WITCH s/t (Tee Pee) cd 14.98
We've all been loving the soft lilting new weird free hippy folk of the Feathers, who for us were a recent discovery. And we've always been big fans of J Mascis, the distorted psychedelic indie fuzz of Dinosaur Jr, but even in his stints with sludgy punk rock outift Deep Wound and behind the kit for weirdo metallers Upside Down Cross. But never in our wildest dreams did we imagine the twain would meet. But what do you know? It's either a seriously small world, or there is some not so secret bond joining the disparate music arcs of these long haired fellows. Witch is not necessarily what you might imagine a meeting of Dinosaur Jr. and the Feathers would sound like, although the frilly jackets and bell bottoms and long hair should give you a clue. This is total seventies proto metal meets sludgy groovy stoner rock. Big BIG riffs, groovy and sun baked, blown out and HEAVY. Seriously. We hear Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Trouble, even some Kyuss and more modern stoner/doom outfits, like Witchcraft and Dead Meadow. The vocals are drenched in reverb and are sort of soaring and whining, some definite Ozzy influence there, also at times verging on a reedy Marc Bolan/Comus folky warble. And the guitar sound, OOF! You'd be forgiven for thinking that was Mascis on lead guitar, but he's manning the drum kit here, no the guitars are fuzzy seventies metallic groove, with a guitar sound definitely reminiscent of Sub Pop drone guitar gods Rein Sanction, like Hendrix filtered through Iommi, laced with LSD, dipped in goat's blood, set in the sun to bake and of course slathered in warm distorted fuzz. But with a band like this it's all about the riffs. Everyone knows Sabbath took all the best riffs, that's why so many heavy bands have based entire careers on stealing 'em, but Witch prove that there are still some killer riffs left out there. Heavy and fuzzy enough to bear a passing resemblance to the Sabs, but weird and wooly and unique enough that they can unabashedly claim them as their own. This is definitely another one of those bands like Elope or the Want, that if you didn't know better, and were forced to guess, you could be forgive for thinking Witch were straight out of the seventies (though with maybe 'cause of J, a whif of '80s SST hardcore punk somewhere in there too). Sonically, production wise, the whole package. And while the whole record is heavy and sludgy and groovy, it's worth the price of admission alone for track 5, "Rip Van Winkle" with a riff that is one of THOSE riffs. The whole track is a stone cold classic, from THAT riff, to the crazy blown out psychedelic leads, to the bombastic drumming, the weird arrangement, the wailing vocals, it's hugely heavy, head noddingly hypnotic, head bangingly massive, but groovy and catchy, minor key melodies beneath thick waves of warm guitar fuzz, totally emotional and amazing, it's like the best Sabbath song that never was. Then there's the track right before it, "Changing", that ALSO has one of THOSE riffs, and sounds like some sort of incredible, exotic Saint Vitus/Flower Travellin' Band hybrid. Wow. And all the other songs are pretty amazing too.
We just wish that they could have come up with a name a little more original than Witch. If they were indeed dead set on some sort of Witch name, you can't go wrong adding some appropriately evil or mysterious second word to your band name, I mean, c'mon, we would have gladly taken Featherwitch or even better DINOSAUR WITCH!
MPEG Stream: "Changing"
MPEG Stream: "Seer"
MPEG Stream: "Soul Of Fire"

SHOGUN KUNITOKI Tasankokaiku (Fonal) cd 17.98
Wow!!! Most loyal AQ customers are pretty aware of our total love and adoration of almost all things Finnish, especially pretty much everything released on Finnish label Fonal. They just have not done us wrong yet. Islaja, Kemialliset Ystavat, Paavoharju, Es, the list goes on and on. And while for the most part their releases focus on the more murky free folk side of Finnish underground rock they have proven to be a label that isn't just about one 'sound' but instead are simply about beautiful music. Period. Whether it's random ethereal forest folk, dreamy drifty swooning ambience, or crunchy chaotic tribalistic clatter. Their latest release, from the Helsinki quartet Shogun Kunitoki, is further proof to that effect, and dare we say this might even be the greatest thing Fonal has released. Some of you may be shouting IMPOSSIBLE! And under different circumstances we'd be right there with you. But just listenening to Tasankokaiku has us thinking not only is it possible, it's damn near for certain. Color! So much vibrant color just bursting out of Shogun Kunitoki's instrumental onslaught. It starts out on fire and every song and sound just feeds the flame. It's almost as if Steve Reich and Terry Riley raised a child weaned on the BBC Radiophonic experiments, a young Rick Wakeman who grew up listening to the fuzzy guitarscapes of M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas... and the dreamy and propulsive instrumental jams of Stereolab, and thus cultivated a totally informed yet unique outlook and approach to music and music making. The sounds on Tasankokaiku are triumphant and assured, flickering then bursting, warm and so totally alive! Knowing how to perfectly use repetition to build momentum and then suddenly blast off to sparkling spaces that make you feel like you're being spirited away to a place that you've never been to but have always dreamed about. A sparkling glistening land of thick warm keyboards, hypnotic prog laced krautrockiness, Neu-infused soundscapes, basically a world populated by all the sounds that drive us wild. This is another one of those rare records that is an across the board unanimous AQ favorite. Everyone who works here loves it. We all hear different things too, besides the above mentioned bands, Andee hears bits of Goblin and Zombi and Heldon, Allan hears hints of Aavikko and Cluster and Circle, Irwin noticed a little Broadcast and even some Raymond Scott, but no matter what you hear, or what shades of sound reveal themsleves to you, the sum is SO much greater than its parts. A gloriously dense and warm world of fuzzy sound that we just can't stop listening to. No matter what music you've been obsessed with lately, this is one of those special records that somehow trumps whatever it is, straight to the top of your listening pile, elbowing it's way past all the other discs in your collection right into your cd player where it will effortlessly fend off any other records wanting to get in there. It's that good.
MPEG Stream: "Montezuma"
MPEG Stream: "Leivonen"
MPEG Stream: "Piste"

HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT (Factory 515) dvd 14.98
This all-time AQ fave is now BACK IN STOCK, at a new lower price too!!
Oh boy. It was a red letter day here at AQ when this showed up, being the long-awaited DVD incarnation of an old, old favorite. Filmed in 1986 in the parking lot (natch) at a Judas Priest concert, with just a video camera, a microphone, and a willing, wasted, unwitting cast of teenage metalheads, this underground documentary is an absolute all-time classic. When filmmakers John Heyn and Jeff Krulik shot this short doc way back when, they certainly had no idea it would become such a cult, cultural artifact. You can tell from the DVD extras that they are as amazed at its continuing popularity as anyone. But they did have the foresight to think going and interviewing all those hessian dudes and dudettes getting psyched to see the Priest would be a comedy goldmine.
In the genre of heavy metal documentary, this holds a special place. There's been some great ones: The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II, Metallica Drummer, and Spinal Tap if you want to count mockumentaries, but this is our number one fave. It was funny when it was made, it was even funnier in the '90s when the VHS version started making the rounds, and it's damn funny now that it's on DVD at long last, complete with a ton of bonus material and special features!! Director's commentary, outtakes, subtitles, sequels (Monster Truck Parking Lot, Neil Diamond Parking Lot, and Harry Potter Parking Lot), and lots more. There's even a "Dub-o-Vision" version of HMPL that simulates watching it as an Nth generation video dub the way it looked when most people first saw it! Oh, and perhaps best of all, there's "Parking Lot Alumni" wherein the original filmmakers track down (or are tracked down by) some of HMPL's "stars" now, sorta like a heavy metal version of one of Michael Apted's Up documentaries. The dude known as "Zebraman" (pictured on the cover of the dvd, wearing the stripey spandex muscle-T, whose drunken rant about how heavy metal rules, that punk shit sucks and Madonna is a dick is one of HMPL's many highlights) has turned into a suburban yuppie, believe it or not, while several of the other alumni really haven't changed that much. Any HMPL fan needs this just for that portion of the DVD alone.
And by funny, we mean sure, yeah, you're laughing AT the people in the movie. But as we've often noted, you can laugh at these kids, but think about it. Have you ever had as much fun (unironically we might add) as they are evidently having? Probably not. So, there's an element of sheer shared good times that makes this worthwhile for reasons beyond just the hilarity. Sociologically it's also fascinating...
If you haven't seen this before, YOU MUST SEE IT NOW!!! Get it, watch it, you'll be happy. And if you have seen it before, even if you already own a VHS copy, we're pretty sure you already know you need this.

INCAPACITANTS Feedback of NMS (Alchemy) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

INCAPACITANTS New Movements in CMPD (Alchemy) cd 21.00

CRUSHED BUTLER Uncrushed: First Punks From The British Underground 1969-1971 (RPM) cd 17.98
We heard a lot about this before we got it in which fired up our curiousity just a little bit. Like it says in the title, this obscure post-mod trio with the cool name has been trumpted as the "first punks" to come outta Blighty, kicking out the jams with an antisocial sneer and snarl long before the Sex Pistols and the Damned and all the rest blew up in '77. And on the strength of the seven tracks here recorded circa 1969-1971, they were indeed pretty darn punk and ahead of their time (at least, in terms of bands who made it into the recording studio). Loud fast rules with these guys, most of the tracks being uptempo rockers, though the lumbering "Love Fighter" will be welcomed by all '70s proto-metal lovers, and supports the argument that these guys are just as much a proto-metal outfit as proto-punk, being something that fans of Buffalo, Toad, Budgie, Nazareth or Black Sabbath would enjoy. Indeed, some of the riffing on here might quite well remind you of Sabbath, and we weren't surprised to learn that they'd opened for the likes of UFO and Atomic Rooster. Metal? Punk? Same dif back then really. The distortion, fuzz, and 'raw power' attitude on display should qualify 'em as pioneers in either camp. Crushed Butler were heavier than the Pink Fairies, anyway, and that (awesome) band is already rightly heralded as punks before their time. So we'd say that the legend of Crushed Butler is hereby confirmed... alongside the Fairies and Third World War and a few others in England (and the Stooges in the States, of course, and some European freaks too) they trashed the happy hippy scene of the day for something uglier, grottier and more dangerous.
This digipack cd (a slightly expanded version of a 10" released a few years back) boasts in-depth liner notes and archival graphics. There's just two drawbacks: it's only 21 minutes long, and that's only because of the inclusion of an alternate version of what's probably our least favorite song as a bonus track. BUT it's 21 minutes that anyone into metal/punk/hard rock history should find quite a blast.
MPEG Stream: "It's My Life"
MPEG Stream: "Factory Grime"

OXBOW Love That's Last (Hydra Head) cd + dvd 14.98
Rock and roll as a raw nerve art form, that's the intense Oxbow aethetic... a band that dares you to listen, much less attend one of their shows. Avant garde yet drawn to swampy roots, Oxbow's approach is both intellectual and primal at the same time, these men channeling psychic and physical distress into their music, so much tension and release it's disturbing to behold... This brilliant and unique Bay Area outfit has been going strong against all odds for almost two decades now (!) and with each passing year seem to gain a wider audience, despite never ever being a part of any scene or trend. Not one that would help them, anyway. Except maybe now, that they've seemingly been accepted into the Neurosis/Isis axis of arty post-metal noisecore, releasing their last full-length An Evil Heat 4 or 5 years ago on the Neurot label and now (finally!) reappearing on Hydra Head with this cd+dvd package. Love That's Last isn't exactly the new Oxbow opus we've being waiting for, since it's not an all-new album but rather a collection, complete with commentary and lyrics in the booklet, of unreleased live cuts, improv tracks, compilation rarities, and a few "greatest hits" from their hard to find early albums. You'll certainly get a representative serving of their cathartic ugly/pretty rock action here, with all of Oxbow's characteristic Bonham beats, slide guitar skronk, droning ambience, and of course the distinctive mewling/screaming baby monster vocalizations of scary front man/fighting man Eugene Robinson. Highlights (and that's what all this is, really) range from their infamous "Insylum" duet with Marianne Faithful from 1996's Serenade In Red to the 1998 live recording "Glimmer Bird" to the prototypical expression of Oxbow anguish that is "Yoke" from their 1989 Fuckfest debut. Ten tracks in all... you too might be crying like a baby when it's over. Oxbow would be happy about that.
The DVD portion includes 5.1 mixes of a handful of Oxbow classics, plus filmmaker Christian Anthony's Oxbow documentary Music For Adults (previously available here at AQ when it was a dvd-r release) with outtakes too, AND a bunch of additional live footage of the band in Belgium and San Francisco. Here's what we said about Music For Adults before: "Now you can vicariously join Oxbow for their summer 2002 European tour. Even better than actually being there, you can enjoy their shows and tour hijinx without running any risk of Oxbow singer Eugene getting you in a headlock (and pulling down your pants, as happens to at least one unhappy Scotsman in this film). The live footage captures the Oxbow rock machine in all their twisted, bawling glory, while the 'behind-the-scenes' stuff will show you that they're actually all really nice guys!"
So, Oxbow fans NEED this. And it's obviously the first thing the prospective Oxbow fan needs to pick up as well. Hopefully that's just what's gonna happen. Recommended as always with all Oxbow product!
MPEG Stream: "Insylum"
MPEG Stream: "Is That What Sleep Looks Like?"
MPEG Stream: "Pretty Bird"

CUTS, THE From Here On Out (Birdman) cd 14.98
The third cd long-player to come from these local sharp-dressed rock and roll revivalists about town, The Cuts. Yay! Every time we've seen 'em play, they've been great -- but just a little bit different from the last time. At one gig they'll come across all Cars-y, keyboards to the fore. The next, it's guitar-heavy rawkin' with an early '70s Alice Cooper vibe. Ya never know quite what to expect, except that they're always impressive and a real authentic rock n' roll good time. Just like this album. We dug albums one and two, but number three might be the best yet. It's like some amazing power pop band from the early '70s that you somehow never heard of, whose album just got reissued and makes you go, wow, they just don't make 'em like they used to. But they do, and The Cuts are doin' it. From Here On Out sees them honing their craft (and they ARE careful craftsmen, with so much attention to songwritiing, arrangement, and performance), doing their influences proud, from '60s garage to west coast ballroom psych to new wave pop. There's out-and-out guitar rock action here as well as lovely, pretty pop moves too, with vocal harmonies and all. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Demons"
MPEG Stream: "Lemonade"

MOGWAI Young Team (Chemikal Underground) cd 16.98
This is it! The one. The record that launched a MILLION other records. Half the bands we love and freak out about wouldn't even exist if it weren't for THIS RECORD. Or if they did, they sure as heck wouldn't sound the way they do. Sure there was Spiderland. And the theory that everyone who heard Spiderland started a band. And the Pixies. Same thing. And let's not forget Nirvana. Between Slint, Nirvana and the Pixies, the template for angsty loud/soft indie rock was pretty much defined FOREVER. Until Young Team that is. Mogwai most definitely owed a huge debt to the above mentioned big three, but there was just something special about Young Team. The ultimate brooding post rock stumble into massive epic metallic crush record we had ever heard. This is heavy, but oh so pretty, dark and romantic, but also creepy and seriously ominous sounding. Soft super blissed-out meandering almost-ambient soundscapes, dark brooding passages of near silence, eventually shattered into a million pieces by bursts of frenzied, rhythmic noise a la Godflesh, crushing and metallic and machinelike, but always ready to drift and fade back into soft swooning tranquility. But even the loud heavy parts are strangely melodic and ridiculously catchy. This record is so fucking great. Even now, a decade after it was first released, and after we've heard about a million bands do their own versions of Young Team. Maybe the best way to really drive home how massive and amazing and incredibly influential this record is, would be to list a handful of bands who would probably not exist, at least not in their present forms, if it weren't for this record. No disrespect to any of these groups AT ALL (we love them every single one of them) but you gotta give credit where credit is due... the sons of Mogwai include Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Isis, Timeout Drawer, Snowblood, the Ocean, Magyar Posse, Gregor Samsa, Aereogramme, This Is Your Captain Speaking, Explosions In The Sky, Sigur Ros, Pelican, Mono, Grails, Tarentel, Jimmy Cake, Switchblade, Minsk, Conifer, Tides, Eden Maine, Rosetta, Red Sparrowes, Indian, Baroness, Cult Of Luna, Mouth Of The Architect and we could go on and on. So if you love any or all of the above mentioned bands, and how could you not, and you've somehow never heard Young Team, you are in for it in a big beautiful way! Now's your chance. Don't blow it. You will not be sorry. As for the rest of you, who for one reason or another just haven't listened to Young Team in years, lent it lost it or whatever, now is the time to revisit one of indie rock's most epochal releases, you just may very well have forgotten how devastatingly fantastic this record is! Finally available again (as an import), after being out of print in the State for years and years!!!
MPEG Stream: "Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home"
MPEG Stream: "Like Herod"
MPEG Stream: "Mogwai Fear Satan"

HOFFMAN, KAY Floret Silva (Robot Records) cd 16.98
RennFaire gone Rock In Opposition? Italian prog meets medieval madrigals?? We're still puzzling about how to describe this wonderful, wonderful disc, a remastered cd reissue of a rare LP (long awaited by some, totally new to us but very welcome -- thanks Robot!) which was recorded by composer Kay Hoffman in Florence, Italy in 1977, though not released until 1985, on vinyl in Japan only! On Floret Silva, Hoffman and her collaborators, including members of the very excellent and arty Italian prog band Pierrot Lunaire, took a trove of medieval Latin poetry known as the Carmina Burana -- poems written by anonymous authors around 1200AD that are both religious in nature as well as very earthy and real, about such subjects as love and money -- and set them to music. The settings are diverse (as befits the variety of these texts), and the results are often eerie and pretty and even a little bit groovy, with quirky chamber ensemble/prog rock backing and even the use of field recordings. Utterly magical for the most part, most especially due to the delicate vocals of Jacquline Darby. One song reminds us strongly of Stereolab, others call to mind (rather more obscurely) that Flamen Dialis album we've raved about before. This should appeal to experimental psych-folk fans for sure, even if this unique treasure is really something outside almost any genre designation you'd care to come up with!
MPEG Stream: "Iste Mundus"
MPEG Stream: "Tempus Instat"

JACULA In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (Black Widow) cd 16.98
BACK IN STOCK AT LONG LAST!!! We've been out of this for ages, after making it a Record Of The Week last summer on list number 221. We wish we would have been able to get it back in time for Halloween but it was not to be. But this record is great anytime of the year, so grab it now if you haven't already. It's a bit cheaper too this time around as well. Here's our rave review from before:
What's the scariest and creepiest of instruments? Could it be the downtuned electric guitar, that sound that marks all things dark and heavy and brutal and grim? Or could it be the cello with its soaring keening deep throated moan? Well we might posit, especially in light of this Jacula record, that the creepiest of all instruments is most certainly the church organ. Surprising that an instrument used chiefly to inspire and praise can illicit such utter unease and create such a pervasively creepy ambience. And that's pretty much what Jacula is all about, creepy ambience. Thick and haunting washes of warm rich church organ drone, resonant and reverberant, sometimes accompanied by simple pounding drums or mournful folky guitar melodies or wild psychedelic freakouts or soaring female operatic vocals or even occasional lyrics spoken ominously in Italian, but more often than not it's just the massive and ominous swells of a church organ. So effectively and utterly evil sounding. Jacula are sort of like a doom metal soundtrack to a Dario Argento movie. Goblin meets Skepticism! A Krautrock Thergothon? But is's not all mellow murky moodiness, tracks three and four, "Triumpratus Sad" and "Veneficium", both feature seriously fuzzed out, almost punk rock riffs, that sound about a decade before their time, insistent and completely heavy, even more so when they're eventually joined by a pounding one-drum beat or strident atonal piano or wild swirling progrock keyboards. Amazing! It's no wonder we sold the first couple of copies we got in of this to members of local black metal bands Ludicra and Leviathan!
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (literally "The Poison Is Always At The End"), which was supposedly recorded in an English castle, was originally released in an edition of only 300 copies in the late sixties and has been completely unavailable until just recently (this reissue cd is not entirely new, but it took us until now to get enough copies to list). Formed in 1968, Jacula even counted a medium as a member of their band who we assume was critical to the process of creating this record, considering that In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum was "Composed By Spiritualist Seance (1966-1969)" Woah! And for those of you well versed in sixties and seventies prog, be aware that this reissue is NOT the same as the Jacula record released in the early seventies (1972's Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus), even though for some strange reason Black Widow has given it pretty much the exact same cover.
MPEG Stream: "Ritus"
MPEG Stream: "Magister Dixit"

BROCAS HELM Black Death (Eat Metal Records) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, is it just me (Allan) or is Brocas Helm the best band ever?? Don't answer that...I know the answer. They are. If true old school cult fantasy heavy metal rock and roll is your thing, you might even agree. We listed the reish of their 1984 debut Into Battle last list, now here's further proof of their mastery (or my insanity), 1347's, no, I mean, 1988's Black Death! It's been on cd before, but this new reissue is a superior version, adding five bonus tracks from their 1989 demo Helm's Deep and also a bonus mpeg video clip of "Prepare For Battle" being played live with (extra guitar craziness) at an unspecified date in the early '80s.
They've been described as "Iron Maiden on acid" (by Martin Popoff) and that's a good call. Especially on this album, wherein Brocas Helm's mighty medieval metal is cloaked in a miasma of spaced-out psychedelic effects, a claustrophobic production courtesy of their own home studio "The Caverns Of Doom". Brocas Helm's frantic yet majestic songs claw through the mists, guitarist/vocalist Bobbie Wright's over the top guitar shred and faux-British enunciation always triumphant, forevermore...
I'm serious. Maybe you have to see 'em to really understand. But they one of the best metal bands ever. If you don't believe me, just ask the guys in Slough Feg. Ok, maybe they're biased, since if they'd started 15 years before they did they'd BE Brocas Helm... but Brocas are gods. That is my faith, and Black Death a holy relic.
MPEG Stream: " Black Death"
MPEG Stream: "The Chemist"

SWORD, THE Age Of Winter (Kemado) cd 13.98
Not to be confused with the sludgier Sword from Virginia or the '80s Sword from Canada, or indie rockers The Swords Project or Idyll Swords or any of the umpteen other bands metal and otherwise called Sword or something like Sword... THIS Sword hails from Austin TX, and is mightily hyped as the next big thing in the indie/metal crossover world, a la The Fucking Champs or Pelican. They're at the very least the next Early Man. And sound a bit like that Brooklyn retro-metal outfit (with the Ozzyish vox). They're also touring with 'em, playing here in San Francisco around the corner from Aquarius at 12 Galaxies next week, Tuesday the 21st of February. I (Allan) am for sure gonna go... 'cause this band (and Early Man too) have the potential to slay live, judging from the studio recorded evidence. Actually I've been curious about The Sword for a while, heard some good things about these guys first when our pals in Slough Feg (or was it Hammers Of Misfortune?) played with 'em in Texas. Then I guess they also got some good press at SXSW. So, here's their debut full length on the Kemado label (home also to Diamond Nights, Tarantula A.D. and Dungen among others). And, put briefly, it rocks.
Their pounding, uber-heavy, swords (duh) and sorcery stoner metal reminds us a bit of Zebulon Pike, and A LOT of High On Fire (and also, thus, Sleep). Those aforementioned vocals especially. Their lyrics and graphic imagery are all seemingly inspired by Norse mythology and the music, rather than being a black metal blur, is suitably heroic as well -- charging, triumphant, and almost wearying in its relentless bombast... which is why the mellow respite at the beginning of speedster "Iron Swan" is welcome, and the hills and valleys of the album's longest, proggiest, most epic tune "Lament For The Aurochs" give it staying power. The Sword sure sound serious, taking the weightiness of stoner/doom metal and putting it to old school, dual guitar, fantasy metal use. We imagine many fans of The Fucking Champs and Mastodon and some of the other bands mentioned above will indeed like this.
MPEG Stream: "Freya"
MPEG Stream: "Lament Of The Aurochs"

BROCAS HELM Into Battle (Eat Metal Records) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
YES! It's about time this was reissued! A cult metal fave, this debut record from San Francisco underground true metal masters Brocas Helm was originally released on LP by a label called First Strike back in 1984. The only cd edition of this was released in Germany long, long ago and is just as tough to find as the vinyl itself, not to mention that it was a budget release without even a track listing in the cd booklet, just a catalog of other cd reissues by various '80s contemporaries of Brocas Helm like Iron Angel, Trouble, Leatherwolf, Tokyo Blade, and Wendy O. Williams! Now, more than 20 years after its first appearance, here's a much more reverently presented cd reissue complete with five bonus tracks (from their 1983 Into Battle demo) and, better yet, a bonus live mpeg video of the band (with 2 guitar lineup) performing Allan's favorite Brocas Helm track, "Ravenwreck", live at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco in '83, in front of a crowd of raging 'bangers. About the only thing to complain about this reissue is that for some dumb reason they've put some new and not so great cover art on the front, with the album's original (and to be fair, also not so great) art only included inside the booklet, thumbnail sized...why??
But that hardly matters, what's important is that now a new generation of metal fans can hear why this band is mentioned alongside the legendary likes of Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road (if you're wondering who those bands are, well, just think Iron Maiden but way more obscure).
Into Battle is a proud and powerful album of hyperkinetic epicks. It's fantasy metal that pounds beers and gobbles acid and loves to rock and roll, weaving in psychedelic elements as well. The songs are about wizards and warriors, but also with lyrics actually about guitars and amplifiers too! Definitely inspired by the NWOBHM and also '70s hard rock like Thin Lizzy, Van Halen, and Riot, Brocas Helm's debut might have catapulted them to commerical success in the '80s metal world if only more people had ever heard it... though the San Francisco Bay Area was a hotbed of metal activity, with Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and many others breaking big, Brocas was perhaps just too eccentric and medieval to make it. Fortunately they never gave up, so the brave and bold can STILL go see these guys play and slay here in San Francisco now and then. They've released two other albums since Into Battle, those being 1988's Black Death (also just reissued on Eat Metal, to be reviewed here next list) and after a sixteen year wait, 2004's Defender Of The Crown! All are brilliant, with Into Battle being both essential for fans and the obvious place to start if you're new to the band. With their galloping tunes, heroic vocals and guitar shred, Brocas Helm are metal incarnate. If you like their spiritual brothers (nephews?) Slough Feg, you'll like Brocas Helm!!
MPEG Stream: "Ravenwreck"
MPEG Stream: "Into The Ithilstone"

GODATHON: COMPETITIONS FOR GUITAR, OPUS 1 (Goblinland) dvd 12.98
Ah, the Godathon. Fond memories. A few years back, in the winter of 2001 to be exact, some friends of ours here in San Francisco decided to organize a lead guitar playing (shredding) competition at a local nightclub. They even got Guitar Center to pitch in with the first prize: a lime green, see-thru B.C. Rich guitar. Judges were recruited, Allan from Aquarius being one of them -- despite the fact that even today, if you gave him a dollar for every chord that he knows how to play on guitar, he still wouldn't be able to buy himself a burrito! Also standing in judgement of the would-be Guitar Gods were the much better qualified expert guitar noodlers Josh Smith (ex-Fucking Champs, ex-Weakling, ex-Drunkhorse, currently in The Makes Nice) and Mike Scalzi (of Slough Feg and Hammers Of Misfortune). On the day of the Godathon, several of the usual suspects from the local rock/metal scene showed up, including members of Spaceboy and Ludicra... some of 'em taking things seriously, others taking the piss, ironically wanking their way through their solos. But loads of other unknown guitar shredders (and one bass shredder too) crawled out of the woodwork, and from nearby suburbs too, presumably... it was quite a turnout. Very competitive. And super entertaining. You can see for yourself on this professionally shot and edited documentary by a local filmmaker, at long last getting its release on DVD. In addition to the extravaganza of exciting axe action from the participating guitarists, and the antics of the on-stage MC, this doc features interviews with the contestants, which tend to be fairly funny!! There's the cocky guitar-teacher guy, and the born to rock gearhead dude... lots of interesting characters here.
So, pretty darn cool, and very well-done. You don't have to be a guitarist to enjoy this... just ask Allan, who was happy to get to see the DVD since his memories of the night were more about himself, Mike, and Josh stressing out about counting up the points they'd awarded in various catagories and trying to choose the finalists and eventual Godathon champion. It was tough! There were some hot licks being played that night indeed. You'll see. Definitely something to file on your DVD shelf alongside the Heavy Metal Parking Lot documentary that we listed a couple weeks ago!!

TAPIMAN s/t (Guerssen Records) cd 21.00
First things first: yes, this album IS every bit as cool as the cover looks, the cover being a photo of a pink skull! There's no relation to Glenn Donaldson's Pink Skulls cd-r label, of course, these guys thought of it first, way back in 1971!
So yeah, here's another vintage '71 gem for all of you into hard progressive bluesy psych rockin' action. Last list we had Japan's Strawberry Path, this time around, from the fertile underground of Franco's Spain, we've got the power trio Tapiman, which features the burning electric guitar heroics of one Max Sunyer, later of Spanish jazz rock outfit Iceberg. He'll definitely make hard rock guitar fans happy, though -- Tapiman is riffy, heavy rock, full of psychedelic poppiness.
The main riff of storming opener "Wrong World" is sorta "Sunshine Of Your Love" mixed with "Lord Of This World", and the track is full of energetic, impressive guitar soloing and wild vocals. Some subsequent songs are more gentle and moody, though you're never far from some wailin', cranked-up amplifier worship on this disc. It's a groover, and a grower, too, from a classy band who knew what the heck they were doing. For all of you who dig the obscure '70s sounds of stuff like Blues Creation, Buffalo, Eduardo Bort, and other things along those lines we've recommended before...
Newly remastered for this reissue, with four bonus tracks and detailed liner notes in both English and Spanish.
MPEG Stream: "Jenny"
MPEG Stream: "Gosseberry Park"

HEMMINGSON, MERIT Queen Of Swedish Hammond Folk Groove (Amigo) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow! The wonderful, wonderful music of organist Merit Hemmingson combines a bunch of stuff we just simply LOVE but never heard quite like this before. The title of this "best of" collection boldly suggests as much to you too, right? Swedish Hammond Folk Groove, yeah!! We hadn't heard of her before we came across this, but now we know she made a handful of records in the '70s that brought together ancestral Swedish folk melodies, jazzy Hammond organ grooving, and some colorful psychedelic moves. Merit's Hammond is at the fore, playing her own swingin', riffin' take on these traditional tunes, but the arrangements also variously incorporate '70s funky wah-wah psych guitars, her lovely, wordless vocals, flutes and bongos and more... It's all so sunshiney and delightful, reminding us of everything from Hansson & Karlsson to Turid to The Free Design to a calmer, mellower version of Aavikko! And of course modern-day Swedish folk organ duo Sagor & Swing.
Merit's music is gentle, soulful, rhythmic -- so nice! It's total "grooving with trolls and flowers in the forest funk". Not your everyday organ jazz that's for sure, though Merit got her start in the '60s playing jazz -- she came over to the New York City to study, taking piano lessons from both Joe Zawinul and Lalo Schifrin and even getting to sit in with Miles Davis's band! But soon she went in a more pop/funk direction, and then became inspired by Scandinavia's rich history of olden folk music to create the sounds heard here.
The twenty tracks on this collection are all from albums originally released between 1971-1977 (Huvva, Trollskog, Bergtagen, Balsam, and Hoven Droven) except for a couple of recently-recorded tracks at the disc's end done in a similar style, featuring as sidemen members of currently happenin' Swedish retro-leaning rock bands (and big Merit fans) Dungen and The Ark! That's right, while obscure for years even in Sweden, she's undergone a bit of a hipster rediscovery lately and in fact this disc (the first time on cd for most of this music) is the prelude to a new album due out this year.
Queen Of Swedish Hammond Folk Groove is a nicely deluxe package, in a slipcovered jewelcase with a thick booklet full of photos, liner notes in both English and Swedish, and Merit's own track-by-track commentary. We had to go to a bit of trouble to import these from Sweden, but it was worth it!
MPEG Stream: "Mandom Mod Och Morske Man"
MPEG Stream: "Brudmarsch Efter Lisme Per"
MPEG Stream: "Setnmarks Slalompolska"

LURKER OF CHALICE s/t (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.
Finally re-pressed, and available again for a limited time, some on black and green swirled vinyl, some on black and blue swirled vinyl (no picking or choosing, it's random). Includes an exclusive track not on the cd. And as it is, the cd versions were limited editions and are now utterly out of print.
For those of you who just skim the list or only read the first few sentences of reviews, let us get your attention real quick. Lurker Of Chalice, in case you didn't realize, is the work of one WREST, aka SF black metal overlord LEVIATHAN. Paying attention now? Good. let's proceed. Lurker Of Chalice has existed in one form or another for several years now, but outside a cassette or two this is the only recorded evidence and man will it blow your mind. Originally conceived as a less black metal, more experimental musical outlet (and possibly inspired by Leviathan / AQ faves Benighted Leams) Lurker Of Chalice is constructed from lots of black metal parts as might be expected, but lot of very un-black metal bits as well: arpeggiated post rock guitars, martial percussion, simple propulsive krautrock rhythms, swirling droning ambience, strange haunting vocals, obscure found sounds and samples, doomy slow motion dirges, reverb drenched, almost sun dappled melodies over creepy warbly soundscapes, warm thick keyboards, heavily strummed steel string guitars, rich throaty crooning, super overblown distorted guitars, all smeared into a warm fuzzed out, dreamy and melancholy, mostly midtempo blackened doomscape. Occasionally, Lurker blasts into full on black metal, like on the second track "Piercing Where They Might", but even in a BM context, things are beautifully way off kilter, rumbling bizarrely affected vocals, dizzying riffs that swirl and slither and make it impossible to focus, huge jangly guitars over miltaristic snare drums and warbly Michael Gira like vocals. So weird. But so perfect. Imagine Leviathan and Benighted Leams and the Swans and Ved Buens Ende, all somehow mixed into some darkly evolving, gothic tinged expanse of moody metallic melancholia. This is maybe the best sounding record Wrest has made which is saying a lot. And it's definitely the weirdest, and most certainly the saddest. The whole record is dripping with intense emotion, minor key and slowly stretching toward some bleak future of broken promise and crushed spirit. From slowly evolving, almost cinematic instrumentals to massive and majestic dirges to woozy effect drenched post rockisms to ultra bleak ballads to damaged black metal crush, Lurker Of Chalice evokes total and utter misery, a musical invocation to the lost and alone, wandering in search of hope, under the suffocating black cloak of night, crushed beneath a starless sky and adrift in a soulless universe, exposing every raw nerve and dark corner of Wrest's twisted musical soul. So fucking good!
MPEG Stream: "Piercing Where They Might"
MPEG Stream: "Spectre As Valkerie Is"
MPEG Stream: "Paramnesia"

ANIMALS & MEN Revel In The Static (Hyped To Death) cd 13.98
Here's one of the full-lengths mentioned in our review of the Messthetics Greatest Hits compilation last list, and it's also quite recommended. We first heard Animals & Men (named for an early Adam & The Ants Song) on one of the old Messthetics cd-r comps. Later Hyped To Death released a 21-song cd-r collection of pretty much everything that this band ever recorded both under the name Animals & Men and in their later incarnation Terraplanes. That disc has now been revamped, retitled, and reissued on cd, with four extra tracks tacked on! Plus a mpeg video clip of a live performance of "Evil Going On" as a bonus.
What're they all about? Female-fronted DIY art/blues/punk from rural England, totally charming and catchy and homemade, comparable to Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Delta 5 and the Vaselines. And that's right, their wide array of influences included black American blues...and the novels of J.G. Ballard, which would explain "Car Crash Blues".
The cd booklet features in-depth liner notes detailing the band's saga as New Wave coulda-woulda beens, with patrons like John Peel and their long-time pal Adam Ant. Obscure though they remained, that should definitely not inhibit but rather enhance your enjoyment of this collection, for lack of commercial success allowed wonderful idiosyncrasies to flourish in their songwriting.
PS. what's a Terraplane you might be wondering? It's an American automobile from the '30s, immortalized in Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues". And Animals & Men's "Terraplane Fixation".
MPEG Stream: "Terraplane Fixation"
MPEG Stream: "Evil Going On"

CHARLIE & ESDOR s/t (Mellotronen) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally got enough of these to list. It's something you're gonna DEFINITELY want to have if you're into the whole '60s/'70s Swedish psychedelic scene, Sweden's "krautrock" bands if you will. Y'know, if you like Parson Sound, Trad Gras Och Stenar, International Harvester, Arbete Och Fritid, Algarnas Tradgard, Kebnekajse, and all the other often interrelated outfits that we've been lucky enough to find reissued on cd in recent years. You can add this to that list, a brilliant collection of loping, rollicking, freaky hippie jams from the drums/sitar and guitar duo of Edmund "Charlie" Franzen and Esdor Jensen, and friends. They got their start together in 1969, and performed at the first of the free festivals in the summer of 1970 that are now an part of Swedish counterculture hippie history. They definitely must have fit right in that time and place, judging by this cd's awesome mixture of Eastern-inspired raga rock, Swedish folk troubadour music, Dylanesque ballads, and HEAVY guitar power trio acid rock.
These tracks, recorded in 1970 and '71, have languished in obscurity, mostly unreleased for the past 30-some-odd years, several of them originally meant for an abandoned album release back in the day. A few, like "Wolfs Mouth Song" (here given its original title of "Fuck The Cops"!) were released on vinyl as singles and so forth. But you were probably never gonna run across one of those rarities... so it's great to have this all on cd! And Mellotronen has presented this in a nice digipack. Isn't that a great cover shot, of Charlie's back as he beats his drum kit at one of those hippie festivals?? It would good for a Levi's ad (you can see the tag on his jeans) if they were that hip. The 32 page booklet provides plenty of photos, a history of the band, and detailed track-by-track commentary on these recordings. There's also a discography complete with full-color reproductions of album covers and single sleeves. Very very nicely done.
MPEG Stream: "Da Klagar Mina Grannar"
MPEG Stream: "Fuck The Cops"

LADDIO BOLOCKO The Life And Times Of... (No Quarter) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally re-pressed and back in stock!!
We have been championing this band since the very first time we heard their mighty 'Strange Warmings' debut years ago but continually faced the problem of all three of their releases being practically impossible to get. And my (Andee's) only possible complaint about this comprehensive career retrospective collection is that I WANTED TO PUT IT OUT ON tUMULt!!!! Arrrrgghhh. But kudos to AQ pal Mike who runs the mighty No Quarter label, for his amazing taste (Earth, Pharoah Overlord and now LB!) and ability to unearth/rerelease these out of print gems.
Laddio Bolocko were absolutely one of the most amazing bands we have ever heard, taking the bloated corpse of 'post rock' and filling it with squirming, ultra complex, super dynamic kraut rock and out rock and...uhhhh trout (mask replica) rock? Or whatever. Imagine a modern day This Heat, but with bigger amps, more lo-fi production, free-jazz scud missle saxophone, unlikely melodies, relentless rhythms, ear-ringing dynamics and a sound unlike anything you've ever heard. Sounds good huh? Well, it is. In fact. as far as I'm concerned LB were probably one of the most important and most original rock bands of the last 20 years. High praise indeed, but once you hear this stuff you'll be hard pressed to argue.
The Life & Times Of collects all three Laddio Bollocko releases, their devastating debut Strange Warmings Of and the two follow up eps, In Real Time and As If By Remote. Also included is a video playable on your computer (which, along with the nice digipak packaging, may even tempt those lucky enough to already have Laddio's hard to find releases).
Disc one is Strange Warmings Of, a pummelling and heavy drone rock masterpiece, in which an ex-Dazzling Killmen (Blake Fleming) takes his penchant for angular discordance a step further, forgoing the ferocious heaviosity of his former outfit, and instead, explores lengthy semi-improvisational psychedelic freakouts and repetetive hypno-krautrock instrumentals a la AQ faves Circle. Post rock jamscapes littered with shrieking and droning Albert Ayler-ish sax, jabs of no wave guitar, an overwhelming over-saturated super-distorted production and absolutely crushing drumming. Anyone into Circle or This Heat or Acid Mothers Temple or Faust or any or any of that, will be completely blown away.
Disc two contains the two later eps find Laddio Bolocko in a new space with a new sound. Showing an amazing amount of growth, LB have all but completely abandoned the bludgeoning, pounding shrieking bombast, and instead stretch out, and explore rhythms and textures, creating lengthy krautrock jams, and hypnotic drones. And their noisey, in your face, live recording has been replaced by what sounds like a serious exploration of the studio as instrument, with at least half the record full of innovative production and gorgeous textures. Also, the sax, which on Strange Warmings, was more textural and not immediately identifiable as a saxophone, is more of a presence here, giving it more of a sort-of-jazz feel on several tracks. This later, less ROOOOOOOAAAAARRRR sort of sound puts them even more comfortably in the sonic realm occupied by Faust, This Heat and Circle.
MPEG Stream: "Nurser"
MPEG Stream: "Karl"
MPEG Stream: "As If By Remote"
MPEG Stream: "A Passing State Of Well Being"

FUSHITSUSHA Pathetique (PSF) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second studio recording from the Tokyo trio, led by the self-proclaimed king of darkness, Keiji Haino. Monstrous, in-the-red guitar destruction only Haino can deliver. Recommended as a starter for those interested in the mysterious world of Fushitsusha.

COMUS First Utterance (Breathless) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For those of you who are not yet COMPLETELY OBSESSED with Comus' beautiful and bizarre seventies pagan folk, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!? Well, we now have yet another chance to convince you that First Utterance is indeed (especially if you ask Allan or Andee) quite possibly the greatest record of all time EVER! The recent double cd reissue, Song To Comus, which compiled First Utterance and their slightly less thrilling and somewhat baffling second album To Keep From Crying, may have been a bit much for the uninitiated, especially with its $27 price tag. That said, any serious Comus fans or full on seventies freakfolk obsessives should throw caution to the wind and pick up Song To Comus immediately! For the less obsessive among you and those of you who are more apt to take a chance for under $20, we have this new version on Breathless.
Here's what we had to say about First Utterance:
Let's get this out of the way first: most folks around these parts consider Comus' First Utterance to be the greatest seventies pagan tribal folk prog psych freakout record ever. Hard to debate that. But among those folks, about 99 percent also consider First Utterance to be one of the greatest records ever, regardless of genre! One listen and you'll be convinced. Or you'll run away screaming in terror. Either way, it's hard to not be totally blown away and / or thrillingly confused by the mad musical world of Comus.
First Utterance has now been reissued a total of seven times, most recently as a UK import double cd version which marked the very first time that the three tracks from the pre-First Utterance maxi-single (i.e. the bonus 12" ep included with the lp reissue) has been released on cd. Thankfully this new single disc version includes those three tracks, but for some reason excludes the really rare bonus track from the First Utterance sessions that was on the double disc! Only a minor quibble once you sink your ears into the glorious sounds of First Utterance...
THIS RECORD SCARES US. Hearing it is like stumbling upon some forbidden ancient ritual that scares you to death. You stand paralyzed, too afraid to look away. Comus's singular, frightening sound and violently poetic lyrics have kept them from taking their rightful place alongside Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, and the rest of Britain's psychedelic folk royalty.
And we don't write the words psychedelic folk royalty without a certain amount of trepidation. At first glance Comus would seem to fit squarely in the Ren-Faire camp: bongos, flute, oboe, 12-string guitar, and no drummer. But never has the whole of a band so completely defied its parts; their sound is as mesmerizing as it is repulsive. Upon the record's initial release, one British music journalist wrote that she "didn't get past the first track, which sounded like a cross between a frenzied version of the witches chorus from Macbeth, and Marc Bolan being squeezed to death." Funny thing is, that's a fairly apt description. Tales of murder, rape, insanity, and witchcraft unfold amid a swirling abyss of seething acid folk. Squalls of shamanistic wailing jut uncomfortably from serene, tranquil melodies; guttural growls battle a delicate angelic chorus, echoing the violent struggle of the lyrics. Flutes, hand drums, acoustic guitars, and a violin clamber atop one another in a chaotic melee, creating a pagan folk not unlike that of The Wicker Man soundtrack gone totally bonkers.
Although the band has been resolutely ignored by mainstream music fans, the press, and the majority of the underground, a small rabid following has kept a reverential vigil beside the corpse of Comus. Nurse with Wound cronies Current 93 modeled their '90s sound after '70s British folk, Comus especially. They even went so far as to cover "Diana," Comus's only single, on their album Horsey. Swedish progressive black metallers Opeth have always been outspoken about their love of Comus. Their acclaimed 1998 album was called My Arms, Your Hearse, after the lyrics of "Drip Drip". And it's not surprising. This record is so powerful and frightening and totally devastating even 30 years later.
And never would we have thought that a record as old as us, with flutes and bongos fer chrissakes, could be so absolutely malevolent, both sonically and lyrically! But like we said, this record scares us. And we know you like to be scared too! One of our ALL TIME FAVORITE RECORDS EVER!!!
Interesting facts culled from the liner notes of the double disc import version, whihc are not included in the liner notes of this single disc version: After First Utterance, there was actually a Lord Of The Rings inspired suite of songs (a proper follow up) already written called Malgaard, that the band had begun performing live but never got around to recording! We flipped when we read about that. Can you imagine? Sadly, it just wasn't meant to be. And they also never recorded their live version of "Venus In Furs", either (apparently Comus started out doing lots of VU covers!). Ah well. But still, we're more than happy with the amazing musical malevolence Comus left as their legacy.
So any of you who haven't discovered Comus, what else can we do to convince you that you NEED this record? Folkies will love it, but it's plenty dark and creepy and sinister enough for all you metalheads, and way weird enough for all you experimental music lovers. And of course Comus obsessives (like Andee and Allan) who already have multiple versions of First Utterance will for sure need this one as well! Let your pagan prog rock psych folk freek flag fly!
MPEG Stream: "Diana"
MPEG Stream: "Drip Drip"
MPEG Stream: "The Herald"
MPEG Stream: "Song To Comus"

SOURVEIN Emerald Vulture (This Dark Reign) cd ep 14.98
This is the first we've heard from Southern sludgesters Sourvein since guitarist Liz Buckingham left the band to join Electric Wizard, and also since Hurricane Katrina fucked up their hometown. But now the survivors in Sourvein got it together to dish out these four new tracks (recorded in Virginia), and also they go on to promise in the liner notes that "New Orleans Will Rise Again!"
Though an ep, Emerald Vulture nears the half-hour mark, in part 'cause track four delves into some extended power electronics noise territory before it's over. That sort of droning nastiness makes perfect sense coming from Sourvein, who aim to maim with both brutal riffage and vicious vokills as well... they're definitely on the negative side of an already fairly negative genre, and who can blame 'em? So if you find, say, Corrupted too happy, here you go! That's a joke, of course, but seriously we're digging Emerald Vulture's blend of Bongzilla/Electric Wizard styled dope-lope riffs and utter Khanatesque darkness...
Of course, post-Katrina we've been concerned about the Crescent City and its inhabitants for a lot of reasons, cultural heritage being just one of 'em. And while many folks associate New Orleans with music, they're probably thinking jazz and zydeco, but you may also know that NOLA is/was home to a satan's host of sludge/doom/dirge bands, foremost among them the pioneering EYEHATEGOD. And if you like EHG, you're pretty much already a guaranteed Sourvein fan too. So it's good to know that NOLA's sludge/doom/dirge tradition continues...
MPEG Stream: "Emerald Vulture"
MPEG Stream: "Heart Of Ebon"

THIS HEAT s/t (ReR) cd 17.98
Trying to explain why this record is so good is sort of like trying to explain why ice cream is so delicious. Or why Bush is such a terrible president.
Or maybe it's kind of like writing an introduction for the new Pynchon novel. Or telling a few jokes before Richard Pryor comes on stage. Or throwing a couple quick passes before Joe Montana comes on the field. It's that daunting, that overwhelming, that impossible.
The trio of Charles Hayward, Charles Bullen, and Gareth Williams known collectively as This Heat were one of the few bands that literally changed people's lives. Changed the way folks thought about music. I (Andee) couldn't believe music like this actually existed. It was everything I wanted to listen to before I knew that THIS was exactly what I wanted to listen to. Hit It Or Quit It publisher / rock critic / indie scenstress Jessica Hopper once wrote that she literally pee'd her pants the first time she heard This Heat. And it's not hard to see why. Without This Heat, modern, alternative, avant garde music as we know it would be a whole different beast. Post rock, math rock, avant rock are hugely indebted to the genre shattering experimentalism of This Heat. Tortoise, You Fantastic, Yona Kit, Brise Glace, Psychic Paramount, Laddio Bollocko, Radian, Village Of Savoonga, Larsen, Starfuckers, Circle, Salvatore, I Am Spoonbender -- none of those bands would even exist if it weren't for This Heat, or if they still did you can bet they would sound a whole lot different. And that's just off the top of our heads, AND that's -just- bands whose sound directly reflects the influence of This Heat. Imagine how many performers and artists were influenced by This Heat but who let that influence manifest itself in not so obvious ways.
We once described This Heat as "Krautrock-ish hyper rhythmic tape-looped prog." Which comes close to succinctly describing the magical musical alchemy of This Heat, but still only scratches the surface. This is their self titled debut, originally released in 1979 and reissued briefly in 1991, and manages over the course of about 50 minutes to redefine almost all music that had come before.
The sound of This Heat is rhythm and texture and dynamics. The recording studio as instrument. Every sound and every song is based on rhythm and texture. There are hooks, and melodies, but they exist to serve the rhythm and are often born from the deft manipulation of sound and tempo. Even the most static and repetitive parts manage to sound -musical-. There are vocals, but they are minimal and otherworldly, weary and sing songy and completely mesmerizing. A droning musical accompaniment to the haunting whirs and clanging percussion in the background. This record is such a totally immersive and strangely lovely musical environment. From the machinelike Krautrock of "Horizontal Hold" to the dreamy contemplative "Twilight Furniture" with its simple chiming guitars, muted tribal percussion and keening vocals, to the bizarre affected drum workout of "24 Track Loop", it's like wandering through some alien musical world. As sky full of greys and blues, smeary drones floating gently by, haunting quavering vocals drifting below, like tendrils of smoke, the barren landscape littered with all manner of rhythmic outcroppings, harsh jagged crashes and booms, as well as low rolling thumps and stutters, off in the distance simple spare melodies float and hover, each note a glowing spot on the horizon. Absolutely and utterly overwhelmingly brilliant.
There are plenty of places on the web and in magazines to read more about the history of the band, the band members, the various releases and reissues (see elsewhere on the AQ website for reviews of past editions of various TH recordings) but none of that ultimately matters as much as the sound. And oh the glorious sound. Just take a listen to the sound samples and no words will be necessary.
This is arguably This Heat's finest moment, their debut record, finally available again after almost 15 years of being out of print. Be aware that there will be a 5cd box coming out in the (near?) future, containing EVERY SINGLE ONE of the band's releases, as well as a bonus disc of unreleased material and a huge book of photos and liner notes. And we would have made (maybe will make) THAT record of the week, and while we do believe EVERY music lover we know owes it to themselves to buy the upcoming box, we figured a single disc was plenty for most people to get hooked and obsessed.
MPEG Stream: "Horizontal Hold"
MPEG Stream: "24 Track Loop"
MPEG Stream: "The Fall Of Saigon"

GHOST ORCHID, THE An Introduction to EVP (Ash International (R.I.P.)) cd 14.98
FINALLY, this long out of print, all time unanimous AQ favorite gets re-pressed and is available once again!
The Conet Project from beyond the grave!?! Perhaps that's a good way of describing this baffling, terrifying, occasionally laughable, but always compelling album. It's been out of print for a very long time, and we're pleased to see The Ghost Orchid haunting our shelves once again!
To recap, The Ghost Orchid documents instances of something called "Electronic Voice Phenomenon," the paranormal appearance of strange voices (which at times sing and speak in multiple languages) on magnetic tape when there shouldn't be any voices there at all... Respected parapsychologists have postulated that these voices are those of dead people (i.e. ghosts) or possibly of extraterrestrial origin! Unlike The Conet Project, which cross referenced the audio tracks with written information, The Ghost Orchid presents these recordings with the audio commentary of one of several researchers (Nadia Fowler, Raymond Cass, and Lief Elggren -- the Swedish performance/audio artist and a part time collaborator with the Hafler Trio), explaining the findings. These recordings are the findings of a number of parapsychologists including Dr. Konstantine Raudive, Friedrich Jurgenson, and Raymond Cass.
While there is something wholly terrifying about these recordings, there is an absurd question about these ghostly voices that we have to ask: Why are the majority of these recordings in Latvian? At any rate, The Ghost Orchid manages to be both spooky and silly, and is definitely a fascinating listen from a pure sound perspective regardless of how disturbing and/or amusing you might find the alleged sound source itself. For non sequitur pop culture reference, the sample "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe" which concludes The Smith's "The Rubber Ring" hails from an old recording made by Raudive and can be found in its entirety here. Brilliant!
MPEG Stream: RAYMOND CASS "Out Of This World"
MPEG Stream: RAYMOND CASS "Burned With Force"
MPEG Stream: RAYMOND CASS "Carefully With Nerve Gas"
MPEG Stream: KONSTANTIN RAUDIVE "Breakthrough Side A"

NORTT Ligfaerd (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
Fresh off their killer split release with Xasthur last year, Danish black metal funereal doom lords (or lord, really, since it's just one guy) Nortt offer up a full length for your pleasure...if you can deal with the depression!! If you haven't heard Nortt before, they're a bit like Skepticism meets Burzum. SOOOO doomy and atmospheric. Ligfaerd is a sinister expanse of spooky soundtrack ambience bombarded (at relaxed intervals) with boulders... No, not boulders -- fuzz-distortion depth charges, dropped deep and echoing in the abyss, wherein dwell the cave-blind creatures that make Nortt's music... or so it would seem from this disc's raspy, weary vocal exhalations and monstrous awakenings. The thudding percussion could be gigantic footfalls amidst the droning, morose melodies, that insinuate themselves slowly into your consciousness, as there are lots of quiet passages on this depressive, lethargic record. We bet Bohren and Der Club Of Gore would love this band! We sure do. Definitely one of the exclusive several doom and/or black metal acts that we think non-habitual listeners to such musics might appreciate, if such extremes of feeling and weirdness as described above are more than tolerated.
MPEG Stream: "Ligpraedike"
MPEG Stream: "Tilforn Tid"

KALEIDOSCOPE Tangerine Dream (Repertoire) cd 22.00
Whoo-hoo! At last this AQ fave is back in stock, repressed in a nice new digipack edition. Here's how we raved about it when we first reviewed it a few years ago:
Not a new release -- nor even a new reissue -- but we just manage to get some and wanted to list it 'cause it's something that several of us here have been listening to a lot lately! This Kaleidoscope were a sixties British pop psych band (not to be confused with the various other Kaleidoscopes of the era from the US and Mexico) and we believe these guys might in fact have been THE ULTIMATE psychedelic pop band ever. This album (also not to be confused with the famous Krautrock/soundtrack outfit with the same name as the album's title) is just incredible. Gorgeous vocals, killer melodies, lush orchestrations, and, especially, beautifully baroque psych-speak lyrics that put "Strawberry Fields Forever" to shame -- with lines like "Battalions in baby blue are bursting beige balloons / the water pistols are all filled with lemonade / the jester and the goldfish have joined minds above the moon / oh please kiss the flowers and you too will be safe / oh swing and sway..."
It's very British, twee and dreamy, being that perfect blend of sunshine and melancholy so many psych pop bands of the era were striving for. The Kaleidoscope did it best right here. I mean, if you like the Zombies and the Hollies and heck the Olivia Tremor Control you should know about these gents too. Indee, the original 1967 album's final track (followed here by six bonus tracks), "The Sky Children", might be THE ULTIMATE pop-psych track on this ultimate pop-psych record. (Hey a little hyperbole never hurt anybody.) It's an eight-minute epic, with a thrilling vocal hook on endless repeat, and amazing lyrics continually pouring forth the whole time. Truly awe-some, if you're attuned to the vibe.
MPEG Stream: "Dive Into Yesterday"
MPEG Stream: "Flight From Ashiya"
MPEG Stream: "The Sky Children"

PENDERECKI, KRYSZTOF The Saragossa Manuscript (OST) (OBUH) lp 39.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow. This has got to be the thickest heftiest gatefold lp sleeve we've EVER seen. Not just the kind that cracks and creaks when you open, no, it's the sort of lp that when you do finally crack it open, it's like in the movies when the main character is finally opening the long lost crypt, muscles bulging, tendons straining, sweating and grunting, as it slowly opens with the grinding scrape of metal on concrete... Okay, so maybe it's not quite -that- intense, but heck, EVERY single person who picks it up does a sort of double take and utters something like "Woah, wow... WOW!" Plus the cover images are gorgeous, the front is a stark black and white landscape of gnarled dead trees, the back is a makeshift gallows, occupied by two unlucky souls, with an ominous pile of human skulls in the foreground. Crack it open and inside the gatefold you'll see a acid drenched burnt out kaleidoscopic photo of Krysztof Penderecki behind a huge pile of analog studio gear. Penderecki? Yep, Pendercki! This is the long lost soundtrack to the 1965 classic The Sargassa Manuscript, AKA Rekopis znaleziony w Sarogossie, AKA The Manuscript Found In Saragossa, one of the greatest Polish films ever made, and most definitely one of the strangest, most fucked up visual trips EVER. Think Bunuel, Lynch, Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky, Gilliam and then realize you'd most definitely need to include Sargasso director Wojciech Has. But the sounds are as strange and wondrous as the sights, due in no small part to Penderecki's lovely, haunting and downright bizarre score. Dark delicate piano filigree hovers in wide expanses of barely there ambience, grunts and groans and mumbled vocalisations drift in and out, western steel string guitars play tiny boleros before being overtaken by majestic church organs, snatches of refined chamber music are interrupted by strange soundscapes of what sounds like thunder or trees being felled, hypnotic stretches of No Neck Blues Band-like rattle and clatter, mysterious percussive interludes, woodblocks and rattles and shakers, and surrounding it all, little bits and pieces, scraps of sound, all manner of strange audio delights. A completely intense and intensely strange musical trip, even without the equally bizarre visuals of the film. In fact the images these sounds conjure up in your head, in the dark, with headphones on, might just be even stranger than the movie itself. If that were even possible...
Pressed on INCREDIBLY thick vinyl, and oh, did we mention the sleeve?!?!
And as you might imagine, this vinyl-only Polish import is EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!

SOUNDS OF AMERICAN DOOMSDAY CULTS The Church Universal and Triumphant Inc. feat. Elizabeth Clare Prophet (Faithways International) cd 17.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! Here's some of what what we wrote about this way back when it first came out as a vinyl release:
It's hard to believe this is real. In fact, it took a lot to convince Andee, who was sure this was some sort of elaborate prank. But it's one of those things that just makes you proud / embarassed to be an American. Elizabeth Clare Prophet purchased 24,000 acres in Paradise Valley, Montana and started The Church Universal and Triumphant, a creepy new age doomsday cult in which Prophet channeled spirits such as Jesus, Buddha, K-17, Morya, Quan Yin, Afra, Hercules, Mighty Victory, Astrea, Shiva, Pope John XXIII, and more. (Sort of like J.Z. Knight of Yelm, Washington and her channelling of "Ramtha" except even more scary.) Prophet and her husband stockpiled arms, built giant bomb shelters, and coerced their devotees to purchase their own survival equipment at exorbitant prices. Throughout its existence various members of CUT were indicted for kidnapping, lost custody of the children who belonged to the church and were investigated for tax exempt status and firearms violations. In 1995 former member Joeseph Pietrangelo Jr wrote a book condemning CUT entitled "Lambs to Slaughter: My Fourteen Years with Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Church Universal Triumphant".
But the thing that really puts CUT on the map for us is their way of conducting their religious services. The tapes of these services have been floating around for years already. Those of you familiar with Negativland's 1989 album "Escape From Noise" will already be familiar with an excerpt of one of the tracks on this album, as they used it for the track "Michael Jackson", and Steve Fisk has been using these tapes for years as well. This record features live recordings of Clare Prophet 'speaking' out against the evils of rock music. She sounds perfectly normal as she introduces her 'psalms' or 'songs' or 'speeches' or whatever they are. But when she gets going, it's amazing. And so goddamn insane sounding. Her rapid fire high pitched testifying sounds a bit like an impossible mix of an auctioneer, a yodeller, the guy who sings the directions at a square dance, Neil Hamburger huffing helium and variations of baseball's 'hey batter batter' chant only faster. It's like that sound you make when you sort of hum/breathe out and move your finger up and down between your lips making a sort of 'bebubebubebubebubebubebubebubebu' sound. It's one of the most amazing things we've ever heard! A must for all cult fanatics, new age withdrawal victims, seekers of the truly strange, and fans of extended, trancelike vocal techniques. Ever so highly recommended! We'd almost have made this cd edition our Record of the Week if we weren't certain that it would probably bug the heck out of more people than (like us) would love it!!
MPEG Stream: "Dedication To The Of The Beast And The Dragon - The Momentum Of Rock 'N' Roll"
MPEG Stream: "Call For Protection"

STEAMHAMMER Speech (Akarma) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK! At last repressed as part of Akarma's recent budget line, in a jewel case now instead of the previous mini-LP style sleeve. Here's what we said before about this AQ fave:
The '60s/'70s psych reissue label Akarma comes through once again with this gem! England's Steamhammer had a heavy name and lotsa chops, but never really made the big time. Their first three albums were British blues rock incarnate, real good at that but not our cup of tea really. THEN came "Speech", their swansong. Something happened (lots of drugs, maybe?) -- it was real different. This is an unusual album for sure. Probably not what Steamhammer fans at the time were expecting: Psychedelic doomy prog-tastic epic instrumental slaying, with fuzz fx, jazzy percussion, and emotive vox. It's not metal but it's got a lot of what we like about metal that's for sure, and kicks ass on most of what came out in '72. Fans of some of the real heavy underground bands from the era like the Groundhogs, Lucifer's Friend, Socrates Drank The Conium, even Il Balleto Di Bronzo ought to check this out for sure! Unfamiliar with those obscurites? Well just imagine Led Zep gone off the rails. Creative, deftly timed/structured songs full of psychedelic atmosphere. From quasi-religious 20th century avantgarde interludes to manic guitar rippage, from gorgeous vocal lamentations to jammy improv spaciness, this is AQ-approved prog weirdness for sure. The 22 minute "Penumbra" that opens the record erupts from a spooky three minute intro into sheer pulse-pounding rock trio shred, then dives into a bass-heavy dirge from which a vocal chorus emerges...and on they go. Everytime we play this for someone who we think *might* like it, boy, they *really* like it. This gets a big thumbs up from all the heavy/psych/prog heads here at AQ!!!
MPEG Stream: "Penumbra"
MPEG Stream: "Telegram"

POPOFF, MARTIN The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal Vol. 2: The Eighties (Collector's Guide Publishing) book + cd 28.95
Reading this -- and when we got these in Andee and Allan were doing nothing but -- makes us think that maybe we should replace everything in our metal section with only '80s metal reissues. Get rid of all the '90s and beyond black/death/grind metal, and only stock the big hair, big melodies stuff from the '80s, all the LA Sunset Strip and NWOBHM discs we can get. Whaddya think? Let's rock!!
Ok, maybe we're getting carried away but that's what this book is all about, getting carried away by fannish enthusiasm for the glory days of METAL.
It's the second volume in Canadian metal scribe Martin Popoff's rewrite/update of his original book of metal reviews that came out in one volume some years back. The first volume of the new edition, The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal Vol. 1: The Seventies (which is already, sadly, out of print!) we listed a year ago and we've been waiting anxiously for this volume ever since. Well it's here and even bigger and better than we imagined. 432 pages! Literally thousands of reviews!! You'd be hard pressed to think of an '80s metal band not covered. In the M chapter, for instance, you'll find the biggest of the big four Metallica as well as the more obscure likes of Manilla Road, Malice, and Max Havoc. And Popoff is quite catholic in this endeavor, not neglecting any subgenre of '80s metal from pop to thrash to grunge to crossover...even Husker Du makes the cut!
If you've read any of his previous books you'll know Popoff to have an idiosyncratic, conversational writing style as well as his own sometimes quirky take on things. We certainly don't agree with all his reviews. But we LOVE reading them. Moreso than the '70s volume, which served as resource to find out about a lot of records we'd never heard of before, this one has a bigger nostalgia factor due to our age. Those of us (that'd be Andee) who grew up as metalheads can spend hours and hours looking up old favorites (Icon! Helix! Black n' Blue! Tokyo Blade!) that you otherwise would never ever ever probably hear about ever again. For that in itself -- being a record guide devoted to the unhip, unheralded, but goshdarnit still totally amazing or at least hot rockin' -- we salute Popoff's effort. He deserves a medal. A metal medal. Authoritative, exhaustive, obsessive, encyclopedic, opinionated and most of all (if you're a metal fan) endlessly entertaining! His 1-10 scale ratings are sure to be the cause of some fun arguments too (and we see that Popoff has revised and expanded not only his actual writing but his ratings as well -- we're happy to note that his assessment of local SF legends Brocas Helm has gone up a few notches, their Into Battle LP now rating several points higher than it did in the older edition of this tome.)
Sure, we here at AQ write a lot of reviews too but we've got to bow before his achievement, this massive task to which he has seemingly devoted a good part of his life. Indeed, we can't even imagine how Popoff will top this with the next volume due, devoted to the '90s. He's got to be slaving away on that right now, and as soon as it's out we'll let you know... Apparently that's going to be it for him, he'll retire after that, and any volume four devoted to the current decade will have to be handled by a protege!
Includes a cd sampler of '80s Metal Blade artists including Cirith Ungol, Lizzy Borden, Bitch, Nasty Savage, and Slayer.

FREEDOM'S CHILDREN Astra ( Fresh Music) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Heavy psychedelic vibes from these '70s South African proggers, getting all, um, astral and spacey and downright spooky at times on this, their second album dating from 1971 (or maybe 1970?). A lost classic, this is, if you're a fan of Pink Floyd and/or cosmic Krautrock stuff of similar vintage. It's super trippy, with echoey vox singing weird conceptual lyrix over majestic acid rock meets church organ jams.
This was reissued on cd before, in '97, but what we've got here is a 2005 reish that adds a bunch of bonus tracks, yay. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The Homecoming"

RECORD REVERSER, THE (Top Quality Rock And Roll) record reverser 15.00
For those of you who missed out on what is quite possibly the greatest record player related invention of all time, we just got another batch of these in!
SDRAWKCAB RETTEB SDNUOS CISUM LLA!!!! I mean, ALL MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER BACKWARDS!!!! It's just a fact. There's something completely alien but so strangely beautiful about music in reverse. The way the drums sort of swoosh backwards, the attack and decay exchanging their rightful places, the vocals, a sweetly smooth garbled alien language, even more musical once the context and words are removed, leaving just the sound and timbre, and melodies become seasick, woozy smears of sound. Everyone discovers it eventually. Maybe it was when you were first trying to discern the hidden Satanic messages on your Iron Maiden or Beatles records. Once you tired of that, you suddenly realized that the rest of the record sounded pretty dang cool backwards too. Maybe even better! For some, it happened even earlier, just messing around as a kid with your folks' turntable, that almost always resulted in some sort of scolding that it would damage the needle. But what was it that they were really trying to hide? Satanic messages? Maybe. But maybe it was the fact that music really did sound better backwards. Once the word of that got out, what would happen to music as we know it. For me, it was the realization as a teenager, that you could unscrew a cassette tape, turn the tape over and put the tape back together, resulting in some of the coolest weirdest music we had ever heard. Fifty cent tapes from the thrift store became our car music of choice, once they had been reversed of course. A favorite that I still have to this day is a Bangles cassette, that once reversed turned into a gorgeous dizzying blast of Sgt. Peppers-ish My Bloody Valentine psych-pop! Some folks took this sacred knowledge, and started bands, the most notable being Teenage Filmstars, who employed backwards drums, backwards vocals, reversed guitars, sometimes whole songs played in reverse! (For a taste, check out their track on the Here's To Old England comp we reviewed recently.) And who can forget the first Sonic Youth ep, the cassette version of which featured the whole program in reverse on the other side of the tape. And you know what? It sounded so much better!
So now it's the age of computers and electronic music, so with a push of a button you can turn songs around or do whatever you want really, but there's something about vinyl records, lp's, and the act of playing them backwards that cannot be reproduced on a computer. You can also by a fancy DJ turntable that will play backwards, but A. we're not entirely sure that's good for the needle OR the record, and B. that'll set you back hundreds of dollars. Thus, we have the Record Reverser, an ingenious gizmo that enables you to play any record, backwards on the turntable you now have! We weren't sure to expect, but when we got one, and threw on a record, BACKWARDS, we were floored. I took one home and have been listening to backwards records for the last two weeks almost exclusively, because music DOES sound better backwards. IT DOES!! How does it work? Well, first you just need to make sure of two things, first that you have a removable stylus on your turntable, and second, that once removed, that the tone arm has BOTH a top and bottom slot. Then all you do is flip over your needle, attach your favorite record to the record reverser and VOILA, it's playing backwards! Here's a pretty extensive 'how to' videoclip:
RECORD REVERSER
Each Record Reverser is hand made out of recycled lps -- mine is a Hugh Masekela record on one side and an Engelbert Humperdinck on the other! So completely cool. We've even been talking about the idea of buying 50 Record Reversers and pre-preparing 50 records and DJ-ing with nothing but backwards lps and Record Reversers!!
Definitely just about the coolest thing we've seen in ages.
MPEG Stream: YLLIB 'ECNIRP' EINNOB "Daerd Fo Lluf Yad Rehtona"
MPEG Stream: RUOF SEUQIPOIHTE "Wes Morekey"

IKEDA, RYOJI Dataplex (Raster-Noton) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're always excited when a new disc from Ryoji Ikeda appears. As far as we're concerned, this Japanese electronic composer is the master of the "clicks and cuts", minimal-micro-sonic scene. And Dataplex is his latest masterpiece, a twenty-tracker with titles like "data.complex", "data.googolplex", "data.superhelix", "data.vertex". With each data dot shift, clinical little sounds that clearly come from a computer -- datastreams it would seem, that's the idea here -- are presented and then worked into rhythmically complex techno music. It's not exactly "dance" music though, but these carefully placed, computer-generated clicks and whirrs and glitches and high frequency pulses you could maybe THINK about dancing to... certainly they're something for your brain to marvel at, edging closer to seizure as the album progresses, though Ikeda gives some relief with a more ambient ten-minute track near the end of the album. It all starts off with sounds that are almost raw data, morphed into music as Ikeda, track by track, engineers more and more 'plexity into the disc, working with a purity of sound and at so microscopic of a scale that Ikeda and his music seemingly belong in the science laboratory. Yet, at the same time, he breathes a lot of life into these little bits of information, making them dance even if you don't. Recommended -- and don't let what's stickered to the cd tray scare you off: "Caution! This cd contains specific waveform data that performs a data-read test for optical drives. The last track will cause some cd players to experience playback errors, with no damage to equipment." We love warnings on cds like that!
Yes indeed, after his successful foray into orchestral instrumentation on 2002's Touch release Op., long time fans of Ikeda (like us) should be happy that he's still also forging ahead in the digital realm, Dataplex being a fine successor to such past Ikeda classics as +/- and Matrix.
MPEG Stream: "data.multiplex"
MPEG Stream: "data.microhelix"
MPEG Stream: "data.vortex"

PRIMA MATERIA The Tail of the Tiger (Die Schachtel) cd 27.00
On the same Italian label that brought us that lovely Luciano Cilio disc in 2004, here's more import-expensive but totally worth it amazing archival material (in ultra-nice digipackaging to sweeten the deal) from the Italian '70s sonic art underground, specifically Roberto Laneri's Prima Materia vocal drone ensemble. This is some heavy stuff here -- and heavy can mean a lot of things, AQ list readers have come to realize. In this case, it's heavy the way that Tibetan Buddhist Rites From The Monasteries Of Bhutan double disc reissue we listed last year was heavy (so said our distro rep when we ordered this, and he was right!). And this mesmerizing, yogic drone-fest does have a monkish sound, being produced entirely by live human voices, gargling and moaning and droning. Though if you didn't know that, you might think it was in part electronic. It's the sound of wind and weariness, sorta spooky and haunted, wavering and weaving, building and building, with overtones galore, a howling of souls into the Universe. Like a bunch of Tibetan monks or Tuvan throat singers wordlessly saying woe is me... and we're pretty sure that one of 'em at least sounds a heckuva lot like Elmer Fudd!! Seriously, though, it's really good and intense and magical... if you're a trance/drone fan (maybe digging stuff like Grouper, that has a vocal component), you should listen to this!
We're told that "the musicians of the group Prima Materia individually researched and developed unusual vocal techniques (originally used in Tantric rituals in North India, Mongolia and Tibet), based upon the use of overtones coupled with a special state of inner concentration, which was the essential condition for both the emission and control of long-sustained and complex vocal sounds. Their capacity to sustain a note for what seems an eternity, and then continue to provide endless variations generated a continuous and sustained drone of sound, in which the overtones are clearly perceived." We believe it.
The Tail Of The Tiger LP was originally released in 1977 as a private pressing by a small label run by Laneri, Alvin Curran and Giacinto Scelsi. Now, this digitally remastered cd reissue features the 33 minutes and 30 seconds of music from the original LP plus another 42 minutes of live performance recorded in Berlin in 1974 and Rome in 1976. And it's packaged not just with a booklet of liner notes but also 16 pages of "visual overtones", beautiful full color prints on tracing paper. Yup, nice! And it case you're still unsure, the blurb on the cover sticker contains high praise from none other than Terry Riley, who knows his drones.
MPEG Stream: "The Tail Of The Tiger LP Version"
MPEG Stream: "Roma, January 17, 1976"

LUGUBRUM Heilige Dwazen (Old Grey Hair / Blood Fire Death) cd 13.98
So fucked. Of course it is. It's freakin' LUGUBRUM. Allan and Andee's favorite black metal band ever, pretty much, almost. Well, at least when we're in the mood for REALLY WEIRD black metal from a bunch of Belgians who dress like farmers and eat carrots with their beloved beer. Weirdos these guys are for sure, but unlike some of the more "avant-garde" black metal acts such as Arcturus, Sigh, and Ulver (amazing as those acts are/have been) there's nothing so overtly, obviously calculated to be weird for weirdness sake from these guys. Lugubrum's insanity is more organic, but not inadvertent either like the maybe idiot savant status of Rethaf Ruo or Striborg. No, these geniuses strike a balance, and do utterly their own thing, norms and abnorms be damned. On this latest album (their sixth full-length cd), saxophones and clanking chains and droning loops of organ grinder music aren't merely eccentric elements added to a formula black metal base, but are fully integrated into the band's unique musical vision. Is it even black metal? What does that mean? What does it matter?
Their seemingly scatological, "brown metal" lyrics are cryptic, beyond easy comprehension, and that might be just as well. "The Kiss On The Anus"? "At The Base Of Their Tail"? "We Slying Sucked Stolen Bread"? Don't ask. Submit instead to the music, rumbling along, vocals growling howling mad, Funhouse saxophone blowing crazily over and under the scuzzy, sloppy, necro riffery. Somehow they're THIS weird and outside of genre boundaries (employing banjos along with blastbeats) yet are accepted as being among the grimmest of the grim by the true, cult, elite, black metal diehards. They've got 'em scared. Even though they sound like Abruptum playing jazz, or Celtic Frost jamming with Residual Echoes, or Brainbombs covering Venom... They walk the fine, wavering line between intentional absurdity and deeply, confusingly meaningful art and we love 'em for it.
MPEG Stream: "Holy Fools Embodied"
MPEG Stream: "Though Chained"

EIKENSKADEN There Is No Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Blackmetal.com) cd 13.98
The French buzzing black metal cult of Eikenskaden ("Oaken Shield") returns with a new album, their fourth, the follow up to their numerically-titled 2004 release, 665.999, which appeared on our own Andee's tUMULt label! So of course we're excited. Eikenskaden is one of those genius one man BM bands (that one man being Stefan Kozak, also the main guy in Mystic Forest). Both Mystic Forest and Eikenskaden specialize in blending almost-classical, melancholic melodies with some of the most distorto-buzz Burzumic black metal out there, with Eikenskaden being the darker and harsher of the two acts. And, as the title of There Is No Light At The End Of The Tunnel already indicates, this cd is certainly dark! Quite "necro" and yet grandiose, this boasts some truly memorable compositions, which has always been one of Kozak's strong suits -- he writes actual songs, not relying entirely on atmosphere even though Eikenskaden's got plenty going on in that area too. Somehow he's got a knack for writing material that's both driving and depressive, with ma