ALPS, THE III (Type) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The latest from Bay Area new-kraut-folk-age combo Alps, finds the band sounding more high fidelity than ever, and more kraut than folk, which in both cases suits them big time.
For those new to Alps, a rundown of several members should help give you an idea of where their sound is coming from: our very own Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp, formerly of Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma). But Alps is definitely more than the sum of its parts, their sound is quite varied, expansive, even epic at times, but simultaneously, they manage to craft a sound simple and solid, based as much on rhythm and texture as on song and melody.
On past releases, Alps were a much more ramshackle concern, which at the time was definitely a big part of their sound, and thus set them firmly amongst the lo-fi cd-r drone folks scene, their sound a sort of ghostly Appalachia, mixed with longform drone music, muddy muted ambience, minimal soundscaping and plenty of lo-fi buzz and hiss much of the record mired in a corrosive murk, that only added to their dark dronelike vibe. The move to Type Records, coincides, perhaps not coincidentally, with a sonic shift, where once was abstract and low fidelity, is now rhythmic, and propulsive, looped and repetitive, and most importantly, glistening and glimmering, the sound crystal clear, and this time the dreaminess doesn't come from poor recording, it comes from the compositions, and the arrangements, and a super nice sounding recording courtesy of Phil Manley of the Champs and Trans Am. The core members of Alps also have a keen interest in new age music. Not the Deep Breakfast sort of schlock that most seem to equate with the genre, but instead more the sort of inner space, dreamy drift of Tangerine Dream, Deuter, Steve Hillage and the like. And those sounds are all over III as well.
The opener is a gorgeous looped soundscape of repetitive guitar figures, and glistening chimes, almost like a dreamfolk Steve Reich, bits of Appalachia, big buzzing synths, strummed zithers, a gorgeous melancholy melody played out over the course of five and a half minutes. The second track finds the band getting their kraut on, channeling Neu! Or Agitation Free but through a much more washed out and weary space rock, like Hawkwind gone new age. Distant drifting vocals, all manner of layered buzz, distorted guitars buried in the mix, space-y FX, very tranquil and mesmerizing. The follow up "Cloud One" finds Alps revisiting their folk roots, taking strummed acoustic guitars, and simple piano, and draping them over a woozy melody and a super spare abstract rhythm. "Trem Fantasma" is a barely there whisper of spaced out dronemusic, Gloriously wreathed in musical mystery, drifting piano, fragmented guitars, some soft sixties 'ladada' vocals, another dreamy drifter that threatens to spirit the listener away to some sun dappled green grassed knoll. "Labyrinths" is another new age / krautrock meander, washed out and shimmery, the drums the only thing keeping the rest of the song from just floating away, playful melodies, that sound like Perry and Kingsley rendered in shades of grey. The next few tracks are more abstract, sounds swooping in and out, rhythms, if there are any, buried beneath soft layers of sound, everything hushed and minimal, until album closer, "Into The Breeze", which sounds just like the title would have you imagine, breezy, soft focus, the drums, simple and stripped down, shimmering steel string guitar, that ever present piano, the melody wistful, the production hazy and a little woozy, effects swirling in the background, the drums gradually becoming more and more tripped out, before fading out completely, leaving just the guitar and the piano to drift heavenward, through a field of soft shimmer and the glistening afterglow of the sounds that came before.
The more we listen to III, the more obvious the new age-isms become, which is not a bad thing at all, it wraps the proceedings, no matter how krautrocky or folky or droney, in a sweet swirl of moonlit dreaminess, turning each song into its own sort of otherworldly mesmer.
LIMITED TO ONLY 400 COPIES ON VINYL!!!!! (& the compact disc version is coming soon, but not out yet...)
MPEG Stream: "A Manha Na Praia"
MPEG Stream: "Hallucinations"
MPEG Stream: "Cloud One"

ALPS, THE Jewelt Galaxies (Root Strata) 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.
Managed to get a handful more of these, and it looks like once these are gone, they'll be gone for good.
From the looks of the felt pen scrawled disc artwork you might be expecting some Wolf Eyes, Black Dice or Lightning Bolt sweaty dirge-noise bursts, but The Alps go in the opposite direction, offering up glistening meditative soundscapes well-suited to gazing at frosty mountain peaks such as those of their namesake. Makes more sense when you discover that The Alps are Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma), doesn't it?
Squeaky clarinets and alien flute toots melted into whirls of swish and whoosh, all laid over ominous drones and instrument hum and tape hiss. Quite beautiful. And as with many cd-r releases, quite limited!
MPEG Stream: "Tintinnabulations"

ALPS, THE Jewelt Galaxies / Spirit Shambles (Spekk) cd 17.98
Gorgeous reissue of two long out of print cd-r's from Bay Area abstract drone drift outfit The Alps, featuring AQ staffer Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma), who together weave breathtaking expanses of blissed out shimmer and glistening meditative soundscapes well-suited to gazing at frosty mountain peaks such as those of their namesake.
The Alps explore mysterious worlds of haunting folky foresty freeform loveliness, trafficking in dark dreamy wonder, disembodied strains of some lost Appalachia float weightless in a dusky forest of murky mumbly ambience, while muted guitars and stumbling tribal drumming swirl and sway amidst delicate tendrils of creepy ghostly falsetto croon and swoon. Elsewhere, deep pools of shimmering cymbal wash sparkle and glimmer, the sky above a moonlit smear of ethereal electronic effervescence, all run through with streaks of subtle melody. Squeaky clarinets and alien flute toots melt into whirls of swish and whoosh, all laid over ominous drones and instrument hum and tape hiss.
Think The Wickerman meets Jewelled Antler or Neu! played at 16rpm broadcast through a moss covered speaker on the bottom of the sea, or the sound of the Northern Lights, recorded onto a wax cylinder and played back through a shortwave radio, while a boy on a nearby rooftop hurls broken cymbals into the drained swimming pool next door, the entire thing subtly underpinned by the relentless throb and pulse of rain dripping on upended plastic garbage cans. So good.
The only drag here is that the label decided to leave off one of our favorite tracks, the final number on Spirit Shambles, fearing its lo-fi sprawl and clatter didn't fit in with the Alps' lush ambience and moonlit glimmer, which is precisely why it worked so perfectly. Oh well, to hear what we're talking about you just might have to do some internet searching or late night eBaying, but don't let that deter you from picking this up, even minus that burst of corrosive murk, you'd be hard pressed to find a lovelier batch of shambling sonic swoon...
Packaged with all new artwork in a cool, sleek oversized digipak style folder.
MPEG Stream: "Tintinnabulations"
MPEG Stream: "O Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Bird With The Crystal Plumage"

ALPS, THE Spirit Shambles (Digitalis) 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.
SF's The Alps (featuring our very own Scott Hewicker) returns with their second full length of haunting folky foresty freeform loveliness. Featuring members of Tarentel and Tussle, the Alps traffic in dark dreamy wonder, disembodied strains of some lost Appalachia float weightless in a dusky forest of murky mumbly ambience, while muted guitars and stumbling tribal drumming swirl and sway amidst delicate tendrils of creepy ghostly falsetto croon and swoon. Elsewhere, deep pools of shimmering cymbal wash sparkle and glimmer, the sky above a moonlit smear of ethereal electronic effevescence, all run through with streaks of subtle melody. Think The Wickerman meets Jewelled Antler or Neu! played at 16rpm broadcast through a moss covered speaker on the bottom of the sea, or the sound of the Northern Lights, recorded onto a wax cylinder and played back through a shortwave radio, while a boy on a nearby rooftop hurls broken cymbals into the drained swimming pool next door, the entire thing subtly underpinned by the relentless throb and pulse of rain dripping on upended plastic garbage cans. The final track however veers into much stranger territory, but somehow still sounds very Alps. An ultra lo-fi, pagan freakout, creepy and muddy and druggy, blown out drumming, bizarre animalistic vocalisations, all seemingly captured on a hand held microcassette recorder. Weird. But very cool.
LIMITED TO ONLY 150 COPIES!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "O Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Bird With The Crystal Plumage"

ALRUNE ROD Sonet Arene 1969-72 (Sonet) 2cd 29.00

ALTAMONT Civil War Fantasy (Man's Ruin Records) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

ALTAMONT Our Darling (Man's Ruin) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Melvins drummer Dale Crover's side band, where he straps on a six string and does his southern rock, '70s stoner thing. The Altamont trio also includes a member of Acid King. Their last album had a Hendrix cover, this time they do one by the Heartbreakers, and a Mose Allison by way of The Who tune, among their retro originals.

ALTAR OF OBLIVION Sinews Of Anguish - Opus 1 In D Minor (Shadow Kingdom) cd 14.98
Danish doom metal, from a band who apparently don't think that calling your album "something of something" when your band's name also follows the "something of something" formula is any sort of faux pas, like for example wearing denim with denim. Something of something overkill is not of concern to them, not when they're also willing to subtitle their album "Opus 1 In D Minor". Furthermore, while we're not sure what exactly an altar of oblivion is, we might guess that sinews of anguish is the result of not stretching properly before exercise?
Ok, we're poking fun, but just to lighten the mood, 'cause these guys are really indeed quite DOOOMY. In the epic, traditional, sorrowful style of Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus, as applied to a concept album that's about WWII - as experienced by a German soldier on the Eastern Front. Don't worry, this doesn't glorify the Nazis, Altar Of Oblivion are not that sort of band, instead this is about the horrors of war, and furthermore the horrific realization comes to this album's protagonist about just who and what he's fighting for, as, demoralized by the harsh reality of war, he shakes off his Nazi indoctrination and it dawns on him that Hitler is an evil madman, leading the Germans to defeat, not victory! Imagine being likely to die at Stalingrad, fighting the Russians for a cause in which you no longer believe, hopelessly struggling for survival because you have no choice. Now that's doom.
AoO's heavy chugging riffage does its job, creating a massive mood of depressive fatalism, and evoking the crushing juggernaut of war, o'er which this inglorious tale is spun, delivered by a singer whose stylings range from deep voiced majesty to a more biting, gritty whine. Probably his "operatic invocations & ars melancholica" are what will either make or break this for you, quite compelling to some, but mere morose monotony for others. Of course, morose monotony is what doom is all about, really, and melded with metallic guitars what's not to like if you're into doom? There is plenty of guitar here, in fact, 3 of the 5 band members are credited with "lead guitar" - even including the drummer! But, as you might a expect from a concept album, an additional '70s prog edge is added as well by the use of Mellotron (also handled by the drummer) and flute (by a guest "flute mistress"). We could imagine them playing with another something of something band, Hammers Of Misfortune.
MPEG Stream: "The Final Pledge"
MPEG Stream: "Wrapped In Ruins"

ALTAR OF PLAGUES White Tomb (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
Altar of Plagues hail from Ireland, not exactly the first place you think of when it comes to atmospheric black metal. But here they are with their full length debut, White Tomb, which finds the band expertly bringing together the epic sweep of groups like Wolves in the Throne Room and Asunder with that style of Isis-informed metallic post rock we all love. Throw in an awesomely guttural black metal rasp, a couple moments of Khanate styled throat abuse, spaced out ambience with cleanly strummed guitars, and an excellent balance of punishing blasts and more lumbering, slowly moving drums, and you've got one hell of an introduction to this previously unknown (to us, anyway) group.
Consisting of two very long movements, "Earth" and "Through The Collapse", made up of two songs each, Altar of Plagues' lyrical agenda, though not printed here, seems to be similar to that of WITTR's brand of spiritually informed conservation, where humankind will vanish under the indifferent and regenerative hoof of Mother Nature. The two songs in the "Earth" suite, "As A Womb" and "As A Furnace" start with a beautiful piece of slowly building depressive guitar ambience before heading into a super heavy black metal jam that does not sound too far removed from the godly Atlanta based group Withered (who, for some reason, we have never reviewed). Things slow down to a cool, spaced out Mogwai-ian moment that links the two songs, as multiple voices combine before ascending once more to a blissful post metal dirge. As this begins to sink in, we are again introduced to heavy, psychedelically informed black metal that suitably brutalizes you before fading off into the distance as layers of treated guitar ambience combine into a whirlwind of buzzing, which is soon overtaken by a sepia-tinged, slightly disquieting outro that immediately segues into the next song suite. "Watchers Restrained" is where things eventually slow to a glacial pace as disturbing, very Alan Dubin-esque vocals spit out line after line of bile while Altar of Plagues lays a foundation that manages to be both super dense and quite spacious. After being pummeled for a bit, the band pull back and the song fades into walls of crumbling decay that bring to mind the cool Cities Last Broadcast album we reviewed a few lists back. Album closer, "Gentian Truth" takes you on one last journey through a melancholy psych metal hinterland, before ending in an atmospheric soundscape quite similar to the way the album began, giving White Tomb an awesome cyclical feel that will undoubtedly bring out more truths with each listen.
Thank the always right-on Profound Lore label for unleashing this mighty beast upon the world, as White Tomb comes as a nice surprise from a group we certainly hope to hear more from in the future.
MPEG Stream: "As A Womb"
MPEG Stream: "Watchers Restrained"

ALTAR SHADOWS Speckledy Falcons (Todestrieb) cd 13.98
Not sure what it was about Altar Shadows that intrigued us more, the fact that they're from Lithuania, or that their record is called Speckledy Falcons. Probably a little of both, but the two taken together, well, they were virtually irresistible to the aQ weirdo black metal obsessives.
And rightfully so. Altar Shadows offer up a blend of majestic Viking tinged black metal, midtempo Burzumic buzz, traditional Lithuanian folk music, black ambience and some field recordings, burbling brooks, birdsong and other sounds of nature. A strange combination, but the band are pretty deft at assembling them into something cohesive and compelling, black and heavy, melodic and mysterious.
Many of the songs start off with field recordings, invoking the spirit of the forest, of the wilderness, which is carried through to the music, even with the riffs are buzzing blackly, they are underpinned by strummed acoustic guitars, mournful melodies, woozy waltz like tempos, often breaking down into a sort of lilting folk interlude, peppered with guitar leads, before swooping back into full buzz.
One track eschews the buzz completely, instead offering up dark brooding acoustic folk, clean crooned vocals, glistening acoustic guitars, melancholy melodies, while another blends the two, turning a folk song into a strange lurching loping blackened jam, with strange staccato drumming, and super emotive melodies, soaring leads, and growled guttural vocals. Their version of a traditional Lithuanian folk song follows a similar pattern, the guitars spread out in long streaks of downtuned buzz, the vocals a demonlike roar, but woven into a strange folky framework, big drums pounding out a rhythm over harmonized melodies, and some simple strumming, strange but quite cool.
But don't let all the folk throw you off, Altar Shadows are indeed a black metal band, who offer up some gorgeously grim black buzz, blast beats, furious riffing, it's just that their black buzz is infused with the spirit of the past, and informed by the folk music of their ancestors, which more than anything, makes their blackness all the more unique, and their sound something special. Plus, SPECKLEDY FALCONS!!!
MPEG Stream: "Margi Sakalai"
MPEG Stream: "Ant Upes Didziausios Smeletr Krantr"
MPEG Stream: "I Dar Gilesni Pragara II"

ALTER Dusk-Dawn (Wolvserpent) lp 23.00
One half of epic cinematic ambient black chamber doom soundscapers Pussygutt strikes out on his own to create an epic bit of abstract doom creep, that strips down the Pussygutt sound to its essence, and creates something equally as haunting and harrowing. Clean spidery guitars unwind over squalls of distorted rumble, drums offer the occasional thud, feedback streaks and shimmers, the sound subtly intensifying, but never really moving beyond a slow motion moonlit drift. It almost sounds like Slint at 16rpm, a glacial post rock, laced with hints of doom, allowed to creep and crawl through an ever shifting field of whir and buzz and shimmer.
The song(s) continues on the B side, the drums and guitar dropping out leaving just a high end shimmer like a soft focus Sunroof! ur-drone, until some of the doom drifts back in, lush swells of ominous keyboard, muted chugs, sloooow minor key guitars, distant vocals, the overall affect way more pop and pretty than Pussygutt, but still retaining the same overall grim vibe, eventually finishing off with another soaring sheet of harmonized high end which gives way to that original spidery guitar line, drifting all by it's lonesome in an epic expanse of black, only to be joined by delicate pointillist piano for the slowly slipping away outro. So nice.
Beautiful packaging, a silver on black silkscreened tri-fold sleeve, released on Pussygutt's Wolveserpent label. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, hand numbered...

ALTER ECHO AND ERS-ONE MEET DR. ISRAEL Dubwise (Anthem Records) 7" 2.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Awesome archival release from Alter Echo and ERS-One, featuring Dr. Israel, who aQ folks might remember from his killer dubbed out Sabbath cover. But this here disc is a killer chunk of low-slung, proto-dubstep, a thick slithery dubby groove and some super filthy buzzy low end, cranked the whole store shook, gunshots and toasting here and there throughout, the whole vibe hazy and ghostly and druggy and laid back, but that bassline and the minimal rhythm is totally irresistible.
One sided single, in a plain yellow sleeve. WAY LIMITED. Only 100 copies!!!

ALTER EGO What's Next?! (Klang Electronic) cd 16.98

ALTER EGO Why Not?! (Klang Elektronik) cd 16.98
Not to be confused with the Italian Alter Ego who collaborated with Philip Jeck and Gavin Bryars on the recent reinterpretation of Bryars' classic The Sinking Of The Titanic, although come to think of it, it might be pretty amazing to hear THESE guys interpret Bryars' super somber epic.
This Alter Ego is from Germany, and they tend to mine similar ground as folks like Justice and Daft Punk, that sort of high energy, dance floor destroying good time techno, lots of heavy buzzy synths, swooping squiggly melodies, bouncing infectious rhythms, fun and funny, goofy and a bit wild. Super playful and funky, but also pretty weird.
The opener sounds like a Basement Jaxx instrumental, super fuzzy and groovy, synths snarling all over the place, some awesome fuzzy melodies, but then out of nowhere the track breaks down into this weird stumbling percussive sounding rhythmic stutter, all strange pizzicato strings and arpeggiated beats, hard to explain, completely interrupts the flow, but sounds so perfect anyway, the band effortlessly slip back into, it, only to drop out and do that weird confusional breakdown a few more times. Which is precisely what makes this disc, and these guys so appealing.
All of the tracks begin with a similar template. Block rockin beats, fuzzy throbbing synths, woozy melodies, bits of dubstep, dancehall and techno, all wound up weirdly tangled electro / techno hybrids, but then things get all wonky, in a very good way, some tracks get all epic and majestic, the synths swelling into huge grandiose melodies, others fall apart into angular new wave freakouts, some sound like experimental synth jams, others end up super minimal, like some squiggly slightly tweaked take on the Kompakt sound.
On the surface, this stuff will totally hit the spot for anyone into any of the abovementioned bands, folks who want to just hit the dancefloor and get totally lost. But for those of us with an aversion to the dancefloor, but who still dig dance music, this shit is thick and heavy, layered and off kilter, weird and cool and just a bit fucked, without ever losing its groove.
MPEG Stream: "Why Not?!"
MPEG Stream: "Gary"
MPEG Stream: "Fuckingham Palace"

ALTERED STATES 6 (Zenbei) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New album from the fab Tokyo jazz/prog/rock trio lead by Uchihashi Kazuhisa (recently profiled in Guitar Player magazine as part of a feature on Japanese avant-guitar). He and the drummer are also members of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero. Weird and wiggly.

ALTERED STATES Bluffs II (Doubtmusic) cd 17.98
Avant jazz from Japan featuring guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi, who you may also know from Ground Zero and various duos, including several with Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins.

ALTERED STATES Mosaic (God Mountain) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Awesome instrumental heavy prog with an aesthetic appreciation for noise and experimentation (read: these guys aren't overly wanky or cheeseball like some prog outfits) from this Japanese trio. Featuring Ground Zero alumni Uchihashi Kazuhisa (guitar), Nasuno Mitsuro (bass) and Yoshigaki Yasuhiro (drums), this "supergroup" of sorts is recommended to anyone intetested in the Otomo Yoshihide ring of Japanese improv.

ALTERED STATES Plays Standards (Eyewill) cd 20.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Japan's Altered States, featuring guitarist Uchihashi Kazuhisa (also known for his work solo and with Otomo Yoshihides' Ground Zero, among other things), are one of our favorite undefinable, adventurous jazz/rock/prog/improv combos. Here they tackle a selection of standards, from "A Night In Tunisia" to "Mood Indigo", from "Over The Rainbow" to "Hello Dolly"! Not for those afraid of jazz, but also not for those attached to the "normal" versions of those songs...

ALTERNATIVE 3 (OST) (Lo) cd 16.98
Members of Stereolab, Add N to (x), and (the unfortunately named) Hairy Butter join forces to noodle about with their analog toys for a soundtrack to some upcoming movie I'm sure we'll hear more about.

ALTRES Tripping The Dark Fantastic (Multi-Purpose) 2cd-r 11.98
Working at Aquarius brings all kinds of new sounds to our lives. It's always great coming across something you have never even heard of and wondering how you could have gone on for so long without it, and we literally get new stuff sent in from all over the world. Sometimes it can be difficult to get to everything, we try our damnedest, though. And as unfortunate as it is to say, sometimes it can be simply overwhelming dealing with scores of random things that may, sadly, just miss the mark. But there are certainly exceptions to all that, and we can't think of any one greater in recent memory than this amazing double disc from Dundee, Scotland's Altres. One of the members was in San Francisco months back and dropped off a couple copies, which sat unlistened to for a bit too long. Then, curious one day, we threw it on and we were immediately blown away by the majestic electronic sounds pouring out of our speakers. Songs that just sounded, well, CLASSIC. Altres manage to recall some of the best things throughout the history of electronic music as well as some of the hazier realms of rock n' roll (their website lists Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Philip Glass, Throbbing Gristle, Faust, the Doors, and the Church as influences; at various times we also picked up on Cluster, Heldon, Popul Vuh, and Zombi's coked out disco side), but the end sound is clearly their own. The songs effortlessly ooze deep, krauty melodies with a sustained and cinematic ambience, and when they break out the drum machines things can head into high speed Moroder territory, always a good thing. It would just be unfair to the world if we didn't put this on our list, and we have no doubt that many aQ customers will be immediately taken with this. And while you're scratching your head wondering why you have never heard of Altres (we sure hadn't), there is, in fact, quite a story behind everything.
The group initially came together in 1983 before calling it quits two years later. In that time, Altres managed to play a handful of shows and produce a number of limited run cassettes, which make up the first disc of Tripping The Dark Fantastic. Even though these songs are coming from what you can imagine is an archaic source, they sound amazingly clear and powerful. Disc 2 features songs from the regrouped Altres, who decided to get back together a staggering 17 years later. Whatever cynical thoughts about band reunions that might be running through your head can be put to rest, because these songs (spanning from 2003-2006) are clearly the work of the same dedicated soundsmiths. Things sound a little more "modern" at times, we can assume that by 2003 the Altres guys had probably snagged a digital synth or two, but what's special is how they use their instruments, and like the early material, these songs are super melodic, slightly ominous, and darkly evocative.
The album begins with the 13 minute "Golden Country", with arpeggiated synth pulses guiding you into a world that is both spacey and strangely pastoral. It's like looking out across some expansive future horizon with the dramatic synth sweeps making you unsure if you are in sinister or friendly territory. Either way, it's intriguing and a good way to set the stage for the rest of the album. "Snakebridge" is like a high speed chase through some futuristic world of uncertainty. Heavy basslines and a relentless driving rhythm take you all over the place, and the best part is the fact that the song is 11 minutes, giving you plenty of time to get lost in it. There's a cool mid-song break that makes you feel like you've just ducked into some back alleyway before starting up again. To give you a reference point, it actually *sounds* like this stuff could have been a heavy influence on Trans Am's Futureworld. Disc 1 ends with "Icefield", another darkly unsettling piece that makes you think of, yes icefields, and probably some foreboding windowless compound as well.
Disc 2 kicks off with the catchy "Earworm", another romp through a future of back alleys in post-apocalyptic slums. On "Dusktreader", lightly played acoustic guitars that would sound at home on a nice, private press stoner folk lp mix with wispy synths that are rhythmic despite a lack of actual percussion. Recorded live, "(Shadow Of A) Broken Mirror" utilizes another arpeggiated synth sequence with a simple drum machine beat. It has a very cool buildup with some slashing guitar chords, and it makes sense that this is live, as it sounds like the result of a band rather than just someone's half assed electronic project. Closer "Throb" is something that will probably appeal to fans of Circle, it's almost like some electro-jazz hybrid cranking out murky underwater melodies that bring the album to a close as perfectly as it began.
Wow, we could go on and on about what an awesome surprise this is from a band that deserves your attention. Thinking of the music you are familiar with from the band's initial run, you may question why and how Altres could have gone unrecognized after making such original and self-aware music. But better late than never. Highest recommendation possible.
MPEG Stream: "Golden Country"
MPEG Stream: "Snakebridge"
MPEG Stream: "Brainflame"
MPEG Stream: "Dusktreader"
MPEG Stream: "(Shadow Of A) Broken Mirror"

ALTZ MEETS ROLAND P. YOUNG Escape: The Reconstruction of Isophonic Boogie Woogie (EM) cd 19.98
Most aQ customers are familiar with Roland P. Young, whose Isophonic Boogie Woogie album, reissued a while back on EM from Japan, blew our minds sky high. The ultimate culmination of Young's quest to create what he called "Afro spiritual minimal electronic space music" which is exactly what it sounded like, minimal free jazz, but cobbled together out of strange unlikely instruments, woven into long stretches of dronemusic, or freaked out almost psychedelic sounding swirling murkiness, the whole record was an otherworldly mind expanding avant jazz masterpiece for sure.
So somehow it makes perfect sense, that Altz, an electronic musician and DJ from Japan, who we know mostly from remixing the Boredoms, wanted a crack and remixing this records and creating his OWN isophonic boogie woogie. So here you go.
It's kind of a tall order since the original is pretty awesome, and way wacked already, but what the heck, Altz does his thing, chops and edits, adds effects, loops flutes and introduces fuzzy synths and skittery bits of buzz, distant voices, but what he does mainly is add beats, it's definitely cool and groovy, but does tend toward the cheesy here and there. The best moments are weirdly enough the most beatless, where the free jazz is matched with some seemingly free drum freakouts, or when the original drums are somehow looped into a fragmented beat, or when the various elements are blurred into a weird buzzy drone, rife with buried horns, and rumbling bass. A lot of the more beat heavy tracks chop up and recontextualize the originals so much, that if you weren't familiar with the Young original, you might not even know they were samples, you might just assume they were some cool weird sounds. Which they most definitely are. Check out the sound samples. This won't necessarily appeal to the same folks who loved the original, but if you're in the market for some twisted up free jazz avant beatmaking, then this might just hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Crystaliquid Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Magenta Loops"
MPEG Stream: "Velvet Dreamin'"

ALTZ MEETS ROLAND P. YOUNG Escape: The Reconstruction of Isophonic Boogie Woogie (EM) lp 22.00
Most aQ customers are familiar with Roland P. Young, whose Isophonic Boogie Woogie album, reissued a while back on EM from Japan, blew our minds sky high. The ultimate culmination of Young's quest to create what he called "Afro spiritual minimal electronic space music" which is exactly what it sounded like, minimal free jazz, but cobbled together out of strange unlikely instruments, woven into long stretches of dronemusic, or freaked out almost psychedelic sounding swirling murkiness, the whole record was an otherworldly mind expanding avant jazz masterpiece for sure.
So somehow it makes perfect sense, that Altz, an electronic musician and DJ from Japan, who we know mostly from remixing the Boredoms, wanted a crack and remixing this records and creating his OWN isophonic boogie woogie. So here you go.
It's kind of a tall order since the original is pretty awesome, and way wacked already, but what the heck, Altz does his thing, chops and edits, adds effects, loops flutes and introduces fuzzy synths and skittery bits of buzz, distant voices, but what he does mainly is add beats, it's definitely cool and groovy, but does tend toward the cheesy here and there. The best moments are weirdly enough the most beatless, where the free jazz is matched with some seemingly free drum freakouts, or when the original drums are somehow looped into a fragmented beat, or when the various elements are blurred into a weird buzzy drone, rife with buried horns, and rumbling bass. A lot of the more beat heavy tracks chop up and recontextualize the originals so much, that if you weren't familiar with the Young original, you might not even know they were samples, you might just assume they were some cool weird sounds. Which they most definitely are. Check out the sound samples. This won't necessarily appeal to the same folks who loved the original, but if you're in the market for some twisted up free jazz avant beatmaking, then this might just hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Crystaliquid Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Magenta Loops"
MPEG Stream: "Velvet Dreamin'"

ALU Autismenschen (C.I.P.) cd 11.98
A few months back we bellowed loudly about the impressive Berlin Super 80 DVD / CD compilation, which presented the parallel activities of the nascent German DIY film community and the incendiary musical scene which collectively qualified themselves as The Ingenious Dilletantes in the late '70s and early '80s, after a huge arts festival co-curated by Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. Exasperated by the pressure cooked environment, the members of this very loose community which also included painters, performance artists, actors, etc. embraced an aesthetic of bleak nihilism often tinged with post-ironic absurdity. While not being featured on the musical program of Berlin Super 80, Alu was one of many bands mentioned in passing in that document, having played alongside the likes of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, Neubauten, and Malaria back in the day. Like many of those terminally obscure but often exceptional electro/post-punk projects that Vinyl-On-Demand has reissued in recent years, Alu set forth Frankensteinian, synth-punk and monotone grooves, upon which they chanted dead-pan German vocals sounding not too far from early SPK, Throbbing Gristle, or even Suicide. What's curious about Alu is not the fantastic sound of this, their only studio recording Autimenschen (which actually never saw the light of day back in the '80s, and only now has been discovered and released by the good people at C.I.P.), but in the fact that the two members of Alu also hailed from the obscure '70s Krautrock trio Sand. The morose hallucinations and sprawling psychedelia of Sand are a far cry from the tense, motorized bleakness of Alu; but nonetheless both Alu and Sand stand out as magnificent discoveries from their respective genres.
MPEG Stream: "Halt Dich Fest"
MPEG Stream: "Bitte Warten Sie!"
MPEG Stream: "Sie Kriegt Alles Was Sie Will"

ALUK TODOLO Descension (Public Guilt) cd 12.98
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 heard 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 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 heard 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 Finsternis (Utech Records) cd 14.98
It's been two long years we've been waiting for this, another mysterious rhythmic communique from French blackened post krautrock alchemists Aluk Todolo. But it's not like they've been idle. Since 2007's Descension, two thirds of Aluk Todolo have recorded a record and toured the world as Gunslingers, and all of Aluk Todolo do double duty in French black metallers Diamatregon, who recently released a new full length on tUMULt called Crossroad.
But as much as we love those other two bands, and we do, there will always be something magical about the strange sonic world Aluk Todolo are able to conjure up. Especially considering they're a three piece, a power trio, drums, guitar, bass. Nothing else, no synths, no strings, just the basic rock band instruments. It's testament to the power these three wield, that they can do so much with so little. Or more accurately, so little with so little. As the music of Aluk Todolo, is disarmingly simple, subtle and minimal, but in its minimalism, lies its power. The power of rhythm, of texture, of mood, these five long pieces are so evocative, so expressive and strangely emotional. Even at its most spare and skeletal, the sound is palpable, almost a physical presence, which is surprising again considering just how stripped down Finsternis actually is.
Descension, Aluk Todolo's debut, was heavy and space-y and rhythmic, we described it as a buzz-less black metal, some of the songs were thick and caustic, others were loping and motorik, but on Finsternis, it's as if the band decided to strip away all the extraneous sounds, leaving just the core, the root, the heart of the music, and that heart beats out a simple, hypnotic rhythm.
The record is split into 4 parts, with a brief interlude, but those four parts are split into two distinct movements. The first, which comprises the first two parts, is much of what we described above, simple skeletal rhythms, surrounded by minimal guitar whir, bursts of grinding distortion, fragmented jangle, keening feedback, but it's all about the rhythm. After a brief burst of mathy chaos, the track reverts to its initial rhythm, this time the bass more prominent, fuzzy, distorted, woozy and mesmerizing, the band locked in tight, the bass and drums solid and unwavering, while the guitar sings in the background, moaning and keening and howling, giving the track an ominous otherworldly vibe, a trudge across some hostile alien landscape, a weary, washed out deathmarch.
Then the interlude, a haunting abstract percussive sprawl, simple percussive thuds set amidst a sea of warped distorted low end, bits of glitch and hiss, and grinding shards of industrial clatter, which gives way to the second, noisier movement, the drums transformed into a simple machinelike pound, snare and cymbal crashing over and over and over, the guitars whipped into a frenzy of blurred buzz and warped swirling blackened chaos, what at first sounds noisy and harsh, soon reveals itself as strangely textural, and as hypnotic as the more stripped down first movement, the guitars slip from monochromatic whir, to insectoid black metal riffing, constantly swirling around the motorik pound and pummel, the final track finds the guitars slipping into ever higher registers, blissing out, laced with feedback, smoothing out into warm smears and blurs, before a brief deconstruction, and a surprisingly tranquil last few minutes, the drums back to a woozy lope, the guitar offering up warm swells and shimmering thrum, the bass throbbing beneath, eventually stumbling to a halt in a cloud of creaking metals and static-like tape hiss. Woah.
Just like Descension, Finsternis is an intense and emotional journey through sound, a haunting and hard to describe exploration of rhythm, mood and texture, a slow shifting otherworld defined by This Heat, Geronimo, Laddio Bolocko, Can, Faust, accessible only via the three shadowy figures that make up Aluk Todolo, whose magic and mystery has been rendered in these glorious black rhythms.
Housed in a multi panel jacket with super striking original artwork by Stephen Kasner, on the always impressive Utech label (whose other two new releases, from Gog and Olivier Dumont, we'll review on the next list, although we do have both in stock if you want 'em, and we're fairly sure you do!).
MPEG Stream: "Premier Contact"
MPEG Stream: "Deuxieme Contact"
MPEG Stream: "Totalite"

ALUK TODOLO s/t (Implied Sound) 7" 7.98
Repressed, new (slightly higher) price.
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"

ALUMBRADOS Monochord (Important Records) lp 22.00
The most calm and serene of the four Bardo Pond related lps from Important, Alumbrados documents the mystic explorations of John and Michael Gibbons through the hazy scope of loosely arranged cosmic atmospheres and acoustic psychedelic ethno-droones. Though it probably goes without saying, Monochord reaches out from the deep ringing center of an ancient gong, sending soaring tones of bowed acoustic guitar, buzzing sitar, and ritual percussion high into the midnight sky. A short step away from the driving, more rockin' sound of their Alasehir project, Alumbrados shimmers with the distant glow of woodland lanterns and dreamy grasslands, all effortlessly sculpted into a somber raga-esque drone masterpiece. Calm acoustic finger picking in the distance, ritualistic percussion thumping away, all drenched in an eastern wash of buzzing strings and far off flutes. Limited to 500 copies, this one will be gone in no time, so pick it up while you still can!

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
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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 Xerrox Vol.2 (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98
Part two of Alva Noto's Xerrox series takes up right where the last one left off, continuing on in a much more buzzy, blissy, droney vein, way more textural and melodic than many of the AN records that have come before. In the review of volume one we mentioned Pop Ambient, and if anything volume 2 is even more washed out and shimmery, right out of the gate, AN offers up a warm wash of muted buzz, and thick gristly whir, softly pulsating, layered and warm, seemingly gone are the harsh tones and glitchy clicks and pops found on most Raster-Noton releases. Could be that Xerrox is just a concept record, but we have to say, as much as we loved the clipped minimalism of other Alva Noto records, the sounds here are quite divine. But this is an Alva Noto record, so even these warm whirls of drifting ambience, are laced with bits of static and hiss, super high end sine waves, but they're woven deftly into the sound, and serve to simply add more texture. There's a brief bit of super minimal beep and rumble, but then it's right back into that gorgeous drifty haze, that could just as soon be a Tim Hecker record.
"Xerrox Meta Phaser" follows suit, at least in the beginning, a soft whirring soundscape, that quickly escalates into an almost Sunn like dirge before exploding into a squall of blown out white noise. And then we're back to the dreamy dronemusic, this time, stretched out strings, smeared into soft summery swells, laced with a patina of gritty hiss, and so it goes, the whole record is a dark swirling expanse of muted minimal melodies, warm textures, mysterious drones, and delicate hazy drifts, the usual glitch and buzz, relegated to accents and filigree, rarely interfering in the rest of the record's blissy sprawl. Any one of these tracks would be right at home on the newest, more Kranky-fied Pop Ambient comp, and thus, this might be the first Raster-Noton record that might just appeal to all the drone and dirge folks as much as the glitch and pop people.
Like all R-N stuff, gorgeously designed and packaged, an oversized diecut, 8 panel sleeve, the cd nestled within the diecuts, the art spare and minimal and striking.
MPEG Stream: "Xerrox Phaser Acat 1"
MPEG Stream: "Xerrox Soma"
MPEG Stream: "Xerrox Meta Phaser"

ALVA NOTO Xerrox Vol.2 (Raster-Norton) 2lp 23.00
Now available on vinyl!
Part two of Alva Noto's Xerrox series takes up right where the last one left off, continuing on in a much more buzzy, blissy, droney vein, way more textural and melodic than many of the AN records that have come before. In the review of volume one we mentioned Pop Ambient, and if anything volume 2 is even more washed out and shimmery, right out of the gate, AN offers up a warm wash of muted buzz, and thick gristly whir, softly pulsating, layered and warm, seemingly gone are the harsh tones and glitchy clicks and pops found on most Raster-Noton releases. Could be that Xerrox is just a concept record, but we have to say, as much as we loved the clipped minimalism of other Alva Noto records, the sounds here are quite divine. But this is an Alva Noto record, so even these warm whirls of drifting ambience, are laced with bits of static and hiss, super high end sine waves, but they're woven deftly into the sound, and serve to simply add more texture. There's a brief bit of super minimal beep and rumble, but then it's right back into that gorgeous drifty haze, that could just as soon be a Tim Hecker record.
"Xerrox Meta Phaser" follows suit, at least in the beginning, a soft whirring soundscape, that quickly escalates into an almost Sunn like dirge before exploding into a squall of blown out white noise. And then we're back to the dreamy dronemusic, this time, stretched out strings, smeared into soft summery swells, laced with a patina of gritty hiss, and so it goes, the whole record is a dark swirling expanse of muted minimal melodies, warm textures, mysterious drones, and delicate hazy drifts, the usual glitch and buzz, relegated to accents and filigree, rarely interfering in the rest of the record's blissy sprawl. Any one of these tracks would be right at home on the newest, more Kranky-fied Pop Ambient comp, and thus, this might be the first Raster-Noton record that might just appeal to all the drone and dirge folks as much as the glitch and pop people.
Like all R-N stuff, gorgeously designed and packaged, an oversized diecut, 8 panel sleeve, the cd nestled within the diecuts, the art spare and minimal and striking.
MPEG Stream: "Xerrox Phaser Acat 1"
MPEG Stream: "Xerrox Soma"
MPEG Stream: "Xerrox Meta Phaser"

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"