V/A Bollywood Bloodbath (Finders Keepers / B-Music) cd 15.98
We were already sold on this before we even heard it, just based on the title alone, and likely you are too! And having heard it, we're all the more into it. This latest Finders Keepers/B-Music release is not just another Bollywood - or even Lollywood, or Kollywood - compilation, not that there would be anything wrong with that. Their recent Pakistani picture house collection Life Is Dance is still in heavy rotation 'round these parts, as are others of its ilk. But Bollywood Bloodbath is even better, thanks to its specific, scary theme. Cooler 'cause these songs, as you may have guessed, are all taken from the soundtracks to Hindi horror movies! Ghost stories, killer thrillers, zombiethons, that sort of thing... but unlike American slasher flicks and Italian giallo from the same period (the '70s mostly, though this disc ranges as far back as 1949, and up to the '80s), these Indian fright films are, of course, like other Bollywood productions, elaborate musicals. So the bloodbath sounds like it's taking place at the discotheque!! It's a perfect mix of the over-the-top pop groove-a-delica of the best vintage Bollywood stuff, infused with the even weirder, wilder, and wiggier sounds demanded by the horror movie genre, like shocking screams, stabbing cacophonous chords, and impassioned female vocals pleading for mercy.
Yep, it's pretty brilliant the way this collection combines two of our favorite soundtrack genres into one. Gotta give it up to compiler Andy Votel and his diligent research (involving hours and hours of viewing cheap old VHS tapes found at the Indian grocery store, no doubt), as he's dug up a delightful 'best of' from a hybrid cinematic genre we've yet to explore ourselves. And even if these songs were sourced from Z-grade movies, there's for sure some top talent involved on soundtrack side of things, including even the legendary RD Burman.
Although there's a modicum of ominous, atmospheric creepiness to be found in most of these cuts, moments that are mystical and mysterious, truth be told it's not all that frightening, as the spookiest stuff always gives way to urgent uptempo beats and zipp-zapping "seance fiction" synths, lively rock/disco orchestration and spirited singing, i.e. typical Bollywood bombast! If anything, rather than, say, John Carpenter or Goblin (our usual go-to's for suspense/horror soundtracks), some of what's here reminds us more of stuff from far out Spaghetti Westerns.
Since we're making this Record Of The Week, we should pause to state that if you're not already into Bollywood soundtracks, you need to check 'em out! And this, despite its specific slant, would certainly give you a good idea of what you've been missing - total WTF kitchen sink psychedelic percussive song-and-dance Eastern-inflected rock opera funked up madness.
22 tracks, 78+ minutes. Complete with cd booklet of copious, obsessive, expert liner notes from Votel. And lots of cool creepy colorful graphics of course. (In addition to this domestic cd release, there's also import vinyl available, but we're pretty much out, hoping to have some more from overseas next month, FYI.)
MPEG Stream: HEMANT BHOLE "Sansani Khez Koi Baat"
MPEG Stream: BAPPI LAHIRI "Meri Jaan"
MPEG Stream: SAPAN JAGMOHAN "Sote Sote Adhi Rat"
MPEG Stream: SONIK OMI "Main Theme From Andhera / Darwaza"

GREAT SOCIETY MIND DESTROYERS, THE Spirit Smoke (Slow Knife) lp 17.98
All it takes is about 30 seconds of the opening track, the awesomely titled "Temple Lurker", on this debut full length from Chicago psych rockers The Great Society Mind Destroyers, to realize these guys are serious psych freeks and are here to drag us into a drugged out sonic stupor of unparalleled proportions. Their initial squall of White Heaven like freak-out had us expecting a nonstop barrage of wild shred and drum chaos, but instead, the band settle into something much more trancey and hypnotic, thick undulating basslines, wah wah guitars, and dense busy drumming, all blurred into a thick cloud of propulsive psychedelic mesmer, the sort of motorik spaced out psych that should have fans of Wooden Shjips, Comets On Fire, and the like losing their shit. And while TGSMD share much with those groups, their sound is also much more poppy, definitely reminding us of Bardo Pond too in that sort hazy washed out dreaminess, but the band do have some freak-out in them, after lulling you into a dreamy drugged out state, they'll blast you with another blown out burst of psych-noise chaos, only to slip right back into the groove. And it's only the first track!
"Divinorum" offers up more of the same, but this time more rocking, reminding us of Loop, or a heavier Spacemen 3, the band locked tight, the drums a force to be reckoned with, somehow as psychedelic as the guitars, the groop getting lost in endless jams, we're talking White Hills, Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, Burnt Hills, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, 3 Leafs, The Heads, in a perfect world, these guys would be just as well know, as it is we can only imagine it's just a matter of time.
"Samsara Drag" is the shortest track here, and also maybe the poppiest, but even this brief blast of popsyke displays much of what makes these guys so good, soaring swirling guitars, shuffling propulsive drumming, those hazy dreamlike vox, the only difference is, the song never explodes into a heart of the sun psychedelic freak-out, but then, that's what the rest of the record is for. "Equation Of Time" is another short(ish) one, at nearly six minutes, and the band meld a woozy almost droney dirge, and a delicate washed out intro, to wicked gouts of wild distorted psych, evolving into a fierce blown out jam, that sounds like it could have gone on forever. "Now Riot!" finds the band doing what they do best, seemingly continuing on from the album opener, before slipping into "Mystic Warriors", which sounds remarkably like aQ faves Cave, which makes sense, as there is definitely a Cave / TGSMD connection, but where Cave take their sound, lock it in, and get lost in a sort of krautbliss, these guys add hazy vocals, wrap everything in dense wah guitar, let the sounds slowly ooze and spread, everything seeming the bleed and blur, the drums the main constant, pounding and anchoring and keeping everything else from just floating away.
And then finally, there's the nearly 10 minute closer "Higher Bodies", which starts out a slow abstract brooder, then gradually evolves into a field of distorted guitar skree, before finally blossoming into a gorgeous expanse of dreamy, gauzy psych pop, woozy and laid back, sun dappled and drug drenched, and while this might be THE JAM, drawn out and droney, the sort of set ender that depending on the crowd could extend into the wee hours, but the band gets to stretch out big time, the effects are everywhere, the vocals loose and dreamily chaotic, the song splintering midway through, into what sounds like a symphony of malfunctioning tape players, but the band plays on, that loping psychedelic groove, swaddled in a tripped out cloud of shimmer and glitch and that gloriously twisted tape manipulation, heady and hypnotic, and again, the sort of sound you never want to end.
Super sweet packaging, nice full color psychedelic matte jackets, with a printed lyric sheet / poster inside, and if you're lucky, mixed in with the black wax are a few copies on tripped out gold and red splatter wax! Don't ask for colored vinyl, it's random, just cross your fingers (or don't worry about it since black wax sounds better anyway!!)...
MPEG Stream: "Temple Lurker"
MPEG Stream: "Samsara Drag"
MPEG Stream: "Higher Bodies"

WHITE HILLS Live At Roadburn 2011 (Roadburn) cd 16.98
Holland's Roadburn festival has become THEE ultimate heavy rock music festival, be it doom, sludge, psychedelia, space rock, whatever, the fest consistently offering the sorts of lineups most of us could only dream about, super hyped new bands, legendary older bands, total unknowns, next big things, nobody curates festivals like these guys, and it definitely shows, every year, selling out sooner, and luring folks from all over the world to fly over to take it all in (heck, our own Allan even went a couple years ago!). Roadburn also decided a while back to chronicle some of these performances and release them, so the rest of us sorry suckers unable to make the journey could get a little taste of what it is we've been missing.
Which brings us to this, a document of last year's Roadburn, in particular, a performance by aQ faves, Brooklyn heavy psych rockers White Hills, who definitely KILL it, with one of the heaviest sets we've heard from them. In fact, the disc opens with the band in full on heavy riff mode, almost like someone just pushed record mid-set, our imaginations have us picturing opening 8+ minute blast "Three Quarters" just the last chunk of an hours-long mega blown out super psych jam. Regardless, the band churn and roil, the riffs distorted and in-the-red, the drums wild and chaotic, of course everything wreathed in thick swirls of effects, the vox gruff and bellowed, definitely giving the sound some serious rock heft. "Under Skin Or By Name", sees the band slipping back into some more meditative drifty krautpsych territory, but within a few minutes the band have exploded again, with wild endless leads, lumbering motorik grooves, total drugged out heavy psych bliss of the highest order.
And so it goes, the band never letting up, the songs sprawling, slipping from Stooges-y stomp, to Hawkwind like druggy drift, to hazy psychedelic shimmer, to near Monster Magnet like metallic chug, the bass groovy and melodic, those drums pounding fiercely, courtesy of occasional WH skinsman Lee Hinshaw, bassist Ego Sensation even offers up some vocals on one track which gives it a cool sort of True Widow vibe, the band unfurling epic expanses of druggy FX heavy drift woven into more crushing space-metal riffery, finally finishing off with a killer version of the title track from their most recent full length "Hp-1", which if anything takes the original and makes it even more epic and heavy and gloriously spaced out.
Sweet packaging too, full color six panel digipak with some killer psychedelic live shots of the band in action at Roadburn.
MPEG Stream: "Three Quarters"
MPEG Stream: "Under Skin Or By Name"

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BAKER, AIDAN The Spectrum Of Distraction (Robotic Empire) 2cd 14.98
The latest from the super prolific Aidan Baker, who is one half of aQ doomdronedirge faves Nadja, not to mention responsible for about a million solo records we love, comes in the form of this sprawling, epic double disc set, featuring no less than ninety eight songs, ranging in length from six seconds to seven minutes, over two hours of music, and all designed to be played in SHUFFLE mode, producing a unique combination, and essentially a new record, with every listen. Similar in form to his collaboration with Tim Hecker, Fantasma Parastasie, which while we don't think was meant to be played in shuffle mode, was also divided into lots of super short tracks.
And while this one IS designed for shuffle play, the songs themselves, when listened to in proper order, are in fact proper songs. And for the purpose of reviewing, it might make more sense to describe the songs, and then maybe what it's like when they become all jumbled up. It's actually a super varied collection of songs and sounds, that seem to draw on every facet of Baker's considerably all over the map discography, from skittery abstract jazz, to almost Torche like sludge pop, to glitched out psychedelic skitter (and that's all actually in the same 'song'!), from groovy, almost hip hop sounding beat heavy shuffle, to mathy sort-of noise rock, to blackened doomy dirges, from abstract gristly droney drift to woozy krautrocky psych, to IDM like programmed electronica, to dense metalgaze drift, and from meandery post rock to murky downtempo groove, and on and on and on. The two discs are appropriately labeled ADD and OCD, definitely referencing the constant flitting from sound to sound and track to track, even more so once things are set to shuffle.
One interesting element is that there are loads of different drummers, Mac McNeilly from Jesus Lizard, Steven Hess from Locrian, and Ted Parsons from Swans and Prong, just to name a few, and it's pretty fun to hear Baker collaborate, and it does definitely speak to there being so many disparate sounds.
As for the whole shuffle thing, we tried it a bunch of different times, and it definitely get seriously OCD / ADD, the fragments very abrupt and jagged, and not necessarily flowing the way say a serious of swooshy shimmery drones might, and while it's definitely interesting, and it almost forces your brain to understand the segues, even if they don't seem to make sense, which definitely adds a cool element to the proceedings, although to be totally honest, we find ourselves digging it a lot more UNshuffled.
Cool packaging too with some super striking comic style cover art.
MPEG Stream: "War With The Evil Power Master, Pt. 4"
MPEG Stream: "War With The Evil Power Master, Pt. 7"
MPEG Stream: "Blood On The Handle, Pt. 2"
MPEG Stream: "The Antimatter Formula, Pt. 6"
MPEG Stream: "Trouble On Planet Earth, Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "The Phantom Submarine"

BARDO POND / CARLTON MELTON split (Agitated) lp 15.98
BACK IN STOCK!!!
What we said last year on list 388 when we made this a Record Of The Week: One of two splits on this week's list from local psychedelic space rockers and aQ faves Carlton Melton, both amazingly appropriate team-ups. The other one is a super limited 7" with UK space rockers Mugstar [sorry, out of print now], and then there's this, a vinyl-only split with legendary Phillie psych rockers Bardo Pond, who prove to be the perfect match for Carlton Melton slow burning laid back psychedelic drift.
CM's side-long "Slow Growth" (a title by way of an early AQ Carlton Melton review by our very own Scott) definitely describes CM's sidelong jam here, easily one of their best, and most musically cohesive, finding sharp sonic focus even amidst the seemingly freeform drift, the track beginning as a soft hazy swirl, softly churning guitars over what sounds like whipping wind, the vibe tense and ominous and darkly dreamy, it takes a few minutes for the song proper to kick in, but when it does, the guitars immediately swoop in and distort, blossoming into massive crumbling swells, heaving and howling over delicate crystalline strum and simple propulsive motorik drumming. The drums eventually drop out, leaving the sound to slowly implode, growing muddier and murkier, stretched way out into muted drones, laced with shards of feedback and little fragmented melodies, all before another slow build, back into a seriously dense sonic squall, still muted and murky, but seriously black hole dense, a roiling cloud of blackened psych, which billows wildly until the drums gradually return, offering a rhythmic anchor and guiding the track to its final resting place.
Bardo Pond counter with one of the best tracks we've heard from them, the sound fierce and epic and lush and SO heavy, launching immediately into a gorgeous sprawl of free form psychedelia, clouds of swirling guitars, tangled melodies, the drums loose and free and awesomely wild, but still managing to somehow hold everything together, but just barely. The vibe is blissed out and druggy, it's the sort of jam, that could go on forever, and sort of does, and is somehow simultaneously static and hypnotic, but also impossibly active and constantly shifting, a swirl of melodies and textures, the guitars unleashing some seriously kick ass leads, filling the sky with sonic contrails and swirling chordal clouds, the flute shows up late, and flutters subtly beneath the ever intensifying guitar freakouts, the vocals come in even later, and then only briefly, but add the perfect sort of gauzy / ethereal vibe to the proceedings, the song seeming to just organically wind down, leaving us to imagine that somewhere else there's a version, that does in fact go on forever.
LIMITED TO 800 COPIES!!!

BATHTUB SHITTER Dancehall Grind (Rip Roaring Shit Storm) cd 12.98
This crushing, twisted slab of bizarro Japanese grind radness/weirdness from this aQ beloved combo gets the fancy reissue treatment, now in a swank new digipak and with a bunch of bonus tracks!! Here's our review from when we first listed this back in 2006...
Holy shit!!! A brand new record from our favorite Japanese stoner grind sludge punk rock group. Possessor of quite possibly the best band name ever. And most appropriate too, as the band seems strangely preoccupied with shit (although not bathtubs so much). It's been raining 'Shitter reissues as the band works through their considerable back catalog of singles and split eps, so we ordered this thinking it was another reissue, but lo and behold, it's a whole disc of brand spanking new Bathtub Shitter. For those of you new to the world of Bathtub Shitter, imagine the bastard spawn of Brutal Truth, the Boredoms, Celtic Frost, Black Sabbath, and Dick Dale. Stoner grooves collide with buzzing goregrind, surf rock licks sit unexpectedly amidst sludge metal riffs and lightning fast blast beats. A glorious goofy grinding metallic mess as only the Japanese can do it. But the star of any Bathtub Shitter is Masato Henmarer Morimoto, the owner of quite possibly the most ridiculous and breathtaking set of vocal chords ever. On first listen, we were convinced that BS must have had at least two vocalists, maybe more, but it's all the work of one man, Masato. Once you hear it you'll understand why it's so hard to believe. There is of course the requisite goregrind gurgle, a rumbling, phlegm spewing demonic growl, then there's the sort of punk rock yelp, that balances the first voice a bit, but it's the third distinct voice that blows the mind. A piercing, falsetto, damsel in distress, horror movie massacre, cheerleader / housewife shriek. It's so crazy, but sounds so great, especially when engaged with the aforementioned growl in a sort of unholy duet, like a grindcore Beastie Boys, but battling atop a swirling squirmy mass of downtuned guitars, rumbling bowel loosening bass and blasting splattery drumming. WE LOVE BATHTUB SHITTER.
MPEG Stream: "Skate Of Bulgaria"
MPEG Stream: "World Dun Hole"
MPEG Stream: "Umber"

BATS, THE Daddy's Highway (Flying Nun) lp 15.98
One of the greatest indie pop records ever, gets a long overdue vinyl reissue! This classic slab of eighties bittersweet jangle pop from legendary New Zealand pop combo the Bats, still sounds as good as it ever did, originally released on Flying Nun in 1987, Daddy's Highway was the group's debut after handful of eps, and found the band effortlessly creating a template for pretty much all of the Kiwi pop music to follow. Robert Scott, one of the best (and perhaps most unsung) pop songsmiths of the last 3+ decades, delivers these heartfelt tunes in a gorgeous clear croon, his guitar playing understated and so sublime, the traditional rock band arrangement augmented by long time aQ fave Alastair Galbraith on violin, giving the songs a dark gravitas, and an even more melancholic vibe, some of the songs bouncy and bubbly, but many of them moody and brooding, laced with subtle drones, sounding at times like a janglier Velvet Underground, while at other times hinting at the more new wave sounding pop going on around the same time, but more often occupying some pure pop space, every song here, rife with warm jangle, sweet melody and dreamy hooks, all wreathed in lush instrumentation, and presented heart on sleeve. So great!
MPEG Stream: "Treason"
MPEG Stream: "North By North"
MPEG Stream: "Tragedy"

BECUZZI, GIANLUCA (KINETIX) Memory Makes Noise (Small Voices) cd 10.98
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we just have SIX of these...
We reviewed a double disc by this Italian composer a while back (we still have a very few copies left!), working under the name Kinetix, which was a heady chunk of musique concrete, that definitely owed much to Lucier, Ashley and Ferrari, and while his approach seems to be similar here, the sounds are definitely distinctly different, Becuzzi offering up a series of sonic palindromes and recurring phrases, beginning with an anerated dronescaping, one that takes after The Hafler Trio who in turn was looking to Roland Kayn, long stretches of hushed static, and garbled muted thrum, peppered with bursts of white noise, soft swells of industrial whir, at least initially, eventually, the drones recede leaving what sounds like a scratchy violin playing mournfully inside some abandoned warehouse, laced with distant tinklings, bits of mysterious spoken word, and a final burst of staticky buzz. That's just the first track. The second track offers up some dark rumblings, pockmarked with bits of click and glitch, and over the course of its 18 minutes, slips from differently textured drones, deep low hum, high end flitter, and laces these long sprawls with melancholy trumpet bleats, long stretches of near silence, and thick cavernous blackened drones that evolve into strangely decaying symphonies of creak and crumble. Finally, the disc finishes off with the prettiest of the bunch, still super varied, and constantly shifting, but this time the various elements are more tranquil and serene, slipping into an almost lullaby at one point, but elsewhere offering up glistening streaks of barely there high end, swoonsome chamber like streaks, washed out muted shards of feedback, and lovely fields of metallic shimmer. A challenging listen for sure, but also quite rewarding, and quite lovely in their own abstract non-traditional way.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 3"

BLANK REALM Falling Down The Stairs (Negative Guest List) 7" 12.98
One of a whole handful of releases on the Negative Guest List label, a bunch of which we reviewed on last week's list. This one comes from Aussie garage psych combo Blank Realm, whose Deja What? lp was a big hit around here, and who released a one sided jukebox single on NGL a little while back. The A side here is an acoustic jam, and find this otherwise dour and dirgey outfit sounding uncharacteristically sunshiney, acoustic guitars, whirring organs, a little bit swaggery, but super poppy with a hooky chorus, and a distinctly nineties vibe, but really it's the B side that had us hooked, murky and woozy and reverby, whiney vox and some cool sitar like buzz, not to mention a little twang, definitely reminding us of old school Aussie post punk bands like the Scientists and the Celibate Rifles, finishing off with a rad psychedelic squall, all detuned and fantastically warped.

BLUT AUS NORD The Desanctification (Debemur Morti) cd 14.98
We're not exactly sure what these French black metal experimentalists have planned for the final part of their 777 trilogy, but if this second installment is any indication, it's bound to be pretty genius / confusing / what the fuck. At the least, it will be seriously alienating for the hordes of metalheads who already find these guys a little bit frustrating. For the rest of us, we'd be hard pressed to pick a black metal group who more perfectly pushed our buttons, while in the process forging a seriously idiosyncratic, yet impossibly still pretty blackened path.
The first in the trilogy, 777 Sect(s), didn't sound all that far removed from a proper BaN record, a dizzying assemblage of gnarled Deathspell like riffage, their own penchant for industrial churn and droned out atmospheres, all woven into some serious sprawling expanses of black beauty, woozy and druggy, warped and fantastically tripped out, haunting and heavy, and once again establishing them as BM royalty, if they weren't already. And while even the grimmest of metalheads could love that record, they might have a slightly tougher time with part two, The Desanctification, which really, is not all THAT far removed from the sound of the first, but it definitely cranks up the weirdness a notch, mostly in the form of programmed beats, which drive much of the record. Opening track "Epitome VII" (all the tracks are entitled Epitome, and numbered), could be, and maybe sort of is, classic Blut Aus Nord, a warbly minor key riff, the sound sort of woozy again, melty and lysergic, the vocals though a strange garbled backwards speaking in tongues, and the drums, a Godflesh like mechanical beat, that's more skittery than crushing, the vibe is more sort of washed out and psychedelic than black and buzzy, but we dig it, super atmospheric and cinematic, and while the track does get more atonal and more black, with some actual human drumming blast beating entering the fray, the sound remains more firmly entrenched in a sort of twisted industrial dirgery than anything else. The next "Epitome" finds the band ditching those programmed beats and returning to something murkier and gnarlier, still hewing closer to a sort of melodic doom than buzzing blackness. After a super cool bit of psychedelic memser and another dirgey doomy expanse of dark riffery and moody murky swirl, those programmed beats return, and again the sound is transformed again into something closer to Nadja than black metal, a sort of metalgaze depressive doom, there's a distinctly shoegaze vibe going on, all hazy and gauzy and darkly dreamy.
"Epitome XII" might be the weirdest of the bunch, also the coolest, not sounding black metal at all really, instead some sort of industrial nineties pop, with cool melancholic melodies, all wreathed in a glistening swirl of synth glimmer, laced with ethereal vox buried in the mix, soaring psychedelic guitars, sort of had us wishing the whole record was so weirdly swirly and spacey.
And then finally, the record closes with another sprawling stretch of downtuned atmospheric doominess, minimal and moody, with clean vox, and plenty of melodies, but all blurred and smeared into a heaving expanse of blackened dreamlike heaviness, with a surprising final 40 seconds, those programed beats returning, skittering beneath a sky full of insectoid buzz and tense high melody. A cool warped finish, and just perhaps, a hint at what's to come in part three...
Super gorgeous artwork, which looks to us like it was done by the same person that did the art for the recent Ascension cd, that one all red and metallic gold, with lots of geometric designs and bold shapes, this one blue and gold, also geometric and bold, and with snakes and stars and a very mysterious occultic vibe. Cool!
MPEG Stream: "Epitome VII"
MPEG Stream: "Epitome VIII"
MPEG Stream: "Epitome X"

COLD BODY RADIATION Deer Twilight (Dusktone) cd 13.98
The 2010 full length from these Dutch avant shoegaze black metallers was one of our favorite records that year, but for whatever reason we were never able to get enough copies to review on the list. So when we discovered there was in fact a new record, we got in touch with the label directly and got a whole bunch. That first record took super blown out black buzz, and transformed it into something washed out and blissy, dreamlike and majestic, lots of bands do the whole shoegaze black metal thing, but CBR were the first band who did it so perfectly, conjuring up a sound, both heavy and beautiful, in way that was equal measures of both, taking the dreamy dronedirge of groups like Nadja and Jesu and infusing it with some seriously blackened buzz, which instead of darkening the sound, somehow just made it more brilliant and prismatic.
If anything, this new record dials back all the black and buzz, revealing what is essentially a blissed out shoegaze dream pop record, one that sans BM pedigree would have indie rockers and pop kids losing their shit big time. That said, there is still some heaviness, and a blast beat or two, but really for the most part, Deer Twilight is some sort of blissy psychedelic heavy pop, with soaring super saturated guitars, big bombastic drumming, swirling synths, warm clean crooned vox, a super lush layered sound, slow builds and explosive crescendos, super catchy hooks, and dark, dreamy meditative interludes. Think some killer mix of Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Godspeed and Nadja, released on 4AD, or Constellation, or Creation, or somehow all three, the sounds minor key and melodic, moody and melancholy, the bass thick and driving, low slung and rhythmic, the drums subtle but powerful, the guitars and the keyboards woven into lush undulating swells and prismatic bursts of melody, the songs epic and intricate, slipping from darkly doleful, to hauntingly hushed, to explosive and psychedelic and back again, super cinematic and emotionally intense, some of the big loud parts, so dramatic and soundtracky, it's easy to imagine them as the score for some super intense heartbreaking epic, and when the band does lock into something more rock and slightly more blackened, it sounds more like the doom pop of Katatonia, gloomy and melodic, and the sound soon shifts into something more laid back and stripped down, sun dappled and hazily dreamy, the tracks laced with swoonsome strings, that add even further to the cinematic vibe. To be honest, we weren't expecting this new record to be so NOT metal, but we're loving it, A LOT. And while there may not be a whole lot here for metalheads, for folks into epic dramatic shoegazey dreampop and metalgaze and post rock and gloom pop, this is most definitely your new favorite record.
MPEG Stream: "Deer Twilight"
MPEG Stream: "Make Believe"
MPEG Stream: "Yes, Maybe The Stars"

CREVICES BELOW, THE Below The Crevices (Nordvis) cd 13.98
How could we resist a band called The Crevices Below, whose album is titled Below The Crevices? Hell, just check out album opener "Below The Crevices" (yes!!!), a creeping atmospheric synth heavy subterranean exploration, that does sound precisely like a field recording of what lurks just below the crevices, all blackened swirls, strange machine like rhythms, ominous melodies, anguished wails off in the distance, eventually spidery doomy guitars drift into the picture, and then suddenly, the song explodes in a frenzy of furious synth soaked black blasting, everything cavernous and echoey, the vocals a rasped bellow, the drums pounding, the guitars buzzing, but those thick droning synths transforming the sound into something weirdly alien and majestic. And then out of nowhere, in comes an impossibly melodic clean guitar part, again transforming the sound into something almost poppy, the sound slipping back and forth between that grim synthy buzz, and that soaring melodic poppiness, dense and heavy and droney and totally epic.
Not really sure how we discovered this Australian one man band, pretty sure it was based entirely on the band name, but our obsession spread, first Andee, then Allan, then fellow black metal weirdo Botanist, then aQ pal Monte. Soon after Andee played it on his radio show, and everyone wanted to know what the heck it was. And where they could get it.
So yeah, The Crevices Below, who besides being masters of synth heavy black metal majesty, also create a dark gloomy downer pop the likes of which we haven't heard since the amazing debut from Nuit Noire offshoot Soror Dolorosa, which is how most of Below The Crevices plays out: gothy, gloomy, Joy Divisiony dirges, long expanses of melancholic synthswirl doom pop, washed out and dreamily woozy,Êover which a deep ominous croon, that sits right on the verge of hysteria,Êwails and howls, occasionally blossoming into something much more black and buzzy, in fact most of the tracks here are a perfectly twisted fusion of goth pop and black buzz, heavy and darkly psychedelic, the synths really the driving force, swooping in to transform what ever buzzing blackness or dour broodery is taking place and turning it into something heavy and epic and mighty, and mighty twisted.
When you break it down, very little of Below The Crevices is truly black metal, several of the tracks strip away the buzz completely, leaving instead a sort of creeping poppy gloom, or some sort of softly hazy, almost shoegazey ambience. "Whispers Of Sorrow" is all spidery guitar melodies wreathed in thick swaths of synthdrone, all underpinned by skeletal drum skitter, while "Trapped In Suicidal Depths" is all gloomy and gothy, heavily effected downtuned guitars, low slung bass, croaked sinister vox, more Christian Death or Specimen than black metal, super spare, the guitars less buzzy and more warm and twangy, the vocals growing more and more anguished, and while there's a brief bit of buzzing guitars and pounding drums midway through, those quickly fade, leaving the rest of the track to unfold like some smeared eyeliner, gothic cabaret.
But bookending this goth-gloom two-fer, is one one side, "A Grand Cavernous Awakening", which might be the most black metal of the bunch, at least initially, the synths adding plenty of pomp to on otherwise grim sprawl of black buzz, while the second half of the song, slips back into moody melodic gothic doom pop, and on the other side, the record closer, the nearly eleven minute "Carrying The Cries Of The Lost", which starts off all hushed and folky, deep vox over acoustic guitar, and simple spare drumming, but then this track too explodes into some soaring buzzing blackness, those synths epic and triumphant, peeling away at one point, offering up the record's grimmest moments, pure metallic crush, only to then shift gears again, and slip into a more melodic half tempo groove, seconds later launching back into a blasting gallop, but instead of grim buzz, super dramatic crooned vox once again transform the sound into something much more gloomy and poppy, before a twisted squall of an ending, flitting from mathy angular crunch, to distorted buzz / synth swirl psychedelia.
So incredible, incredibly weird, and utterly recommended. Another black metal record of the year contender and it's only January (and yeah, we know this came out last year, but it only made it on the aQ list in 2012...)!!
MPEG Stream: "Below The Crevices"
MPEG Stream: "The Tombs Of Subterranea"
MPEG Stream: "Trapped In Suicidal Depths"

CUT HANDS Afro Noise 1 - Volume 1 (Dirter) lp 28.00
Now on limited edition vinyl, split into two volumes, each with bonus tracks!!! Here's what we wrote about this awesome, intense album when it came out on cd earlier in 2011...
What happens when a middle aged, extreme noise musician suddenly gets all voodoo "drum circle" on us? Cut Hands is what happens. Ethno-forgery, not exactly, ethno-freakery more like it!
Let's say this up front, so there's no confusion: this Cut Hands disc is bloody awesome, and nobody here at AQ (except maybe Jim) is all that big of a Whitehouse fan, either. We mention that 'cause Cut Hands is the new project by William Bennett, the perverse genius (?) behind infamous '80s industrial noise terrorists Whitehouse, who are up there with Merzbow in the noise that annoys pantheon. We appreciate the extremity of Whitehouse, sure, but unlike Merzbow, never really enjoyed listening to 'em all that much (maybe that's the point). As a result, we really weren't aware of the extent to which, in recent years, William Bennett had been getting into this so-called "Afro Noise" bag of his, with some of his more recent Whitehouse albums (like 2003's Bird Seed, which contained a track called "Cut Hands Has The Solution") incorporating the use, and probably abuse, of authentic ethnic Central African instruments.
Although, we do remember when, in 1997, Bennett's label Susan Lawly put out an amazing compilation, now long out of print, called Extreme Music From Africa, that we totally loved. It featured a bunch of mysterious artists like Rorogwela, Vicious Teengirl, Electricity Featuring Fire Eater, and National Bird, that we'd never heard of before or since, doing tracks that somehow combined what sounded like genuine African tribal music with Whitehouse style noise... and was really quite listenable, too! We always half-suspected it might not have been on the up and up, that the bands weren't really from Africa, and were instead the work of Mr. Bennett and friends, and we'd still like it just as much anyway... Cut Hands certainly makes us further assume that might be the case, since our description of the sort of sounds found on Extreme Music From Africa would also describe this Cut Hands disc quite well: "Chanting and hand drums are buried in washes of hiss and white noise. Merzbow style blasts of crunchy feedback dissolve into tribal rhythms and explode again into shards of jagged buzz. Intense and aggressive and totally great."
In any event, Cut Hands is the next logical step in Bennett's "Afro Noise" obsession. While there is of course an electronic noise component to this, it almost takes a backseat to the rhythmic, almost machine-like intensity of the hand percussion. Bennett has apparently amassed quite a large collection of Congolese and Ghanaian percussion instruments, and he puts 'em to use here, 13 varied tracks of primal, polyrhythmic, electro-acoustic pulsations. Djembes and doundouns played with jackhammer precision, mixed with washes and waves of hiss and drone. Some tracks attack with feedback, others are more quietly sinister and even shimmeringly atmospheric. There's one track with vocals, declaiming something in what sounds like an African language, amidst divebombing distortion and shuddering glitch, while the rest are purely instrumental. And all it is frighteningly trance-inducing. It's kind of insane, kind of incredible. We like, a lot.
MPEG Stream: "Who No Know Go Knows"
MPEG Stream: "Shut Up And Bleed"

CUT HANDS Afro Noise 1 - Volume 2 (Dirter) lp 28.00
Now on limited edition vinyl, split into two volumes, each with bonus tracks!!! Here's what we wrote about this awesome, intense album when it came out on cd earlier in 2011...
What happens when a middle aged, extreme noise musician suddenly gets all voodoo "drum circle" on us? Cut Hands is what happens. Ethno-forgery, not exactly, ethno-freakery more like it!
Let's say this up front, so there's no confusion: this Cut Hands disc is bloody awesome, and nobody here at AQ (except maybe Jim) is all that big of a Whitehouse fan, either. We mention that 'cause Cut Hands is the new project by William Bennett, the perverse genius (?) behind infamous '80s industrial noise terrorists Whitehouse, who are up there with Merzbow in the noise that annoys pantheon. We appreciate the extremity of Whitehouse, sure, but unlike Merzbow, never really enjoyed listening to 'em all that much (maybe that's the point). As a result, we really weren't aware of the extent to which, in recent years, William Bennett had been getting into this so-called "Afro Noise" bag of his, with some of his more recent Whitehouse albums (like 2003's Bird Seed, which contained a track called "Cut Hands Has The Solution") incorporating the use, and probably abuse, of authentic ethnic Central African instruments.
Although, we do remember when, in 1997, Bennett's label Susan Lawly put out an amazing compilation, now long out of print, called Extreme Music From Africa, that we totally loved. It featured a bunch of mysterious artists like Rorogwela, Vicious Teengirl, Electricity Featuring Fire Eater, and National Bird, that we'd never heard of before or since, doing tracks that somehow combined what sounded like genuine African tribal music with Whitehouse style noise... and was really quite listenable, too! We always half-suspected it might not have been on the up and up, that the bands weren't really from Africa, and were instead the work of Mr. Bennett and friends, and we'd still like it just as much anyway... Cut Hands certainly makes us further assume that might be the case, since our description of the sort of sounds found on Extreme Music From Africa would also describe this Cut Hands disc quite well: "Chanting and hand drums are buried in washes of hiss and white noise. Merzbow style blasts of crunchy feedback dissolve into tribal rhythms and explode again into shards of jagged buzz. Intense and aggressive and totally great."
In any event, Cut Hands is the next logical step in Bennett's "Afro Noise" obsession. While there is of course an electronic noise component to this, it almost takes a backseat to the rhythmic, almost machine-like intensity of the hand percussion. Bennett has apparently amassed quite a large collection of Congolese and Ghanaian percussion instruments, and he puts 'em to use here, 13 varied tracks of primal, polyrhythmic, electro-acoustic pulsations. Djembes and doundouns played with jackhammer precision, mixed with washes and waves of hiss and drone. Some tracks attack with feedback, others are more quietly sinister and even shimmeringly atmospheric. There's one track with vocals, declaiming something in what sounds like an African language, amidst divebombing distortion and shuddering glitch, while the rest are purely instrumental. And all it is frighteningly trance-inducing. It's kind of insane, kind of incredible. We like, a lot.
MPEG Stream: "Munkisi Munkondi"
MPEG Stream: "Ezili Freda"

DUOZERO Esperanto (Small Voices) cd 10.98
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have just EIGHT of these...
We tried to find out more about this record, but all we could find online was a bunch of crazy super academic babble that talked about the roots of the Esperanto language, the texts of Borges and Calvino, the art of Dubuffet, heavy metalinguistics, and other stuff that really shed no light at all. But yeah, while this is definitely coming to us from the world of academic sound, the actual SOUND is quite pleasing, the opener is a dark droney, softly rhythmic psychedelic landscape of layered tones, and soft sonic pulsations, swirling effects, and muted glitches, over which a voice in French recites the lyrics, the result a sort of abstract minimal Chain Reaction sort of Portishead, that same rainswept moonlit city downtempo moodiness, the second track sounds a bit more like recent outings by Byetone or Alva Noto, that sort of machinelike electro, but a bit more organic, lots of cinematic tension, cold dark grooves that are surprisingly hypnotic. And so it goes, a series of strangely abstract, and slightly academic groovescapes, a few super abstract, a couple sort of noisy, but for the most part, darkly hypnotic, lushly textured, sonically dense and lushly layered, strangely sultry and weirdly mysterious, a fantastic surprise, that just might be the perfect late night avant academic chill out disc we've ever heard.
MPEG Stream: "Prana"
MPEG Stream: "The Moving Box"
MPEG Stream: "Esperanto"

GAINSBOURG, CHARLOTTE Stage Whisper (Elektra) cd 17.98
Charlotte Gainsbourg has repeatedly demonstrated her facility as a unique and striking artist on her own, and not just as the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Her work as an actress has intensified over the years, with her starring in the last two films by Lars Von Trier, including one of the most harrowing performances we've seen on the big screen in Antichrist. She collaborated with Air on her debut 5:55 and then with Beck on IRM. Both albums showcased her sensual and languid voice, over very well orchestrated music composed by folks well aware of her musical legacy.
Stage Whisper offers eight brand new songs, a handful of them find her teamed up with Beck again, and she's sounding as great as ever, with songs that make you just want to sway and get lost in their breezy sound. We're reminded of Taken By Trees, Beth Gibbons, and there are definitely moments that hints at her upbringing that echo Francoise Hardy and her mother.
The second half of the disc consists of 10 live tracks from her first ever tour, which took place in 2010. A few of us saw her concert in San Francisco on that tour, and after finding out that this was her first time ever playing live and hitting the road we were amazed by how tight and punchy her live sound was. Most of the live tracks come from her two proper albums, as well as her cover of Bob Dylan's "Just Like A Woman", and a standout duet with Charlie Fink of Noah & The Whale on the song "Got To Let Go".
Fans of her first two albums are going to want this for the new tracks, and for those who have been curious but haven't dived into her musical world yet, this would be an awesome introduction.
MPEG Stream: "White Telephone"
MPEG Stream: "Got To Let Go (Featuring Charlie Fink of Noah & The Whale)"
MPEG Stream: "IRM (Live)"

GUIDED BY VOICES Let's Go Eat The Factory (Guided By Voices Inc.) cd 14.98
A new Guided By Voices? With the 'classic' line up? Holy Shit! If you're anything like us you hold near and dear those classic GBV records even now, Bee Thousand, Vampire On Titus, Alien Lanes, and even though it's been nearly 15 years since this line up made a record together, and 8 years since GBV was a going concern, you might be forgiven for not even realizing that Guided By Voices had in fact broken up. Other than that initial announcement, and a cessation in the seemingly continuous flow of Guided By Voices releases, GBV mastermind Robert Pollard never really stopped making music, or even slowed down really, releasing a bajillion solo records, and countless collaborations. That's not to mention that Guided By Voices have been on a year long reunion tour, but fuck it, who cares about all that. The real question is after all this time, what's this new record like. And is it any good? Or is it GREAT?
Well, if you've heard the first single "The Unsinkable Fats Domino", you should have a pretty good idea, and our first impression was that this new record really IS a lot like those old classics, sonically, production wise (with much of the record recorded in living rooms and garages), the sound and songs super varied, almost schizophrenically so, but in that distinctly GBV way, where they all somehow sound like they do in fact belong together. The single kills, which is obviously why it was chosen, and while at first blush, nothing else on the record even comes close, a few more listens in, and we're suddenly hearing more and more potential hits. And with every listen, we're digging it more and more. Opener "Laundry And Lasers" starts out with some pulsing lo-fi guitar churn, before the song launches into some fuzzy classic distorto jangle, with Pollard sounding better than ever, the main hook totally irresistible, the song muddy and murky but joyously catchy. "The Head" is one of those fragmented sonic trifles GBV were the masters of, creating tiny snippets, that could have been stretched out into full on proper pop songs, but somehow have so much more power in their truncated form, not to mention the weird organ buzz that's twice as loud as the rest of the band. "Doughnut For A Snowman" starts off with some warbly flute flutter, before suddenly becoming surprisingly hi-fi, and becoming something akin to classic GBV. "Spiderfighter" is buzzy and fuzzy, and on the weirder noisier side of the GBV spectrum, but manages to remain strangely catchy, and so it goes.
It would be easy to go track by track, there's so much going on, strings, and synths, organs, hooks galore, killer turns of phrase, goofy genius lyrics, lush arrangements, raw lo-fi blowouts, delicate sun dappled dream pop, what the fuck drug addled sonic experimentation and pretty much every twisted, catchy as hell stop in between, all woven into an impossibly cohesive, and yeah, dare we sat it, classic Guided By Voices record.
MPEG Stream: "The Unsinkable Fats Domino"
MPEG Stream: "Laundry And Lasers"
MPEG Stream: "Doughnut For A Snowman"
MPEG Stream: "Spiderfighter"

GUIDED BY VOICES Let's Go Eat The Factory (Guided By Voices Inc.) lp 15.98
A new Guided By Voices? With the 'classic' line up? Holy Shit! If you're anything like us you hold near and dear those classic GBV records even now, Bee Thousand, Vampire On Titus, Alien Lanes, and even though it's been nearly 15 years since this line up made a record together, and 8 years since GBV was a going concern, you might be forgiven for not even realizing that Guided By Voices had in fact broken up. Other than that initial announcement, and a cessation in the seemingly continuous flow of Guided By Voices releases, GBV mastermind Robert Pollard never really stopped making music, or even slowed down really, releasing a bajillion solo records, and countless collaborations. That's not to mention that Guided By Voices have been on a year long reunion tour, but fuck it, who cares about all that. The real question is after all this time, what's this new record like. And is it any good? Or is it GREAT?
Well, if you've heard the first single "The Unsinkable Fats Domino", you should have a pretty good idea, and our first impression was that this new record really IS a lot like those old classics, sonically, production wise (with much of the record recorded in living rooms and garages), the sound and songs super varied, almost schizophrenically so, but in that distinctly GBV way, where they all somehow sound like they do in fact belong together. The single kills, which is obviously why it was chosen, and while at first blush, nothing else on the record even comes close, a few more listens in, and we're suddenly hearing more and more potential hits. And with every listen, we're digging it more and more. Opener "Laundry And Lasers" starts out with some pulsing lo-fi guitar churn, before the song launches into some fuzzy classic distorto jangle, with Pollard sounding better than ever, the main hook totally irresistible, the song muddy and murky but joyously catchy. "The Head" is one of those fragmented sonic trifles GBV were the masters of, creating tiny snippets, that could have been stretched out into full on proper pop songs, but somehow have so much more power in their truncated form, not to mention the weird organ buzz that's twice as loud as the rest of the band. "Doughnut For A Snowman" starts off with some warbly flute flutter, before suddenly becoming surprisingly hi-fi, and becoming something akin to classic GBV. "Spiderfighter" is buzzy and fuzzy, and on the weirder noisier side of the GBV spectrum, but manages to remain strangely catchy, and so it goes.
It would be easy to go track by track, there's so much going on, strings, and synths, organs, hooks galore, killer turns of phrase, goofy genius lyrics, lush arrangements, raw lo-fi blowouts, delicate sun dappled dream pop, what the fuck drug addled sonic experimentation and pretty much every twisted, catchy as hell stop in between, all woven into an impossibly cohesive, and yeah, dare we sat it, classic Guided By Voices record.
MPEG Stream: "The Unsinkable Fats Domino"
MPEG Stream: "Laundry And Lasers"
MPEG Stream: "Doughnut For A Snowman"
MPEG Stream: "Spiderfighter"

HAPPY END s/t (Erebus Records) cd 17.98
As much as we love the Japanese '70s rock band Happy End, we've never been able to list any of their releases before as they have always existed only as ridiculously priced imports. Luckily Erebus has reissued this one at a regular price and we're so excited that folks who have never gotten to hear Happy End before will finally get a chance to dig their enduring sounds.Ê
While most of the '70s Japanese sounds we rave about is typically more on the extreme psychedelic and noisy side of the sonic spectrum, Happy End were much more about a breezy, hazy and salt of the earth sound. Happy End were born from the ashes of Apryl Fool byÊTakashi Matsumoto and Haruomi Hasano, who of course would go on to help form Yellow Magic Orchestra. While they were exploring sounds that folks like Neil Young (CSNY), were making at the same time the really cool thing about Happy End was that unlike most of the other Japanese rock bands of the late '60s/early '70s they didn't do any cover songs or sing in English for more widespread attention. You can hear just how organic their intentions were, as these are songs that totally have their own unique approach to wind in your hair, sun soaked psych-pop. We love their whole catalog so we hope other records get reissued, but for sure grab this one to start.
MPEG Stream: "Haruyo Koi (Come, Spring!)"
MPEG Stream: "Ayakashi No DØbutsuen (Ayaka City Zoo)"
MPEG Stream: "Ira Ira (Nervousness)"

HEAVENLY BEAT Suday / Desire (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98
A new 7"s from this Beach Fossils offshoot, and while HB traffic in that same sort of soft focus dreamy pop sound, the arrangement is much more spare and skeletal, infused with a wee bit of rhythmic skitter, a little new wave shimmer. On the A side, "Suday", that shift is almost imperceptible, it could very well be a Beach Fossils track proper, all spidery reverby guitar lines, swirling ethereal background vocals, the result sweetly melancholy and totally dream poppy. The B side, though, starts off similarly with a sort of hushed breathless retro pop (reminding us quite a bit of the Style Council in fact), but at the end of the track introduces a propulsive electronic beat, that definitely changes the vibe, and hints at something a bit more gothy and dramatic. Fans of all that retro gloom pop and new wave will dig big time. As well as folks who like their pop on the twee side...

JE Un Royaume De Nuit (Arx Productions) cd 13.98
One of two new releases on this week's list from Ukrainian metal label Arx Productions, strangely both of them French, and even more strangely, both of them part of that new breed of 'post' black metal. But where the other, Smohalla, is a much weirder twisted psychedelic proposition, the sounds here are more in keeping with the sort of post rocky jangle of groups like Amesoeurs and Alcest, but there's plenty of weirdness going on with this too, especially in the arrangements. Take opener "Chute De L'Etre", which plays out all sweetly sorrowful minor key jangle, spidery melodies and meandering drumming, with some soft crescendos, a little bit Mogwai, a little Godspeed, but when the metal finally kicks in, it's not a subtle slow build, thick chugging guitars just explode, surrounded by a second guitar wrapping everything in psychedelic leads, the sound dizzying and heavy, more classic metal than black metal, but with such a twisted production, it's pretty awesome, and strange. And much of the record plays out similarly, with Je fusing hushed delicate jangle with bursts of chugging crunchy classic metal riffage, often the two combining for some super heavy melodic metal that should definitely hit the spot for fans of the above mentioned post black metal outfits. The vocals are more a sort of black metal screech / noise rock yowl hybrid, but they don't really play that big a part, the band instead weaving gorgeous brooding expanses of post rock, with distorted metal crunch, and in fact, the second half of the record definitely leans way more in the metal direction, with even a few blast beats popping up here and there, but even at it's most metal, the sound is still poppy and melodic, and will definitely leave grim true metalheads wanting, but for the rest of us, who like our black buzz with some fuzzy shoegazey melody, this will definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Chute De L'Etre"
MPEG Stream: "Legendes Urbaines"

KAHN, JASON On Metal Shores (Editions) lp 24.00
As we've mentioned before, American ex-pat and former hardcore drummer Jason Kahn made a radical shift away from the SST punk style jams he was kicking out during the '80s toward an avant-drone-noise-improv type of career that has taken him to Zurich, Switzerland. Yeah, it is a career for him, but the price one has to pay for having a sound-art career is a constant tour / exhibition schedule. Rock'n'roll may have its fortune seekers, but a steady paycheck through sound-art? Not very likely. Yet, Kahn has done it; and done it by producing work that is incredibly refined through his own take on electro-acoustic strategies, modular synth exploration, holy minimalist composition, and an occasional percussion flourish in ghostly deference to his former life as the drummer for Leaving Trains. With all of the touring and exhibitions (seriously, his schedule is fucking insane!), solo releases from Jason Kahn can be fleeting (although he's very prolific with his collaborative contributions). So, this new production from Kahn is something that could be celebrated simply because the man somehow found the time to get this out in the world; but that would be selling it short... as On Metal Shores is a brilliant piece of shimmering, gasping minimalism that glides out of acoustically-sourced drone reminiscent of Andrew Chalk and Organum, the metallurgically organic swells of Alan Lamb's wire recordings, and the graceful minimalism of Eliane Radigue and Roland Kayn. Kahn writes at great length in the liner notes about some of the situations for the source recordings, including the nice image of Jason Kahn tapping on a resonant hand-railing near Lake Zurich as local birds would congregate and take off depending on the volume of Kahn's rhythm-n-drone. These elements along with long-thin-wire instruments attached to transducers, the thrum of giant water tanks, drainage pipe raspings, and much more get worked into Kahn's shifting drones that accrete into swollen crescendos of complex shimmered noise and harmonic interplay. This stunner of an album is limited to 250 copies, hand numbered, and hand-painted.

LEGO FEET s/t (Skam) cd 15.98
Skam Records 001. Lego Feet. In the realm of electronica, this is a recording that few have heard, yet many have dug through crates seeking (and never finding). Back in 1991, Sean Booth and Rob Brown, the duo later to be known as Autechre, released the Lego Feet 12" on their own Skam Records imprint, predating their first Autechre single "Cavity Job" released later that same year. In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of that ridiculously rare single, Booth & Brown have revisited the single, extending what was about 25 minutes of music into four massive suites clocking in at a full 70 minutes, which appear to be conveniently broken into possible side-long passages suitable for vinyl. Where the extra material came from is not really clear, perhaps these are the longer tracks that became so many of the extracted snippets that made their way onto the single, perhaps they are unreleased trax from back in the day. What's very clear is that this is definitely of the era, as a new form of electronica morphing through the nascent rave-culture in England at the time with a keen eye on acid house in Chicago, cybernetic techno on the Detroit / Berlin axis, and the hip hop beats from both American coasts.
For the decade of the '90s, rhythms were crucial to Autechre's sound, becoming all the more slithering, contorted, and algorithmically complex before the two ultimately jettisoned a fundamental rhythm for their more cerebral work in the next decade. Booth & Brown's breakbeats (as they were almost always breakbeats) were always some of the most interesting of the IDM producers, fragmenting alongside weird machine-dreamt ambient melodies and shape-shifting polydactyl sequencing. On Lego Feet, the two laid the rhythmic foundation for much of what would come; and fuck, they were onto something really incredible.
The first cut sports a number of classic breakbeats that would have fit in with the Gescom singles (Gescom being another Autechre side-project focusing more on dismembered hip-hop beats and breaks), with plenty of great percolating electronic blorp, tone-glide ambience, and melody throughout. Track two opens with a frenzied acid-techno number with wildly squiggling sequences jitteringly starting and stopping along a hi-hat riddled 808 techno 4/4 rhythm, but this slides into a breakbeat track with the metallic snares that became a signature for Autechre on their groundbreaking debut Incunabula. Elements of track three take their cues from Juan Atkins' classic Model 500 project with whip-crack snares amidst darkly churning electronics and caustic breakbeats. Track four glides through the acid trax with some sublime melodies upon the ride-cymbal emulating drum machinations. So, damn good.
MPEG Stream: "Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Part 3"
MPEG Stream: "Part 4"

LES GOTHS Reve De Silence (Shadoks Music) cd 17.98
We have to say, that lots of the time, when a band is touted as being some lost heavy psych or proto-metal classic, it often eventually turns out to sound sonically more like blues rock or bar rock, with merely HINTS of that psychedelic heaviness that lured us in, in the first place. Such is most definitely NOT the case with obscure French psychedelic rockers Les Goths, who within one track, establish themselves as a serious sonic juggernaut, obviously beholden to Hendrix and Cream and Blue Cheer, and yeah, with hints of sixties blues rock, but with a tendency for wild super distorted guitar playing and wicked bombastic drumming and dramatic vox, not to mention a raw, in-the-red production which only enhances the band's fierce sound. Some of us were definitely reminded of sixties Swedish psych trio Baby Grandmothers, and anyone who bought their now out of print reissue on Subliminal Sounds (and that was a whole lot of you!) is for sure gonna want this. Check out the first song and see if you're not totally sold, a four minute non-stop blast of buzz drenched riffage and effects soaked garage psych pound, the guitars thick and distorted, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vox too, everything reverbed and echoey and a little blown out, some wild psychedelic leads, a total lost classic garage psych classic for sure. We've probably listened to this track a hundred times since we first got this in, it's the sort of track that would steal the show on any vintage psych comp, in fact it's the sort of track that would inspire someone to CREATE an obscure psych comp. The song gets more and more distorted and druggy as it goes, we dare say worth the price of admission alone. But once you get over being obsessed with that track (if you ever do), there's lots more here to dig into.
Tracks like "I Remember" are bluesy groovers, displaying the band's love of groups like the Animals, but even here, the sound is a little twisted, the arrangements a bit off kilter, with a little bit of that girl group vibe, cool soaring harmony vocals, with some super intense about-to-crack lead vox, all hazy and dreamy, and then the band slip right back into something a bit heavier and more propulsive like "Out Of The Sun" with its low slung bass groove, wild tangled guitars and chaotic super busy drumming, the whole thing sort of sun baked and druggy, with some cool churning chuggy riffage surfacing throughout.
The rest of the record offers up more of the same, long stretches of brooding bluesiness, groovy psychedelic shuffles, and pounding garage-y stomps, in equal measure, always with some killer guitar work and easily some of the best drumming we've heard, which had us wishing there was a way to nominate Les Goths drummer Bruno Frascone as should have/could have been drum legend. Consider him so nominated! One of our favorite new garage / psych reissues for sure!
Like with all Shadoks releases, plenty of rare photos, lyrics and liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "Turn Over"
MPEG Stream: "I Remember"
MPEG Stream: "Out Of The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "Le Jour Etait Gris"

M AX NOI MACH In The Shadows (White Denim) lp 13.98
We had never heard of the oddly monikered M Ax Noi Mach, aka Philly noisemaker Rob Francisco, but it was brought to our attention that if we were digging Finnish power electronic hypnodirge weirdos Will Over Matter, we really oughta check out this guy, and holy cow, while it's definitely not the same thing, it definitely pushes a lot of the same buttons, total lo-fi beat heavy post industrial noiserock club music for sure, the sort of shit noiseheads would be blasting if they had any sort of booming system. Just check out opener "Creeper", with its brittle crunked out beats, super distorted tweeter punishing clipped hiss, the howled feral vox, a total gristly groove that kills. Think Will Over Matter collaborating with Wolf Eyes on some sort of alternative universe club banger, and you wouldn't even be close.
The second track sounds like some sort of cold wave DHR mash up, stuttering trashcan beats, the warbly bass groove, peppered with a killer skipping skittering high end break that DESTROYS.
There's definitely some serious Throbbing Gristle worship going on, but via Philly club music, and there's some glitchy post Whitehouse chaotic crunch, like "Devil City" which definitely sounds a lot like Will Over Matter, a thick grinding murk pulsing away, and peppered with caustic blasts of white noise drenched feedback/vocal freakouts, a thick ugly groover that would be a guaranteed dancefloor clearer. Then there are tracks like "Fetico", which finds much of the high end peeled back, the skree blunted, the rhythms muted and murky, multiple vocals laid atop one another, whispers, spoken, slooooowed doooooown gurgle, a dizzying tangle over that loping stuttersludge loop, the follow up, "Hallowed Eyes" is equally stripped down, a fuzzy pulsating low end throbs beneath some clipped house-y skitter, about as groovy and anything on the record gets, the melodic element supplied by what sounds like amp buzz, and a switch being flipped on and off again, it's like some sort of Dead C electro, which is fine by us, we could listen to shit like this endlessly, and at 6 minutes it ends WAY too soon.
The rest of the record cranks it back up again, a barrage of lo-fi DHR pound, gouts of growled angry bellowed vox, sheets of Metal Machine Music chopped and screwed into hiccuping expanses of grind and gristle, clouds of angry crunch and dense swirling hiss wrapped around robotic drum pound and muddy mechanical grooves, everything filthy and crusty and blown the fuck out, a glorious chunk of rhythmic electronic punishment that we can't seem to stop listening to.
LIMITED TO 406 COPIES. Housed in swank printed cardstock jackets.
MPEG Stream: "Creeper"
MPEG Stream: "Charelenni's Father"
MPEG Stream: "Devil City"

MAGIC LEAVES Spiritual Pornography (Curly Cassettes) cassette 8.98
Holy shit! The year is just starting but this record (um, cassette) by Magic Leaves is going to find itself on some of our year end best of lists in 11 months or so for sure, as this is totally blowing us away. We had heard some cd-r's by this Bay Area group in the past, but nothing prepared us for the psychedelic wonderland they have created here.
Their music really does fit their name so perfect as it sounds like glimmering sunlight bouncing through the leaves of some crooked old tree in some mysterious magical forest. Expansive and so creative, they take several twists and turns on these eight songs, tapping into everything from Dead Meadow, Ariel Pink, Led Zeppelin, The Fresh & Onlys, Ducktails, Moon Duo,ÊCaetano Veloso, and The Meat Puppets. From tropical vibrations, to darker stoner riffs, to blissed out explorations, every track on here has taken us to somewhere we are so happy to be. So fucking good!
MPEG Stream: "Petrified Charlie"
MPEG Stream: "Awgwas"
MPEG Stream: "Rebounds In Time"

MAGNETIC FIELDS Holiday (Merge) lp 17.98
One of our all time favorite Magnetic Fields albums finally reissued on vinyl! Holiday was first released in 1993, and marked a big shift for Stephen Merritt as it was the album on which his idiosyncratic voice began to take center stage. While his earlier outings always had his female muses singing lead, Holiday was the moment that voice of his became the prominent focal point of the band. It was also the record where his songwriting skills started to reach the next level of being so crazy good. As we go back and listen to this again we are struck by the thought that just about every one of these songs made it on a mix-tape that we made at some point in the '90s. "Strange Powers", "Desert Island", "Take Ecstasy With Me", "All You Ever Do Is Walk Away", "The Trouble I've Been Looking For", it goes on and on. Most bands wish they could have that many standout tracks throughout their career, let alone on a single album. We could go on and on, as this really does represent our favorite era of the Magnetic Fields. This is pop perfection!
MPEG Stream: "Deep Sea Diving Suit"
MPEG Stream: "Torn Green Velvet Eyes"

MARKIS SAGE Paper Boat (Losonofono) cassette 8.98
Yo, skweee fans!!! Skweee alert!!!
We're always happy to have something new to share with you from the realm of this wonderful Scandinavian-originated electronic micro-genre. This time, from the same label that last brought us Daniel Savio's Nekropolis lp, here's a limited edition cassette tape from the duo of skweee big shots Rigas Den Andre and Mesak (also an ex-member of Mr. Velcro Fastener)! Collaborating together, they're calling themselves Markis Sage (?), and making skweee with a "Boogie Disco" infusion... This, their first full-length effort, consists of seven new cuts as well as alternate versions of three tracks that previously surfaced on singles and comps.
As any skweee fancier might expect, this is hip hopped lo-fi glitchfunk, full of choppy electro zip-blip and '80s style synth wobble. The tempos are probably too slowed down (or the rhythms too jittery!) for the dancefloor, but great for groovin' in the car or at your crib. And while it's almost all-instrumental, like most skweee, the cover and some track titles suggests a comic book horror theme ("Creature Of Lagoon"), but one with paper boats, blimps, and other oddities of their skweeed-up imagination.
Ok, now pay attention, here's some special info pertinent to his release/format, you'll wanna know: this cassette is strictly limited to 100 hand-numbered copies, and comes with a download code, as well as a coupon that will allow you to get the album on vinyl direct from the label for only $5 (+shipping), WHEN and IF the vinyl version comes out. Basically, they're only gonna do an lp of this if they sell all the tapes first. Which, we can't imagine they won't.
MPEG Stream: "Creature Of Lagoon"
MPEG Stream: "Ranking Officer"

MONSTER MAGNET Dopes (Studio 13) 10" 8.98
We posted this on the New Arrivals list a couple times sans review, just so the MM fanatics and various other folks who didn't necessarily need a review to know this was something they needed, but promised then that we would offer a more comprehensive review of this, a brand new 10" (the second in a series) from our favorite Space Lord Motherfuckers, the mighty Monster Magnet, who whipped up these jams to sell on their recently wrapped up Dopes To Infinity 2011 tour, which as the name suggests, found the band revisiting their classic album of the same name from 1995, which is what this 10" is all about, three tracks from Dopes To Infinity, "King Of Mars", "All Friends and Kingdom Come", and the title track, all reimagined, reworked and according to the band, "Lo-fi, decidedly deranged and extremely psychedelic", which definitely describes these doped up, blissed out, cosmic stoner rock space-psych blowouts.
"All Friends" is definitely more lo-fi than the original, transformed into more of a spaced out creep, with lots of extra effects, but it's not until "King Of Mars", that the reimagining becomes more dramatic, the sound even trippier than the original, ominous and satanically sinister, total drug rock ear candy for sure, and then "Dopes To Infinity", which was already pretty much perfect as it was way back in 1995, is just somehow made MORE perfect, or maybe -differently- perfect, it's tough to even listen objectively, cuz once that instantly familiar riff came in we were GONE, totally transported to some hedonistic offworld drug den, where MM are the house band, black lights and alien babes and amps from here to high heaven. Fucking awesome! Of course.
And as we've mentioned in other MM reviews, it's a satanic drug thing, you wouldn't... well, wait a second... since you're reading the aQ list, you probably DO understand. So grab one of these before they're gone (we're one of the only places this is available)...

MORE Blood And Thunder (Rock Candy) cd 14.98
Hard rock and metal reissue label Rock Candy is one we always keep our eye on... While a lot of the stuff they reissue is of perhaps marginal interest to most AQ shoppers we'd imagine, often being on the obscure AOR, pomp rock, and hair metal side of things (although a lot of that has found its way into Andee and Allan's personal collections, ahem), once in a while they bring us something truly killer that we know our discerning, headbanging customers will be into. Like, for instance, the '70s albums from jammin' Japanese metal pioneers Bow Wow that we've reviewed recently.
Well, here's a new reish from Rock Candy that we deemed worthy of review here too. NWOBHM act More (as in, "more! more!" we'd assume, thereby making it even easier for 'em to come out for an encore when fans at the show are chanting their name) is a semi-forgotten fave, one of the few of the NWOBHM hordes to gain major label backing (they were on Atlantic) but still only chalking up two albums in their career, both of which benefit from that major-label production budget. This one, from 1982, is their second and best. (Though their '81 debut, Warhead, is good too, and has also been reissued by Rock Candy, we'll review it too eventually).
One listen to opening track "Killer On The Prowl" pretty much oughtta convince you, it's old school metallic badassery that simultaneously evokes classic acts like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and early Iron Maiden. (By the way, what is it with the idea of "prowling" that is so totally metal?) And the rest of the disc pretty much keeps it up at that level, totally rollicking n' ripping, both melodic and energetic, with an aggressive street-level vibe that at times even reminds us of early Metallica (by way of Budgie). They also successfully venture into more atmospheric, epic territory on the likes of album-ender "Nightmare", and make a cursory attempt at radio-ready rockin' with the Zeppish "Rock And Roll".
Replacing More's original vocalist Paul Mario Day, one Mick Stratton takes a star turn at the mic, his vox at the edge and over (the top), capable of both a triumphant soar, and fists-clenched snarl, that kinda reminds us of the great Ian Gillan circa his stint with Black Sabbath on Born Again, and that's a damn good thing. Not to be outdone, More's six stringer Kenny "Mad Axeman" Cox kicks ass as well, supplying the heavy riffs and guitar heroics left, right, and center. He also gets pictured on the cover - not sure what they were thinking there, was he really the best looking guy in the band? Although possibly the most beefy and bearded and biker-y, it would seem. But who cares what he looks like, his guitar tone is what it's all about... However, as you can see, Rock Candy decided to provide this with a new cover featuring the More logo on a blood-splattered background, though the original Cox cover is still to be found inside the booklet.
Quality, solid stuff, and we're saying that as people who collect a lot of obscure metal from the era - this one stands out. If this hadn't been their last album and they'd stuck around, they might be better known now, like say Saxon or Raven, to name a couple of their comparable NWOBHM contemporaries... But despite having had their chance on a big label, More didn't "make it" for reasons expounded upon in the detailed liner notes found in the cd booklet (which is packed with photos too, this whole reissue being quite nicely done, as per the usual with Rock Candy's releases).
MPEG Stream: "Killer On The Prowl"
MPEG Stream: "Blood And Thunder"
MPEG Stream: "I Just Can't Believe It"

NO COPPER / TROPICAL TRASH split (self-released) cassette 5.00
Latest releases from blackened soundscaper Thaniel Ion Lee, who we first heard in his guise as Blood Escutcheon, who split a tape with black metal weirdos Cloak Of Displacement, and then released a cd-r (both sadly out of print). He then released a cool boxed cd-r called White (which we just got back in and you'll find listed elsewhere on this week's list), and is back again, now in a duo called No Copper, whose sounds is less droned out and blackened than Blood Escutcheon or his solo record, and more abstract, ritualistic soundscaping, inhabiting a soundworld more along the lines of say No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man or Avarus, long buzzing tones, pounding abstract drums, scrapes and creaks, lush layered drones, raw and lo-fi, minimal, but gorgeously thick and washed out, caustic in places, noisy in others, but all blurred and smeared into a dark landscape of echo drenched reverberations, melodic fragments, rhythmic experiments and black ambient shimmer, all flecked with bits of folky flutter and strange abstract sonic filigree. Fans of Lee's other projects will definitely dig.
The flipside is occupied by an outfit called Tropical Trash, who may or may not also be called the Coconut Crimewave Big Band, but who prove themselves worthy foils for No Copper, with a sound that pushed even further into avant rock territory, a sort of free jazz / avant noise, heavy rhythmic, twisted electronic freakout heavy rock crush (!), the group fusing pounding drums to clouds of swirling glitched out swoops and swirls, before launching into some seriously blown out heaviness, thick churning riffage, pounding drums, all peppered with some bleeping electronics, and a sheen of hazy buzzy soft focus noise, a killer slab of classic electronic flecked noise rock, that definitely has us wanting to hear more! The band soon return to scrabbling and abstract skitter, the rock crush ditched in favor of some experimental abstraction, which is bombarded over the course of the rest of their side with some seriously fierce drum damage,
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Housed in cool hand screened origami style cardstock boxes, each one hand numbered, with a printed insert.

OSKOREIEN s/t (Pest Productions) cd 9.98
We were first turned on to this, the debut full length from one man black metal band Oskoreien, by another one man black metal band, Botanist, who was quick to proclaim this his new favorite black metal record. The awesome metal blog Invisible Oranges also included this in their year end picks, and once you hear it you'll immediately understand why. It literally took us maybe 90 seconds of the opening track to be just as smitten as everybody else. The cover is definitely misleading, an image of a figure, walking through a sun dappled glade, and no, not a dark forest, a gorgeous warm, verdant landscape, which had us imaging this to be some sort of shoegazey blackened post metal pop, a la Amesoeurs or Alcest. And while there are definitely some shoegazey elements, the sound of Oskoreien is much more black and buzzy, the sound thick, and distorted and blown out, but warm and layered and lush, super melodic too, but without losing any of its power or its black energy.
Opener "Illusions Perish" begins with the sounds of crickets, and footsteps, beneath soaring keening minor key guitars, hazy and darkly lovely, we would have been way into this if it had gone on like that for ages, but a little burst of feedback signals the launch of the song proper, an avalanche of blasting drums, and crumbling super distorted riffage, howled vox, and soaring melancholic melodies, we can imagine people lumping Oskoreien in with Wolves In The Throne Room, which to a certain degree would be somewhat appropriate, but the sound of Oskoreien is something much more raw and melodic, dense and darkly melancholic, with some amazing not traditionally black metal guitar parts - whether it's dark atonal tangles, or soaring almost choral sounding high end, the song slipping from dirge-y lumber to transcendental slow build epic and back again, the sound laced with psychedelic shimmer, and a vibe that to these ears owes more to post rock than black metal. The vocals too, odd even by experimental black metal standards, slipping easily from a more traditional raspy demonic howl to a deep throaty dramatic croon, that comes super close to a slightly less over the top Urfaust, which is most definitely a very good thing.
The record is super varied too, slipping easily from furious blast, to moody meander, the sound too drifting effortlessly from dense, black and brutal, to hushed and shimmery, peppered with gorgeous stretches of near Appalachian sounding clean guitars, as well as soaring streaks of softly psychedelic buzz, often the two combined to great effect, and for all the buzzing blackness and soaring epic heaviness, much of the record is in fact spent much more sonically contemplative, whether it's the dark forest folk of "Rivers Of Eternity", or the gorgeous solo piano coda that is "Ashen Remains", elements of both showing up within the more metal tracks throughout the record, Oskoreien is a master of mood, infusing the sprawling expanses of majestic metallic fury with a mournfully moody undercurrent, while transforming the more abstract movements into something much more ominous, and fusing the two into a single epic, ultra personal blackened songsuite, that is fast becoming one of our favorites too!
MPEG Stream: "Illusions Perish"
MPEG Stream: "Entropic Collapse"
MPEG Stream: "Transcendence"

PINHAS, RICHARD & MERZBOW Rhizome (Cuneiform) 2cd 15.98
Thee prolific master of Japanese noise, Merzbow, once again teams up with French '70s synth-prog veteran, guitarist Richard Pinhas of AQ faves Heldon. Their first collaboration, the double disc Keio Line from 2008, was quite a success, Merzbow's electronic noise tempered into more of a sci-fi synth enhancement to Pinhas's glorious pulsating psychedelic guitar drone. The two made such beautiful music together, that they continued the collaboration on another double disc, with Wolf Eyes (!) joining in as well. Now, here Merzbow and Pinhas are again, with a cd -and- dvd package, documenting a live duo performance (Merzbow: laptop(s), Pinhas: guitar and "loop system") at the Sonic Circuits Festival in our nation's capital, September 2010. The five tracks on the hour-long cd ebb and flow with shimmering glitch and stutter, it's a fuzzy warm bath of distortion/drone that's loudly blissful, and on occasion even melodic! Meanwhile, the dvd disc features video excerpts from the same performance, so you can see just what these two are up to on stage.
Lovely stuff, for fans of Pinhas in particular, and the not-so-harsh side of Merzbow.... As one reviewer has said, they're like an updated version of Fripp & Eno, and that's not far off the mark.
MPEG Stream: "Rhizome 1 - 010011010011011"
RealAudio clip: "Rhizome 2 - 100101000111010"

SAVAGE DAMAGE DIGEST Issue 2, January 2012 magazine + button 5.50
Whoo-hoo! SDD #2!! Well, in "zine time" getting 2 issues done in as many years isn't that bad. At least, at last, it's here: the 2nd issue of Savage Damage Digest, a 'zine that with but one issue became one of our faves in the realm of enthusiastic dead-tree rock n' roll writin'. As good as the first issue was, this one's maybe even better, it's got great stuff about a wide variety of long-lost legends... '60s UK popsyke geniuses July, '60 NZ garage gods Chants R&B, '70s pub rockers Ducks Deluxe, and more... The cover story, especially interesting for those of us located in the Bay Area, is about '70s San Francisco proto-punks La Rue. No, never heard 'em, but boy do we want to now.
What we love about SDD is that it's the sort of thing that really puts the FAN in fanzine. We mean, they even devote two pages to some non-musical fandom - about the special San Francisco ice cream sandwich known as an It's It! And, most amazingly, there's pages and pages about guitarist Ross The Boss and his various bands over the years: The Dictators, Shakin' Street, Manitoba's Wild Kingdom, and... Manowar!! The Manowar stuff, especially, makes this issue required reading. We just tend to think that a lot of "typical" SDD readers and AQ customers might not already be Manowar fans, but this is the sort of thing that just might covert 'em (you?).
And, this issue comes with a free button, bearing the Vertigo records label swirl design! With accompanying label appreciation essay for anyone not already aware of just how cool UK '70s prog imprint Vertigo was.
Hopefully it won't be another 2 years before issue 3 of Savage Damage Digest comes out, though we won't be holding our breath. But we will be looking forward to it. And, let's say, the highest form of praise we can give a 'zine like SDD is that it makes us want to get to work on our own 'zines, like some of us used to do back in the day.

SHE'S, THE Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer (self-released) cd 9.98
We'd been hearing about this new San Francisco band The She's for a while now, friends who have seen them live have been totally raving to us about 'em. We can see why now, as this is full on bright colored, punchy pop bliss!
While we are in the crisp and cold time of winter right now, these songs are bringing us the hope of warmth and sunshine that springtime and summer will surely bring. Such an awesome feeling when the first time you ever hear a band you immediately feel the same way you did when you heard bands that have become all-time favorites. Think of some awesome version of Best Coast stripping away the lo-fi vibes and going on a road trip in a red convertible with the first Weezer album and The Breeders' Last Splash, and you start to get an idea of what kind of pop perfection The She's have created with this debut.
While lots of other new bands have been great at tapping into a sound or era with their aesthetic, The She's are a refreshing reminder of how great it is to hear a new band that believes in SONGS. Pretty much every song on here is filled with such inciting hooks and melodies. We have a strong feeling that The She's could be the next San Francisco band who could make it kinda big, this is awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Running"
MPEG Stream: "Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer"
MPEG Stream: "Put It All Together"

SLOUGH FEG Made In Poland (Megadisc) cd 14.98
We thought WE were big fans of San Francisco's most (bizarre) metal export, The Lord Weird Slough Feg... turns out there's a record store, Megadisc, in Poland, who are even bigger fans. This past summer they arranged for Slough Feg to fly to Warsaw and perform a show (just them - no opening acts!), to be professionally recorded for posterity, in the form of this "official live cd" from Slough Feg, the first ever release on Megadisc's new record label. Basically, this is a release for equally obsessed fans. You probably already know if you're interested in owning this!
But, if you want some more info... there's 13 tracks here, over 70 minutes of delirious riffery and epic shred. All of Slough Feg's eight studio albums from 1996-2010, with the odd exception of Atavism, are represented, with a song or three. They do "Red Branch" from the self-titled debut, "Highlander" from Twilight Of The Idols, "Sky Chariots", "Warriors Dawn", and "Traders And Gunboats" from Down Among The Deadmen, "High Passage/Low Passage" from Traveller, "Tiger! Tiger!" and "Frankfurt-Hahn Airport Blues" from Hardworlder, "Ape Uprising" and "Shakedown At The Six" from Ape Uprising, and "The 95 Thesis", "Lycanthropic Fantasies", and "Free Market Barbarian" from their most recent record, The Animal Spirits. Great songs, all of 'em. It's a good sampler for those you haven't heard all of Slough Feg's records, and it's cool to hear their earlier stuff done by the current (and, we think, best) lineup. Plus, for their finale, they do a crazed cover of Thin Lizzy's "Sha-la-la", which they had only previously recorded on a split 7" with Bible Of The Devil.
The recording quality is indeed pretty excellent, but the disc sure still sounds "raw", 'cause that's the way the BAND sounds, and oftentimes just a bit sloppy, not that it's easy to play this stuff anyhow. As Slough Feg's mastermind, singer/guitarist Mike Scalzi states in the liner notes, and in fact takes pains to point out, they definitely didn't do any overdubs afterwards - this is a legit live document, not faked or doctored in any way. No flubs fixed, that means. And there are a few, definitely some fleeting fuckups, but most of the time the band is in fine form and certainly full of frenzied energy! Scalzi's vocals vary a bit from "on" to otherwise, as well. But heck, he's playing guitar too, and running around, and apparently operating on very little if any sleep...
And as any fan would expect, his in-between song stage banter is inadvertently (or perhaps advertently?) hilarious, full of typical Scalzi non-sequiturs that probably puzzled the polite yet enthusiastic Polish audience. Scalzi sounds a bit bemused and abashed by the strangeness of the situation. "Metal night is no time to be polite."
If you've never seen Slough Feg, this won't exactly substitute, you'd be missing the full Feg experience, for one thing you don't get to see Scalzi's acrobatic antics and how he interacts with the audience (and we get the idea that this particular show wasn't as wild in that regard as some). But, you do get to hear how they, in the tradition of old style '70s bands, like to extend and jam out on some of their songs in concert, for instance the guitar soloing duel the two guitarists get into in the midst of the 12+ minutes of "Warriors Dawn", which definitely gets a bit wacky...
Comes with a huge 28 page cd booklet full of color photos of Slough Feg on stage in Warsaw, and also being tourists about the city, seeing the sights, eating ice cream, shopping at the Megadisc store, etc.
Supposedly also soon to be released on vinyl, but we don't know about that for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Ape Uprising"
MPEG Stream: "Warriors Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Sky Chariots"

SMITH, STEVEN R. Old Skete (Worstward Recordings) lp 14.98
The latest from this aQ beloved guitarist, whose musical resume features many all time favorites that no doubt most long time readers of the aQ list hold near and dear, which besides a clutch of amazing solo records, also includes records by Ulaan Kohl, Thuja, Hala Strana, and more. This new lp was released on Smith's own label, Worstward, and finds the guitarist stripping his sound way down, Old Skete being essentially a solo electric guitar record. Just an amp, a couple pedals and a guitar, all recorded live, no overdubs, no loops, no samples, and the results are as you might imagine quite sublime. The sound spare and intimate, but somehow simultaneously rich and layered and lush, a little bit Appalachia, a little bit avant blues, the playing textural and lyrical, Smith's guitar humming, and buzzing, occasionally almost roaring, but for the most part quite restrained, subtly twangy here and there, lots of overtones and interwoven melodies, some of the parts sound downright Slint-y, with much of the record sounding surprisingly propulsive and post rocky, especially for a somewhat meditative solo guitar record, while elsewhere the record is more haunting and hushed, tending toward the sort of dusty dusky desert twangscapes of Earth and Barn Owl, some with a distinctly Morricone vibe, and you can certainly here hints of Smith's past projects in the melodies and arrangements, but here pulled apart and laid bare, Smith letting chords ring out, tones fade into the ether, a gorgeous display of introspective guitarscaping that manages to be both warm and intimate, cinematic and darkly dreamy, and thus wholeheartedly recommended.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, housed in super heavy two color screen printed Stumptown cardstock jackets, with cool printed woodcut style inserts.

SMOHALLA Resilience (Arx Productions) cd 13.98
This French avant post black metal outfit from France is named for a Native American 'dreamer-prophet', and the word can be loosely translated simple as 'dreamer', which might sound a bit pretentious, at least until you hear this stuff, which really, is barely black metal at all, other than in vibe and mood, lineage and perhaps the occasional bit of buzz, cuz for the most part, the sound of Smohalla is much more abstract and spaced out, swirly and shimmery and dreamlike, hints of post rock and krautrock and a sort of ethereal melancholia, lots of synths and effects, strange spectral vocals, all woven into a sort of gloomy avant pop, the sort of thing that will no doubt have folks into groups like Alcest and Amesoeurs flipping their lids. But Smohalla are even LESS metal than either of those bands. There are some killer riffs, that at first sound like they could explode into some frenzied buzzing, but instead seem to blossom into a weirdly prismatic blackened pop. The record opens with "Quasar", the title hinting at the cosmic / celestial sounds within, simple skeletal drumming, lots of glitch and swirl, echoey piano, and blurred synth smears, thick layered thrum, epic and majestic, strange sampled voices, choral like harmonies, some big distorted drums, with the synths and effects cranked up alongside for a seriously druggy shoegazey final few seconds. Which gives way to the aforementioned almost-black metal riffage, the song intricate and expansive, ghostly and surreal one second, lumbering and dirge-y the next, hints of BM weirdos Virus about, with weird mathiness, and gnarled atonal guitars. The bellowed dramatic vox and soaring synths, wrapped around more metallic riffage, definitely remind us of Borknagar, Solefald and Ved Buens Ende, but this is so much more far out, totally blissed out experimental blackness, but infused with huge heapings of pop, and a what-the-fuck streak a mile wide.
That's not to say the band aren't capable of some serious blackened heaviness, just check out "Oracle Rouge", with one of the best riffs on the record, and loping woozy rhythm, some actual black metal shrieks, not to mention some furious blasting, fans of Peste Noire will dig this off kilter weirdo black metal doom pop weirdness, there's even some skittery programmed drums, some soaring strings, the final bit of the song seriously cinematic. And then it's right back into more creepy black pop mystery and abstract avant gloom dreaminess. There are a few more instances of serious blackness but for the most part, Smohalla continue to unfurl a fantastical black soundscape that has us thinking even a few weeks in, and even though technically this came out last year, we might already have a contender for (sort of) black metal record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Quasar"
MPEG Stream: "Au Sol Les Toges Vides"
MPEG Stream: "Le Repos Du Lezard"

T.I.T.S. The Girls (self-released) lp 14.98
Over the last few years T.I.T.S. have proven to be one of the most exciting groups in the San Francisco music scene. Four woman who bring an immediacy and intensity to their off kilter post-punk jams. Theirs are songs that make you want to dance in such a fucked up way, as you smash and destroy, sweat and bleed and exorcise all the demons from your soul...
For sure taking their cues from the early No Wave scene, their sound so perfect alongside impassioned blasts from the past by folks like The Au Pairs, Liliput, DNA, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Bush Tetras, The Raincoats and The Slits. We also love how they songs feel like such kindred spirits to what Erase Errata were exploring on their final (?) album, Nightlife. We're also reminded of a similar sensation we feel when we listen to The Ex.
While they may be getting much inspiration from the past, nothing feels nostalgic about the sounds on The Girls. In fact every song jumps out with such a present, vibrant energy that they make the listener feel totally connected to that visceral moment in time. What makes T.I.T.S. so fucking great is that they don't just borrow from post punk's past, but instead they actually infuse so much true punk spirit into their songs. Smoking hot!
MPEG Stream: "Rachel"
MPEG Stream: "Lindsay"
MPEG Stream: "Kirsty"

TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS Live At Moderna Museet In Stockholm - 1st & 9th July 1971 (Klimt) 2lp 36.00
This all time aQ psychedelic / drone favorite reissued for the first time on vinyl. One of our favorite groups of all time, whose rare recordings are psych-drone holy grails, we gushed extensively about the (now out of print) cd version ages ago, so for those of you who have somehow yet to discover the transcendental sonic beauty of TMT, or even if you've just been dying for this to come out on vinyl, read onÉ
In the AQ canon of all time essential artists, of groups who have shaped all the music that followed in their wake, somewhere very near the top spot would be Japan's Taj Mahal Travellers. This sprawling seventiesÊpsych drone unit led by Fluxus legend Takehisa Kosugi, were crafting gorgeous abstract drone drenched ambience long before most of the current crop of dronesters were even born.Ê
The Taj Mahal Travellers were masters of the organic, of vibration, texture, timbre, utilizing bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material, this collective created some of theÊmost enduring and unique psychedelic music ever recorded. Their music and performances were the physical embodiment of a philosophy, a way of life more than just simple 'playing music.'Ê
It's hard to imagine the Skaters or Birchville Cat Motel or the Yellow Swans or even Wolf Eyes without the Taj Mahal Travellers. Often referred to by the press as "La Monte Young on acid", in a review of another, unfortunately out of print TMT album, we described their sound as "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas performed on beaches, deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated into the sound. Feedback, time-space lag, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound."Ê
The music of the Taj Mahal Travellers thought is stubbornly indescribable. No words can possibly do justice to the spirits they were able to invoke, the atmosphere they were able to create, dark and dense and mysterious and ominous, but at the same time beautiful and brilliant and epic and spacious.
This double lp features nearly 100 minutes of improvised droning captured live in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, the group run stand-up bass, tuba, trumpet, select percussion, violin, flutes, mandolin, harmonica and synthesizer, not to mention "suntool" and "electronic technique" through primitive tape loops and delay effects for an awesome ritualistic performance, predating the likes of Zoviet France and about a million others by decades!
The live sound is just as amazing as their records, which makes sense since their albums were essentially documents of live aktions.Ê
The first lp is a single nearly hour long low end ritual, strings buzz and reverberate, as do voices, and bits of bowed metals, all beating against each other and creating all manner of cosmic vibrations, all accompanied by simple bells, or a single plucked note repeated over and over. Near the end, the vocals are soaring, and the tones have become long buzzing streaks, with plenty of spacey echo and strange damaged FX, it's hard to hear this and not exactly where Sunburned Hand and No Neck found their inspiration, these guys were creating the same sort of primitive primeval sounds, nearly 4 decades earlier, and with so much depth and emotion. The fact that a music so minimal and abstract can be so utterly moving is testament to the Travellers' unparalleled skill.Ê
The second lp is much less low end rumble, and more a dizzying swirl of strange sonic events, here the horns are in full affect, sounding like a herd of alien elephants, moaning and bleating, the tones stretched out and draped across all manner of lower register rumbles and whirs. Percussion surfacing now and again like an angry rattlesnake roused from a midday nap, or a swirling cloud of tiny buzzing insects. Vocals drift in and out, shamanistic and chant like, moaning out strange melodies, mostly low and throaty but sometimes like curious feline mewling, all intertwined with the various other drawn out sounds. An incredibly intense organic ritual, purified by its intransitive nature, the improvisation guaranteeing that each performance belonged to the time and the place as much as the players. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking. Absolutely essential, and like pretty much ALL Taj Mahal Travellers records, probably more recommended than nearly any other record we've ever reviewed! REALLY!
MPEG Stream: "Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 2)"

V/A Drone-Mind / Mind-Drone Vol. 1 (Drone Records) lp 21.00
Drone Records is dead! Long live Drone Records! After the release of their 100th single (by the impeccable Japanese minimalist Spiracle), Drone Records will no longer be releasing 7" singles; instead, they have decided on a new format of presenting extracts from the wide range of drone-based compositions, by way of an LP with four artists each presenting about the same amount of material as could be held on a 7". As was the case for the singles, this platform makes for a great introduction to artists who we had otherwise been unaware of. Volume 1 features the Spanish sound artist Ubeboet, the Finnish occult practitioners Halo Manash, Erik Jarl in a more contemplative mood than his power electronics in IRM, and the Swiss mesmerist B-Tong.
Ubeboet's two tracks focus on orchestral source material, elongated and extended into an impressionist ambience dappled with violin trills, dilated drones of monastic chanting, and plenty of reverberant haze to go around, very much sounding like those beautiful Mirror records from about 10 years ago (e.g. Front Row Centre, Nights, etc.). Halo Manash takes up various gongs, temple bells, and Tibetan horns to the ritualist end of dark ambient incantation, recalling Coil's early masterpiece How To Destroy Angels and Lustmord's Heresy. Jarl's scabrous drones and ominous screeches were all sourced from a zither, although much of what he conjures is of noxious tonal harmonics and dissonant textures. In B-Tong's timestretched vocal drones and heavily processed echoings of water texture, we are reminded of the Hafler Trio's swarmed accumulation of voice gliding into the surrealist aqueousness of irr. app. (ext.).
Limited to 500 copies!

VAN HOEN, MARK The Revenant Diary (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
Recording as Locust back in the late '90s, Mark Van Hoen produced a signature post-IDM electronica that was sublime in mood but was fraught with overly complicated rhythms and portentous song cycles that weighed far too heavily on what might have developed into something on par with Biosphere or Bowery Electric. As a result, much of his output is immediately attractive but has failed to rise above the overwrought production he endlessly piled on to his sounds.
Fortunately, recently Van Hoen came upon an experimental tape piece he made at the precocious age of 13, when he was remastering some of his earlier tracks from the '90s. That archival track centered on a mashed-up banal pop song with garbled vocals and backwards recordings of church organs, creating something quite spooky and arresting. Van Hoen took the simplicity of that process to heart (but not the track itself, drat!), recording much of The Revenant Diary on a 4-track, which is pretty much unheard of in this day and age of Ableton. The results find Van Hoen at his absolute best, shorn of those implausible complexities which troubled his earlier recordings, rendering an album that should warrant plenty of comparisons to Demdike Stare as a very well executed piece of hauntological electronica.
The warbly, decaying drones from those 4-track levitate in an uneasy fashion at the beginning of the album, suffocating what was once a vigorous drill-n-bass workout into fizzling skitter amidst the shadow, grain, and hiss of "Garabndl X", leading into the hypnotic "Don't Look Back", whose looping female vocals intoning the track's title, orbit a strutting, dubbed-out, mid-tempo rhythm that wouldn't seem out of place on Tricky's Maxinquaye. "No Distance" glides two streams of reverberant ambience along a computer-mad sequencing as a meeting between Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II and Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal. While all of this may be simple from Van Hoen's perspective, The Revenant Diary is a richly textured album that dynamically jumps from vertiginous ambient passages into throbbing, post-dubstep explorations of rhythm. Let's hope that Van Hoen keeps it this 'simple' for the next record!
MPEG Stream: "I Remember"
MPEG Stream: "Where Were You"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Look Back"

VAN HOEN, MARK The Revenant Diary (Editions Mego) 2lp 30.00
Recording as Locust back in the late '90s, Mark Van Hoen produced a signature post-IDM electronica that was sublime in mood but was fraught with overly complicated rhythms and portentous song cycles that weighed far too heavily on what might have developed into something on par with Biosphere or Bowery Electric. As a result, much of his output is immediately attractive but has failed to rise above the overwrought production he endlessly piled on to his sounds.
Fortunately, recently Van Hoen came upon an experimental tape piece he made at the precocious age of 13, when he was remastering some of his earlier tracks from the '90s. That archival track centered on a mashed-up banal pop song with garbled vocals and backwards recordings of church organs, creating something quite spooky and arresting. Van Hoen took the simplicity of that process to heart (but not the track itself, drat!), recording much of The Revenant Diary on a 4-track, which is pretty much unheard of in this day and age of Ableton. The results find Van Hoen at his absolute best, shorn of those implausible complexities which troubled his earlier recordings, rendering an album that should warrant plenty of comparisons to Demdike Stare as a very well executed piece of hauntological electronica.
The warbly, decaying drones from those 4-track levitate in an uneasy fashion at the beginning of the album, suffocating what was once a vigorous drill-n-bass workout into fizzling skitter amidst the shadow, grain, and hiss of "Garabndl X", leading into the hypnotic "Don't Look Back", whose looping female vocals intoning the track's title, orbit a strutting, dubbed-out, mid-tempo rhythm that wouldn't seem out of place on Tricky's Maxinquaye. "No Distance" glides two streams of reverberant ambience along a computer-mad sequencing as a meeting between Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II and Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal. While all of this may be simple from Van Hoen's perspective, The Revenant Diary is a richly textured album that dynamically jumps from vertiginous ambient passages into throbbing, post-dubstep explorations of rhythm. Let's hope that Van Hoen keeps it this 'simple' for the next record!
MPEG Stream: "I Remember"
MPEG Stream: "Where Were You"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Look Back"

VEKTOR Outer Isolation (Heavy Artillery) cd 14.98
Six words: Insane Technical Sci-Fi Thrash Metal Mastery. (Or is that seven?) Two more: Dizzying Genius. Another two: Buy This!
We were terribly remiss in not ever reviewing this band's previous album and first proper full-length, Black Future, 'cause it was one of the very best metal releases of 2009. Unfortunately, we discovered it a bit after the fact. But we are gonna try to make up for that by heralding the release of this Arizona based band's new one, Outer Isolation, also mindbogglingly awesome. Though it's hard to review, 'cause listening to it we're either stupefied by the mental strafing we receive via their hyperspeed metallic acrobatics, or possessed to headbanging mania by their catchy quantum riff logic, neither state conducive to sitting at a keyboard and calmly typing out our thoughts...
Actually, this came out in December - and thus instantly found a spot in Allan's 2011 top ten - but our suppliers miscalculated the demand for this and under-ordered, so were weren't able to get more until now, direct from the label.
What's the deal? The thrash of the past meets dramatic advanced metal math, kinda like a tripped out Absu taken on a futuristic journey into the stark outer reaches of space. The vokills are a crazed dog whistle shriek, or nasty black metal rasp. The guitars rip out utter absurd flight of the bumblebee shred, and sometimes moody moments of lovely, classical melody. Their are many moving parts in Vektor's technically complex song structures.
Unlike a lot of their peers in the still burgeoning "retro-thrash" genre, youngsters Vektor aren't just all about simply being as nostalgically, generically retro-thrash as they can be, instead they're about utilizing their considerable talents to make cool music, following their own alien vision. Sure, they pay some homage to their '80s forebears - their logo looks like it was designed by Away from Voivod - and you could certainly compare 'em to such great '80s proggy tech-thrash acts as Coroner, Watchtower, Obliveon, and yep, Voivod. But, it's more than that, this is its own impressive forward-thinking thing. We highly recommend getting lost in space with Vektor.
FYI, a vinyl version, with different cover art, is forthcoming at some point later this year says the label. Also, you will find the Black Future cd elsewhere on our website, sans review, and it's quite recommended too, obviously. (And If you already have it, then you know what to expect on Outer Isolation!)
MPEG Stream: "Tetrastructural Minds"
MPEG Stream: "Venus Project"
MPEG Stream: "Fast Paced Society"

VOID Sessions 1981-1983 (Dischord) cd 11.98
FUCK YEAH.
The mighty Void, OG hardcore godfathers, legendary outsiders, and one of the most frenzied sounding bands... EVER... finally see their long unreleased material given an official home under the most sensible imprint: Dischord. It's certainly about time, not only because these songs have been known of and bootlegged for ages, but also because the world seems, in the last few years, to be in the midst of something resembling a hardcore "revival", despite the fact that this type of music has never gone away and always flourished in the depths of the underground. Case in point, THIS album. Void, though from Maryland, were part of the storied and uber-influential DC scene of the early '80s, a small but tight knit community of likeminded angry young men (mostly) who would play a prominent role in defining the course of independent music as an identity that carries on to this day. Still, pigeonholing Void as merely a "DC HarDCore" band doesn't do much to inform virgin ears what to brace themselves for. Their sound was darker, noisier, and more extreme than most other bands operating in the early '80s, and these guys, to this day, sound unlike anyone else - they're untouchable - and their legend and rabid fanbase continue to grow and grow. Indeed, the evil sounds of Void will be most thrilling to new listeners while old fans will find plenty of reasons to rejoice upon seeing the Dischord logo on the back of a new archival album from one of the label's most beloved bands.
The material here, a whopping 34 songs, spans the entirety of Void's brief but fruitful (at least in terms of actual recorded output) career, and contains the legendary demo session recorded at Hit and Run Studios in November '81, two sessions done at Inner Ear Studios the following month and in June '82 (the bulk of which, not contained here, ended up as the band's contribution to the monumental Faith/Void split), and a couple of live songs, including what the Ian MacKaye penned liners presume to be the last song the band ever played. All the classics turn up, sometimes more than once - "War Hero", "Condensed Flesh", "Time To Die", "My Rules", and so on. The fidelity here - raw and upfront - is perfectly suited to the mean sounding hurricane of noise Void whips up, while between song banter reveals a band that appears to be having one hell of a good time making their magic. And suffice to say, they still hold their own within the hardcore genre as one of the most unique, original, and crazed bands, even 30 years later.
Along with Dischord's also recently reissued edition of Faith's Subject To Change (which includes that band's first demo - we promise to list this one soon), it's sort of like Christmas 2.0 here at aQ, at least in terms of classic hardcore punk. What else do you need to hear other than the record itself?
FYI, the vinyl version happens to be out of stock, hoping we'll get more...

WINDEREN, JANA Debris (Touch) lp 15.98
Field recordists Douglas Quin and Cheryl Leonard have gone to great lengths to capture their Arctic and Antarctic field recordings, spending countless frigid days with frozen fingers trying to hold tightly to hydrophones dangling amidst the ice floes and slushy waters. It's no wonder those two present their work in such an unadulterated fashion when the work came at such cost and at such peril. But Jana Winderen is far more creative in her approach to field recordings, only too happy to transform a watery burble she captured in some obscure fjord in her native Norway into a thickened isolationist dronescape dappled with elemental textures, creating something sonorously as frightening, cold, or desolate as the sound sources would imply. As with the work of BJ Nilsen or Jonathan Coleclough, none of Winderen's field recordings are too precious to be manipulated, compacted, augmented, or simply fucked with. The two sides of Debris were both extracted from a couple of her sound installations, the longer of which is entitled "Drying Out In The Sun", based on recordings made at / near / beneath the surface of the ocean, which plunge into the nether regions of the deep-sea trenches and alluvial plains, amassed into pressurized low-frequency drones. "Scuttling Around The Shallows" returns to her fascination with shrimp which she first displayed on her Tapeworm cassette The Noisiest Guys On The Planet, with erratic snaps, clicks, and crunches made by those small crustaceans amidst deep-ocean ambience. The fourth in Touch's ongoing 'white label' series of super limited vinyl productions.

YELLOW SWANS / OAKEATER split (Black Horzions / Dead Accents) lp 14.98
The long defunct yet still impossibly prolific duo Yellow Swans continue to exist in some sonic afterworld, like a noise rock Tupac, with a seemingly endless cache of recordings, surfacing from beyond the grave, or in YS's case, from beyond the brief life span of their group. We're not complaining, as we've mentioned in past reviews, of all the floorcore combos, the Yellow Swans were one of our favorites, and having thrown in the towel, now years ago, doesn't seem to have effected the quality of their out put, cuz their side of this split lp is a doozy. Starting of as a haunting blackened drone, al echoey effects and manipulated tapes (or turntables), hushed delicate drifts and woozy layered shimmer, that is gradually consumed by some Merzbowian distorted black noise crunch, the sound transformed into a feedback drenched industrial howl, all buried vox and grinding buzz, sounding more like Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, a seriously caustic and crushing slab of blackened electronics and dronoise blur.
Oakeater take up the second side with their ritualistic black drone ambience, the opening track a churning SUNNO)))-like rumble, softly roiling and oozing, like some sort of black sonic puddle, which gives way to something much more dreamy, a delicate pastoral bit of hushed thrum and spaced out cinematic drift, there's a constant lurking sinister vibe throughout that seems to infuse the otherwise sun dappled shimmer with something rotten and black. The side finishes off with another chunk of ominous dark drift, thick undulating streaks of black blur, wrapped around melting melodies, the whole thing like a field recording of a pallet of drone records melting in the sun, the mic stuck directly in the viscous liquid sound.
Like all Black Horizons releases, super swank packaging, striking metallic silver ink on black matte jacket, pressed on thick black vinyl, and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

YOUNG GOVERNOR Where It's Quiet (12XU) 10" 10.98
Punk rockers Fucked Up were ultimately essentially a pop band, so it's no surprise that the various FU offshoots tend WAY toward the pop end of the sonic spectrum, as is the case with Young Governor, aka Ben Cook, who also plays in the Bitters (reviewed on a past aQ list), and who in Young Governor, lets his pop flag fly, big time, channelling classic Yellow Pills style power pop, think the Raspberries, Cheap Trick, Dwight Twilley Band, big jangly chords, soaring keening vox, huge hooks, big choruses, the production lo-fi and blown out, everything in-the-red, definitely reminds us of the retro-pop of Matthew Melton / Bare Wires, or like a way more lo-fi punk rock Tinted Windows. The B side slows things down a bit and dials back the crunch a little, adding sax and piano and getting almost ballady at points, but for the most part, all the tracks here sound like the could have been transported from the mid seventies, or dug up on some obscure power pop comp, which is most definitely a very good thing!





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B.T. EXPRESS Do It ('Til You're Satisfied) (Scepter Records) lp 12.98
Vinyl reish of a '70s funk/disco classic. Comin' atcha out of Brooklyn, the B.T. Express got a lot more disco as the decade progressed, but you can't go wrong this this debut from '74. Best known for the title track, this groovy platter is chock full of chicka-chicka-chicka guitars, funky brass, some heavy-handed synth, and lyrical wisdom like the messages delivered by "Everything Good To You (Ain't Always Good For You)", "If It Don't Turn You On (You Oughta' Leave It Alone)", and the aforementioned title track, ferinstance.
For fans of Kool and The Gang, The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Bootsy, Parliament, etc.; this record definitely belongs in any self-respecting funkateer's collection.
MPEG Stream: "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)"
MPEG Stream: "Once You Get It"

BLACK KEYS, THE El Camino (Nonesuch) cd 17.98
Doesn't feel like we need to say too much about this one as everyone's been freaking out about this record, and it seems to be the album that is going to push The Black Keys to the next level of fame (they are on the cover of Rolling Stone this month). We're totally down with bands who get famous and actually get to make a good living on making music, and the Black Keys are cool, and have worked their asses off, but at this point we can think of so many other bands that deserve this sort of success just as much. We actually dug their last outing quite a bit, but this new one seems to be pushing them in a new direction, one that seems potentially less exciting for long time fans, and more geared for new fans, festivals, and big stadiums...
MPEG Stream: "Lonely Boy"
MPEG Stream: "Money Maker"

DECIBEL #88 February 2012 magazine 4.95
Another issue of this always enjoyable extreme metal read. On the cover, Goatwhore. Inside, Black Tusk, Evoken, Aborted, Ghoul, Will Haven, Midnight, and more.
One of our favorite features in every issue of this magazine is their monthly induction into the Decibel album Hall Of Fame, this time the honor goes to Abigail by King Diamond, as always accompanied by an in-depth look at the making and meaning of said album.
And of course, there's a plethora of reviews, news, columns, and other stuff, including a look at the editors' top 25 most anticipated releases upcoming in 2012.

ENFORCER Into The Night (Picture Disc) (Heavy Artillery) lp 19.98
This retro slice of Swedish steel, now available in the best format for it: picture disc vinyl!!!
What are they enforcing? The law of metal, of course. We welcome the discipline. We almost overlooked this band 'cause we thought they were just another one in the current glut of generic retro-thrashers (many of whom make their home on the Heavy Artillery label). But we're glad we gave it a listen, 'cause Sweden's Enforcer turned out to be a nice surprise, more 'musical' than most and party hardy too. They're a young n' energetic band forging '80s-ish metal along the lines of NWOBHM stuff like Savage, Saxon and Diamond Head. We're also hearing echoes of Riot, Metal Church, early Megadeth, Exciter... No it's not that original, either, but that doesn't stop it from kicking ass (see also Bullet, and Wolf). It's just a good ol' old school rip fest. Speedy but also melodic, with high pitched shrieky (but not too shrieky) singing, shredding leads, and lots of catchy grooves - the bass lines are active and audible, galloping away Maiden style. Death and black and (now) thrash metal bands are a dime a dozen these days but it's impressive when kids kick out something like this, sounding like the real deal from the early eighties, though with better production! The disc is packed with neck wreckers and should have you headbanging and air guitaring with abandon. It's not epic or eccentric or doomy, but sometimes pedal to the metal spandex-clad rockin' is enough! You can buy your umpteenhundredth grim black metal album (we have, and counting...) but once in a while you want metal that's fun and exciting. And for that, Enforcer is just the thing...
MPEG Stream: "Black Angel"
MPEG Stream: "Mistress From Hell"

ENFORCER Diamonds (Picture Disc) (Heavy Artillery) lp 19.98
And Enforcer's 2nd album, now picture disc vinylified too!!!
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"

ENSEMBLE ECONOMIQUE Crossing The Path, By Torchlight (Dekorder) lp 15.98
BACK IN STOCK!
The latest release from Mr. Bryan Pyle, one half of the Starving Weirdos, as well as one half of RV paintings, both groups who we've raved about in the past, as is the case with Pyle's solo project, Ensemble Economique, whose sound is even more difficult to pin down than either of his other two groups. Both the Starving Weirdos and RV paintings seem to be cut from the same sonic cloth, the difference seemingly being that the SW stuff is roughly torn, while the RV Paintings is delicately cut, the former trafficking in a sort of ramshackle experimental droned out abstract ambience, while the latter, dials back the ramshackle, and deftly weaves in field recordings and produces something much warmer and pastoral. Needless to say, we're huge fans of both. Pyle on his own, is all over the place, incorporating obviously elements of both SW and RV, but definitely doing his own idiosyncratic thing, whether it be progged out krautpsych electronics, dark synth-croon songsmithery, filmic melancholia or dense layered dronemusic, so we were definitely prepared for Pyle to throw us a curve ball with this new one, his first for Dekorder. And we were not disappointed. Not one bit. Opener "Heat Waves" sounds remarkably like Salem, straight up witch house, all fuzzy sun dappled synths, those skeletal crunked out handclap rhythms, some very John Carpenter like melodies, but Pyle definitely makes it his own, adding strange flurries of percussion, stretches those synths out into something a bit dronier, but regardless, Salem fans might find themselves flipping out. "Vanishing Point" dials back the witchiness a bit, but it's still all synthy and drum machiney, very retro eighties, a little bit of that synthdrag we dig so much, but with lush string laden swells, and darkly delicate melodies. And so goes the rest of the record, a songsuite of witchy cinematic eighties retro-futurism, but Pyle definitely is a master, transforming what in lesser hands could be bandwagon jumping, into something all his own, mixing in some downtempo Portishead style grooviness, loads of texture, subtle percussion, the vibe haunting and ominous, even hearing a little Barry Adamson here and there, that same sort of faux soundtrack Adamson did so well. But here it's a bit more twisted, the sound seeming to revisit that Salem-y witch housiness throughout, but on tracks like "Everything I Have, I Give To You", making something new and exciting and sonically compelling, out of a sound that's been done to death, and in doing so, creating his own genre, which is basically what he seems to do with every record. Borrowing a little, but then basically tangling and twisting it all up until it's totally unrecognizable.
This might just be our favorite EE record yet, but pretty sure we say that about every one.
Absolutely RIYL Salem, Umberto, Dylan Ettinger, Xander Harris, Roll The Dice and various other purveyors of witchy / synthy / retro sounds...
MPEG Stream: "Heat Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Vanishing Point"
MPEG Stream: "To Feel The Night As It Really Is"

GUM TAKES TOOTH Silent Cenotaph (Tigertrap) cd 14.98
This recent Record Of The Week, BACK IN STOCK!!
Imagine a band that sounded like a bastard mix of UK-via-Texas, multiple drummered noise rockers Shit And Shine, grinding bass and drum duo Lightning Bolt and legendary weirdo drug rock combo Butthole Surfers. Then imagine the sort of din such a band could and would kick up and mix in all manner of mangled and freaked out electronics. Finally, imagine all of that noise being conjured up essentially by a single drum kit. And thus you have UK duo Gum Takes Tooth, which is essentially a drummer, whose drums are wired up to a dizzying array of home brewed electronics and tone bent circuit boards, with a second member tweaking and fucking with the sound in real time. 43 minutes of electronic-ed drumming might not sound that appealing to some folks, but don't make the call until you get an earful of the sounds these two whip up. Sure at times it's raw and rhythmic, noisy and chaotic, but the sounds here are all over the map, from super charged This Heat style rhythmic workouts, to blasting almost grind metal like blow outs, minimal FX fueled ambient drifts, to tripped out sci-fi psychedelia, murky, meandering distorto slow-core to frenzied noise drenched prog and pretty much every conceivable stop inbetween. Add in some Merzbow style noise, a little Psychic Paramount drum heavy post rock heaviness, some world music like tribalism, and stir it all up, and voila.
Opener "Young Mustard" is a pretty good sampling of what these guys are capable of, offering up a wild frenzy of tribal drum pound, weird processed vox, swirling electronics and FX, which eventually explode into some seriously aggro Lightning Bolt style, blast beat driven, downtuned grind, only to blossom into some Six Finger Satellite like synth-drum craziness, before the whole thing devolves into a abstract stretch of minimal clatter, random bloops and bleeps, swirling electronics, all beginning a slow build, the tribal drums swooping back in, slowly goring more distorted and intense, until finally fracturing into what sounds a bit like the Ruins crossed with Man Is The Bastard, thick blown out buzz low tones, pounding drums, howled processed vox, all woven into a seriously crushing electro-dirge.
"Tankjott" is another good one, starting out with some rapid fire kick drums, some gurgly vox, some squiggly electronics, building to a lurching, stuttery groove, soon more electronics, and more of that heavy bass buzz swoop in, and it's some sort of metallic krautpsych groove, with all manner of buzzes, strange twisted vocals, electronic pulses, before exploding into another fried and buzz drenched rhythmic workout, sounding to us like a way more chaotic / noisy / electronic version of MITB offshoot Geronimo, definitely the heaviest track here, sounding almost metal, but via Hawkwind and This Heat and Melt Banana and all blurred into some impossibly mesmerizing electrometal krautgroove, WAY too short at 7+ minutes.
And in between those two tracks, plenty of hypnotic, cyclical, rhythmic noise, progged out heaviness, stuttery drum heavy buzz and psychedelic noise rock, usually all at the same time, "Strychnine Motive" probably the most traditionally song sounding, but it's really relative, while "The Earth's Mantle Colonised" takes that same sort of sound and trips it WAY out into some sort of psychedelic space rock, the vocals chopped and processed, plenty of spacey squiggles and weird chanted vocals, the whole thing still drum driven big time, "Nomad/Monad" sounds like some bastardized gamelan orchestra, or a punk rock electronic noise version of Konono No.1, all looped thumb piano like melodies, tangled up and barraged by all manner of strange sounds, and then finally, record closer "Hermaphrodite And Nourishment" which does in fact feature a member of Shit And Shine on second drum kit, and while we were expecting a super frenzied drum heavy blowout, instead, it might be the pretties song on the record, all moody and loping and melodic, laced with ringing Tibetan bowls, crooned softly distorted vocals, squalls of feedback, and the cool thing is it never really explodes or freaks out, instead, it's just gorgeously mesmerizing and hypnotic, droned out and tribal, the perfect sort of sonic come down at a record that spends much of its time at a serious musical fever pitch.
Probably one of our most exciting recent musical discoveries (thanks Jason P.!), and with every listen this record continues to confound and delight and reveal more of the weird shit that seems to constantly be going on just below the surface, and odds are if you like any/some/all of the above mentioned bands, imagine them all mashed together and distilled into some wildly and gloriously twisted hybrid, and we imagine you'll probably be as knocked out as we were.
MPEG Stream: "Tankjott"
MPEG Stream: "The Earth's Mantle Colonised"
MPEG Stream: "Young Mustard"
MPEG Stream: "Strychnine Motive"

INCREDIBLE HOG Vol.1 +4 (Rise Above Relics) lp + 10" 42.00
NOW ON VINYL!! Done as an lp + 10" to account for the bonus tracks.
Proto-metal fiends, give praise to the fine folks at Rise Above Relics. They've been doing a great job lately reissuing some crucial obscurities from the early '70s - Necromandus, Steel Mill, that Bang box set - and now here's another one we were excited to get in. The one and only, and quite collectable, album from 1973 by a band of heavy rockers from England who went by the somewhat silly name of Incredible Hog (apparently a porcine variation on the Incredible Hulk??). There's been songs of theirs included on a few comps we've had (A Visit To The Spaceship Factory, The Electric Asylum Vol.4) but this is the first ever proper cd reissue of the full album, authorized and remastered and all.
The first track is called "Lame" but the 'Hog definitely ain't. If you like your psychedelic blues rock big and burly, raucous and rollicking, the 'Hog are the seventies heavies you're looking for. That lead-off cut, "Lame", is an excellent intro to the album in general; a stomping, distorted rocker with loads of swingin' riffage and wailing vox, that sounds a whole lot like Led Zeppelin mixed with a bit of glitter/glam a la Slade (with the hey hey hey's and handclaps). The next track, the dazed 'n' confused dirge "Wreck My Soul" is even more on the Zepped-out blooze rawk tip, with some blues harp blowin' showing up. They venture into folkier territory on the following cut, "Execution", one of a few quite affecting, mellower melodic compositions found on the record. But mostly they're about banging out the heavier stuff, and they're back at it with the next number, "Tadpole", an uptempo stormer laced with sound FX samples (crashing thunder, crying babies, crazy laughter) giving it a bit of a proggier vibe, which is followed by the cowbell-knockin', Eastern-tinged "Another Time"... and so it goes, Incredible Hog kicking ass all up and down this album, one that any fan of the Led Zeppier side to '70s heavy rock oughtta lay their ears upon pronto. So if you dig bands like Leaf Hound, Budgie, Granicus, Lucifer's Friend, Jerusalem, Possessed (UK), Tucky Buzzard, and Stray, then prepare to add Incredible Hog to that list of proto-metal awesomeness. Bands today can't compare (although, Rise Above's Gentlemans Pistols come close, and no doubt are big 'Hog fans).
As always, Rise Above Relics does a bang-up job with the packaging, it's got a big booklet full of detailed notes and vintage pics, all put together with the help of the original band members. They've also managed to dig up four long lost, unreleased bonus trax (hence the "+4" in this reissue's title), recorded back in the day, some of which were meant for a second 'Hog album that never happened. At least one of 'em, a rip snorter called "Burnout", is easily up there with anything on the album itself in terms of sheer proto-metal power, and the others are worthy bonus trackage too.
All hail the 'Hog! Incredible, indeed.
MPEG Stream: "Lame"
MPEG Stream: "Execution"
MPEG Stream: "There's A Man"
MPEG Stream: "Burnout"

LEE, THANIEL ION White (self-released) cd-r 13.98
BACK IN STOCK!! LAST COPIES!! WE GOT 'EM ALL!!
The name Thaniel Ion Lee might not be immediately familiar to most folks, but avid readers of the aQ New Arrivals list might know him as the man behind blackdrone / ambient blacknoize outfit Black Escutcheon, whose cd-r we reviewed (and sold out of in a flash) and who shared a split tape with aQ faves weirdo outsider black metal one man band Cloak Of Displacement.
This latest missive, an outrageously limited (25 copies) and extravagantly hand made cd-r box collects a handful of material recorded over the last 3 years, and never released until now. And it seems that on these tracks, the blackness and noise are dialed back, leaving some lush layered dronemusic that will definitely appeal to the aQ dronelords (and droneladies), with its smoldering layered shimmers and buzzing SUNNO))) like glacial dirges, laced with bits of lazily strummed acoustic guitar, sweet soft swells of melody, swirling clouds of abstract effects, the sound slipping deftly from slowcore drift, to churning lowend heaviness, and from hazy spectral blur, to hushed almost shoegazey creep, often in the same song.
Folks who dug the blacker and noiser aspects of the two Blood Escutcheons, might still find much to dig here, it is still dark and droney and hauntingly atmospheric, but folks into dreamy dronemusic will be in heaven, although the last track, the nearly 16 minute "And You Will Know Him By His Deeds" does get grim and grisly and sonically sinister before blossoming into something much more glistening and celestial sounding.
LIMITED TO 25 COPIES!! Each one housed in a white cardboard reel to reel box, with a xeroxed insert and a white paper doily, each box hand numbered and titled, wrapped in twine.
MPEG Stream: "Things We Lost In The Shadows"
MPEG Stream: "Distant Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Bible Black Sabbath"

MASERATI Inventions For The New Season (Temporary Residence) 2lp 17.98
Maserati's 2007 full length, now reissued as a swank double lp. Here's our original review:
A simple check-list should help you to get an idea of what Maserati is all about: instrumental post-rock, released on the Temporary Residence Ltd. label, with a sports car name sorta like Trans Am... This album focuses a lot of psychedelic guitar distortion and krauty, rhythmic energy into eight sleek, speedy, and sometimes shoegazey tracks that sound like Frippertronics at the disco, or a coke-fuelled Circle/Tortoise/Zombi jam. It's a loud yet gentle ear-massage lit up by flashing, stroboscopic drumming. The drummer also played in !!! and the Turing Machine, you could sorta see Maserati as a mix of those two bands, mathy propulsive post-rock with a bit of a groove-y, dance-y vibe. Portions of this could make a good Miami Vice soundtrack, like for a scene (filmed from a helicopter) of an exciting power-boat chase across a deep blue, beautiful, sunshiney sea. Also several of these tracks, Cup is convinced, could easily segue into a rendition of "Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring... which is way cool by us.
MPEG Stream: "Inventions"
MPEG Stream: "This Is A Sight We Had One Day From The High Mountain"

MEM1 {Tetra} (Estuary Ltd.) lp 17.98
BACK IN STOCK!
A while back we reviewed two cds from the LA based duo of Mark And Laura Cetilla, one a collaboration with bigger avant music names (Steve Roden, Jan Jelinek, Frank Bretschneider), the other the duo's own dark sonic concoction, and while the guests on the collaborative record definitely made for interesting listening, we much preferred the Cetilla's work unadorned, a hushed minimal darkness, brooding, and softly caustic, ominous and strangely menacing. The sounds here on their first proper full length lp, seem to be a continuation from the music presented on that cd.
Three longform compositions, of smoldering lowercase sound, what sounds like bowed strings, and reverberating metal, blurred into a murky concoction of shimmering grey thrum and dense softly undulating swells, the vibe is definitely cinematic, conjuring up all manner of bleak and abject imagery, evoking decay, and distance, the drones alive with overtones and constantly shifting layers, noisy in places, but the noise blunted and smoothed out into rough expanses of warm buzz and softly prickly hum. There are moments of pure unfettered speaker shredding noise, but even within these blown out squalls, lurk all manner of rich texture and subtle shading. That said, most of the record is spent in hushed drift mode, the final track the most fully fleshed out, with the original instruments still recognizable, the tones organic and only lightly effected, drifting on a sea of distant blackened shimmer, and softly roiling whir and hiss, before finally smoothing out, into a final coda of warm, dreamy (and still slightly ominous tranquility). Dark abstract loveliness for sure, the sort of thing that folks into Jasper TX, Machinefabriek and Type Records might dig quite a bit.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, packaged in super swank matte finish jackets, and includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Trieste"
MPEG Stream: "Caldera"

PRURIENT Bermuda Drain (Hydra Head) lp 27.00
NOW ON LP!!
Dominick Fernow who runs Hospital Productions, a record store AND label, has had to keep his main, mostly noise project, that would be Prurient, on the back burner for a while now, as he is now also a full fledged member of electro cold wave pop troupe Cold Cave, and what with touring and recording, it's seems like it's been quite a while since we've heard anything new. In the past, Prurient records could go one of two ways, blistering noise and caustic crunch, or dark thick brooding blackened dronemusic, often some mix of the two. But after all this Cold Caving, we weren't sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't this. We did expect some of the CC sound to rub off on him, how could it not, but orthodox noise freeks will be very confused and disappointed, cuz this is essential a blackened synth heavy coldwave noise rock blowout, and it actually kind of rules! The liner notes instruct the listener to "Listen on headphones at night while driving through tunnels in Europe", and that is sort of what it sounds like, a few of the tracks like supercharged noise drenched versions of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn", while others like meaner more brutal takes on Cold Cave. Fear not, there's still plenty of noise, and howling hateful vox, but those elements are doled out judiciously this time around, and its the juxtaposition between those harsher elements, and the more synthy/krautrocky/propulsive bits that make this so goddamn good.
Opener "Many Jewels Surround The Crown" begins with a wild distorted shriek, and a wall of distorted crumbling blackness, but then in swoop synths, swirling strings, it almost sounds like it could be the soundtrack for some Tron like film, all sleek and reflective, but a bit decayed and decrepit, a futuristic post apocalyptic soundscape, a voice intones beneath pulsing kosmische synths, barraged by blasts of distorted crunch, and thick swaths of blackened bass. This is quickly followed by some pounding electro-punk, the vocals a gruff bellow, over thick driving synths and blasting programmed drums, all laced with warm whirling melodies, total new wave for sure, but sounding like Majeure or Zombi remixed by Alec Empire.
The rest of the record plays out like some beautiful and bizarre soundtrack, slipping easily from sprawls of crunchy droned out noise, to lush, swirling string laden shimmer, to lumbering bass heavy synthbuzz thrum, to total Depeche Mode-is electro pop, but again, that pop flecked with shrieked almost black metal vocals, which totally changes the tenor, while other tracks drift along blissfully, layering distant muted throbs beneath ethereal streaks of washed out synth and sweetly melancholy melodies, and finally finishing off with the epic "Sugar Can Chapel", a sort of noise drenched M83 slow build shoegaze psychedelic synth blowout, that manages to be darkly atmospheric and blackly blissed out.
Easily the most accessible Prurient record yet, and anyone who wishes that new wave of retro synth stuff had a lot more blackened bit to it, well, this might just be what you were looking for.
MPEG Stream: "Many Jewels Surround The Crown"
MPEG Stream: "A Meal Can Be Made"
MPEG Stream: "Bermuda Drain"
MPEG Stream: "Sugar Cane Chapel"

RIDE FOR REVENGE Under The Eye (KVLT / Bestial Burst) cassette 7.98
ALSO ON CASSETTE...
The thing about Finnish black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, is that really, they were hardly even black metal. Hell, hardly metal at all. Instead, they seemed to traffic in a mysterious low slung, sludgy abstract blackened rhythmic minimalism that reminded us of Circle and Aluk Todolo way more than Darkthrone or Beherit. And then there's RfR offshoot Will Over Matter, who take that same sort of abstract rhythmic weirdness and harness it to primitive electronics, and have created a sort of tripped out blackened power electronics. So of course we were super excited for a new Ride For Revenge, and were expecting another disc of twisted rhythmic churn, or something similar, but what we were not expecting was THIS. After a truly strange intro, which is essentially just a Speak & Spell toy emitting all those 8bit bleeps and bloops and wreathed in echo and delay, which had us imagining maybe RfR had moved toward Will Over Matter sonically, but then when the first song proper kicked in, we were blown away. Metal. And we mean METAL. Dirgey and sludgey and super distorted. Right out of the gate, the band erupt into some seriously corrosive blasts of full on blast beat-ed GRIND, in between which, the band churn and lumber, the guitars filthy and crumbling with blackened distortion, the vocals a glass gargling gurgle, the drums a simple dirgey pound, so we were prepared for the band's return to full on primitive blackness, but then out of nowhere, in swoop all manner of weird warbly synths, and tolling bells, the whole song transformed into some sort of woozy avant buzz drenched doomic dirge, it's pretty ruling.
But then by track two, it's right back to the primitive bash and pound, the distortion even more blown out and in the red, the band sounding a bit like a blackened Brainbombs, which is not at all a bad thing, the songs peppered with ridiculous twisted drug addled guitar leads, super effected crooned gothic vox, some totally fucked up and freaked out Butthole Surfers style vocal garble, cool thick layered harmonies, that add a sort of warped majesty to some of the tracks, and at least one blast of weird bellowedcstrident sermonizing beneath a cloud of in-the-red white noise skree.
There are a couple tracks that strip away some of the crumble and buzz, and harken back to the more purely rhythmic RfR of old, but those moments are brief, the band quickly slipping back into their woozy sea sick doom-sludge churn, but even then, pretty much every stretch of seemingly pure raw blackened doomic primitivism, is in fact seriously fucked up, whether that fucked upness is in your face, or buried way below the surface, it's there, and it keeps Under The Eye firmly rooted in whatever fucked Finnish tradition RfR oozes from...
MPEG Stream: "Second Gate Opened With Power"
MPEG Stream: "For Those About To Kneel"
MPEG Stream: "The Gutter And The Grave"
MPEG Stream: "Under The Eye"

SUNN O))) 00VOID (Reissue) (Southern Lord) 2lp 22.00
Now reissued on vinyl!!
First released way back in 2001, SUNNO)))'s 00Void was later re-released on Japanese label Daymare, which included a bonus disc, on which Nurse With Wound remixed and re-envisioned the record, and transformed it into something haunting and surprisingly lovely. That bonus disc was recently reissued on vinyl (with some slight alterations, apparently), as was the double cd version, but for folks who got the remix disc vinyl, and need 00Void to complete the set, your prayers have been answered, as now Southern Lord has re-released 00Void on vinyl once more (the previous vinyl edition years ago was on Dirter).
00Void was in fact, SUNNO)))'s first proper album, the preceding Grimmrobe Demos, being just that, demos, but sonically, it picked up right where Grimmrobe left off, huge undulating slow motion riffscapes, epic, majestic, glacial, ominous and black hole heavy. Although it hardly seems necessary at this point, for those who have managed to somehow avoid SUNNO)))'s sonic influence, SUNNO))) began life as the world's first, best, only, (and last?) EARTH tribute band, emulating and bowing before the glacial "power ambient drone" metal of Earth, creating a little cult of the dronedoomdirge faithful, long before the hipster set caught on, but this record, as much as Grimmrobe before it made a case for SUNNO))) as their own entity, sure they owed every aspect of their sound to the band they were birthed to honor (still do really), but they managed to subtly imbue that same sound with their own influences and experience, creating something even more slow and low if that were even possible, setting yet another standard for heaviness.
So on 00Void, SUNNO))) indulge in pure unfettered doom, loosed from any sort of rhythmic constrictions, unmoored from traditional song structures, letting riffs and tones and pure vibrations emanate from their wall of speakers, like some monstrous black tuning fork, almost more a physical sensation than an aural one, but those movements of blackdrone infused with a musicality that blossoms slowly the deeper you allow yourself to sink. Suffocating, pummeling, crushing, oozing, but also soothing and beautiful. Maybe one of our favorite SUNNO))) records for sure. And if the pure grim heaviness of the three originals wasn't enough, 00Void also includes a cover (or, an interpretation, anyway) of a Melvins tune! Another band who were dabbling in slow motion heaviness long before it was cool...
MPEG Stream: "NN 0)))"
MPEG Stream: "Ra At Dusk"

SURT Ragnarok (Brotherhood Of Light) cassette 5.98
Folks went a little crazy for the debut tape from this one man black metal band, enigmatically called Surt, who trafficked not so much in black buzz and a sort of haunting folky ambience, all blackened and mysterious, we could barely keep those tapes in stock, and we were all ready to review this second tape, when he sort of disappeared, and the tapes got harder and harder to restock. But since we were left with FIVE copies of tape #2, we figured we'd list it, so at least a few of you who dug the first tape could get your hands on this one.
And just like the first one, the sound of Surt remains, folky and ritualistic, some sort of subterranean Appalachia, mostly steel string guitar, lots of echo and reverb, the sound rhythmic and cyclical, mesmerizing and repetitive, all over a backdrop of subtle swirl and hushed ambient shimmer, the sound slipping from strident and urgent to hushed and drifty and psychedelic, swaddled in swirling barely there synths, giving it a distinctively kosmische vibe for sure.
These are limited to 100, hand numbered, but as we mentioned above, we have five copies, and not sure if we can ever get more, so grab one while you can...

TERRORIZER Issue #217 magazine + cd 9.99
Another issue of this UK metal monthly. On the cover, an old photo of Burzum (to accompany a new exclusive interview). Also: Shining, Iced Earth, Meshuggah, Venom, Nasum (RIP), Dragonforce, Devin Townsend, Nightwish, Animals As Leaders (in the included "Sick Sounds" guitar mag supplement) and more... all strains of metal covered it would seem. There's the usual news, reviews, and cd sampler (w/ tracks by Burzum, Wolvhammer, Sigiriya (ex-Acrimony), Vektor, and others.

TH26 La Haine (A Silent Place) cd 10.98
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have only THREE of these...
We reviewed a handful of releases from Italian post-industrial / dark pop combo T.A.C., all part of this batch of Small Voices releases, along with those albums proper, came this, TH25, a project of T.A.C. member Simone Balestrazzi, which the label describes as: "Hard electro-core, pure rhythmic & synthetic EBM sounds, rumoristic experiments & great filtered vocals." Not sure what 'rumoristic experiments' are, but the rest is pretty spot on. Super pulsing, pounding minimal electronics, skittery and stuttery, with darkly crooned vocals, occasionally sung/spoken, for those of us without deep roots in electronic music culture, it's difficult to make any sort of sonic cultural references, but much of this sounds to us like a more gothic/gloomy Meat Beat Manifesto, if that makes any sense, there's also some references to old Ministry, which is never a bad thing, it's that sort of industrial pound, fused to dark minor key synths, and deep vocals, creating a sort of beat heavy gloom pop if you will, the vibe in many places more new wave or cold wave, minus those step sequenced synths and pulsing beats, but the vibe is definitely dark enough, that this would probably appeal to folks into the whole new wave of dark pop and cold wave electro. We're actually digging this quite a lot!
MPEG Stream: "TV Germs"
MPEG Stream: "The Enemy Inside"
MPEG Stream: "Second Skin"

TURRA, LUIGI Enso (Small Voices) cd 10.98
We managed to get a tiny handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have just THREE of them...
With Enso, composer / soundscaper Luigi Turra has conjured up an organic and contemplative three-track epic, that resonates on subsequent listenings. Infused with Japanese sonic architectures and rigorous reductionist principles, this is a deeply meditative world of gently plucked instruments, and faded atmospherics, peppered with closely focused tinklings and crystalline shards adding all manner of texture to the proceedings. In some ways this sounds like a more minimal / academic Taj Mahal Travellers, the flute especially giving much of this a Japanese folk ritual vibe. There's a warm ambience, and a super intense intimate production, which helps Turra fuse a delicate substrata of drifting tones with elegantly plucked and struck instrumentation, that is never overdriven, and devoid of unessentials. Gorgeous and sublime. And super recommended. Sad we have so few...
Best appreciated in a solitary environment, these restful pieces will bring calm to an engaged listener.
MPEG Stream: "Enso 1"

WRECK AND REFERENCE Black Cassette (The Flenser) lp 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!
This record has been floating around in various forms, all insanely limited, and as the title suggests, it was initially a cassette, then a cd-r, then a download, and is only now finally available as a slightly less limited lp, still titled Black Cassette of course, and regardless of format, it's a serious slab of mathy doomy electronics laced sludge, a bit of an odd one for The Flenser, who traffic mostly in metal of the blacker variety, but Wreck And Reference have a sound that is most definitely blackened, and in some ways just as grim and kult and bleak as most black metal. The sound is a wild almost industrial sounding chaotic lurching heavy sludge, with clean vox, thick blown out bass, tons of effects and loads of swirling electronics, a heaping dose of pop liberally applied too, with much of the record playing out like a sort of slowcore indie rock.
The first track was all it took to convince us, a jagged lumbering chunk of dirge pop, with crumbling super distorted guitars, pounding drums, crooned clean vocals, a killer main hook, everything wreathed in buzz and glitch, rife with long stretches of droned out shimmer, and rumbling detuned buzz, and wild squalls of psychedelic feedback, the drums growing more and more chaotic, eventually the guitars following suit, stuttering, all clipped stops and starts before grinding to a halt. So ruling. The following track is more of a moody brooder, a bass driven chunk of slowcore, with clean vocals delivered way back from the microphone, giving the proceedings a definite nineties math rock vibe, think Shellac or Slint, and when the band does finally kick in, the guitars crunch, the drums pound, this time everything is beneath thick sheets of heavily effected synths, making everything deliriously spacey and dreamy. The rest of the tracks offer more of the same, a variation on doom we've never heard before, a Torche like approach to metal, definitely heavily influenced by indie rock, pop and post punk, sung/spoken vox over tribal drumming and grinding muddied riffage, big drumming over muted buzz and what sounds like haunting piano, not to mention deep dramatic crooning, a strangely blurred blast transformed into something much poppier and prettier, long stretches of shimmery spaciness and still more surprisingly poppy vox, and finally, a killer chunk of slow building post rock epicness that sounds a bit like a doomier, more post punky take on Godspeed. A pretty weird, and pretty awesome band, and definitely one of the coolest things The Flenser has put out, which is definitely saying a lot.
MPEG Stream: "All the Ships Have Been Abandoned"
MPEG Stream: "Surrendering"
MPEG Stream: "In Chains, Awakening"

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V/A Simla Beat 70 (Particles) lp 24.00
Now available on vinyl...
Originally reissued some years ago as a double cd, this killer collection of Indian psychedelic garage rock, has now been split into two different compilations, delineated by date, one disc for 1970, the other for 1971, but odds are you're probably gonna want both of them anyway. If not, either one is a great place to start. Some of you may remember the Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! Psychedelic Funk Music In India 1976-1983 compilation we made our Record of The Week a while back, a few of those tracks were taken from these comps, but for the most part, most of this stuff is exclusive.
While Simla Beat may sound like some cool record nerd classification for Indian psych from that era, Simla was in fact a cigarette company, who recognized that besides smoking, the kids also really dug rock and roll, specifically the sort of Western influenced sounds that were bringing surf and garage rock to India, so they founded a battle of the bands, complete with an awards show with the prizes presented by Bollywood stars, and the winning songs would get released, and hence we had these Simla Beat compilations. There were rumors, that since none of these tracks feature sitar or tabla or any distinct Indian instrumentation, that they were in fact hoaxes, and that none of these bands were in fact Indian, which was obviously proven to be false, and while there may not be sitar or tabla, there is a distinctly Eastern vibe to these tracks, and the sound, as well as the various productions, definitely takes the more Western version of surf rock and garage rock and makes it into something new and exciting.
Both discs contain some killer jams, and we could easily go through both track by track, but we'll just pick out a few highlights, and there are samples below too, which you should check out, pretty hard to resist we think. Simla Beat 70 starts off with "Voice From the Inner Soul" by the Confusions, which is so good, and catchy, it sounds like it must be a cover, but as far as we can tell it's an original, crunchy guitars, fuzzy organs, a groovy stomp with a KILLER chorus. Then there's the Dinosaurs, who offer up another original that sounds super familiar but is not a cover, the vocals raspy and scratchy, wound around some skittery drumming, and some fuzzy guitars, and another wicked hook. You probably remember X'lents' "Psychedelia" with its "Secret Agent Man" opening riff and some seriously kick ass psychedelic garage rock. The Dinosaurs also cover Creedence Clearwater Revivals's "Sinister Purpose" and make it their own, even more raw and fuzzed out than the original.
The 1971 installment is just as great, starting off with The Fentones' "Simla Beat Theme" which is total surf rock bliss, a littler off kilter, with some killer guitar playing, which gives way to the Nomads' "Nothing Is The Same" which begins with a dark swirling cloud of heavily effected guitar buzz, before slipping into a woozy surfy groove, then there's Hipnotic Eye's "Killing Floor, which is a dead ringer for the imaginary band the Sacred Cows from Get Smart (YouTube it!), and then there's Velvette Fogg's droned out organ heavy nearly 8 minute groover "I'm So Glad", and so it goes, like the 1970 volume, killer jam after killer jam!
Again, not sure why they split em up, cuz it's tough not to want both, but even if you choose just one, each has much to offer, although if you're music nerd obsessives like we are (and we're figuring you are), you might as well just grab 'em both...
MPEG Stream: THE CONFUSIONS "Voice From The Inner Soul"
MPEG Stream: THE DINOSAURS "You Can't Beat It"
MPEG Stream: X'LENTS "Psychedelia"

V/A Simla Beat 71 (Particles) lp 24.00
Now available on vinyl...
Originally reissued some years ago as a double cd, this killer collection of Indian psychedelic garage rock, has now been split into two different compilations, delineated by date, one disc for 1970, the other for 1971, but odds are you're probably gonna want both of them anyway. If not, either one is a great place to start. Some of you may remember the Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! Psychedelic Funk Music In India 1976-1983 compilation we made our Record of The Week a while back, a few of those tracks were taken from these comps, but for the most part, most of this stuff is exclusive.
While Simla Beat may sound like some cool record nerd classification for Indian psych from that era, Simla was in fact a cigarette company, who recognized that besides smoking, the kids also really dug rock and roll, specifically the sort of Western influenced sounds that were bringing surf and garage rock to India, so they founded a battle of the bands, complete with an awards show with the prizes presented by Bollywood stars, and the winning songs would get released, and hence we had these Simla Beat compilations. There were rumors, that since none of these tracks feature sitar or tabla or any distinct Indian instrumentation, that they were in fact hoaxes, and that none of these bands were in fact Indian, which was obviously proven to be false, and while there may not be sitar or tabla, there is a distinctly Eastern vibe to these tracks, and the sound, as well as the various productions, definitely takes the more Western version of surf rock and garage rock and makes it into something new and exciting.
Both discs contain some killer jams, and we could easily go through both track by track, but we'll just pick out a few highlights, and there are samples below too, which you should check out, pretty hard to resist we think. Simla Beat 70 starts off with "Voice From the Inner Soul" by the Confusions, which is so good, and catchy, it sounds like it must be a cover, but as far as we can tell it's an original, crunchy guitars, fuzzy organs, a groovy stomp with a KILLER chorus. Then there's the Dinosaurs, who offer up another original that sounds super familiar but is not a cover, the vocals raspy and scratchy, wound around some skittery drumming, and some fuzzy guitars, and another wicked hook. You probably remember X'lents' "Psychedelia" with its "Secret Agent Man" opening riff and some seriously kick ass psychedelic garage rock. The Dinosaurs also cover Creedence Clearwater Revivals's "Sinister Purpose" and make it their own, even more raw and fuzzed out than the original.
The 1971 installment is just as great, starting off with The Fentones' "Simla Beat Theme" which is total surf rock bliss, a littler off kilter, with some killer guitar playing, which gives way to the Nomads' "Nothing Is The Same" which begins with a dark swirling cloud of heavily effected guitar buzz, before slipping into a woozy surfy groove, then there's Hipnotic Eye's "Killing Floor, which is a dead ringer for the imaginary band the Sacred Cows from Get Smart (YouTube it!), and then there's Velvette Fogg's droned out organ heavy nearly 8 minute groover "I'm So Glad", and so it goes, like the 1970 volume, killer jam after killer jam!
Again, not sure why they split em up, cuz it's tough not to want both, but even if you choose just one, each has much to offer, although if you're music nerd obsessives like we are (and we're figuring you are), you might as well just grab 'em both...
MPEG Stream: THE FENTONES "Simla Beat Theme"
MPEG Stream: NOMADS "Nothing Is The Same"
MPEG Stream: HIPNOTIC EYE "Killing Floor"

V/A The Original Sound Of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro As Told By The Phonograph 1948-79: Original 45s And LP Cuts (Soundway) 3lp 34.00
We already listed the double cd, here's the deluxe vinyl version, in two triple-lp volumes!
It's tempting with records like this to just paraphrase the extensive liner notes, which in this case go into crazy details about, as the title suggests, the history of cumbia, and how that history has played out via the advent of the commercial phonograph, not to mention the introduction of new instruments, new genres, and the spread of the sound from its birthplace on the Caribbean coast to more central cities. Which would make sense, cuz to be honest, we knew very little about cumbia, at least in terms of its history and development, but at the same time, a quick Google search, and you'll have a wealth of different sources to learn more about cumbia and its history, and as interesting as that is (and it is, VERY), it's really for us all about the music, and the music here, two and a half hours of it, is so fantastic, and the idea that while sure, folks into Latin music and who already dig cumbia, will of course love this, it's the sort of comp that's perfect to expose this music to a whole new audience, one that might not have any experience with stuff like this at all, and who like us, might just be totally blown away by these sounds, energetic and passionate, melodic and moody, rhythmic and celebratory, the bands so tight, the musicians incredible, the songs very propulsive and percussion driven, the older tracks all about the accordion (more on that in the liner notes), with amazingly funky and soulful horn sections, melding cumbia to a fuller big band jazz sound, the songs groove and shimmy, pound and swing, the vocals too, so dramatic and emotional, all combined to create an incredible and expansive collection of music, which while at one time was a music mostly for the lower classes, eventually became a music for all the peoples of Columbia, and a point of great pride.
This collection was curated by Will Holland, who you may know as Quantic, whose awesome Addis To Axum: Music, Words & Arrangements Of Ethiopia record we reviewed way back in 2010, and who spent years in Columbia, learning the accordion, starting a band, and setting up a record studio, immersing himself in the culture to dig up the recorded history of Columbia and cumbia, via a treasure trove of rare 78's and 45's. We've been listening to this like crazy, and have found ourselves going a little cumbia crazy.
MPEG Stream: GASTON (EL ISLENO) CON EL CONJUNTO DE JAIME SIMANCA "La Cumbia Esta Llamando"
MPEG Stream: CONJUNTO LOS RUMBEROS "Cumbia Del Puerto"
MPEG Stream: LUCHO PEREZ "Judith"
MPEG Stream: ALBERTO PACHECO Y SU CONJUNTO "Sembrando Cafe"
MPEG Stream: RAFAEL YEPES CRESPO CON SUS NEGROS DE LA REGION "Nubia En La Playa"
MPEG Stream: BALDOMERO URIELES CON EFRIAN BURGOS Y SU CONJUNTO "Amor Del Magdalena"

V/A The Original Sound Of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro As Told By The Phonograph 1948-79: Original Columbia 78s (Soundway) 3lp 34.00
We already listed the double cd, here's the deluxe vinyl version, in two triple-lp volumes!
It's tempting with records like this to just paraphrase the extensive liner notes, which in this case go into crazy details about, as the title suggests, the history of cumbia, and how that history has played out via the advent of the commercial phonograph, not to mention the introduction of new instruments, new genres, and the spread of the sound from its birthplace on the Caribbean coast to more central cities. Which would make sense, cuz to be honest, we knew very little about cumbia, at least in terms of its history and development, but at the same time, a quick Google search, and you'll have a wealth of different sources to learn more about cumbia and its history, and as interesting as that is (and it is, VERY), it's really for us all about the music, and the music here, two and a half hours of it, is so fantastic, and the idea that while sure, folks into Latin music and who already dig cumbia, will of course love this, it's the sort of comp that's perfect to expose this music to a whole new audience, one that might not have any experience with stuff like this at all, and who like us, might just be totally blown away by these sounds, energetic and passionate, melodic and moody, rhythmic and celebratory, the bands so tight, the musicians incredible, the songs very propulsive and percussion driven, the older tracks all about the accordion (more on that in the liner notes), with amazingly funky and soulful horn sections, melding cumbia to a fuller big band jazz sound, the songs groove and shimmy, pound and swing, the vocals too, so dramatic and emotional, all combined to create an incredible and expansive collection of music, which while at one time was a music mostly for the lower classes, eventually became a music for all the peoples of Columbia, and a point of great pride.
This collection was curated by Will Holland, who you may know as Quantic, whose awesome Addis To Axum: Music, Words & Arrangements Of Ethiopia record we reviewed way back in 2010, and who spent years in Columbia, learning the accordion, starting a band, and setting up a record studio, immersing himself in the culture to dig up the recorded history of Columbia and cumbia, via a treasure trove of rare 78's and 45's. We've been listening to this like crazy, and have found ourselves going a little cumbia crazy.
MPEG Stream: GASTON (EL ISLENO) CON EL CONJUNTO DE JAIME SIMANCA "La Cumbia Esta Llamando"
MPEG Stream: CONJUNTO LOS RUMBEROS "Cumbia Del Puerto"
MPEG Stream: LUCHO PEREZ "Judith"
MPEG Stream: ALBERTO PACHECO Y SU CONJUNTO "Sembrando Cafe"
MPEG Stream: RAFAEL YEPES CRESPO CON SUS NEGROS DE LA REGION "Nubia En La Playa"
MPEG Stream: BALDOMERO URIELES CON EFRIAN BURGOS Y SU CONJUNTO "Amor Del Magdalena"

V/A Trax Reprint 2: Notterossa / Rednight (Small Voices) 2cd 10.98
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have only TWO of these, so be quickÉ
Like many of the other releases we've been featuring from the now defunct Small Voices label, there seems to be very little in the way of NON academic descriptions of this stuff for lay people, folks like us who might just be interested in the sound, and don't need a lecture on sonic semiotics or whatever. So we'll skip the confusional history, and the academic jargon, what we could glean is that this is a cd reissue of tape release from 1982, called TRAX, and maybe this is the one place we should quote the label who describes TRAX thusly:
"This is the first in a series of reprint programme of the most representative titles from the TRAX catalogue, one for each letter of the name: T for Traxman, the comics series created for Frigidaire magazine by Massimo Giacon and Vittore Baroni; R for Rednight, a collective homage to the work of William S. Burroughs; A for Anthems, alternative national hymns for real and imaginary countries; X for Xtra, audio works composed at distance through a process of crossed interferences"
Not sure if that helped or not, but it's definitely interesting. This reprint comes in a huge oversized magazine style packaging, with liner notes in Italian and English, as well as tons of cool illustrations and graphics. Culled from what we can tell was some sort of zine or art project? Anyway, the first disc here is the actual 1982 tape, a compilation of noise/experimental/avant sonic art from a whole bunch of different artists and musicians from all over the world, it's a pretty fantastic listen, strange field recordings, industrial clatter, reverbed piano accompanied by strange mechancical buzz, swirly deconstructed drone pop, processed vocal loops, effects drenched sci-fi spoken word, noisy abstract avant electro-jazz, collaged porn soundtracks, strange detuned folk mash ups, primitive electronics, static drenched music box lullabies, splattery rhythmic improv, and so much more. All presented as one seamless hour long track, it's a heady, psychedelic listen for sure, definitely academic, but sonically more naive sounding, there's a distinctive joy in sound making on display, which is pretty refreshing, and for every chunk of atonal skree, there's another stretch of melodic loveliness.
The second disc, is a new recording from composer / soundscaper / audio alchemist / modern minimalist Gianluca Becuzzi, whose Memory Makes Noise disc we review elsewhere on this week's list, and whose Kinetix double disc we listed a while back. At first we were under the impression that Becuzzi's pieces was a reworking of the first disc, but on closer listening, and a closer reading of the confusing liner notes, it seems that maybe it was INSPIRED by, as sonically it's quite different, opening with a strange spoken word, delivered over a hazy industrial thrum, a fuzzy distant drone, laced with deep distant low end bellows, and like everything we've heard from Becuzzi, his pieces constantly shifting, here flitting from ominous cinematic drone punctuated by bursts of static and random clang and clatter, to warm softly whirling subterranean warble, and from strange circus like garble, to hazy, glitchy crumble, before returning to the opening spoken word drone, further testament to Becuzzi's penchant for panlindromic composition.
MPEG Stream: "Notterossa (excerpt)"

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

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

9TH WARD MARCHING BAND "Sneakin Up The Street" (Rhinestone) lp 17.98
AME SON "Catalyse" (Wah-Wah Records) lp 30.00
ANIOL, ADRIAN "It All Falls Apart" (Utech) cassette 4.98
ART ZOYD "Symphonie Pour Le Jour Ou Bruleront Les Cites" (Sub Rosa) cd
AUTHOR "s/t" (Tectonic) cd 17.98
BANG "Death Of A Country" (Rise Above Relics) lp 36.00
BIG PINK, THE "Future This" (4AD) cd/lp 14.98/16.98
BLACK FACE "I Want To Kill You Monster" (Hydra Head) 7" 9.98
BOMBINO "Agadez" (Cumbancha) cd 14.98
BROWN, JAMES "It's A New Day - Let A Man In" (Polydor) lp 12.98
BURZUM "From The Depths Of Darkness" (Byelobog Productions) 2lp 37.00
BUSH, KATE "50 Words For Snow" (Anti) cd/2lp 16.98/28.00
CACCIAPAGLIA, ROBERTO "Sonanze" (Wah Wah) lp 30.00
CACCIAPAGLIA, ROBERTO "The Ann Steel Album" (Half Machine) lp 25.00
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND "Doc At The Radar Station" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (ERNST REIJSEGER) "OST" (Winter & Winter) cd 16.98
CHAPTER 24 "Spindle / 4454" (Odd Box) 7" 6.98
CLAUDIO ROCCHI "Suoni Di Frontiera" (Die Schachtel) cd 17.98
CORTEX "The Whole Story" (Plinkity Plonk) 2cd 15.98
CRAMPS "File Under Sacred Music: Early Singles 1978-1981" (Munster) cd 17.98
CRONIN, MIKAL "Tide" (Goner) 7" 6.50
CROWLEY, ALEISTER "The Evil Beast" (Cleopatra) lp 23.00
DALTON, KAREN "1966" (Delmore Recording Society) cd 16.98
DAVE MIHALY'S SHIMMERING LEAVES ENSEMBLE "Eastern Accents In the Far West" (PFR / Porter) cd 13.98
DEATHPROD "Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha" (Rune Arkiv) cd 17.98
DEATHPROD "Treetop" (Rune Arkiv) cd 17.98
DEVIL'S BLOOD, THE "The Thousandfold Epicentre" (Metal Blade) cd 15.98
EL POLEN "Cholo (OST)" (Lion Productions) cd 16.98
ELVES, THE "And Before Elf... There Were Elves" (Niji Entertainment) cd 14.98
GAYE, MARVIN "Trouble Man OST" (Motown) lp 12.98
GOATVARGR "Black Snow" (Cold Spring Records) cd 17.98
GUYER'S CONNECTION "S/t" (Medical) lp 19.98
H.P. LOVECRAFT "s/t" (Subway Records) lp 32.00
HEADBOGGLE "Dualmono Satantango" (Greedmink) cassette 6.98
HEAVENLY BEAT "Faithless" (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98
HELDON "Agenta Nilsson" (Wah-Wah Records) lp 30.00
HOKUM BOYS, THE "You Can't Get Enough Of That Stuff" (Yazoo) lp 17.98
ICARUS LINE, THE "Bad Bloods" (Agitated Records) 7" 9.98
IMPERIAL DOGS, THE "Live! In Long Beach (October 30, 1974)" (ID Music) dvd 22.00
INVADERS "There's A Light There's A Way" (Fresh) cd 17.98
JOKER "The Vision" (4AD) cd/2lp 14.98/19.98
JONES, SHARON & THE DAP-KINGS "Soul Time!" (Daptone) cd 15.98
KASHMERE STAGE BAND "Texas Thunder Soul: 1968-1975" (Now-Again) 2cd 19.98
KOREKYOJINN "Tundra" (Skin Graft) cd-r 14.98
KORPBLOD "Vardens Fard" (Nordvis) cd 13.98
KOSS / HENRIKSSON / MULLAERT "The Mollan Sessions" (Mule Electronic) 2cd 22.00
LAUREL HALO "Antenna" (NNA Tapes) cassette 6.98
LOW "I Could Live In Hope" (Plain) lp 22.00
MASCIS, J "Circle" (Sub Pop) 7" 5.98
METALIAN "Rock Solid" (Heavy Artillery) cd ep 6.98
MIDNIGHT CHASER "Rough And Tough" (Heavy Artillery) cd 14.98
MORE "Warhead" (Rock Candy) cd 14.98
MORPHINE "Cure For Pain" (Modern Classics Recordings / Light In The Attic) lp 24.00
MULLEN, GEOFF "Accidental Guitars" (Rel) lp 19.98
NAZI DUST "Wretched Hour" (Vinyl Rites) lp 14.98
NICELY, NICK "Psychotropia" (Grapefruit) cd 17.98
NO UFO'S "Soft Coast" (Spectrum Spools) lp 22.00
PLAIN RIDE "Stonebridge" (Ektro) cd 14.98
PLASTIC FLOWERS "Strange Neighbors" (Wierd) 7" 8.98
POW! "Pretend There" (After Life) 7" 6.98
PRETERITE "Pillar Of Winds" (Handmade Birds) cd 14.98
RASHOMON "Ashcan Copy - Film Music Vol. 3" (Paradigms) cd 11.98
ROBINSON, CHRIS BROTHERHOOD "The Chris Robinson Brotherhood" (Spiritual Pajamas) 10" 10.98
ROSE, FRANKIE "Know Me" (Slumberland) 7" 5.50
SCHREIFELS, WALTER "An Open Letter To The Scene" (Academy Fight Song) cd/lp 13.98/16.98
SERPENTCULT "Raised By Wolves" (Listenable) cd 16.98
SERVILE SECT "Realms Of The Queen" (King Of The Monsters) lp 25.00
SHINDIG! "Quarterly No.4" magazine 11.98
SLUSSENANALYS "Aquila Helvetos Asfaltos" (Ektro) lp 22.00
SPACE CHILDREN, THE / THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK (VAN CLEAVE) "OST" (Film Score Monthly) cd 17.98
SPELLCASTER "Under The Spell" (Heavy Artillery) cd 14.98
SPENCE, JOSEPH "Bahaman Folk Guitar" (Doxy) lp 26.00
SPENCE, SAM "Sounds" (B-Music / Finders Keepers) lp 24.00
STARVING WEIRDOS "Land Lines" (Amish) cd/lp 14.98/21.00
SURPLUS 1980 "Relapse In Response" (Delphine Knormal Musik) cd/lp 9.98/13.98
SZABO, GABOR "The Sorcerer / More Sorcery" (Impulse) cd 16.98
TACO LEG "Printed Gold" (Richie Records) 7" 8.98
TEAGARDEN, WARREN & THE GOOD GRIEF "s/t" (Meaningless Words) cd/lp 12.98/16.98
V/A "Fac.Dance: Factory Records 12" Mixes And Rarities 1980-1987" (Strut) 2cd/2lp 16.98/28.00
V/A "Intended Play 2012" (Matador / True Panther) lp 1.98
V/A "Last Time Around" (Mississippi) lp 14.98
V/A "Mississippi Blues 1927-1941" (Yazoo) lp 17.98
V/A "Please Warm My Weiner: Old Time Hokum Blues" (Yazoo) lp 17.98
V/A "Rhythm" (Gruenrekorder) cd 17.98
V/A "Thai Funk Zudrangma Volume 1" (Light In The Attic) 2lp 30.00
V/A "Traveling Through The Jungle: Negro Fife And Drum Band Music From The Deep South" (Sutro Park) lp 16.98
VRAHLAZEL "s/t" (Pesanta Urfolk) lp 17.98
VULCANUS 68 "Contours And Colors" (Gigante Sound) cd-r 6.98
WATSON, CHRIS "El Tren Fantasma The Signal Man's Mix" (Touch) 12" 12.98
YELLOW DRESS, THE "Humblebees" (self-released) cd-r 7.98
YESYESYES "Issue #2" magazine 9.98
YOUNG, LARRY "Larry Young's Fuel" (Get On Down) cd/lp 15.98/12.98
YOUNG, NATE "Stay Asleep (Regression V.2)" (NNA) lp 17.98

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SOME SELECTED UPCOMING RELEASES

----} on the way to us now
Umberto "Final Exit" one-sided picture disc lp on Black Moss
Black Pyramid "II" cd on Meteorcity

----} January 17th or sooner
The Devil's Blood "The Thousandfold Epicentre" cd on Metal Blade
Mikal Cronin "Tide" 7" on Goner
Lost Sounds "s/t" 7" on Goner
Frankie Rose "Know Me" 7" on Slumberland
Hawkwind "Leave No Star Unturned" 2lp version on Dirter Promotions
Mark Lanegan Band "Gravedigger's Song b/w Burning Jacob's Ladder" 7" on 4AD
Big Pink "Future This" cd/lp on 4AD
Peaches "Teaches Of Peaches" lp reissue on XL

----} January 24th
Atomic Forest "Obsession" cd/2lp reissue on Now-Again
Zomes "Improvisations" lp on Thrill Jockey
Rhyton "s/t" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey
Imbogodom "And They Turned Not When They Went" lp on Thrill Jockey
Jason Urick "I Love You" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey
Ilyas Ahmed "With Endless Fire" lp/cassette on Immune
Cleared (feat Stephen Hess) "Breaking Day" lp/cassette on Immune
Expo 70 "Journey Through Astral Projection" cd/lp on Immune

----} January 31st
Miles Davis "Agharta" 2lp reissue on Four Men With Beards
Miles Davis "Pangaea" 2lp reissue on Four Men With Beards
Aufgehoben "Fragments Of The Marble Plan" lp on Holy Mountain
The Doozer "Keep It Together" lp on Woodsist
Golden Calves "Collection: Money Band + Century" 2lp on Woodsist
Prinzhorn Dance School "Clay Class" cd on DFA
Tomb "Uag" cd on Crucial Blast
v/a "Tally Ho! Flying NunÕs Greatest Bits" 2cd on Flying Nun
Susumu Yokota "Dreamer" cd on Lo Recordings
Damon & Naomi with Ghost "s/t" cd/lp+7" on Drag City
House Of Low Culture "Poisoned Soil" lp+12" on Taiga
Sick Alps "Vedley" 7" on Drag City
Magnetic Fields "Andrew In Drag" 7" on Merge

----} also in January
Il Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza "Niente" lp reissue on Omni Corp.
Egisto Macchi "I Futurbili" lp reissue on Omni Corp.

----} February 7th
Lindstrom "Six Cups Of Rebel" cd/2lp on Smalltown Supersound
Mark Lanegan Band "Blues Funeral" cd/2lp on 4AD
Of Montreal "Paralytic Stalks" cd/2lp on Polyvinyl
Fucked Up "Year Of The Tiger" 12" on Matador
Unthanks "The Songs Of Robert Wyatt & Antony & The Johnsons" cd on Rough Trade

----} February 14th
Neung Phak "2" lp on Abduction

----} February 21st
Wooden Shjips "Remixes" 12" ep on Thrill Jockey
Pallbearer "Sorrow And Extinction" cd on Profound Lore PFL 089 CD $8.85
Witch Mountain "South Of Salem" cd version on Profound Lore
Dustin Wong "Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads" cd/2lp on Thrill Jockey
Ital "Hive Mind" cd/2x12" on Planet Mu
Mount Carmel "Real Women" cd/lp on Siltbreeze
Prinzhorn Dance School "Clay Class" lp version on DFA
Roommates "Winnifred" 7" on Slumberland
Frankie Rose "Interstellar" cd/lp on Slumberland
Sutcliffe Jugend "Blue Rabbit" cd on Crucial Blast
Terry Malts "Killing Time" cd/lp on Slumberland

----} February 28th
Corrosion Of Conformity "s/t" cd on Candlelight
Disappears "Pre Language" cd/lp on Kranky

----} March 13th
Sigh "In Somniphobia" cd on Candlelight

----} March 6th
Howlin Rain "Russian Wilds" 2lp on Birdman
Locrian & Mamiffer "Bless Them That Curse You" cd on Profound Lore
v/a "Time To Go - The Southern" cd/2lp on Flying Nun
v/a "Busy Doing Nothing!" lp on Mint

----} and more stuff that's upcoming too, sooner or later, we think
v/a "Pop Ambient 2012" cd/lp on Kompakt
Pharaoh Overlord "Lunar Jetman" 2lp on Sige / cd on Ektro
Speedwolf "s/t" vinyl version
Lord Vicar "Signs of Osiris" cd on The Church Within
J.D. Emmanuel live cassette from '82, on Sonic Mediations
Max Planck "Kill The Pain" cd reissue on Stormspell
Midnight Priest "s/t" cd on Stormspell
Van Der Graaf Generator "Pawn Hearts" lp reissue on Four Men With Beards
Van Der Graaf Generator "Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" lp reissue on Four Men With Beards
Van Der Graaf Generator "H To He Who Am The Only One" lp reissue on Four Men With Beards
John Gallow (Blizaro) "Violet Dreams" cd on Blind Men And Occult Forces
Yob "Live At Roadburn 2010" cd/dvd on Roadburn
Panopticon "Social Disservices" 2lp version on Flenser
Bong "Live At Roadburn 2010" lp version on Roadburn
Bong "Beyond Ancient Space" lp version w/ bonus track on Ritual Productions
High Spirits "Another Night" lp version on High Roller
Bee Mask / Envenomist "Bee Mask v. Envenomist" lp on A Soundesign Recording
Tecumseh "Return to Everything" cd on Beta-Lactam Ring
Marijata "This Is Marijata" cd on Academy
Marijata "Pat Thomas Presents Marijata" cd/lp on Academy
Nurse With Wound "Skrag" cd on United Dairies
Jonathan Coleclough "Flutter" 2cd-r on October
Boduf Songs "Strait Gait" cd/lp on Latitudes
Anton Batagov "Passionate Desire To Be An Angel" cd on Long Arms Records

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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanIrwinScottNickJonandAndrew