiter has such a beautiful voice, and nice range in songs from the slow and melty to more upbeat and catchy. We're reminded a bit of folks like Feist, Call & Response, The Bird & The Bee, Komeda, Saint Etienne, Au Revoire Simone and The Postmarks. Clocking it at just about an hour, these fifteen songs are packed with some of the most refreshing and effervescent pop we've heard in a long time.
MPEG Stream: "Francais"
MPEG Stream: "Stumble & Fall"
MPEG Stream: "Albatross"

THOMAS, PRINS s/t (Full Pupp) 2lp 22.00
Now available on vinyl!
As much as we dig the collaborations between Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, we're beginning to think we might like these two Norwegians even more on their own, separately. With his latest solo outing, Prins Thomas has reminded us how masterful he is at creating glacial and spacious dance beats infused with waves of blissed out krautdisco. More so than on his collaborations with Lindstrom, Thomas demonstrates that he has a really nice range of sounds in his arsenal, with subtle hints of prog, psych and krautrock all mixed into a blend of his unique electronica. Lots of this record makes us think of some amazing remixed version of the cosmic kraut classic recording by Riechmann, or how Jonas Reinhardt might sound if they really allowed their more flowing and dance-y side to run wild. You can tell that Prins Thomas has a deep love of groups like Neu, Harmonia and The Phantom Band as much as he does of the space disco stylings of Giorgio Moroder, Patrick Cowley and Cerrone.
So many epic and nuanced tracks here, with one of the standouts being "Wendy Not Walter", you have to love the nod to Wendy/Walter Carlos. Further proof that Prins Thomas is not only a student of great electronic music but also one of its best creators these days!
MPEG Stream: "Wendy Not Walter"
MPEG Stream: "Ørkenvandring"
MPEG Stream: "Sauerkraut"

VOICE OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS s/t (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
NOW ON VINYL, via Holy Mountain!!!
Some of you aQ folk-headz out there might remember Rick Tomlinson's first project Voice of the Seven Woods. Well Tomlinson is back with a slightly new band name and a drastically different sound. Voice of the Seven Thunders have plugged into some big amps and expanded into a fiery, heavy rocking trio. A huge shift from the quiet woodland finger-picking of Tomlinson's old outfit, the addition of a bassist and drummer bring the project to a whole new level of pretty straight-shootin' rock. Bluesy baselines plod on and on into a Blue Cheer-type groove, layers of strummed guitar add to the bed of fuzz that shimmer below soaring, neverending solos... Really, the ripping solos never end, not sure if that's a good or bad thing. The trio touch on some more ethnic or Eastern sounding territory, we're hearing a touch of North African flair, think Sublime Frequencies meets Sylvester Anfang.  We love the few, nice quiet moments of acoustic reflection that break up the heavy rockin' momentum of most of the tracks. "Cylinders", one of the quieter pieces, opens with distant flute and slowly rising synth wash, only to slowly crescendo into a strummy, cosmic commune jam. The album comes to a close with "Disappearances", a conventional classic rock sounding jammer, complete with proper lyrics and vocal harmonies. Though the band have made quite a drastic aesthetic shift, we think fans of VOT7W will be just as enthusiastic about VOT7T, I mean who can really deny some heavy, old fashion blown out psychedelic rock n' roll?
MPEG Stream: "Kommune"
MPEG Stream: "Out Of The Smoke"

WAX POETICS Issue #41 magazine 9.99
Issue after issue, Wax Poetics continues to be the place to go for the most informed and passionate writing and features on soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop and beyond. This time out, it's all about the hip-hop, with KRS-One and EPMD on the dual covers and inside great features on both, as well as Ice-T, Ice-Cube, DXT, as well as some nice in memoriam pieces on Guru, Chilly B and Malcolm McLaren. Cool features on the roots of freestyle, the impact of Latinos in hip-hop culture and as always great crate digger tips highlighting some obscure rare groove records that we all will have our eyes out for. Cover to cover, always a satisfying read!

WIRE, THE #317 July 2010 magazine 9.98
This issue of the UK new music magazine that we here are all pretty much REQUIRED to read, features the hoodied image of Kevin Martin aka The Bug on the cover, he's also well known from such projects as God, Ice, and Techno Animal. We're definitely keen on reading that one. Also this ish, disco proggers Chrome Hoof, David Toop talks about London's swinging '60s sonic radicals, there's scene reports from Columbia and Poland, Alex Nielson reveals his love of Sinatra's Only The Lonely, and Oneohtrix Point Never is the Invisible Jukebox's next victim. Plus, DJ Nate, Michael Pisaro, Konx-Om-Pax, and more, including all the usual news, reviews (lots of reviews), charts, columns, etc.

----*
----* Compilations :
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V/A Thai Beat A Go Go Volume 3 (Subliminal Sounds) lp 28.00
Now on vinyl!! Here's some of what we said when we reviewed the compact disc version, though as before the programming of the cd and vinyl versions differ somewhat, but even if the track list isn't quite the same (the cd had 5 more songs), the general thrust of the following review still stands:
It's beginning to appear as though Subliminal Sounds' well of amazing undiscovered Thai Beat music might be bottomless! We were a bit surprised when they managed to pull off a second excellent collection of Thai bubblegum psych tunes from yesteryear, but now a *third*?? "Is it just as good", you ask? Well, heck yeah, it is! It doesn't seem as though they culled the best for the first, or even the second, collection. This third volume may in fact be the best - though it's hard to choose. This one has about the same ratio of purely weird and inimitably Thai "pop" to off-kilter covers of your favorites from the golden era of rock, but add into that mix a great deal of seventies funk & disco and even some Santana-esque rock, all with a Thai twist and lots of fun. In addition to all the cool music on this collection is album's cover, which looks as though it were taken from a '70s Thai B-grade horror film. A "scary" looking dude in blue slacks, red sweater, and dracula fangs is lightly held back (or is he dancing with?) two sexy Thai girls wearing matching green skirts and white knee high boots. WOW! is our reaction to that, and the whole disc as well!

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

2+2=5, THE "Into The Future..." (Spittle) cd 21.00
ARCHITEUTHIS REX "Dark As The Sea" (Utech) cd 14.98
AUBRY, GILLES "s6tr8" (Winds Measure Recordings) cd 12.98
BASSHATERS "Harsh Lovers Sick Zoo" (Yik Yak) cassette 5.00
BOSSE-DE-NAGE "s/t" (Flenser) cd 9.98
DADAWAH "Peace And Love" (Wild Flower) cd/lp 16.98/24.00
DIVORCE "s/t" (Optimo) 10" 13.98
DURUTTI COLUMN "LC" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
DURUTTI COLUMN "The Return Of The Durutti Column" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
ECHOSPACE "Liumin" (Modern Love) 2cd 15.98
ENDTABLES, THE "s/t" (Drag City) cd 14.98
FEROCIOUS FEW "Juices" (Birdman) cd 12.98
FNS "S/t" (Miasmah) cd/lp 15.98/19.98
FOOT VILLAGE "Anti-Magic" (Upset The Rhythm) lp 17.98
HEALTH "Disco 2" (Lovepump United) cd 14.98
JJ "N° 3" (Secretly Canadian) cd 14.98
KEEPAWAY "Baby Style" (Lefse) lp 14.98
KNIGHT SCHOOL "Revenger" (Make A Mess) lp 14.98
MAGIC BULLETS "s/t" (Mon Amie) lp 14.98
MAX PLANCK "Kill The Pain" (Buried By Time And Dust) lp 32.00
NEON "Oscillator" (Spittle) cd 21.00
NORTH SEA, THE "Bloodlines" (Type) lp 19.98
PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, THE "Say No To Love" (Slumberland) 7" 5.98
PERNICE BROTHERS "Goodbye Killer" (Ashmont) cd 10.98
ROEDELIUS "The Diary Of The Unforgotten" (Bureau) cd 17.98
ROSE, JACK & GLENN JONES "The Things That We used To Do" (Strange Attractions) dvd 20.00
ROSE, JACK WITH D. CHARLES SPEER & THE HELIX "Ragged And Right" (Thrill Jockey) cd ep/12" 11.98/14.98
SWORDS & SANDLES / VHOLTZ / WOMAN'S WORTH / ETTRICK "s/t" (self released) cassette 5.00
TRANS AM "Thing" (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
URAL UMBO "s/t" (Utech) cd 14.98
V/A "Clicks And Cuts 5.0" (Mille Plateax) cd 17.98
V/A "Head Over High Heels: Strong & Female 1927-1959" (Trikont) cd 17.98
V/A "Karl Rove: Courage And Concequence" (Seismic.Wave) lp 14.98
V/A "Milano New Wave 1980-83" (Spittle) cd 21.00
V/A "The Secret Museum Of Mankind Vol.II Ethnic Music Classics; 1925-48" (Outernational) 2lp 31.00
V/A "To Scratch Your Heart: Early Recordings From Istanbul" (Honest Jons) 2cd 26.00
V/A "Zulu Stomp!! South African Garage Beats!!" (Nosmoke) cd 25.00
VANGELIS "Who Killed The Dragon? (The BYG Sessions)" (Finders Keepers) 12" 14.98
WE LIKE CATS "Proper Eats" (Marriage) lp 13.98
WINDSOR FOR THE DERBY "Against Love" (Secretly Canadian) cd 14.98
ZUMPANO, JASON "Room And Mansion" (Inflight) cd-r 14.98

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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.


NEW DOMESTIC SHIPPING RATES :
--------------------------------
STANDARD (DEFAULT):

    1 CD (or cassette or DVD or 7") : $2.95 USPS First Class                                                                                               

    1-3 CD (or cassette or DVD, but not 7"s) : $4.95 USPS Priority Mail via flat rate box                                                          

    4+ CD, or any package with LPs in it (also books & box sets), any number of items: $9.95 UPS Ground    
     
Also, please note that UPS will not ship to PO Boxes, so those packages that would have gone UPS will be sent USPS Priority for $9.95,
or you may select  USPS Media Mail instead, see below.

UPS shipments are automatically trackable and include insurance up to $100.        
USPS shipments (First Class, Priority, and Media Mail) are all automatically trackable.

OR, you can choose instead to have your order shipped by MEDIA MAIL:

    1-3 items (i.e. w/ LPs) : $5.95 USPS Media Mail 

    4+ items : $7.95 USPS Media Mail


Special shipping needs (e.g. UPS Next Day) are also doable, just ask for a quote.
Also, if you are just getting 1 item that would therefore ship USPS First Class, and for some reason you would rather have it sent Priority, then you could say so in the comments field. (Note: however, 7"s are too big for the Priority flat rate boxes.)

NOTE: UPS permits their drivers to determine if there is a secure location at the shipping address to leave the package if no one is there to receive it (unfortunately some are less cautious than others!). If you'd prefer that they not do this or if you have specific instructions for the driver, please include a note in the comments section of your weborder form.

PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK SHIPPING ADDRESSES BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR ORDER. Aquarius is not responsible for orders delayed or returned due to incorrect or undeliverable addresses provided by the customer. Returned packages will be reshipped at the customer's expense.

Shipping rates are charged per shipment.


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, but only in $USD. International customers please note that they must be international postal money orders purchased at a post office. Additional processing fees may apply. 

If you wish to pay by money order, you must confirm the order with us through email or phone BEFORE you send any payment. It's best to just use the secure order form on the website, and when checking out mark money order as your payment choice. We will then process your order and respond with all the crucial payment info.

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.

Unfortunately, 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
Magus Pelander (of Witchcraft) "s/t" cdep/12" on Svart

----} June 22nd
I Shalt Become "Poison" cd on Moribund
Sabbath Assembly "Restored To One" cd version on Ajna
Ram "Lightbringer" cd on AFM
Uffie "Sex Dreams & Denim Jeans" cd
Kode9 "DJ-Kicks" cd on Studio7
The Roots "How I Got Over" cd
Eminem "Recovery" cd
Macy Gray "The Sellout" cd
Ozzy Osbourne "Scream" cd on Epic
Yakuza "Of Seismic Consequence" cd on Profound Lore
Mike Rep & The Quotas "Stupor Hiatus" cd on Siltbreeze
Neverever "Angelic Swells" cd/lp on Slumberland
Tender Trap "Dansette Dansette" cd on Slumberland
Bitchin Bajas "Tones & Zones" cd on Important

----} June 30th
Peter Howell & John Ferdinando "Alice Through the Looking Glass" cd on Lion/Acme
Charanjit Singh "Synthesizing: Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat" cd version on Bombay Connection
Aboulaye Traore ³Abdoulaye Traore² cd on Yaala Yaala
Toba Seydou Traore ³Toba Seydou Traore² cd on Yaala Yaala
Alasdair Roberts & Friends ³Too Long In This Condition² cd/lp on Drag City

----} also in June
Xasthur "Portal" vinyl on Hydra Head

----} July 6th
Current 93 "Baalstorm, Sing Omega" cd on Coptic Cat
Alastair Galbraith "Mass" lp on Siltbreeze

----} July 13th
Zoroaster "Matador" cd on E1

----} July 20th
Richard Youngs "20 Years" lp+3cd
Sleigh Bells "Treats" vinyl version

----} July 27th
Gate "Republic Of Sadness" lp on Ba Da Bing
v/a "Milky Disco 3: To The Stars" 2cd on Lo Recordings


----} also in July
Evan Caminiti "West Winds" lp      

----} August 6th
Son House "And The Other Great Delta Blues Singers" 2lp on Monk
Jelly Roll Morton "The Chant" lp on Monk
Blind Lemon Jefferson "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" lp on Monk
LCD Soundsystem "This Is Happening" 2lp on DFA

----} August 24th
Apocalyptica "7th Symphony" cd on Jive

----} also upcoming sooner or later or sooner or later or whenever
Svarte Greiner "Penpals Forever (And Ever)" cd/lp on Digitalis
On (reworked by Fennesz) "Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not" cd/lp on Type
Boris & Ian Astbury "BXI" ep on Southern Lord
Randy Barracuda "On The Low" 12" on Harmonia
Limonious "House Of Usher" lp on Flogsta Danshall
Ratto Ja Lehtisalo "UU Mama" cd on Ektro
Thor "Only The Strong" cd reissue on Ektro
Expo 70 "Sonic Messenger" and "Black Ohms" vinyl editions on Beta-lactam Ring
Jean-Pierre Massiera "Horrific Child" cd/lp reissue on Finders Keepers
The Sticks "s/t" cd/2x7" on Upset The Rhythm
Harvey Milk "s/t" vinyl edition on Hydra Head
Torche / Boris "Chapter Ahead Being Fake" split 10" on Hydra Head
Pyramids w/ Nadja "Lustmord / Ulver Remix" 12" on Hydra Head
Grasslung "Feeding Your Horizon" on Root Strata
Jim Haynes "Rocks. Hills. Plains" on Root Strata
Nurse With Wound "Skrag" cd on United Dairies
Jonathan Coleclough "Flutter" 2cd-r on October
Johann Johannsson "And In The Endless Pause" lp on Type
Jay Reatard "Blood Visions" lp on Fat Possum
King Khan & BBQ Show "Invisible Girl" cd/lp on In The Red
Felix "You Are The One I Pick" cd on Kranky
Papercuts "Where Are The Waves" cd on Gnomonsong
The Roots "How I Got Over" cd
Max Richter "Memory House" cd
Grumbling Fur (Guapo + Jussi from Circle) cd
Anton Batagov "Passionate Desire To Be An Angel" cd on Long Arms Records
Japancakes "If I Could See Dallas"
Jazzfinger "The Sun's Golden Blood" cd on Beta-Lactam Ring
v/a "Noise Room" cd on Soniq
Country Teasers / Ezee Tiger split lp on Holy Mountain
Erase Errata TBA cd on Kill Rock Stars
Rodan TBA cd/lp on Quarterstick
Swell Maps "International Rescue" clear vinyl LP reissue on Alive
Loss "Despond" cd on Profound Lore
Boduf Songs "Strait Gait" cd/lp on Latitudes
Current 93 "BS:SO" cd on Coptic Cat
The Fall "Future Our Clutter"
Panda Bear "Tomboy"
Sloath s/t lp on Riot Season
Ken Camden "Lethargy & Repercussions" cd/lp on Kranky
LCD Sound System / Wooden Shjips "Drunk Girls" 7" on DFA

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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanIrwinScottNickSallyJonandAndrew