ALUK TODOLO Descension (Riot Season) lp 21.00
Finally, the first full length from these mysterious French post black metal krautrock alchemists. And if you think calling a band French post black metal krautrock alchemists might be overdoing it, you haven't hear Aluk Todolo.
An offshoot of black metal horde Diamatregon (who have one record on tUMULt, and another one coming soon), this trio, just guitar, bass and drums, are most definitely alchemists, working some sort of ancient magic, turning the simplest of rock band instrumentation, into something massive and mysterious, heavy and haunting, brutal and mesmerizing, repetitive and motorik. Crafting songs, that manage to be both pieces, in the classical sense, abstract and intellectual collections and arrangements of sound, subtle shadings, tonal color and timbre, harmony and dissonance, and SONGS, in the rock sense, fucking kick ass jams, that seem to go on forever, killer riffs, and relentless head nodding rhythms, like krautrock, only heavier and darker and way way blacker. Like black metal but without all the buzz and howl, stripped down to its very essence, to just mood and rhythm, ambience and propulsion.
In the review of the previous 7" we described the band's sound as: Ominous krautrock rhythms over Einsterzende style industrial clatter, some lost seventies psych rock holy grail channeled through modern post rock. Dreamy and dark and mesmerizing. Hypnotic guitar lines and simple shuffling rhythms that build into clattery propulsive jams, all clanging angular riffs and dense tangled drumming. VERY This Heat like, and reminiscent of the late great Laddio Bolocko. Some sort of dangerous and mysterious postrock / krautrock hybrid, lo-fi but thick and dense and amazingly heavy.
And the full length essentially still sounds like that, but having loosed themselves from the shackles of the way too brief 7" format, the band can take all those elements, and lay them out, an epic massive post rock, krautrock, dronerock, experimental post black metal sprawl. These are the kinds of songs and sounds that need space, and time, need to lull the listener in, to entrance, ensorcel, the rhythms are stripped down and repetitive, looped and hypnotic, simple, but surprisingly and subtly complex at the same time. It's not hard to hear other hypno rockers in Aluk Todolo's sound, Circle, Salvatore and the like, but also space rock masters of repetition, Hawkwind, The Heads, and of course krautrock legends Can and Faust. Especially Can, with their focus on the power of the rhythm, no mater how seemingly simple or plain. But more than anything, it's legendary UK experimentalists This Heat whose, haunting mysterious rhythmic influence is all over Descension.
The opening track is the heaviest, a brutal slab of in the red distorted riffage, the actual riffs barely discernible, more like a heaving mass of crumbling distortion and space rock FX, but the rhythms that frame the whole record are already in place, pounding steadily beneath the buzz and skree. A head nodding pulse underpinning the swirling distorted clouds above. A bracing and white hot burst of blackdronekrautpsych that has the speakers rattling for all of its 8+ minutes.
But that track mostly serves as an intro to the complex and moody rhythmic sprawl that makes up the other three tracks. "Burial Ground" begins with what sounds like a slowed down This Heat rhythm track synched up to the free abstract drift of legendary seventies dronepsych collective Taj Mahal Travellers. The drums unwavering, but the background constantly in flux, swaths of black buzz, brief flurries of chaotic FX, distant low end swells, haunting fragmented melodies, a gorgeous spare kraut rock jam dropped into the abyss.
"Woodchurch" is a dense wall of high end buzz, all swirling distorted hum and keening feedback, tones all tangled up, a chordal wash of tuned vacuum cleaners, a sort of Sunroof! Style urdrone, but beneath it, the simplest of bass lines, distorted and downtuned, a heartbeat like throb, only a handful of notes, just enough to tie into the even simpler drum part, just kick drum and snare, a two step tattoo, as completely mesmerizing as it us utterly simple. The background buzz, swaying and pulsing, like some massive black sea, or clouds of insects ravaging a blighted sonic landscape.
The disc closes with "Disease" which opens with an ultra heavy slide guitar, unfurling a slow motion blues riff, caked in black buzz and thick distortion, the notes left to hang, ringing out until the tones slowly transform into feedback, immediately being swallowed up by the riff right behind it. It's like Robert Johnson playing SUNNO))), and then suddenly, the sound shifts, and the band reverts to its murky trawl, a thick throbbing bass line, another Can like rhythm, guitars warm and warbly, more like a layer of wet fuzz than distinct riffing, but occasionally, bits of that opening salvo return, offering up brief blasts of speaker destroying crunch, or brief bits of grinding buzz, a sudden start that almost, but doesn't quite wake you from your soporific reverie. Near the end, the distorted slide guitar returns, and drums drop out, and the track finishes with a thick coda of pealing guitar roar and shimmering chordal droneŠ
Intense and hypnotic and heavy and fucking genius. Ritualistic sounds, both black and brilliant, pulled from the void, a mysterious and sonic netherworld. Definite contender for record of the year.
MPEG Stream: "Obedience"
MPEG Stream: "Burial Ground"

ALUK TODOLO s/t (Implied Sound) 7" 5.50
Holy fuck, this record is amazing! You'd never guess it, but Aluk Todolo is the occult trance rock side project of French black metallers Diamatregon. OK, maybe it doesn't seem that off the wall, Diamatregon definitely dabbled in strange rhythms and distinctly non-black metal sound forms. But this is definitely something else altogether. Ominous krautrock rhythms over Einsterzende style industrial clatter, some lost seventies psych rock holy grail channeled through modern post rock. Dreamy and dark and mesmerizing. Hypnotic guitar lines and simple shuffling rhythms that build into clattery propulsive jams, all clanging angular riffs and dense tangled drumming. VERY This Heat like, and reminiscent of the late great Laddio Bolocko. Some sort of dangerous and mysterious postrock / krautrock hybrid, lo-fi but thick and dense and amazingly heavy.
Gorgeous packaging, white and silver on black, a fold out die cut sleeve with a Japanese style obi, and a cover image that manages to be totally familiar ('got yer nose') but somehow creepy as hell.

ALUMBRADOS A Garden Of Vipers (Important) cd 14.98
AQ has been all Gibbons Brothers all the time lately. First these Bardo bros hit us with maybe the best record yet from their main band Bardo Pond, Ticket Crystals, which has stayed in seriously heavy rotation all summer long. Then we got floored by Alaeshir, another of their many side projects, that one a sort of headbanging rock meets daydreaming bliss-out. And then Vapour Theories with its droning sax and psych guitar offerings, AND a super limited ultra kick ass live Bardo Pond release on Archive, and now... --pause to catch breath-- this two track, 40 minute disc of deep in the forest ethno-drones, drenched in buzz and shimmer. Sitar, guitar, cumbas and all sorts of percussion create exquisite layers psych drone Nirvana that will transport you to another dimension. Strangely peaceful, the music we hear in our heads when we lay in grass at night staring at the stars. So very nice!
MPEG Stream: "Principium I"
MPEG Stream: "Green Lion"

ALUMINUM GROUP Happyness (Wishing Tree) cd 13.98
Soft, sleek pop that harkens back to '70s AM radio as well as '60s space age lounge-y flair. Aluminum Group is primarily brothers Frank and John Navin, however on this release the band roster is a veritable orchestra of 19 members including Chicago starlets John McEntire, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, Rebecca Gates, Rob Mazurek, and Jeff Parker. Bubbly synths fizz and flutter amid Mangione-esque horns and crisp percussion while the suave gent croons in dulcet tones that bring to mind ELO, the Moody Blues, the Alan Parsons Project or more recently Kings Of Convenience. Occasional female vocals add an extra prettiness to the already glistening proceedings. That said, they may be from the Midwest but their music sounds as though it's coming to you from some euro jetset club - maybe having a nightcap with Air, the Style Council and Burt Bacharach. Laidback and smooooth! And there's more to come, apparently this is the first installment of an Aluminum Group trilogy.
RealAudio clip: "Kid"
RealAudio clip: "Stroke"

ALUMINUM GROUP Pedals (Minty Fresh) cd 14.98
With a name that recalls Stereolab and a bunch of guest appearances from indie-cred names like Jim O'Rourke (sickly-sweet avant-pop production, guitars, piano, etc), Sean O'Hagan (High Llamas dude on banjo), Sally Timms (Mekons vocalist doing backing vocals), Edith Frost (also on backing vocals), and Doug McCombs (from Tortoise adding his 6 string bass), this Chicago band brings together the corniest aspects of Eno, Steely Dan, the High Llamas, and the Sea & Cake into a cute pop album.

ALUMINUM GROUP Pelo (Hefty) cd 13.98
Hey didn't Stereolab already apply a heavy dollop of Os Mutantes-style Tropicalia to their aloof space age bachelor pad sounds? In case you need to hear more of the same, here's the second album from Chicago's Aluminum Group, complete with a Laetitia impersonator.

ALVA Slattery For Ungdom (Menlo Park) cd 11.98
This mysterious all-female avant-chamber-rock trio from Florida, who wowed discerning attendees with their performance at the '98 Terrastock II, and who released their first album on John Zorn's Avant label, make their return with this disc of strange and wonderful songs. Perhaps this could be described as mostly instrumental, almost Carl Stalling-like cartoon classical music combined with improv and no-wave. Unique and excellent.

ALVA NOTO For (Line) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
About a year and half ago, Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) dazzled us with the Transall trilogy of cd eps that bristled with crisp sinewave shards and low slung rhythmic blasts that sounded down right funky from time to time. For is an entirely different facet for Mr. Nicolai, as he's soothed the systematic sex machine grooves for ionized molecules into a shimmering palette of elegant vibrations. As Nicolai explains in the liner notes, For "brings together disparate recordings created throughout the last four years, unified under a theme of dedication. All nine studies share the history of being made specifically for someone or for a project that for one reason or another remains open ended." And those individuals earning dedications include John Cage, Jhonn Balance, TVPow, Jeff Wall, Peter Roehr, Ernie & Bert (we can only assume he means the Sesame Street characters), and a few others. Nicolai gently crafts each of the dedications into a polite, electronic ambience cobbled from intertwined sinewaves and hushed rhythms.
MPEG Stream: "Odradek (for Jhonn Balance)"
MPEG Stream: "Wall Anfang (for Jeff Wall)"

ALVA NOTO Prototypes (Mille Plateaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Recording with addition of Alva to his Noto moniker, Carsten Nicolai hasn't altered his palette of sine wave oscillations, modulating tones, rhythmic clicks, and other electronic gizmos, all bathed in a clinical purity of sound. Surrounding himself with these machines, Nicolai sets up little repetitions that build to, dare I say, catchy complexities full of rhythmic invention and hinting at melodies.
RealAudio clip: "Prototypes track two"

ALVA NOTO Transall Cycle Part One: Transrapid (Raster-Noton) cd ep 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two new batches of ultra clinical, vacuum sealed, glitched out minimalism from Alva Noto and Raster-Noton. The difference this time around is that these tracks are FUNKY. Well, sort of. Gorgeously packaged in oversized cardboard sleeves, printed with tripped out geometric patterns and pressed on those 3" cds embedded in 5" clear plastic, and assembled in such a perfect way, it's obvious that the Raster folk are designers first, musicians second. And that feeling comes across in the music as well. Painfully precise, perfectly constructed, and completely sterile. But in a good way. From the song titles ("Funkbugfx") to the head nodding rhythms contained within, this is obviously Alva Noto's funk record. But it's unlike any funk you've ever heard. Sine waves, and test tones and rumbling bass frequencies, white and pink noise, are all painstakingly constructed into a delicate lattice of alien funk, an extreme (and extremely rigid) dance floor music for some unimaginable outer (or inner) space dance party. Where the guests are all blocks of crystal, or swirling clouds of molecules, or pools of gelatinous ooze that sort of undulate sexily to the glith and click of this unfunky funk. These are the kind of grooves that you can picture scientists in sealed vacuum suits rocking out to in their lab on their ipods. Or maybe imagine Ryoji Ikeda and Sachiko M getting together to "jam" and running through some James Brown tunes, but in their inimitable, barely there style. Weird but pretty wonderful too.
MPEG Stream: "Funkbugfx"

ALVA NOTO Transall Cycle Part Three: Transspray (Raster-Noton) cd ep 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The third in a trio of new releases of ultra clinical, vacuum sealed, glitched out minimalism from Alva Noto and Raster-Noton (the other two, Transrapid and Transvision we listed last time). What's Alva Noto up to with thise? These tracks are FUNKY. Well, sort of. Gorgeously packaged in oversized cardboard sleeves, printed with tripped out geometric patterns and pressed on those 3" cds embedded in 5" clear plastic, and assembled in such a perfect way, it's obvious that the Raster folk are designers first, musicians second. And that feeling comes across in the music as well. Painfully precise, perfectly constructed, and completely sterile. But in a good way. From the song titles ("Funkbugfx") to the head nodding rhythms contained within, this is obviously Alva Noto's funk record. But it's unlike any funk you've ever heard. Sine waves, and test tones and rumbling bass frequencies, white and pink noise, are all painstakingly constructed into a delicate lattice of alien funk, an extreme (and extremely rigid) dance floor music for some unimaginable outer (or inner) space dance party. Where the guests are all blocks of crystal, or swirling clouds of molecules, or pools of gelatinous ooze that sort of undulate sexily to the glith and click of this unfunky funk. These are the kind of grooves that you can picture scientists in sealed vacuum suits rocking out to in their lab on their ipods. Or maybe imagine Ryoji Ikeda and Sachiko M getting together to "jam" and running through some James Brown tunes, but in their inimitable, barely there style. Weird but pretty wonderful too.
MPEG Stream: "Bit "
MPEG Stream: "Birr"

ALVA NOTO Transall Cycle Part Two: Transvision (Raster-Noton) cd ep 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two new batches of ultra clinical, vacuum sealed, glitched out minimalism from Alva Noto and Raster-Noton. The difference this time around is that these tracks are FUNKY. Well, sort of. Gorgeously packaged in oversized cardboard sleeves, printed with tripped out geometric patterns and pressed on those 3" cds embedded in 5" clear plastic, and assembled in such a perfect way, it's obvious that the Raster folk are designers first, musicians second. And that feeling comes across in the music as well. Painfully precise, perfectly constructed, and completely sterile. But in a good way. From the song titles ("Funkbugfx") to the head nodding rhythms contained within, this is obviously Alva Noto's funk record. But it's unlike any funk you've ever heard. Sine waves, and test tones and rumbling bass frequencies, white and pink noise, are all painstakingly constructed into a delicate lattice of alien funk, an extreme (and extremely rigid) dance floor music for some unimaginable outer (or inner) space dance party. Where the guests are all blocks of crystal, or swirling clouds of molecules, or pools of gelatinous ooze that sort of undulate sexily to the glith and click of this unfunky funk. These are the kind of grooves that you can picture scientists in sealed vacuum suits rocking out to in their lab on their ipods. Or maybe imagine Ryoji Ikeda and Sachiko M getting together to "jam" and running through some James Brown tunes, but in their inimitable, barely there style. Weird but pretty wonderful too.
MPEG Stream: "Remodel"

ALVA NOTO Transform (Mille Plateaux) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Although I don't predict that Carsten Nicolai (aka Noto and Alva Noto) will be taking a sabbatical any time soon, the global electronica community might be better for it if he did. Not because his work's not great -- quite the opposite. It's just that the proliferation of Noto imitators might subside, and maybe artists would be more inclined to try something new. Maybe. Unfortunately, such statements of discontent about Nicolai's ubiquitous sound go completely out the window when confronted by the all around success of an album like "Transform." As with anybody whose aesthetic has been blindly copied throughout an art scene, Nicolai has talent. He's the original. And while "Transform" does exactly what you expect -- Nicolai mutates 60 cycle hums, static pops, and terse electron pinpricks into perfect, post-techno grooves -- it is certainly his strongest production to date.
RealAudio clip: "track 4"
RealAudio clip: "track 9"

ALVA NOTO Transform (Mille Plateaux) 2lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Although I don't predict that Carsten Nicolai (aka Noto and Alva Noto) will be taking a sabbatical any time soon, the global electronica community might be better for it if he did. Not because his work's not great -- quite the opposite. It's just that the proliferation of Noto imitators might subside, and maybe artists would be more inclined to try something new. Maybe. Unfortunately, such statements of discontent about Nicolai's ubiquitous sound go completely out the window when confronted by the all around success of an album like "Transform." As with anybody whose aesthetic has been blindly copied throughout an art scene, Nicolai has talent. He's the original. And while "Transform" does exactly what you expect -- Nicolai mutates 60 cycle hums, static pops, and terse electron pinpricks into perfect, post-techno grooves -- it is certainly his strongest production to date.

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

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

ALVA NOTO Xerrox (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98
Like most Raster-Noton releases, the latest from Alva Noto begins with plenty of stutter and squelch, sinewaves and dog whistle tones, subterranean rumble and digital clips, but it's actually kind of misleading, as the rest of the disc exists in a sonic landscape much closer to the Kompakt sounds of Pop Ambient, or the hissy soft focus ambience of Tim Hecker, than the lowercase world of glitch and squeak. 
The first three tracks are strange minimal sonic experiments, plenty of hiss and scrape, static and hum, but it's track four, "Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)", where suddenly things get downright pretty. Soft distant swells, mysterious slow motion loops, hard to say whether the sounds are synthesizers or tape loops or field recordings, although according to the liner notes all the sounds here are drawn from airports, in flight announcements and telephone hold music, but by 'xeroxing" these sounds over and over, and letting each copy degrade just a little, Alva Noto takes those degraded sounds and shapes them into lovely blurred dronescapes, eventually wrapping them in soft prickly layers of digital hiss, which only adds to the soft focus romance and dreamlike otherworldliness. 
The tracks are named and grouped thematically. The ultra short "Astoria" tracks seem to act as brief respites, tiny sonic events separating the longer more song based tracks. The focus seems to be on those particular songs, each named "Haliod Xerrox Copy" and numbered or given an extra title in parentheses, these are gorgeous fuzzy, blown out dreamy drifts, all reminiscent of "Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)" but each, with its own distinctive flow, seemingly drawn from the same sonic template and utilizing a similar melodic theme, but softly molded into subtly different shapes. In "Haliod Xerrox Copy 2 (Airfrance)" it's all warm fuzz and muted white noise, a dense buzz, that is more soothing than abrasive. Moments later, in "Haliod_Xerrox_Copy_6" the buzz becomes washed out, pulsing louder and then quieter, while off in the distant, we are able to observe gentle lilting sonic events, as if alva notojourney, a much heavier drone element. This is intense, brooding, beautiful too, but haunting and ominous, a gorgeous minimal sonic smear of M83 fuzz, Tim Hecker-ish sepia toned blur, and Basinski-esque looped dreaminess, all wrapped in Noto's thick fuzzy ambient buzz. 
The cd comes packaged in another striking and strange oversized Raster-Noton package, a multiple panel fold out sleeve, with die cuts holding the disc in place.
MPEG Stream: "Haliod Xerrox Copy 4"
MPEG Stream: "Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)"
MPEG Stream: "Haliod Xerrox Copy 2 (Air France)"

ALVA NOTO Xerrox (Raster-Noton) lp 26.00
Like most Raster-Noton releases, the latest from Alva Noto begins with plenty of stutter and squelch, sinewaves and dog whistle tones, subterranean rumble and digital clips, but it's actually kind of misleading, as the rest of the disc exists in a sonic landscape much closer to the Kompakt sounds of Pop Ambient, or the hissy soft focus ambience of Tim Hecker, than the lowercase world of glitch and squeak. 
The first three tracks are strange minimal sonic experiments, plenty of hiss and scrape, static and hum, but it's track four, "Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)", where suddenly things get downright pretty. Soft distant swells, mysterious slow motion loops, hard to say whether the sounds are synthesizers or tape loops or field recordings, although according to the liner notes all the sounds here are drawn from airports, in flight announcements and telephone hold music, but by 'xeroxing" these sounds over and over, and letting each copy degrade just a little, Alva Noto takes those degraded sounds and shapes them into lovely blurred dronescapes, eventually wrapping them in soft prickly layers of digital hiss, which only adds to the soft focus romance and dreamlike otherworldliness. 
The tracks are named and grouped thematically. The ultra short "Astoria" tracks seem to act as brief respites, tiny sonic events separating the longer more song based tracks. The focus seems to be on those particular songs, each named "Haliod Xerrox Copy" and numbered or given an extra title in parentheses, these are gorgeous fuzzy, blown out dreamy drifts, all reminiscent of "Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)" but each, with its own distinctive flow, seemingly drawn from the same sonic template and utilizing a similar melodic theme, but softly molded into subtly different shapes. In "Haliod Xerrox Copy 2 (Airfrance)" it's all warm fuzz and muted white noise, a dense buzz, that is more soothing than abrasive. Moments later, in "Haliod_Xerrox_Copy_6" the buzz becomes washed out, pulsing louder and then quieter, while off in the distant, we are able to observe gentle lilting sonic events, as if viewed through a dense fog. Later on, "Haliod Xerrox Copy 1" returns to the billowy bliss of track 4, offering long soft contrails of sound, floating weightless amidst swirls of smeared radio static and and the sound of TV channel snow.
The disc finishes with the lengthy "Haliod_Xerrox_Copy 9", the most dramatic of the bunch. The melody is again similar, there is still plenty of hiss and fuzz and white noise, but the low end is more intense, giving the track more weight and emotion, the peaks and valleys too are more pronounced, a much more dynamic musical journey, a much heavier drone element. This is intense, brooding, beautiful too, but haunting and ominous, a gorgeous minimal sonic smear of M83 fuzz, Tim Hecker-ish sepia toned blur, and Basinski-esque looped dreaminess, all wrapped in Noto's thick fuzzy ambient buzz.
MPEG Stream: "Haliod Xerrox Copy 4"
MPEG Stream: "Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)"
MPEG Stream: "Haliod Xerrox Copy 2 (Air France)"

ALVA NOTO & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Insen (Asphodel) cd 13.98
Insen is the exquisite follow-up to Vrioon, which was the first collaborative outing for seminal electronic musicians Alva Noto (aka Carsten Nicolai) and Ryuichi Sakamoto that came out in 2003. As on their first album, Insen centers upon the balance between the impressionist piano passages of Sakamoto and the cold yet graceful production of Nicolai. While the differences between the two records are subtle, they are certainly noteworthy as Nicolai slices up Sakamoto's piano into fine slivers of time-stretched fragments, terse rhythms, and blurred ambience. In turn, Nicolai realigns these sounds with Sakamoto's untreated notes, providing a complex interplay between the piano and its fractured electronic mimesis. In structuring all of the pieces on Insen, Nicolai occasionally situates his electronics along a parallel path to Sakamoto's piano, and slowly moves the two paths toward different directions, with Nicolai's rhythms achieving velocity and tension whereas Sakamoto's pointillist notes remain weighless and transient. Yet, Nicolai always teases with losing control over the composition, as he often snaps back into a somber atmosphere of minimalist smears, resorting to a similiar strategy as heard on Eno's epic Thursday Afternoon. Stunning.
MPEG Stream: "Aurora"
MPEG Stream: "Logic Moon"

ALVA NOTO & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Insen (Raster-Noton) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl! Be warned though, that the vinyl version only contains -some- of the music on the cd! Here's what we had to say about that cd:
Insen is the exquisite follow-up to Vrioon, which was the first collaborative outing for seminal electronic musicians Alva Noto (aka Carsten Nicolai) and Ryuichi Sakamoto that came out in 2003. As on their first album, Insen centers upon the balance between the impressionist piano passages of Sakamoto and the cold yet graceful production of Nicolai. While the differences between the two records are subtle, they are certainly noteworthy as Nicolai slices up Sakamoto's piano into fine slivers of time-stretched fragments, terse rhythms, and blurred ambience. In turn, Nicolai realigns these sounds with Sakamoto's untreated notes, providing a complex interplay between the piano and its fractured electronic mimesis. In structuring all of the pieces on Insen, Nicolai occasionally situates his electronics along a parallel path to Sakamoto's piano, and slowly moves the two paths toward different directions, with Nicolai's rhythms achieving velocity and tension whereas Sakamoto's pointillist notes remain weighless and transient. Yet, Nicolai always teases with losing control over the composition, as he often snaps back into a somber atmosphere of minimalist smears, resorting to a similiar strategy as heard on Eno's epic Thursday Afternoon. Stunning.
MPEG Stream: "Aurora"
MPEG Stream: "Logic Moon"

ALVA NOTO & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Revep (Raster-Noton) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When the dollars-to-minutes ratio eeks close to 1:1, we tend to get a little uncomfortable. Really, what's the big deal about David "Organum" Jackman doubling or even tripling up the sounds on his $15.00 singles that clock in at a couple of minutes? There's also been talk of this marketing psychology from this mathematical ratio due to a pending Boris LP, which is not going to be cheap (not surprising), but also isn't one of their monstrously long drone-doom pieces either... well it's just sorta long. So the question always comes down to the quality of the merchandise, is Boris worth the price of admission? The same question should be asked of the third collaboration between Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) and Ryuichi Sakamoto, which clocks in a little under 20 minutes. Again, the division of labor puts Sakamoto at the piano and Nicolai at the laptop, with Sakamoto providing a series of impressionist clusters of piano notes and elegant repetitions, and Nicolai smudging those sounds through his pixel crunching software. Harmonically crisp and deftly performed, the three pieces on Revep offer a nice variation on the theme set by the first two collaborations Vrioon and Insen. Sakamoto fans will delight that he's offered a new arrangement for his classic piece "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," which Nicolai aerosolizes into a fine mist of digital ephemera and pin-pricked ambience. Certainly as lovely as the first two!
MPEG Stream: "Siisx"
MPEG Stream: "ax Mr. L"

ALVA NOTO & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Vrioon (Raster-Noton) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Vrioon" is a collaboration between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto (of Yellow Magic Orchestra) in which Sakamoto provided source material of impressionistic piano pieces to Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), who blurred many of the edges into a beautiful ambience and added clusters of slow-moving rhythms. It's very simple and very effective and very beautiful...
RealAudio clip: "Uoon 1"
RealAudio clip: "Noon"

ALVA NOTO + OPIATE Opto Files (Raster-Noton) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Opto Files" is the surprising combination of the Pole-esque neo-dub work of Denmark's Opiate and the clinically clicked rhythms of Noto (here calling himself Alva Noto, although there hasn't been any discernable difference between the Noto and Alva Noto projects). While Noto has supplied his trademarked glitchs, it is Opiate who offers a wide spectrum of color to Noto's typically neutral tonalities. It may not be a huge jump between the two styles, but it's nice to see a covergence of aesthetics.
RealAudio clip: "Opto File 2"

ALVA NOTO + SCANNER Uniform (SFMOMA) cd ep 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This limited edition cd ep was released by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with the exhibition "010101: Art in Technological Times". Carsten Nicolai (Noto) and Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) did a three-hour set as part of the opening of the show, and this cd ep is the result of the two of them editing down and manipulating their live recording into a 26-minute work.
Both the digipak design and the sounds on the cd lean towards the Raster-Noton aesthetic -- minimal clicks and cuts style, starting with a pleasant insectoid buzz and gradually adding layers of crackle and drone (and what sounds like crickets chirping or frogs croaking!). As the piece progresses, these "synthetic late summer night" sounds are augmented by high, wavering electronic tones. Really a gorgeous listen!
RealAudio clip: "Uniform (excerpt1)"
RealAudio clip: "Uniform (excerpt2)"

ALVA NOTO / SIGNAL / BYETONE / KOMET Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) 2cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is basically the Raster-Noton allstars: Alva Noto, Byetone, Komet, and Signal (which is a collaboration of the aforementioned three artists) recording for Staalplaat's acclaimed "Mort Aux Vaches" series. Alva Noto's piece is a live documentation of the material found on his debut, with its terse electron pinpricks evolving amidst very slowly developing pure-tone, post-techno structures. Nicolai's performance of "Prototypes" clearly incorporates the same sounds found on his studio album, but the arrangement is one very long track and is completely different than the original. Byetone (aka Olaf Bender) is the least prolific of the Raster-Noton founders, with only a couple of releases. His 30 minutes for the Raster "Mort Aux Vaches" is a solid replication of Mika Vainio's crystalline "Metri" album for Sahko, as a surgical presentation of acid house bleeping grooves. Komet, who has recently simply been recording under his given name Frank Bretschneider, is the most effects-happy amongst the Raster-Noton family, warbling his pure tones through ring modulation and ample delay patterns to give the whispered clickery and alarm call bleeps a Frippertronic feel. The Signal recordings may be the weakest amongst the group, Pan Sonic / Goem throwaway tracks with electronic loops are set up and left unchanged, as if nobody amongst the group wanted to change anybody else's sounds. It is the slippages between melody and rhythm that make the Raster-Noton sound so appealing. While the rest of this double set is well worth checking out, Raster-Noton's collaborative efforts prove they are perhaps better as solo artists.
RealAudio clip: ALVA NOTO "Prototypes"
RealAudio clip: BYETONE "1:2"
RealAudio clip: KOMET "Glas"
RealAudio clip: SIGNAL "Light Pipe"

ALVARIUS B s/t (Abduction) cd 14.98
It goes without saying that the Sun City Girls often exhibit splashes of hallucinatory brilliance throughout their pseudo-eastern psychedelia mashed with cinematic grandeur and way-fucking-far-out esoterica, but at the same time, the Girls have a bad habit of releasing way too much meanderingly psychotic material that definitely tries the patience of even the most die-hard SCG fan. Curiously enough, the smattering of solo recordings from the Bishop brothers, Sir Richard Bishop and Alvarius B (aka Alan Bishop), have managed to avoid the failings of some of the SCG recordings. The reissue of the first Alvarius B record clearly demonstrates this (as well as the 2005 vinyl-only record Blood Operatives Of The Barium Sunset). Recorded between 1981-1989, many of Alan's severely mangled folk-songs are curiously prescient of the current flourishing of acid folk fingerpicking. At the same time, these fucked-up lo-fi indie-spluttering instrumentals sound like an excessively complex Sebadoh tune played by one guy with a tuneless guitar. Either way you look at it, here's one of the great recordings from one of the Bishop brothers. It went out of print quickly the first time it was released on vinyl back in 1994. We hope it won't happen again.
MPEG Stream: "Track 3"
MPEG Stream: "Track 11"

ALVARIUS B AND CERBERUS SHOAL The Vim And Vigor Of (North East Indie) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Cerberus Shoal wrote a song. Alvarius B wrote a couple songs. All in all, three songs were written. between 1996 and 2002, Alvarius B, who is Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls, recorded his two songs and the Cerberus Shoal song and Cerberus Shoal, who do their droney folky collective thing with lots of instruments from all over the world way out there in Maine, recorded their song and the two Alvarius B songs. Ok, so that's the story of how this second installment in North East Indie's series of splits came to be (first was " The Whys and Hows of Herman Dune and Cerberus Shoal," upcoming splits in the series will include Magic Carpathians and Guapo). This pairing seems natural; past AQ reviews have compared Cerberus Shoal with Sun City Girls, and each person / group's style suits the songwriting of the other one very nicely. Alvarius B brings warm lo-fi acoustic guitar and vocals; Cerberus Shoal's musical universe, not so overtly "ethnic" here as on some of their other recordings, is populated by banjos, clattering typewriter percussiveness, and a uniquely droll vocal delivery.
Both Cerberus Shoal and Alvarius B contribute darkly surreal lyrical imagery, alternately plaintive and fucked-up, contributing to a psych-folk sound that manages to be simultaneously blackly comic and genuinely moving.
MPEG Stream: CERBERUS SHOAL "The Real Ding"
MPEG Stream: ALVARIUS B "Viking Christmas"

ALVARS ORKESTER Interference (Ash International) cd 14.98
A semi-legendary fixture of the late eighties cassette underground, Alvars Orkester was a noise/drone duo obsessed with "the mysteries of psychic sickness, mental institutions, the industrial music culture and the power of sound". They took their influence from the likely industrial candidates, Test Dept. SPK, Throbbing Gristle and the like, but their sound soon developed into a more minimalist approach to sound, focusing more on the drone. The band split in the nineties only to reunite last year to record this 4 track exploration of paranoia and discord, fear and mortality, sickness and death.
The first track is a ten minute near static drone, dense and layered a high end sine wave hovering above a low end buzz, the two slowly shifting and subtly interacting. Sublime and in its own way quite gorgeous. Track two is much more harsh, an assemblage of digital feed back, harsh slabs of noise, chopped and sequenced into ear piercing rhythmic blocks of sound. Track three "Reality Distortion Field" is a shimmering soundfield of chimes and sinewaves, pulsing instrument hum and far away feedback, a murky backdrop for disembodied voices and strange tape manipulation. Truly creepy stuff. the final near 20 minute "Field Grey" is a super minimal expanse of barely there dark ambience. Low warm tones, ebb and flow, their shifts barely noticeable until near the end of the record when processed percussion swells up beneath the drones, and ultra subtle melodies drift ghost like from the murk. So haunting and lovely. Definitely for the dark drone obsessed, Organum, Lustmord, Chalk, Coleclough and the like.
And as with most releases on Ash International, gorgeously understated and quite striking packaging.
MPEG Stream: "Johannishus"
MPEG Stream: "Cobra Mist"

AM Mccleod-ganj (Pseudo Arcana) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is Antony Milton's first completely computer based recording, using the sounds of Tibetan instruments that just happened to be laying about. Things start off with what sounds like someone taking a powersaw to a bell, UGLY, but with gorgeous shimmering overtones. As the record progresses we hear lots of wild tribal percussion over a thudding pulse and some low end rumble, banjos chopped up into a digital soup that sounds a bit like a more uneven, more jagged Oval, and syrupy bass melodies and fluttery static over a dreamy, hypnotic dirge with rich swells and seasick melodies. This is a really nice mix of organic and non-organic sounds, computer manipulated into a collection of rich soundscapes, gorgeous ambience and some downright melodic, almost-pop-songs.
RealAudio clip: "Skullbow Handycam"
RealAudio clip: "Dharamsala"

AM More Domestic (Pseudo Arcana) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We'll just have to assume that AM stands for Antony Milton, head of Pseudo Arcana. This disc starts off with a three part piece, the sounds of passing traffic, buzzing insects, whirring fans, and sort of lowercase drones with the occasional percussive intrusion of a bumped microphone, or distant clatter. Eventually, strange otherworldly notes are introduced, sounding a bit like horns without reeds, more sound than actual notes, but they manage to add miniscule amounts of soothing melody. Part two sounds like a version of part one, only far away, and with the sound of crickets, that slowly evolves into a buzzing swarm. Part three sounds like a version of part two, but with the addition of doleful lonely melodies played on a bamboo flute. Sounds like some overheard, ancient ceremony being performed fireside. Track 2 is all casio bleeps and blips, that demarcate a warbly uneven synth drone, all dreamy and effevescent. Sounds a bit like a more lo-fi Boards Of Canada. The final track is a noisy assemblage of dissonant clatter and barely discernable melody, tape hiss, and a wild spray of notes and tones, like a Total or Gate record falling apart, slowly deconstructing before your ears. Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Kitchen Sink #2"
RealAudio clip: "Pop. Tape"

AM (ANTONY MILTON) Poerua Acid (Diagnosis...Don't!) 3"cd-r 10.98
One of three new discs in the latest series of lovingly hand made 3" cd-r's from the Grey Daturas' Diagnosis... Don't! label (the other two being Bonecloud and Nigel Wright, reviewed elsewhere on this list). Poerua Acid features two looooong tracks from beloved NZ noisemaker and PseudoArcana label head honcho Antony Milton, and is the perfect mix of his two sides of his sonic personality, one side lilting dreamy and melodic, the other, dense, muted and noisy.
The opening track begins with just guitar, all warbly and slightly out of tune, the tape speed shifting and changing speed, making it sound like the sound on one of those grade school film strips, warm and wreathed in reverb, underneath, strange little swells and swirls drift and shimmer. Over the course of the track, the delicate finger picked melodies sink deeper and deeper into the background, until all that's left is a blown out muddy dronescape of overlapping rumbles and haunting flute like melodies.
The second track is much less restrained, opening up with a thick wall of guitars, dense and tangled, thick with distortion, roiling and overblown, garbled vocals and all manner of mysterious melodies lurk ghostlike beneath an epic expanse of layered guitar grind, like a more blissed out and melodic Sunroof! or Hototogisu.
Packaged in thick textured maroon paper mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
And as always, these are SUPER LIMITED, and odds are we won't be able to get more. So don't dawdle...
MPEG Stream: "Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Part 2"

AMACHER, MARYANNE Sound Characters (Tzadik) cd 15.98
A spectacular release from Tzadik's Composer series! Maryanne Amacher is a reclusive sound sculptor who constructs the aural equivalent of rust to be heard in the reverberant spaces of cathedrals. The sonorities constructed out of mutilated recordings of bells, tape noise, and lots of highly amplified alien noises that would normally be on the quiet side of inaudible.
A beautifully cromulant release.

AMADOU ET MARIAM Je Pense A Toi (Universal) cd 16.98

AMALGAMATED SONS OF REST s/t (Galaxia) cd ep 9.98
On local / Santa Cruz-based label Galaxia comes this supergroup of sorts. Amalgamated Sons of Rest is Will Oldham of PALACE, Jason Molina of SONGS:OHIA, and Alasdair Roberts of APPENDIX OUT. These guys have basically written the book on broken-voiced, broken-hearted, hollow-eyed, lovely back porch indie twang. A one of a kind 6-song (one more than the lp) session. *Really* nice and even more stripped down than these guys usually are -- harking back to the earliest Songs:Ohia records and the most despairing Palace tracks.
RealAudio clip: "Maa Bonny Lad"

AMALGAMATED SONS OF REST s/t (Galaxia) lp 8.98
On local / Santa Cruz-based label Galaxia comes this supergroup of sorts. Amalgamated Sons of Rest is Will Oldham of PALACE, Jason Molina of SONGS:OHIA, and Alasdair Roberts of APPENDIX OUT. These guys have basically written the book on broken-voiced, broken-hearted, hollow-eyed, lovely back porch indie twang. A one of a kind 5-song session. Nice. Vinyl is one sided with a marine-life themed etching. CD available Sept 10, 2002.

AMANDINE Leave Out The Sad Parts (Fat Cat) cd ep 8.98
Leave Out The Sad Parts is the new cdep from this Swedish foursome who briefly went by the less fitting moniker Wichita Linemen. This U.S.-only release includes one song ("Firefly") from their fine debut album, 2005's This is Where Our Hearts Collide and two tunes previously only available on a UK 7". Amandine's sound is perhaps most characterized by the vocals of Olof Gidlof. He has one of those voices of which it's difficult to discern the gender. We believed it to be a female singer until we checked the band lineup. It sounds as though the weight of the world is preventing him from raising his voice beyond a low, muted register. Some of us thought this was quite reminiscent of '70s heavy hearts such as Bread. It's a disarmingly warm, melancholic assembly of piano, guitar, bass and drums accompanied by accordion, theremin, banjo and trumpet. The final song "Between What He's Saying And What He Regrets" is graced with some suitably sleepy fiddle... a definite highlight!
MPEG Stream: "Firefly"
MPEG Stream: "Between What He's Saying And What He Regrets"

AMANDINE This Is Where Our Hearts Collide (Fat Cat) cd 15.98
After their terrific Leave Out The Sad Parts cdep came out (now quite some time ago), we were left oh so eagerly anticipating the domestic release of this Swedish band's debut full length (which came out overseas in 2005). We waited and waited and waited. The sun came up the sun went down, seasons changed... but no Amandine album surfaced... until now! So if you dug the ep, dig into more of their beautiful, dark country rock characterized by prominent strings and piano and the charmingly caramelized voice of Olof Gidlof. Wonderful!
MPEG Stream: "Firefly"

AMAZEZINE! #5 magazine+7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Canadian zine printed in an edition of 1000 numbered copies. Interviews with Jim O'Rourke, Fly Pan Am, Loren Mazzacane Connors, '60s furntiture designer Verner Panton. Comes with a 7" featuring Loren Mazzacane Connors and Ci Dy.

AMBARCHI / AVENAIM Clockwork (Room 40 / Jerker) cd 15.98

AMBARCHI / FENNESZ / PIMMON / REHBERG / ROWE Afternoon Tea (Ritornell / Mille Plateaux) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The powerbook improv ensemble is a relatively new music performance hybridization that has found little success in attempting to bring the fluidity of free-jazz improvisation to the digital clickery of live hard disc editing. Recorded results we've heard have mostly been boring, self-important collages of inconsequential noodling from alpha male egos who want to upstage their companions rather than to collaborate. While the cavalier Christian Fennesz and the studious Peter Rehberg have been involved in some of more egregious failures of this genre, this, their collaboration with Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, and Paul "Pimmon" Gough is perhaps the first work of true greatness for any powerbook ensemble. The keys to the success for "Afternoon Tea" are the high degree of restraint from each individual collaborator and the indecipherability betwixt the guitars of Ambarchi & Rowe and the computer trickery of the rest. Slow rhythmic creaks, subtle drones, and hacked musique concrete elements form and dissolve various structures, with a lot of room for each of the sounds to breathe. While this tracks in at almost 50 minutes, you really want it to go on for much longer. Nice.

AMBARCHI, OREN A Final Kiss On Poisoned Cheeks (Table Of The Elements) 12" 17.98
Latest in Table Of The Elements new one sided etched 12" series of modern guitar music, and certainly a collection of modern guitar music would not be complete with long time aQ fave Oren Ambarchi. Whose mastery of the guitar seems to know no bounds, teaming up with the Southern Lord stable for various exercises in extreme heaviness, but just as often crafting delicate dreamscapes of hushed strum and blurred riffing. His solo records tend toward the latter, but this piece is something else all together.
Still essentially a dronescape, A Final Kiss is rife with sonic activity, so much so that in lesser hands it would be more of a mess, a sort of pretty-ish noise record, but Ambarchi, takes all manner of buzz and glitch, of scrape and hum, and weaves it into a strangely lyrical arrangement. The core of the piece is a thick, undulating low end drone, a muted Niblockian shimmer, that seems not to change so much as shift, reflecting different colors and sounds depending on the angle. Over this nearly constant thrum, exist a veritable universe of strange sounds, streaks of feedback, cricket like electronic chitter, moaning throbbing swells of guitar rumble, brief blurs of warm soft focus fuzz, layers of crumbling distortion, all of the various elements constantly shifting and blossoming, collapsing and then blooming again, creating a super organic flow, another instance of leaving the instruments on the stage, guitars against amps. amps cranked, although here it seems the instruments have come to life, and we are glimpsing their secret lives, as the communicate musically, telling some sort of story, exchanging mysterious messages, which while indecipherable to human ears, still manage to sound magical.
Guitardrone freaks will, well, freak! Subtly heavy, darkly drone-y, slightly noisy, rich and dense and textural. Really gorgeous. And totally recommended.
Pressed on swirled turquoise vinyl. One sided, the other side with a super bad ass etching, housed in a thick vinyl sleeve, and of course, as always LIMITED!

AMBARCHI, OREN Der Kleine Konig (Tonschacht) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Australian avant-guitarist Oren Ambarchi wrangles with some Max / MSP patches to craft this single of looped mantras of chopped guitar buzz and dissonant noise drones.

AMBARCHI, OREN Destinationless Desire (Touch) 7" 8.98
Brand new 7" of delicate beauty and haunting songsmithery from Mr. Oren Ambarchi, who hasn't had much time lately for his own music making, as he seems to be a constant part of the Southern Lord / SUNNO))) axis, being a part of at least three groups we know of. But we've pretty much loved every one of Ambarchi's releases and this new single is no different.
Using electric guitars, organ, bells, samples, percussion and motorized cymbal (!), Ambarchi has created to dramatically different pieces. The A side is a woozy, washed out underwater sounding loopscape, peppered with record crackle (unless that's coming from the record player, either way, it sounds great!), like a slightly jauntier, less melancholy Oval, major key melody, all softly sunshine-y, a dreamily hypnotic stretch of soft swirl that could go on forever.
The B side is much darker, long streaks of shimmery low end beneath haunting slowed down vocals, mournful and mysterious, the vocals and the guitar drift and shift, all wound up in and around each other, throughout, bits of electronic glitchery, smears of muted buzz, snippets of conversation and dialogue, but all that stuff seems to be woven into an undulating backdrop for Ambarchi's ghostlike disembodied blues.
As always, packaged in super striking thick matte sleeve with gorgeous photos and layout from Touch head honcho Jon Wozencroft.

AMBARCHI, OREN Grapes From The Estate (Touch) cd 15.98
The notion of musicians hunkered over their laptops, sitting still in the glow of the screen, not moving at all except for their fingers, paints a rather dull performance picture of what is often sonically quite exciting. So when organic/real/live instruments are brought into the mix, it makes the whole thing that much more alive and approachable and personal. Especially when the computer is left out of the equation COMPLETELY. Thus our appreciation of guitar-wielding electronicists (and fellow Touch label recording artists) Christian Fennesz and especially Oren Ambarchi. Fennesz with his sun dappled, "Venice" California sunshine-y shimmer, and Oren Ambarchi with his less-is-more, minimalist pointalism. Both use the guitar, Fennesz to interact with the computer, Ambarchi just to SOUND like it's being run through a computer, whihc is what makes this disc so amazing. Where Fennesz paints lush dense soundscapes, of thick harmonies and dreamy buzz, Ambarchi takes a way more minimal approach on Grapes From The Estate, spreading notes out into lazy barely there melodies, and loose frameworks of subtle glitchery and gentle strum. Occasionally, drums enter the mix, but only as a shuffling afterthought, lending the sound a definite jazzy post rock vibe. Imagine Oval's glitchy and muffled underwater murmer, but played on a guitar instead of being assembled from skipping cds. There is that sort of hiccupping rhythmic element present, but it's much more an innate part of the song, and these are most definitely -songs-. Instead of long 'pieces', these tracks are structured like actual songs, melodies appear and disappear, recur and subtly shift throughout, there are almost-choruses, and some of the motifs are quite catchy (although subtly so). Most of the record is dark and glacial, stepping carefully through a vast expanse of space, except for the album's centerpiece "Remidios The Beauty", where the pace picks up just a bit, and Ambarchi's guitar / effects interface produces an almost bouncy melody, that while being slightly more upbeat, still retains all of its dreamy sleepiness. This is the perfect mix of Kompakt style pop ambient, minimalist post rock, and those dark and rumbling drones we all love so much.
MPEG Stream: "Girl With The Silver Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Corkscrew"

AMBARCHI, OREN Grapes From the Estate (Southern Lord) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This long time AQ fave now available on vinyl. A deluxe gatefold double lp, limited to 1000 copies, a handful of which are on purple vinyl, cross your fingers if you care and you might get lucky...
Here's what we had to say about this amazing work:
The notion of musicians hunkered over their laptops, sitting still in the glow of the screen, not moving at all except for their fingers, paints a rather dull performance picture of what is often sonically quite exciting. So when organic/real/live instruments are brought into the mix, it makes the whole thing that much more alive and approachable and personal. Especially when the computer is left out of the equation COMPLETELY. Thus our appreciation of guitar-wielding electronicists (and fellow Touch label recording artists) Christian Fennesz and especially Oren Ambarchi. Fennesz with his sun dappled, "Venice" California sunshine-y shimmer, and Oren Ambarchi with his less-is-more, minimalist pointalism. Both use the guitar, Fennesz to interact with the computer, Ambarchi just to SOUND like it's being run through a computer, whihc is what makes this disc so amazing. Where Fennesz paints lush dense soundscapes, of thick harmonies and dreamy buzz, Ambarchi takes a way more minimal approach on Grapes From The Estate, spreading notes out into lazy barely there melodies, and loose frameworks of subtle glitchery and gentle strum. Occasionally, drums enter the mix, but only as a shuffling afterthought, lending the sound a definite jazzy post rock vibe. Imagine Oval's glitchy and muffled underwater murmer, but played on a guitar instead of being assembled from skipping cds. There is that sort of hiccupping rhythmic element present, but it's much more an innate part of the song, and these are most definitely -songs-. Instead of long 'pieces', these tracks are structured like actual songs, melodies appear and disappear, recur and subtly shift throughout, there are almost-choruses, and some of the motifs are quite catchy (although subtly so). Most of the record is dark and glacial, stepping carefully through a vast expanse of space, except for the album's centerpiece "Remidios The Beauty", where the pace picks up just a bit, and Ambarchi's guitar / effects interface produces an almost bouncy melody, that while being slightly more upbeat, still retains all of its dreamy sleepiness. This is the perfect mix of Kompakt style pop ambient, minimalist post rock, and those dark and rumbling drones we all love so much.
MPEG Stream: "Girl With The Silver Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Corkscrew"

AMBARCHI, OREN Lost Like A Star (Bo'Weavil) lp 32.00
A brand new two track 'album' from Australian guitarist / soundscaper Oren Ambarchi and it's a doozy. Two side long tracks, one composed for a Japanese dance troupe, the other recorded live, both gorgeous.
The 'dance' track takes up all of side A and utilizes electric guitar, bowed instruments, samples, bells, cymbals and percussion. Deep drifts of buzzing sounds drift dreamlike from the speakers, cymbals sizzle like falling rain, bells twinkle like stars in a black sky, very drifty and otherworldly. It eventually builds to a throbbing fever pitch, but instead of getting heavier, it just gets thicker, and more dense and way more intense. Notes throb and pulse, reverberating and beating against one another, creating dense fields of rich overtones, the whole thing very liquid and organic sounding, constantly shifting and changing shape. Would have loved to see the dance that accompanied these sounds.
The B side was recorded live, the instrumentation including electric guitars, cymbals and a motor (!). A much more delicate and haunting piece than the flipside, moody melodies drifting over pulsing buzzing drones, the melodies spaced out and spidery, over a fuzzy shimmery backdrop. About halfway through the track, the sound explodes and becomes a massive, grinding, buzz drenched wall of thick static guitar, layer upon layer, very trancelike and hypnotic, but incredibly fierce and intense, finally culminating in a dreamy fade out of muted tones and a barely there melody.
Nice super textured cardstock, full color sleeves, incredibly thick vinyl, LIMITED TO 650 COPIES, each record hand numbered...

AMBARCHI, OREN Mort Aux Vaches: Song of Separation (Staalplaat) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Recorded for the Dutch radio station VPRO and released as part of Staalplaat's acclaimed "Mort Aux Vaches" series, Oren Ambarchi's "Song of Separation" is a continuation of the ideas previously investigated on his "Suspension" album for Touch. Employing a number of electronic / digital effects to manipulate the shape of his guitar, Ambarchi produces a slowly moving series of pointillistic tonal plucks. Each tone hangs in space before dissolving into the emptiness of silence which in good time is replaced by another sympathetic tone. While Ambarchi has openly stated the influences of Alvin Lucier and Morton Feldman, he approaches this work quite clearly as an improvisation, meandering through time and space rather than controlling it with conceptual restrictions or repetitive melodic stanzas. Limited to 1000 copies.
RealAudio clip: "Song Of Separation Part 1"

AMBARCHI, OREN Pendulum's Embrace (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Space... tones... space. A bass note now and again, and whispering hissssss. A guitar string plucked, muffled by effects, droning into silence. And repeat. Doom paced (as per much on the Southern Lord label, home to SUNNO))) after all), but not "heavy" like doom metal. Talk about slooooooooooooooow though. Soporific this is, in a nice nice dreamy way. Warm and pretty and so, so sad sounding. There's three long tracks here that do indeed wrap you in their embrace, and proceed with the reassuring steadiness of a pendulum's swing. Aussie experimentalist Oren Ambarchi (known for many collaborations, projects, and solo albums, including 2004's wonderful Grapes From The Estate to which this is perhaps offered as sequel) utilizes sounds both fragile and foreboding, from instrumentation including glass harmonica, bells, piano, percussion, and of course guitars. The opening track "Fever, A Warm Poison" sleepwalks glacially, as per the first few sentences of this review. Ambarchi orchestrates the swell of strings, or what could be an accordion's wheeze, into this album's soundworld on the second track, "Inamorata". Utterly gentle & melancholic. As is the 17 minute finale, "Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow", which while blissfully relaxed, might be the "busiest" track of the disc on account of the presence of some quiet, spectral vocals, indistinct but still a suggestion of songiness towards the end of the piece. The guitar melodies are denser here, and there's a hint of glitch. It's gorgeous at any rate. This cd should appeal to fans of Earth's Hex, and Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, and even Boris's gentler moments, as if held under a microscope, volume hushed. Also this very list, we've reviewed the new release from another Ambarchi act, Sun. This could be that Sun album, left out to melt in the (actual) sun, to droop and drip, pooling into a limpid, low-key loveliness...
MPEG Stream: "Fever, A Warm Poison"
MPEG Stream: "Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow"

AMBARCHI, OREN Pendulum's Embrace (Southern Lord) 2lp 17.98
Now available on vinyl!
Space... tones... space. A bass note now and again, and whispering hissssss. A guitar string plucked, muffled by effects, droning into silence. And repeat. Doom paced (as per much on the Southern Lord label, home to SUNNO))) after all), but not "heavy" like doom metal. Talk about slooooooooooooooow though. Soporific this is, in a nice nice dreamy way. Warm and pretty and so, so sad sounding. There's three long tracks here that do indeed wrap you in their embrace, and proceed with the reassuring steadiness of a pendulum's swing. Aussie experimentalist Oren Ambarchi (known for many collaborations, projects, and solo albums, including 2004's wonderful Grapes From The Estate to which this is perhaps offered as sequel) utilizes sounds both fragile and foreboding, from instrumentation including glass harmonica, bells, piano, percussion, and of course guitars. The opening track "Fever, A Warm Poison" sleepwalks glacially, as per the first few sentences of this review. Ambarchi orchestrates the swell of strings, or what could be an accordion's wheeze, into this album's soundworld on the second track, "Inamorata". Utterly gentle & melancholic. As is the 17 minute finale, "Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow", which while blissfully relaxed, might be the "busiest" track of the disc on account of the presence of some quiet, spectral vocals, indistinct but still a suggestion of songiness towards the end of the piece. The guitar melodies are denser here, and there's a hint of glitch. It's gorgeous at any rate. This cd should appeal to fans of Earth's Hex, and Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, and even Boris's gentler moments, as if held under a microscope, volume hushed. Also this very list [not this one, but the one upon which the cd version of this originally appeared], we've reviewed the new release from another Ambarchi act, Sun. This could be that Sun album, left out to melt in the (actual) sun, to droop and drip, pooling into a limpid, low-key loveliness...
MPEG Stream: "Fever, A Warm Poison"
MPEG Stream: "Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow"

AMBARCHI, OREN Persona (ERS) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.